My Etsy Store

I decided to make an etsy store last year, Mudpuppy Vintage, exclusively to sell pieces of my vintage arts and crafts supplies collection.  They need a good home! I have made 7 sales and continue to find supplies and add them to the store. It's so much fun finding items like buttons, needle books, and iron-ons from the 1900s-1960s and having the research them.  It's an educational experience as well as a profitable endeavor. The items are usually found at the Collingswood and rt. 70 flea markets, but I acquired these ninja turtle buttons from a closing fabric store in Millville, NJ.

There's so many things to get from etsy. If you haven't used it yet, check out the site and type in any keyword that you fancy. You might be surprised by what you find.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/mudpuppyvintage

My first love was... herpetology??

That's right.. before there was arts and crafts, music, teaching or aiding people in discovering their true potential, I wanted to be a herpetologist FIRST!  I wanted to study frogs, snakes, lizards. and turtles (well, I think I was more interested in catching them for researchers, you know, just the fun part of being a herp).  Even though I changed my mind in middle school, I still held jobs that allowed me to live the dream- I worked at Cattus Island in Toms River for a year and Jenkinsons Aquarium as a reptile handler and tour guide for nearly 7 years. 

 My parents picked the best property to settle down, with a quiet backyard behind Beaver Dam Park. That would allow me to be a tenacious child with a net in one hand and bucket in the other.  

Anybody that knows me pretty well would know I love finding (or catching) frogs when I spot them. No net for me; I've got some fast hands! 

When I was a kid, I used to see huge snapping turtles coming up from the creek. Their shells were the size of garbage can lids! My dad would pick 'em up by their tails- I wish so badly I had some photos of that.

It's so exciting to find these little black things in August; they're frog eggs, which means there's something to look forward to next summer.

I love to inspect, measure and ask questions about nature and local ecology. For this reason, I volunteer whenever I can for the Jackson Forestry Festival and Cattus Island Festivals in October. Even though it's a career I won't pursue, I know that the excitement I get from nature reminds me of how much I loved being a kid. In addition, if you show an interest to children that you're young at heart, maybe it will preserve a sense of wonder that kids lose when they're older.