Because I felt like it

I made several different ornaments to take to the craft show. These were all made with felt and I have a total of 5 different ones but I only have pictures of 3.

These were all made with cheap craft felt because that's what I had. After I attached the noses on these I coated the front with mod podge and then sprinkled them with glitter. The eyes and mouth are done with puffy paint

When I did the fall leaves the colors were a little too bright. I stained them with my grubby stain mixture. After they dried they ended up being super stiff which I kind of liked.

One of a kind

I have a couple things for the craft show this weekend that I only made one of.

I couldn't make more than one because the little buttons I glued in the frame were all I had. I picked them up at a thrift shop because I thought they were cute and knew I would find the perfect project for them.

Life is just a bowl of cherries

Life is just a bowl of cherries. 
Don't take it serious; life's so mysterious. 
You work, you save, you worry so, 
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go. 
So keep repeating it's the berries, 
The strongest oak must fall, 
The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned 
So how can you lose what you've never owned? 
Life is just a bowl of cherries, 
So live and laugh at it all. 

(from the song Life is just a bowl of cherries by George Gershwin)

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When I was on vacation I took one day to do some shopping. I went to a nearby town and walked a couple of the city streets. As I was walking to a thrift store I wanted to visit I came across a very interesting door.

I have no idea what this door led to but I liked the way it looked and it screamed at me to take it's picture.

sighting

The other day I was out in the front yard. I happened to look up in to the tree and at first I wasn't quite sure just what I was seeing.

When it finally hit me I had to run back in the house for my camera and luckily they were still there.

I got quite a few shots before they finally flew off into higher branches.

Changes

Not posting yesterday was totally unintentional. I thought I had one more post scheduled. Oops. That's a change I hope to avoid in the future.
Other changes I intend to stick with. One of them I told you about a few months ago when I quit smoking. Yes, I have been totally smoke free since May 1. I also managed to keep from gaining too much weight. The problem was I had already added quite a few pounds before I even quit smoking.

So my latest changes are in my diet.
1. I gave up the diet coke and I'm drinking either plain water or iced tea (mostly water and I cup of coffee first thing in the morning)
2. No more junk food.
During the day my new diet consists of either fruits or vegetables. At dinner I eat whatever Wade happens to be making and he's not a dieter. In the evening if I want a snack I try to make it fruit, jello, yogurt or something like that.

I recently made some sweet potato fries. They were incredibly good and ALL MINE. I tried to share with Wade but he said he didn't like them.

Hop on my lily pad

While at the lake I stopped to check out the lily pads

Then while searching for something to go along with this post I found a website called The Lilypad Cottage

I'm moving

OK so I'm not moving but I can dream about it. Today I have pictures of some of the houses that sit right on the lake in yesterday's picture. Wouldn't it be great to have that view out your window every day?

This one was my favorite. It kind of looks like two houses but it's just one. That's all connected.

This is the house to the left of the one above. Love all those windows and the big front porch. I would rather have a roof over that porch though.

This last one looks like it might be a new construction and I must say I find it totally charming. I can see myself sitting on that front porch.

Lakeside view

Today is a very sad day. I'm going back to work. OH WOE IS ME!!! Well it seems that I forgot about the pictures from the lake so lets get back to them today. While you are looking at the pictures I'll be dreaming of sitting there taking in the view instead of working my butt off.
This is a before and after shot. First the original picture and then one that I played with in photoshop

Hydrangea love

Just a little hydrangea love today

First the whole bush

and now the close ups

Flood shots

I've talked before about the flooding we get in our back yard when we have heavy rainfall. I've even shown pictures of it before. Well I'm going to show some more. This was a couple weeks ago and for a while I didn't think our back yard was ever going to dry out.

Starting at the top left and moving clockwise:
1. this was taken from the upstairs bedroom window. It was still raining and I was on a short break from flood patrol in the basement.
2. Standing in my driveway looking into the back yard
3. This is from the other side of the house. As you can see my back yard is a river.
4. Other side of the pool. You can see it coming under my ugly deck and collecting right there at the back door. The door is just on the other side of that bush on the left of the picture except the ground is a bit lower where the door is

docking station

The old fashioned kind

Holy smokes, it's Friday already. Where did my week off go? I did make a stop at Edinboro Lake the other day and took lots of pictures. I'll be stretching them out over the next few days.

An excuse but it's mine and I'm keeping it

I'm on vacation this week. I scheduled this week off so that I could have 5 days of uninterupted quiet time to concentrate on getting projects done for the craft show. Monday morning, bright and early (like 6am) I got off to a great start.
And then...

These guys showed up in my neighbors driveway and there went my peace and quiet.

The neighbors are building a garage and wouldn't you know they picked this week for construction to begin. My side yard is only about 12 feet before their yard starts so I walk out my back door and it's like these guys are RIGHT there.

Now I won't say I haven't done anything because I have worked on a few things but not nearly what I had expected to do. Instead of marathon crafting I had a big cleaning day, a little bit of shopping and a lot of bouncing back and forth on craft projects.

I'm also behind on blogging right now. I tried to read blogs yesterday but it was so hot and humid that my arms were sticking to my desk. I don't have air conditioning but for as much of this type of weather as we get we really don't need it. Fine by me because I don't like it anyway.
I'm going to try and do some catching up now before it gets too hot again.

A heart healthy post.

My cousin posted this on her facebook page and I thought it was worth sharing here. Love this.

Annie in wood

I've had a wood project in the works for far too long. It's been put on the back burner and I just can't seem to get myself to finish it.

She's not looking so good right now and I'm beginning to wonder if she'll ever get any further than this

More spoons, different version

I'm still playing with wooden spoons here and I've come up with yet another version. I already showed you the black ones and the snowmen spoons. Since it's a fall craft show I thought it would be a good idea to do some of these with a fall theme. So I did some pumpkin spoons.

 I had another picture that showed the whole spoon and somehow I ended up deleting it. OOPS. Oh well, it's just painted brown all the way up so you aren't missing anything.
I still have one spoon project to go. Hopefully by the end of the week those will be done

Not pictures of lilies

I was outside taking some pictures of the lilies on the side of my house Duke and thought I would share them with you.

Mom, why are you so far away taking my picture? Do you even have me in focus?

I think if you come around those stupid flowers you will get a better picture of me.

I will give you a very good pose, go ahead and take the picture.

SHHH, don't tell Duke I snuck a picture of a lily in here

You don't know Jack

So let me introduce you to him.
I dowloaded a free pattern from Paxton Valley Folk Art several months ago and finally got around to using it. The pattern is "Frost on the pumpkin bowl filler/ornie" I thought they were pretty cute and would go well at the craft show.

Here he is in progress.

Now I would like to formally introduce you to Jack

Now you can tell everyone that you do in fact know Jack.

Another batch

I had a comment several days ago from Tanya at Allotments 4 you wanting to know how I made the Cinnamon hearts and pumpkins.

Since I recently made another batch and had the picture, why not make another post out of it and give you the recipe for making them.

This time I made gingerbread men and made the hole so they could be used for ornaments.

All you need to make these is:
3/4 cup applesauce
1 cup of cinnamon
1 Tbs glue
Now the glue is kind of optional. Some sites said to use it, others didn't and one said that they tried it both ways and didn't see a difference. I also did it both ways and honestly I didn't see a difference either.

So you mix your ingredients and roll it out to about 1/4 inch thickness. Then cut your shapes either with a cookie cutter or by hand if you're that good. Pop them in the oven set at 200 degrees for about 2 hours. I checked them about every half hour and turned them over.

If you are doing the pumpkins you use the same mix but I think I also added nutmeg or ginger. Then you roll them in a ball and using the blunt side of a knife make indents for the veins. Then stick a little stem in them (I used littel pieces broken off of a grape vine wreath) then let them air dry. It'll take them a few days to dry completely.

Where's my pot of gold?

Last weekend while I was working on some projects inside, Wade yelled at me to come outside. "Grab your camera" he says

Do you think I'll find my pot of gold at the end of that rainbow?

If you look real close you can just barely see a second rainbow. The strange thing was that this rainbow showed up before it started raining.

Inspired by

The best part about all my blog friends is that you all inpire in me in so many different ways. I was recently inspired by Marie from Spun by Me

She was inspired by a few things she saw on pinterest and I modified her creation just a little bit. You can see her flock on this post

Now on to what I did.

I bought a box of shower curtain rings at the dollar store and a skein of homespun yarn. I could have gone with cheaper yarn which my thrifty side encouraged me to do but this one looked more wooly and lamb like.

Next I single crocheted around the curtain ring and tied on a piece of raffia to be used as a hanger. Then I went out in the back yard to the sheep leg tree and got myself a branch to make sheep legs. I also made a little template for the head which I cut out of black felt.

Last a little dab of hot glue to attach the head and the legs and the flock was born.

I was going to put eyes on them but then I just opted not to.

Thanks for the inspiration Marie

what's on your windowsill?

First of all I was always under the assumption that windowsill was 2 words. I wasn't sure if I was spelling it right so I went to check. The free dictionary and merriam-webster both have it as one word while wikipedia has it as two.  

The reason for my post though is a jar that was sitting on one of mine.

Prim crafting uses a lot of rusty bells and pins but try and find any of that stuff in the stores. The cheap and easy way is to rust them yourself. I've read several different ways but I opted for the less toxic version. First you put the items in a jar and cover with bleach and let sit for a day. Dump out the bleach, pour in apple cider vinegar and a good helping of salt and let sit for another day. On the third day you dump the pieces out and let them dry. They continue to rust as they are drying.

The first bath I did worked really well. This second bath didn't rust as well

Something different

You've been seeing a lot of my craft projects lately so you're probably ready for something different. Not only is this a different subject but it's something that has never happened here before. As much as I would like to say that it involved male household members remembering to put down the toilet seat, that's not it.

I've always read that the color of hydrangeas depends on the type of soil they're growing in. Mine have always been blue.
This year I have two different colors on the same bush

They were just starting to come out when I took this picture. I should get out there and get a few more shots.

Tags and tea lights

The nice thing about all this crafting I've been doing is it's giving me plenty of subjects for blog posts.

I've got a nice supply of grubby tea lights ready for the craft show. I did these two different ways. First I was brushing them with mod podge, sprinkling on cinnamon and then giving them another layer of mod podge. Then I came across directions for an easier way to do them. Wish I would have rememberd where I read it so I could give them credit for this idea. If I find it I"ll update later. Any how, I covered the flame tip with masking tape, spray painted the white tea light black. Next a squirt or two of a spray adhesive and sprinkle on some cinnamon.

They aren't completely covered in the cinnamon but with the black paint it works.

The first batch of these that I did I didn't wear gloves. Big mistake. Not only did I get black spray paint on my hands but when I sprayed on the spray adhesive I was a sticky mess. Lesson learned.

I also made some tags to put on some of my stuff. I used a brown card stock, cut the tags out with  my cricut. These got a little bit of coffee and spice staining then I drew on the black lines, added some glitter paint and a string.

I got by with a little help from my dog

I know I've been showing a lot of my craft projects lately but my time has been pretty much filled with crafting when I'm not working. Gotta get ready for that craft show don't ya know. I think I'm doing pretty good and I still have a few weeks left to go.

A recent project was some rag sunflowers.

These are really quick and easy to whip together. They can be used as bowl fillers (throw them on top of a bowl of potpourri) or in other craft projects. I'm thinking they would look really cute on a wreath and I may just make a couple wreaths for the craft show.

Any way, I didn't need any help making these but when it came to taking the pictures I needed an assistant. That's where Duke came in.

Here he is busy making sure that the layout is set up perfectly.

During the entire photo shoot he sticks close by in case any technical advice is needed.

He also makes sure that I don't get any of the clutter in the room in the shots. He really is a very helpful dog

Getting ready

We are getting ready for the weekend here. Wade's not so thrilled about it because that means that his week off of work is almost over, I'm thrilled because it means two more days off of work after having a short week (I only had off Thursday for the holiday) And of course Duke is happy because both of us will be home with for 2 whole days.
He's thinking that we should spend the weekend outside.

He's got his shady spot all picked out for us