Sewing, that's some of what's going on around here.

I walked into a great deal....   A good friend called me to meet her at her storage unit because she had more fabric and goodies to get rid of.  Boy, did she.  Fabric, soldering stuff, and more fabric!  As she was packing up her vehicle she mentioned how this person cancelled meeting about buying her sewing machine.  I asked what kind she had...well it was a Bernina quilt edition.  I have been considering a Bernina the past several years and then I would talk myself out of it... don't sew that much anymore, rather buy a new this or that, etc.  She's like go ahead take it home and test it out.  Well, she had me!  I read the manual that night and was sold.  It's an amazing machine.  I have a machine that is old old, it's basic and some of the stitches don't work, but like I said I haven't sewn sewn in years.  I got some fabric and made a baby blanket.  I was hooked...the machine is mine and she was so happy to have sold it so quickly.  As you can see it's right at home in my studio!

Like I said before my friend also gave me fabric.  In the pile was some red flannel and I had already made a flannel baby blanket, simple simple design to make.  I was out doing my regular shopping and came across some red design flannel for $.86 per yard!!!  I bought the bolt, about 8 1/2 yards.  I was able to get 8 baby blankets cut.  Here's the pile of fabric all cut and ready to pin together.

Isn't she lovely?

Lots of sewing but this machine is so smooth and fun to use.  I'm telling ya, it's giving me the sewing bug, I mean I'm sewing crazy crazy....I'm looking at patterns and planning projects.  Wait...I have jewelry on the other side of the studio waiting for me, I have a wedding invitation order sitting on my printer, I have senior photos to sort, and oh did I tell ya I'm taking an art e-course!

Monday thoughts...posted on Tuesday late night.

My recent thoughts about planning/organizing time.   Well not really organized, I'm pretty organized with my projects and most of my things have a place.  I think what I'm doing is fine tuning things.  As I write this I can't even find the words to explain what I'm doing, ha ha.  Since I've retired I don't have a schedule like I did when I was working.  I find I can do whatever I need to do or want to do any day of the week.  This is almost too flexible, yet, I'm not willing to commit to anything in particular.  So, what I'm doing is setting space in my time to work on photos, to write, to research, to work on inspiration board, project time/deadlines, etc.  Right now it seems like I'm all over the place.  So I'm working on a planner where Mondays will be take care of business day, Tuesday will be all about photos, Wednesdays can be in the studio only days, Thursday can be blog article writing day, Friday will be free day to do what needs to be done.   Now, doesn't all this sound so easy to master..... well not on "jobi time" .  Because I'm so flexible = change my mind of what I want to do on a Monday!  So then that falls into that lack of commitment thing I got going on....see my problem?  With a job, job I was committed to getting my job, job done.  Here in my world it's not like that.  Plus I also now have this other part of my daily routine called "housework".... a bad word in my vocabulary.  Oh yeah, add the great weather we have going on around here...who wants to be inside???  Then there's friends to visit with and places to go.   What's the point to a having a day planner if I'm not gonna follow it? 

This would probably explain why my blog has been neglected.  It's not for the lack of things going on around here.  Have been doing lots of fun projects one after another and I have photos to prove it...but then when am I schedule to deal with photos?   Tuesdays, oh dang didn't get to it today, now it's Wednesday, which means I need to be in the studio.  Actually, I need to get to shut down the laptop and go to bed.... Thanks for listening....

Funny when that happens.....

The other day I was not feeling so so so, you know when you can't find anything to wear because nothing fits right, when your makeup looks like war paint, you smudge your nail polish because you're in a hurry, can't find your keys & eyeglasses and they're in you other hand & on top of your head, and you have no gas in Miss MINI Lula.  You take a deep breathe and head to the gas station.  Of course gas station was busy and I finally find an open pump.  I decided it was best to pay attention getting my gas, didn't want to make my day more complicated.  Back in Miss Lula and I check my mirror to make sure the gas nozzle is not in my car.  At this point a man at the opposite pump asks me if I'm enjoying the beautiful day...btw it was sunny and 70 degrees out.  I said yeah I guess it was a nice day out.  He continued to ask me a variety of questions and at the end of the conversation he said something about me looking great and I look like a woman who knows that.  I drove away but really wanted to go back and let him know how much his words meant to me at that moment.  All the doubt I had of myself that morning disappeared.  Just so weird how this happened so randomly, but then again, in my world random is never really random.

Taking an E-course!

The name of the class is "Studying Under The Masters, (becoming an apprentice)".  The class is offered by Jeanne Oliver.  I was intrigue by it since one of my favorite artist, Stephanie Lee was part of the class.  It's a nine week class with a different artist each week.  The artists choose a master artist to study under.  I really wasn't sure what that meant.  It's been the first week and I love it.  I've never taken an art class thus I know nothing about art in the since of theory or the history of art.  What Jeanne says in her introduction to the class was exactly what I needed to hear.  It's about becoming an apprentice, practicing, copying, learning and finally, finding my own way in my art.  I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!!  I love feeding my creative soul!

 jeanneoliverdesigns.com

Cupcakes, that's what's going on around here

I'm co-hosting a baby shower and one of my duties is to make the cupcakes.  I know I could of just bought a couple of box cake mixes but I really don't like box cakes and I've used them in the past and added stuff to make them taste homemade.  This time I decided to make them from scratch.  But to keep is simple, I'm doing chocolate and  vanilla cupcakes.  I'm using a cake recipe I've used for years and it's moist and not over chocolate.  I haven't ever used it for cupcakes, though.  I think the thing is baking time, so while I write this blog post I'm also watching the time they're in the oven.  Cross your fingers they come out nice.  Otherwise, I told Tom he'll be eating cupcakes all weekend.  I wanted to make a simple vanilla cupcake and searched the internet to find a recipe.  Boy are there ton's of them.  I'm impressed with all the baking bloggers who do such a great job sharing recipes and photos.  I picked a recipe from www.bakehappy.net, it's called Perfectly Moist Vanilla Cupcake.  I'll let you know how the cupcakes turn out.  My plan is to top them off with the chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream...simple flavors is the theme.

I have to make some crescent moons out of white chocolate to top them off ....  the timer is going off..brb.  Oh my, they came out perfect looking.  I'll be posting photos once I get them all finished... wish me luck.  I will also be posting about all the cute "love you to the moon and back" stuff made for the shower.  I'm not big on baby showers and this is the first one I've been involved with but all I can say it's a lot of things to think about and do starting from the invite to the food, from the mailing list to the decorations, from number of table & chairs to the theme, from table cloths to paper products, etc.  All & all I think it's going to be adorable and fun for the new momma, Kerry.  By the way, it's a boy!

2014 is here!

Goodbye to 2013

Saying goodbye to 2013, what all did I do?

First thing I did in 2013 was walk a 5K and finished last

Walked several more 5K’s and didn’t finish last

Treadmill did not become my best friend!

Got an iPhone and iPad – staying connected

Enjoying Facebook

Travelled to Chicago

Got my picture taken at the “bean”

Stood on a glass floor 113 stories high

Went to the Mexican American art museum in Chicago

Visited Washington DC 

Lincoln memorial and stood at the same spot Martin Luther King stood.

Was moved by the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon

Traveled to Boston

Sightseeing all of Boston.  The Freedom Trail was awesome.

Went to Salem and learned about witches.

Gathered rocks along the beach in Marshfield

Had fun at the Buckley family reunion and took a photo of everyone who attended.

Fenway and Red Sox game….world series champs, again.

Attended  a wedding in  Lubbock with the Arens family

Went to Abilene Texas and walked  wello’s lot on Bois D’arc with my Alvarez family

Sold my jewelry on every  trip!

Traveled to Nebraska & Colorado, twice.

Found the neatest flag backdrop in McCook, Nebraska

Watched and enjoyed a lot of football

Learned how to paint a house.

Went my second Kansas football game

Enjoyed my visit to the Little Monastery of the Lamb in Kansas City, KS

Didn’t see some friends as much as I wanted

Checked out Guru Honey shop in Lincoln, Nebraska…very cool stuff

Swam in my pool daily…but never jumped in

Met new creative friends

Used my camera a lot and I mean a lot I probably have a photo for each of these things

Learned to knit!

Soldered, sewed, painted

Bedtime is way after midnight

Killed most of my plants over the summer! Only two survived.

Didn’t dance enough

Continued to get great advice from Cathy

My Wednesdays with my brother turned into any weekday with my brother

Watched cooking shows and learned me some new skills

Still have a long to-do list

Love my time with family and friends this year

Feeling great and ready to swag my way into 2014

Christmas cookie decorating

I continued with our new tradition of decorating cookies with the twins Olivia & Addison, their brother Owen, sister Kailey and cousin Eli.   I put the frosting in squeeze tubes and boy this was a great idea.  All the kids shared so nicely and did a great job on their cookies! 

Olivia having a blast.

Eli did a great job!  He didn't mind taste testing either.

Kailey using a butter knife to spread out her frosting.

Olivia had no trouble decorating all her cookies

Owen loved using the red frosting on his cookies.

Addison waiting  for the green frosting.  Mom's giving decorating tips.

I loved hanging out with my favorite twins!

Cookie exchange 2013

This year's cookie exchange was fun and we all got some great cookies.  The weather has been cool and wet so my sugar cookie dough wasn't gonna be easy to roll and cut into shapes.  I used a medium size ice cream scoop to make all the same size cookie balls and then flattened them with a  glass dipped in sugar.  Nice even size round cookies.  I mixed up some icing and piped on trees.  90 cookies total!

I found the cutest candle holders at Ikea and knew I had to use them.  The round cookies fit perfectly.  But using the candle holders seemed to boring so I added some embellishments.  

I include two candles with my cookies.  By the way, my sugar cookies tasted so yummie!  

Chalkboard inspired gift wrap!

I got this idea from Pinterest.  It was recommended to use black butcher paper, which I found at Hobby Lobby, but it had a shine to it, not really sure how much I like that.  I experimented with white chalk, white paint pens, white lead pencils and white oil pastel stick.  Each gave it's own finish.

black butcher paper with oil pastel stick

I found black drawing paper at Dick Blicks and really liked using the chalk pencils on it.  Probably my favorite.  I made some holiday sign artwork to frame using this application.

I used the black butcher paper with the oil pastel stick for my gift wrap.  It was fun and I will use it, again and again for gift wrap!  The gift "getters"  loved it.  

Merry + Happy 2014!

Merry + Happy 2014 was this year's season greeting on my card.  Years ago I helped with a photo project for my husband's family reunion.  I has a collection of slides that needed to be converted to .jpeg files.  I remembered seeing on very cool photo of a house in a very winter setting.  It was Grandpa John's farmhouse.  I printed it on a large 11"x13" format.  I stared at it for several days trying to figure out how I could use it in my card.  I started painting on it.  I used acrylic tube paint with a medium clear glade to allow the paint to stay wet longer.  It worked perfectly. 

I used my camera to take a photo of the painting so I could download it on my laptop.

I decided to make the photo look like one from the 60's with the white border and date

I printed our greeting and a little something about the original photo on the back of the card.  Cut, scored and folded about 100 cards.

 I added glitter to the green glitter to the tree, white glitter to the roof on the house and black glittler on the snowman's hat.  I printed on a canvas photo paper which gave a really nice finish.

I attached the photo to the card stock with double stick tape and some decorative tapes on two of the corners.  I loved the way they turned out!

Christmas projects

Each year I like to make new holiday projects.  This year it's no different.  I got some ideas from Pinterest and some left over from last year that I wasn't able to get to.  This week is set aside for all these projects and decorating the house.  I also am brainstorming an idea for my xmas cards.  One idea I have is to use this old photo from Tom's Grandpa John's slide collection.  I printed it on a large photo sheet and plan to apply paints and embellishments.  Stay tuned....

Photo by Grandpa John

 Another idea I am considering, chalk board style for my card 

Chalk board paint on card stock using chalk pencil.
This feels the most authentic.

This is black butcher paper with white pastel stick

This is black drawing paper using a chalk pencil.
 I really like how this looks.
I think this is the perfect gift wrap, too.

I saw this sign on Pinterest.  I have a piece of wood and I have paint...

Photo on Pinterest

Here's what I did... not bad.  I have to still sand & age it.  

I have scrap paper left over from a jewelry project so I cut them into flags and going to make into banners.  I may add some words.

Nothing like rustic jingle bell wire garland!
 Love this stuff and it was so easy to make

I was taking a photo for our holiday photo challenge and had to photo my heart rock.

I heart Christmas!

Here's what my desk looks like!  I need to move this into the studio because I'm getting glitter everywhere!

Street fair was a challenge today

First of all, too much Phoenix traffic (always) which didn't make it easy to get to Casa Grande... ugh, should of paid attention to time, then again, time runs in odd ways in my world.  In all ended up with setting up late, but the spot was nice and the artists I was next to were nice.  My table was ready, but I noticed not much foot traffic.  As the night went on, still not much foot traffic.  A cool breeze showed up, though. All us participants closed up an hour early because again, not much foot traffic.  Oh well, on to the next event or two.

Street fair in Casa Grande, AZ!

This is where I'll be..... Downtown Street Scene "Winter Wonderland"
x All repeats Just this repeat
Tuesday, December 03, 2013, 05:30pm - 09:00pm
This is a great "downtown social" with a different theme every month.  Local artisans and musicians are featured as well as  a Classic Car Show. Florence Street will by closed off and all the shops and restaurants will be open with special promotions.  This event is held the first Tuesday of each month from 5:30-9:00 pm. The location is at "The Alley" which is off Florence Street between 2nd and 4th Streets.  For more information, contact Rina Rien at 520-836-8744.  All downtown shops and restaurants will be open   I'll have holiday themed pendants, Christmas stockings, garlands, more pendants, necklaces and earrings.

A photo challenge going on on Facebook!!

 My sister, Melinda and I decided it was time for a photo challenge so why not do a holiday theme challenge.  Today is the first day of the Holly Jolly Countdown to Christmas Photo Challenge!  Join us!  Go over to Facebook and search out our group. It's a fun way to see the holidays through the camera lens! 

Facebook - Photo-A-Day Challenge Group

My dogs have a Facebook and this is their Day 1!