Category Archives: craftiness

Dec22

A little sewing and finishing

Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 by Dianne

Even though I haven’t slept well for a few nights, I decided to get a little sewing out of the way for projects that are due for a lottery (see side bar) and for a Christmas ornament. I never learn my lesson about climbing up and down off my step ladder or squatting too much, so I suffer with a groin pull. I thought sewing would be a quiet activity, though my concentration and mood were a bit off. So I finished a drawstring bag for the Cross stitcher’s lottery that is due for the 31st. I didn’t have too much trouble until I got to the casing stitching and fitting the safety pin through that to find the end. Oy! Anyway, it’s cute and I am glad that’s out of the way.

Snowbunnies by Little Needleworks-Just Cross stitch 2007 ornament issue

And this is The Prairie Schooler cardinal duo I stitched a few months back. It’s on my feather tree.

I have to turn the Amish children and apple tree into a square box top. I just need to find the box. I am sure I have one somewhere! And another piece is a gift I will turn into a flat fold. Hopefully I’ll make them within a few weeks.

My friend Zoey sent me a beautifully quilted piece that she made today. It’s a hot pad. I’ve admired her work for ages (as shown on her blog) and now I get to own something she made. Thanks so much for the lovely gift.

Off to church soon. I hope I don’t take a nap there. ; )

Dec12

December Calendar

Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 by Dianne

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As I mentioned, I thought I’d give this a whirl tonight after dinner. The only problem was my glue was missing! Most of my art supplies are scattered around. After some looking, I found a new bottle of tacky glue in a basket.

I had made most of the 3″ squares from images I found on my Flickr group or from a vintage image CD I purchased from eBay. Some of the things like the small stocking, was from a mini-scrapbook kit I found in good ol’ Big Lots. I didn’t measure the poster board correctly (though I remember laying out the squares at one point) and had the space left on the right, so I made ornaments that hang from the Christmas tag garland. I love that garland as it looks like vintage tinsel. It’s from Martha Stewart. The squares are mounted using velcro dots (which I added to hang it up too). I need to add a few more numbers for dates too. I do like it! I’m also not saying it’s finished yet either.

Much thanks to my pal Greta for making 6 of these for me. It makes it extra special because of her additions.

Dec12

Internet shopping

Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 by Dianne

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Today I decided to place orders at only two different places. I logged on about 11:30 and just got off (over 4 hours)! The first one had free shipping and I really looked around the site a while. Bri came home and I minimized my order so he could look online for a half hour or so. I would get up, do things and come back. The second place was Walmart. I had trouble with my order and had to call up. I waited close to 20 minutes and then the man on the other end said I should call back, but after 20 minutes of waiting already, I told him to give my order a try and it went through. I can’t say what I got, but they are two surprises. I am laid up a bit today as mother nature or hormones played a nasty trick on me with something what was suppose arrive a week later than today. Oy! I was glad to sit, but the waiting was ridiculous!

Now I haven’t seen my mom in over 3 weeks. I hope Friday will be a good day to go down. She is having car issues, so can’t come out here.

I am still decorating and making things in spurts. My calendar is laying on the dining room table to try to get finished tonight. I want to display it. I also glitter sprayed the poinsettias for my mom and uncle and they look pretty!
I was roaming around really lovely blogs last night, one of which was Artsy Mama in my blog roll. She was in an open house and showed her own holiday creative touches in her sweet home. I think she is the one with the printer’s shelf that she is putting tiny Christmas things into it’s compartments. I have one and I should do the same thing. What a cute idea. I love my vintage stuff too.

Still need to do a little sewing before I start baking. I hope I won’t be burning the midnight oil too many times next week.

The Oprah show with her favorite things is one right now. I hope everyone has a strong heart they are carrying on so much-lucky them!

Dec5

Early December snow

Posted on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 by Dianne

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Some of the fluffy stuff is falling as I type this. It really makes me feel like Christmas is around the corner now! I need to go finish making my Christmas cards, a bit different than most people are use to getting from me, but I think they are neat. The ladies at the copy shop loved them! I’ll show you one when I mail them off as a few of my readers are getting one and I want them to be surprised.

I did get out by myself yesterday for the first time in over a week. I was overdressed and got quite warm. I went to the stationery store and then to a local department store which happened to be ‘Tuesday over 50 club’ day. Yikes! I still have a few more years! It was filled with many senior citizens. I went to the young girl department for things for my niece and all the mediums were practically gone. I did find some cute tops that I think she will love. One is fuchsia with a crocheted butterfly as a decoration. The other is a coppery color with a sparkly belt buckle type piece. I got 40% off, but the original prices are so high! My nephew only wears t-shirts year round, but they didn’t have any I liked there. He wears the ones we gave him last year all the time. I’ll check online and at TJ Maxx for him. I know they are getting an awesome system-Wii and I know my brother will be playing with that a bunch. : )

I was allowed to take off my bandage yesterday (called the doctor’s office to ask) and it’s red and yucky looking. The doctor left a big tail on a suture and that is pulling. The main area has a big scab on it and is a bit raised and may have sutures there too. I hope they don’t have to come out, except the one with the big tail! Only two more days!

Brian was invited to a baby shower tomorrow. He asked me what to get and I said I’d check my eBay table! I have some cute figurines and one is a Cherished teddy piece that is also a music box. The music box wouldn’t work correctly, so I took it apart (like my grandmom would) and oiled it. Still no good. I think it was overwound. Well I fiddled with the spinner piece and broke it! Opps! I’ve got to have something else, if not, he’s on his own. He’s the first guy I’ve known who got invited to a baby shower!

Off to fill out cards…….

Nov5

Calendar squares

Posted on Monday, November 5, 2007 by Dianne

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Here’s what I worked on this weekend. In the post below, I talk about what my friends and I are doing with them. They are 2″ x 2″.

Nov5

Presently a quote to live by

Posted on Monday, November 5, 2007 by Dianne

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Knowledge is power.

Sir Francis Bacon, Religious Meditations, Of Heresies, 1597
English author, courtier, & philosopher (1561 – 1626)

I’ve been giving Oprah (or was it Dr. Oz) credit for this and here it was Sir Bacon. When I saw it was Sir Bacon, I thought of Kevin Bacon for some reason-oh, he’s from Philly. ; )
I’m reading up on call-backs and have gotten some interesting opinions, etc. I know my pals in blogland are being quiet on the subject-but knowledge is power people! I read there are only 10% of call backs from standard mammograms, but out of 1,000 mamms, only 5 are bad ones.
If you haven’t had a mammogram lately and you are over 40, do yourself a favor and get one so you know stuff. Ok? : )

I’ve had a quiet weekend. Two of my art pals and I are making tags/squares for our Christmas calendars. We are trading 8 to each other and then will have to make 15 for our own. I had so much fun making them today (they are only 2″ squares on my calendar). I’m up to 21 and need to make 10 more. I haven’t made the actual calendar part yet. I thank Artsymama in my blogroll for the inspiration when she posted her Halloween calendar purchase.
I also started a piece for our blogland Cross stitch lottery. On January 1st, some lucky stitcher will win all the submitted finished pieces. I wouldn’t mind winning them. I haven’t checked lately, but I think there are at least 20 participants.

This daylight savings is messing me up a bit. I better hit the hay soon. Have a great Monday!

Hope you like my new blog format. I couldn’t stand all my sidebar stuff on one side and I think my photos look better too.

Oh-my ’57 Thunderbird made the top right corner of Elijah’s Love quilt-and it’s an awesome quilt! (clickable)

Oct31

Happy Halloween!

Posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 by Dianne

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It will be over soon, but I wanted to stop in and show you a few nice photos.

I sent mom some flowers from Hallmark that came in a cute haunted house cookie/candy jar. I love the orange and purple! She loved them too.

My niece as Dorothy from Oz. I think The Wizard of Oz is our favorite movie.

My silly family-my sister-in-law, niece, brother and nephew as a hillbilly. Those are the candy corn hats I crocheted for the kids a few years ago.

I gave them this cool Gothic haunted house as a present this

year. It’s about 10″ tall.

I had given T. most of these stickers and she made this awesome poster out of them. Pretty nice and following in my footsteps maybe?

Footnote-I have to get a few more x-rays done because I put down a symptom on my mammogram form that I fill out every year and never did this before (they didn’t say this, but that’s what makes sense to me). I hadn’t seen the message today and Bri said, the radiology dept left a message-oh great! I had it done four days ago and thought I was ok for a year. I’m trying not to be nervous as the tech almost didn’t do the ‘standard’ mammogram because of what I wrote down. I’ll keep you posted. That was my 9th one too. Knowledge is power-Oprah is right! My mom and sister-in-law agree with what I said above.

Oct22

Many thanks

Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 by Dianne

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I appreciate your comments on my entry from last night. I haven’t heard anything from my pal, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be good news unfortunately. Another friend from our group gave me her phone # and we chatted this afternoon for about 20 minutes or so. The dialects were traveling full force from the lady with the Philly accent to the lady with the Louisiana accent. She had her ear bent back good. Have you heard that expression before?

The fires are horrible out in California! They were showing the smoke from the radar on the news earlier and it was like nothing that I have seen before. My late paternal grandmom lived in Santee, a suburb of San Diego.

I watch ‘Dancing with the Stars’, mainly if I am interested in certain ‘stars’. Tonight, the performer who happens to be my age, and that’s Marie Osmond, passed out after she performed a strenuous dance-the samba. (the comments here are weird) They broke away for quite a bit and she was back for her score, a little shook up, but okay. She said she wasn’t breathing right, but after looking at the video, I think she was hyperventilating. Us premenopausal gals better be more careful. : )

I got a nice comment from Tootie, the gal who made the tags on the Halloween tree below. She was flattered that I had them on my blog-why not, they are so cute! I’m bidding on some Christmas tags she made, just as sweet.

Tonight I started to alter a book. What you mainly do is paint or glaze over the pages/words in an old book and add elements to them. I didn’t do that at first, I added a page of a pretty vintage girl. You are suppose to take out pages so that your ‘altered’ pages won’t make the book too bulky. I was just ripping instead of cutting, so my 1909 book was getting a little wobbly. I hope it will stand up to my altering. Will share some photos soon.

Two more days and Sean will be 21! He seems a little sad, but he says it feels like all work and no leisure time for him lately. He may treat himself (and maybe take a friend) out to dinner on Friday when he only has one class. He was complaining about having a big test on his big day. He’s struggling a bit, but it’s a transitional part of his life. He’ll be fine, I know it.

Be sure to catch my new video of my paint shopped pro altered digital artwork in my Vod pod.

Aug9

Watch out for Mr. Tomato

Posted on Thursday, August 9, 2007 by Dianne

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He’s watching out for his fellow Toms-so beware! : ) I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this funny looking guy.
And some ATCs I worked on. I started with the background on a most unusual kind of paper a few days ago. Can you guess?

I used travel ‘wipes’ (they smell so nice too) and watercolor pencils! The wipes are wet already which makes it fun to draw on them with the pencils. I also added water to the colors. The children are from the art e-zine link in my sidebar. I’m still working on a little boy with a sunset background on the wipe. Cool, huh? Vonna-I use playing cards for the base. These particular cards have white card stock glued to the playing card before I added the wipe layer.

Aug8

Mini altered book

Posted on Wednesday, August 8, 2007 by Dianne

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My pal Angela gave me the cutest accordion book, about 4″ x 4″. She had added lots of cute friendship things to it, but I just didn’t know what else to add…so I altered it. I saved lots of the things she included, but it’s a fun and daunting task at the same time-there are 40 pages to fill! It’s good to print out favorite pictures you like and want to look at a bunch. I have one tip, don’t use anything but a glue stick or tacky glue. A glue gun leaves the page lumpy.
One of the covers: new background, photo corners and butterfly and rider print. Kept flower and jewel.

My Mom mom as a girl graces one page:

I had to have a cross stitch page with real aida cloth.

I worked on this during those dog days when it was so hot. I hope Ang likes it as much as I do and you aren’t even seeing half of it. See a few more pages here plus a few more items I made in the last few years.