It's a Boy!!!

Hi!  My very first good news in 5 days.  Jenna just called and they could tell on her ultra sound today that she is having a boy!  I had this feeling it was going to be a boy and when I bought her baby clothes at Practical Cents, I was very careful to not pick anything  girlish.  All of them were very either or.  They are very excited as Antonio and Diana really wanted a boy and Jenna had this feeling it was a boy too.  So now I can start on my baby quilt and other things for her.

Larry Howard

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post today.  One of my very best friends, Larry Howard passed away today.  They removed him from the respirator yesterday morning and he died around 4 this morning.  I will miss him terribly.  Please keep his family in your prayers.  Elaine

Flower Magnets

This is what I was working on this afternoon.  These are flower magnets that I cut with the Big Shot and the Flower Layer #3 Die out of scraps of suede.  I think they turned out pretty cool.

Baby Bib

Here is a baby bib that I put the bias tape on last night.  Jenna has her next doctor appointment on Wednesday and she is suppose to find out then whether she is having a boy or girl.  Can't wait!!!

Doll Quilt

Last night I finished machine quilting this little doll quilt and putting the binding on.  It could be used as a table topper or hanging it out of a picnic basket would be cute too!

Butterfly Notepad

Here is one of the butterfly monogram notebooks I made.  I used the Big Shot and the Beautiful Butterfly Die to cut out the chipboard pieces (recycled cereal boxes), designer paper, and note paper.  I glued the paper on to the chipboard with a glue stick.  Next I sponged the edges with Soft Suede ink, and stamped the letter from Lovely Letters stamp set with Soft Suede ink.  I then punched out the letter with the 1 1/4" Circle punch, and matted it with a 1 3/8" Circle.  I used a slip ring to hold everything together and the holes were punched with the crop a dile.  A piece of ribbon finishes them off.  A fun little gift to give some one.

Nasty People

Happy Sunday!  This is a book that I am currently reading that I ordered from the library.  I was talking to my Pastor the other day and he recommended it.  We have had many discussions through the years about relationships, psychology, and what makes people tick.  I have watched video's that he has and they are always very interesting.  So when he recommended this one, I immediately ordered it.  This is a thin book, and it cuts right to the point.  You immediately start to learn things, it is not one of those books where you have to read 3 chapters to get to the meat of the book.  It will help you deal with the people in your life better and sometimes you will see your self in the pages and it can help you to be a better person.  Amazon has it in there used bookstore for one cent, and $3.99 shipping.  A good deal.  I highly recommend this book.

Show & Tell - Part 2

The next gal up on Show & Tell was Karen.  She is showing the Easter egg, table topper, and quilt.  She is a quilt instructor at a Technical College and the quilt was part of a year long class that she taught this past year.  The large panels are all hand embroidered and were beautiful and the blocks were blocks she taught them through out the year to make.  Next up was Faye, Angela's mother.  She is showing two of her projects.  The first one was a cowboy quilt.  Cute fabric!  I had a note from her today and she bought a new sewing machine and is going to go to a class on how to use it.  How fun!!!  The last quilt in this batch of pictures was made by Sandy.  She has only been quilting for 2 years and made this beauty.  She put crystals on it.  I think with a bedazzler.  Everyone loved this quilt.  You may want to click on the pictures to see things larger.
Today I have been talking on the phone and working on the butterfly notepads.  I finished the other 13 today so this batch of 15 is all done.  I am going to need to make more of them, but will work on that later on.  They turned out so cute I am sure that they will fly out the door!  I just finished resting and eating some macaroni and cheese, and hot dogs, so think I will go upstairs and do some sewing.  Have a great weekend!  Me

Show and Tell - Part One

On Saturday night, starting at 8:30 pm we had our Pajama Party, and we began it with Show & Tell.  The first picture I took shows all the stamper's that came over to watch it.  They were Ewwwing...and Ahhhing....and asking lot's of questions.  Lady Di is sitting near the 8 foot table I had to work on. You can see some of my stuff sitting there.  Angela was first up showing the binding that she put on the table runner that Janet made for her.  The next picture is of Cheryl showing some sking wall quilts that she made.  She is an avid skier and is on the ski patrol.  Next up was Janet with her quilts.  Janet was Angela's surrogate mother when she lived up North, and helped her out when her babies were born until her mother arrived.  Sandy is showing a runner she made and a teddy bear is in her other arm.  She is part of a  hospice group.  They make memory bears out of family member's clothing.  The bear she was holding was made from a robe that her mother wore for 50 (?) years.  What a nice keepsake to have to remember her mother by.
Sorry that I did not post yesterday.  I was just too tuckered out when I got home.  I took Carol to Marshfield for her 2 weeks post op checkup.  She had her 16 staples removed yesterday and is healing nicely but is still in a lot of pain.  Please continue to keep her in your prayers.  After her appointment we went down stairs to look for her folks as her mother had an appointment with internal medicine.  We found them and her mother did not look very good and her mom wanted Carol to go in with her to her appointment.  We ended up waiting along time for them to get her in and by the time she was finished with her appointment 3 hours had past.  I kept Carol's dad company and we talked just about the whole time.  I always get such a kick out of him as he has such mischievous eyes and it is easy to make him laugh!  They headed down stairs for a cat scan and we headed to Perkins for lunch.  We made a stop at Shopko and then headed home.  After I took Carol home, I stopped at the library and Family Dollar.  I hit the bed immediately after I got home.  A long day, but fun.  Carol and I always find lots to talk about!
Today I made a trip to Practical Cents and I found some really good treasures today.  Lots of fabric and crafting supplies so I was a happy camper.  The cat's were just about out of cat food so I picked up some Meow Mix, Popcorn, and Cheez Whiz, that  were all on sale.  I decided to work downstairs after I got home as I knew that Beth Griffith was going to stop over so started working on some new butterfly notepads I am making.  I finished 2 out of the 15, that I have started.  I have so many different projects in progress at the moment.  Some up in the sewing room, hand stitching to do in bed, and others in the stamp room.  Never a dull moment around here.  It is so good to feel back to normal (or at least my normal) again today.  It has been a long week!  More show and tell picture's tomorrow!!

T

The cabin

These are some pictures of the cabin we stayed in.  I should have taken some more but forgot about it.  These were taken when we first arrived and we were making up our beds.  I would get 3 corners of the sheet on and would be trying to put on the fourth one, and another one would pop off.  This happened about 3 times, and Di was laughing at me.  The area behind Di is the entry way and was pretty open and empty.  It had a table and chair set on the left side. Angie and Kathy slept on the right side of the cabin, and had their own bathroom too.  The middle section was smaller and just had bunk beds in it.  The second night Diane decided to sleep in there as I snore.  I have to sleep on my back and that causes me to snore.  We were very lucky to have only 4 people in this huge cabin.  You couldn't even tell anyone else was in there except that I heard Angie coughing a few times.  In the second picture, you can see my green rag quilt, and that is where I slept.  That was in about the middle of the cabin.  Next time I am going to double up the mattresses or find an egg crate mattress to put on the top as the second night I was pretty sore and couldn't get comfortable.  A four inch mattress is pretty thin.  But it was nice and warm in there, and when I would lay down for a nap, I fell asleep pretty quickly.

I am still trying to recover from the weekend.  I haven't gotten too much done the past three days.  I have been just exhausted. I try and do a little bit and then have to rest again, and have been taking lots of naps.  I wonder how many more days it will take till I feel normal again.  Di is either having sinus problems or getting a cold.  She sounds terrible and felt wiped out today.  In the next post, I will show you some pictures from our pajama party!  That was a riot!!!

Cutting Edge Quilt Shop

On Friday afternoon we sewed, and I took a nap from about 3:30 till 5 when we had dinner.  We met some stamper's at dinner and after dinner Diane and I decided to take a walk to the Canteen and check that out.  They had a dozen station's set up for the stamper's to rotate through and we walked around and looked at the different stations and the cards they were making.  We also saw the coffee shop, gift shop, and the Great room with a fireplace, couches, and over stuffed chairs.  A very beautiful building.  Then it was back to sewing, snacking, and laughing.  People went to bed as they felt like it and got up when they wanted to and would go to the chapel and sew.  I woke up at 3:30 and looked out the cabin window to see if anyone was over there but it was dark.  I had thought about going over to sew, but went back to bed and fell back to sleep. We had breakfast with everyone in the dining room.  After breakfast, Diane and I headed into town to the quilt shop the Cutting Edge.  Another group went to Good Will, and in the afternoon, another batch of gals went to the Casino.  Diane and I thoroughly enjoyed poking around the quilt shop.  This shop had long arm quilting machines, and lots of embroidery machines.  We have seen booth's of both at Quilt Expo, but had never been a shop that had so many of these on display.  We poked around looking at quilts, purses, wall quilts, fabrics, notions, and  pattern's.  I bought this baby book as I saw lots of cute things that I would like to make for our new little bambino, especially the bibs.  I really liked the one that says "I've had it...I am going to Nana's house!"  I also bought these two jelly rolls of fabric from in the back of the store in the clearance section.  They are Moda fabrics which is one of my favorite fabric maker's.  They have such beautiful fabric's.  I love their lines.  Mom gave me a Jelly Roll Quilt Book for Christmas this year.  Maybe I will use these to make something out of it.  The fabric with the pink ribbon's on it is for Susie.  Angela's Aunt Sonia was using this to repair a quilt that her mother had made for her.  She was using Angela's big shot with the butterfly die and fusible web to repair the whole's in the quilt.  I had asked her where she had found the fabric and she had told me Joann's.  That she had bought a remnant there.  I had told her about Susie's friend that does all the fund raising for breast cancer and that they were looking for pink fabric like this so at the end of the weekend she sent this home with me to give to her.  Wasn't that sweet!  To be continued.....

High ho, high ho, off to Camp I go....

Hello!  Well...did you miss me while I was gone!?!?!  I came home on Sunday night after being gone since early Friday morning to a quilting retreat that Angela July host's at the Silver Birch Ranch at White Lake, WI.  I had a fabulous time and did not want to come home!  Seriously...I have had lots of good times with people and my stamper's but 3 full days of solid fun and laughter...well I don't think I have had that much fun since high school!  It was an absolute blast and Angela did such a good job organizing it.
The top picture is of the dining hall.  There was a scrap booking retreat going on at the same time and they worked in part of the dining room.  We some times sat at tables with some of them during meals and became friends with them too.  I took this picture from near the chapel where we worked in, so you can see that we did not have far to walk for our meals.  The lower picture was taken from the same spot.  I just turned to the right.  It was a play ground area and the building in the far right was the canteen, rec. room, gift shop area.  A beautiful new building.  We could pretty much do what we wanted to do all weekend.  Every one brought their own projects to work on.  We would sew and talk, and laugh.  I thought I would get sore from sitting and sewing but I really didn't as someone would stop over to see what you were working on, and you would be standing up and showing them, or someone would say come and see this, and you would be over there looking at something. So I was up and down which helped.  Plus we would walk to the dining room for our meals, and to our cabins to go to the bathroom as the chapel did not have a rest room.  I took a rest break every afternoon, and would immediately fall asleep as soon as I hit the pillow, wake up and be recharged again.  I took pain meds. too, but am so very thank that I was able to go.  It was an absolute blast.  Friday, started kind of on the wrong foot.  Every one arrived at the camp after 10, and set up their sewing space.  We each had an 8 foot table to ourselves to work on and spread our stuff out on.  We then went to our cabins and got our stuff put in there, made our beds, and then headed back to the chapel.  We had lunch in the dining room.  Well after lunch, one of the gals hit a small patch of ice and fell.  It was near the area where the fence curves in the top picture.  She couldn't get up and an ambulance was called.  Everyone felt so bad for her, and the ground was cold, and they were trying to keep her warm until the ambulance got there.  They took her to a hospital and her friend went with her.  They sent her home on crutches, and with pain meds, she was badly bruised.  She had fell on her hip and the other hip she had already had hip replacement on so we were all concerned about that.  A lot of praying was done and I hope she is okay.  I did not see her fall as they had some stamps set up for sale in the lobby and I was looking at them when it happened but saw her down when I came out.  To be continued.......

Have a Purr fect day!

Hello!  Isn't this little kitty a sweetheart with a smile on her face!?!?!  Content and happy, just like cats usually are.
Today the stamping order from Danna's party arrived, and Susie Smith, Sandy Renner, and Diane Dilworth were all here today to pick up their order's.  Sandy took Danna's and Tammy's too.  My mom was over tonight for a visit for about an hour and Debi stopped over for some more little gifts.  Remember the tags I told you I was working on yesterday!?!?  Well, I got the rest of the tag edges punched and they are all distressed.  I said to Di on the phone today, I was wrong about it being about 200.  I said it is over that.  She says to me.... knowing I go overboard on things....."Can you count that high!?!?"  Smart ass.  LOL  Any how, it was a total of 233!  Yikes!  I am set on those for awhile!  I found a free pattern on line for a small baby bib.  It is the kind that you use when the babies are little and you are bottle or breast feeding.  I cut 14 of them out tonight.  So I have some things ready to sew.  I used to make different style bib's when I had the store but I have not made this size before.  I have just a blast scouting out all the sewing blog's these days and I am finding a ton of cute things for babies.  Only 14 more days and we will (hopefully!) find out what our new little bambino will be!  Can't wait!

Cupcake Girl

Oh...I am running out of pictures!  I need to take some time and shoot a bunch.  There are plenty of things to show you, I just need some extra time!  Another crazy day in Mayberry.  I awake most of the night, and when I was sleeping good,  Debi woke me up this morning that her sister was coming over to buy a pin cushion, so I showered and got dressed right away after I got myself  "out of the coma!" Dawn ended up getting some other stuff too.  I started working on tags for my pin cushions, and in between all the commotion today, I probably stamped 200.  As Di says...."You can never do anything in a small way"!  And she is right about that.  I probably have at least a dozen different sewing sayings that can go on them.  I didn't get them finished.  They are stamped but I still have a bunch to notch the corner's on and distress, then embellish....a long process, but once they are done, I won't have to do that step for a long time, and people will be able to choose what saying they want on it.  I will have a very nice selection all ready.  I am used to working assembly line style from when I used to have the store.  Even though I can't work at that pace anymore, or that many hours a day, I still work the same way, just in bits and pieces.  Debi was over too.  Judy from FM support group called and wanted to know if she could come over and pick up some Wild Rice soup and she took the last I have of that.  I was just about to rest when my cousin Heather got dropped off here by the gal from TNT Auto Body.  I can't think of her name right now, but she is a sweetheart.  Any whoo....Heather lives across from the hospital now with the Vondrak's and she got the hair brained idea that she would walk to her sister Dawn's house in Adams!  She has MS, and can barely walk period!  I guess she got a block from Vondrak's and fell down.  Her white pants were all dirty.  Then she walked as far as TNT and was tired out so she went into the garage to see if they would let her sit down a while and they did.  Then she ended up getting brought to my house.  We visited awhile and then she wanted me to take her to Dawn's to get some soy milk.  Heather nearly fell out of the van trying to get out and went into the house.  Dawn came walking up with her grand kids a few minutes later, and got a puzzled look on her face when she saw me.  I explained what happened, and she gave Heather a lecture when she got into the house.  It didn't seem to bother Heather any though.  When she get's an idea in her head (that she needed the soy milk), it is sometimes hard to talk her out of it.  So I took her home, and then hit the bed for my rest time.  Ate supper in bed and caught up on some of my blog reading for a couple of hours.  I cut 35 pin cushions out tonight with the Big Shot and went to the grocery store to get a few things.  Time for beddy bye...I am wiped!

Emma on the tree stump

Hello!  I am up late tonight.  I ran out of steam around 4:30 and took the lap top with me to bed.  I did a little Iming with Colleen and then Di called.  After writing to Ron, I conked out around 5:30 and ended up sleeping till 7.  I don't like that when it happens but not much I can do it.  My body crashes when it wants too.  But I was up in the sewing room after that and got a lot of cutting done and I sewed a little quilt.  I have the top pieced, borders on, and it all sandwiched and pinned together.  I started getting tired again so came down about a half hour ago, and then Jenna called.  It always makes me nervous when the phone rings this late but when I see Jen's name on caller ID, I know everything is OK.  She was just getting off work and took a chance that I would still be up.  Funny thing is that she rarely wakes me up, almost like an ESP between us that she calls on the nights I am still up.  Earlier today, I went to the library and Practical Cents.  I found a few good things for displaying, a couple of cute tops, an old bingo game (I will use the cards and wood pieces for altering projects), a napkin holder to alter, and a small bowl that is the same color pink as the quilt I recently found so I think it is from the 40's, or possibly 50's.  I am not sure what I am going to do with that yet, but I love the color of it!  ;-D  It would be cool to make it into a pincushion.  Susie came over for a visit and I showed her how to make the brooches with the flower fold die.  Her die will be arriving on Thursday.  She wants to make some for gifts.  My neighbor Debi was over and bought a pincushion for a gift.  She sure likes giving them for little gifts to people.  After Susie left, I made 3 more brooches so I got a total of 4 of them done today.  This is one of the nine magnets I made yesterday.  They are all a little bit different.  Either the color of their hair, or the color of their outfits, or how I laid out the pieces for the sun, and some have a little butterfly flying in the air.  More and more, the stuff I am creating is one of a kind.  Have a great day!  Elaine

Easter Magnet

Hello!  This little stamper girl is tired tonight and I am sure will fall fast asleep when she hits the bed, especially since she has just taken her Tylenol PM!  I was up early today, at 5 am on the computer as usual but by the time I got sleepy enough to go back to sleep I had to get up because Breezy was coming so set the alarm for 7.  I don't think they actually got here till after nine to bring the stove.  His friend Mike helped him bring it.  Mike bought a house and they did not want an electric stove so they bought a gas one.  Sarah wanted electric so she took the electric one, and I got their gas one.  So it has been a game of musical stoves.  And my old one, my dad is junking out so I didn't end up having to pay a dump fee which was great!  You would not believe how different it looks in my kitchen.  I did not expect that.  Mine had a black glass door, and black glass on top, and the rest was almond colored.  This whole stove is a off white color and it really brightens up the kitchen and it doesn't stick out as a far either.  So it is like my kitchen got a mini make over!  LOL  Breezy and Mike also screwed the book case at the bottom of the steps to the wall so that is all taken care of.  They have some projects at Mike's house this week and then will be back here next week to do some things here.  I did a bunch of coloring today with a new digital image I bought and the matching tree stump with mushrooms.  Absolutely adorable and I just finished putting together 9 magnets with Emma sitting on the tree stump.  Maybe I can get some photo's of her taken tomorrow.  Too tired tonight.  A lot of cutting on today's project and I did that while resting and watching Bones, then went to the fibromyalgia support group tonight.  It is good to be going to that again.  It is a nice group of people and good to talk to people with similar problems.  Well, I need to glue the magnets on the back of Emma and then I am off to bed!  See ya tomorrow!!!

The Year of the Brooch

From what I have read, this is suppose to be the Year of the Brooch, that they are in all the catalogs.  Here is a new style I made today.  I quick shot a picture of them laying on my lap top but once I got it on to the computer I realized that some of the colors don't look quite right.  The middle one on the second row looks gold in the center but really it is tan.  These ended up taking me far longer than I had anticipated, mainly because I kept changing them.  I have a bunch of spare pieces already cut for the next batch that I didn't use.  I think the next one's should go faster as I now know what works and what doesn't work.
It sure was a gorgeous day here today.  I was out for a little bit as I ran up to Family Dollar to pick up some more ponytails bands that I am using for the base of my Bow ponytails.  I got 25 done yesterday from start to finish, so was happy about that and I have a bunch more cut.  I did some laundry and cleaning today so didn't get as much done today as I would have liked to.  Oh well....tomorrow is another day!

Couple Magnet

Good Morning!  I started working on this post last night before I went to bed but the Tylenol PM kicked in and I had to go to bed!  LOL  I was just to sleepy to finish it.  
Yesterday, I had a call from Lady Di.  She invited me to come out and play with them.  Her sister Judi and nephew Richard are visiting at her house right now.  She tells me that Richard wants me to bring my Chocolate Chip bars.....and I say "yeah, right", knowing full well that Di loves them, thinking it was her idea and that she is just blaming it on Richard!  It turns out that it really was Richard that wanted them, and he tells Di to tell me that his mom will pay for them...she just doesn't know it yet!!!  Those nuts!  So I got out the stuff for the bars and let the butter unthaw while I took a shower and got my other stuff ready to take.  I stirred them up, and I baked them out there.  I took my scrap bin and punches along and punched out scraps for hours while visiting and watching TV.  I still have not hit bottom, but I am getting closer!  After supper, I worked on making some embellishment with the punch outs.  I put center's on some of the flowers and tied tiny little bows on top of them so I have a bunch of them all ready to work with now.  I had a fun day and Di made a fantastic supper as usual!

Hummingbird Magnet

Here is a picture of a Hummingbird magnet that I made.  This morning I put in the stamping order, and in the afternoon, Barb Cook stopped over to pick up her order from last month, and to visit.  I had to go to Pamida and pick up my prescriptions this afternoon as I was out of two of my medications.  I started working on 4 baby boy cards and finished one of them.  Just wasn't in the right mood for it today so spent hours punching scraps out laying on the bed watching Dr. Oz episodes that I had taped.  Someday, I hope to hit the bottom of the scrap bin.  This is the farthest down I have ever gotten it in the four years I have been stamping.  The problem is that you are always creating MORE scraps!  Oh well.....it keeps me out of trouble, I love using them, and my stamper's love receiving them!

Here comes Peter Cotton Tail...hoppin' down the bunny trail...

Hello!  Here is a sample I made with Stampin' Up! 2 Tag Die.  This has 2 tags glued together in the middle and then the top is tied together with some ribbon and a button ties the ribbon shut.  I also ran it through an embossing folder too.  You can stick a treat inside of it.  I used one of the Lots of Tags Die to create the Lovely Lilac layer behind the rabbit.  I stamped the rabbit from the stamp set Eight Great Greetings, then used the Classy Brass Punch Pals, to pierce the circle around the rabbit.  Then I punched it out with the 1 3/4" Circle Punch.  A little sponging, some dimensionals to pop up the rabbit and wahla....it is done.
Today I went to Stevens Point, and then Ron and I made a trip to Wausau.  We were looking for a used kitchen mixer but we did not find one.  I went to Joann Fabrics and used my gift card from Lady Di that she gave me for Christmas.  I had fun picking out some new goodies to play with and it was the perfect time to use it as they had 10 possible coupons that you could use this week as March is National Craft Month.  I did not use them all, but did use 7.  I got some new stamps with the gift card, and then got a punch and some glue sticks and pin backs too.  It was sure nice to be able to use a coupon on those basic supplies too.  I have been going through both like water with all the projects I have been working on lately.  We had lunch at a restaurant just out side of Wausau, and for the life of me, I can't think of the name, but the food was very good.  I had a ranch, bacon, chicken wrap and ff's and it was very good.  It was a fun day.  Not so fun driving home in the fog but I got home before dark thankfully, as I wouldn't have been able to see a thing after dark I am sure.  I have been answering phone calls and working on some baby cards since I have been home.  I am sure sleepy now so am heading to bed!

Owl Tin

I gave this to Danna last night as her hostess gift.  It is an empty expresso can that I altered.  I picked up 2 of these tins at the the thrift shop.  I really like them because the lid slides INTO the can, not on the outside of the can.  When you are picking items to alter, try to look for items with those type lids, which are hard to find.  Taking a lid on and off will rip up the paper on the top of the can other wise.   This was a really fun project to do and the gals loved it.   

Today is Jenna's 26th birthday, and Ron's daughter, Amanda's 31st birthday.  Happy birthday girls!  I had left Jenna a Happy Birthday message last night and told her to call me when she got it.  I wanted to share with you the email she sent me last night, so you can share her joy, what a birthday gift she got!
Dear mom! Thanks for the bday wish! We have big news, BIG big news. God continues to bless us... Tami asked Antonio to be a manager today!!! Can u believe it? I knew she wanted to know if he was interested in management at all for the future about 2 months ago because she asked me, but I told her I wasn't sure. This came as a big surprise for me, and an answered prayer. Will share more about this tomorrow... Love u. Goodnight! :)
Xoxoxo. 
What a blessing for their family.  I am so very happy for Antonio and Jenna.  And being that Jenna already is a manager, she will be able to help him learn, at home, because they won't be able to work together.  He has already told her that he is going to need her support.


I have been working on baby cards today, and have made 4 styles, 3 of each.  They are one of my favorite things to make.  I just love doing them.

Ronald Mc Donald Burp Pad

Hello!  Tonight was Danna's stamping party and a fun time was had by all.  We had TONS of stuff that people brought in for show and tell and that was really great!  Love it!
I made 2 of these Ronald Mc Donald burp pads last week when I made the other one's.  I had picked this fabric up some where in my travels.  It is really a bright and colorful fabric that should be appealing to babies.  
Carol stopped over this afternoon to bring back some baby craft books that I had lent her when she started having grand children.  She want to see what I had been making since she had last been here.  She told me that when she comes the next time she wants to see some baby stuff made out of our new books!  LOL  She told me that she had Gerry dig out her totes of fabrics so she could look at the calico's that she had in there and she said that she had plenty to make the twirl skirts, but they ended up going to Walmart this weekend and she bought a couple more prints.  :-)  Fabric can be addicting, just like stamps.  Please remember to pray for her.  Her neck surgery is on Wednesday.  She has been a lot worse since we went to Marshfield and is just miserable.  She is not sure why, if it was the test they did on her that day or what.  When I told her to be sure to let me know if there is any thing I can do to help, and she said, "Well...you could cut my arm off."  She is having such pain and numbness in her arm, poor thing.  I sure hope the surgery brings her immediate relief.

You're Stuck With Me

I made this little cutie yesterday for Diane.  The minute I saw this stamp on line and matching verse, I just thought she was just too stinkin' cute and that Lady Di would love her and I had to order her.  This little sweetheart came all the way from Canada.  I made her into this magnet.  Her name is Drucilla but she so reminds me of Pippy Longing Stockings!  I loved that book growing up.  Pippy was outrageous, and I loved that about her, she did and said things that I never had the courage to do as a kid.  I colored 5 more of this image yesterday that I will be making up into something.  I may put her in a picture frame, we will see.  A very time consuming image to color as everything is so detailed that you have to work very slowly so that you do not go out of the lines, but oh so satisfying when you get her finished.  A great gift to give a spouse, friend, or family member and of course I love anything that is sewing related.
I have been working on stitching card stands today and so far have 10 done.  It is a good project to do while watching TV.  I have been catching up on some of the episodes of Bones that I have recorded.  I also have everything all packed for Danna's party tomorrow night.  It should be a fun night, we have 13 people signed up to come right now which is wonderful!

Tissue Holders

These are some tissue holder's that I made this week to hold little pockets size packets of tissue.  They are great to put in your purse, a bag, or in the car.

I finished up tieing on 34 ponytails this morning, and worked in the stamping room this afternoon.  I spent the evening out at Diane's with her, and her sister, Judi, and nephew Richard.  We had a great time teasing one another and Di says she doesn't think she can take along time of Judi and I being together!  LOL  We were teasing her pretty good.  I took my world famous chocolate chip bars, and once again Di thought I added more chocolate chips to the recipe, which I didn't...hee hee.  I returned her chocolate rabbit stamp and borrowed her picnic basket set.  So you will be seeing some picnic basket cards soon and some Easter cards with the chocolate rabbit.  I sure do love picnic baskets....I think it goes back to my watching Yogi Bear and Boo Boo as a child stealing the picnic baskets.  My friend Colleen from Oregon sent me the cutest little picnic basket as part of my birthday present.  I want to make a little miniature quilt to hang out of the basket.  I think that picnic baskets take you back to a simpler time, and picnics are a relaxing. I took the girls on picnics all the time growing up and any other kids I could snag.  And we took tons of picnics out to Patrick's Lake with the Camps. When the girls were teenager's it changed to Subway sandwiches in the park, (bribery...lol).  And they liked to go out to Roche A Cri Park the best at that age. I hope that I have instilled the love of picnics in them and that they will take lots of them with their families.  Maybe they will even take Mom along! It won't be long and it will be picnic weather....Think Spring!

Burp, burp, burp, burp, burpity burp!

Here are 8 of the burp pads that I made yesterday.  Didn't they turn out cute!?!?  I made them out of flannel. I washed them to start the fraying but they will really fray and curl up after the 2nd and 3rd washing.  I thought this print almost looks cowish, and thought it was quite appropriate to use this print for burp pads as mother's who breast feed are in a way the baby's cow.  Hee Hee.  I am sure Jenna would not appreciate that one, but I am probably safe as the girls don't usually read the blog!  :-)  I am busy working on odd little projects today.  I am finishing ponytails, doing laundry, packaging up some new goodies for my "Free with $50.00 order box", etc.  I think I will take a quick shower and go to the bank and library, and maybe a peek into Practical Cents.  I will let you know if I find any treasures!

Sewing in my castle...

I spent most of the day up in the sewing room.  I just absolutely love it up there.  The sea foam color is so soothing and relaxing.  A very peaceful place to work.  I feel like I escape when I am up there and I am very thankful to be able to climb the stairs right now.  I was working on baby burp pads today.  I got 10 of them sewn and I just need to finish clipping a few of them and they will be ready to be washed so that they rag.  Susie stopped in for a little while today and we had a nice visit.  If you do stop over some time and the van is here, and I don't answer the door, buzz me on your cell phone as I may be upstairs and I have a phone in the sewing room.  I can't see the driveway from up there unless you are at the end of the driveway by the street.  It is really difficult to tell if someone is here when you are up there, and now with people going in and out of the ambulance parking lot, it is a lot harder to tell if someone is in my driveway.  I would hate to miss you!  I also got 7 ponytails, and 9 tissue holder's done last night after my 3 and 1/2 hour nap!  Only 8 more weekends till the flea market starts....YAHOO!  I can't wait!  I am off to finish clipping so that maybe I will have a picture tomorrow for you of baby burp pads!  Have a good night!  Me

Just Buzzin' By Jar

Here is some pictures of a project I finished this morning.  My neighbor asked me to make a gift jar for her.  She is going to give this for a birthday gift.  The girl that will be receiving this gift loves lime green so I added as much of that color to the project as I could with out it being to over whelming.  Debi was very happy with the jar.  She  filled it with candy wrapped in the pastel Easter color's and it looks so pretty.  I shot a closer picture of the top of the jar so you could see it better and also a picture of the tag.  I glitter painted the flowers with an old blender pen, and used stickles on the bee's wings.  The butterfly is made with SU's Butterfly die, and I used the stamp set Just Buzzin By.  It worked perfect with this honey jar.  If you empty out any honey jars and are not going to use them for anything would you save them for me!?!?  This is a perfect project for them.  After Debi left, Susie stopped over for a couple of hours and we worked on some idea's for her mother's upcoming 90th birthday party.  She is going to make the cutest little carrot favor's.  They are adorable.  She also brought along some really cute cards that she made.  We had a fun visit.  I think I am going to go take a nap right now as I am tired out from yesterday.  Have a stampin' good day!  Elaine

What a very long day....but fun!

Wow!  Carol and I had a marathon long day today.  We left here at 6:30am to travel to Marshfield for her appointment with the neurosurgeon.  While she was in her appointment, I was crocheting flowers and finished 15 of them.  She came out around 10:30 and the verdict is that she has to have neck surgery.  She has a disk that split off and is pinching a nerve, causing arm and neck pain, numbness, and increasing weakness in her left hand.  Her surgery will be next Wednesday, the 10th.  Please keep her in your prayers.  We decided to go to AppleBee's for lunch and she 
needed to be back to the clinic by noon so they could run tests on her and get everything done while she was there that needed to be done before surgery.  Carol thought I should take the vehicle and go shop as she had 4 appointments and wouldn't be done until 3.  So I dropped her off and went to St. Vinnies, Good Will and Hancocks.  I got back a little early and was looking at my new book when Carol came out.  I had birthday money from Lenore and Susie and I used Lenore's to buy the book and Susie's to buy the beautiful bundle of fat quarters on the left.  They are called brown works and all coordinate, in chocolate, pink, blue, and cream.  They are absolutely yummy looking and I will probably just gaze at them until I decide on the perfect project for them.  I got them with a 40 percent off coupon.  I was showing Carol the book before we left the clinic and she could not believe how stinkin' cute the pattern's are in it.  There are 25 patterns in the book for clothing for girls and boys, and accessories ages 0-5.  I decided that my up coming grand baby needs some things out of the book and I think I also will make some clothes to sell.  Any how, after we went over to the hospital to do the final paper work, we headed back to Hancock's and Carol decided to buy one of these books too along with some other stuff!  She has the cutest little grand daughter's, and it will be fun for her to make some things out of there for them.  Our last stop was Culver's drive thru for ice cream and I thoroughly enjoyed my cookie dough, concrete mixer on the way home.  We yacked all the way up and all the way back, and I am sure we still forgot to tell each other stuff!  Oh...and I almost forgot to tell you that I found a little ceramic Easter bunny holding a Chocolate Rabbit for Carol at Vinnies.  She really likes chocolate rabbits and thought it was cute.  We blew in here at 6pm...and after Carol left, I washed my face, got on my jammies, grabbed the lap top and was in bed by 6:15.  There was no way I could stay awake, and I kept dozing off, oh well.  I should sleep well tonight!!!  Thanks Susie and Lenore for the birthday gifts....I will treasure them!  Hugs!  Elaine

Yackette's Ride Again!

Hello!  Here is a picture of some more magnets I made to sell.  I made 4 of these.  I didn't get anything accomplished today.  I slept all night, was up a couple of hours and then slept till noon.  My body seemed to be sucking up the sleep from the lack of it.  I feel much better today.  I still wasn't too hungry but my stomach did not hurt today, only had one yuck spell of acid when I bent to pick something off the floor so I think I am over what ever bug I had.  I needed to mail something out late this afternoon so made a stop at Practical Cents while I was out and about and picked up some little things that I am going to turn into pincushions.  Its a new idea I have.  White tags were 75 percent off, and yellow 50 percent off so I ended up with a bag of goodies for $3.00.  I can't wait to get started on that.  Then I made a quick stop to the library and got back here right in time for the Yackette's to start arriving.  We had a really nice time.  We haven't met for months so it was a real treat to get together all though not all of the gang made it tonight, but we had 5 all together.  We went out to Spot in The Woods for pizza and they have really good pizza.  I had not had it there before.  I have only eaten there one other time with Debby from IL, and hubby, and we had breakfast which was very good.  Try it out sometime...you will like it!