Out in the yard

We're coming in to dandelion season here in northwestern Pennsylvania. No matter how many times I take pictures of them I have to take more every year. I went out in the yard, snapped a few  of them and others I saw growing in the yard.

Doodle drawing

Just a silly little drawing

Then I did an edit with my phone

I'm no Picasso but I can entertain myself

kitchen utensils

Recently blog friend Sandra did a photo shoot with kitchen utensils. Since I'm highly susceptible to the power of suggestion I did my own photo shoot.

First with cutlery

  

Then with some measuring spoons

I love these measuring spoons. If you're a fan, you may recognize them as being Pioneer Woman. 

Hmm

 Recently while scrolling through Facebook I came across a post that just made me scratch my head and wonder. 

Either someone has seriously BAD spelling or those were typos. A third possibility is that they were speaking to their phone instead of typing. When I do that the phone never seems to recognize what I'm actually saying. Either way, if it were me, I would have checked for typos before I hit post. 

It did give me a good laugh though and I took the screenshot to send to my daughter.

To point out all the errors

pinside should be Pennside

lots of opso I'm pretty sure is Lhasa Apso or it could be an entirely new breed altogether. 

fence callers should be fence collars

Art therapy.

Back to that day we had our last employee meeting I was feeling very nervous about what he was going to tell us. I needed to get my mind off of it so I grabbed some paper and markers and had some fun

I guess I was going for a bit of an inspirational theme here. Or maybe I was trying to tell myself to think positive.

Then there was this one. Can you guess that this one I did after I got home from the meeting. I was feeling a bit of relief after hearing the sale had fell through.

I'm still doing my weekly doodle at work as well and have a couple more to share. I've been trying to do a little more of this at home as well. Just sort of a creative outlet.

A little birdie told me

That I should post more pictures of the bird that was on the bottom. shelf that I posted the other day. I popped the bird into my lightbox and snapped away.

I can't remember where or when I got this. It may have been a gift or I may have bought it myself. I really have no clue.

I like the base on it.

The bird itself is really kind of on the ugly side.

From further away it's a bit more attractive looking.

I love the details on the back of it.

Since I liked the above picture I thought I would turn it into black and white and then I liked it even more. I thought it would look good with a quote on the right side but haven't gotten around do doing that yet.

in response to comments.

Someone on a recent post said something about me being organized. I laughed as I looked around the room and saw my stuff scattered all over

Since I decided to shame myself here, I have since cleaned up this mess.

Other comments

Pam asked how old Gibbs was. He will be 10 this August.

Grace and Debbie both said how neat and clean the store looks. Well I have to say, what I showed looks good but there are areas that are pitiful. So many lazy people who will walk by the same mess day after day because no one told them to clean it up. I used to take it upon myself to take care of messes but got to the point where I was plain tired of cleaning up after other people.

Grace also asked if I charged extra when I add decorations to the cakes like the horseshoe I made. I should but I don't. If it was a decoration we had in the store I would but if I make it at home I don't. Reason being is that if I charge extra for it, the money goes to the store, not me. I'm using my own materials and time and I'm not going to let the store get money for that.

Donna and Lori both left the nicest comment about my happy mail cards

Donna said

I love mine! Thank you so much, Ann!
Do these designs just pop into your head or do you have patterns?
Your designs make for a whole lot of fun when they come...Before I open the card, Larry and I play a game of "what's the theme"...lol...he said dogs I said flowers! I won! lol
Happy Sunday sweet friend.
hugs
Donna

and Lori's comment

Thank you again!! Your happy mail feels like a hug. I hope you have a good Sunday.

Happy heavenly birthday.

 My big brother would have been 67 years old today. Growing up we were pretty close. Although there were times when I really got on his nerves. It's the job of a little sister to be a pest. Or so I thought. 

This picture was taken the day Wade and I got married.

Mike was five years older than I was and passed away when he was only 57. 

What would have been.

 On this day in 2006, Wade and I got married. If he were still alive we would be celebrating our  18th anniversary.

Some days it feels like it was only yesterday and others it seems like a lifetime ago.

April happy mail.

The card for April's happy mail has gone out. I dropped these in the mail last Sunday so hopefully everyone has gotten theirs. This is what I did this month

And here is the inside.

in the still of rhe night

Or in this case it's the early hours of the morning. Sunday and Wednesday mornings I am the first one in. The other day I snapped a few pics while the store was nice and quiet. I hadn't even turned on the lights other than the ones in the deli bakery area.

Gibbs overload

Now that he's looking spiffy I've been sneaking pics of Gibbs. First a collage

And here are the individual pictures.

Spring shelf

I finally got around to putting away my Easter decorations.  That left the shelves empty. I decided to use items that made me think spring.

These items I dug out of the magic cabinet that holds decorative items for different occasions

The jar on the left is one I've had for years. The pink basket and tulip are from my Easter decorations.

Two candles and a bunny. After all, bunnies aren't just for Easter

More of my Easter decorations that just say spring more than Easter.

When the toilet paper is gone.

Most people would just throw away the empty roll. I'm not most people. Besides, blog friend Sandra was having fun with hers and she put ideas in my head.

I held the empty TP roll up against the camera lens on my phone. First I aimed at the house across the street

Then a garden decoration in my front yard.

Finally I aimed it at Gibbs

cakes

Two recent cakes I've done at work.

This unicorn cake is one I've done twice before. It was ordered by an ex employee who I had the pleasure of firing. She called the next day after she picked this up to tell me how amazing the cake was

The next one, the customer asked if I could do a horse, which I said I could not. Then he asked if I could do a horseshoe. That I figured I could handle. After I got home I thought I would see if I could either make a template or something I could actually lay on the cake. I went to clipart-library.com and found a horseshoe image.

I uploaded this image to Cricut's Design Space then cut it 4 times from cardstock and twice from a metallic vinyl. I used the 4 layers of cardstock to make it a bit more sturdy and the vinyl so that it would hold up better laying against the icing on the cake.

The customer seemed pleased with the cake.

Here's a closer look at the horseshoe.

In other news, we had another employee meeting yesterday. The sale of the building fell through. We still don't have a bright future but it did buy us a little more time.