Looking up

I strongly believe that when our loved ones leave this earth they send us signs. Last Friday when I was on my way to the funeral home I happened to look up and see a cloud that looked just like a hand with the middle finger sticking up. Now that may not sound like a very heavenly sign but it was so my brother. I laughed and told him right back at ya big brother. I tried to pull over and get a picture of the cloud but by the time I found a spot the cloud was already breaking up. When I told the story of my sighting everyone agreed it was a sign from Mike.

Back in Black

I'll start by saying this post has absolutely nothing to do with the AC/DC album. I just looked at today's pictures and it's the first thing that came to my mind.

These guys have become my evening visitors. Not only are they a little too big for the feeder I have out but they can be a bit rowdy at times.

Time to breathe

This week has just been crazy for me at work. I've been feeling like a hamster on a wheel. I've been running but getting no where. Finally I can sit back and breathe a bit. I could give some lame excuse for why I haven't posted but the plain and simple truth of it is that all week long I've been coming home far too wiped out to put the effort into it.

Chatting with Duke

I know it's been a VERY long time since Duke has been on the blog so instead of just pictures I have a video.
I can't believe what a pain in the butt it was to try and upload this. I tried to do it on YouTube but had issues there and got frustrated so I ended up opening a Vimeo account and did it that way. Of course it took 3 tries before I finally had that figured out too.

So here goes nothing and I'm crossing my fingers that this is going to work.


Duke's snack from Ann Thompson on Vimeo.

R.I.P. Big Brother

Michael Francis Surovick

4/23/1957 - 6/22/2014

The cardinal rule

If you and your best girl are going out and you want to have a good time

be presentable

on her terms, not yours.

The truth

Thursday morning I said I would be back tomorrow with a post. Friday I woke up and it wasn't tomorrow yet so I didn't post. It's still not tomorrow but I'll come back any way.

The plain and simple truth about me is that no matter how much I want to be neat and organized and have it all together I just can't seem to get it right. I do well at work but I come home and all I want to do is play.

I keep a little note pad on my desk to jot down ideas. Before you know it I have notes all over the place and then I end up losing half of them. Or I look at them and wonder what the heck I wrote/drew that for.

This is 1/2 of the most recent collection of notes I cleaned off my desk

Ok so this is a bit lame but it is a post. It's officially summer now so although I may do better and taking pictures I'm having a hard time getting them on to the computer and getting them ready to post to the blog.

It was a dark stormy night

and the internet connection was in and out. No time to schedule a post last night so I'll be back tomorrow.

Happy hump day

Page 9

Today I've got another page from the art journal

This one started off with picture of the tree that was taken out of a magazine. It was an ad for Keebler cookies. I'm not sure what I was going for with the checked paper and ripped book page at the bottom but it is what it is. Then I had to decide what I wanted hanging from that rope. I dug through my stash and found the sun die cut and it immediately made me think of the song "You are my sunshine and there you have it.

Attack of the giant bird

Look out everyone. By the size of that shadow who knows what'll happen if that bird gets angry.

On second thought he looks pretty harmless to me.

I took the picture of this cute little dollar store bird while he was sitting on my window. Because it was darker in the house it made him look like a shadow but it sure does look like one giant bird standing on that tree.

Hope you're all starting your week off with a smile.

Pretty boy and his Mrs.

Page 8

Fresh from the pages of my art journal I give you page 8

I started with a base of my homemade modeling paste on the page and then spritzed it with my blue color mist. The border is jute twine that was glued to the page. The chicken is fabric that I stitched together before gluing down to the page. The nest was painted and the eggs were cut from paper, highlighted with colored pencils and glued into the nest. I finished by painting on the wording on the left side and then outlining it with marker once the paint was dry.

A funny for Friday

This just made me laugh

The original came from themetapicture.com I confess I did alter this just a bit. The original said if you were a vegetable you'd be a cabbitch 

Nest progress

The end of the story on the little robin family that was living by my front door.
First I have a picture of mom. She saw me standing at the front door and was very cautious about returning to the nest.

It's amazing how quickly they grew

The one on the far right always seemed to be the most alert.

On June 4th I came home from work and when I checked the nest was empty. They didn't even say goodbye before they flew off.

Butterfly art

A girl at work gave me this little butterfly light that has a suction cup to attach to the window. I tried to take a picture of it at night while it was turned on

It didn't turn out so great but I turned it into art.

I was on a roll

Since it was so easy making that button hole and I had more fabric left I made another little project.

A handy dandy needle case.

You can teach an old dog new tricks

In all the years that I've been sewing I have always had a fear of button holes. My sewing machine had a button hole attachment that I swear had big fangs and threatened to bite me if I got too close to it. When I was making clothes for my daughter back when she was just a little tyke, I would substitute snaps or velcro for buttons.
Fast forward several decades and I bit the bullet and attempted to learn how to make a button hole. I got out the owner's manual, read how to use the button hole foot and holy smokes I can't believe it was that easy.

So what is this you ask?

Well instead of my iron looking like this

I followed a tutorial for a cord cuff and now it looks like this

a perfectly good excuse

I have a perfectly good excuse for not posting yesterday. You probably think I was playing with my craft stash again but you're wrong. I was cleaning. I don't know what got in to me but I even did windows. Duke has a blank canvas now to start doing his nose print art again.

This is a good spot to throw in a random picture.

I had fun playing with the dandelions and taking their picture on my shabby rustic deck steps.

The only thing that kept yesterday from being a totally perfect day was the male residents here who kept tracking grass in the house before, during and after I swept and mopped the floors. Men!!!

Runner

I've never been much for running. As a matter of fact I hate running. I don't even like jogging. I do like table runners though. I've been wanting to make one for a while and have one started. I've been working on this one for a couple weeks now. I could have finished it by now but I'm trying to work on it when I'm at my best. Being stressed or tired is not a good time for me to do things that I need to cut carefully and take my time with.
I started with another piece that was embroidered on my machine and then added fabric strips to make it the size I wanted

All I have left to do is sew on those two side strips and then add a backing. If I were to do this over again I would have made two more embroidered blocks. Maybe another project for another time.

playing tag

It's been a long time since I've played a rousing game of tag and I think I may have forgotten the rules but that's ok because this time I was the only one playing.

I started by cutting out some blank tags with my cricut machine and then just had a blast decorating them. I had scissors and glue and markers and paints. I was in heaven.

These are the first two I did.

Followed by this one

and then this one

I had a couple more started but haven't finished them yet. That's ok I can play tag another day.

Page 7

Another page from my art journal.

I had a vision in my head of what those outside corners were supposed to look like and it didn't translate well on to paper. Rather than rip it out which would totally be stupid I used it. I went with the red white and blue colors so it would match the last page.

Yo-yo craze

I can't believe how many things I have lined up to show you. If only I could get my butt in gear and get all the pictures ready and write the posts I would be set for at least a month.
I made these key chains a week or so ago.

Don't mind the nasty looking cutting mat I took these pictures on. This key chain I did first and I didn't like how long the strap was that holds the ring for the keys.

I shortened it up for this one and I liked that much better

A close up of the flower that's on the first key chain. Notice the green lace. It was actually white lace and I sprayed it with my home made color mist

The party's over

What a wonderful weekend it was. The weather was perfect and I spent all day Saturday feeding my crafty appetite.
I worked on several different projects because that's just how I roll. One at a time is for beginners those who have not succumbed to the craft material hoarding virus. I'm working on only using things I already have in the house and trying to resist the temptation to buy more.
So anyway, I do have lots of stuff to show you but those pictures are still on the camera. A little birdie told me that it didn't matter what picture I showed today though.