yearly inspection

Lately I seem to have plenty of blog material so I'm running about a week behind when I post things. Last Monday I had my inspection on my vehicle. I took it down the night before and had Amanda give me a ride back home. Monday morning when they called to say it was done I had to walk down to get it. It's not that far maybe about 3/4 of a mile. Back in the day it would have been a piece of cake. These days I need to walk a little slower so the hips don't totally kill me. And at least the walk there is all down hill.

 I took this picture as I was walking past the catechetical center that's behind the Catholic Church. I figured I could come up with some witty saying but turns out I'm just putting it in this post.

Another year and my vehicle has passed no problem. It's getting older, is a 2015, so I've been expecting things to start going wrong and needing replaced. Last year I did need new brakes but this year all was good.

I remember when it used to cost about $20 to get a vehicle inspected. Now it's $62

tight fit

I just love it when people order a quarter sheet cake and want a novel written on it. There's only so much room for putting the writing and then flowers as well. I did manage to squeeze all this onto the cake though

Friends

Last Saturday I looked out the back door and happened to see two crows sitting side by side on a limb of the dead tree sitting just off of my property line. They seem to be quite friendly and I couldn't help wondering what their conversation might be like.

I wish I could have zoomed in further but this is the best I could do with my phone

Cake day

One day last week I had to do two cakes in one day. Both were quarters sheet cakes. Both wanted red and yellow. The first one I liked.

The second one was not so great looking. They wanted balloons on the cake which I can do but they don't always look very good. Also, in addition to the red and yellow they wanted black and white balloons. Personally I thought this cake looked horrible.

I have no idea what the  customer thought about it since she didn't pick it up till after I left. She didn't leave any complaints about it so that's a good thing.

The card that Presley made.

One day last week I came home to find a card in the mail for me. It was the one that Presley made from the kit that I sent her.

She went all out.

I have this sitting on my desk so I can see it every day. Her dad told me she already made all 6 cards and sent them to people. I think he said her other grandmother got one too. 

Cake time.

A recent cake order at work only requested that I do it in pink and purple. Again I decided to do a little something different than my ordinary design.

The customer was happy so that's all I really cared about

Doodling again

I can't remember where I saw how to draw this bird, and I don't really know exactly what kind of bird it is. I just know it's kind of cute.

First I did it with just the red and black pens. Then I found some orange and yellow markers and added to it. 

He was originally on a piece of paper that said Happy Monday. I left it for the girl who works bakery on my days off.

When I went in on Tuesday and it was still hanging on the table I cut it out and then glued it to another piece of paper and added the snarky saying. It gives me a little bit of a chuckle while I work. 

Lunch out

On the 15th Amanda and I went to a local craft show and then out to lunch. We went to a place called White Turkey. 

This is a seasonal place and it's only open during the summer months. The food was really good but way expensive. For two burgers, one order of fries, and two drinks it was $26.

Seating is all outside. You have your choice of eating at the counter or out back where they have lots of picnic tables with umbrellas.

It's a really popular spot. They were very busy. Because of the price it's not somewhere I will go to often but it's one of those places where you have to stop at least once a year.

In other news, I dropped my car off at the garage yesterday afternoon. I have an appointment today for it's yearly inspection. Hopefully it will pass and not need anything extra. 

Another new card Style

I recently found a new blog to follow. It's called Simply Simple Stamping. Now I'm not much of a stamper. I've tried and I'm just not too good at it. This blog is more than just stamping though and everything she shows really is pretty simple. She does all kinds of videos for making different kinds of cards. This is a simple and easy style that looks nice and it's quite versatile. I did three different ones. Normally I would break this up into three different posts but I think I'm probably boring you with all the cards I've been making so I'm doing all three together this time.

Basically you take a three inch square piece of paper and cut it into 1 in strips. You layer the strips on a larger piece of cardstock spacing out evenly and leaving a large space to add a sentiment . This one I used a printed picture of an underwater scene . Then I added the hello and a mermaid that I cut on my Cricut.

This next one again I used a picture. This time it was of the beach and I added a flamingo that I cut on my Cricut.

I found a really cute saying for the inside.

The third and final one I just used a 3-in square piece of scrapbook paper. Then I stamped the sentiment in the blank space.

Red for Rick

A recent cake order at work was a birthday cake with all red decorations

I decided to do my typical design a little different this time. This time I put all the writing down one side and the flowers on the other

Beating the Heat

So far this summer it really hasn't been excessively hot other than a couple days here and there. However, Gibbs does not like going out in the heat. Especially when I put him out on his lead and he has to go out alone. When I get home from work I put him outside and within minutes he wants back in. On one of the extra hot days I took him out back and we sat underneath the tree. He sniffed the grass while I played a game on my phone. He enjoys the shade if he has someone to share it with.

Yes shaggy dog I'm talking about you.

And just in case you were wondering I didn't lose one of my flip-flops. See here they are both of them.

Card making kit

I came up with the idea of making Presley her own card making kit.

To make the kit I cut and folded blank cards, cut colored cardstock and scrapbook paper. I gathered envelope, stickers, glitter pens scissors and glue sticks. I found a nice size plastic container to fit it all into and then I cut out vinyl to decorate the top. One of the envelopes I included had a stamp and my address already written on it so that she could make me a card and send it.

When she got it in the mail her mom sent me a video of her opening the package and then a picture of her making a card that same night.

I included a letter explaining that card making is my favorite craft and wanted to share it with her. I told her that I made the kit just for her so she could see if she thought it was a fun craft to do.

My day off on Monday

I had an appointment scheduled at the eye doctors for 9:00 in the morning. I still had plenty of time to sit leisurely drinking coffee before I had to head out.  It was a rather overcast and hazy day. I heard later that their was an air quality warning for the day.

Whenever I have to make the trip to Erie I include a few extra stops at some of the places I don't go very often. Christmas tree shops is going out of business so I wanted to stop there and see what they had. 

It was already pretty well picked over and except for the few Christmas decorations that were 60% off everything was only 10% off. Rather disappointing. 

Michaels was right next door so that was my next stop. I thought of Ginny while I was in there because we had an email conversation about them. I had told her I don't go there often since it was a 30 mile drive so she said she would let me know when the fall stuff went on sale. Well guess what? The fall stuff was indeed on sale. SCORE. Then I noticed that she left me a comment on my blog yesterday letting me know that the fall stuff was on sale. 

I splurged and bought two.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

On one of my days off I was letting the fresh air in with all the doors and windows open. After a while I started smelling smoke. I wondered who was burning. It kept getting stronger. I went upstairs did a couple things and then walked into the kitchen. That's when I realized what I was smelling. 

I had put whole potatoes in a pan to boil, set the timer on my phone and went about my business. I totally forgot the potatoes were on the stove and the timer on my phone never went off. The potatoes boiled completely dry and they were transformed into charcoal briquettes. Needless to say I did not have potatoes for dinner that night. I'm just lucky I didn't burn the house down.

Hanging in the backyard

During the dog days of summer, when you need to escape the heat, sitting in the backyard under a tree is a nice way to accomplish that.

Card number three

For this card I used stamps and dies for the elements of the card. I used inks to color the background and then added embellishments with glitter pens. This is a very small card at three and a half by five. It's called a pop-up diorama card.

I'm not very good at coloring stamped images. I need a whole lot of practice. Or maybe it's just what I'm trying to color them with. If I use markers I have a hard time trying to shade things but if I use colored pencils it doesn't seem to work much better.

Card number two

This second card is one that I made using a scrapbook kit. I used a couple different scrapbook papers and stickers from the kit to put this together.

The inside has a bit of a pop-up mechanism that adds a little bit of fun

I didn't realize till I was done that I actually glued down the 3 strips of cardstock wrong. You'll see in the picture below the top and bottom strip are glued to the front of the mechanism and the middle is glued to the back. It should have been the other way around. I guess it really doesn't make much difference either way. It just makes my card unique.

Card experiments

I've been doing some experimenting with different kinds of cards. I have three new ones to show and I'll break it up into one a day. The first one is called a swing card. The reason it's called that is because there's a cut-out shape on the front that will swing when you open the card.

I haven't finished this one off with an inside sentiment yet but the scrapbook paper I used on the inside kind of takes care of that for me.

Not everybody loves me

A week or so ago I had a customer complaint about me. I saw him standing there holding out a white cream filled chocolate iced donut. Picture is for simulation.

 I heard the deli manager say to him no we don't have anymore so I walked over and asked if there was something I could help him with. I didn't quite catch what he was saying but I told him no I'm sorry I don't have anymore of those donuts with the maple frosting. He said something else again I didn't quite catch and I said oh did you mean you wanted a container of the maple frosting? His response was "well I suppose I can scrape it off myself and put the maple on if you want to just give me a container." Then I said oh I'm sorry you wanted me to just scrape it off and put maple on it. And then I added "I'm sorry, I wasn't catching what you were asking for. " I didn't hear him say it but the deli manager said that he said I don't appreciate people putting words in my mouth. Then I heard later on that after he left the deli bakery area he went up front and complained about me. Some days I feel like I can't do anything right

My yearly photo of the lilies

No year would be complete without taking a picture of the lilies that grow on the side of my house. The sun was a bit on the bright side when I took these so I was shooting in the dark so to speak . I had no idea what I had until I got in the house to look at the pictures on the phone