Under a Pile of Scrap!

More craft show pics and other treasures

2011-11-16T11:41:00.001-05:00

I have a bad habit of not taking enough photos of things, usually in the "before" stages because I get so anxious to start on them - even though I fizzle out before they're done sometimes. LOL! I loaded up a few more photos of a couple things I added to my last craft show that wasn't in the first. I'd love to tell you that they all sold, but not all of them did. It might be 50/50 on how much of the newest additions sold. It was a tough ~~crowd~~ group.The few that were buying, were spending, the others were just looking for something to do to kill a half hour out of their day. ;^) I do believe that I created some inspiration in others to go home and just make it themselves. That's the ~~trick~~ key to a successful craft show... provided people show up. You have to make something that they can't/won't do themselves without it being out of their financial ballpark or just so amazing that they just have to have it!

I had more things made that were sold and I forgot to get pictures of beforehand. These are just a couple other things I had in the show:

This is a pocket style pillow that I made to look like the front of Santa's coat. I had 2 that I made for the 1st show that sold, but they were bigger at 18", this one (of a pair) is only 14". They did not sell.

Here is a plastic Charger plate that I picked up last year on clearance and added this copper vinyl design to. It looks gold in the pic, but it's actually coppery. I sold one, but had 2 more made for back up. The coloring in this shot doesn't look good. I tried using the photo program that came on my laptop and I don't care for the limitations it has. My other desktop is getting so loaded down with pictures, that it takes it forever to get from point A to point B. I'm waiting for Black Friday sales to get me a Flash drive to store the pictures on to give me more space and hopefully make it faster.

This is a rustic looking clay pumpkin I picked up yesterday at the Salvation Army store here in town. It half off of 48 cents! Better than garage sale!

This is a wooden milk jug that was 48 cents. I thought it had potential for something cute. I hope it comes to me before next year!

These are a couple of sweaters I picked up for other projects I have in mind.

I didn't think the price of the sweaters were too bad and I would even wear them if I didn't have other plans in mind for them!

Look at this cute little vintage Santa face!! He was half off 78 cents! He was kinda dirty with some brownish splatters on him, but he cleaned up real nice! I think he's actually a napkin holder because he has a slot thing in the back, but I don't think he'd be very effective at keeping the napkins upright. I like him just the way he is and I'm keeping him for myself (unless I see something that he would be good for in a craft show piece)! But, I'm thinking he sure would look sweet amongst an all red and white vignette, wouldn't he? Perhaps on a table next to one of those Santa coat pillows....

I really should be getting back to a few projects that were put "on hold" before the crafting craziness. I still have the Senior year pages and back cover to finish of that pink and black high school mini album I started back in May. It's not a surprise now, and I sent her grandma some sneak peaks, but they have no clue what all it holds in store. It's not as crafty as my friend Tracy over at Tracy's Treasures does with her mini albums, but it's nothing to sneeze at either. IMO. The girl's grandma is tickled at what she saw already. Like I said in my previous post about her being my biggest cheerleader, it's so true! I have a few close 2nd's in my cheer squad though, but she can make my head swell. hee hee!

Well, it's about one week until those of us in the United States celebrate our Thanksgiving holiday and the Christmas holiday officially kicks off. I was going to offer to have the dinner here at our house, but my dad and step-mom beat me to it. That's OK, even though it would force me to get all the craft junk put away much faster! Sometimes I need those kinds of kicks in the ol' hiney to motivate me. I should just pretend everyone is coming over anyway. LOL!!

God Bless and have a great day!!

Craft shows DONE!!

2011-11-14T16:08:00.001-05:00

As much as I love creating and making things for myself or to sell, I am happy to say that I am done with craft shows for at least one more year. It can be quite stressful getting enough stuff made and then worrying about whether or not you'll have a decent turnout with people buying ~~your stuff~~. I had a very successful show with the first show! They advertised like crazy with a little help from my friend and myself. But this last show was not so good. Not many people showed up and those that did, weren't buying too much, if anything. I made half of what I made at this same show last year. I am seriously reconsidering doing this show next year. I hate to say for sure that I'm not, but I know many other vendors were not happy either and they made considerably less than me. Maybe it's what you sell and maybe that tiny little town is not the market for what they have. What I had barely had a market there either!

So anyway...I wanted to share some of the last minute things I made that I didn't have a chance to post before. I think I was doing pretty good by getting 2 posts in one week while working on 20 projects. LOL!

This is a really bad picture of this chalkboard I made from an old mirror. The mirror was broken in half a day, thanks to my 7 yr old daughter's own vanity. We just won't even go there right now.... anyway, the chalkboard is actually a dark teal blue color and no matter I tried to get the photo adjusted, it just wasn't showing that. With the larger chalkboards, I included a little basket that I attached along with the necessary piece of chalk and coordinated eraser.This one did not sell. :^(

I swear, I can't write in a straight line! geeeez! Here is the other chalkboard that is also made with the dark teal paint. It's not the best color representation either, but it's better than the one above. If you notice, there is a stenciled frame design done in the paint. I seriously don't know what I was thinking when I thought this was a good idea in a time crunch situation, but it worked out and didn't really take me all that long. The hardest part was getting the design in a consistent size that worked for all 4 sides, since it's a little taller than it is wide. It wasn't perfect, but it did sell! :^D

This is a sleigh light that I put together. It drew a lot of attention, but I guess the price wasn't "garage sale" low enough for the ones that were looking at it. Sorry if I'm being just a tad sarcastic in that last remark, but I will say that there are quite a few people in the smaller towns that come to these craft shows and think they're at a flea market or garage sale. Ohhhh, the stories I could tell! It makes me want to put up a sign that reads, "Reminder: this is a craft bazaar and not a garage sale, so please be considerate. ~thank you! Do you think that might offend?

I don't know that I've ever showed one of my skates on my blog before. I didn't want them to be copied all over the place, including craft shows that I'm in. Had that happen before.

I made one last year and just happened to send a photo of it to a friend in Chicago. She in turn sent the photo to her sister, who went nuts over it, I guess. So my friend bought it as a gift for her sister. She says her sister gets all kinds of wonderful comments about it when she has people over. I think she's one of my best cheerleaders of what I do.

I think I'm feeling a bit negative after having a dismal turnout for this event that felt like such a let down after the "high" of a successful first show. It was kinda like the crash after coming off a sugar high! LOL! I will say that I'm still in a crafting mood and have been working a few other projects that still didn't manage to get finished for either show. I don't want things left undone.

That's it for show and tell today. I hope to have more later on this week. I'm trying to find my house underneath all the craft stuff right now. My family is happy that the Laundry Fairy decided to make a trip in and leave some clean clothes behind. Whew!

God Bless and have a great day!

A Treat Banner

2011-11-09T07:12:00.000-05:00

I feel as though it's safe to show this by now. I had a treat box banner published in the Cricut "Holidays" magazine back in October. I haven't received my copy yet, but I had to have sneak peek at one of the issues in the rack at JoAnne Fabrics to see what they did with my project. You can only imagine how thrilled I was to see MY treat box banner as the FEATURE project for the Treat Box section of the magazine!! How cool is that? They don't show it as a banner, but it's still very pretty in print! ;^) Here are my photos of the project - and don't forget that you can click on the pictures to get a larger view.

Here is a bit of a close up of the front of the treat boxes. I just love this striped scrapbook paper by Best Creations for this! I don't know what it is about pink with lime green and red that looks so fun and festive for Christmas, almost child-like, ya know?

I think this banner is a cute thing to do for a party since you can easily untie each box from the banner. I thought it would be fun to put a different surprise in each container, then you could put each letter in a hat and have a drawing for the letter on the container; the "s's" could be S1 and S2 for the 1st S and the 2nd one to eliminate confusion for that duplicated letter. Did that make any sense? :^/ Random thought here...Wouldn't it be cute with curly streamers hanging down? I should have done something like this for my daughter's birthday party, but I didn't make time for it.

Speaking of my daughter's birthday party, I never did get to share pics of that. It's been so crazy around here these past few months. I'm only a few weeks late on posting these since her birthday was Oct 23.

~The Table Setting~

It's not a Pinterest worthy design, but the girls were in total awe and that was all I cared about. My daughter had asked for a Tinkerbell themed party. Neither her friends nor her realized that the only thing Tink at this party was the tablecloth, but they sure thought it was a Tink theme because of the colors I used.

For the cupcakes, I used this is 2-tiered plate holder that I've only used maybe twice in 8 years? I was glad to bring it out again. I just wished I would have thought of it earlier than on the day of the party, then I could have looked for cuter colored plates. That was OK too, because I think the darker blue really set off the bright pink and green cupcake tulip wrappers. Those were from Wilton, by the way.

~Pink Lemonade?~

How cute are these drink glasses I made up? A friend of mine found something similar to this online and showed them to me back in May, but the ones she found had metal daisy cut lids. After a long drawn out process of finding those exact lids at the cheapest price I could, when they arrived, I was disappointed to learn that they were too small for these jars. hmmmm...that's ok, I'm sure I'll find a use for them somewhere down the road, but I had to come up with something else and quick! So I turned to my trusty Cricut machine again & made my own custom daisy cut lid inserts that was a little more color coordinated with the party theme. I put the glasses on a cake plate I picked up at a garage sale this summer for $2. I found the daisy designed paper liners a couple of years ago on clearance at the local Walmart thinking I would use them for scrapbooking. LOL!

I found the turquoise and green polka dotted straws on Etsy at Hiyoyo's store (I think that was the name?). She had smaller quantities and great prices and the fastest shipping I've ever seen. She was a treat to work with too. And did you notice the lavender colored drink in the glass? That's just pink lemonade Kool-aid that I added one drop of blue food coloring to a pitcherful.

~Let Them Eat Cupcakes!~

Hee hee hee! I wanted to make a full blown layered rainbow cake, but that wasn't going to make it in time with me. I seen on Pinterest that some people were taking a shortcut with them and just making cupcakes that they layered the colored batter all at once. It was a tedious task, yet still simpler than the layer cake, if you ask me. I know Brooke loved them....I swear her favorite color is rainbow! She colors everything in rainbow colors. LOL!

~And MORE Cake!~

This is the bunt cake version I made for her actual birthday dinner when grandma and grandpa came over. I thought it was quite interesting to discover that it actually bakes like the shape of a rainbow! Brooke said the white frosting drizzle looked like white clouds. This is a terrible photo, since I had some major issues with the cake sticking to the bottom of the cake pan and I don't know how to cut a cake to make it photo-op worthy. You still get the effect tho. ;^)

I've been trying to catch up a little on my blog, but that's it for me today. I'm still trying to get more things made for my next craft show on Sat. I need to get more on the ball for this one since I sold so much from my show last week! That's a good thing!

God Bless and have a great day!

I'm linking up to Funky Junk Interior's Banner Sat. Night Special link party!

Wheeeeeeew!!!! Pic heavy post

2011-11-07T13:47:00.000-05:00

I am breathing just a little bit easier today, but not much - I have to make more stuff for this Saturday's show too. I had my first craft show on Saturday and I have to say that the show was a phenomenal success! My only disappointment was that I didn't take more stuff!! I never thought I'd hear myself say THAT! I took less than half of what I did last year and make almost as much!! Now THAT'S how ya do it! ;^) I can finally show you some of the things I made for the show, since every one of the specialty items that I was holding back on sold.

Here are some of the signs that I made that sold. They were each made from a cabinet door. The lettering was all done with my Cricut. This first one was made using the Billionaire cartridge.

This was made from a really cool looking large fishing lure that has usable hooks. The font used on this was one of the early Cricut carts called Stamped. It has a rugged primitive look to it that I really like. The little story behind this one and the next is that my husband is so "over" seeing the "Live Laugh Love" quotes on everything and just made a little joke about how I should do that with these fish signs, but put Fish in there for the last word instead. I thought he was onto something there, so I went with his idea and they both sold. The funny thing is, I had these for 2 years now without being on a sign & they obviously wouldn't sell, so it was a good gamble that paid off. And yes, I charged even more for adding the sign work. ;^)

Sorry about the poor photo quality on this image. This is another large fishing lure and it also had the same Stamped cartridge used for the font, with a slightly different quote.

Sorry again about the bad picture quality. This is a wooden box that was originally painted a creamy ivory with foam stamped Christmas trees and heart on it. This is what it looks like after I finished distressing it and adding some cute canning jars with candles and some greenery with berries.

When I found this, I thought it so cool and so BIG for a tea strainer ball in the shape of an acorn. I painted it with some metallic spray paints to actually look like an acorn and added some more cute greenery with berries. Oh! And I put a little jingle bell on the inside too!

Here is one of my pride and joy creations. I just love how it turned out! It's a Holiday themed birdhouse on a rusty and distressed pitchfork that I found at a flea market. The handle was broke, so my dear sweet hubby made me a post and being on the frugal side that ~~we are~~ he is, he used a piece of oak log we had instead of buying a 4x4 post. He has some other left over lumber and made some decorative top and bottom caps and I painted them. It drew quite the attention at the show, but didn't manage to sell until much later in the day.

Here is a small Dutch shoe I found last week at the local Salvation Army. They only had one, so I made it into an ornament. I was kind of perplexed on how to go about doing the design since the hanging hole is on the one side of the shoe, it causes it to hang at an angle. So I put the larger snowflake design slightly off center and did the border around the opening. It didn't sell though, but I love the colors.

My friend and I have our booth space(s) on the stage in the facility that holds the show. Here is one corner of my portion by the stair entry. My hubby made me a large pegboard display wall that works out really nicely for my signs.

This one is hard to really make out since it overlooks the main floor booths, so it's hard to make out what's my stuff and clutter. I didn't take nearly as much as I should have, but it worked out good and it was less that I had to carry back home!

This is another one of my tables that was next to a walkway ramp. Again, I didn't have enough stuff to fill my area, but at least you could see everything I had. (And no, I didn't miss a word on the chalkboard, it was hidden behind the star organizer.)

I even had customers request that I make some additional items for this week's sale. One lady remembered the ice skates I made last year and wants one. Another lady wanted me to make another faux grain sack pillow for her. It's almost done and the skates are half done.

This is a sign I started to make for the last show, but it got messed up in the process and the "patches" didn't help, so needless to say, it didn't get to go with the rest of the group. However, after a little thinking and another discussion with the hubby, he sent my little ADD brain in another direction than he was actually going and I came up with really good fixes!

How do you like it? I think it's very striking. I'm trying to decide if I should change out the rusty jingle bells for red ones instead. That was my 8 yr olds suggestion anyway. You see, when I did the masking for the letters, some of the painters tape peeled off tiny bits of the white paint. Grrr! Hubby told me to touch up with the same spray paint using a brush. It worked OK, but not great by any means. Plus, I must not have had the tape down good in a spot on the frame and had a bit of the red paint bleed through onto it. Ugh! Well, I had some sparkly white snowflake buttons from my scrapbook stash and used those to cover up the dots and I used the red and white rope cording to fill in the ridge that had the red paint on it. You can hardly tell a thing. It's still not perfect, but I think it's good enough to make it's debut for the next show!

Here is another sign screw up I had that I managed to re-invent the night before the show. This one was a total mess before it got to this! I won't even bore you more with what all went wrong with this poor thing. BUT! I think I did it justice in a delightful way. I like it so much, I might just make one for myself too! This one sold early in the day. The letters were again cut with my Cricut using the Cindy Loo cartridge.

OK, so this was long, but I had lots of photos for you to see. I know it's been a little while since I've shared anything worthwhile on here and as much as I would love to spread it out through the week, I have more things to get made and a lot of space to fill!

God Bless and have a great day!

It's Scramble Time and another pillow!!

2011-11-02T22:24:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm in crazy scramble mode this week. My first craft show of the season is Nov. 5th and it's usually my biggest one. It's the one where I have people tell me that they only come to that show just for MY stuff. THAT'S a HUGE deal to me! It's also a pretty small venue in a tiny little town of less than 800 people, so for me to have a following of customers and my sales are several hundred dollars and mind you, my stuff is CHEAP compared to other vendors and other shows. I have to be selling a lot to make what I do in 6 hours. I even split my booth space with a friend and she makes just as much as I do. We will probably call each other every day this week in trying to calm each other down and scream to each other all the things we've ruined trying to get more product ready for this show and the one that's the weekend after also. I think we are fools, but it's kinda fun, at least as long as we're making good money anyway. My $$ is going for our Disney fund for next fall. We would like to have more cash to spend on fun stuff and enjoy more sit down dining the next time around than just the snack places we hit the last time, just because our daughter is a picky eater. Plus, we'll want to celebrate Halloween while we're there and that's extra. My daughter was a little disappointed that we didn't participate in that the last time.

We also just got back on Sunday from our 4 day camping trip to Brown County. We do it just about every year. This time around, we managed to drive down to French Lick, IN, which is the home town of the basketball legend Larry Bird. We took an old steam locomotive train ride that goes right by his boyhood home.

We stopped at the coolest antique shop in a tiny, and I mean tiny little town called Bean Blossom. I found so many things that I wanted, but didn't have any funds for at all. I had to borrow $3 from my hubby just to buy a large aluminum tea ball strainer. They had some grain sacks that I was peeing all over myself for. They were more money than I wanted to pay, but IF I would have had it, I would have bought one anyway. It was still waaaaay cheaper than what I seen on Ebay.

They have the funnest looking junk car out front, but they claim it actually does run, even though the spark plug wires are nothing but a barbed wire fence hooked up somehow. My husband seen it, so I can't explain how it looked in detail. Just kinda funny how it works anyway!

We primitively camper camp in the Yellowwood State Forest and it's very pretty back there by a picturesque lake and the prettiest trees that were showing off outstanding color this year! Must have been from all the rain in the spring and summer. Here is a picture of my daughter on the dam wall for the spillway. the water is only a foot below the top of where she's sitting. The water hasn't been that high in several years. We've been able to walk on the top of the dam wall just last year.

I have managed to make another pillow that I didn't screw up on. (rolling my eyes at myself). The ruffled side.

The pillow on the right is the front of the ruffled pillow. I was hoping for a more vintage look to the image, but it didn't turn out as dark when I printed it on the iron on transfer paper than it did on my computer monitor. Oh well. It is what it is. I just hope it sells.

Gosh, I just have so much to catch up on and yet no time to get it all in one post. I also need to figure out how to widen the text area of my blog. There's so much unused space! Perhaps after the holidays, when the snow is blowing and I have nothing better to do but keep the fires burning all day long. Ahhhhh....

God Bless and have a great day!

Just trying to keep up

2011-10-20T17:48:00.002-04:00

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. This is a hectic month for me. Both of my kids' birthdays are this week and I got one out of the way on Monday when my oldest turned 19. My other is going to be 8 on Sunday and is having a sleepover party on Friday night.

Next, if you were here for my previous post last week about our weekend camping trip to central/southern Indiana for the county wide Covered Bridge Festival in Parke County, then you know I was literally OCD focused on getting some persimmon cookies AND the Amish girl's recipe for them. I was even willing to pay her $10 for the recipe. And, if I was luckier to maybe even buy some persimmon pulp, if they had any they were willing to sell. I mean, if you have it to make the cookies, surely you have some on hand, right? There was also the "discussion" me and my hubby were having about where this place was located. Well, in that post, we were both "technically" wrong, but in a round about way, I was right. The funny part was that we had been to a couple of flea markets on Sat. morning and were making our way to the town of Rockville when I noticed "THE" sign that said Garage Sale 3.5 miles. I just knew it was it, I recognized the road. My husband was being very adamant that I was wrong and he knew he was wasting his time and gas to go check this out. He swore it was off of a different road than the one we were on. I just kept my trap shut, especially since the first part of the road that we turned on didn't look familiar. Then, it started looking familiar, really familiar. Here's a funny thing. You see, my hubby and I have this thing that we do where we make bets when there are ~~discrepancies~~ debates between who is right about any given subject. These "bets" are for dinner to the winner. Although it's funny even when my husband wins because he's usually the one stuck with the bill anyway, since I don't work for $$. It's more or less just a way of getting to eat somewhere that you normally wouldn't for the sake of the wager and for fun.

Anywho... my point being is that I was so debating about making a wager for dinner on whether or not this garage sale was THE sale I was looking for. I should have SO bet!! YES!!! It was the place alright! I don't normally tell my hubby "I told ya so", but I just could not resist and in his own way, he's trying to hold back the smirky grin that he couldn't accomplish. Oh yeah! I was doing the biggest happy dance in the van that one can do while confined in a seat belt of a vehicle. They had persimmon cookies, there was even persimmon bread that looked so good. So I'm patiently waiting for the sweet little Amish girl to get done talking with her current customers so I can practically pounce on her to give me the cookies so no one gets hurt. But I kept my composure and paced frantically while waiting. So I get my cookies, which she informs me that they're still warm from the oven....are you kidding me? You can't get any better than that baby! So then I ask her for the recipe. Not only does she have the recipe, she has a whole book of Amish recipes. Yep! It included the persimmon bread too! I thought I'd died and went to persimmon heaven. But wait....if you want to make persimmon cookies and persimmon bread, don't you need persimmon pulp? Well, ya kinda do. So I ask if they have persimmon pulp for sale. By golly they did!! Half the price of what I paid for it last year for the same amount! OK, now I've died and gone to Heaven! Trying to refrain from losing all my senses and telling her I'll take all she's got, I just got one baggie of cookies, the recipe book and 2 quart bags of pulp. I really wanted to try the bread too, but I might just make that myself. We could have gone home after that & I would have been happy and felt the trip was complete. LOL! OK, well maybe not. Now I just need a persimmon tree! Hmmm...That could take a while.

So here is what the cookies look like, sorry I was only able to refrain from eating the last 2 before I could let them sit long enough to take a photo. They may not be Pinterest worthy, but they're tastebud worthy and that's all I care about! :^D

Unfortunately, I've been so busy with birthdays, crafts and parties that I have not had time to make any cookies or bread yet. It's probably for the best since there was brownies and there will soon be rainbow cupcakes. Hopefully I can make time to get photos of those posted. It's the "cheating" rainbow cupcakes and not the fancy sliced and layered ones. That idea came from Pinterest. Gotta love that site!

I just got word that I have to go Ft. Wayne on Tues. morning so that I can be involved in my sister's consultation to have plastic surgery for a tummy tuck. My older sister has Down's and at one point (much to my disapproval-but "they" didn't care) she was set out for independent living. Needless to say, she gained 100 pounds in 3 months!! Since then, she has been in 24 hour staff supervision and lost quite a bit of that weight. Unfortunately, she has this awful low hanging girth that never seems to heal. It's gross and painful for her. Her staff manager finally got the Dr. to approve the procedure simply because it was finally mentioned that I was concerned and looking into options. Gee, if we only knew that's all it took. I'm not sure why it was never mentioned before, but things are never quickly to resolve where I'm concerned anyway. So now I get to make the 2 1/2 hour trek to Ft. Wayne that morning so I can finally see what can happen for my sister. It will be painful and she will look so different, but hopefully she won't have to suffer with what she has been dealing with all these years. Ok, this post has been extremely long and I apologize. Thanks for bearing with me.

God Bless and have a great day.

Flea Marketing weekend!

2011-10-14T11:47:00.002-04:00

YAY!!! I am finally going to get to go somewhere this weekend! I have been stressed about spending the money on the trip, but that's all working out OK, so far. The weather is going to be perfect too. Cool and sunny. I still need to pack just a few things yet, but mostly done. Then it's time to run a few errands while the hubby is hooking up the camper to the truck. It's kind of a long way to go for just the weekend, but I'm hoping we'll enjoy ourselves. I try to prepare the best I can, but it never seems to fail that I/we forget something. Usually nothing that's super important, like clothes or toilet paper, but something to make the trip a little bit better, like marshmallows or something, but that's all packed and since we're not planning on spending much time at the camper, most of the meals will be on the go. We only plan to cook brats over the fire on Sat. nite, with a side of chips and cheese and smores for dessert! YUM! Speaking of smores, have you seen the price of a 6 pack of Hershey bars?!?!? Lord, have mercy! We only had one left in the fridge so I wanted to get some more, but the pkg is almost $4 at Walmart. Well, I don't need 6 more candy bars, so I just bought 2 more single ones and called it good enough. I also picked up a dozen fresh bakery donuts for our breakfasts on Sat/Sun so we can get an early start on the days. I haven't had donuts in quite some time. These will be a treat with a cup of coffee. Oooooh yea.

My dishes are done, the laundry is all done & put away, which makes me feel better that I won't have a messy house to come back to with dirty dishes and laundry to get done before Monday. I hate that, but when my daughter was littler, that was pretty common. I'm glad I'm out of that stage.

My son is coming home this weekend because his college has Fall Break at the beginning of next week and his 19th birthday is Monday. He's happy that he doesn't have classes on his birthday! I don't know when he plans on showing up here, but he said it would be before we get back from camping, which makes me feel better that someone will be here at least part of the time that we're gone. Our neighbors do a good job of watching our place and they have our cell numbers handy. Which was good last year when the hubby caught our woods on fire. He left home to come help me tear down from my craft show that I was at that day. He thought he got the leaf fire put out before he left. However, the neighbor seen smoke and came over to see what my hubby was up to and discovered that no one was home. YIKES! It was a good thing that he came over. My husband just got to the craft show when he got the call & flew back home immediately. Good thing too, because the fire wasn't very far from the north corner of our house! He said "Note to self - that this year, he's not burning leaves on the day of my craft shows - at all."

Well, we're going down to southern/central Indiana to the Covered Bridge Festival. It's a county wide festival that's full of markets and flea markets and all kinds of yard sales & garage sales. We stopped at a garage sale at an Amish farm and they had THE BEST Persimmon cookies I have ever had! OMG!! I wished I would have tasted one before we left there, because I would have asked for the recipe and PAID her for it, if I could have. They're made from the wild Persimmons that grown down there and they are delicious! I have looked online for recipes and tried a few, because yes I did, I bought some persimmon pulp at a couple of places before I left. The recipes I made were good, but not like the ones I bought. I hope we can remember where that place was at and that they're having a sale again. My hubby and I have a dispute in which direction this place was at, so maybe we'll see who is right. maybe. I thought it was on the way to Mansfield, but hubby thought it was on the way to SteamCorner. I really don't care which way it was as long as I can get more cookies or better yet, the recipe! Maybe she even has some canned persimmon pulp too! That could be the secret too.... dreaming.....drooling.....OK! Snap out of it!

So with that, I better get this posted so I can wrap things up.

God Bless and have a great weekend!

Faux Grain sack pillow

2011-10-11T13:16:00.003-04:00

I have made a little decorative pillow. Nope, it's not a big deal... if you can sew a straight line in the shape of a square, you're pretty much good to go. But, this pillow is kind of unique in 2 ways. First, after my mother-in-law passed away, my husband and I had the task of going through all her things & deciding what to do with all of it. I came across a small booklet with just a few pillow designs. I'm pretty sure I still have the book, but I just don't know where. I only kept it because there was one pillow design in it that I really liked and that design is pretty popular right now. The second reason I wanted to make this pillow is that I have seen so many awesome looking pillows out in blogland that have been made from old grain sacks, or at least made to look like they were made from one. I mean, let's face it, they're not all that easy to find now and when you do, they're kind of steep to buy one or they're just not in great shape.

So, after I had some fabric left over from making my witches hats, I realized I had enough to make a smaller one of these pillows. YES!! I got my image transferred on the fabric first, then I managed to hit Joanne's when they were having their pillow forms 50% off. I was tempted to buy more than one, but I sure didn't need extras of these laying around if this didn't turn out as ~~hoped~~ planned, so I just got the one. I found some wooden buttons at Walmart that were big & chunky, exactly what I had in mind. So far, so good. This stuff has sat around waiting for me to finally pick it up and just DO something with it. That day was today. After getting a little frustrated with how the snowman hat didn't turn out as good as the witch hats did, I wasn't feeling the love with the ol' sewing machine - if ya know what I mean... (*sigh!*)

I'm not sure just what made me grab the stuff for the pillow, but I did and the design was just kind of coming together in an unconventional manner. I didn't have a pattern, I didn't have instructions I just had a vague idea of how to do it. I mean, it's not rocket science, for crying out loud. It's. just. a. pillow. They've been making them for AGES. So I learned a few things for the next time I might get the urge to make some more of these, and I really should, providing anyone wants this one at my craft show next month. In fact, I have some older pillows that my MIL made that have seen better days. I could just save the foam inside and make my own.

Anyway.

Here is the front side of the pillow. The image came from Graphics Fairy blog. She has tons of vintage images that are free for use. It's awesome!

This is the backside, the design I had wanted to try because of that little booklet my MIL had.

I like this style because it's easy to insert & remove the pillow form if you want to change out the cover. And don't you just love those big chunky wood buttons? I think I want to get some more to have on hand. I also like that you can have it turned with the buttons going from side to side, like I have here, or up and down. I like doing something with the back of the pillow that is just as interesting as the front, in case you want to change your look without buying new pillows. It makes them a bit more versatile.

I don't know if I'll get to post anymore this week or much next week either. We are going camping this weekend and my son is coming home early next week for his fall break from college. It's also his birthday on Monday and my daughter's birthday is the next weekend and she wants a sleep over party. I am going to try to make myself really nuts by attempting to make one of those rainbow cakes. You can call me crazy or stupid (or both) I'm sure I've been called both without knowing it. ;^) I hate working under pressure, but I swear that's when my best creativity comes to me. LOL! I know I'm not alone in that process either. :^D

So that's it from me for now.

I am linking up to Rustic Crafts Shabby shares Sat., Someday Crafts Whatever Goes Wed.

God Bless and have a great day!

Fall is Halloween Time and MORE Witches Hats

2011-10-04T12:55:00.000-04:00

Sorry....I know, I already did a post on the witches hats I made, but I didn't have them done in all the colors nor did I care for how the picture turned out. One of my friends said that maybe the pictures didn't do them justice.... Which to me, that makes it sound like she wasn't impressed with them. So I thought maybe, just maybe, and most likely, the picture didn't do them justice. Perhaps these won't either, but I think they look better than the other shot I took of the 2 together. At least now I have my fall mantel done to help out a little more.

This is the green trimmed one, which looks a little washed out and more yellow looking in this photo.

This is the mustard trimmed one that seems to go really well with my mantel decor and the butter yellow shutters.

Here is the orange trimmed one. This is the first one I made and the brim is a bit smaller than the others because I made that larger after this one.

And here is the purple trimmed one. I was kinda worried about how the color would turn out for the trim around the hat, but I actually nailed it with what I had in my mind. That's not something that happens very often in my world.

Here is my mantel decorated up for the fall season (without the witches hats). I will be adding some Halloween stuff later this week or next. Too many other things in my schedule to be worrying about that right now. We didn't have a mantel in this room when we first moved here. My hubby started making one the first winter he was laid off, but didn't finish it until this last winter when he lost his job. The only thing we had to buy was the trim pieces, so it was basically a $25 mantel. Since my hubby is hoarder like myself, he had all the wood he needed from scrap pieces that were being thrown away at job sites he worked at. Frugal is so good! Now I'm still debating about whether I want add a medallion of some sort to the front or just leave it blank so I can change out vinyl words or sayings. I'm leaning towards the latter, but then again I hate to waste vinyl that I'm going to throw away. I could make custom sized signs to hang there and then switch them out when needed. We'll see.

Well hey! Thanks for stopping by today and I'd love for you to leave me some comments. You don't have to tell me you love me, or my stuff (unless you do love my stuff), just let me know you stopped in! tee hee... ;^)

God Bless and have a great day!

Linking up to Up to the October Halloween party over at While He was Napping blog.

Today's Color is RED!

2011-09-28T11:50:00.000-04:00

I sit here at home on yet another cold, dreary, rainy morning eating a chocolate pop-tart and drinking hot green tea. I didn't plan my post for today to be all about the projects that I've made to be about the color red, it just sorta ended up that way & I can't believe I even thought to run with it for a blog post! LOL! What perfect color though to get myself out of the gray mood the weather has put me in?!

First, a little history on why I made the first project(s). I remember seeing a small picture in one of my Country Sampler magazines that had a cute Christmas vignette in all white with lots of pops of bright RED in it. VERY striking! But, in all there was to look at in this small glimpse was this pair of red and white painted Dutch shoes that was hanging between the fireplace and the mantel. I don't know what it was about them, but they just intrigued me and piqued my interest out of everything in the photo. I think I have always found them interesting, especially as a child when my aunt and uncle brought back a tiny souvenir of them from Holland, MI. In the past few years my family have stopped in at Holland, Michigan a few times, and I was even tempted to buy a decorated shoe then, but couldn't justify the cost of a shoe I couldn't even get a complete pair of, nor wear! LOL!

Then, at some point earlier this year when my hubby was between jobs, we went to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore and there was one shoe in there for $1. I had it in my hands, but put it back. I thought about it overnight & went back the next day to get it, and it was gone! stupid. me. :^( But I waited and was rewarded late this past summer when I stopped at a garage sale that had a pair for $5. They were MIIIIIINE! Now I had to go back and find that picture, which luckily, I started a craft inspiration journal and put the picture in there. For once I was a little organized and knew exactly where to look! PSSSHHH! I gotta tell ya, THAT don't happen too often! So, I guess it was meant to be done!

This is how they turned out. They were originally just the natural wood with yellowed polyurethane coating before. I had to prime them in white to get the bright red look, even though the paint I used had the built in primer from Krylon. Boy, does that stuff smell and for a really long time too! They have finally de-scented at this point, but it's been about a month in doing so. (TIP: if you're interested in the Krylon Dual spray paint, you've been forewarned about the stank!) I cut out the designs in white vinyl with my Cricut. I wanted them to look Christmasy without having a Christmas theme. It makes it easier to sell things if they have a longer display life in someone's home.

My next RED project is simpler and falls into the more rustic look. Over the years, I have bought jar candles with aspirations of making them prettier than just the color of wax filling them. I've done a few, but not enough to reduce the amount of inventory I have. LOL! I seen an idea in the current Christmas Idea magazine I recently purchased and even though I found a few ideas in there, I didn't get the quantity or quality or ideas I was hoping for. I did, however, find the idea for this!

The picture in the magazine had a starfish on it instead, but I have been wanting to find something to do with this cool chair strapping...I just didn't know exactly what. I don't even know why I didn't think of this myself, but I did come up with the idea to stencil the stars on it & I even had the right color of Plaid Folkart Burgundy acrylic paint on hand that matched pretty darn close! I thought it would look cute to have the backside laced up if someone wanted that look or they can turn it around. I'm debating about putting a red 3D chipboard star on the lid for interest. I'm concerned with durability....we'll see.

Since I had red ticking fabric left over from my "believe" box that you can check out here, I decided to make the red ticking fabric version of the stuffed primitive star ornaments that I have made out of plain tea stained muslin.These also have a rusty jingle bell on one side and a button on the other like the others. Sorry I don't have pics of those. These have been tea stained lightly to give it a warm vintage look. I don't know why, but this fabric reminds me of Christmas and it really reminds me of my grandma's house with her red tick feather bed, pillows and her heavy handmade quilts that could have suffocated a cow! I still have the one that she sent home with my mom when I was a child. It's not very pretty at all, but I treasure it & it actually would probably be really trendy looking by today's rustic standards. I had to stay with my grandma on a number of occasions growing up, and my memories of her are quite fond - even though she was a fairly quiet person, she was sweet and kind with a strength that you just knew she had.

And so with that, I believe that is all of my RED posts for today with a couple of past memories tossed in for my own sake. I guess it's time I need to get busy on more stuff so I can try to keep this blog going and have plenty of stuff for my shows. If you're new to my blog, I'd love for you to leave me a comment so I can say Hello back!

God Bless and have a great day! :^D

So busy and so behind

2011-09-27T14:18:00.004-04:00

If I'm a regular to your blog and haven't left a comment lately, I'm sorry. this is my crunch time of the year with getting ready for 2-3 craft shows in about 5-7 weeks. I try to stop in and have a look, but may not be leaving much love. I just don't want to get too far behind in seeing what everyone else is doing.

I have been in the crafting mood lately, as I very well should be this time of year. I'm ~~mostly~~ pleased with my progress and yet I know I should be and could be doing much better. With that being said, I think the quality of my projects have surpassed previous years. And I can't forget that I'm still working on those Witch Hats for the ladies at the bank. Those are mostly done now. I just need to add the embellishments at this point. They should be seeing them just in time for the beginning of Oct. when most people actually start decorating for Halloween.

This is one of the projects that I worked on. I bought this last year at a garage sale. Although you don't see it in these photos, there's a piece that inserts behind where the square openings are. I had already started to work on it when I remembered I hadn't taken any BEFORE shots so that's why it's not there. I thought it was actually quite pretty, ya know, it had good bones, but still in need of a personal make over. Something chic and trendy.

I had to sand this down to the bare wood because the designs were painted on thickly and you could see the design in the paint, plus there was paint missing in some places that were smooth surfaces and you can't just paint over that.

This is what it looks like now. I kept it the same Ivory color for the background, but decided to go with a star theme instead. I made the 3 dimensional stars out of chipboard on my Cricut and painted them black, then adhered them to that piece that was missing in the previous photos. Next, I made the SIMPLIFY design at the top from black vinyl. I can never remember what cartridge that star frame is from, maybe Joys of the Season? Then I cut the word using the Stamped cartridge. This is a good cartridge for a rustic looking font. After all that, I decided it needed something on the front of the compartments, so I made a bunch of tiny little stars to go across that also with my Cricut and all the stars were cut using the George cartridge.

This is a wooden hanging sled that I picked up half price at the Salvation Army last year. I thought it could use a make over also! I was inspired by the musical design and the tree image that was already on it, but I thought I could improve on that, at least a little anyway.

And this is what I came up with. I have this BIG paper pack from DCWV (don't most of us scrappers have some of those in our stash?) and that's what I used for the background to cover the seat of the sled. I tried inking the edges, but not totally thrilled with how that turned out. Oh, I did that AFTER I repainted it with tan paint and distressed it. I sealed it with some spray sealer then attached the gold resin design that I picked up at Hobby Lobby on clearance last year. It just fit! I added some greenery at the top and a rusty metal bow with rusty jingle bells. This piece is almost 2 feet tall, so it's a decent size. This picture makes it look all crooked, but I was standing at angle off to the side so I wouldn't cast a shadow on it.

I still gotta say, I'm trying to get used to this new blogger version and haven't decided if I totally like it or not. Some parts are much better and others are turned kinda screwy to work with....at least for me.

God Bless and have a great day!

I'm linking up to While He Was Napping Blog

Are you ready for some halloween?

2011-09-15T17:51:00.003-04:00

First, I want to say that if my blog is acting or looking a little wonky, it's because I finally brought it into the 2nd decade of the 21st century by converting it over to the new Blogger format. It's taking a little getting use to, so we'll see what transpires.

Today I have something to share that I think turned out pretty cute, IF I do say so myself! ;^) Online somewhere, I've seen a cute witches hat that sits on a table, so it's a bit more lifelike in size. I thought it was adorable! So, I sat down and made myself a pattern (not having a clue if I was doing it right) and cut out my fabric pieces, then I painted them, sewed them, and with my ~~beginner's luck~~ ingenuity & talent, it turned out EXACTLY the way I had hoped! But now I have to decorate it. I already had the cute little dimensional rusty star for the tip of the hat. It needs a band of some sort though. I wanted it to be colored, but not brightly, because I'm more into the muted tones for some reason. So, since money is tight this week (& THAT'S and understatement) I thought I could make my own bands with some leftover material from the hats, and that's what I did! I honestly can't get over how happy I am at the way the colors turned out exactly the way I had them pictured in my tiny little mind. You know how that goes sometimes? You can picture something in your head to make, and in that perfect little world there inside, it looks stunning, but in all reality, it turns out looking NOTHING like the beautiful vision we just knew it would be & it's gets trashed or saved in hopes you can salvage it at a later date for some other perfection project.

So far, I have one with an orange band and a purple band made. I have a yellow band dyed & ready, but I need more paint to finish others. I want to make a green banded one and debating on a natural tea stained one, as well.I also tied a few rounds of twine around the band too for a little added somethin' somethin'. My hope is to make 10 of these, but may only get the six that I currently have pieces cut for. I added some orange pip berries and called them good, but I might add a vintage looking tag, but other than that, 2 are done!

I know these don't fit into my craft shows because the shows aren't until AFTER Halloween, but I'm hoping to sell these to the ladies at my bank, so that I can have some spending money for the two weekend trips we want to take in Oct., which is why I would like to try to sell 10. I take my stuff into the bank and never have any extras and I feel bad that they have to debate over who is going to get to buy it. Sometimes I can only make one, but this is a little different. I just need the motivation, and spending money should be enough motivation, eh?

So, whatdoya think?

Now about a less interesting subject....I think I just might be making some progress with my mother's situation and it does make me feel a little bit better, but I'm thinking there's going to be a legal battle after it's all said and done. I don't look forward to that, but it will have to happen if I want someone to pay for what they've done. And I do.

And what is with this weather? We go from the air conditioning to the furnace in the same week! It was so hot last week and now we're supposed to get frost tonight! I need a break in my electric bill! At least for one month.... :^(

OK, I guess I chatted long enough. Maybe I should post more frequently, but it's so hard to find the time. I don't know how some of these people do it.

God Bless and have a great day!

I have linked to the Chic On A Shoestring Friday Link party!

Beth (I don't know what happened to my custom siggy)

A few things to share today

2011-09-09T11:57:00.019-04:00

First, I wanted to show you that we have our first tree starting to turn color in our woods where we live. I didn't notice it yesterday, so it must have just happened overnight with all the cool temps and drizzle we've been getting from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee. I'm glad it's just remnants and not what those poor people in Pennsylvania and the Virginias got. WOW! Our dogwoods are starting to turn too, but they're just a brownish green at this point, but they can turn a beautiful shade of burgundy with their pretty red berries in the fall season.

I have been working like a person with ADHD lately on projects for my upcoming fall craft shows. No lie! I've been crazy multi-tasking, but cleaning my house hasn't been part of the tasks. ~*SNORT!*~

Remember I was working on a girly Graduation mini album? Yep, still am. I only have the Senior year to go, so why don't I just finish it already? Ummm.... I'll get back to ya on that....

In the meantime, I've decided to work on what ever has inspired me. One of those projects is a star shaped paper mache box that I found at a garage sale at least 3 years ago. I don't even remember what I had in mind when I purchased the thing, but it was different since it was a star shape.

This is the bottom part of the box. I almost forgot to take BEFORE pictures, so that's why it's in two pieces.

This is the lid. It has an unusual stamp image on there because I was testing out a technique that didn't turn out the way I was expecting.

This is how it turned out after I covered it with some red ticking fabric.

And yes, I even did the primitive hand stitching on the little tea stained label that spells "believe." It's not as cute as the "inspiration" example I saw, but I'm still happy with it.

I can't decide if I like it with the lid on or standing up inside the box. But I do think it's kinda cute sitting on top of that rustic wreath!

I made a couple more smaller chalkboards, but I only remembered to take a photo of one. The other one is cute, but simple and meant for a boy. If I remember, I'll get a picture posted of that one soon.

This is the crackle detail on the little paper mache star.

I am plugging away at all those projects in my own ADHD way - some day!

I also want to put a shout there to a new blog I just found called Robyn Story Designs and Boutique. She's going to be announcing a cool and fun new contest for crafters. It's going to be a wealth of inspiration for those who make stuff, or even if you're just looking for inspiration for new ideas. This sounds like it's going to be the place to be! The rules and details haven't been officially announced yet, but you have the opportunity to win a $250 Visa Gift card!! I do know you have to make a Christmas item of your choice using anything you want as long as you use something that is being repurposed. Ummm, I think this contest has MY name all over it, dontcha think? ;^)

God Bless and have a great day!

Blogger Award

2011-09-07T08:44:00.010-04:00

I was going to post some photos of my hubby's tractor that was in the Labor Day Parade on Monday, but Blogger isn't allowing me to post photos at the moment.

So I'll move on the next best thing....

I don't normally accept blog awards because I don't think my blog is any more special or inspiring than the next and I don't have that great of a following, even after 3 years of having a blog. But, my blogging friend, Tracy, over at Tracy's Treasures blog bestowed this award on me and I was feeling in the accepting mood today. LOL! If you haven't wandered over to Tracy's blog from here, you really should! This chick can come up with some amazing stuff! She's getting into the whole Copic marker thing and this girl is workin' it now! I think she has almost every color there is at this point, and she finds the cutest stamps to color!

THANKS Tracy, for the award and you're inspiration!!

It appears that Blogger isn't allowing me to add any images at the moment, so you don't get to see the pretty Butterfly image that goes along with the award. bummer.

Q1) Name your favorite colour?
Teal, at the moment

Q2) Name your favorite song?
I'm Movin On by Rascall Flatts (Country)

Q3) Name your favorite dessert?
Yes, dessert is my favorite! ;^)
Plain cheesecake, home made sugar cookies with choc. chips, pumpkin choc. chip cookies and the list could go on...

Q4) What wizzes you off at the moment?
U.S. Government and the price of gas!

Q5) Your favorite pet?
My dog I had growing up named Lady, another dog I had when my son was little named Sheena and my crazy dog now, name Princess (even though she's obsessed with my son)

Q6) Black or White?
Both.
White is clean & bright
Black is rich & elegant
- at least in design!

Q7) Your biggest fear?
That I won't live long enough to help my kids through life and see them grow.

Q8) Best Feature?
Physical - Eyes

Q9) Everyday attitude?
just do it!

Q10) What is perfection?
God

Q11) Guilty Pleasure?
Eating dessert whenever no one is around and shopping for things I don't need.

Q12) When you're upset you...?
Get pissed at those that upset me

Now to pass this award onto other crafty friends... I'm supposed to pass it on to TEN, but I don't comment on many blogs at all (I'm a stalker mostly). So my list is only going to be a couple.

Charity - Woodgrain Butterflies
Andrea - I'm Living on Scraps!
Vicki - He"Artful" Validation of Vicki

At least go check these ladies out, you'll be in creative overload, but it will be worth it!

Maybe I'll be able to get some photos on here tomorrow.

God Bless and have a great day!

My first table redo

2011-08-31T17:18:00.015-04:00

I thought for sure I had a BEFORE shot of the cute little side table I found at the local Habitat ReStore, but I must not have. I hate when I forget to do that....it happens a lot. Sorry.

Anyway, I discovered after doing just a little research online that the little table is a bit of a collectible. It was only made in the 50's, so it's not really old or highly prized and it's not even one of the prettier designs, but it's still kinda sweet looking. It was a darkened walnut color originally, but I sanded the top down to the bare wood and just loved the wood grain design.

Here is the finished product. I decided to leave the top natural and do a distressed chalk paint finish for the rest. I have been seeing this all over so many blogs lately and love the look. The hubby doesn't care as much for the distressed part, but loves the top! The top has a French postage stamp design on it. I got the idea from . . . . Drats! I don't know what blog I found this inspiration at, but she did hers as a coffee table and she used a projector to hand draw her image onto her table and then she painted it. Ummmm....not this chick! Instead, I found a super easy technique that hits the 2 most important categories for me 1) EASY & 2) CHEAP! You use wax paper to print your design (reverse your image) on the waxy side of wax paper that has had the paper side adhered to a regular piece of paper before running through your printer. You then place the "wet" image onto your project and viola! You have this!

A couple of views of the cool postage stamp image I transferred onto the top. I would have liked for it to be bigger, but I still love it!!

Kinda the side view. Boy do my photog skills need some help!

I just love the grooves along the sides.

Some of the corner detail.

This table is going to my craft show in Nov. if it doesn't sell before then.

I hope to have another post for you again tomorrow with another project that uses this same technique, but it's a smaller home decor item made from a wooden handled box that I picked up at the Goodwill store. Again, I think I forgot to take a before picture, but I'll have to check.

God Bless and have a great day!

I am linking this post to Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Friday.

The Parade Sign for our tractor

2011-08-30T09:49:00.005-04:00

With the Labor Day weekend just about upon us, sending the subtle reminder that summer is soon on it's way out, there is a local festival here in my small town of Plymouth, Indiana USA. It's called the Marshall County Blueberry Festival & it has been a huge deal around here for 45 years. Every year on Labor Day, just after the Blueberry Stomp runners and walkers hit the road in search of the finish line, the Blueberry Parade starts its route through the downtown.

After a few reminiscing stories that my husband told our 7 year old daughter about his 3 times of being in the parade in his younger days, he promised her that he would get his 1949 International Harvester Farmall Tractor running and repainted so that she could experience being in the parade as well. It's been a daunting task for him trying to get all that accomplished with some trying set backs, and much of his regular duties have been pushed to wayside just trying to get it all done just right, but on a small budget, but he's pretty much got 'er dun! Unfortunately, they're calling for chances of rain and cooler temps, so we'll see how this all pans out in the end.

Hubby asked me if I could make the signs needed for both sides of the tractor. Well, you don't have to ask me twice to go into my craft ~~pile~~ room and use my Cricut bug! It made it even easier to make the perfect design using my laptop with the Design Studio program! Yes!

Now my husband being a guy and all, didn't want any extra stuff on the sign. I wanted to add some Texas stars on either side of the date, but he said to leave it alone, so I did. I did sneak in a couple little flourishes on the word "Owners." tee hee!

However, I will confess that I made a previous sign and I didn't do so good on that one. It turned out decent, but I forgot the special method for adhering the vinyl and it had static cling and ended up sticking to the sign before I was ready. I was able to salvage most of it, but I screwed up on the outside border at the bottom. Tried to fix it with no luck, but as it turned out, I had to completely redo the sign anyway because I didn't realize how he was hanging the sign and I did it upside down. I guess that gave me a clean start to make it as close to perfect as I can get it anyway. Since I didn't have enough vinyl to do the 2nd sign anyway, I ordered enough to do another and one more extra piece...just in case. you know. I screw it up again. I have a tendency to have to do everything twice, for what ever reason. (rolling eyes)

And nothing to do with the sign, but with the Cricut Design Studio. I knew that when I would finally be able to use the Design Studio program that I paid for, it wouldn't be long before they'd open up the online FREE version to EVERYONE. Sure enough. I was able to get on it today & use it. I've only been using my paid-for version for 2 weeks. I guess that's OK because I bought mine over a year ago when it was on clearance and as unpredictable as Provocraft is, who knows if their system will get overloaded from all the users and crash.

Oh! I did finally finish a small end table that I found at the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore earlier this year. I'll have to do another post on that. I thought I took a before shot of the table, but I can't seem to find it.

College Move-In day for my son

2011-08-26T07:50:00.020-04:00

So, the day finally came that my first born went off to college on Wednesday. Since he is a Freshman, he moved in one day earlier than the upper classmen.

You had 20 minutes to get your vehicle(s) unloaded and moved out of the parking lot. But, they had teams of volunteers from the different athletic depts. to help you move. Thank goodness because it was just me and Jordan there and both of our vehicles filled.

This is the athletic dome, aka, "The Bubble" as it's called on campus. It was just finished this summer and is very cool! We got an private tour from my son's room mate's cousin. She is the Ladies Assistant Basket Coach, so she gave as the run down and such on this. As it turns out (for reason unknown to myself and I forgot to ask) this will be the practice field for the NFC Champions that will be in the 2012 Super Bowl!! Pretty cool, huh? The bad part is that the field and surrounding areas will be in total lock down while the team is there, including the building with the cafeteria. So, the students will have to find food elsewhere during those 3 weeks prior to the game. My son is hoping to get a glimpse of something, since his dorm is directly across the street from the Bubble.

Here is my son (on the right) with his first year room mate, CJ. They seem to be hitting it off really well and I met his parents, and even though they must be divorced, seem like wonderful people.

IN this picture, Jordan is texting as he's sitting with CJ's father and grandfather as we're all waiting for CJ and his mother to get back from getting his schedule.

In this picture, Jordan and I look a little rough, since we just walked back from the Bubble in the 97 degree heat and then walked up & down the FIVE flights of stairs to his room to drop off his books. Needless to say, we were hot and sweaty and a bit tired of the MANY trips up and down those stairs that day. There is an elevator, but it's really slow...when it's working, that is. I sure hope I got at least a little benefit from all that exercise! ;^)

We have been told that there's a condition with first year college students called the Freshman 15. That's where the Freshmen gain 15 pounds in their first year of school. LOL! If my son has to keep going up and down those stairs, that may not be a problem, but he's a big boy to begin with as you can see. My boy has a Monster gut instead of a beer gut (so far anyway).

His room is in a good/bad location. It's directly across from the elevator and the showers. It's good because he's so close to both, but bad because they'll hear all the traffic that comes from those two spots. I liked his dorm room better than the ones we seen on the tour back in June at the other dorm. Since it's probably a slightly newer building than the one we toured, it was more updated in appearance.

I called him on Sunday to see how things were going so far. Classes don't start until today, so he's had some time to meet new people. He had been playing ping pong when I called. Funny, I never pictured my son being very interested in ping pong before.... but then again, he's never been interested in dancing either, but they lured all the kids to the bubble for a dance and since everyone was expected to dance, he did. I don't know if he danced alone or with someone, but I'm just impressed that he stayed and did it. LOL!!

God Bless and have a great day!

A quick project

2011-08-19T21:50:00.004-04:00

Since I have been able to get a laptop (FINALLY!) I have been able to install my Cricut Design Studio program (FINALLY TOO!) After all the hocus pocus to get the program up and functioning properly for actual use, I decided to give letter welding a try. That's probably one of the easiest functions in the program. I tell ya, I can't wait to start making my own image designs on that when I get some free time, which at this point won't be until after the holidays - seriously. I am pretty much into full craft show production mode right now. So, I made this little decorative sign for the show. I got my inspiration for this picture from an older Country Sampler magazine that I've saved for at least a year now. The picture I clipped out was pretty small, but it showed the design with white letters and no burlap background. To be honest with you, I really love how mine turned out - actually even better than the inspiration. Hmmm....I should have taken a picture of the inspiration image. I'm seriously not great at blogging and I know I could not make a living at it.

This is just a regular 5x7 picture frame that I found at a garage sale. Oddly enough, it had another picture frame inside this frame. That frame was one of those cheapo metal frames like from the 70's and 80's. I don't know if that was how it was meant to be or if they modified it themselves to give it a little brass accent to the inside of the frame opening or what. I popped that sucker out, gave the metal piece to the hubs and told him to add to his scrap metal collection and I saved the glass. Then I just sanded the wood a little for that trendy distressed look. I'm almost tempted to keep it for myself!

It's pretty bad that even though I just made this, I can't recall which cartridge I used for the font, but I think it was Botanicals and the star cut is from the George cartridge. The word is cut from black vinyl and it's on the inside of the glass so you can still clean the outside without worrying about the vinyl peeling off.

So, that's my project for this week and I'm linking it up over at Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Night Special this week for the Farm/Western Things category. If the burlap doesn't fit in the FARM category, then what does? ;^)

Went and took the son shopping for clothes and the rest of what he needs for college next week. So exciting and a little sad to know he's going so soon. He's a very good kid and a little short on the common sense end of life and quite a bit naive...and no, I'm not being naive about what his knowledge of things. He's not used to a big city like Indianapolis, so I worry about his safety. His room mate is from Indy, but gives my son the impression that he's been quite protected even more than my kid. I hope they end up being good friends and look out for each other.

That's it for now, God Bless and have a great day!

A Chalkboard Project

2011-08-11T21:30:00.014-04:00

I have been finding all kinds of awesome looking chalkboards out there in blog land that are being made out of old mirrors, frames & just pieces of wood! If you check out Donna's Funky Junk Interior blog, there's lots of great inspiration there to see! They are just so cool. I did redo one for my hubby on his Coca-Cola board, because the existing chalkboard surface was worn smooth, but that's not on here today.

So, in my garage saling searches for goodies to put in my fall craft shows, I came across a picture (sorry, I am so bad at before pics because I get overzealous to start on my projects when the inspiration strikes!) that I thought it would make an awesome sized chalkboard! But let me tell you, this design was a royal pain in the @$$ to get done and there was more than one attempt at just about every aspect of the project. I'm pretty pleased with the end result, even though the lighter color is not exactly what I wanted, it's what I had to resort to......long story, I won't bore you with the details of that. It's actually a cream color frame & corner design with a chocolate brown chalkboard. I would like to paint a line along each side between the decorative corner designs, but I'm afraid it would just emphasize that the corners are not exactly placed. Who knows? Maybe I'll change my mind and do it after all.

Is this not a good sized chalkboard? It would look so impressive on a door.

And I thought it looked pretty durn good on our mantel too! I think I could get into making lots of chalkboards and I like how they look with the designs too, but it's not my favorite part of working on them. This was my first one to try the stenciling on, so I learned lots of things, so maybe others will follow and be better to make.

Now about some non-crafty stuff: I'm dealing with some major stuff with my mom right now, some of the chaos she created, but some of it involves dealing with protecting her against someone who is apparently taking advantage of her & the situation, so I'm working on getting Power of Attorney over her, but the damage may be done. In that, case legal recourse will be MY next action, if I even if I don't have a leg to stand on. In speaking with others that understand the responsibilities of people in this person's position, there is STRONG cause for serious concern, so I'm not just being overly protective.

I'm kind of frustrated that my mom wouldn't give me POA years ago when I tried to get it. I don't know if she realizes what has happened and even though I haven't spoke with my mom in 2 1/2 years, I still don't want someone taking advantage of her either. It's not their right.

I've been dealing with a lot of frustration in crafting as well as my personal life. I hope it all has a happy ending for my mom and myself.

I am linking this project up on Funky Junk Interior's blog for the Saturday Night Special (SNS) for FJI Inspired projects.

God Bless and have a great day!

Finally got some goodies!! - long post

2011-08-08T12:39:00.007-04:00

So Sat. was my 46th birthday. I decided that we should make a day trip to Indianapolis to help my son get more accustomed to the drive and the area. He's a real country bum'kin when it comes to driving. He's not one to venture very far from his comfort zone. He was NOT happy with me when I informed him at the last minute on Sat. Morning that HE was doing the driving. Oh yea....he tried all kinds of things to make us change our minds. Sorry dude, ain't gonna happen. For one, I know that he didn't want us to know his driving habits. He hadn't had much training with an adult before he got his license. Just with me. He used to do better then. Would you believe we almost had a collision with a police officer's vehicle along the highway before we ever left town???!!! Yes. would have made my most memorable birthday EVER if that would have happened. Don'tcha think? Thank the Lord above that it didn't. He did OK most of the trip, but breaking and acceleration left much to be desired. cough cough e'hem. We had some issues with directions & that would be my fault. I forgot to google directions before we left, so I was going by the blown up image of the city on the atlas. Not good. It didn't help that they were doing restoration on the Market Square Tower in the very center of downtown, so there was a detour around it & that threw me a curve. It wasn't as simple as it sounds, really. Between the one way streets and the street events going on, it was confusing. I didn't really have any trouble getting us back on the street I thought we needed to be on, but that proved to be a misjudgement. We should have got on a different street than the one we came into town on. I just love city driving too. However, we were able to get to the college in a round about way with no issues. It just didn't help my son get to know a reliable route to get there. He could take the interstate around the city, but 8 lanes of high speed traffic would totally freak him out. I let Alan take over at that point because I wanted to go to Archiver's scrapbook store. I haven't been there in a few years. YAY!!! Birthday's are good!

I seen so much cute stuff & wanted SOOO much of it, but I knew I had to be pretty good - birthday or not. Brooke came in with me to do her shopping. ;^) I'm not sure what happened, but somewhere along the line, she lost a $5 bill in the store. I counted her $$ in her wallet in the sticker section. I saw all of it & counted it. She did not get into her purse and I didn't take the money out of her wallet when I counted it. One was not folded in half either. We didn't take much longer after that until we were ready to check out. Just not really sure how only 1 of the 3 $5 came up missing. Anywho... This is what I managed to get my sticky fingers on!

Sorry the photo is so bright on the upper left side, but if you can tell over there, the 3 pieces of cream/yellow/black floral papers are just a small sampling the new Authentique brand of paper in the "Blissful" line. Let me tell you, this is some excellent quality card stock! I wanted it all, but figured 3 pieces would be a fair start. It's not like I need another sheet of any paper ever again, but I've been on a dry run on new stuff for over a year now. I picked up some of the cute pink and black discontinued Heidi Swapp paper to try to finish up that graduation mini album I'm still working on. I'm getting low on papers to finish it. This paper has a little flap of cute little tags attached too. Nice.

Then, I got some simple papers from Graphic 45. I could have easily gone overboard on this stuff too (surprise) but only got what I could think of using up on specific projects right now. I picked up a few sheets of October Afternoon's Near Mint collection - again limiting myself to only 3 sheets - oh! the agony!!! I got 2 pieces of Bo Bunny Timepiece collection because I seen a page that I want to lift and they used this paper (front & back). Then, I got a couple pieces of Basic Grey striped paper that is also discontinued from the Curio line. It has that vintage Christmas feel to me and I had to have it. I did learn one thing at Archiver's . . . . discontinued doesn't necessarily mean discounted. Humph! Glad I only 4 sheets.

Then, the good stuff doesn't stop at paper, oh goodness no! I got me some of those really cool kraft glassine pockets from Tim Holtz. I wanted to buy one of everything in his section along with the stuff in the 7 Gypsies next to it! I only got one of his things and no 7G's. I did manage to pick up a little pkg of Making Memories garment pins though - stinkin cute! I drooled over all the pretty different flowers but picked out the mixed pkg of paper & crochet flowers by Prima and those too darn cute tiny daisies!! I peeing my pants when I seen them online when they were released. Of course, I had to pick up a bottle of Glimmer Mist in Copper. I hope I like it because it looks pretty orange to me, but not a color I have. Last, but not least was those cute pkgs of colored twine! I have been drooling for those for quite a long time now. They had more colors, but I limited myself to 4. I was kind of wanting a more baby blue one too, but they were probably out of that one. Maybe I can use the coupon when we go back down there for Jordan's college move in day on the 24th? ;^)

But, as exciting as it was for me to be able to go to Archivers, the real exciting present was my shiny new LAPTOP!!!! Finally! It was a better one than I had picked out at Christmas & now it was $50 cheaper, plus I had a $5 off birthday coupon from Best Buy! That baby was MINE!! My sweet hubby made sure we hunted hi & lo until we found a store in Indy that had one. I like that it's a shiny silver one that I can try to decorate up with vinyl using my Cricut and I can finally load the Cricut Design Studio and be a little more creative with my machine! Of course, those of you that may have been waiting for ProvoCraft to make the official release of their FREE online Design Studio, that will probably happen now that I can finally use my purchased version. LOL!

Well, I've had a chaotic day today and I think I've written a long enough post today & yet nothing inspirational for you all to see. I just don't want my blog sitting idle for too long. I lose what few readers I get when I do that. LOL!! I promise that there will be some scrappy stuff to show in the somewhat near future, just hang in there with me - K?

God Bless and have a great day!

No new inspiration to share - sorry!

2011-08-05T16:01:00.004-04:00

But I have a somewhat interesting story to share, at least I find it interesting to ME! You see, I was working on a chalkboard and wanted to dress it up a bit with some stenciled designs. Needless to say in my previous post, it didn't work out. So I sanded down the bad painted stencil job and I needed to mix more paint to cover the sanding (got a little carried away with the sanding too - go figure) but I wanted something to mix my paint with beside trying to do it by hand again. I seen on another blog that this lady used one of those immersible hand blenders. PERFECT! Only...I don't have one. :( So I did some looking online to see how much one of those would cost me at Wally World. It looked like $20 was the cheapest one and that was fine enough for paint! I hated to think about spending that kind of money on a blender, for all things - paint. So Brooke and I head out to fight the awful road construction that is going on right in front of Walmart this summer.

Up the road we discover that there is a garage sale. I only have a couple of bucks on me, but we stop and look anyway. What. do. I. discover? Yes. An immersible hand blender exactly like what I was heading to get at that moment!! Just like it was MEANT to be! But, ummm...it has no price on it. I ask the lady how much it is and she starts out asking me how much I thought it was worth, then she questions me if $5 is ok. I ask if $3 would work & she says sure! Of course, my little Brookie spies a silver satin clutch she feels she needs for $1. Oh, but wait. I only have $2 on me. The lady said she'd hold them for me until I came back with the $$. And so, after a trip to the bank and a few other garage sales later ;^), we return to pay the lady. And she asked me how much we agreed to and she says "$2?" as she's holding up the blender. And I was being honest and said no, it was $3. So she only charged me $2 for the blender AND $1 for the purse! :O) OK, at this point, I'm done talking and letting her charge me whatever discount she feels is necessary. LOL!! If I would have known that she was asking me $2 for BOTH items, I might have just went with it and it would have been an even better deal! It works beautifully as far as I can tell. My only concern now is that once my husband sees it, he may want it instead of the cup style blender he has for making his fluffy eggs for omelets. What to do, what to do.... ;^)

I made some stuffed primitive shaped stars yesterday for my craft show. I only got 5 done because I was just using up a scrap piece of fabric I had left over from a chair I'm recovering. I don't think I'll be getting anything crafty posted between now and Sat. since the 6th is my birthday and we're planning a trip down to Indianapolis, partly so my son Jordan can test the waters for making the drive back and forth to college there & Alan can see where the college is. He didn't get to make the trip down for the orientation. Jordan is a small town kid and not used to driving in bigger towns, let alone a big city like Indy. This will be interesting, for sure. *sigh*...

I'm hoping to hit one of the Archiver's while we're down there. Haven't been to one of those in a couple of years. I'd like to find another scrapbooking store down there too. Surely Indy has more than just Archivers for scrappy needs!

Well, I have some picture frames I need to go work on and a chalkboard that needs attention - again. Enjoy your weekend!

God Bless and have a great day!

In the words of Charlie Sheen....

2011-08-02T08:04:00.007-04:00

WINNER!!

Okay, so I'm not that good about updating my sidebar of my blog and it's just filled with lots of outdated info & I haven't updated it with blogs that I check out just about every day that I can. Some are scrapbook sites and some are repurposing junk sites, but there is one site that I get some amazing junk repurposing inspiration from and that's Donna William's Blog called Funky Junk Interiors. Some day I'll get around to updating my side bar.

Now, about that whole Charlie Sheen - "winner" thing . . . . . over at FJI, Donna was having one of a couple FOLK magazine subscription give aways. As it turns out, my comment post was selected by the Random number picker thingy for the first chance! ;^) It must have known my birthday was coming up this weekend and finally wanted to do something nice for my the occasion. {*snicker!*}

Donna is an amazing sign artist and puts those talents to good use, but she really shines when she starts digging through old wooden pallets & working with found junk. It's no wonder magazines are calling her up wanting her to write articles for them. Take for instance, a new up & coming magazine called FOLK. They're brand spanking new & their first edition will be out on Sept. 1. Donna was asked to be a contributor with her article called Junk Fix. She was and still is having a give away on her blog for a FREE (yes, you read that right - FREE!) 1, ONE, UNO, SINGLE whole year's subscription to this magazine!! Just check out THIS post to see how to enter.

FOLK - "We are a magazine that debuts Fall 2011. We are all about the country, sweet tea, indie music, antiques, roadtrips, small towns, comfortable homes, artists, locally grown and locally made, one-of-a-kind art, open spaces, photography, and the little things."

I know I'm excited for the first issue! It looks to be a down home kinda read!

On to other stuff . . . . Worked on a painting project yesterday and totally ruined it. It would have looked awesome too, but I was trying to do a stencil project and cut contact vinyl with my cricut and even though I was trying to be careful & use light coats, the paint still lifted the edges of the vinyl & bled - BAD! It looks like I'm sanding it down trying something else. I didn't want to have to use regular vinyl because of the cost, but when I try it the next time, I'm only doing one image instead of all of them. That way, if it doesn't work, I'm not fixing the whole thing again. The bad part about this happening is that is sort of takes the wind out of my sails and I get discouraged and don't want to do it anymore. This was a craft show project, and I have purchased other pieces to make as well, and when takes so much effort & then it doesn't turn out on the first one, the other stuff just ends up sitting around and all I can think about is how hard it was to make the first one & I'm not motivated to try it anymore.

CRAP!! OK, so I had additional stuff that I originally had on here (& saved!), but Blogger just eliminated it & it's your lucky day that I'm too lazy to try to remember what it all was & where corrections were made above. I've heard other blogger's complaints about having issues with Blogger eliminating posts and such, but I don't blog every day, so I never had those problems, until now!

And so with that, God Bless and have a great day!

Organizing

2011-07-29T08:43:00.010-04:00

Last weekend, I noticed a moving sale up the road from us, but I was trying to be good and not stop for fear of the temptation that I knew would be there - besides, I only had a dollar and a load of frozen food in the back of the van + it was over 90 degrees outside. Nuff said.

So, you can probably imagine my surprise when Alan gets home and asks if I've been to the sale up the road. I say No & he's shocked, so I pleaded my case - I mean, I was trying to be good with my spending! He decided he was going, so Brooke & I tagged along. Sure enough, as soon as we pull in I see a mirror and a birdcage I HAD to have! In the end, I'm the only one that came home with anything & he left empty handed & $5 less in his wallet. I also discovered a unique looking plastic mail organizer and thought it looked cool enough the way it was, but I knew it would blend in too much where I wanted it to go.

Here it is in the condition that I bought it. It's molded plastic that's designed to look like carved wood. Unique looking, right? At least I thought it was. I saw that it had even more potential though. Sorry about the 2nd photo, I didn't check to see if it turned out clear and it "clearly" was not, but you get the idea.

Here is what it looks like now with a bit of creamy white paint & then a coat of gel stain that I rubbed off before it was dry. Gives it that vintage look, don't ya think? It looks very nice up against the section of brickwork & the dark kitchen counter I have. I just kinda wish it had some tiny drawers to keep stamps & the small plastic letter openers in, but it's much better than how it was before, which was nothing more than a pile of envelopes & other junk!

I'm still plugging away on the girly graduation mini album. I've had some delays because I've had to come up with ideas to fix what I screwed up. I don't think I can ever do a project that I haven't screwed up something. My goal was to have it done this weekend, but not sure on that. At least it's a surprise, so I don't have a set deadline to get it done, but I have lots of other projects that I need to start working on, so I need to get this one done and out of the way.

So, very early this morning, I hear it raining ... hard. By the time I get up, the yard that always floods when it rains really hard is flooded. I later look out at the pool to see it's overflow device dumping water like crazy & the cute little dolphin chlorinator is floating right at the top of the pool railing! Then, Alan goes & checks to see how much rain we got just this morning it the rain gauge measured 3 1/2 INCHES!! I noticed that my Hibiscus finally bloomed today, but you can't see the flowers because the plants were all beaten to the ground. :^( I hope they snap back when the sun comes out later today & this weekend.

Well, I gotta go get the hubby's paycheck & take it to the bank, so I'm off for a bit of running.

God Bless and Have a Great Day!!

One craft show item I'm willing to share

2011-07-20T19:56:00.022-04:00

This is my version of a picture I purchased at a flea market many years ago. I sold that picture at one of my craft shows that year. I'll tell ya, first of all, I wish I would have taken a picture of it so I could recall what it looked like exactly & secondly, I wish I would have made a dozen of them that year because I could have sold each one.

Sorry that I didn't take a Before shot of this. The base of the picture is actually an old, faded to blue cardboard picture of a farm field scene that I found at a flea market. Initially, I had other intentions for this old picture, but then I remembered that I had bought everything to make the snowman picture way back when & this picture was the perfect size to make it!! It's made all from felt & I cut everything & stitched the snowman by hand. How cute are those rusty snowflakes? Everything was going "close enough to perfect", until it came time to put the felt on the board. Being totally oblivious of where my fingers were during the gluing process, I managed to get a good sized glob of glue on one of my fingers & of course, managed to get it on the front just below the top right large snowflake. If I would have just thought it through before trying to take a pair of scissors to cut the glue off, I could have just dissolved the permanent fabric glue with some nail polish remover. Now I have this small defect on the picture. I tried to camouflage it by rubbing the felt in other different spots, but it just makes them look like grease spots, which there is not. LOL! The splotch is not really the only defect, but the other one isn't that bad, but when I was ironing the nose on, the iron smeared a little of the orange paint onto his face. I did take a little bleach and water to help remove that, but there's still a tinge of orange left. I guess I'm selling this one at a discounted price because even though it's handmade with imperfection, these are not the imperfections that I can live with.

Now I'll be changing gears from being crafty to outdoorsy by sharing some of my flowers/gardens that are blooming right now. I've thrown in a cute little critter pic at the end to hopefully brighten your day and bring a little smile to your face, in spite of the squelching heat.

I love African Daisies and this is one of my favorite colors. I planted the seeds in my garden a couple of years ago & they have just reseeded themselves every year since. I haven't seen any of the orange ones yet, but there is a gold one that is blooming now too. Not so much my favorite. Goldish yellow flowers are not really my favorite, but they do brighten up where ever they are.

Aren't these blue Bachelor Buttons gorgeous?!!! I direct sowed them from seed and they're just now starting to come into bloom. They sure are pretty, but not enough of them are blooming to give me the impact I'm looking for right now. They're not too picky, considering we have such barren dry sand for "soil" here. They do get really weepy looking in the heat of the mid-day sun, but they do OK in spite of it.

Even though this photo isn't of the peach daylilies and Hosta in full bloom, it's a little past that, but I still love the look, even though the dry, humid weather has taken it's toll on the daylilies, the flowers are still going.

Check out this pretty butterfly that was feeding from my Bee Balm patch today. You can't tell it in the photo, but it was HUGE!! Sorry about the picture quality....by the time I ran back to the house & ran back out to the flowers, it was such a temperature change with high humidity that my camera lens was trying to fog over. I actually think it makes for a cool looking photo.

This is my patch of Bee Balm this year that grows along the back & side of one of the garden sheds. I need to get the seeds moved closer to the side of the shed instead letting them take over more of the backside. DH is complaining that he has nowhere to hide is scrap metal junk without trashing my flowers. OK, nuf said.

One of the things about living where we live is there is a ton of different creatures to be found everyday. Some years we are literally over run with frogs and toads. You'd walk through the yard and there'd be a literal wave of frogs hopping ahead of you!! Oddly, with all the rain we had this spring, this year wasn't really one of them but we still have tons of them. Check out this cute little tree frog shading himself from the late afternoon sun in one of my daylilies. You will find them tucked into the flowers all the time! Isn't he so cute tucked in there? ;^)

I know, I don't post for a week at a time & then this week it's twice & I've gone into pic overload! tee hee!

God Bless and have a great day!

I am linked up to A Little Knick Knack Blog's Everything but the Kitchen Sink link party.

I do have some things to share today

2011-07-18T14:59:00.016-04:00

I have been busy working on several craft projects that are mainly for my craft show later in the fall. I would love to show all these things off, but I run into the problem of people who must be locals here that copy my stuff (exactly like mine, thank you very much) & put them in their own booths at the same show. I realize that the internet is vast ocean of ideas for the taking & I am no different of being lured in for inspiration, hook, line & sinker! I do copy other ideas I've seen online, but I do at least try to put my own twist on those ideas. But there are some ideas that I have completely come up with all on my own & I believe them to be pretty good ideas. The last thing I need is competition for sales on my own idea! Been there. Done that. It sucks. Once, I posted something I created out of vinyl on the old Cricut message board & it had a lot of positive remarks. I showed up at my first craft show after that & there is a booth with the same exact thing I made! I'm sure you can imagine me keeping my jaw from hitting the floor as I'm walking by this booth with MY project! So, note to self & others that do craft shows with their own original ideas.....don't post them online unless you want them copied, even in your own po-dunk town craft show. I can't stop the copiers that walk through the shows just to steal ideas, which includes other vendors as well as the shoppers. I do pretty good in sales for such small venues, but I don't like fighting for sales of my own idea. The bright spot of the one situation was that I sold my project and the other person didn't.

OK, enough of my complaining about craft show idea robbers. I have a simple little project that I made as a gift for someone that I thought was a friend, but who turned out to just be the social snob I originally thought she was. She was very nice to me for the week that we worked together on Teacher Appreciation projects & we even exchanged some personal family history with each other that we had in common. She seemed so grateful for my help that she offered to take me out to breakfast the next week. I told her she didn't need to that, that I enjoyed doing the projects & having someone else to talk craft talk with that liked it as much as I did. She still insisted she would take me to breakfast. So, I thought I would make a little something to say thank you for her gesture. I still have it because that was May & now it's 2+ months later & not a peep from her. She only lives a block away from me, so I'm not sure why the snob job from her, but I guess she'll be totally on her own next year with all 65 projects! It's not a huge deal of a gift, I just put her initial on it in case she wanted to use it for something else - but then again probably not.

Then I took a Dollar Tree mirror and transformed it from this....

....to this. Lots of Cricut cuts and I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't know how I could craft again without that machine...or at least a cutting machine of some sort.

I have another project that I want to post, but maybe I'll save that for tomorrow's post. Not a big deal, but I still think it's neat.

So that's all for today

God Bless and have a great day ~ keep cool!!