Dessert Cart Sugar and Brooches as Art

I have a small collection of brooches, plus a few long gone, but the images of them remain in my mind.  I do have one or two on my blazers and jackets.  Winter coats always have a holiday pin, usually a sprig of holly.   Holly symbolizes remembrance and especially with holidays calling out for family time, it's just a way of keeping them close.

If I wasn't sure to get glue and paint on myself, I might get dressed up just enough to wear my brooches at home. Wouldn't that be a sight?  Paint drips and bits of papers glued to my arms and then a brooch, you know, I just might try it!

Brooches are not for old ladies, just for ladies who aren't working with sticky fingers, unless they're sticky from the dessert cart at teatime.  Creampuffs!  Eclairs!  Sugar high... Neapolitans are a bit awkward to handle.

I think brooches are versatile jewelery pieces and little works of art.  Put them on a pillow, in a picture frame, as a holder on curtains, on a belt, handbag, or hat, to secure a scarf, or put a chain/cord/ribbon through the catch to wear as a pendant, etc.

Do you have any brooches or do you never think of them as contemporary?  What's your favorite dessert?

Just Because Angel and Key Ornament

Last month, when I made one of the batches of ornaments and giveaway surprises I made a few items, just because.  This is one of them.  Cindy has published books, you can find her on Amazon and is working on some Young Adult fiction.  In addition, she has a blog, is an artist, and a generous sharer of knowledge, plus a mom and wife.     I think the tag combines several of her interests.

I can't remember how we first met on the blog- hers or mine or someone elses'?  Isn't it like that, sometimes you can remember to the minute and then other times the happystances (my made up word-you can use it if you like) of blogging escape that Rolex or for me, Timex moment, where you can stop the clock.  IRL I have a better chance of remembering who, what, where, and when, but in the blogmunity (another word you can borrow) the clicking of the keys takes me fast and far.

Blogmunity almost sounds like immunity of post intent instead of a blog community.  Maybe a better word, ala Norm Crosby is Bloggerhood?  Blogville?  Do you always make things with precise intention or see where the thought takes you?

Lucy Carries Out Benjamin Disraeli's Advice

If you live with pets, you know how they are usually "all in" and raring to go each and every day.  They let their noses and their passions fuel their optimism.  Sometimes their happy tails look like they are going to propel into the air, then there's the jumping, the licking, etc.   Lucy has come a long way since we adopted her.  She's open to new people, gets treats from the mail lady and people she meets on her walks, and she's not barking as much as she did three years ago.  She's not perfect, but I don't require that.

So, when Inspiration Avenue set a theme for words that inspire or poetry that I like, I decided to go with a quote from Benjamin Disraeli, a British politician and Prime Minister during the Victorian Age.  Here's one link to a BBC page with some information on him if you'd like to read a little bit about him.

I liked this quote from the Quote Garden and thought it helped to describe what Lucy's attitude is. My original photo is edited and framed.  All of Lucy's pawprints remind me of the multitude of small moments and sensations that make our memories.

   

Gardening with Men and Framed Embroidery

This is one of the pieces I finished years ago.  When I look at it now, I don't know how I had the patience, but I'm glad I did.  The phrasing is special to me, as I do love to garden.  I'm pretty shocked the colors haven't faded, but the fabric looks like it has moved a titch, there is almost a rhythm in the stitches to match the words and the sweet breeze from the birds' wings.  I used the bottom part of this embroidery piece to make the label button in the sidebar. 

When I was young, my backyard neighbors were an elderly couple. The man loved to garden and had a combination English Cottage style garden and then rows of precise and upright flowers.  He enjoyed everything about his garden.  The pear tree he had along the dividing fenceline gave us an abundance of delicious pears each year.  Our lilac bush grew up huge and he asked for cuttings to give to his wife.  Sometimes I think the request for lilacs was his way of thinking he was getting paid for his pears.  We used what fell in our yard and never crossed over the fence to take more.

He introduced me to foxgloves, lilies of the valley, bluebells, and other small delicate looking plants and foliage.  Between he, my grandfather who grew veggies, my uncle who was a powerhouse planter who grew, canned, and shared his harvests, and my father who planted our yard with roses, hedges, mimosa, forsythia, apple, lilac, poplar, pine, and more- I feel blessed to appreciate the work and the value in gardening and farming.  My  disappointment is that I can't do as much as I would like and every single houseplant that I have brought home to this house in the past seven years, has expired, nearly on contact.  I've never had that happen anywhere else, I think there must be something in the environment inside the house.  Bouquets of cut flowers don't last here, either.  My outside plants are growing well.

When we moved the last time, I had to give away my plants, that hurt, this was the only trip where things had to go into storage and obviously, plants can't live in storage.  Do you have a green thumb?

Sunshine and Tropical Dreams Lightbox Tips

It was so nice to see these colors just find their way to each other.  Okay, the lighting is not the best, but I did use a white background, the window, overhead lights- two of them, and also two mirrors to reflect the light.  This state is not called the Sunshine State!   

The pretty blues, aqua,  gold, greens, pink, and silver all made me want to find a boardwalk or an aquarium.  I'm seeing tropical fish, tropical flowers, tropical drinks, whoopsie, oh- you got me!  The beads are from what, I don't know, they are just in my stash of all kinds of bits and pieces dreaming about being used in a little project.  

For taking better photos, I had earlier made a lightbox from a gallon water jug.  It worked well with my other camera,  (which is kaput) but this new camera has a bigger lens and the opening in the jug isn't big enough for this lens.  (It was enlarged and didn't work well.)

I see a lightbox project in my future.  It's going to have to be foldable, since there isn't any place to store something all set up and ready to use all of the time.    Do you have a photography tip for little items and want to share?

Crewel Work Crazy, Embroidery, and the Good Old Days

Here's a freehand flower embroidery I'm working on.  I had to stop to buy smaller needles for the beads.  I decided to embroider on colored felt for an almost 70's throwback look.  The felt is embossed and adds to the movement in the embroidery.  

I used to do embroidery and crewel work on a start to finish and frame way, but my auto immune diseases have taken away some of my visual and physical limits, so my enjoyment and attention to these pursuits have to be in measured amounts.   What I'm really trying to say is that for ten years I have been fighting to keep my eyesight and the auto immune and other diseases are digging in their

 heels and the fight is a tug of war all of the time.  But I digress.

Way back when, WHEN?, when I was doing embroidery on a regular basis, including for some friends from school and wearing it on my jeans, jackets, bags, and so on I was crewel work crazy.  I'd sew until I couldn't focus any longer.  Everything I wore did not have embrodiery though.  I also loved to raid my Mom's closet for her clothes from her younger days.  Wedges, Peeptoes, Pretty Belts, and Jewelery.  The good old days.   I wish I had photos of those designs and clothes.  Sometimes I buy a cute item just because it has embroidery.  Crazy, right?  You ought to see me with the MagEyes on trying to thread a needle and holding a magnifying mirror up to the sewing machine needle, too.  Now, that's crazy effort!

Do you go all out and extend yourself to the limit for your crafts and art?  Or something else you are committed to finish?

Doubletake Surprise Featured Business Linkup

A lighthearted aceo in the shop.

I've been attempting to catch up with all of your blogs and I almost missed being featured over at SJ's blog, Homemaker on a Dime.  Every week she has a linkup for our shops, businesses, and giveaways and another linkup for our creative art/craft/recipe/etc.  

I wanted to say, "Thank You, SJ!" for featuring  my work.  It was a lovely surprise to see my aceos on her blog post, I was just reading as usual and then did a doubletake.  It looked familiar, and so it was!

Do you want to check out the links to her blog in my sidebar and join the linkups?   See the blog buttons "Market Your Biz and Giveaway" and "Creative Bloggers' Party and Hop."

Thanks again!

Two Hunks in a Hardware Frame Upcycle

Here's one way to use up mismatched hardware.  Secretly, I enjoy using power tools- well, not a secret anymore.  The sad part is I can't hold them for very long or use a fair amount of pressure.  The love is there, but the ability is weakened.

I took some of these little shapes and glued them onto a photo frame.  It's an upcycle from a giveaway win during last year's OWOH.  I just took the flowered paper, ribbons, and shiny bits off and painted the frame in copper metallic and black.

Some of these hardware pieces spin; and I think   adding some more hardware will be in order, although it's getting heavy!  I should have put two hunks in those empty spaces.  With so many hunks, how could I narrow the list down?  Whose photos would you select?
We know who Stacy would pick- JD!  Anyone else?

Happy Easter Greetings!

This decoration used to be two separate pieces, and after several years of being annoyed with the discombobulating and the oddly separating bouncy bits, I took the two and made them into one.

Kind of like the Easter theme, we are His through His generous sacrifice (was my example that stretching?)  We don't have to go it alone, we have that choice.

Thanks for stopping by and 

HAPPY EASTER!

Giveaway Surprises are in the Mail Today

Will someone give me a hand with these?  There's nowhere to sit!
After much delay due to the weather turning cold and damp which made the giveaway items take almost FOREVER to dry, PLUS getting some kind of flu so I couldn't do anything but have tea, soup, aspirin, and rest; THEN the computer acts up or should I say down- the memory card reader and the usb things will not transmit images into the computer, and on and on.

I sat here looking at the printer and wished I could use it to transmit images from the memory card, and guess what?  I can't hear you?  Guess?  I put the memory card in the little slot and scrolled through all kinds of phrases, found one that I thought might sound plausible and lo and behold, I said BEHOLD the photos are now in the computer.


What good is an instruction book anyway?  So, I hope this continues to work, the last printer worked less than a year and the printer before that worked for 5 years, but that did printing and nothing else.  TMI

Here are the packages before being enveloped.  Yes, that isn't grammatically correct, but I'm sticking with it.

Ladies, I didn't have brand new boxes, I had to look through what I had kept for a rainy day and I just went with those.  Next time I will have boxes that will be aching to be filled with some nice and pretty things.

My padded bubble envelopes are about double the size needed, so don't be shocked at the size when you receive it.  These are the envelopes I bought for my ebay selling days.    Everything was mailed out this morning (April 6- Good Friday) so hopefully you will all receive your giveaway surprise before the next Friday, which is the 13th.  No, not superstitious

Random Photos

Record snow that year.

A pretty view from my backyard.

Sometimes we want to see who is behind the blog, their home, town, etc.  I've some random photos of present and past homes.  I will have to make time to scan more pre-digital photos into the computer to show more.  Until then:

Moved fridge to this wall.

Christmas 2010

Part of the kitchen window overlooking
the backyard, stove on the right.

Lucy on the screened-in deck.

$30.00 find on craigslist!

The place where I fell and
 split my knees open.

Room has since changed, where I
sit at the desk to type this.

The original toy box for #1Sweetie.
I took a sturdy cardboard box
and kept cutting the lid back
until he felt comfortable
sticking his nose in w/out the
lid coming down on his head.
Voila, covered with sticky Contac
Paper and used for many years.
Just wipe the surface clean when
gets hairy and dusty.  

Made a few changes to this room
since this was taken (craft room.)

This desk was donated and
changes all around in this area.

This craft area has been
totally reorganized since
taking this photo.

A few of hubby's caps.

Pretty ironing board cover.

Me

   

For some reason, this photo is fuzzy.

I planted all of those shrubs!

Problem is they call it "AbLounge"
doesn't feel like a lounge chair when
you're working on it!