I have started a new blog!

Time for a new beginning!  I have used up my allotted space on this blog for pictures so I am starting a new blog.  This blog will still be available for you to look at.  My new blog is called ELAINEMWILSON and the address is elainemwilson.wordpress.com 
See ya over at the new blog!  Elaine

I am ready for the weekend!

I finished working on the stall at the flea market this morning and hit three garage sales but I didn't buy a thing.  I had to stop at the old house to pick up a table that I want to use this week end at the flea market, and little Mason man did not want me to leave and he wanted to go home with me.  So I took the stroller and walked him over to my house.  He played awhile then we read some stories, and we both fell asleep watching the Aristocats.  He loves coming over here as he has no competition, and is King Pin at Grammies house.  Jenna wanted to mow lawn tonight and wanted me to watch the kids so we were suppose to be back at 4:30.  She couldn't get the lawn mower to start so she will have to do it another day.  Antonio got it running so we know that it starts, she is going to have him show her how.  We had supper together, and visited.  Plus she did some cleaning while I fed Valentina a bottle.  She is such a laid back baby, but when she decides to get mad, or wants to eat, she goes from calm to mad....it is kind of funny.  It is like she is saying, okay guys, I have had ENOUGH!  She is so smiley and full of dimples.  She sure is a cutie pie!!

Today I am going to show you some hat that I recently crocheted.  Two of them are the Newsboy which is so popular, and one baby bear, another favorite.

I'd better hip hop off to bed.....it is going to be a long weekend.  Stop down to the flea market and say hi if you get a chance!  Elaine

Mini Aprons

I found the cutest little apron pattern on pinterest and just had to try it out!  A few years ago, I bought a box of old apron remnants from the 40's.  The gal I bought them from at the flea market Grandmother worked at an apron factory, and every day when she came home from work, she brought home the remnant fabric pieces from the apron factory.  This gal told me that she had been making stuff with them and she was also selling bundles of the remnants.  So...I thought it would be fun to make some of these bottle aprons.  They are just so cute!

I didn't have a bottle of water which is what they will be on when I am selling them so I put it on a Margarita bottle and went out on my little patio to shoot a picture.  I had to put all my hanging baskets down on the ground as it is so darn windy!

Here is the side view.  It is exactly like a real apron, only miniature!

It loops over the neck of the bottle, just like it does on a real person, and ties in the back.  It has teeny tiny pockets on the front.  One for the straw, and one to add a little note, or a piece of candy.

A good picture of the pocket and the prints.  These would make cute center pieces, at a place setting, or an inexpensive gift for a friend or co worker.  Wouldn't this be cute sitting on someone's desk or in their cubicle.  One done...and I have 15 more cut out.
Stay safe!  Elaine

Workin' away

My day today started out with picking up and cleaning, as today was annual inspection day for the apartments.  The inspection ended up being no big deal, it was mainly an appliance and smoke alarm  check.   I also priced some of my stamping supplies that I cleaned out and plan on taking to the flea market.

Diane stopped over today while Bernie was getting his haircut.  We decided that I should come out and play.  She picked up Bernie and ran an errand, and I packed my stuff up to go and then made a quick stop at Practical Cents.  I found a Cuisinart blender which I was tickled about as I have missed having smoothies.  My timing just happened to be right, it was sitting on a cart waiting to be put out on the floor.  My good fortune and another blessing from God. 
I worked on cutting flowers with the Big Shot with some designer paper scraps.  If you watched the Papertrey Ink video that I put the link on the blog a couple of days ago, you saw how that gal organizes her designer paper scraps.  I started my own bin a couple of days ago, and cut more scraps down tonight.  It is so nice to have them all organized by color, and I also have one section of large prints/holiday.  I am going to love using this, and it will cut down on waste as when you are rifling through them, you bend up the corners, and end up having to cut them off.  It is great to be getting the scraps die cut, cut down and manageable.  It is so nice to have things all ready when you want to make a card.

Isn't this little owl just adorable!?!?!  He is a digital image that I colored with my copic markers.  I have a whole big file of images colored that I need to get made into cards.

Today we will end with some pictures of Valentina.  Our sweet little princess!

 Mason giving Valentina a kiss.  Mommy was holding Valentina, and Grammie was holding Mason.  Such a precious moment!!!

Grammie and Valentina on Easter Sunday.  She was one week old in this picture.

Valentina all dolled up to go to church last Sunday.  Aunt Edith had lots of fun buying Valentina pretty dresses!

Bitty Baby Blessings

I made a bunch of baby cards last week with the PTI stamp set Bitty Baby Blessings.  This is a great layout for using up designer paper.  I worked on this batch of 8 cards over a three day period.  The first day I stamped all the onesies on designer paper and cut them out.  I also stamped all the little images for the onesie fronts.  I adhered them, and then put crystal effects on them and let them dry over night.

The next day I started cutting the other layers, and stamping the verses.  I really love this layout and love these cards.  I think they turned out really cute.  Here is the completed card.

I made these cards for Sarah.  Her friends and family members are having babies like crazy and she said that she needs baby and sympathy cards the most.  I guess she uses a lot of sympathy cards as there are a lot of members on Zach's fire department and there seems to be a lot of deaths of family members.  

I will show you all the boy cards first, then the girl cards.

One more to go:

And now for the girl cards:

Baby cards are one of my favorite things to make.  I guess that is to be expected as I love babies!!!  Little Valentina was smiling up a storm at me today.

I helped Jenna with the kids this afternoon/evening as she wanted to get some things done.  She got a lot of cleaning done.  I think Mason wanted to come over here today as he said things twice that indicated that.  When I told him it was nap time, he said Bye Bye Cats (we watch the Aristocats at nap time or bedtime) at my house.  Then after supper out of the blue he said to me Us Bye Bye.  I have never hear him say the word us before so that took me by surprise.  He is so much fun.

Valentina is cooing and it is so fun to listen to her.  She is making the cutest little noises.  Let me know what you think of the baby cards.  Elaine

Papertrey Ink challenge

I decided that I wanted to play along tonight with the Papertrey Ink card challenge.  They have a nice video explaining how to mix and match your pattern paper scraps.  Here is the link if you would like to watch it or play along with the challenge http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2012/05/make-it-monday-67-step-it-up-mixing-patterned-papers.html  I made this card in a few minutes as I had die cut and stamped a bunch of elements when I was out at Diane's last week so I just sat and played with the colors until I found a combination that I liked.  Here's my card:

Stamp Set: Papertrey Ink - Tea for Two (and matching dies)
Card Base: Papertrey Ink - Aqua Mist
Designer paper: Retired Stampin' UP!

I had Mason this afternoon while the kids went to the Dells for appointments.  We spent most of the day outside and Mason just loved it.  I had to shoot a couple of pictures of him "crocheting".  He loved sticking the hook inside the ball of yarn.  He would get it stuck and then would look at me and say "help".  And I would take the hook out of the ball for him and he would do it again until it got "stuck".  Then he decided that he needed to have the yarn around his neck and I had to watch him very closely as I didn't want him to strangle himself.  In the mean time....Lady Di calls and I am telling her about this and she is "egging" Mason to throw the ball of yarn so that it would all unravel (and I would have a mess).  Mason just laughed at her and continued on with what he was doing.  Here's some shot's of my little cutie pie!

He got all excited when I started taking his picture and started moving around.  I had to delete several blurry pictures but I managed to get a couple to show you.

Enjoy this wonderful weather!  The Grammie

Following a sketch

I find it helpful to get the creative juices flowing by following a sketch sometimes.  This is the sketch I used to create the above card.

A good way to use up those skinny little strips that accumulate, as most of you know...I can't throw anything out!

Here is a closer view of the card:

Stamp set: Verve Plain Jane, Circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities, Flower punch from Martha Stewart, and Button Emboss-lit die from Stampin' UP!
Have a blessed Sunday!  Elaine

Field Flowers and a Grammie & Mason day!

This is the very first card that I made at the new apartment.  I used background paper from an old dictionary that I purchased at the the thrift store.  It is a HUGE dictionary....I will have paper to use for a million years...that is if I live that long!  LOL  The brown crocheted lace is a thrift shop purchase too.  I did some distressing on it to give it a shabby chic look to it.  I love this stamp set Field Flowers from Stampin' UP!  You will be seeing a lot more of it in the future.  Last but not least...I used the Modern Label punch to punch out the sentiment.

Here is a closer view of the card:

I was down at the flea market this morning.  Ruth Petersen stopped in to say hi and visit awhile and it was great to see her.  I was down there today till about noon and then came home to watch Mason for the kids as Antonio had a couple of job interviews and they went grocery shopping at Aldi's.  We had lots of fun watching the Aristocrats, eating and playing with animal crackers, while cuddling in the recliner.  Plus we had a nap and we were outside for awhile walking around and Mason was swishing his hands through the ant hills.  He was so excited to see a squirrel run near us.  It is very fun to see the world through his eyes!  Elaine

Back in the saddle again....

It has been along time since I have posted on the blog but I now hope to start posting again on a regular basis.  To give you a short recap of what has been going on the past few months, on Feb 2nd I became sick with what I thought was the flu.  I got rid of most of the flu symptoms except that I would sweat for hours at a time, and some mild pain would go away, and I felt off balance.  I finally went to the doctor on Feb. 16th  after a week and a half of this .thinking he will give me some antibiotics and I will be able to see Antonio, Jenna, and Mason who were moving there stuff into my house on Sunday.  After some lab work the Dr. said that I was very sick and they needed to figure out why.  After a bunch of questions, another exam, we decided that I should have a cat scan of the appendix and ovary.  I ended up having a ruptured appendix, emergency surgery, and a 12 day stay in the hospital.  No lifting over 10lbs for 6 weeks.  That worked out to be around the time that Jenna had Valentina, and she ended up having a C-section and she couldn't lift for 6 weeks, so I spent the next 4 plus weeks helping her with the baby and Mason, and Mason would come home with me at night and spend the night here.  They have been in Milwaukee the past 2 weeks so things are finally settling down and getting back to normal.  I have been doing some crafting in this time period but I didn't really have time to post and I wasn't sure if I was going to continue doing the blog for awhile either, but I have had some people tell me that they have missed it so I am going to start again.  Please leave me a comment, I would love to hear from you!  Elaine

Stamp set: Verve - Plain Jane