Happy Halloween

Wishing everyone all treats and no tricks today.

Recently I posted an edit of a picture I had taken from when Wade and I had dressed up one year to pass out candy.  These were taken in 2007

This is the original picture.

Someone asked what I dressed up as. I was a witch. Wade took the picture and he never good seem to understand the concept of zooming in. Look how cute and little Duke was back then

Wade and I both carved pumpkins that year. We decided to get all fancy.

I was on a roll

Monday I was on a roll with the crafting. After I did the two decorations I showed you yesterday I made a couple more ornaments.

Grace commented the other day on these about different colored glitter. I pulled out some gold. I also had a small tube of blue that I didn't think would be enough so I mixed it with a little bit of silver glitter.

Here's all three of them together. This time around I increased the size of the wording a little and I think I like that better. I also thought a nativity scene would look nice on the blue. I probably could have made that one just a little bigger too.

Another thing I'm thinking of doing is covering the edge of the grey lid on the bottom with some ribbon. I'm not real crazy about the gray.

I'm really liking the look of the blue. I think I'm going to have to pick up some more blue glitter. After I stuck the vinyl down on this one I realized I had it bit crooked. It seems no matter how hard I try to get things straight I always end up with it a bit wonky. Maybe I should call myself the wonky crafter.

I also have some small round clear plastic ornaments and I think I'll glitter some of those and maybe add either a name or a single word like JOY or NOEL

I love it when the crafting bug hits me.

Monday craft time

Recently Amanda and I had gone to a craft show and saw some Christmas decorations we liked. I didn't like the price on them though and figured they would be easy to make. We made a trip to Dollar Tree and I picked up some extra large plastic ornaments and some holiday floral picks. Then there was a stop at Walmart for some fabric. We each chose a fat quarter in a fabric we liked. I thought this was going to be a mother daughter type project but as it turned out Amanda had a different plan. Can you guess that her plan was for me to make them both?

I didn't take any pictures of the materials before I started but here is the one I made for myself.

I started by wrapping the fabric around the ornament and gathering it at the top then securing it with a rubber band. Then I trimmed down the fabric at the top. I used jute twine to wrap it a little tighter and cover the rubber band. I took the floral pick apart and started hot gluing the pieces around the top of the ornament then finished it off with a jute bow.

Once I finished mine then I did a second one with the fabric and floral pick that Amanda chose for hers. Here are the two of them together.

A little crafting time

While scrolling through Pinterest I came across a Christmas ornament that I liked. The original ornament is on Leap of Faith Crafting. This is the pin I found.

I gathered my materials.
A Dollar Tree ornament
some extra fine glitter
Minwax polycrylic.
I also downloaded the free SVG file from the blog above for the Joy to the world

I still need to get a battery operated candle to put inside but this is mine.

I picked up several of the ornaments and will be making more. I think these will make nice little gifts.

A weighty matter

image from snappygoat.com

So I've finally gotten myself back into healthier eating habits. I got very tired of my increasing weight and I had to do something about it. I don't know exactly when I started but so far I've lost 12 pounds. It's been slow with some weeks only a 1/2 pound or a pound loss but at least I am going in the right direction.

On the advice of my pal Sandra I gave up white flour and sugar and started watching the sodium. Last week I went grocery shopping and had a few different things in mind that I always thought were good choices. Then I looked at the nutrition label and was shocked at just how much sodium is in most of the foods I was buying. No wonder I've had such a hard time losing weight. 

I still have a ways to go to get to the weight I would like to be at but I think for now I'm on the right track. Now I just need to get through the holidays.

As ordered

Well I did that cake I told you about the other day. Personally I don't think it looks all that great but then I didn't like the idea of how she wanted it done either. I wasn't there when she picked it up but they said she didn't say anything and she didn't make any funny faces when she looked at it.
I think they probably wanted a darker orange but this is what they got.

Looking back

I haven't been taking pictures lately so I'm relying on old ones again.

Gibbs wants to know if this costume makes him look too skinny

Just some nice fall color

I think it was the first year after Wade and I were married we both dressed up to pass out candy. He chose a very scary maks that he was just thrilled with. I took his picture sitting on the front porch with the ghost and skeleton then I did an edit and put it on a black sky with the moon. The pumkins on the porch were ones that we carved that year.

Just chatting

So after yesterdays post I see that maybe my hearing aids don't work as well as I thought they did. Even with all of you hearing UN instead of ON I still hear it that way. I guess I just have it stuck in my brain that that's what she's saying. Oh well.

So Tuesday night It's the great pumpkin Charlie Brown was on. I haven't seen it in ages so I thought I would watch it. It came on at 8:00. I think I saw maybe 5 or 10 minutes of it and then I woke up at 9:15.  Oh well, maybe next year.

I got to work yesterday and found another cake order hanging. This one is for Friday. It's quite different and you can imagine the conversation that it started among us at work.
The order is for a 1/2 sheet cake. They wanted it frosted all in orange with an American flag and a Confederate flag crossed undereath the writing which is to say "Meeting of the clan"  Hopefully I'll remember to take a picture of it when I'm done.

It just bugs me

Every time I see the commercial for Audible it drives me nuts. There is a woman who says the word ONbelievable instead of UNbelievable and it makes me crazy. Maybe I'm hearing her wrong but that's what I hear every single time.

The woman I'm talking about you can hear at the 30 second mark. Listen and tell me if I'm hearing her wrong. Do you hear her say ON or UN?

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Monday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, it wasn't too cold and there was no reason not to go out for  a walk

Gibbs wanted to check out the display in front of the local Jazzercise studio. Before we left he wanted to leave his mark but I told him that wasn't polite.

All the telephone poles on the main street through town have wood football helmets with the high school players names on them. Underneath those are pink ribbons tied around the poles. Gibbs was freaked out every time we walked by one and the wind would blow the ribbon. He practically tripped me at one point trying to get away from it.

On this day

In 2018 we got a little bit of snow. I don't think it stuck around though

In 2016 Gibbs was enjoying the fall colors.

2015 and edited version of fall in my front yard

All in a days work

Friday morning when I got to work I found a cake order hanging for me. It asked for light blue and light purple flowers. Happy Birthday (in purple) Bryce (in blue) centered with a twisted blue and purple border. I have no idea exactly what they meant by that but this was my interpretation.

They didn't pick it up until after I left so I can't say if they were happy with it or not.

No particular place to go

Yesterday after I got home from work and Gibbs and I had both had our dinner I decided to take a short little drive down to the local park.

I had nowhere I had to be or nothing I had to do, and although it was a bit cool it was an absolute beautiful day

We don't have much fall color but I did find a bit.

While I was strolling through the park with Gibbs, I picked up some pinecones. I saw on Facebook that you could put these in dirt, water a little every day and they'll grow a little tree. Don't know if it will work or not but can't hurt to try.

Hope everyone enjoys their day.

It's too early for this

It seems to me that it's just too early in the year for it to be feeling so cold already. Yesterday our high was only about 50. It was rainy and gloomy.

Even Gibbs had to pull out a blanket.

I do keep the thermostat turned down rather low. It's only at 68. Already the furnace has been running quite a bit. I have a feeling it's going to be a long winter

Over, under and in between

The clouds over the trees

The birds enjoying the seed under the tree in my front yard

And the persistant little squirrel spotted in the tree on his way back for more sunflower seed.

Broom rentals

Another craft finish for me. This is white vinyl on a black foam board and the frame is made from paint sticks. For some reason on the last two I can not cut the paint sticks straight to save my life. Oh well. I received something from blogging friend Connie once that had a tag that stated "If it's perfect it wasn't made by me" That is so true.

Unfortunately the transfer tape pulled up a bit of the black outer layer of the foam board.

I dabbed a bit of black ink of the spot to try and hide it a little.

It kind of sticks out like a sore thumb to me but I suppose you wouldn't notice so much if you weren't looking for it.

Shaker Woods

I skipped posting yesterday because on Sunday, my daughter and I, went to Shaker Woods for the Christmas in the woods festival. I've been there several times before but this was Amanda's first trip. It's a lot of walking and a bit confusing trying to follow the map so that you see all there is to see. We left around 9:00 a.m. and I think it was about 5:00 when I got home. Needless to say, after feeding Gibbs I parked my butt on the couch and lounged for the rest of the evening.

I didn't really take many pictures but I have a collage of the few I did snap.

The only actual craft item I took a picture of was the doll that I considered buying for Presley but then never did.

A determined little critter.

I have a little visitor who has found the bird feeder in my front yard. I kept trying to scare him off but he kept coming right back for more.

Persistance

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

I have yet to succeed at getting a good photo of the moon but yet I keep on trying. I went out the other night when it wasn't quite dark yet but the moon was shining bright in the sky. This is the best I could get.

Get a room

Wednesday after work I went out to mow the lawn. As I was moving I started seeing a lot of mushrooms. I really wanted to take some pictures but didn't want to stop the mower to run in and grab the camera. When I got to the last one I saw in the yard I mowed around it and went back out later with the camera.

I am so glad that today is Friday. I spent all day yesterday thinking it was Friday and I was really disappointed when I realized it was only Thursday. It must be the three day weekend I'm going to have that made me try and hurry it along.

Daddy's girl

If you follow me on Facebook you probably already saw this but I wanted to share it here since it's so darn cute.
This is a picture of my son and Presley napping together in his recliner. The identical pose just cracked me up.

I would say she is definitely daddy's girl.

I've got nothing to blog about

But I donut care because my daughter took this picture in Dollar Tree so that I could use it on my blog.

She thought this would be a good one for me to use at work but with my luck I would drop it and break it. I only use a plastic cup with a lid while at work.

Miscellaneous

The other night when I let Gibbs out I was fascinated with the way the sky looked. I took my camera and tripod out to try and take some pictures. They didn't turn out very good even using the tripod. These were the best two.

This picture was facing sort of south maybe south west.I was having a hard time getting the moon because the clouds were moving pretty fast.

This one is facing  west or north west.

The days here are getting much cooler. Last Friday the high was only around 57. The overnight low was too low for me but I refused to turn on the furnace just yet. Saturday morning I woke up and I believe the temp at the time was 39 and the house was COLD. I still said nope, not going to turn it. I grabbed my robe and got a cup of coffee. After an hour of being cold I caved.

I only turned the thermostat up to 65 and even though this baby is getting pretty old, it heated the house up quite nicely.

Lets talk turkey

I finished a project the other day that I had actually started either last year or maybe even the year before. I had some of the pieces cut but I needed to cut a few more.

His body is a piece of 2x4, the head is the top part of a paint stick, the feathers are jumbo craft sticks covered in scrapbook paper. The beak and waddle are both cut from paper and glued on and feather glued to the back of his head.

A fun day off

Yesterday my daughter Amanda and I went out to a craft show. I didn't buy anything hand made although I did see quite a few nice things. I did spend a total of $3 while I was there. A lady had a table set up with miscellaneous items and they were priced pretty cheap.

A little early yet for Christmas but I couldn't pass up these three ornaments that were priced at $2 for all three.

And for this price, how could I pass up this cute mug.

A more seasonal item was also marked .50 cents. She was just too cute.

After the craft show we stopped at Pizza hut for lunch then Dollar Tree, Walmart, the Hallmark store and a consignment shop that I've seen but never been in.

It was a nice way to spend a day off.

Who's afraid of the dark?

I finished another night light.

I love the design of these night lights but I've noticed they come out of the package quite scratched up. The only other thing I don't like about them is that when you plug them in they are always on. I prefer the ones that only come on when it's dark. Oh well, what do you expect for a dollar.

Here it is plugged in.