The Dog Days of Summer and Teddy Bear Fun

Today, the temperature is approaching 100 and it's the next to the last day of August!  Crazy!!!  Needless to say, the girls wanted one last fling in the pool, so I cleaned it up and filled it one last time.  Lily, our black dog, is not up to the whole spray thing, and as luck would have it, by the time she decided to get in for awhile, the batteries in my camera went dead!  But I did get multiple pics of Ella while I was filling it up.  She loves the spray and running through the water.

 

 

Maybe if I bite it, it will stop spraying me!

 

Jumping through the water---no end to doggie fun!

Jumping really high to catch the spray!

 

I have a friend that put on FB today, she really had the urge to get a puppy and wanted people to talk her out of it.  No Way!!!!  Our dogs give us so much love and entertainment--in fact-- if we didn't have Daddy, we would certainly be visiting the ARL on a very regular basis and be a foster family!  The toys all over the floor, etc. , etc. as everyone was trying to point out---well, that's nothing compared to the smiles they bring to us every single day of  our lives.  I remember when our Abby died (she was an exact copy of Ella) many years ago of old age.  It killed me to pick up her toys and put them in the toy box the last time.  Once in awhile I pick up a few, but the girls play with them every day and they are so "human" in their play, sometimes I just sit and laugh at their antics.  What great joy pets bring to our lives and I for one, will never be without one--or two--or -----------

The other thing I did today, was play with my new cricut cartridge, Teddy Bears on Parade that I got at our local Walmart yesterday. (It's a Lite Cartridge)  This cart is ADORABLE --just made this adorable little witch----------

 

and Pumpkin Bear.  There are 60 costumes on this cart.  I know I am going to have a Blast with this one---perfect for action wobble cards! and I can see it on layouts , too.

Good Will --this was your lucky day!

 

Good Will,  This was your Lucky Day!  I finally decided to clean out the spare bedroom  (well , lets face it--there was not 1" of room to set up a bed for our soon to be visitors, My brother Tom and Sis-in -law, Betsey!).  I knew I had to clean the room out some time.   Kristi had come and taken all of Paige's Graduation  stuff to her house to store, and all the volumes of Scrapbooks that I finally got into protective containers, but it didn't seem to make a dent in all the stuff that was left from fairs and other things that has been going on.  I decided that probably 3/4 of the stuff in that room did not need to even be in my  house, so I decided to go through EVERYTHING!   Now there's a reason I did not post the BEFORE picture--I took it---but---- I decided you would all think I should be on an episode of the Hoarders, so I opted out of posting it.  But after Hours of work and sweat and lugging and lifting and flinging and repacking and discarding--this is a partial picture of the stuff going to Good Will.  There was also 5 or 6 Huge Garbage bags of garbage, a huge pile for the kids to go thru and take if they want and lots of empty and 2 or 3 large containers of stuff headed for the basement storage!  and now there is plenty of room to set the bed up---so Come on up, Tom and Bets--we're ready for you! 

 

and on a lighter note, a couple of cards I worked on yesterday after I finished my kids project.  This one below is made from a new Stamp/Die set by Die-namics.  The die is the camera and the stamps (there are tons of them in this set) have sayings related to picture taking and the cute sayings that go around the camera lens.  This set has soooooo many possibilities.  I also couldn't resist using one of the newest washy tapes --the red chevron--on my card.

The card below was just a cute boy card and of course, the dinasaur is on an action wobble, my newest fun item to use in my card making.  and today I found several more creations for using them, so will be creating some of the fun things I found.  So glad Memory Bound will be carrying them now--the possibilities are ENDLESS!

With that said, think I will try a couple of small creations tonight.  Tomorrow, I have to load allllll that stuff into my car and it's already half full, as my husband has been cleaning out our 2 porches and so I have tiny kids bikes and other toys and a computer moniter already in there.  Hope there's room, or I'll have to make a couple of trips I guess.   Good night all--sleep tight!

Weekend Catch-up and the Oct. Kidz project in the works

 It was a fun weekend to say the least.  And now it's back to getting some classes pulled together, cleaning done (I see a Good Will trip in the near future) and who knows what else may come up spontaneously---(Did I ever say how wonderful Retirement is?)   Our friends wedding went off without a hitch (at least it looked like it did--from this guests point of view)..   Congrats once again to Beth and Gary!   You were a beautiful couple.   and I was honored to have made the cake topper for you.  (shown below on the cake!)

 

Here's the whole cake. and the Beautiful Couple, cutting the cake  Yummy cake, too.

Sunday, was a day of--------wellllllll------a little of this and that with long rest periods in between and a Memory Bound Staff Meeting (always a fun time) to top it all off.

And today--

Today, I spent finishing the design of my Kidz class October project.---It's a mixed media class for kids with painting, and mod podge, and inking and glitter and pop dots, action wobbles, ribbon and lots of fun.

And the finished project, we hope, is an October scene to show off a halloween picture.  Lots of 3-D and a "wobbling" pumpkin.  Hopefully the kids will love working with all these mixed media products as much as we adults do!

 

Happy Monday, everyone! 

 Hope you have a very productive week!

It's only August But-------

I know it's only August, but even after all these years--when school starts, it should be September and after September is October and Halloween!  So today, in a September, almost October mind set, I worked on --of all things-- Halloween cards!

On this first one, I used a stamp and my copic markers, some doodling, some ribbon, and a mixture of "fragments"-- a halloween mixture and a copper one--mixed them together and applied with glossy accents.   Found the technique on a blog sight I follow.

Above is the inside of  the pumpkin card.  Below is another "action wobble" card.  The fun part of this is the new Dylusions spray ink in bright orange I used.

The spray ink is very easy to use and very pretty, as it is so bright.

This is the inside of the card.

and this card was just a fluke!  I embossed the bottom with a spider web embossing folder I have, used a little stickles on it , a little furry ribbon.  It turned out kind of cute, so I kept it.  Tomorrow I work, so will not be so creative.  I did get a lot of stuff moved out of my spare bedroom today, also, and into my daughters car.  She can store all her stuff now, so I can get that bedroom back into a room that looks like a bedroom (and sewing room).

Nothing but Cards

I've had a couple of rather intense days the past 2 days making cards to replenish my supply for the staff studio.  Truly, I planned on keeping up but somehow summer got in the way.   I recently sent for a pack of little gizzmos calle "action wobbles" because I was really liking some of the very cute cards I ws seeing on their blog sites using these little coils.  Action Wobbles are little coils with tape circles on the top and bottom coils--you hook one side to the object you want to wobble and the other to the card base and waaaalaaa you have an instant "action" card.  I made several of these cards today and ABSOLUTELY  LOVE them!

This first card has a wobbling Frog on it--

The wobble just makes him come to life and you gotta love the smile.  He is made from my very FAVORITE Cartridge  "Create a Critter".  I use this cartridge all the time--the little critters are such happy fun ones to work with.  I love them for my kids projects.

Another of my favorite Carts is my Hello Kitty Cart.  I think it might be discontinued, but I'm sure they are out there somewhere.    And Hello Kitty is so popular.  My little Black cat above is on an action wobble, as is the one in the airplane below.

I made several other action wobble cards, but for lack of space,  I'm not posting them tonight.

The other cards I made included these for "loss of a pet"  .   When we lost out first yellow lab several years ago, I got several  thinking of you cards and it really helped me through.  Losing a pet is often like losing a close friend or family member and I have noted more and more cards out there geared for this tragic occasion.  I used the "Four legged Pet Cartridge"  (It's a lite cart)  to make the heart with a paw print on it.

And I made several "Fall/Autumn" cards--this is one of them in which I made a 3-D tree using pop dots, of course, and added tiny red buttons for the "apples"

Inside, I made a little bushel basket and filed it with  "button apples"

 

I finished many many cards today--think I will take a break tomorrow and give my creative mind a rest--or maybe I'll think up some more cute ideas and just carry on.

It's Elvis week!

Anyone who knows me well, knows I am a HUGE  Elvis fan--always have been, always will be!  I was very little when he was very popular--preteen, young teen and in those days we just got our first B/W tv with very limited access.  So my exposure back then was an occasional record, a very occasional movie and an occasional tv show with his appearance on it.  

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As I grew into a 20 something, I grew to love his music (and, lets face it, his body) more and more, but as a young mother with literally 4 babies (4 of them ages 6 and under), I had little time to dwell on a super star!   However,I never outgrew his voice and his music and found myself more and more listening to it whenever I could.   and then, on my Birthday, my 30th Birthday to be exact, Elvis died!  I didn't think it would really hit me like it did.  I realized how much I really loved his music and how much it had really filtered into my life--even when I wasn't watching.

Now, as an "older" adult, I still listen to him daily--I have the "Elvis" station tuned in on my serrius XM radio in my car and find that in this day and age of drama, politics, family conflicts, deadlines, etc., etc. his music takes me back to a time when life didn't seem so complicated and more easy going.  I call it my "Happy Place"--everyone needs their happy place to escape the world sometimes.  I just go to mine almost evey day.  It keeps things in perspective and calms the drama.

Recently, I got to go to an Elvis show and what fun it was.  For the first time I got to "feel" what it would have been like to see him sing personally.  I felt like a real kid again (actually, most of the time I feel like a kid, but this was in a different way.)  And actually there was a whole room of us "teenagers" there enjoying our little bit of Elvis.

My Bucket list has always included a trip to Graceland, now more than ever, that piece of my list has come to the top of the bucket.  In the meantime, I want to hit a few more of these "concerts", if you will.

It's Elvis week in Graceland, It's my Birthday, It's been 35 years---and I'm remembering a legend by going to the fair tomorrow  and I will listen to his music all the way there and all the way back. That's just the way it is---and I will sing along and maybe even shed a tear--especially if they play "Final Curtain"---it was, you know, ---one of the last songs he sang.

WE LOVE YOU, ELVIS!

Washy Tape, Jute Binding, Cricut Work., One Little Card!

It's been a play day here on the ranch.  After a terrific Kids class yesterday and GNO last night I just figured today would be a play day.  Now, originally, I wanted it to be a day of making cards, but that just didn't seem to be in the ultimate scheme of things.  Yesterday, I had bought a couple of little pumpkins that I have been wanting to try the "washy tape" decorating on. Today, I combined washy tape, glitter tape and glitter paper curls to decorate the little guys.  I think they turned out quite nicely.  Kind of a fun craft.  Can be done on real pumpkins too!

On this one I punched out little turkeys from the new punch we got in at the store.  I can see him on cards, too.

Then I played with my GNO circle journal, which just came back to their original creator last night after several months of "circling around" to each of us for our input.

Above is the cover of mine and below part of my first page.  I spent a good part of my morning trying to figure out how to bind it together, as it had become very chunky with all the embellishments, and the original spiral that was to bind it in no way was going to fit.  I finally ended up binding it with green jute which took awhile, but ended up working pretty well.

These are  some of the other girls pages in my journal.  It is so fun to see all their creativity and the notes they left for me to read.  I can't wait to see them all together  in a display that we are having at the store.  They were all so awesome!

Each person has such different techniques--they are all so beautiful.

Soon, GNO will be starting recipe circle journals-can't wait to start designing mine.

 

This afternoon, I worked on my Oct. kids project.  It will end up being mixed media--after all, what kid doesn't love to paint and ink and emboss and glitter.  This will be a little picture for halloween, using lots of techniques.  Today, I did a lot of the Cricut work, now to just put it all together.  Hope it turns out like I imagined.

and that brings me back to cards--that was my goal today, and I only managed to finish up one that I started yesterday.  Tomorrow's goal is more cards, cuz Thursday it's off to the fair to celebrate my birthday with some of my besties--even in retirement, I need more hours in the day--yup, just a few more hours please!

This was certainly a New Adventure in Crafting for Me!

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to do a somewhat unusual craft item for a friend who is getting married a couple of weeks from now.  First of all--shhhhhhh- this is a top  secret post and must not get out to the Groom -to-Be, as it is a surprise for the wedding cake that he knows nothing about!  Yes I did say cake--cake topper to be exact!  The whole cake is going to be a surprise to him--but the most I'll say here, so as not to give it all away, it has a farm like theme  ( with some beautiful flowers added in) and I for one can't wait to see it all pulled together.

Well, I don't do cakes, but I guess as of now, I have done a Cake topper!  My First, as my usual type of craftiness is of the scrapbooking type and since I used my Cricut, I guess you could say I scrapped a cake topper!  The groom, as you might have guessed is a farmer and a huge IH (International Harvester) Guy.  So the colors of the wedding are Red, Black and White.

The Bride wanted a one-of-a kind top and had pictured in her mind a model IH tractor and the happy wedding couple along side with a Just Married sign somewhere and some cornstalks in the  background.  I knew my best bet for people would be my Dress up paper doll Cart, so I started there.  I tried to make some of the details match the clothes, flowers, etc. they will be wearing and their hair be somewhat reflective of their real hair.  I used an actual piece of the Bride's dress for the doll's skirt and beaded the top with glass seed beads, since I am told her's is beaded.  The picture above looks much larger than in real life.  The dolls are actually only 4.5 inches tall, as is the tractor.  It all had to fit on a 6" top cake (circle size above).  The cornstalks are still in the making--they are taking a little more thought, but I think I have an idea--we'll see how it turns out.  and, oh, the hat--His bride says you never see him without his IH hat on--so, even in his wedding gear, we just had to add the hat--after all that is his personality!

When I was all finished, I just had to make a special little box to hold the dolls, (mainly really because I love making these little boxes), so I made a simple black glitter box with a white top (it's embossed with "wedding words"  but hard to see here)  and added a red/white/black flower and greeting-----the perfect place to keep the little people safe.  Now on to the wedding-oh, after I grow some corn---it should be a very fun time.

Our Little Ray of "Sunshine"

When you live on a farm, you usually have cats--at least we always have.  Unfortuately, the odds of a kitten surviving it's first year often depends soley on it's mother--how well she can keep them hidden from prey such as racoons and other male cats that come onto the farm.

We have many cats--at last count 9 of our own and a couple that visit on a regular basis--you guessed it --a couple of rough and tumble BOYS looking for a good time.

Of the nine we have, only 2 are 1-2 years old.  The rest are older cats, 2 mommas and several boys.  Our oldest momma only had one kitten this year, but unfortuneately, a transient male, killed it one day.   Our other momma has 2 of the cutest little guys ever.    Oh, and did I mention--ALL of our cats are BLACK or GRAY!

So, now you ask--who is that precious little yellow one above??

Our little Ray of "Sunshine" as I call it (not sure girl or boy yet--it isn't going to get close enough for me to catch yet).     Another thing about living on a farm is some city folk think the country is the place to throw your animals away--I'm sure they're thinking--"they have so many cats already what's another one"

And so one day, a little over a month ago, our little "Sunshine" showed up on our deck--a very tiny little kitten--with not one black or gray hair on it's body. I t didn't blend in very well, but the other cats didn't seem to notice or mind that this tiny little guy was looking to eat a little bit of their food.

This is our older momma and one of her kittens several years ago, Lovey

and this is our momma that has 2 kittens of her own

These are her 2 kittens,  that she takes very good care of .  Every night she leads them to the barn to sleep and every morning she brings them back to the house to eat on the deck.  About 2 weeks ago, I noticed she was taking Sunshine to the barn with her two, or maybe he was just following--and every morning, back they all came--momma, the 2 kittens and Sunshine.  And then yesterday, I looked out to see this on the deck-----------

Yes, Momma was feeding all three of them.  Welcome to you forever home, "Sunshine"--you  are in good hands .   Don't we wish the human world was this caring.