I'm so confused

I was taught that one pound is 16 oz. So then explain to me why this pound cake only weighs 10 ounces. Shouldn't it be a 10-ounce cake?

another mug

All day Monday I tried to do something creative but it just wasn't working. Finally around 6 that night I decided to try to make another mug. This is what I got

I like the pattern that I created for this but I was kind of hoping that the ink would have come out a little bit darker. The ink that I used has different shades of the green across the sheet some spots are really light while others are a little bit darker. The ink is called green watercolor and the box it came in looks darker than the mug. I'm wondering if I did something wrong. Either way the mug does look nice though.

Hobo stove

The other day at work I opened one of these 10lb cans and it made me think of hobo stoves. Have you ever heard of them?

When I was a kid my dad was a boy scout leader and one of the things he did with his troop was to make hobo stoves. Being the good father that he was, he also made them at home to entertain my friends and I. 

Basically, you turn the can upside down, cut a hole in the side of it and build a fire underneath and use the bottom of the can as your cooking surface. I found a website that shows details on how to make your own so I won't go into it but if you're interested, here is the link HERE 

What's that pattern on?

First I want to thank Sandra since she gave me the idea for todays post. She suggested that I show you what all of those patterns were on. So here we go.

The first one was a zippered pouch that I keep in my purse to hold small items.

The second pattern was a table runner on my coffee table

 

Next was a pillow on my couch

 

Followed by the little tray that sits on my coffee table. The pattern was the scrapbook paper that I used on the bottom of it

 

The last one, which I don't have a picture for, was emery boards. They were cheap ones that were all bent up and I threw them away before I took pictures for today. If I didn't have all the other pictures I might have dug through the garbage for them but I wasn't in desperate need so I figured you'd let me slide on this one.

Do you see a pattern

So, I was sitting on the couch last night trying to decide what to blog about. Suddenly it occurred to me that there seems to be a pattern forming here.

 

I'm either sitting on the couch, lounging, napping, or trying to come up with blog ideas. It's gotten quite repetative. 

 

The really great part about today's post is that it was all done from the comfort of my couch.

 

My phone was ithin reach and every single one of these patterns was close enough for me to take a picture without ever getting up.

 

You could come to two different conclusions after reading this. One, maybe I've gotten very lazy about blogging or two, I need to clean off my coffee table

it worked out well

It was a good thing that I didn't have any goals or expectations for the day because my biggest accomplishment was catching up on napping.

I did go outside for a while and do a little bit of yard work. I cleaned up all the loose branches laying in the yard and a bunch of dead leaves. Then I got those in the burn barrel and taken care of

 

I'm not quite sure why Wade had piled all those rocks around the bottom of the burn barrel. It ends up making a nice place for all the weeds to hide. I suppose I could move the Rocks but why bother.

Walking back to the house I noticed how many dandelions are in the yard.

Not much to talk about.

 This past week has been a low energy, low temp kind of week. We had snow, cold weather and I had aches and no energy. My daily goal was to get home so I could put my pajamas on and lounge on the couch. Keeping that in mind I have no expectations for today. I will not ask myself to try and accomplish anything. I will take each moment of the day as it comes and will do whatever feels right . 

If you follow me on facebook you saw that the 22nd would have been my 15th anniversary and the 23rd would have been my brothers birthday. Both rather sad days and both left me feeling incredibly lonely. Thankfully those moments are few and far between. Just another part of life I guess. 

chillaxe

It's how we roll around here in the evenings.

Rude awakening

I had heard that we were in for some winter weather but it still came as a shock when I saw it.

Looking through my windshield before I left for work. Only 32 degrees. I wanted to go back inside and curl up under a blanket

Since I was the only one on the road I stopped and took a picture.

Then I took another one when I got to the stop sign at the end of the street. This one looks more snowy than it really is. You have the water drops on the window and the tree on the left is covered in white blossoms.

By the time I left work it was done snowing and most of the snow was gone. There was still some in the yards but the roads were all clear. It was still pretty darn cold though.

another cake

Sunday morning when I got to work there was a cake order hanging. This is what I came up with.

 

I used the colored sugars on this like I did on the one the other day

for May birthdays

There are a couple birthdays coming up in May that I needed to make cards for. I've sort of been procrastinating about it but yesterday I finally got around to making them. I did two exactly the same. It's been a while since I've done a card and I had fun making a mess on my desk,

The future of lawn care.

 More specifically, the future of my lawns care. No more will you see me doing this.

Last week I called a landscaper who advertised on Facebook. He told me he would swing by and look at my yard and get back to me with a price. I missed his call Friday and the voicemail he left was hard to understand because his cell phone was breaking up really bad. I was going to call him back today but got a text message from him last night. He gave me a price of $25 to mow, do the weed eating and blowing off the walks. Last year a girl I worked with told me her grandson did mowing for $20 a week. I turned it down because at the time I thought that was a lot for something I could do myself. This year, I know I can't do it any more and with this guy he does all the extra as well. I'm pretty sure he's the one who used to do the neighbors across the street and they always did a good job.

This summer I can sit back, relax and enjoy myself. I should probably advertise a one year old push mower for sale.

time for cake

Not much going on so today I'll just show you a couple cakes I made at work recently

. I had a better picture of this next one but somehow managed to delete it

Q and A Day

Finally, I'm getting around to doing a post that will answer the questions you had for me the other day.

Lets start with 

Hootin' Anni said...

Weeded? What does that mean? And are these like transfers...I'm a bit confused.

After you cut your design on the infusible ink you weed it which is removing the unwanted ink pieces from the design. Here is a video I did a while back showing how the weeding is done. This was with vinyl but it's the same procedure just this time it's with ink instead of vinyl.

Sandra said...

I know what we did means but I don't see a mistake. Also I had a thought do you have to buy the exact same type of cup or can you put different size cups in there

You do need what's called a sublimation mug. It has some kind of special coating on it that will allow the ink to adhere to it. Also with this mug press you can only use straight mugs, no curved sides. The press will work on mugs up to 15 oz. 

Kate said...

We need more details on weeded, mugs used, designs, etc. lol Your mugs look very nice and I wonder if they can be put in the dishwasher. Looks like you're having fun.

The designs are pretty much anything you want. You cut the design from a sheet of infusible ink, then wrap that around the mug and place it in the press. They are both microwave and dishwasher safe.

The designs are cut from infusible ink sheets. They come in either 4.5 x 12" sheets or 12 x12" sheets. They come in various colors and patterns. The smaller size is made specifically for mugs but the larger size sheets are the same thing. The ink is on a transfer sheet and once you cut your design and weed it, you use the backing sheet to wrap the entire design around your mug before putting it into the press.

It is possible to put photos on these mugs as well but in order to do that you need a special kind of printer that uses sublimation ink. You print your picture on sublimation paper and then like the infusible ink, wrap it around the mug before inserting into the press. I would love to be able to do that as well but the printers are pretty pricey. 

So there you have it. I'm not sure if I answered all the questions well enough or if I just made it all more confusing. A lot of times, even though I know what I'm doing/thinking I am not very good at explaining it.

Sorry

 It's not happening today either. I'll try again tomorrow.

Excuse/reason

 Yesterday was a rough day. All day long my back, hip and shoulder hurt. Then I came home and mowed the lawn. After making myself a sandwich for dinner I was exhausted and had no energy or brain power left to do a post. Tomorrow I will be back to answer all the questions you had on yesterdays post.

my first mug

So after my first failed attempt, I chose and easier design and gave it another try. I patiently impatiently waited while the press did it's thing

 Next I patiently impatiently waited while the mug cooled enough to peel off the transfer paper.

And finally I revealed my first mug.

I actually did mess this up too but it's nothing major. Notice the coffee mug in the design above and then look at it in the photo below. Not a big deal, I just weeded it two different ways. If you want to know, the bottom is the way it should have been weeded.

Now what shall I put on the next mug I make?

Mug press

You might recall a while back I was talking about wanting to get a Cricut mug press. My dilemma was the cost. I couldn't see spending all that money on something that I may not use all that much. And yet, I still obsessed over it. One day while visiting my Amazon shopping cart and seeing all of the wonderful items that were there I noticed the offer for the Amazon Prime Visa card. I could order all the items in my cart and get $150 cash back if I applied for the Visa card. Call me crazy but I went ahead and did it and instead of paying $230 plus tax I ended up paying $85. The hardest part about all of this was that I didn't get the 2-day shipping on all the items and it took quite a while for all of it to finally arrive.

 

Once I received enough items that I could finally try and make a mug, I was too scared start. I didn't want to make a mistake which is what keeps me from doing things a lot of the time. Well, guess what happened on my first attempt? You guessed it I screwed up

 

 

You can't really tell by looking at the above pictures but the problem was I picked a design that was l little too complex. It was difficult to weed and I ended up messing it up. That didn't stop me though I gave it another try. Come back tomorrow to see the first mug that I did

Answer

The other day I posted this picture

 

Ginny asked if it was a tree or a bush. Well the above picture is part of this tree.

 The last couple years this tree hasn't been looking so good. It has several dead branches and doesn't seem to get as many leaves as it used to. I really hate to have it taken down but I'm afraid I might have to.

Daffodils

The other day I noticed I had some daffodils growing. I never even noticed them coming up.

 

 

Yesterday I ended up having to go in on my day off. Again we have a shortage on people and then the ones we do have either call off or request off. It's not easy finding a replacement. Well for yesterday everybody said no and I was the only one left so I had to go to work. At least it was only 4 hours but still. Needless to say I'm looking forward to getting home from work today and not going back until Tuesday. If my phone rings on Monday and the caller ID says work I am not answering

when my world turns green

I just love this time of year when the world starts coming back to life again. I see signs of spring and it makes my heart happy. What makes me even happier is when everything turns green.

Things are getting greener and greener every day. I'm probably going to have to pull the mower out soon. That doesn't make me happy. I'm thinking I might have to get someone to mow for me because I don't think I can handle doing it all myself any more.

In need of laughs

The last few days have been annoying and frustrating. I'm cranky and in need of some laughs

for what?

Forsythia for your viewing pleasure