More playing

I recently purchased a set of pen adapters for my Cricut so that could use pens other than the Cricut brand pens. The Cricut pens are a bit expensive at around $10 for a set of 5. There were 6 adapters in the pack. Of the 6 I have Bic Mark it, Sharpie ultra fine point and Crayola super tips. I decided to give them a try to see how well they worked.

The Sharpie ultra fine worked really well as did the Bic mark it. The Crayola super tip however didn't slide into the adapter enough and the tip of the marker couldn't touch the paper. When you're using the draw feature on the Cricut it will only draw the outline. It won't color things in. After the Cricut did it's thing I used markers to color it all in.

 

The wavy lines you're seeing on this is because after I got done coloring it I ran it through my paper crimper.

Playing

Besides my Cricut machine I also have a cuddlebug which is a manual die cutting machine. The last couple times I've tried to use it, it hasn't cut very well. I decided to play with it the other day to see if I could figure out what I was doing wrong. Of course that required some time on the computer to investigate. I tried a couple things and lo and behold it's now cutting like it should.

 

The pinecone die not only cuts the shape but it also emobsses to give the piece a more realistic look

an adventure for Barb

I don't know where Barb is going or what her adventure will be but her church ordered this cake for her last Sunday. 

In case you're wondering, Bethel is the name of the church. I believe it's Bethel Baptist.

through the screen

I can't believe what a comeback my hydrangea has made this year. It's covered in blooms and I couldn't resist taking a picture through the screen the other day

Yesterday Anni said she wasn't sure what a step card was. I was too lazy to take pictures that would better show it but instead I snagged this one from Pinterest. You can see the mountain and valley folds in the front that I suppose resemble steps. I'm assuming that's how it got it's name.

Step card

Wade's youngest daughter has a birthday coming up in August. I had originally made the one box card for her but decided I didn't really like it all that much. Last Saturday I worked on making her a new card. This one is a step card

Some Q&A from yesterday.

CheerfulMonk asked: Do you sell many that size?

For a while they were selling really fast. It's slowed down some but they are still going. 

Ginny said: So would these be personal pan cakes?

Yes, I suppose you could call them that. It's a lot of cake for just one person to eat in one sitting so I would suggest sharing it with a friend.

1/2 of a 1/4

Simple math. Taks one 1/4 sheet cake and cut it in 1/2 to make 2, 1/8 sheet cakes.

not just for cutting

I bet you thought that the only thing my Cricut machine could do was cut things. Well here's a project that shows that it has multiple talents. This is a combination of cutting and drawing

 

The only problem with this project is that the pend didn't draw in the very beginning. This is supposed to have a basket on the front of the bike with some flowers in it. I think my pen was sitting in the wrong position to start with and that's why it didn't draw the basket. You can just barely make out some of the lines. Now that I'm looking at it I see it didn't draw all the spokes on the front wheel either. 

hello

I spent part of my last day off playing in my craft room here is one of the cards that I made

around the yard

A happy little frog watches over my house from the front yard.

 

The plant my daughter gave me for my birthday is doing very well.

 

The hydrangea is still doing well and has multiple colored blooms on it. I should have gotten a better picture since they all look the same color in this one.

 

This gnome loves to hang out in my backyard

strawberry love

I recently sliced some strawberries and look what I found

In my post yesterday Grace wanted to know what I used to dress the pasta salad. Martha had suggested just using the marinade from the jar of artichoke hearts. I tried that at first but for me it just didn't do much to add flavor to the pasta. I ended up drizzling a bit of Italian dressing on it.

pasta salad

Recently Martha posted a pasta salad that looked so delicious I had to try it for myself

 

Besides the pasta I added green peppers, tomatoes, red onions, black olives, and marinated artichoke hearts

another box

This is a box card that I made for Wade's oldest son. His birthday isn't until November but now I have the card done and out of the way. Here it is folded flat for mailing 

 

And a few views of it popped up

Super fun beach day part 2

I didn't hang out long but I did stop at one of the beaches and took a little bit of a walk

From the pictures you would think that I had the beach to myself but actually there were quite a few people there. I walked to a spot where I could avoid getting anyone in the picture.

Then it was time to head back. The speed limit in the park is 25 mph so it's a nice relaxing drive.

Super fun beach day everybody

That line from the Progressive insurance commercial is the perfect title for todays post.

Last Thursday I had a follow-up appointment with the orthopedic specialist. It was an early appointment so after I got done I took a drive around the peninsula, also known as Presque Isle State Park. My first stop was Perry Monument

 

It was a beautiful day, temperatures in the 70s with a nice breeze coming off the lake. The geese were enjoying themselves

 

The only problem with this many geese being around is there is also a lot of goose poop around. You definitely had to watch where you stepped 

 when I left here I stopped on one of the beaches but I'll show you those pictures tomorrow

make a wish

I was experimenting the other day with making some box cards. I'm not entirely happy with this one and I may or may not send it to the person I made it for. But it is worth a blog post.

Here it is folded flat. The bottom flaps are actually supposed to fold up when you put it in the envelope however because of where I placed the birthday cake it won't do that 

 

Here it is popped up

Video answer

 Grace asked a question the other day on my Christmas card post. Here is my answer in a video. You'll have the excuse my stumbling over words. This one was about the 10th try and finally said however it comes out is how it's posting.

Hostas

The other day when I was outside waiting for my dinner to cook on the grill I happened to notice my hostas

I don't get out in the yard nearly enough. I really should take a walk around every now and then and see what I can find.

Christmas in July

I wanted to get a head start on making my Christmas cards and I've been trying to come up with a design that I liked. Monday I think I found what I want to do. This will be the basic layout the patterned paper may or may not change. Some may have this paper and some may have something else. That I haven't decided yet. I suppose it will depend on how much I have.

Here's a close-up of the poinsettia. This is a free Cut file from Ginacreates.com

I added a little more character to it by inking the edges and making the vein lines in the pedals

Next I just need to decide how I want to stamp this.

I think I'm also going to add  a ribbon to break up that large white space. As for the stamping I may use one of the above or go with something completely different. 

Things don't always go according to plan

I made a vinyl decal to put on my donut case at work.

You'll notice that there is a second one up in the left-hand corner. The lighter pink one is my first attempt. The first thing I noticed that I did wrong was that I layered them in the wrong order and the brown sprinkles didn't show up because I buried them under another layer. And then came the second mistake.

Somewhere in the process of making this I laid one of the layers back down on a backing paper. The problem was I set it down on the wrong side of the backing paper. One side has a shiny coating so that the vinyl can be easily lifted. There was just no way to get that paper off of there.

Second attempt I made it a little smaller because I was short on materials. I didn't even have enough of the light pink so had to go with the darker pink

This is just proof that not all my crafty endeavors come out looking great the first time around.

Details

 The other day when I wrote about being cranky, Sandra left me a comment saying:

When you feel better right up why the day make you cranky we all want to know. Was that the customers was it the people you work with was it the manager did someone throw a ham at you did someone smash a pie in your face you know details please

Well today I'm here to give you details. I'll try to list them in order of how they happened.

• The deli people are horrible at washing dishes. For some reason they can't grasp the concept of washing in clean hot water. Every morning I grab a tray and it's coated in grease. Tell me how can a person put a tray away without feeling the grease all over it? Well naturally that was the first thing that set me off last Friday. You think I would be used to it by now but I'm not.
• The next thing was one of the managers telling me there were some dairy  items that needed to be reduced. My response to him was if I get to it. Well excuse me but I have a whole list of bakery things to do, I'm second deli person and you want me to reduce some dairy items? Why can't you do it yourself or get your cashier whos standing at her register texting to do it.
• Third was the cashier who was standing there texting at her register. I did a double take as I walked by her and said "phone? really?" She gave me a look that pretty much said, yeah, and what are you going to do about it.
• 4th was the girl who works in the meat room. Our dress code is black or khaki pants, and black or white shirt. She walks by me wearing blue jeans with rips and holes up and down the legs and tie dye tee-shirt. 

So there you have it. Nothing serious, just a whole lot of little things that irritated and annoyed me and made me very cranky. No hams or pies were involved.  To add to the part about reducing dairy items, yesterday the boss comes in and he tells me there are some more dairy items to reduce and to make a point of checking that area every morning. Well care to hear my response to him? I said "When and why did reducing dairy become my job? That sounds like a job for (insert cashier name) or I suppose that would cut into her texting time. Everyone seems to think I just stand around back here doing nothing and have all kinds of free time on my hands" He looked at me and said you're a bit snarky today, fine I'll get someone else to do it. 

Random thoughts.

 Just a few random thoughts that are rattling around in my brain.

COOKING: I used to love to cook but the older I get the more I hate it. Because I pretty much learned to cook for a family of 4 it's hard for me to cook in smaller quantities. It was hard when I was trying to cook for Wade and I because I always made too much and he didn't like to eat leftovers. These days it just seems pointless to cook for just me. If I'm going to cook though I will eat the same thing for several days just because it's so much easier to reheat something in the microwave.

WORK: There are a few people at work who simply annoy the heck out of me. Back when I first started there were rules and policies that we had to follow. If you didn't follow them then you were written up. Now people just seem to do whatever they want and don't care. They get away with it because we are so short of people that they don't want anyone to quit. I get that but it doesn't make things easier for those of us who try and do a good job and follow the rules.

FAMILY: I really need to stop reading certain posts on Facebook. My son put together a softball tournament to benefit a woman who's husband recently passed away. My son was a friend and neighbor of the couple. Well on one of his posts regarding the tournament someone said something about how nice it was of him to do that. His response was "that's what you do for family". Call me crazy, but it hurt my feelings a bit, because I AM family and he doesn't even call or text me. 

DAY OFF: Yesterday on my whiny post Ginny said that she hoped I had the day off Saturday and yes, I did. Anni asked if it was time to retire and yes, I do wish I could. I did in fact take it easy all day Saturday too.

Just a quick post

Today has got to be a better day than yesterday. I got to work Friday morning and it didn't take long before I was feeling cranky. The day only got worse from there. By the time I got home from work all I wanted to do was lay down and take a nap. Other than to get a quick bite to eat for dinner, I spent the rest of the evening on the couch napping. I never went near the computer except to write this post to schedule for this morning. 

This or that

I want to thank Martha from Seaside Simplicity for the great blog post idea. I copied the questions from her blog and here they are with my answers.

1. Morning or Night - I was always more of a night person until I started working in the bakery. Now that I've been both, I prefer mornings.

2. Coffee or Tea -For years I was a tea person. I loved the smell of coffee but hated the taste. One day at work we were out of cappuccino so I made coffee with hot cocoa mixed in and the rest is history. I don't drink it with cocoa any more but I drink way more coffee than I ever did tea.

3. Text or Call - I prefer to text. Since my hearing has gotten bad I have trouble hearing on the phone so texting is way easier.

4. Small town or Big city -I'm a small town girl all the way.

5. Beer or Wine - I very rarely drink but if I had my choice I would have wine. I don't like the taste or the smell of beer.

6. Messy or Tidy -I can be a little of both. My house is actually pretty tidy but if I'm crafting I make a huge mess and my craft room frequently needs cleaned.

7. Introvert or Extrovert - Introvert unless I'm with someone I know well

8. Cats or Dogs - Both. I prefer animals of any kind 

9. English or Math - I would have to say neither 

10. Sweet or Savory -I like both but probably go for the sweet more often than the savory

11. Beach or Mountains - This one is too close to call. I could be happy with either one

12. Predictability or Excitement - I'm a very boring person and quite predictable. 

13. Time machine or Magic wand - A magic wand for sure and if I ever wanted to time travel all I would have to do is wave my wand.

another year another picture

Every year I can't resist taking a picture of the daylilies when they start to bloom. These don't look any different than every other picture I've taken over the years and yet I get new ones

blue truck

Driving up the road the other day I spotted this truck sitting in a yard. I stopped just before the stop sign and started taking a picture. I was going to zoom in to get a closer look but another car came up behind me

.

Here is a cropped version so you can get a closer look at the truck