Have Fun

Life isn't a matter of milestones, but moments. ~~Rose Kennedy

These are a few of my favorite things

In honor of my birthday I thought I would list 36 of my favorite things. Not necessarily in any order.

1.  Mint Chocolate Chip from Baskin Robbins is my all time favorite ice cream.  No one else’s mint chocolate chip compares.

in Austin is also on my list of best ice cream.

2. A child’s laughter. Not the forced kind, not when they are laughing at the TV, but when they are really, truly laughing (like when being tickled).

3. Purple. Can’t you tell from my blog’s title? LOL. I love purple, but I have never decorated with it other than a pillow in my old office. I wanted to do my bedroom in purple, but it isn’t considered a soothing, relaxing color and I already have trouble sleeping so I follow feng shui a little bit.

4. Fudgy Oatmeal Bars, homemade. My Christmas cookie pick every year when my mom says she isn’t going to make all her cookies (she always ends up making more than she says she is going to).

5. Spitz Sunflower Seeds have less grainy salt so they don’t tear up the inside of your mouth as bad as the others. I never thought I would like the Dill Pickle flavored but they are my favorite. I had them at almost every baseball game.

6. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (not because it is around my birthday) because when I was younger that was always the big family celebration. I always loved the big table of family gathering together. It doesn’t happen so much around here anymore. =(

7. My late grandmother’s pecan pie, topped with Cool Whip.

8. Snowmen décor (at Christmas time).

9. Decorating the house and tree for Christmas.

10.  

Sunsets in New Mexico, I took this one in Las Cruces.

11. Hibiscus (if I ever got another tattoo it would be a band of hibiscus).

12. Carne Adovada, but it has to be really good like La Posta (Old Mesilla, NM or Little Anitas (Albuquerque, NM).

13.

Getting to travel to Ireland, many times, when I was a flight attendant.

14.

Of all the beach towns we flew to, even Maui, I preferred San Juan, Puerto Rico for the beauty of the ocean and the beach.

15. My little munchkin.

16. My niece.

17. My nephew.

18. Family, and this is only a SMALL part of my dad’s side of the family.

19.

Ryeley, Kota and Tosh. Labs. All the dogs that have been part of the family. These 3 sisters are the late members.

20. One of the best pictures ever taken of my little munchkin. That was his wedding outfit for when my brother and sister in law got married, in the mountains.

21. My late grandmother, we called her Granny even though she hoped when we got older we would start calling her grandmother. It didn’t fit her at all to be called grandmother.

22. Creating. Looks like a big mess, because it really is, but something great, new or cool comes out of the mess.

23. Nicholas Sparks. I have read and loved every one of his books.

24. My iPhone, iPad, iTunes. Apple rocks. Too bad they are so expensive.

25. Sappy chic flics. I love them. Better when they make you cry.

26. Singing along to songs I know, in the car where no one else can hear me except maybe my son.

27. OneRepublic, Linkin Park, Nickelback, Train, Savage Garden…some of my favorite songs come from these bands. But I don’t like the heavy stuff. More like Secrets and If Everyone Cared.

28. Searching through crafting magazines looking for inspiration.

29. Looking through Martha Stewart’s Living Magazine.

30. Watching all The Nanny reruns.

31. NCIS, Burn Notice, White Collar, The Good Wife, Castle, Private Practice (those are current favorite shows, of course they change when a show starts to get “old”, like Grey’s Anatomy, or if a show just disappears).

32. The clean baby after bath and lotion smell.

33. The smell of cookies baking.

34. My mom’s lasagna and manicotti.

35. Fresh cut flowers.

36. Friends.

Happy Birthday to me and anyone else celebrating today (my cousin) and Happy Thanksgiving.

Fabric Flowers

I haven’t ever really been into the frufru. But lately I have gotten to where I kind of like the fabric flowers. So I have been learning how to do them. And have been using some of them.

Yo-yos

I glue the button in because I can’t figure out the sewing it into the cardstock insert.

I tried experimenting with different sizes but haven’t yet figured out the right ratio for the cardstock insert to the size of the fabric circle. The 3.5'” fabric circle to 1.5” cardstock insert works perfect, that is all I know.

Rolled Fabric

I watched 2 videos on You-Tube on how to make these. Really are super easy. Not sure the Duck was the right material to use but I had an abundance on hand to play around with. The bottom actually turned out to be a better looking front so I just flipped it over and super glued the “front” to stay in place. Then I dabbed it on a purple ink pad. Not bad I say.

This is how great the new camera is, I hadn’t noticed that string of hot glue until after I took this picture. And I had posted this sweater wreath at least a month ago. I made these rosettes with strips of the sweater way before I started watching how to make flowers. I like how the lining from the button holes also gave the flowers some dimension.

Fabric Strips

Really just some playing around with odd sizes and some tulle. Not sure what to really do with them.

Stitched Petals

I watched a tutorial on this but I think I might have used more petals then it was supposed to have because they don’t look like what I was after. I saw something today similar to these as well with felt so they were really “fluffy” looking. Do these even look like flowers?

I was awarded

I follow over 50 blogs, it may be near 100 actually. I slowed down in my following about a month ago, however, because I haven’t had much time to be on the computer. I will get back to it after December 4th. That is when I will need to start really working on getting my traffic up and get my Etsy really up and going (it is up, just not going).

So imagine my surpirse when I opened my blog today and found that Stacey over at boyohboyohboycrafts had awarded me the

How very exciting. Thank you so very much Stacey.

The usual rules apply:

• Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this.
• Share 7 things about yourself.
• Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
• Contact those bloggers and tell them about their award.

About me :
1.  I have 2 degrees that I wonder why I went with either of those fields because I now don’t have the desire to do either.                                                                                                                                                                         

2.  I am a single mother and that one boy really tests his surroundings =).                                                                          

3.  I am unemployed and trying to start up my own crafting business and loving every minute of it.                                     

4.  When I took all these tests for the career counselor they all said my top strengths and priorities were organization. My career choices were all these things I would never fathom doing. And art was down towards the bottom. But we decreed that crafts were more of an organized art and it fit right up there.                                                                                                                                                                         

5.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, it also doesn’t hurt that my birthday is right around that day (or on that day this year).

6. I hate dumb blonde jokes (any of the dumb people jokes really) and get really offended by them. I am a natural blonde and have to actually tell people it is not from a bottle.                                                                                                           

7.  My mom asked how I find the other blogs, or the projects everyone posts. I told her I was looking for something on Serendipity for one of my first posts and I came across The Serendipity Factory and followed someone from there and from there and so on.

Here are the blogs I am awarding:

http://alittleknickknack.blogspot.com/

http://thislittlebirdietoldme.blogspot.com/

http://www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com/

http://craftsandsutch.blogspot.com/

http://craftysisters-nc.blogspot.com/

http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/

http://mekhart.blogspot.com/

http://ladybug-blessings.com/

http://amieivy.blogspot.com/

http://meandmybucket.blogspot.com/

http://myblondeambitions.blogspot.com/

http://illgetyoumypretties.blogspot.com/

http://redheadscraftmorefun.blogspot.com/

http://homegrownhospitality.typepad.com/homegrown_hospitality/

http://www.lollychops.com/lollychops/

I hope all enjoy this pleasant gift, I know I sure did.

Double Holiday blocks

I found these really cute Halloween letters from Leelou’s Blog. I decided I wanted to make blocks with them. I also realized I could put Happy Halloween on one side and Merry Christmas on the other. I bought a piece of 1x4 and marked squares, my mom cut for me. Only thing was, I read the disclosure on the Halloween letters and the company put for personal use only. I will make me my own blocks with those letters later.
(I had during pictures but it appears when I uploaded the pictures from my two cameras yesterday one set over-road the other set. I hope there was nothing else important in there.)
I started off by painting the edges of the blocks a forest green. Then I covered one side of the block with a few different Halloween paper squares with Mod Podge. I cut out Happy Halloween on my Cricut and Mod Podged each letter on a different block. I flipped the blocks around and repeated the process with Christmas papers and Merry Christmas. I sanded down the edges. On the Halloween side I stamped the edges with a brown ink and on the Christmas side I went around the edges with Silver Extreme Glitter.


Easy project to get two holidays out of but the cutting and pasting of the papers and letters was rather time consuming.

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I linked this up with

Tatertots and Jello: Weekend Wrap-up Party
The Speckled Dog: Favorite Things Friday 
Somewhat Simple

A little experiment and a few Christmas projects

Long title. I was going to put this is a test… but it didn’t sound as good as it did in my head.

My birthday/Christmas present came today. I might add finally. Apparently they shipped it to the wrong address the first time, and that was through USPS so it was slow going anyway. I thought I would spend the day playing with it but I had to go get a new surge protector for my computer because I was having withdrawals (my laptop wasn’t cutting it).

First my experiment. Each picture was taken at the same time, in the same place and none have been edited.

iPhone 4                             Canon Powershot SD750                            Nikon d90

Can you tell the difference? Of course I wanted them side-by-side for the comparison so making them bigger didn’t work. I think the iPhone has too much light in the picture. And there is definitely more detail in the Nikon. Ooh, can’t wait to see how the rest of the pictures come out. The Nikon was my present.

I have been making these birdhouses for my show.These are the Christmasy ones.

I have had the most fun making the wintery ones though, they are also my favorite.

The two with the pedestals I just used wood pieces from Hobby Lobby and spindles. I drilled a hole into the wood block and then a hole in the bottom of the birdhouse. Used a little glue to keep them in place. There are more birdhouses in the works also. And I found a new one at Michael’s today that I really liked. A fenced one like above but bigger. I didn’t have my coupon so that will have to wait.

The tree in the background was made with one of the paper Mache trees from Hobby Lobby. One of the bigger ones, next time I think I would like to try the smaller ones.

I started off by painting the tree green. I cut the paper strips about 1/4 inches and rolled them, then taped the rolls together. Then glued them in place. Added some other strips in places. Sprayed the whole thing with adhesive and sprinkled a lot of glitter on.

It was a very time consuming project. I had to put off working on the other 2 trees.

Hope all is well. I am off to work. A lot I still need to do. In case I don’t post for awhile, I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving.

Smile

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
~~Mother Teresa, 1910-1997
Catholic Nun, Servant to the Poor, Nobel Prize Recipient

Halloween 2010

I wanted to make a collage of all the Halloween projects I did this year. I couldn’t get it exactly the way I liked it, but here it is. I need to seriously get better at these picture editing programs. I used to use Picture It back in the day and I loved it. I can’t find one program that does everything I like and Adobe can be so complicating some times. Or maybe it is more that it doesn’t always work right.

If I really knew what I was doing I would be able to do it so that all the pictures line up, same size, and each linked to it’s original post. Boy I really need to figure that one out. =)

I am having a great time getting back into the crafting work and would really like this to be my line of work. I mean make enough money from it for me and my son to live off of on our own. Supplementing my income in other ways like selling Avon (or something crafty) as well until I can really get my business off the ground.

Just saying hello

I was sitting here trying to type but couldn't get the cursor in front of my "signature". I do not like how it pops up like that and won't move. I had, when I started out, found a tutorial on how to make and add a signature so that it would not pop up but post on every post no matter if you posted from Blogger or Live Writer. I can't find that tutorial again so if someone can point the way for me I would love you forever. =)

I also wanted to thank all my newest followers and let everyone know that I haven't been posting, or commenting for that matter, lately because I am swamped with getting ready for the December (my first ever) craft fair. I promise come December 5 I will catch back up on my blog. I do still enter in some blog hops here and there to get myself out there, very selfish (sorry), but I will also get back into checking your places out when I can sit her longer. I pinky swear. 

ace and friends co.: Show Some Saturday (and Sunday) LOVE Blog Hop!

ace and friends co.: Show Some Saturday (and Sunday) LOVE Blog Hop!

What I have been working on

I have been busy busy. But not busy enough if I want to make any money at the craft fair. I have 29 days. Less if I want to be mainly finished by Thanksgiving (my birthday too). Here is what I have been doing

Completely unplanned, but that top one makes me think of a gingerbread house.

There are many more of those wreathes, not all of them completely finished yet, and many more to come. Tulle is my new love. I am going to learn how to make tutus too.

I have wanted an apothecary jar for some time. I love how delicate they look. But they seem a little pricey. I made my own. I got the jars at Hobby Lobby for half off. I was able to remove the plastic part off the lid of the smaller one, it’s not budging on the other one. I then adhered the candlesticks to the bottom of the jars. I glued too glass beads together, flat side to flat side, and then adhered them to the lids. Good ole E6000. Not as delicate looking as the ones I have liked, but not bad for less than $5.

I also put together these cute aprons for myself and my cousin to wear at the craft show:

I got plain red aprons at 50% off at Hobby Lobby and adhered the snowman ribbon with Aleene’s Fabric Fusion. My new best friend, but I don’t know how it will hold up to the washing machine. The “E” (and “A” on the back one) are just pins that I glued a snowman cut out from the ribbon.

I also made my mom’s birthday presents this year. She wants to add something to one of them though, so I will go back to those when the wreath is completely finished.