Using My Crafty Mojo For The Power Of Good

I am so excited that I got to actually get my crafting mojo on today! I can't wait to show you the card I made; I'm kind of proud of it. But first - some back story.

I follow a great blog called "Understand Blue". Lydia, the blog's author, had a very sweet experience with a cashier at her local Whole Foods Market - you can read her post about it here. So, in answer to her call for cards for Damian, here is the one I sent to him:

Front of the card

Another view

Blogger is being so stupid right now; every time I try to add a caption to that last photo, it moves it to the top of my post. Oh well, as long as it just shows up, I guess I'll live with it! Obviously, that last picture is of the inside of the card. Since I take my pictures in the bathroom window, the light was shining through the paper and you can see my "made for you" stamp from the back showing through; it doesn't look like that in real life though. And yes, that is a roll of toilet paper in the very bottom of the shots; that is what I prop the cards on because I can't find my stupid little easel! LOL!

This was my very first attempt at watercoloring with Distress Markers. It's my first attempt at watercoloring period. I think it came out pretty well! Here is I used to make this card:

• Cougar Opaque digital smooth 100# white cover stock
• Die: Pretty Pink Posh Stitched Film Strip
• Stamp set (doggies and sentiments): Delightful Doxies by Newton's Nook Designs
• Tim Holtz Distress Markers
• Doxie: Fired Brick, Gathered Twigs
• Sky: Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean
• Ballon: Dusty Concord, Picked Raspberry (heart)

I took my stuff into the dining room and took over the table in there. Les was a good sport and asked me all about my stuff and things and seemed impressed with all of it. Yay! I also made some stinking awesome bookmarks, but I can't seem to get a decent picture of them. I'll try to get one in the next couple of days to post. I made them out of watercolor paper; I was playing around some more with the markers and used my resulting practice sheets to make them. 

I'll be heading down to Portland again tomorrow. Here are a few more pictures I took week before last of some flowers in my Mom's yard:

This is one of my very favorite irises

Here is a picture of Teddy playing with a new cat toy Sis bought for him and Miss Muffin:

Please ignore the spots on the carpet...

It has a battery driven motor under that black dome; there is a stick with a ball on the end, and a piece of plastic that is long like a mouse's tail stuck on the ball, and the motor makes it go around the perimeter of the yellow circle in an erratic pattern. You can just barely see the little bit of red sticking out by his paw. At first, he was terrified of it! I just let it run, and eventually he got the idea and now he loves it.

Here is a picture of him after he played with it for a while:

Well, it's taken forever for this post to come together. Just as I was loading the flower pictures, I heard Les fall in the front yard. It took a bit for me to be able to get him up off the ground. Fortunately, he is not injured - although I'll be keeping a close eye on him this evening because he said he hit his head pretty hard on the ground. I just today bought him a whistle - like sports referees use - so that if he falls outside while I am in the house, he can blow that whistle and I'll come running. If he just calls out, there is no guarantee I'll hear him. Unfortunately, I just bought it this morning and hadn't given it to him yet! I just happened to hear him groaning in the yard. Poor guy. In a future post I'll let you know what we found out about why he has been anemic. It was a real eye opener, and I learned some stuff!

Well, talk at ya later. TTFN.

Frustration City, Man

Hey ho, all. How's things? Hopefully everyone had a lovely and safe holiday weekend. I'm a little frustrated because my weekend did not go as planned. I had planned to be up to my elbows in crafty goodness, but instead spent three days in bed curled into the fetus position spooning with a heating pad.

*At this point, my male readers and/or sensitive types not interested in TMI may skip down a ways.*

My Aunt Flow has not visited, phoned, emailed, or even FaceBooked me for more than a year; Thursday, she decided to drop in unannounced. I was totally fine Thursday morning; as I was merging onto the freeway on my way to work, my right ovary said, "Hey! Watch this! (insert wet squishy-squeezy sound here)". Then my left ovary said, "That's nuthin'. Watch this! (insert even wetter squishier-squeezier sound here)". Then my uterus said, "Amateurs. Watch THIS! (insert sound of me wailing and trying not to wreck the truck)". By the time I got to work 45 minutes later, I was doubled over the steering wheel. Fortunately, the sacrifice I offered up to the parking lot gods before I left home was well received, and I found a space quite close to my lab. I took a large dose of Advil, had a little something to eat, and about an hour later felt pretty good. At approximately 3pm, it started all over again, and this time no amount of Advil would appease. By the time I got home I was a-dyin'. I called ahead and asked Sis to round up a heating pad for me; god bless the inventor of heating pads!! It must have been a woman with monstrous cramps and a bad back. Friday morning I sent out emails at 4am letting everyone know I would NOT be coming to work. I know they all thought that I was just scamming to get an extra day off for the long holiday, but I really wasn't! I only got out of bed to use the bathroom and hobble into the kitchen for some lukewarm water and dry toast. Oy. Saturday morning I hobbled to the shower, managed to pull on some clothes, and went into Chehalis. I had to drop off due library books, get some food for the fur-balls, and then crawled down the health aisle at Safeway to get a bottle of Evening Primrose Oil. It was ten bucks but I would have sold everything I own to get that bottle. I took two of them right there in the truck with some watered-down Diet Coke from Jack-In-The-Box that had been sitting in my cup holder for three days. That's desperation right there folks, let me tell ya. Within an hour, my cramps had eased considerably. Still, when I got home, I got back in my nightie and went back to bed. By Sunday I could get dressed and do a few things without feeling like I had to keep my knees locked together for fear of necessary organs falling out.

*OK, sensitive readers may join us again. Thanks for your patience.*

I went outside to keep an eye on Les while he was working in the new garden and spraying weed killer around our big tree stump. Sammy was out there with him, and caught two huge mice or moles or voles or some sort of rodent which he proudly paraded around the yard with then promptly devoured. Yuck. Mom (with her dogs Stanley and Shadow in tow) came home with Sissy Sunday night and I continued to take the EPO and felt a little better. Monday, when I had the day off with my sister and my mother, when there were yard sales literally every quarter mile down every road around us, I woke up with a migraine.

REALLY? GO HOME, AUNT FLOW; YOU'RE DRUNK.

Spent pretty much all day in bed. At least mom's dogs like to snuggle in bed with me, and thank goodness for my Kindle so that I could watch Netflix and play Farm Hero Saga in bed. Between Mom and Les being deaf and having to yell back and forth over the TV and the noise of eight - yes, EIGHT - little barking dogs with pitches to their barks that were making dolphins off the coast of southern California look around and wonder - What's that noise? - I could. not. even. So I went in my room and hid for a few hours. When I came out, I felt a little better and was treated to the entertainment of two deaf 78-year-old-plus people using their new canes to try and chase chickens out of the newly planted garden. That...was awesome.

So, to make a long story short (TOO LATE!), no crafting was achieved. And I am SO BUMMED because I used the last of my gift card to buy this Newton's Nook Designs stamp set:

Delightful Doxies Clear Stamp Set

IS THIS NOT THE CUTEST THING??!!?? As you may know, we have a few doxies in our household. This arrived in the mail on Thursday, but my sister accidentally took it with her down to Mom's, so I wouldn't have been able to do anything with it until Monday anyway. Arrgghh...I can't wait to use it!

So, hopefully you had a better weekend than I, and also hopefully I will be posting some sort of cute craft project featuring doxies very soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

TTFN.

Some crafty stuff

I managed to actually make some stuff! And I wanted to show you something I made a while back, plus two things out of my recent purchases that I can't wait to use. Ready? Here we go.

I will have to say that I am pretty happy with how these two cards came out. This first card is for a co-worker; his daughter turns one this month. I can't see making cards for a one-year-old; I feel that all of that stuff - parties, etc. - for a one-year-old is really for the parents, not so much the child. So, instead of a birthday card, I made a "Congratulations on surviving your first year as a parent" card.

Sorry about the picture quality! I'm still trying to find the best place to photograph my cards; so far it's the bathroom window! The baby image is cut from Graphic 45's Little Darlings Collection, Bundle of Joy; the card base and front panel is the cream card stock selection from Simon Says Stamp's May card kit; I used the Stitched Circle Stax dies from MFT; the ink is the Simon Says Stamp dye ink in Pale Blush Pink from the May card kit; the sentiment is from a Hero Arts set; and the gorgeous ribbon (this pictures definitely DOES NOT do it justice!) is from my stash, purchased a while back from a local craft store that is now kaput. I'm going to link this up to this week's Wednesday challenge blog at Simon Says Stamp. I just now realize that I misinterpreted the theme - Let's Get Sentimental was referring to using a sentiment on the card, not feeling sentimental. Oh well.

This next card I made last night and I am really happy with it. It is a thank you card for the nurses that took care of Les this last stay in the hospital. He asked me to make one, and I hope they like it!

For this card, the card base is Domtar Cougar Opaque 100# white cover stock; the cream panel is the same card stock as the card above; the wood-look designer paper is also one of the selections in the SSS May card kit; the die is from Impression Obsession (used "inlay" style, and I pieced all those little hearts, etc. in like a jigsaw puzzle); and the little copper gem embellishments are from EKSuccess - Jolee's Boutique, All That Bling collection. I also used Wink of Stella in clear on all the full hearts; of course, you can't really see it in these pictures. You might get a hint if you enlarge the middle picture. Maybe. Les says he really likes it. Since the card is coming from a man, and not all of the nurses that cared for him were female, I tried to keep the foo-fooness to a minimum.

A few months ago, I tried my hand at making a mini-album. I love Ginger Ropp from My Sister's Scrapper. I subscribe to her YouTube channel, and I found the tutorial for this album there. I haven't really done much with it yet, but I want to put my favorite snaps of my family in it. Here is the front:

 The back:

 And inside:

If you want to know the specs on the papers used, etc., let me know and I'll try to dig it all up. My internet is being a jerk and it's taking me FOREVER to link up to stuff today.

Last of all, here are two of the newest items to my crafty collection. I received a $100 gift card from the engineers I support for Administrative Assistant's Day, and I have been buying bits and bobs from several different places. I saw this die somewhere and instantly fell in love with it, and my great-niece Hannah absolutely LOVES llamas; she's been having a rough time lately, so I bought this stamp to make her a card. It turned out to be a whole lot bigger than I expected, so the idea I had for it went right out the window and I'll have to come up with something else. But that's OK - I love the stamp!

Well, I gotta go get clothes out of the dryer so I can get on my way to Mom's. Les worked out in the garden for two and a half hours this morning and will probably sleep for a week solid now. I think it did him good to get out, but I'm terrified he's going to over do it. I hovered like crazy while he was out there and couldn't get anything done in the house!

TTFN!

Claiming my blog on Bloglovin'

Follow">http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11653825/?claim=wesj75pcy8c">Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Just claiming my blog on Bloglovin'! Nothing more to see for now.

If you'd like to follow my blog on Bloglovin', please click on the button on the right side bar. The link above won't work for you. Thanks! And thanks to JoJo at Tahoma Beadworks & Photography for bringing this to my attention. Check out her blog - it's awesome!

TTFN.

Quicky post with pictures!

OK - just a quick one to let you know I'm still here.

On Saturday, I managed to make a card! Woo hoo! That will be my next post. Promise.

Here are a few terrible pictures I took with my cheapie cell phone of flowers in my mom's yard. Please to enjoy.

The pink is a little blown out in this one, but I've never seen an iris this color! There is a better snap of it below.

I love these purple stripey ones...

A better shot of the pink...

This does not do the color of this iris justice. So, so pretty in person.

Mom's Geoge Burns roses

So happy!

Well, that's it for now; gotta dash. Les is doing better; I have to pick up a dozen cake donuts for him tonite from Heavenly Donuts lest he perish on the sofa.

TTFN!

Missing Dad

Today is May 1st, and this May 1st is the 34th anniversary of my Dad's passing. I still miss him every day, and I often wonder how differently my life would have turned out if he was still here.

It's strange that I have lived longer without him than I did with him, and I am now older than he was when he died.

I love you, daddy. I miss you so much.

Many thanks to Mark, Lanise, and JoJo for your kind comments on my last post - I really appreciate them! Les is getting a little stronger every day, but I'm still concerned about him. He doesn't seem to be rebounding as well as he usually does; granted, this was a really rough battle for him, and a little different than recovering from a surgery. He seems bound and determined to get out into the newly tilled garden area and get some seed in the ground.

On a random tangent, here are a couple of photos I clicky clickyed with my horrible little cheap cell phone camera over the past few weeks:



Mom's wisteria before she chopped the beejezus out of it



The gals at the Cafe 26 here on the mill site often write messages on my lunch orders. It totally makes my day!



For some weird reason, Blogger is choosing to rotate this picture. But I'm going to add it anyway because it's a cool cloud picture. It was a bit stormy that day.

Well, that's it for today. Here's hoping that May is a great month for us all.

TTFN.