Water bottle

Monday morning I was hanging out in the craft room for a bit. I saw a vinyl cutting file I liked but it wasn't a free one and I'm cheap. I headed into Photoshop elements to create my own. This was just a quote so all I had to do was pick some fonts and put the whole thing together. I saved it as a png file then uploaded it to Cricut design space. From there I cut the vinyl and then put it on a water bottle.

It's hard to see the words on the bottle but I left the quote up on the computer screen so you can read what it says.

This ended up being a nice gift to take to my friend Becky who I was having lunch with later that morning.

Another birthday card

This is another card I did on Saturday morning. I was on a bit of a roll. This is called a z fold card. The size of this one is 5"x7" just like the one I did yesterday. I added scrapbook paper to the plain pink cardstock. I also did some stamping on the square pink cardstock

This is the card opened up. Inside I added another piece of plain pink cardstock and stamped the words.

Just another anle.

This one is ok but it just seems like it's lacking something.

Crafting time

Saturday morning I managed to get in some crafting time. A while back I had made a card using a free cut file from Dreaming Tree. I liked how it turned out except for it was a bit smaller than I had realized and I messed up by losing a small piece that went under the heal, then I smudged some glue  and it also looked like I smeared some black ink.

A close up of the oopses.

A couple weeks later I gave it another try only this time I resized it to make it larger. I wish I would have used the softer pink like I did in the first version but other than that I was happy with it. I also added some stamping this time.

In the pictures it's hard to tell the difference in size so I did a side by side comparison. The second one is a 5"x7" card.

In an instant

There are days when I feel very alone in the world. Right now I'm having a hard time because there are things that I need to get taken care of but they aren't things I can do myself. They require someone with skills that I don't have. I asked one person and was told sure and then I never heard another word. Another person was supposed to come over and give me an estimate and never showed up. He called two days later saying he was sorry he didn't call me the day before but he had the wrong number but now he had the right one. Um, really? I'm the one who wrote my number down and you should have called two days ago. I never called him back because if I couldn't count on him to show up for an estimate how reliable would he be doing the work. So that puts me in a situation where I don't know where to turn any more. If Wade was here he would be able to take care of it or know someone who could and would.

Needless to say I was feeling sorry for myself and a little down yesterday. I had to make a trip to Walmart so as not to have Gibbs upset that he was out of food and treats. As long as I was there I decided to stroll up and down the isles and just look. There on the shelf was an Instant Pot on clearance. I thought it's high time I buy myself a little something and it went in my cart. In an instant I felt a little lighter for treating myself.

I'm not a miracle worker

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of stuff some people think I can fit on one little cake. Here is the cake I did yesterday at work

Now take this cake, cut it in half and still fit everything there on it. She originally asked for a 1/4 sheet cake and asked for the rose in each corner with all that writing. I told her I didn't think I could fit all the writing on that size cake. I asked her if I couldn't fit it all on, what would she prefer be left off. Then she asked me what about if you just put JL instead of Janet. I wanted to say oh sure lady, three less letters will make all the difference in how much room there is. In the end she opted for a larger cake rather than cut out any of the wording.

More from Monday

I have just a few more pictures from Monday. No more of Presley, just a few of the park residents.


I just loved the punk style do on these birds.

This bear was the only one in this enclosure and the whole time we were standing there he kept pacing back and forth on that wood platform.

A family of baboons. A park employee walked by while were looking at these and told us that this was an entire family. There was the mother, father and I'm not sure how many little ones they had.

Because of the rain, there were a lot of animals that were napping and not about to come out.

Oh deer

I got to work yesterday morning and one of the first things I see is the new order that is hanging up. It's for a cake which isn't really a problem considering it's only a 1/4 sheet cake. Then I read what they want on it. Green and yellow and they want me to put a John Deere lawn mower on it. Really? Why do people ask for things like this? I'm a traditional flowers on the cake kind of decorator. I tried to call the customer to let her know that if I attempt this it's going to look like a kids drawing. Of course I get the answering machine. I waited for her to call back and she never did. So now the problem is do I a) make it without the mower or b) bite the bullet and try it and see how it comes out. I went for option b.

That seat is a little high for where the steering wheel is and I don't know if anyone would say "hey that's a lawnmower" but there it is.

I'm back

It wasn't my intention to take two days off from posting but with not having my regular day off and doing nothing but working then coming home to take care of stuff that needed taking care of I just didn't have a thing to write about.

Yesterday though, finally a day off, the weather was much cooler and I had a fun outing with Presley and her mom. We went to Pymatuning Deer Park. Of course the weather was calling for rain and earlier in the morning it was pouring. According to the forecast it was supposed to clear up by noon so not a problem. We got there and it was coming down good. We made a detour to see if we could find something else and then the rain was down to a sprinkle so we went back and headed in. Of course once we started the rain picked up again but we still went ahead.

Goldfish are a great snack for traveling.

When we went to the ticket counter the lady pointed out the food for feeding animals and I was going to grab a bag when she picked one up and said here you can just have this. The first thing you come to is the deer and as soon as they see you they come running.

Presley stood back and watched while her mom fed the deer. They were pretty grabbby and all fighting to get the snack.

We found a consession stand to get out of the rain for a few minutes and were met by a huge bear.

I probably would have taken way more pictures but it was just raining too much and I didn't want to get my camera soaked. I think I would have looked at a lot more of the animals too on a nicer day.

This guy and his friend didn't mind the rain one bit.

Steaming

As I sit here and type this at 5:30 Friday evening the temperature is at 93 with a real feel of 104. My computer is upstairs and Gibbs sat here whining so I had to put him in the basement so he could cool off a bit.

Friday was a busy but productive day at work. The deli manager took a vacation day and the girl who normally works when she is off also took the day off. The person who was there is nice but rather slow. I was hopping. He did tell me before I left for the day that he never would have made it through the day without me there.

I took my vehicle in for it yearly inspection. The place I take it is just a couple blocks away from work so I dropped it off in the morning, walked to work and then picked it up after I got done for the day. I was half expecting him to tell me I needed new tires but thankfully everything was good and it passed. I asked him if I was going to need them before my next inspection next year and he said he didn't think so because they looked pretty good.

So now I just need ot get through today and tomorrow and I get a day off finally. I have plans to go to a place called Pymatuning Deer Park with Presley and her mom. I can't wait.

Overkill

 I had gotten the emails about Amazon prime day and all the specials they were running for prime members. I'm not a prime member but they were also offering a 30 free trial on prime. When I came across a really good deal on cutting mats for my cricut machine I decided to go for the free trial and order the mats.

Yesterday the box was sitting on my front porch when I got home from work. In the picture the box is already open but it's there to show the size.

Now the cutting mats that I ordered are 14" x 12". They were inside a manila envelop inside the box with no other packing. I couldn't help thinking "overkill" when I saw the envelope inside the box.

Poor service

 I happen to have a couple packs of really cheap and rather disgusting hot dogs in my freezer. So when I bought the kind I liked I pulled out one of the cheap ones so that Gibbs could have hot dogs with me. If I cooked a hot dog for myself I made one for him too. Well apparently he got used to that.

Picture from Snappygoat.com

The other day I put 2 hot dogs on the grill for myself and 2 for Gibbs. When I eat I give him his bowl of food and in the meantime his hot dogs were sitting on the counter to cool. When I finished eating I went into the living room to chill on the couch for a while. Gibbs kept looking at me then running into the kitchen. I asked him what his problem was and he ran in the kitchen again. I followed him in there to see what he wanted. That's when I saw his hot dogs sitting on the counter and realized he wanted them cut up and put in his bowl. He's a pain in the butt but he's no dummy.

Day two

I forgot to turn my alarm off so it went off at its usual time and I shut it off. I went back to sleep and a little before six I woke up panicked because I thought I was late for work. Once I realized all was well I went and got a cup of coffee and settled in front of the computer. Around 6:30 the phone rang. Looking at the caller ID I had a funny feeling I knew what was coming.

I hear the boss ask if this was Ann and when I said yes he asked me what I was doing. UH OH! Why I'm sitting here drinking coffee. Next he asks if I want to come in to work because the meat wrapper walked out yesterday and he wanted some help in the meat room. Right now the boss is also the meat cutter since the one we had quit a while back. So being the wonderful employee I am I said that I really didn't want to but I would. After all it is over time and the extra cash in my paycheck would be nice.

I snapped a quick picture while the boss wasn't looking.

I was there from 8:00 am until 1:15pm. It wasn't too terribly long and like I said it's all over time.

Day one

Well yesterday turned out to be quite a productive day. It was looking rather grim at first. I spent almost two hours sitting in front of the computer drinking coffee and enjoying the fact that I didn't have to get up and get dressed.

Once I did get dressed I went down to the basement for something. Gibbs wanted out and while he was attending to his business I started cleaning things up. The next thing I knew I was tearing into things and filling up garbage bags. I spent the majority of my morning tackling the project.
In the afternoon I headed outside to take care of another project. I'm embarrassed to say that the pool liner has been laying in the back yard since last summer when the neighbor tore down the pool. He left the liner and last year I was too overwhelmed with other things to take care of it. So far this year I've been too lazy. I finally went out there and cut it up into smaller pieces and rolled it up so I can put it in a garbage bag. When that was done it was time to come in and get a shower because I was feeling like a total scumbag.

Don't believe me? I have a picture.

Bad hair and totally filthy and I took a selfie. I must be totally nuts. Oh and did you notice I don't have my glasses on? Well when I was down in the basement working every time I bent over to pick something up they were falling off my face. I'm going to have to go back and see if they can adjust them for me.

Hmm, now what to do today.

No plans

As I go in to my 2 days off in a row (a rare and welcome occasion) I have no particular plans. There are a lot of things I can do, things I should do and even some things that I would like to do. I've decided that the best plan of action is to just play it by ear. I will do whatever feels right at the moment. It could end up being a very lazy two days. I could decide to sit and watch the grass grow.

Just call me four eyes

I got a call last Monday that my glasses were ready and I could pick them up at my earliest convenience. The earliest I could get there was yesterday. I headed out yesterday morning so I could get it out of the way.  They weren't busy at all so I was in and out of there pretty quick.

These are no line bifocals. They are going to take some getting used to.

I like the glasses themselves but I'm having a hard time with looking out the wrong part of the lens. Like I said, it'll take some getting used to

So this whole week is going to be totally messed up. There are people taking days off this week at work so my days off changed to cover that. I have Monday and Tuesday off this week and then I'm working Saturday. I also have an appointment on Friday to get my vehicle inspected. I'm hoping I can make it through one more year without needing tires but I'm not so sure. I'm already looking forward to this week being over with. I think I need to schedule some vacation time. 

Comparison

The other day when I posted the picture of Presley a couple of you mentioned the family genes. I dug out an old picture of myself that was taken at about the same age as Presley. Here's a side by side comparison.

I think I can see the family genes in there.

A change

I've shown a couple of things that I've made to give my bathroom a bit of a new look. Today I have a little more.
The wall next to my sink has had the ugliest picture hanging there forever. Probably 20 years or more, this dollar store picture has been there. I keep saying how ugly it is and yet I have left it. I don't even know why I bought it. Before you ask, yes that is a snowman nightlight. It stays there all year long because we got quite used to it being on in there and I don't have one that is less seasonal.

Moving on I made some more reverse canvas signs. Yes they are plain but plain works for me. I attached these to a burlap ribbon but I think I may take that off and just hang them individually because I'm not crazy about the way it lays against the wall. I'm also not sure if I will leave it centered like this or maybe move it over and put something next to it. I was thinking that burlap cone would go here but next you'll see where I put that.

The biggest wall in the bathroom has had this shelf which has been empty since Christmas until I made the bath sign. Before Christmas I've changed things on it from time to time. The quilted wall hanging has been there forever. Maybe as long as the ugly picture.

I took down the quilt thing and put up the cone.

Not the flowers I want in there but it was all I had right now. That spot on the wall above the shelf is from one of those command strips that aren't supposed to harm the wall when you pull them down. This one harmed the wall. I need to paint in there anyway

So I should state here also that I totally suck at decorating. It's really just not my thing. Other people can put things together that look wonderful, me not so much. Maybe it's because I try and decorate with cheap stuff and things I make. But it is what it is and I can live with it so that's good enough. If you have any suggestions for a different arrangement of the things in these pictures feel free to share them.

A visit.

So I've been playing around with vinyl on my cricut machine. In my searches I came across a design that made me think of my son's fiance. She's a hairdresser and the file I found was perfect for her. I added her name, cut it out and applied it to a water bottle that I found at Walmart for 98 cents. I didn't take a picture but I stole the one she posted on Facebook. Unfortunately it's really hard to see the whole design.

Looking at it, on the right hand side there is a blow dryer and the cord makes a heart shape. There is also a pair of scissors on the bottom right and a comb on the left. I'm kind of wishing I would have put the design up a little higher but live and learn.

Any way since I had made this I thought it was the perfect excuse to go over and have a visit with Miss P.

She gets cuter by the second and she's a busy little one always keeping her mom hopping.When I was getting ready to leave we blew kisses at each other. It was totally adorable.

Best Wishes.

Monday I did some playing in the craft room and made a new card. This one is a little bigger than the ones I normally make. Usually my cards are 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". This one is 5 X 7".

I really hadn't meant to make this. I was browsing through the different things I have available in Cricut design space. The next think I knew I had a bunch of stuff put together so I decided to cut it all out and make a card.

I used various tools to add a bit of texture to the leaves and flowers. The flower centers are puff paint and I also added the puff paint dots around the pink oval. The words were cut out on plain yellow cardstock then I used 2 different colored markers on them to make them stand out a bit more and finished it off with some heat embossing.

Simple pleasures

Today I have something I made quite a while back but never showed here on the blog for some reason. When it comes to simple pleasures I'm perfectly happy crafting with recycled items and dollar tree supplies.

This was a bottle that I saved from the trash at work and I decoupaged on a napkin that I had bought at Dollar tree. I added jute twine around the top of the bottle.

I found this coursage in some of Wade's stuff. I think it might have been from his daughter's wedding so I stuck it in the vase. And this is how I enjoy simple pleasures.

Uniquely me

In a lot of ways I'm like anyone else. However, I'm betting there are very few people, if any, who can say that they have a potted dandelion.

Two years ago I had inpatients in this pot. Last year I didn't bother putting anything in it and this year I noticed that I'm growing a dandelion.

Just stuff

The humidity continues to be high around here and the few rain showers we've gotten have been a welcome treat. I'm sitting here now wishing for a cool breeze to come through my window and inhaling the scent of someone grilling burgers.

Oh that reminds me, on the 4th I grilled hot dogs for me and Gibbs plus I made some macaroni salad and a couple deviled eggs and baked beans. I didn't want to dirty any more dishes and the only paper plates I had were leftover from Christmas. So it was a 4th of Christmas in July dinner.

Oh and I had another cake to do at work. This was on the 4th and they asked if I could put a flag on it. Then they said, you know red and white stripes. Good thing they told me because I've only lived in this country all my life and maybe I didn't know what our flag looked like.

Super shaggy

Over the past year there were a lot of things I had to cut back on to save money. One of those had to be the regular groomer visit. Gibbs did get a free haircut from a friend during that year but it's been a while and he is really in need of another. Monday I'll be searching for a new groomer and hopefully making an appointment for him. Things aren't so tight now so he shouldn't be looking like a homeless stray.

The hair was hanging in his eyes really bad so I did snip some off so he could see better. He freaks when I try and go near him with a comb or a brush but he had no problem letting me snip off some of his hair.

Lily

The other day I noticed that the day lilies had bloomed so I had to take my yearly 50 bazillion pictures of them.

The first time it was really sunny.

Then I took some more on the 4th and it was a bit overcast. I forgot to change the white balance on my camera and this first one is a bit dark.

Happy 4th of July

Wishing all the U.S bloggers a happy 4th of July and those of you who live elsewhere have a wonderful day too.

I'll be working this morning but it won't be a full day. I'll likely be out of there before 11. Then it'll be home to have a picnic with Gibbs. I think we'll have hot dogs.