Happy Halloween

Just a couple more index cards that I'm repeating from last year.

For lack of something better

I'm going to post an old index card from last year.

oh what the heck, make that two cards

Fall foilage

This aren't the greatest pictures and they certainly don't show the fall colors in all it's splendor but they are trees with some fall colors on them

These were from last week when I was out walking. It looked like it was going to rain and I did feel a few sprinkles but then it stopped and I had a dry walk

This one was still looking pretty green

 This section was much more colorful. I should have cloned out those power lines.

 

This wasn't a pretty scene when you saw the whole picture. It's the parking lot of an old garage. Cropping out the building and some of the junk he has laying out made it more attractive. You can still see a pile of tires on the right.

Thoughts for today

Spooktacular

Sharing a couple more Halloween displays.

I had to pull over on my way to work to take this one. It looked so nice all lit up

This one made me laugh the first time I drove by and saw it. This is only half their front yard but I couldn't get the other half in the picture and it wasn't as clever

Down the street and past the graveyard

A couple things I saw while out for my walk one day.

This house is down the street from me. I like the way she did this.

The sayings on some of these headstones were quite clever.

Here lies the father of 29
There would have been more
but he didn't have time

Here I lie
and no wonder I'm dead
For the wheel of a semi
went over my head

Here lies my wife
I bid her goodbye
She rests in peace
and now so do I

When your razor is dull
but you need a shave
think of the man
who lies in this grave

Here lies John Yeast.
Pardon him for not rising

Here lies Lester More
4 shots with a 44
No less no more

Woe is me.

Poor poor pitiful me. I'm lacking my crafty mojo and have been for some time now. It's been almost 3 months and I just don't seem to be able to get back in to the groove.

On my days off I try but I do more procrastinating than anything else. I thought maybe I should try and work on some Christmas projects but I don't even know what to make.


I don't even have any new pictures to show you.

How about 2 cats and a dog

I'll try and pin an idea down and hopefully get inspired

Selecting a selfie

For someone who hates to have her picture taken I do like to have fun taking selfies sometimes. Just for the fun of it I tried to get a new selfie.

This one didn't look like me at all

This one made my ears look big.

This one I think will do.

The above came from this one. Notice the long sleeve fleece top. It was only 43 degrees.

Hey Pumpkin

This time of year it's all about the pumpkins and you can find all kinds. 

There are giant pumpkins. As big as 790 pounds

Fake decorative pumpkins

Pumpkins who sit on steps.

Decorated pumpkins

And even black pumpkins

Do you have a pumpkin?

Ping Pong

When you don't have a paddle or a table what can you do with a ping pong ball? Well you grab a sharpie marker, a craft knife and a battery operated tealight and you make yourself a Jack o' lantern.

Use the sharpie marker to draw a face on the ping pong ball and then with the craft knife, carefully cut an x on the bottom of the ball. Cut away just enough of the plastic so that the ball will fit over the tealight flame. This is not my original idea. I saw several of these online. I haven't been able to get myself in to crafting mode but this was quick and easy. After I took this picture I also poked a hole in the top and stuck in a green pipe cleaner for a stem.

Not much

A gray and gloomy days makes a color photo look like a black and white

Sorry about no post yesterday. I totally lost track of time Wednesday night and it got too late to schedule a post.

While I was walking

Monday morning the skies were quite cloudy and while it looked like there was a threat of rain it wasn't raining at the time. I decided to put on my walking shoes and head out the door. I had my cell phone with me and while I walked I snapped pictures of either Halloween decorations or just whatever fall  beauty caught my eye.

As I walked I also did some quick edits on the phone with some of those pictures.

The first one I posted the after on facebook yesterday. Here, I'm going to show you both the before and after shots.

Original

Edit.

As I walked by this house they had the fence at the top of their driveway decorated so pretty and the puddle in the driveway gave me a bit of a reflection too.

Original

Edit

Not sure what caught my eye here. It may have been the clouds, the fall leaves or even the tower.

Original

Edit

Good thing I didn't trip over any uneven sidewalks while I was editing these.

The hidden truth

The other day when I was getting something out of the cupboard I noticed my shadow on the wall. OMG, What is that growing out of the top of my head?

I had my readers on top of my head and they must have magnified the antennae that apparently are growing out of the top of my head.   
Not seeing what I'm talking about? Here I drew circles around them.

In an unrelated OOPS moment. I was all set to sit down and make several of those scarecrow tea light pins on Sunday. I did one and got everything set up to make a new one. I pushed the button to start sewing and a horrible noise and an error message saying that the safety device had been activated. The needle was bent and stuck in the machine.  After a moment of panic I got out the book which didn't tell me a whole lot. I started cutting away the material that the needle was in. Once I had that off I started slowly taking things apart. I finally got the needle out, cleaned everything up and put it all back together. I held my breath and turned the power on. Someone liked me that day. It was all working fine and no damage done other than the junk needle and cut away fabric. Of course my momentum for making pins was totally gone.

Muted Monday

Then and now

A look at Gibbs

Then

I think this may have been the day we brought him home

and now

My little boy is all grown up. Now if only he could act like it.

Till the cows come home

I did a whole lot of procrastinating about putting together a blog post. I considered skipping it altogether and then as I was perusing the archives it hit me.

If I didn't get a move on you would all be waiting until the cows come home for a post.

Now I couldn't have that so I got busy and threw this together

This picture is from 2008. Driving down a back road I pulled over to take pictures of these cows. They were very friendly and all came over to the fence to see what I was up to.

I did a search to try and find out where the phrase "until the cows come home" came from. This is from Wiktionary

Possibly from the fact that cattle let out to pasture may be only expected to return for milking the next morning; thus, for example, a party that goes on “until the cows come home” is a very long one.

Alternatively, the phrase may have a Scottish origin,[1] and may derive from the fact that cattle in the Highlands are put out to graze on the common where grass is plentiful. They stay out for months before scarcity of food causes them to find their way home in the autumn for feeding.

More time travel

I still don't have anything new to blog about so I had to travel back in time again. This time I went back to 2014. On the 13th of that year we were doing a craft show.

This was one thing I had made and it sold rather quickly

I only had one of these and it was one of those crafts that I just took a bunch of things I had in my stash and glued them together to make an arrangement that I thought looked good. Thankfully someone else liked the way it looked too and bought it.

Maybe this weekend I'll get busy on some projects I've been wanting to start. I won't make any promises but I'm sure going to try.

Peace and flowers

I was at a loss for what to blog about today so I did some time traveling and dug in the archives. I went back to 2011 and went to the file that was the closest to today's date.

I found peace and flowers

I had forgotten all about this. I had been making a bunch of these flower arrangements for a craft show and had one at work. A sales lady that came to our store asked if I could make something with peace signs and flowers for her granddaughter.

I broke down

And I'm so glad I did. I tend to see things I like online and want to buy them but have a very hard time talking myself into them. For a month or so I've been wanting to buy a machine embroidery file I saw. It wasn't a large amount of money, only $5 but I kept talking myself out of it.

Finally last Sunday I bought it. It's comes as a digital download so as soon as my payment was received I was able to download it. I opened it up and read the instructions and I was totally confused. I decided it was best to wait until the morning when my brain wasn't so tired.

This is a tealight pin made completely in the hoop on the embroidery machine.

After you finish embroidering it on the machine you cut around the edges and then glue it to the top of a battery operated tealight then glue a pin to the back. There were several different ones to choose from but I only wanted to get one to start since I have never ordered from them before and I didn't know how their files would work. I was quite happy with this one and now will mostly likely purchase some others. I'm thinking my next one might be a Christmas one. This was purchased from Embroiderygarden.com  .

Bought it

I didn't take me long to find some cute little treasures to buy while we at Shaker Woods.  My first purchase was probably within 10 minutes after we got there.

I just couldn't resist this cute little turkey

And this snowman ornament came from the same place. This lady had the cutest things and I could have spent a whole lot more. The two together were around $12

At another place I bought this cute yo yo tree ornament. I thought this would be easy to make so I bought just one to copy

She also had these yo yo clothespin ornaments. Another one that will be easy to make myself and I'll be able to use up all those fabric scraps that are too small for anything else.

I don't have a picture of my other purchase which was a heavenly little bag of maple coated cashews. I know they aren't on my diet but I sampled some that they had sitting out and I couldn't resist.

Early in the day while it was still quite chilly we enjoyed a cup of hot apple cider which was delicious and for lunch we had hot turkey sandwiches and french fries.  Ok so it wasn't a diet friendly day but it sure was fun.

A day in the woods

Saturday was such a fun day. I left at 7:15 in the morning and didn't get home until about 5:15. When I left my house it was raining but when we got to Columbiana OH there was no rain. It was chilly but we were dressed for it.

Here's a few pictures from the woods

 I don't know what happened to these pictures because they looked ok on my phone but here they look very blurry. At least you can get the idea. Top left corner is one of the carved trees that are scattered throughout the woods. The other 3 pictures are just some of the little shops that line the paths through the woods. These were taken early in the day. Later on you would have seen wall to wall people everywhere.
Tomorrow I'll show you what I bought.

Headed to Ohio

This morning I'll be leaving for Columbiana Ohio with my friend Debbie. We'll be going to Christmas in the woods. It's always a fun time roaming through the woods looking at all the crafters set up selling their wares.

This is a picture borrowed from the Christmas in the woods facebook page. Figures I would pick a picture that had a donut sign in it.