More goodies

Shown above are the 3 beautiful atcs I received in the mail from Susan Kurz who is in the atc_group on Yahoo with me. She graciously agreed to a 3/3 swap with me. I've got my fronts done, but lack a finishing touch or 2 and mine will be in the mail to her. Aren't these so, so lovely! Mine have ended up being a black and white trio that are kind of different, so I hope she likes them.

The other goodies are some of the buys bought at the Goodwill in Decatur last Saturday while camping. As I've mournfully remarked before, ours in Cullman is long gone, so since we were up that way I managed to get dh to swing by there. The ribbon was in 2 baggies at $2 each and all the butterflies, which will be good assemblage pieces, were in a bag with a tiny cowbell and a watermelon slice for $1.25. Underneath is the nice frame with glass that was only $2. The black purse was also $2, I think, and the tan bag which I'm using now was $3. There were a few other goodies, as well, and I also found an Ace Hardware store which carries some of the annealed and copper wire needed to attempt the jewelry projects in Stephanie Lee's jewelry book I purchased previously. We don't have an Ace store in Cullman. And in Ross's I bought a pasta maker for $11 to use for polymer clay. As usual, I'm all over the place with my interests!

Made it through my first night back on 3rd shift, but it was a long night. Very busy and a lot to catch up on and remember to do. About to get ready to leave out for my 2nd night. My sleeping is messed up right now. I couldn't sleep very well today. Maybe it will be better tomorrow.

I am being greatly blessed lately!

Normally, as I've stated previously, I don't win giveaways or contests, BUT I've won a blog giveaway at Kim's Treasures ! I know, isn't that unbelievable! I've told her that maybe I need to recheck my identity, lol! Click on the name of her blog to go to post with the picture of the giveaway and click here to see the cool way she picked the winner. Very generous prizes, too! Thanks so much, Kim! Check her blog out while you're there, she posts some beautiful photos of her flowers and some great thrifting finds. Also, check out the yo-yo's she made. Now thanks to Kim, I'm going to HAVE to go buy a yo-yo maker! These are so cute and they sound easy with the the little yo-yo maker thingie.

We just got back from a camping trip to Point Mallard, Decatur. It was so busy at work and otherwise that I didn't get a chance to post about us being gone and there is no internet at the campsite. Had a wonderful time. It was a chance for a get away before I start working third shift tomorrow night. The mosquitoes were out full force, let me tell you! I normally don't get bitten that much and in 30 minutes outside Saturday evening, they had a feast of me! We didn't have repellant at that point(I thought we did) and I don't really like to use it anyway, but we ran to a store and got some. I'm still fighting the urge to scratch the multiple bites on my legs, arms, and feet. They even bit my fingers and toes! Nasty little creatures! We did a little shopping here and there, including a trip to the Goodwill, the finds from which I'll post about later.

Pictured today are some of the hand carved stamps I've made from simple erasers. Some were made recently and others previously. Sorry the photos are a little dark. Being the tight wad that I am, I carve on the back of the rubber so I get 2 for 1. One picture shows the front and the other what is on the back. They are fun to do, but I have to be very careful with my Exacto knives. I tend to concentrate on what I'm cutting and not where my fingers are in relationship to the blade and have cut the fingers more than once! You can see I stink at stamping, though! Some of the stamp pads are drying out, I think, so I'll blame some of it on that. I just noticed that on one which had a diamond pattern on one side and a swirl pattern on the other, that I forgot to turn the stamp over to show the carving with the swirl. You can also see that I didn't remember I had a carving of an arrow and did another one. Oh well, they are a little different from each other.

I have a lot more to post about, including some beautiful atc's I received in the mail while I was gone. I still need to work on the 3 I'm sending back, so I'll save that for tomorrow.

Surprise in the mail today

I had to post again to show everyone the lovely prize I got in the mail today. In the atc_group I'm in on Yahoo, I participated in a contest to guess the lineage of one of the member's pets. She sent off one of the pet DNA tests on her new doggy. Well, some of us were partially right, but none of us guessed entirely correctly, so Jane assigned a number to each participant and,unbelievably, my number was chosen. I say "unbelievably" because in my family lineage there is a joke about "Parker luck" or the lack thereof.

The prize was this beautiful handcrafted piece of art which I received today! And to top it off Jane had it stuffed full of lots of lovely ephemera! I will be putting the ephemera to use right away to make some atc's. How wonderful that they are already cut out and ready to use! Thanks so much, Jane! I was truly a lucky winner!

Decide to fly

These are a pair of pages in one of my composition book journals. Of course, they don't have lovely unlined pages, but using something so inexpensive freed me to actually journal. The ones with the blank pages that cost a little more have so far intimidated me, but when the book only cost a dollar and so did the gift bag used to cover it, there seems to be less fear of "messing up". I just play with different techniques and usually don't do any writing on the pages until later. Sometimes I gesso the pages first, while at other times I gesso around the images to cover the lines. On this spread I glued down some magazine/catalog images first, but never got around to using any gesso. Then I colored around the images with oil crayons to blend and to add the swirls.

I hope to get in the art room today and make some atcs. I've not made any in a long while and hope my muse shows up to help me. On one of my art groups I asked and have a 3/3 swap lined up.

It's totally hot and humid in Alabama right now, so even though I really should go out and hoe the garden, I'm going to cop out and try to do that maybe tomorrow evening. (We have a women's Bible study meeting at church tonight.) My ancestors would be ashamed of me. The ones who planted acres of cotton AND had huge gardens which fed the family throughout the winter. They toiled endless hours in the hot sun, planting, cultivating, hoeing, picking. I have an image in my mind of my grandmother, who worked in the garden wearing a dress, one of my grandfathers LONG SLEEVED white shirts, and always a bonnet to protect herself from the sun. We used to have to help them when I was young so that we would have a share in the garden harvest, I guess.

My Mom tells stories of picking cotton and how, even when she was little, she had her own child-sized bag so that she could work along side the family in the fields. My grandfather paid each child, some of whom were teenagers, some money based on how much they picked.

Interesting how times have changed. Where once this was a family working together to make their livelihood, now someone would probably call the Labor Board and have the parents arrested for violating Child Labor laws. My personal feeling is that hard work made them better, stonger people who learned to persevere. Today's generations are much weaker, less able to endure hardships, expecting life to not be hard. I include myself in that generalization(see above comment about not wanting to go hoe the garden in the heat, lol). I could wax on about this topic, but will stop for now.

Something on Sunday

Thought I'd better post, otherwise Holly will be fussing at me. Things have continued to be busy until yesterday when I got to stay home an entire day. Of course, I threatened my dh not to plan on my doing anything that required me to leave home. Our life is full of irony, as he loves to go and see and do, while I am a fairly solitary person by nature, craving time alone when I've not had any or just to be in my own space. I work with the public and he is self-employed as a chicken farmer. So when I get home, he wants us to do SOMETHING, while after a 10+ hour work day, I just want to stay at HOME. We have enough give and take, well, for the most part(one of us more than the other, perhaps, hmmm) that we do ok with each other.

Today's photos are of the previously mentioned Moody Blues album cover turned into a journal front. It is a sketchbook and too big to fit on the scanner so my apologies for the poor photo color. It going to be my homage to my favorite color blue. I've only done a few pages and one of the spreads is also shown. This is the very first one and the left hand page is the one where I took titles from the album to make the sentence, Meanwhile Days In My World Veteran Cosmic Rocker. Not sure what that means, except that I'm feeling old, perhaps,lol! The right hand page is the one with the blue girls face. I used pieces of magazine pages so there is a little glare in the photo, sorry. Also used gesso, paint, markers to make the waves of hair which go from her head over to the other page. Pretty weird, huh? Sometimes my true inner self comes out!

Also shown is a bird nest with some eggs that I painted. When Holly finished her birdhouse there was leftover blue and bronze paint. Being the thrifty tightwad that I am, I grabbed up some unpainted wooden eggs from my stash of such. To make the spots on the eggs I took a wooden skewer and broke it into, using the pointed broken end to make the dots. Varying the pressure made the spots bigger or smaller. I was pretty proud of how real they looked, so I wanted to share my happy accidental painting tool.

I always forget to load my photos in the opposite order, so just pretend that the cover of the album is the top picture.

Wednesday words

This is the work week where I can be glad it is Wednesday, because I have one more day to work before I'm off for 4. I have one more known scheduled week. We are in the process of trying to come up with a new work schedule using the workers we have left to cover the lab 24/7. As it stands now I am going to start working 3rd shift again. I did this for 7 years, but have been back on day shift for a while. It would be good in some ways, more pay and greater flexibility about helping Mother, but I am several years older than when I did it before, so I'm kind of worried about how I'll hold up working 10+hours/night. Before I only worked 8. But, I'm going to try it and see how it goes, that is, if it gets approved. My supervisor is leaving, so we will be under new leadership at some point. Also, some other coworkers might be leaving, so it is really a mess right now. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers if you think about it.

Here is a pic of the altered candlesticks. They started out as just plain-looking varnished wood. I think they look much more interesting like this. I ought to make up more like this to see if they would sell in our flea market booth. The moss-covered balls were formerly a softball and a baseball and the moss was that which you buy in a pack at Hobby Lobby. I bought a bag of used balls once at the Goodwill for cheap with the intent of doing different things like this with them. At Emily's first apartment, we covered several with shells and animal print wallpaper to display in a wooden pedastal container on top of more shells for filler. I want to try mosaic on some of them, too.

Wonderful surprise

I checked my comments and there was one from Deb Lewis at Vintage Moon Studio letting me know that she had passed on this award to me for my blog. She is, I think, being kind in nominating me as my blog is pretty new and I so appreciate her thinking of me in this way. Deb is an amazing and generous artist whose work and blog I've enjoyed very much.




In accepting this award, I agree to:
1. Display logo and link to who gave it.
2. Nominate at least 7 blogs.
3. Add links to those 7 blogs.
4. Leave the nominees a message that they received the award.

I would like to nominate Beth at Lasting Impressions from the Heart, Jeanie at The Marmelade Gypsy, Jo Anne at Paper Cat's Page, Aileen at Aileen's Musings(also owner of Outside the Margins), Annie at In My Dreams, Rosie at Living as Rosa, and Karla at Karla's Cottage. All except Karla and Jo Anne are in the Yahoo art group which was the first one I ever joined.

Thanks, Deb!

Today's photo has nothing to do with the award, but I finally got around to taking a better picture of an assemblage piece I did previously. It's called, I Could Have Been A Cowboy, and started out life as a vintage(?) print in a barnwood-looking frame. I whitewashed the frame and then glued a map showing some of the western states, which was antiqued with some metallic glaze. Then I glued on an old photo of a dapper gentleman who just looked to me like he wished he had been a cowboy. The horse bottom was a magazine picture and then I added various elements, including a spent gunshell, rusted metal pieces, wooden scrap finds across the bottom. I pencil sketched in a doorway in the background to symbolize what could have been and also an outline of a cowboy hat on his head.

I've not had time to do any art lately. Actually I've been home very little in the last week. I did get some crafty stuff done by antiqueing some wooden candlesticks for my dd, Emily. These were some thrift store assorted sized wooden candlesticks, a pair of which have now been altered by using Claudine Hellmuth's petroleum jelly peeling paint technique with a top coat of white paint. I also made some moss-covered balls to rest on top of the candlesticks. Not taken a picture of them yet, but will before I send them on to her. We also repainted some big chunky wooden candlesticks with black paint that looked really classy, but she took them with her last time she was here and we didn't take a picture. Maybe I can get her to take one of how she is using them, with big red candles and displayed with a black matte pottery planter full of white rocks with some red votive candles sitting in the rocks.

It has taken me 2 days to get this all posted. At first I was having trouble figuring out how to do the little button for the award, so I finally just saved it as a picture, worked a long while to get it resized to look decent, and just posted it like that. It would help if I was more computer literate, lol! Also I am having a heck of a time with blogger and the internet tonight getting pictures to post! I'm sure it has something to do with dial up internet. So, Holly, who has chastised me twice about not posting, I just want you to know I've been trying. Also, my little kitty helper keeps jumping up here for some attention.

For supper tonight, I cooked the first "mess" of squash from our garden. I can't eat it, as it causes food poisoning symptoms, but I sauteed some in a small bit of butter in a skillet and dh grilled some also while he was cooking our steaks. Dh loves squash so he'll have some to eat tomorrow as well. I wonder if I could eat the squash since I've had my gallbladder removed, but am too afraid of the potential suffering to try it again.

A few bargains

While off today, went shopping for my Mom's birthday presents, and since I don't like real shopping where you have to pay full price for your purchases, I rewarded myself with a trip to the S.A. store afterwards. Had a little time to kill before getting a haircut. Not many things, but what I got was cheap. I did my part for the handicapped thrift store items today. The wooden tray was the most expensive thing at $2. It's missing one of the feet and so is the small jewelry box, which was only $1. I'm seeing the tray repainted with the remaining feet removed, possibly looking classy in a coat of black, shabby chic with some chippy white or pastel paint, decoupaged or with mosaics. In the future of the jewelry box there will also be paint and/or decoupage to remake it into a miniature chest of drawers, most likely in the shabby-style or altered-art-looking. There is also a Tupperware egg separator for one of my dd's. It was only a quarter. Also pictured are the first squash from our garden. So far we've gotten radishes and my dfil has picked a few hot peppers he planted.

The needlepoint Christmas stocking kit was only $1 and was complete with the thread unopened. Now if a fairy would come along and stitch it for me! I say that because my vision has changed, not I don't think to middle-aged farsightedness, because I can see things up close, just not as well with my present glasses prescription. Stitching the stocking would be a challenge right now. Also because of this I didn't realize the little decoupaged china egg has a crack on one side until I got home in better light. I really do need to remember to get an appointment lined up.

I've been off 2 days, so no idea what's going on a work. Guess I'll find out tomorrow when I go back. This is my 4 day work weekend coming up. Yesterday was busy helping Mom with several errands in town. Today I'm running my errands. Need to go pull the remaining radishes when the little thunder boomer blows over.

There have been better days

Today's picture of Max shows how I've been feeling this week. Holly took this of him last weekend when I guess he was mad about Emily's dog, Coal, being here and the fact that the house was full of people, but who still weren't home very much. Max would prefer his Mom to sit all day right by him on the couch or at least spend sizable stretches of time in such laziness and that happens very rarely. He also gets mad whenever we aren't home very much, as he wants his people to be with him. This is how he looks at me when I leave for work in the mornings or on Sundays when he sees we are all getting ready for church.

The reason I've been feeling this way has been due to work situations. We found out Monday morning that a number of hospital employees were being laid off/let go. I work at a small community hospital, with about 200 or so workers. Six losing their jobs were from the lab department where I work. While most were on the books as part time, 4 of them worked a sizable number of hours to help cover us being open 24/7. So while I am thankful I still have a job, it was very sad to see people losing their's, very emotionally draining, feeling guilty for having a job when someone else doesn't. Last night I kept crying every time I let myself think about it very long. Also, our supervisor told us he was turning in his notice and that at least one other worker is leaving as well. This means those of us left will have to figure out a way to keep covering hours and keep "keeping on" without the benefit of leadership. So very unsettling times. Not knowing for sure when I'll be working or how things will be.

I feel a little better this evening. I know God will take care of us and if He closes one door, He'll open another. Just being human, sometimes life will just get to you for a while.

Some organizational tips from Jill?!?

Gasp, some of you are saying! I know, I heard it all the way here! But here are a couple that I have right by my desktop computer. I use the vintage(has to be seventies, don't ya think?) basket purse to hold some computer software and manuals. I love to collect pottery planters and try to use them in different ways for display or storage. Here this little green piece makes a great holder for note cards.

In case you're wondering about the books. These are some books that I borrowed that need to be returned to the owner and are here only so I won't get them mixed up in my books. I want to go back and read some of the Boxcar Children original books, but the coworker I borrowed these 3 from, didn't have the 1st one and I was wanting to read them in order. Thought for sure the library would have them all, but they didn't have the first one either. I should just break down and buy them myself, but was trying to be frugal first.

To include a little art stuff, here are a pair of journal pages from my glue book journal, an altered composition notebook. This spread started with a note card a friend from work gave me because she thought I would do something with it. There were 3 different ones, I believe. To begin I tore the card at the fold and used the front half on the left hand page and then part of the back to make a pocket on the right hand page. Also used paint sample cards, oil crayons, ink pen, marker, & stickers. (BTW, this is hard to type because my kitty helper is working overtime tonight.) I started to take out the journal tag before scanning because it is personal, but you know, we all deal with baggage, so I left it in case it might help someone else.

Starry, starry night

Not a beautiful picture, but just to show some of what I did yesterday and to make myself be accountable for doing something with this later on, here is part of the fabric paper(too big for all of it to scan) from my playtime. This was from an article in Cloth, Paper, Scissors. Forgot to see which issue, though I will try to remember to look it up and add it later to give credit where due. In this technique, you lay down fabric and then soak with watered down glue and use layers of paper pieces and then tissue paper with touches of thin paint washes. I want to challenge myself to pull some new techniques from my numerous magazines more frequently and have fun.

I'm calling this fabric/paper "Starry, starry night" for several reasons. One is that this song is stuck in my head from listening to one of the soundtracks to Ally McBeal. I've had that CD for years literally and not listened to it. I know it's been years because it was a Goodwill find for $1 and our beloved GW store has been gone for several years now. Ran across it recently as I sorted and have discovered I totally love this CD. I never watched this show, had(still don't) no idea what the show was about and didn't even know who starred in it until I researched this album a little more, but this music by Vonda Shepherd is wonderful. Includes several remakes of old songs and I like them as much as the originals and that is usually hard to say. The song Vincent(Starry, Starry Night) keeps going through my head, but I like every song on here. I also noticed that while listening to these versions of the old songs, I can understand the lyrics much better than originally. Not sure if it's because the singer is enunciating her words better or if it's because the quality of musical recordings has improved so much.

With that song playing in my head, I pulled a piece of scrap fabric I had which happened to be a blue cotton with silver stars printed on it. Then I started pulling some papers to use from my scrap folder. These I chose totally for their colors or patterns with no thought for the lyrics in my head. When I began to glue the paper down, I noticed that in the midst of them, were some sheet music titles including Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Pretty cool how your subconscious will do things!The tissue paper I did choose for the developing theme and used some silver star patterned and some with a light purple and blue stripe(ugly on its own, but not too bad toned down here). Paint accents were silver and a blue metallic ink. Not sure what it will turn into, but it was a fun thing to do that didn't require much thinking.

Also wanted to show you my helper who joins me when I am posting on the blog, often sitting right in front of the screen. In this shot, I had managed to elbow her slightly to the side. What is really fun, is when she grabs hold of my leg to begin her jump up. Very attention-getting! I usually help her up very quickly to a less painful spot.

Blinged birdhouses abound

I finished the blinged out birdhouses that I was working on and while Holly, my youngest dd, was visiting this weekend, she wanted to do something crafty, and since I had some birdhouses primed up, she did one as well! So lots of photos! I wanted to show all sides of Holly's as each was different. She used some old earrings on the front on either side of the perch and over the opening. The turquoise color ones were just a match to the paint color she had chosen for the house, but she did paint the wooden heart the copper color she had picked for the roof. Their bedroom has a blue/brown color scheme, so this will go well in there. She has an "A" for their last name and then on each side their first initials. I was very proud of her and so was her dh. Sorry for the blurriness of a couple of the photos, but I can't redo them since she took it home with her.

On mine, I used a combination of some scrapbooking paper and on the blue one some wallpaper from my old bedroom at Mom's house. Mom gave me what was leftover not too long ago. On the pink one, I stamped with white paint some swirls from a hand carved eraser stamp and used several different colors to give a more weathered effect. There is a "B" for bird over the opening and on back a heart from a pin I had. I also cut up some cheap colored rhinestone bracelets my oldest dd had given me to use in my crafting and used them to bling up the fronts. I may still add some flowers, but not sure about that.

We didn't get very much rain yesterday. A small shower which was better than nothing, but the ground is still dusty today. I was so hoping we would get a nice long shower. A day of rain would be great, but at least we got some and that is better than last year at this time.

Fortune

This is another page related to the skinny book swap mentioned previously. It was made for a book that was supposed to be auctioned off for charity. Not sure what happened on that. I never saw where it was, but I may have missed it. Perhaps there wasn't enough interest or enough participants sending pages in for this book. Here was my page. I found the chicken head in some of my paper scraps and collaged the rest to go with it.

Wish fortune would smile upon us with some of that watery stuff from the sky! The last few days we've missed some afternoon summer showers by just a half mile or less. I think there is a large % chance tonight and tomorrow, so fingers crossed!

Not much going on around here. It's been a lazy day, but those are nice sometimes. I have done a little cleaning and putting up of stuff in my art/craft room. Also, put some finishing touches on some blinged out birdhouses. I was inspired to do these after seeing some post here at Karla's Cottage blog. It was a couple of months ago, I think, that she had some beautiful birdhouses in a Bling Your Birdhouse party. I found it too late to participate, but was inspired to do some myself. I'll share the pics of them hopefully by Monday. I've got a couple done and hope to do many more.

We're grilling chicken, that is, one of my dsil's and my dh are, and having grilled asparagus and also fresh green beans or salad.

Wednesday words

Silly title, but I couldn't think of anything else to call it. Today's pictures are scans of a hostess gift I made for Chrysty H. for a chunky book swap she hostessed. Don't think I've posted these before. I think I did my pages for the book, but not this. I altered one of those handpainted folk art houses from the eighties, I guess, bought a the thrift store with pages and pictures from the same French textbook that I used for my swap pages. (see I do get around to altering some of this junk I bring home, lol!) My page was all monotone and so that is how I did the school house. Because they are scans the feathers are kind of squished. It looks better in person.

It was back to work today, but the day wasn't so bad. One more day to go, then off for a long weekend. Our garden is managing to come up even without an abundance of rain. We have gotten a couple of decent short showers since we planted it, so I'm grateful it's not as dry as it was last year at this time. Though again, like last year with Texas having floods and us having nothing the midwest area is getting too much. Seems like it just gets caught over the middle of the U.S. and never makes it South. I do feel so bad for all those suffering from the floods.

More thrifting finds

Had to go to town this morning, so took the opportunity to run in the S.A. store with pretty good success. Found a bag of trims which included some beautiful rose pattern woven ribbon and some lace for $1 and a big roll of white crocheted lace also for $1. Those are displayed in a cute white organizer which was $2, I think. Not sure what it's made to organize, but I'm sure I'll find some use for it, if not in the kitchen in the art room. For $3 I got the green wooden tree-shaped thingie which may get repainted or not, but it brought to mind a place to display some of the mice figurines I collect, maybe the Christmas ones during the season. Then there is the really big yellow planter which was only $2(it was covered in dirt)bought cause I needed another planter, no comments from the peanut gallery, ok! Kind of look likes a McCoy but it's not marked and is shown in the picture with a 1956 World Atlas full of wonderful colored maps(future collage fodder) for $3. The decoupaged recipe box was just a dollar and still holds the previous owner's recipes. That struck me as really sad, you know, that there wasn't family that wanted to hold on to them. Not shown, because it is soaking in the sink, is a dark red-orange Tupperware colander, another $1 buy. It might end up in the camper.

In the art category, I worked on a spread in my "Blue" book. This is a large 12x12 sketchbook which I'm using to make a book honoring the color blue, which is BTW my favorite color. I've always loved this hue and find it very soothing. It's puzzling to me how most of my aquaintances hate it, especially in decorating, where they find it cold. As I ponder that it comes to my mind how hot-natured I am and how cold-natured all my coworkers are, so in that may lay some of the explanation? I feel the need to be cooled off and they want to be warmed. Hhhmmm, food for thought, perhaps. For the cover, I took a Moody Blues record album and cut it apart, glueing the front and back those respective places on the book(not my idea, I saw the idea to use album covers somewhere on the net). I've only done a few pages so far, as orginally I intended it to be a place where I journaled when sad- "moody blues", you know. However, I found that I only drew in it one time, when I was sad about my Dad and then didn't allow myself to write in it anymore, especially when I started other journals. I began to think that it needed to be something more than a sad book, since I love the COLOR blue, so I came up with a better idea. I'm writing down some phrases about blue, like Blue Moon, etc and may try to illustrate those. I'll try to share sometime from the book/journal but it won't fit on my scanner bed, so it'll have to be photos.

Posting from work, shh! don't tell

Having a nice morning so far, so taking a minute to post. I just figured out how to post a picture from Webshots to here. It was a new option they had on the side when you go in to look at the albums. This was an atc I did a while back for a swap. Long gone somewhere!

Since I last posted I've been working on a little more organization, this time on some of my jewelry stuff. Was breaking down some old junk jewelry for the beads and sorting them into colors and trying to get some the jewelry and bits in a little better order. Also, I've attempted metal etching as mentioned in the book, Semiprecious Salvage by Stephanie Lee(think that I posted about the book previously). I couldn't find ferric chloride(PCB etchant) which was what she recommended in the book, but upon her recommendation on her blog tried muriatic acid and peroxide with mixed results. I'll post some more about the results when I'm at home. I want to try to do some jewelry like she does in her book, as I love that look, but am having a little trouble finding some items around here.

Well, I actually have to go do some work, so that's all for now.

Flamingoes and Mother's Day

Bet you never expected that title! I just got my Mother's Day present from Holly. I've been waiting to post what I got from Emily until I had both presents. Emily knows I love lavender scents and by that I mean something that really smells like a lavender flower, not that nasty smell some manufacturers come up with. While shopping in some market in Forth Worth she found this collection of products that REALLY do smell like lavender! I love them! There is a soap, salt scrub, and lotion and all smell wonderful! Then she also gave me incense for my art room. Very nice! I love how she took the time to find a gift so me!

Holly has been telling me that my present from her was "in the works" and I couldn't imagine what she was talking about. She got it to me this weekend when they came home for Father's Day. There is a shop in Tuscaloosa where you can paint your own cereamics or pottery and they fire and finish it for you. I love platters, so she took the time to research flowers and hand paint them around the rim of this beautiful platter. Isn't it lovely! Also, she made a card with a flower theme and included a hand written explanation of each flower and it's meaning. Wasn't it sweet how she took so much time in choosing the flowers, then painting them , and then making everything coordinate(BTW, the gift bag had flowers on it, too!)Pictured are scans of the front and inside of the card, the flower explanation, and of course the gifts from both of them. I have 2 wonderful, special, sweet, thoughtful daughters and I love them very much!!!!

Also pictured is a close up of some of the flamingoes that got put in our yard this past Sunday evening. There are about 100 of them! The youth from our church have been doing a fund raiser where someone pays to have a yard "flamingoed". We were totally surprised as we live off the main road with a long driveway out in the country and didn't think anyone would bother to do our yard.

It's been pretty busy the last week. Holly has gotten on to me for not posting in 6 days, but I've not had much time at home it seems. Today I will be going to Mom's for grocery shopping and a few errands and then hopefully tomorrow will be a nice off day spent at home. Fingers-crossed!

Oh yes, Japanese beetles are back! Dh discovered them on "my" grapes he said on Monday but I haven't had time to do anything about it until today. Evidently since they are "my" grapes, I had to be the one to do something?!?! Funny, I don't recall being the only one eating "my" grapes! I've dusted them and will have to keep an eye on them for a while.

Another spot in my home

These 2 photos are from one wall in my dining room showing arrangement on the wall and on the large trunk that sits below it. Inside the trunk is all(well most of) my cross stitch stuff and some fabric. It's an old wooden steamer? trunk with leather fittings. My DMIL gave it to me cause she didn't have room for it. Hate to cover it up, but I don't really have anywhere good for the kilim rug to go. If anyone knows anything about rugs like this, please let me know. I got it for $65 at an auction and believe it to be a wedding rug, maybe Anatolian, but not sure. It is dated, I think it's 1950 something. Also displayed there are a couple of the small boxes I've found that are hand carved. Don't know anything about them, except I like them. The smallest looks like burl wood. On the right hand side is a hand carved and numbered letter opener? purchased at auction for just a few dollars. Would love to learn more about the artisan who crafted it. The box on the plate holder is an assemblage piece I did that I'll try to post some pics of later. The outside says "seek" and started life as AOL junk mail. There is an old rosary hanging on the lantern and the picture I really bought for the sweet old green floral wooden frame it is in. Put it in this arrangement just because it matched the colors.

We missed the rain that spotted the area yesterday and today. Really hope we get some soon as our little baby garden plants would sure love a nice long drink of cool water.

A few thrift store finds

Very few, but here they are. It was too hot to linger very long in the back of the store as it is an old warehouse and there is no A/C. They have fans which help some but not a lot with the humidity like it is now.

There are 3 Pfaltzgraff dishes that are made for a Lazy Susan type set which were only $1 each. I'm planning on using them in my art room on the desk top with buttons or small embellishments in them. The pottery bowl was $1 and I included a closeup of it in case any of you recognize the maker. It's unmarked but appears handmade. Got the small Staffordshire saucer for 50 cents because it has a small chip on the back. I'm planning on collaging a vintage picture in the middle of it with some type of embellishments for added decoration. The book was $1 and the easel was $2. I couldn't get a good picture of it extended and the stuff, too, but it is the kind made with a piece that swings over and up to hold a canvas. Very nice for when I get around to painting, lol!

And great news! A lot of the seed we planted in the garden is coming up! As our luck would have it once we put the seed in the ground it has quit raining and turned very hot, BUT we have watered a couple of times lightly to get the seeds to sprout and are praying that we get some of the 30% chance of rain they are giving this week. We need to get an earlier start next year. This is mine and dh's first garden to ever plant together. We've both worked in our share growing up, but never gotten around to doing our own, even though I've been bugging him to for years. I used to have to help in my grandparents garden as well as my parents. It is cool, though to see how fast it all comes up and grows. We checked it this morning and then while I was out walking the dogs this afternoon, it was amazing to see how a lot of the plants had grown since the morning and a few had even broken ground in that time.

Giveaway is on its way

to Maija. Here is a closeup of the collage and the goodie assortment I sent with it. Hope she likes it all. I tried to color coordinate and pick a mixture of paper and fabric ephemera. From what I could see on her blog she has a wide variety of interests. The little green bag is what all the small pieces went into to be mailed and then I wrapped and tied everything up inside the large red napkins with red ribbon.

I've been with Mom today, running some errands and doing the grocery store thing. It is full-on summer here now, very hot. Even my Mother, who is very cold-natured, was hot. In the car I worried that I had the A/C turned too cold for her and she replied, "No, definitely no, and no!" so we left it blowing and were very thankful for it. I was for sure. Kerry and I worked in the garden almost all day last Tuesday and I very STUPIDLY did not think to put sunscreen on. I wore a tank top and now have ugly red blistered skin on my upper arms and the back of my neck. As a matter of fact, the back of my neck is literally blistered up. Yuck, that may fall under the T.M.I. category, sorry! Someone on a blog I saw yesterday is sponsoring a "I See Red" month where you photograph the red you see around you. Most I looked at are beautifully photographed vintage items or sweet little vignettes in gorgeous homes. I was thinking I could take pictures of me and my BBQ'd redneck and share, but I'll be kind to those who are sweet enough to check my blog out and spare you the sight. I'm applying aloe vera liberally and using an old home remedy Mom used to have us do which is laying a vinegar-soaked cloth on the blistered area. Makes it feel better even if I do smell like a salad.

In sharing that with you, makes me think again of those lovely blogs with the beautifully photographed art and vintage items that I mentioned above. I do LOVE to visit those type blogs. I think sometimes about mine NOT being like that, but early on I received a good bit of advice from someone who visited my blog during the OWOH event and I try to remember it. They advised to be sure to make my blog be true to ME and not to try to make it be something that I thought someone else wanted it to be. SO, I recall that and just try to be myself, for whatever that is worth. Maybe someday, I'll evolve into a great photographer with a talent for capturing a moment with the camera or develop some web design skills or great writing talent, but for now I'll just be me and share as I feel led and as I'm able. I do love to visit blogs of all kinds, so I'm grateful for others who take the time to share their art, wisdom, some of their thoughts and dreams.

Even angels wonder

I did this and gave it to Holly and Chris when they got married. It matched their decorating colors and Holly liked it. It was an experiment with painted background techniques and then collage with the angel from da Vinci's painting, The Annunciation, and some vintage music and wallpaper border. The accents of the butterfly and the medallion at the bottom are some junk jewelry bits. The title words came to me after I added the butterfly. I was thinking that God's creations are so beautiful that even the angel's wonder at them. This was something that just came together even down to the frame, which I already had from a thrift store purchase. After finishing the canvas, I looked up and saw the frame hanging on my wall and thought, wow, the colors just match if it will just fit and it did. No particular reason to post this today except I have already posted something I made for Emily and thought of that when I saw this scan.

I am still working on getting the "stuff" together to go with the collage giveaway, trying to decide what to put with it. Will most likely go out on Friday when I'm off.

Jewelry Books

Beth asked which jewelry books I was looking at. They are Bent, Bound & Stitched by Giuseppina "Josie" Cirincione and Semiprecious Salvage by Stephanie Lee. I made the titles clickable to the books at Amazon so you could see them there. BTW they are cheaper at Amazon that what I paid for them at Barnes and Noble, but I was wanting to get something to read on the long way home. Lots of good ideas in both.

I've been wanting to try my hand at making recycled jewelry, that is, remaking new from vintage pieces. I love the look of that. In the Semiprecious Salvage book, most of the pieces require some kind of soldering so that will be new for me. In the other book, there are more cold connection-type things.

Hobby Lobby, the good and bad

I've been really good since Hobby Lobby has come to town. Well, except for the first week and maybe today, when you could say I was both good and bad. I've visited several other times and bought nothing and a couple of times and just bought one thing with the 40% coupon and then maybe 1 or 2 items that were 50% off. I've even gone some weeks without going in there at all.

Today I went in with a list of items I'm looking for after buying 2 books on jewelry making to look at on the way home from Texas. I know, I know, those who know me are thinking, here she goes off on another tangent. Long sigh! I guess you might be right. We will agree not talk about that, OK! So here is where I was good. Almost none of the items I was looking for were on sale right now or they didn't have them there, so I am holding off to go back with a good coupon to buy or when the items are marked down. The bad part is I got several clearance or sale items that weren't even thought of when I made my list!

Shown above is a pic of the wondermously cute pocket apron that was only $6 because all of their garden stuff is 50% off now. You know they gotta make room for Christmas stuff cause it is the first of June! I'm not kidding, they are putting Christmas items out! Yeah, get a headstart! Buy Christmas before the 4th of July! I'm thinking this apron will not only be good for working in the garden, but will be very handy to wear when crafting. They also had them in a natural/lime green trim combo, but it wasn't as trendy as the one I got. There were hanging wall organizers in both color choices that looked like those shoe organizers. Very cute! But I did manage to talk myself out of those!

Included in the garden sale stuff was the heavy metal rusty stuff where I found a hand form for $5 which is now on my dresser with my rings on it and may appear later at Halloween in some way. Since the picnic stuff was also on sale, I got a cute wire basket made to hold utensils and plates for the camper. In the clearance section at the back, there were some foam door hanger craft packs on sale for $2. I've seen someone make stamps out of these, just have to remember where I saw that at and exactly how they did it. I'll try to take a pic of the hand sometime.

Giveaway winner!

My apologies, it just dawned on me this morning that it was the SECONDTH day of the month and that meant the giveaway winner should have been drawn yesterday! There were only 10 entrants, but I still used a free online number generator so that it would be impartial, since I did have one dd and one coworker who entered. And the winning number was 9, so that means that Maija is the winner. I have notified her by email and will be sending out the collage and some surprises to her hopefully in the next couple of days.

I wish I had 10 things made up so everyone could win. But I'll probably be doing giveaways fairly often "just because" I like giving stuff away, so please stop back by when you have time.