Category Archives: craftiness

Jul31

Run around

Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 by Dianne

Not much new here. Sean had to get his license renewed early as he won’t be home in October when his actual birthday rolls around. We headed 15 miles down to Oxford and now Sean has an official ‘legal’ license instead of a junior’s license as he’s almost 21. We took a drive through the town to see if we wanted to stop anywhere and passed Brian on the road who had just had his last day in that office. Bri turned around and followed us to a grocery store parking lot and we chatted a little and then took off, Bri to Kennett and us to Jennersville where we hit both Blockbuster and Dairy Queen. I told Sean he and his pals should be hanging out at that DQ because of all the young ladies there. He bought the second Pirates of the Carribean movie and the Illusionist at BB.

For dinner I made a few ham steaks, fresh green beans and Parmesan couscous, the left over squash souffle and biscuits (that had been frozen). It was a quick dinner, the best kind.

After dinner I did some mail art for the ATC cards I’ll send to three of my friends. The ATCs are calling cards. I like the way they turned out! The mailart (the envelopes) were decorated with images, places and wording from a Brandywine Valley tourist book from 2000. The envelopes are in my flickr album if you want to see!

I went through my cross stitch stash and want to do a Christmas ornament for the blog I joined and haven’t followed along with- getting an ornament a month made (I think that’s it!) I settled on a The Prairie Schooler design of two cardinals in a evergreen tree. I want to do a few more cardinals that I have in my stash anyway. I did get to the post office (thanks again to Sean) and mailed off Veronica’s NRR to her daughter Helen for safe keeping. The mail clerk handed me a rather small mailer and said that’s what they are using for Global priority now. I told Helen she may want to open it and give it a nice press for her mum. The clerk was a little grumpy and I asked her if she wanted squash and she took two of them.

Don’t forget to play the ‘guess the squash’ game! I will make you a special prize if you win! I am hoping to have more than two comments when the harvest is done. I don’t know if it’s my blogs name, what I talk about or what, but I just don’t get a bunch of comments and never have. I do have a handful of special pals (thanks so much) that drop by to read my ramblings. If I had anything about just stitching, cooking or photography in my title, I’d probably get more hits, but that’s not my main intention. I have this as an informational blog for myself too. Also a place to add my photos and anything special I want to read about in the future. I will have my three year blog anniversary soon. Can’t believe it!

Jul23

Finally a frame!

Posted on Monday, July 23, 2007 by Dianne

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I did this little piece 3 years ago and put it away as I didn’t have a rectangular frame for it. On my Saturday excursion, I ran across a frame for a buck at the Goodwill. It was the perfect fit! I added some white out (I got yelled at for using it as it’s bad for you and it didn’t make me feel funny) to achieve a weathered look. I sanded some of it off and added varnish. I think it turned out well. All it needs is a hook on the back for hanging.

BTW, Bri did win a little down in Atlantic City and stopped as I reminded him to do so. I put it in the bank today. : )

Apr16

4″ of rain Sunday

Posted on Monday, April 16, 2007 by Dianne

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That nor’easter sure did blow in and is hanging around. That’s a lot of rain for a single day in these parts. Mom’s yard was like a swimming pool (so she told me) as my brother was preparing it for grass-the seed is surely gone now!

I made a nice roast beef dinner with mashed potatoes and cheddar cheese biscuits, which was very good and perfect for the cool, rainy weather. Brian peeled the potatoes and mashed them to perfection. I didn’t use the ricer as the russets had weird looking skin and I didn’t want to cook that.

I haven’t been up to par, I had indigestion Saturday, ate the Chinese food (uh oh), but slept ok. I had a sore stomach all day until I wised up and took a Tylenol. It felt better within a half hour. I tried mint tea, Gas-X and assorted tummy remedies when I probably had a muscle pull! My mom had had a wicked tummy thing on Easter and I am knocking wood that I avoided that one.

So here is what I made today. I am using old flower, bird and kid’s books (shown mostly in the first example). I hate to cut them up, but I feel I am giving them new life through art. The second card has a definition for ‘dreaming’. I was using the water sphere from the flower show and rubberstamped a face on it, but the embossing power was put on thick and melted too much, hence an entire new idea crept up in my brain. The children were part of a CD collection I found on eBay.

These were photographed on a trio of cute wicker chests my mom gave me for Easter that I am using to store a lot of my art supplies in.

And last, but not least…my latest cross stitched piece, a The Prairie Schooler church for Su’s neighborhood (see link in sidebar).

Mar28

Feeling a little la la

Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 by Dianne

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Dang medicine! At least I slept much better and only had to get up a few times. But the medicine is bothering me. My head is up in the clouds today and my tummy is saying-what the heck? I’m giving the med one more day and if I feel worse, I’ll ask to switch to something kinder and gentler like Amoxicillin that I took for 3-4 weeks when I had Lyme Disease back in 1998.

I want to make Art Trading Cards for all my pals! Sometimes the perfect cards come into play, sometimes I have to think about it. Carole/Pea got hers recently and I must say, it came into play in a snap. If you want me to make you a card, just send me your address at diadsieatcomcast.net (writing it out because of spammers). Those of you whom I have addresses for, I am slowly getting cards made for you.

Here are some nests I made from scratch as part of a spring/Easter exchange for a group. It’s still kind of a surprise, but I don’t think they read my blog that often. So if any of the 6 of you happen upon this, you are getting this and something else, though 2 are getting different looking nests.

These are made from excelsior that I first formed around the bottom of a pint sized plastic container. I poured fabric stiffener on it (I think watered down white glue would work too) and let it sit for a while. Then I flipped the container over and put the nest inside to get the form of it. This part takes a few days. I did use plastic wrap to save from a big mess. The eggs and pink berries are from the Dollar store. I added some snips of embroidery floss, Easter grass and feathers as real birds would use things like that to make the beds for their babes warm.

Mar10

St Paddy’s Poem

Posted on Saturday, March 10, 2007 by Dianne

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I made these for 6 friends in my tribe (tribe.net) crafting group. I think all 6 may have gotten them by now, so I can share a photo with you. I ‘collaged’ St Paddy’s napkins on green card stock. I found the scroll clip art on the web. I wrote the poem and saved it as a ‘jpeg’ so it would fit inside the scroll. The back has a photo from Ireland with the Celtic design in it. I also used St Paddy’s stickers. I found some raffia to use as a hanger.

The flower show’s theme is Ireland and we are most probably going tomorrow afternoon.

Mar9

Things I made…Friday

Posted on Friday, March 9, 2007 by Dianne

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Instead of Art trading cards, I worked on this in the last few days:

A Sally Sells Seashells by the Seashore Shadowbox! It was fun to make. I bought the shadowbox at the local Dollar General for about $3 and took out what they had and started from scratch. I had that great scrapbook paper from the same store that resembles waves. The sun is from the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, PA. (remember my post a few weeks ago?) Moravian tile to be exact. I have tons of seashells too. I made the little bucket out of curved cardboard (it was a little birdhouse), red wire and the stand that came off the birdhouse. I’ll hang it out in the kitchen where this photo was taken.

Cooking for Lent can be challenging. I knew I wanted to make an egg dish for dinner as I had just bought 2 dozen eggs. This was in my great meatless Italian dishes cookbook. It’s a frittata with garlic, red peppers, parmesan, basil (frozen from my garden last year!) and capers. The basil really makes it. We enjoyed it.
Hopefully we’ll be going to the Philly Flower Show on Sunday, the last day.
Have a great weekend!

Mar1

In a quandary

Posted on Thursday, March 1, 2007 by Dianne

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I really need to see my mom one of these days. She has been sick for over 3 weeks and I haven’t been down to her house to do anything (the weather hasn’t helped). Thinking about going makes me a bit tease. My sinuses and throat are really bothering me this week. The problem is mom hasn’t really done any cleaning for that length of time. I did gather up some dust masks because I really want to go! I guess I’ll resort to taking allergy medicine which I hate to do. This always happens to me at this time of year from the forced air heat and not getting out in the fresh air.

Sean and I were out yesterday on a whim. I had stuff to drop off at the Goodwill and I wanted to go to Michael’s crafts while Sean was in Old Navy. As soon as I hit Michael’s I got the ‘drip’ ‘drip’ and then the flow in my throat. Not fun. It was like a hurry up and look around and that’s not what I wanted to do at all. I should always have water on me. So I got some neat paper, stickers (that look like old postage stamps and some with wording on them); some varnish and ModPodge and glitter. Actually when I left the store and we went to Trade Joe’s, TJ Maxx and then The Olive Garden, I felt better. Probably they were using glue or something that bothered me in Michael’s.

So I’m up in the air. I miss mom so much and she’s sounded so sad. She never asks my brother to help and he’s within walking distance of her house. I feel this is so unfair. My other two brothers never call and she hasn’t heard from the one in Florida since November. He’s mad at me, why take it out on mom?

So I hope this ‘cottonball’ effect lets up. I really feel like my sinuses are stuffed with cottonballs. That was a good choice for my Photo Hunt picture this past Saturday-like I had a premonition!

I hope you all are feeling chipper.

~Update~Mom doesn’t want me to come down as her 750 mg a day antibiotic is making her feel terrible and she wants to rest. If she’d eat more, that may help. I told her to drink an entire bottle of water when she takes it at dinnertime. I was looking at last year’s late February entries and the same thing was going on- I hadn’t seen my mom for a few weeks and my sinuses were bothering me. I just used the miracle spray-BioAllers Homeopathic nasal spray and it helped a lot.

Feb18

Cooking tip for the day-oven bags

Posted on Sunday, February 18, 2007 by Dianne

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I probably mentioned this before, but when you are roasting beef, chicken or turkey, they will stay pretty darn moist in a Reynold’s Oven bag. You add a little flour to the bottom of the bag, add your meat, seasoning and veggies (like onions, celery and carrots) and tie the bag. Stick some holes in it and it’s ready to go! I have a turkey breast all cooked and we’re waiting on the potatoes.

Bri and I have had funny tummies this weekend. I woke up about 4 am suffering for garlic overload (I won’t go into details). I should have been watching my diet, but no, I had to have some white pizza last night. I can’t seem to handle yeasty foods-soft pretzels, homemade bread-doughy things in general. I’ve never really had that problem before (too much). I’m feeling better though.

I made some more ATC-I’m up to like 25 of them! These have some glitter on them! I traded 3 of these and I’ll get 3 back. I also made some St. Paddy’s ‘items’ for my crafting friends. They turned out nice and I’ll share soon.

Craft tip: You know those desk calendars printed on sturdy paper? Well I had a cat one and didn’t know what to do with it. You guessed it, I’m using some of the smaller kitties for ATC! They are cute if I don’t say so myself!

Feb10

Photo Hunt-Broken

Posted on Saturday, February 10, 2007 by Dianne

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This is a mosaic frame that I made from broken pieces of my grandparents good china as a Christmas gift for my mom. There wasn’t that much left of the china (a few dessert dishes) and I was into mosaics and had this lovely photo of Ruth and Alan. My grandfather Alan died 6 weeks after I was born, so I only know him through photos like this. He use to write short stories and tried to get a few published, but never did. I know if blogs had been around back then, he would have enjoyed writing in one.

Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

Mosaic frame I made

Feb9

For mom

Posted on Friday, February 9, 2007 by Dianne

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Series-Family Snapshots-#1

This is for my mom. It’s a photo of her when she was about 2-3 years old. She is actually petting a dog which I had to cut off (this is a scan). She still loves dogs and misses her late pets. I like the verse-‘In your eyes I see everyone that I have ever loved’ by Flavia. I made a few more tonight and will share with you in days to come.