Been trying new things...

Well, I was inspired by a really good friend of mine to play with a blank canvas book. Only problem was that I couldn't actually get my hands on one so I decided to make mine. With about $2. worth of artist's canvas, about $1.50 in tabletop vinyl and a couple packs of grommets and interfacing that I had lying around anyway, I stitched one together. A bit of gesso, paint and glimmer mist later, I'm pretty happy with the results. Most of the embellishments are buttons, I really like that silver 3/4 profile facial button.



The bling on the cover is another new toy I got. I forget who it's by but it looks like a soldering iron and it heat sets the stones onto the fabric. It's very cool but really requires a bit of patience. It took a little longer than I was expecting to get the cover done.

My last cool purchase is my felter! After countlessly stabbing my fingers by hand felting, I happened across a bargain I couldn't pass. I've been playing with it and came up with these beauties. Oh, and the ribbon on the book cover is felted on as well.





I've also got some new papers that I'm working with now. Will post when done...

AARRRRGGGGGHH!!

Why can't there be just 1 @#$%&* version of Windows that can work??? I've just about had it with Vista!! &%&*($^ explorer keeps freezing so I can't even see my hard drive and apparently, the "fix" in the service pack is hit or miss. I won't ever find out because I refuse to install the little virus that they want to push to make sure that I have a "good" copy of Vista installed.

I seriously need to install Linux...

Presents!!!

Well, it wasn't as bad as I was led to believe.

I got my 2nd fridge which I'm really chuffed over :) I've been wanting one for a while now and yes I know it's more a "family" present, I get veto power over everything that goes in it.

Meanwhile, DD picked out this...



Which is a lot better than I was imagining, apparently something with faux fur was a close 2nd because "this feels really nice Dad"

DS came up with...




He's been wanting me to get a "slider station" ever since they started peddling them on TV. For those unfamiliar with the concept, check it out here. Beware, you're going to be yelled at so turn your speaker volume down. Dad, being a good dad, used the burger thing to make dinner that night because I was sleeping off the effects of drinking a blenderful of something frosty and adult flavoured :)

It was a VERY good day.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

I'm being pro-active since I can barely keep up with everything else.

Happy Mother's day to everyone out there in a mom role. Moms are the coolest, most patient people on the face of the earth. If they weren't, humans would be extinct in a generation.

Can't wait to see all the stuff that Dh has apologized for in advance, apparently my kids think my style is having no style...

Happy dance

Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah! School today, quiet house. Doing a bit of code, finishing off a hat for felting and hoping to paint a bit.

Happy days are here again...

Bleeaacchh!!

Spring break is almost over, 3 more sleeps and it's back to school. Yay! DS is definitely feeling his oats these days too, talk about defiant 4yrs olds! To top it off, you can really tell when he makes the effort to be good and when he's "in a mood", I guess there are some days when he figures it's no use so he may as well let it rip since he's getting into trouble anyway.

No scrapping for the past couple weeks either, I'm hoping to get some done today but it's too early to tell at this point. Hopefully, I can get some Easter pictures this weekend too.

Scrapping!!!

Scrap4Life had their cyber crop last weekend and I did manage to get a few of the challenges done. Where I have been slack is with my girls on the Australian Top 50 board. With the time difference and just day to day stuff, I haven't been by in quite a long time. ASBT50 had their CC last weekend too and I'll be good and drop by to check out the challenges.

Anyhoo, here's what I managed to do. I'm really pleased with them.







BTW, good luck to Jodie and Judy at S4L. Jodie's moving out to Hawaii to start a new adventure and Judy is going to take over the business. Can't wait to get my box of goodies from them.

We've got big things coming down the track too...

Project Appalachian

I get emails from my LYS and this week, they announced that they're collecting sweaters for Project Appalachian. I'd personally never heard of it but they were inspired by a story on the news over the weekend about poverty in the Appalachian mountains.

To be honest, I still don't know much about it or have bothered to research the article - my bad - but in this day and age, I truly believe that poverty, true poverty, not relative poverty in the USA should not exist. Anyway, their initiative is to collect sweaters for children and they are looking for any and all knitters and crocheters to get involved. I packed up the few that I could put my hands on and took them down and volunteered to make more as they were getting some yarn donated.

Having said that, I'm putting out a call to any that can help. My LYS is A Stitcher's Haven and unfortunately, they haven't updated the website with the details yet but their contact information is on the link.

The Cat in the Hat came Back

I had to share this...

In honour of Dr Seuss' birthday - at least I think it's the birthday, DS's class did this getup, which I had a helluva time trying to get him out of.


I couldn't imagine trying to control 21 of these things - it really was a day of herding cats.

3 more days til school

There's been no school this week for "Family and Friends Week" which means that I've had 2 feral children for the past 5 days. 3 more days to school and at this point, hours are worth counting.

It all started off with the Garlic Festival in Delray Beach on Valentine's day and yes there actually is a garlic festival, it's their 10th one and I was quite surprised how extensive it was. All the food of course was garlic themed - garlic pulled pork, garlic chicken skewers, garlic pizza, garlic sausages, london broil in garlic sauce...garlic ice cream which was surprisingly tasty. Kids had a blast, got their faces painted and got on the rides and a couple hours later, it was time to leave with much lighter pockets.

DS had a custom paint job, it was so worth the money. He wanted spidey and I asked for venom since it wasn't on the list. I think it got them a bunch more business as everyone that saw him wanted to know where to get it done and I believe they made the local evening news. I had to get them hats since they left the house without theirs and the sun was beating down pretty hard. Anyways, there was a local camera reporter at the tent where I got the hats and she thought they "were just too cute" and asked to interview them. The boy, just went to town with it. I don't know if it was aired or not, it's not local to us but it was funny watching them and all I could do was shake my head. Don't I have the most beautiful DD?



And look out, here comes Venom and his mild mannered alter ego; Stupendous Man

DD had her first spa experience too, one of her friends had a spa birthday party and I was really pleased that they had age appropriate activities. The girls got their hair done, a bit of glitter and eyeshadow and manicure and pedicures. It was very cute, loud but cute. We dropped her off and wandered around the mall while it was going on. They were running a little late when we got back and I went in to find about 15 giggling and talking 6 and 7 year olds parading around in their little spa robes and pedi-slippers. It really was trying to herd cats.