Melony's Whimsy Daisy!

Personal Pink Saturday this n' that

2009-10-24T10:44:30-05:00

Doesn't life just get BUSY sometimes? No craft projects to share today, so I'll share a little of my life that has kept me hopping.

Here is my Once-a Marine -always-a Marine husband showing his more tender side...wearing the pink shirt his wife picked out for him, and sorting out donated shoes for orphans. I love the pink shoes he has in his hands too. Shoes for Orphan Souls is a wonderful charity and shoes are distributed locally as well as internationally to children in great need.

James 1:27 says: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." I fall so short in living out this principle, but continue pray for eyes to truly see the needs around me and then to DO WHAT I CAN!

School activities keep us busy around here, and so just watch me work this into my Pink Saturday post. Do you see the pink in my jacket? I actually found that jacket at an antique store. I am assuming it was vintage 70's, and I really enjoy wearing it. My family can spot me from a mile away. Here I am with my wonderful daughter, Daisy...the picture says it all. I'm a proud Mama. (I have told Daisy if they had an honor roll for creative students...I think I could have made that list!)

Happy Pink Saturday to everyone. Please visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound. You might also like to check out this pink participant: The Charmed Life

Need a Hankie?

2009-10-10T11:01:24-05:00

A huge part of my life has been the privilege of teaching an adult sunday school class for the last twenty years or so. They have seen me through births, the comings and goings of over fifty foster children, the graduations and marriages of three of my kids, the adoption of two of my children, the death of my first husband, my marriage to the second.... you get the picture. They've been there with me through the ecstacy and agonies of life. I just can't imagine not having a group of friends who meet together each week to pray for one another, love one another, and worship the God we love so much.

We also just have a lot of fun together. Most of our women work outside the home, but there are a few of us who work from home, are retired, or who have jobs with flexible schedules. We met for a fun day together. One of the girls even brought her mama along and we acted silly and had so much fun. Jennifer and Nancy modeled vintage hats in the antique store.

Here are two of my crazy friends at Twinkles in Gladewater, Texas shopping off the $5.00 sale rack. They are being over-dramatic about the good bargain they found!

My friend, Gina, found a box of handkerchiefs still in their original box with the stickers and asked if I would do something a little special with it. She will be giving it as a door prize at a women's Bible study get together. It is also my Pink Saturday show and tell today. I printed off the scripture from Isaiah 25:8 about God wiping away our tears and added some little touches and a bow. I think it turned out very sweet.

Here are a few of the girls from our group. I love them dearly. I pray that each one of you reading this, not only knows the Lord, but as He so desires for you...has sweet friends to walk through life's ups and downs with you and help carry the load!

Happy Pink Saturday to you! Please visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound to meet a lot of other ladies that love a touch or two of pink in their life!

Scotty Dog Collage on Pink Saturday!

2009-10-03T10:59:14-05:00

I am running late today on my Pink Saturday post. My husband and I went to Canton, Texas' First Monday Flea Market...walked our legs off...filled our bellies up...emptied our wallets out...and I came home and slept so long and hard I now have permanent creases in my face. Wow were we tired!

Here is a little something pink I made for my friend, Susan's grandbaby, on an art canvas covered in that perfect shade of pink.

The baby's name is Elizabeth. Thus the big ol' E!

Her grandma and grandaddy have little dogs, so I added those in, vintage wallpaper images, and buttons and such...you know the routine. I hope she will like it. Elizabeth won't be that impressed at her age, but I hope her sweet grandma knows how proud I am she is a grandma!

Be sure to have some fun and visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound. You will find many other pink-lovin' ladies with great posts...all in shades of pink.

Pass the eyebrow dye, honey.

2009-09-26T09:46:45-05:00

Happy Pink Saturday to you! I found a unique little shop on one of my ETSY online shopping "trips". (Don't you love shopping online?) I had to share my discovery with you. I think I laughed out loud the very second the image below popped up on my screen. I asked the creative proprietor of Patsydoll if I might please share her creation with you. She definitely has a love of dolls and it shows in her shop. I hope you enjoy a peek into the pink and downright fabulous "Steel Magnolias" salon.

Can't you just hear Truvy say, "I don't like her. I don't trust anyone who does their own hair. I don't think it's natural."

For all of you who would like to say "pink is your signature color" visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound. Lots of ladies who love pink, like Claudia, of Mockingbird Hill Cottage, and so many others who post about pink treasures in their homes or little objects of interest they have discovered along the way that are the wonderful color PINK!

Vintage Look Bridal Shower Banner

2009-09-19T01:11:46-05:00

Since my last post I've become addicted to the cake circles. You can see my post below about what I did with the bigger ones. I had to give the little ones a try. I have a Bridal Shower Brunch to go to in a few hours, and I wanted something personal and a little different to give the bride to be...other than a gift card.

This gift is different all right and the poor little bride-to-be will either love it or be wishing I'd been a normal person and given her a gift card. I'm going to suggest she write down a special memory or attach an anniversary picture for each year on the back of each disc. Anyhooooo....Happy Pink Saturday! There is enough pink in this project to make me feel very content about the whole thing.

This is what I watched tonight while I crafted. The Long Long Trailer, from 1954, with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Lots of wonderful colorful trailer decor, vintage fashion, and kitschy goodness. I highly recommend it and it is about newlyweds. I didn't plan to have a movie with the same theme as my craft project, but it worked out well!

I spelled out the couple's name...one cake circle at a time. I used fabric, vintage greeting cards, vintage buttons, ribbon, and other little bits and bobs I had. So, get out your pom-poms and give me and L!

How about an A? I still need to do something with the hole in the heart. Doggone it , I forgot all about that...run a ribbon through it or something?

I'd like an N! (The N is my least favorite. I give it a Negative 5)

May I buy a vowel, please, Pat? How about an i? (Ignore those hot glue stringies, please Pat.)

Give me an E, for we are almost to the End!

Give me an R to finish up this banner!

What does that spell?

This, of course, would NOT be the place to hang it, but I did it to show you the whole enchilada-so-you'd-get-the-idea-of-it-sort-of. Hopefully, the couple-to-be will place it somewhere more appropriate and enjoy it for a time.

Happy Pink Saturday to all of you! Please go visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound to get your pink fix from lots of girls who find pink quite the "it" color! As Beverly has asked us to do, I also wanted to introduce you to a blog I just recently visited for the first time that is super cute and worth a look: Mis Mollye. Just the banner alone on her blog is sweetness deluxe. How does one get that cute of a blog with ribbons and such? It's adorable and she is a great writer too.

Hodge Podge, Mod Podge, Cake Craft Collage

2009-09-15T00:10:47-05:00

Jenn(that's her below) over at Sweet Eye Candy Creations had an inspirational tutorial on making an adorable collage. She takes beautiful pictures and her entire blog is truly eye candy, so please give her a visit and treat yourself to sweetness. The project Jenn presented caught my eye and struck my fancy and I just had to put a "Melony" spin on it and see what happened. Thank you, Jenn for sharing your creativity.

I have two sweet friends who have been blessed with grandbabies, and I wanted to do something special to share in that joy. There are so many sad times in life when we grieve with our friends...through sicknesses, funerals, kids that go astray...I just love when we get to share in the celebrations.

I started off with Cake Circles as Jenn suggested, using my Michaels' 40% off coupon. They are a wonderful base and the price is right. I cannot imagine cutting out cardboard circles. Ick.

For the first collage I used two cake rounds and covered it in two kinds of fabric on the front using Mod Podge. I then gathered up little bits and bobs from all around my Craft Cottage and using my beloved glue gun attached them to the fabric covered disc. Kennedy has a pink and brown polka dotted room, so I tried to stick to that theme the best I could.

I attached a ribbon covered clothespin so a picture of baby Kennedy could be changed out as desired. (I used my now 24 year old, Molly's baby picture, to show how that works. I know you know how a clothespin works, but I wanted you to see it and I didn't have a picture of Kennedy.)

I covered the sides with cupcake ribbon since I used two cake rounds together. This was my first one, and I thought I would see how I liked putting two together. I only used one cake round on the second one. I covered the backs of both with scrapbooking paper and forgot to take pictures of that. I was tired by then, and I just sort of slopped it on there the best I could and added a gift tag label. I then put a coat or two of Mod Podge on the whole thing and let it dry overnight.

Some of the items I used in the collage are vintage buttons, broken jewelry, felt, ribbon, vintage greeting card images, Dollar Store doodads, feathers, flowers, bottle caps, and whatever I could scrounge up that might be cute!

The second collage was for my friend Anna's grandbaby. She has a ladybug room and I was glad to find the cute ladybug ribon to go around the circle. (My husband was kind enough to take a lighter and go around the edges of the ribbon to seal them while I was rushing around getting ready for church Sunday morning.)

It was so much fun to put these together. I only repeated a couple of things. Once again, my daughter, this time my youngest Daisy, is filling in for Raelynn on the clothespin picture holder. I enjoyed gluing the old wooden spool with rick-rack trim and some daisies to the collage.

The little paper doll was a gift tag I have had forever and could not bear to put it on a gift just to have someone toss it away.

What fun it was to make these and I hope they are enjoyed by two little girls and their mamas! May God bless Anna and Joanna as become a wonderful part of their grandaughters' lives!

The Ugly Duckling Desk Makeover

2009-09-12T00:01:00-05:00

Happy Pink Saturday, friends! Please visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound to enjoy all the other pink participants.

A while back I blogged about a heavy metal desk I got for free. I love free.

It needed a makeover and I sort of overdid it with the make-up, and it was left looking a little clownish. So, above is the BEFORE picture, but I couldn't bring myself to show the AFTER picture. The desk has set in its garish glory being ignored.

Below: that's the makeup

Yes, I do believe I used every color except the red. I was like a fifth grader turned loose with blue eye shadow! I couldn't stop myself from shaking and spraying. Shaking and spraying. Shaking and spraying......

I wasn't about to re-paint the OVERpainted desk-of-many-colors, so I've decided to tone it down. I began the twelve step program with an artist canvas.

Then, I selected some of my favorite fabric. This is by Michael Miller, who is just about my favorite fabric designer of all time.

***By the way, you can click on any of these pictures to make them bigger and see the dust on my floor.***

Do you hear the ladies below chatting?

"Yes, Mary Fran, I simply adore the way my new hair pomade holds my bob in place."

It was hard to cut into the fabric. Always a problem for me. I began to ponder:

I could make a cute skirt out of this fabric...if I were forty pounds thinner, I could actually wear the cute skirt after I made it.

I could make a tablecloth out of this fabric...if nobody would spill on it. Forget that.

Then, I asked myself these two questions.

1. Melony, are you the boss of this fabric? 2. Or is the fabric the boss of you?

I got out my scissors.

I cut out a rectangle of the newly submissive fabric a bit bigger than the canvas and began to staple it to the frame. As luck would have it, I ran out of staples immediately after I took this picture.

I love my glue gun. It is faithful and true. Sometimes love hurts. But, it eventually dries and I just pull it off along with some skin, which, so far, has always grown back.

This is just Step One in the Ugly Duckling Free Desk Makeover-Gone-Bad-Tone-Down Process. It's going to take some time to turn this puppy around. I'd be grateful if you'd ignore I cut all the poor ladies' heads off the top. Let's pretend none of us see that. Yes, I know I should have centered the fabric...thought it out more carefully...perhaps, yes, even measured. sigh.

Do you know about those nifty thingies you use to attach artist canvas to metal desks?

Neither did I.

Did I mention how much I love my glue gun? Squirt and press, press, press. We'll see if the ladies' are still standing in the morning.

So, overall, not bad if we ignore the decapitation. If I can't live with the headless heroines, I'll cut again and redo it...but, knowing me...I can probably live with it. sigh...being the perfectionist I am.

Happy Pink Saturday! Stay tuned for Step Two.

Oh, and if you please...do be so kind to check out my post below. It's pink too, and I would love you to meet my youngest daughter and a cause close to my heart.

Orphans, Adoption, and a Cotton Candy Dress

2009-09-10T11:04:38-05:00

There is probably no way to smoothly combine my two subjects today, but I'm just going to jump in and do the best I can.

Tomorrow is an exciting day for me because I've been invited to a meeting at my church focusing on ways to encourage adoption and foster care in our church and community. It sends chills of excitement up my spine. I was a foster mom for sixteen years, and I've been blessed to adopt two children...one from the foster care system in the USA, and one from an orphanage in China. I've given birth three times too! My cup runneth over, and I thank God for entrusting me with the lives of all my children and for helping me and forgiving me my mistakes along the way. (there have been many)

This is my daughter, Daisy, who has been a delight in my life. She was gracious to model a vintage fifties dress that is precious. So much sweeter than some of the current styles where little girls look like grown women (dressed innapropriately at that.) The brand name for this dress is A La Mode and it is currently in my Whimsy D aisy Etsy Shop! I am selling it for a worthwhile cause, so please continue to read.

I love the detail of the crochet over the cotton fabric and the sweet bow.

Now, I want to segway into my very favorite charity, Love Without Boundaries. I cannot say enough good things about it as nearly every single cent goes straight to orphans and it is run only by volunteers...most of them...adoptive moms and dads. If anybody purchases the dress Daisy is modeling, I would love to donate the money to Love Without Boundaries.

My dear friend, Amy Eldridge, is the founder of this charity. We traveled to China together in 2000 to bring our daughters home, and then God has used Amy's life in a wonderful way to touch the lives of thousands of children. You can click on the link above to read about this unique charity and the award she won from Cookie Magazine along with Uma Thurman, Salma Hayek, and Debra Messing. Amy has won all kinds of awards, but personally dislikes publicity and only tolerates it in hopes that other orphans might find loving homes or be healed. Cookie Magazine did a wonderful write up on my friend and took this awesome picture.

Love Without Boundaries has a beautiful book for sale on their website with stories of inspiration and encouragement for anybody who might even be slightly interested in adoption or know someone who would. I would like to have a copy to give someone at church as we begin our program, and wanted to post about it here. All the proceeds go to orphans.

Click RIGHT HERE to go to my Etsy Shop. All the money on the dress Daisy is modeling will go to Love Without Boundaries. I would be so pleased to be able to know it was going to feed a child, or pay for medicine, or a warm blanket.

On and Off-the-Wall at the Craft Cottage

2009-09-05T01:28:35-05:00

Happy Pink Saturday to all of you patrons of pink. I have a touch of pink here and there I would like to show you on one of the walls in my Craft Cottage.

I was tickled to discover an old chipped yellow feed store seed packet holder at an antique store. I spray painted it a perfect pink and have added some of my old patterns. No! Sigh. I have not sewed one of these patterns...not even one... but I think of it as art on the wall. I just enjoy the look of these wonderful ladies posing.

This holder is made where it can sit on a cabinet, but that kind of space is not to be had at the moment, so it was better to hang it. I'm not so sure what these two girlies think of it. One looks pretty miffed, but the other chicky is just concerned about her hair. Oh well...

I have had the little dress below for a long time. I cannot remember where I found it, but it really represents everything wonderful about vintage in one teeny tiny little dress. It combines sweet, the perfect shades of pink and aqua rick-rack, a frilly petticoat underneath, and an adorable old-fashioned brand name...Lucy Jane. What's not to love?

***Okay, right now, I'm daydreaming if I had a baby it could be a girl, and I would name her Lucy Jane and she would wear this dress.*** (By the way, that was the off-the-wall portion of my post today.)

Ironing is not such a chore when I have this cute ironing board cover...or so I have tricked myself into thinking. I am one of those strange people who actually enjoys ironing, but I must admit it is more fun with these enthusiastic ladies.

and my old Goodwill iron with aqua accents and cord...

Also on this same wall stands my dress form wearing the vintage apron that was the color inspiration for my entire Craft Cottage. Look at detail in this apron and I think the combination of these colors are so cheerful.

Somebody had such patience with all these beautiful stitches. I like the little touch of pink.

On and off-the-wall adds up to this in my Craft Cottage. It could all change tomorrow!

Please take the time to click in my sidebar and visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound and all the other Pink Saturday participants...like pinkbuttercreme's blog.

A little eye candy...

2009-09-03T13:40:21-05:00

It is just amazing to see the creativity of women. I wanted to do a quick post and just highlight a few creative spirits and their blogs that bring me weekly pleasure. These women have a great eye for color, fun, and sweetness. I MUST brag on them, or I will bust. I only "know" these creative spirits from blogland, but I think it is only right to give praise where praise is due. Today, I wanted to share these favorite ladies with you. I hope you will take the time to visit their shops or blogs and get to know them yourself.

The first one is Georgiapeachez! Oh my goodness. When I saw this picture yesterday, my heart skipped a beat.

I love the way she has combined shape, function, and vintage pieces to make some beautiful purses. I am not a purse-aholic, but my goodness...who could not appreciate this?

or this...

Even the inside of the purses are worth a look-see. Check out her Etsy Shop to purchase one of these beauties, or keep up with this creative spirit at her blog, Georgiapeachez!

Before discovering Georgiapeachez, I met her BFF, Elizabeth...author and crafter extraordinaire. She has a great blog, Words and Whimsies, with all kinds of interesting things going on all the time. She makes fabulous one-of-a-kind pincushions, wonderful handbags out of vintage fabrics, and now... a MOST unique kind of store that intrigues me to no end. It reminds me of my trips to M.E. Moses, the local five and dime, as a kid. There are all kinds of kitschy delights to be found at Dime Store Chic!

I can recall, as a child, looking at the store display of nice new coloring books and yearning for one. Remember the smell of a fresh box of crayons? Look at the art work on the front of this book in Elizabeth's store. Yummy sweet.

or how about this great kitschy vintage look Christmas fabric? Wouldn't you expect to find something like this in a five and dime store?

And, last but not least...my favorite kindergarten teacher, PaintinPatti. We both shared ideas on getting our crafting spaces together and painted them the same robin's egg blue color. Patti is a very creative personality and her sweet spirit shines through her blog. She has been a pleasure to get to know, and I love seeing her makeovers, like this one with a $2.00 overnight case.

Before:

and After...Cute, huh?

So much cuteness to see, so go check Patti's blog out. Did I mention she likes Doris Day music (just like me) and cherries (just like me)?

I'm off to the Craft Cottage to get some work done. More posts later and hope you all are feeling inspired to create or enjoy someone else's creations!

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