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It Made the Mail Clerk Chuckle

Happy Mail Swap New End Studio to Finding my Sunshine in LifeWith trepidation I waited in line at the post office, well I was the only one in line, so there was no line, only me; which means I had nowhere to hide. When I reached the counter I just boldly placed the bottle on the scale and said, "I want to mail this."  Only, I put a little questioning inflection on the "this?"

The clerk who looked to be frustrated and frazzled burst out with a chuckle.  Whew, I knew then that the bottle was going to pass her inspection.  She said that people mail baby bottles so this was no problem.  She actually said that "she mails baby bottles."  I took that to mean that the bottle was okay to go through the postal system. We had a laugh and I thanked her.




Jenn sent this cute calendar to me.
Click to ENLARGE.
My Happy Mail Swap partner was Jenn from, Finding My Sunshine in Life.  She has a beautiful view outside her door; and her landscape and farm life photos are very inspiring.  One of my favorite photos on her blog is mama cow and baby cow and another of horses.  Jenn is a dog adopter and has a cute group of furpals.

Paula brought the swappers together at her blog Sincerely, Paula.
Happy Mail contents
All the bits and bobs that went inside the bottle.
Click to ENLARGE.





This was a fun little thing to do.  Sorry for the blurry photos, it was one of those uveitis moments.  If you enlarge the photo it's a bit easier to see.

I noticed Jenn said she scrapbooked, so I went through my rolling carts, ribbon drawer, and all the other places you might find your crafting supplies, plus punched out some shapes and loaded the bottle.

Thank You, Paula for setting up the swap and Thank You, Jenn for the cute calendar!


What's the oddest thing you ever mailed?

Look What Arrived, the Sneak Peek Revealed

The special painting has arrived!
crows, ocean, pups
Click to ENLARGE.

Stacy has a generous spirit, and unknown to her blog readers, she was running a Secret Giveaway which I wrote about in this post. 

We emailed back and forth, she showed me the progression, a  list of preferences for me to provide, a tiny change, and voila, Stacy completed the painting and here it is:

If you're familiar with Stacy's blog, "Magic Love Crow," then you recognize her distinctive style and  theme, painting crows, often baby crows.
   
Why am I happy?  It's probably needless to say, but I will, "She captured my pups, the ocean, and the mood."  I asked her to put one of her famous baby crows in the scene.

The painting is a treasure not only because it was custom made, not only because it shows some important things in my life, not only because it came out of the blue and was a special secret giveaway- but because of all of these reasons.  

Thank You So Much, Stacy!

Visit Stacy's Etsy: Original Crow Art With A Touch of Sparkles
Visit Stacy's Blog: Magic Love Crow


From Play to Play on Valentines Day

Hope you are all having a warm and wonderful Valentine Day.  Snow melting, marshmallows roasting, wine glasses clinking, and lots of love to go around, enough for everyone.  Don't you wish?

I saw this heart after the tree was pruned.
There's been a little updating on the blog front today.  I have been wanting to get rid of the gray in the Tabs and the Footer.  I have tried everything I could think of and still haven't gotten rid of the gray Footer.  Oh, well.

The Tabs have new titles, deleted some. I moved the sidebars, added  an Advertising page and a She Speaks page which is really the "About" page.  I was aiming for humor on some of this.  What do you think?  Funny or Not?

I couldn't resist renaming, "Home" to a twist on the old movie with Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster, mine is, "Little Sheba Come Home."   I felt so bad for her character and Lancaster's character, too.




"Come Back, Little Sheba."   Have you seen it?    Here's the trailer for the 1952 movie based on a William Inge play.  Sheba is the old family dog who has died.

Shirley Booth won the Academy Award and
Burt Lancaster was also fabulous in his role.
I wished more old movies were shown on tv.

Well, this movie is definitely not funny, but it is a slice of life.  The trailer doesn't seem to show the seriousness that you would get from the entire movie.  There is a video of the complete movie on YouTube if you want to watch it, it's about 90  minutes.  You will probably need tissues.

Gloria
2/14/13 ♥


Winner Announced for Valentine Giveaway

With Valentine's Day so close, I ended the giveaway a few hours early to make the winner announcement.  If our winner replies to the email shortly, I will be posting the Valentine Pup to her in the morning.


Since Lucy's Tweet made her the winner, I think I will both email and tweet the news to her.

Thanks for stopping here and entering, for the new follows and for saying, "Hi!"  I wish I had one pup for each of you.

 ♥ Happy Valentine Day!  
Gloria 2/12/13

It's a Girl! Valentine Pup Giveaway

Would you like to win this sweet Valentine Pup?  There won't be a long story in this post as time is short before Valentine's Day.  Enter to win in the gadget, below.



Just a reminder, this is open to USA residents only.  Don't throw any shoes!!!  My previous giveaways were open universe-wide and the next one will be, too.  In fact, if someone from Neptune wins, they will have to come and collect, USPS, Fed-Ex, etc. won't take light years into account.  Back to the giveaway at hand, Good Luck!

With less than 5 hours to go, I've ended the giveaway in order to contact the winner and possibly mail the pup tomorrow morning.
See the winner's announcement in the next blog post.  ♥
Thank you for stopping by!

Adventures in Sewing Rosary Case for a Boy

Why can't you find just the thing you are looking for, when you need it?  Oh, maybe you do, but I looked all over Etsy, Storenvy, some other online sites, my local shops including the religious goods store and could not find a Rosary case/pouch/box/bag/...   I thought to use a coin purse, but they were too feminine, cutesey, girly and this is needed for a boy.  Finally I said to myself, just make it.

Now, I don't sew.  It's not that I don't want to sew, it's just that I have a hate-hate relationship with sewing machines.  It goes way back to Home Ec in 8th grade and the monster, I mean teacher that period.  "If ever a witch is one because, because, because...!  Because of the hateful things she does..."  I suppose I should say that I forgive her, even though she hasn't apologized.

Anyway, I bought some wool blend felt and steeled myself for the adventure/nightmare that lay before me.
I wanted to use red felt, it had a nice black undertone, but was persuaded to buy brown.  The brown is nice, but the red would have been easier to see.

This was pre-eye surgery, had to use the Mag Eyes, every lamp and light in the room, raise the blinds and roll up my sleeves.  I would not be defeated by a machine.  The cd player was cranking out  jazz to keep my spirit up.  Bobbin full-Check!  Pedal working-Check!  and so on... Breathe, one, two, three...I can do this!  Can I?

First I practiced on some scrap fabric. Practiced and tried making every adjustment known to womankind.  Tension, threading, direction of thread, etc...  All I got was the dreaded loopies on the back of the fabric.

Cut to the chase (don't you hate that expression?)  Five hours later, told you I wouldn't give up- I had the Mag Eyes on, holding the flashlight, leaning a mirror, using a hand held magnifying glass, wearing my reading glasses, too, and for the umpteenth time I had rethreaded the machine and IT FINALLY STOPPED GIVING ME THE LOOPIES!  It turned out that the thread was not between a tension wire/spring as it should have been.   If I had to rethread the needle one more time....  

So, after getting the machine working properly and hoping the bobbin would make it through to the finish I made a nice little rosary case with a lining.  The problem was that I should have not tried to make it and then turn it right side out, I discovered that the felt was too thick to maneuver. I should have just sewn the fabric on with the right side showing and then folded the front closed and sewed the side seams.  Live, Fail, Learn.  I'm considering turning it into a Pin Cushion.  Not a Voodoo Pin Cushion, remember, I forgave her.



The rosary case you see is the third try.  The second one was a bit smaller than I wanted. So, by the third time, I said, it's good enough.  I hand sewed on the four corner buttons, they are just decorative and put four of a different color on the back, too.  I used regular thread to sew them on, though using embroidery thread or yarn would have made them stand out a bit more.


Instead of a semi-fancy closure, I just cut a slit in the felt large enough to go over the center button.  I pinned a holy medal on to the case, but decided against it in the end. This one is sans lining.

I bought the rosary chaplet from Susan Lloyd on Etsy.  It's a beautiful piece in gemstones.  The praying hand statue was in perfect condition, I found it in a thrift store.  Statues are a little unsettling/creepy to me, but for some reason, these hands were peaceful.  I can't explain it.

What household tool or machine do you have a hate/hate relationship with?  I never wanted to use an electric carving knife, but once I tried it, I wield it like nobody's business.  En garde!