Too Much Time

WIPs

2011-08-02T10:18:00.004-05:00

Crafting ADD has is advantages. There is a wide array of WIPs on the clay table at all times.

When I was in the mood to try sculpting shrunken heads:

Not bad, since they are my first face sculpts. Not necessarily good either. :)
Shrunken Barbie, is still uncooked, but she has her pearl earrings on! Tribal man is baked and pierced. He was the 1st one I made, using a googled shrunken head image as my guide. I found an old wood bead hoop earring that made a nice display handle for him.
The last guy is just anglo-saxon man for now. Again I used a google pic as a guide. But somewhere in the process of head #3 I saw.....OH! sparkly!! New idea!!

What was I talking about??

In a happy accident I made batik! Sort of.

I was smooshing an old chrysanthemum cane to use for scrap, and the patterns and colors were really pretty. So I layered it up, mokume gane style, and came up with this. The blues go well in the downstairs bath, so...score!

Many many minis

2011-07-07T10:33:00.012-05:00

Photo heavy post!

Been making tiny things for the little terrariums. Sometimes I feel like birdies and mushrooms.

Some days are a snail's pace.

It's an invasion!

A little school spirited bear for my favorite Mom. :)

Gnomes waiting for clothes.

The smallest one so far. In a glass salt shaker.

The gnomes are now dressed in bright colors and glitter. And a tiny swarm of sparkly dragonflies are in the oven. More pics soon!

Terrariums & clay

2011-06-21T23:46:00.002-05:00

done - make slideshow

In the midst of random surfing I came upon pictures of small terrariums. I love terrariums! Always have. But they've been on the backburner in my brain. That's when it dawned on me....I love making miniatures...I love terrariums....I'll combine the two!

Here is my start of a new adventure. I have dozens of ideas already sketched out. My inner me is the most balanced when I'm being creative. So here's to the hope of a more peaceful, happy me! :)

Clay covered drawer handle

2011-06-15T11:49:00.008-05:00

It's been a very long time, but I found my way back to the clay table. Yay! The downstairs bath is getting a facelift. An inexpensive facelift. Which means, my husband has to stay OUT of it! No tearing out walls, ceiling tiles (no matter how ugly they are), absolutely NO DEMO. It is simply "polishing the turd". I love that ladylike saying. :)

The dark brown cabinet is now white.

The shower curtain is the new color palette. Since monitor colors vary, it's 4 different stripe colors: pale, medium, and dark navy blue. And a turquoise blue that matches the rug, that is being guarded by cute girl.
The little bit of brown paneling on the wall is now white also.

Here is the 1st draft drawer handle:
Stamped with micro beads pushed in along the design.

Then with white paint. The only thing I DON'T like...the paint takes away from the shininess of the micro beads. Next time I will try to keep the paint away from the bead holes.

One last (blurry) pic of it on the drawer. What do you think? I like it. I don't loooove it. But I think it's cute enough to stay. The soft, whimsical look is a nice contrast to the straight stripes on the shower curtain.

Switching Gears - COUPONS!

2011-05-17T17:12:00.002-05:00

This crafty blog has been vacant a long time! Did not realize how long. *color me sheepish*
My creative juices have been sucked from my body. Most unwillingly. I get zero enjoyment, and mostly frustration, in the happy room these days. :( So it's now..
The coupon room.

Today was my 1st grocery trip with shoebox and notepad in hand. Oh.My.Lands. I'm not a patient person on a good day. I want to have a small 3x5 list, my kid, purse, and get it done as quickly as possible.

That is sooo not the coupon shoppers way!

I'm sure the pros are well-oiled machines. But best case scenario...I like my way better! :)

Today @ Crest on NW 23rd I found:

3 pair flip flops @ Crest for .99/EA. Tongue out to you, Old Navy, I won't be braving crowds for your shoes this weekend. :)

Wheat Thins Stix for .74/EA with coupon.

Dawn dish soap .49 wc
3 Tony's mini pizza .91ea wb
New York toast $1.50 w peelie on box
6 Hamburger Helpers $1ea wc

Nothing earth shattering, but it's a start I guess.

Trying to feel Fall

2010-11-12T12:26:00.005-06:00

I just don't *do* mature, neutral, earthy, Fall colors. But I am trying to step outside my comfort zone of pinks, greens, stripes, and glitter. Well, not the glitter. :)

My attempt at Fallish:

These pendants were experimenting w/artist chalks. Inspired by a tutorial by Tina Holden.

In person they almost look like crushed velvet under glass. It's a happy accident I'm going to play with more!

Smallish

2010-11-10T13:04:00.006-06:00

After many requests for pint-sized versions of my jewelry, I'd like to introduce "Smallish", necklaces made smallish for young girls. :)

They are a clay base, tiny girly stickers, glitter (of course), and resin. Strung on pastel varigated satin cord, lavender or black buna. I hope my smallish customers love them!

So tiny! :)

These two little guys aren't smallish, but they were laying there patiently waiting to become pendants, so I took a pic. Who can resist taking a pic of 2 hooters??

New antique bronze necklaces

2010-07-07T10:17:00.001-05:00

New antique bronze necklaces
Originally uploaded by ~Christie

Trying out some new antique bronze findings. This is way outside my comfort zone! My brain only thinks in silver. :) But I bought the filigree pieces over a year ago and decided to take the plunge and try to use them. Of course I didn't use it as a bead wrap like it was designed. LOL!

I was so excited to find the wings! Winged hearts are one of my favorite things. Again, I didn't use the finding in the way it was designed. I embedded it in the clay.

If you need antique color findings, I highly recommend Steampunk Junk Supply on Etsy. Nice prices, selection, and lightning fast shipping! (my personal favorite)

Olivia

2010-06-02T19:30:00.001-05:00

Olivia
Originally uploaded by ~Christie

I started this over a year ago. So today when I started looking for a "first project", I knew I should finish Olivia. :) Except for my terrible sewing skills I think she turned out great! Tomorrow she gets a proper stand.

This time I made clay arms instead of embroidery thread over the wire armature.

Fireplace makeover

2010-06-01T11:00:00.007-05:00

Hello neglected blog! It's been over a year since I've blogged and over a year since I've done anything crafty! I'm surprised I haven't had to be hospitalized! :)

I'm excited to share my inexpensive fireplace makeover!
This is a low/no traffic area (b/c I rarely dust!). I don't think this technique would hold up to regular foot traffic, but for our fireplace tiles it seems to be sturdy enough.

After cleaning and vacuuming, I taped and papered the area. Old wrapping paper made the perfect FREE protective paper!

Two cans of white primer spray paint covered the dingy old peach tiles. $6.00!

A stiff stenciling paintbrush, inexpensive acrylic paints (white, gray, black, silver metallic), and some white holographic glitter were the only materials I needed. I painted each tile individually so they looked unique and more realistic. Each tile got a small sprinkle of glitter before the paint dried. Because the world can never have too much glitter!

Oh yea, I also used a small detail brush. Painted a white "grout" line between all the tiles. Then I sprayed on 2 cans of clear gloss paint.

And to think...my husband doubted my crafty skills! :) This was thrify, inexpensive and only took a couple days. (even with my army of children underfoot)

4 cans of spray paint - $12.00
3 bottles of acrylic paint - $3.00
2 paint brushes - $5.00 (this was a LARGE combo pack..now I have 20 xtra brushes for future projects!)

Everything else I had on hand. So for $20.00 we have a new tile job! Beats the heck out of several hundred dollars Hubby would spend to rip out the old and replace with new. :)

Back to brainstorming

2009-04-30T16:24:00.004-05:00

Remember the thank you magnets I include in my etsy orders?

I need to come up with something equally handmade and charming, but much less time consuming. The previous magnets include the tedious image transfers, at least 2 bakings, sanding to shape the edges...sometimes they are more labor intensive than the item purchased! So I've been brainstorming. Well....trying to brainstorm.

I adore the idea of clay embellished with beads and/or wire. I think they are a fabulous couple! And you KNOW how much I love black & white borders....so I thought a beaded border would be cute.

WRONG!! Not at all like I imagined. First I tried larger seed beads. Size 8/0's I think. They looked goofy. So here are the 11/0's. I don't like them either. Maybe b/c the magnet is too thick?
It reminds me of one of those rolling hand drums or something. I'm not quite sure what exactly it is...but I don't like it.

BUT!! I got to use the letter stamps I got back at xmas! LOL! Now...back to the drawing board.

Landscape brainstorming

2009-04-22T17:09:00.004-05:00

Honestly, it's so embarrassing to share pics of our house. I know it's a (HUGE) work in progress...and I know YOU know it's a WIP, but still.

Anyway, rather than destruction we are going for PROduction this time. In the form of a front flower bed. (to hopefully distract from this spring/summer's scraping of the house)

The left side shows Aaron's idea of swirving the bricks out and around the porch. The right side shows my frugal idea of a smaller front-only bed to save money. :) After looking at it, I was won over to Aaron's idea.

I would like to put 2 of those ornamental, spiral trees on either side of the porch. Should they be on the SIDES (hiding the steps)...or in front of the pillars...or sort of diagonally out from each pillar in the rounded part of the bricks???

We are so not landscapers. I'd love some suggestions!
I'm going to put colorful hanging baskets on the porch, as well as maybe a couple large potted plants. But I'm very open to any suggestions/ideas you might have!

The bling bling tree

2009-04-09T18:13:00.005-05:00

A.K.A. the super gaudy, collaborative project with my kids.

It's a little topiary made to fit a rectangle spot in the girls' shadow box. It's about 6" tall I'd guess. Originally it was not supposed to be so...um...blingy. But the kids wanted to help me decorate it, so each one got a side of the flower pot.

All the bling is courtesy of my generous, talented friend Scott. Thank you, Scott. :)
As if all the swarovski wasn't enough, everything is glittered from bird to flower pot. Because there can never be too much sparkle.

Lydia the non-gamer

2009-04-09T08:08:00.002-05:00

I have a little clay project to post about, but I have to take pics later today. But first, a kid video to share. (Hey....I heard that groan...shoosh it!) ;)

The laptop came loaded w/this kiddie game where you practice following directions, in the form of making a duplicate cake. Shape, cake color, frosting color, decoration on top. If the cake is correct, it gets boxed up and put on the truck. If it's wrong, it drops in the trashcan.

Emily is an ace at this game. She loves it! Lydia wanted to try it. But Lydia isn't a "follower" sort of gal. LOL! Just watch!

Real life randomness

2009-03-24T10:38:00.002-05:00

Long time no read, huh? There has been a lack of blog worthy activity at our house. Which is good, IMHO. :) No excitement usually means no drama!

Well, no, that's not totally true. Friday afternoon my Mom discovered her check card number had been stolen and some assholes in the Pennsylvania area were on a roadtrip shopping spree at her expense. To the tune of about $3,000! Fortunately, her bank is diligently working w/her to get her money back asap.

Miss Amelia is teething. A few days ago I swore I saw the tiniest white spec of tooth peeping out of her gums, but it was a false alarm. She's had 101+ fever and been a total crab apple, off and on, for DAYS now.

The rest of us are rocking along at normal speed. Sunday I was trying to take a picture of a scar on Emily's chin. (A before photo. We have started a scar treatment medicine on her. More on that later.) Twice I had to run upstairs to check on Amelia. Both times Garrett grabbed the camera and played photographer. Here are the pics he took.
Apparently they were going for lots of wagging tongue action.

You noticed the wounds on Garrett's face? He had his 1st major pavement-eating bike crash a few days ago. Poor kid hit a hard plastic cup in the street and lost control of the bike. Then had to make it 4 blocks home sobbing and bleeding.
Now he's proud of his wounds. I told him they made him more manly. :)

I am looking for these bowls

2009-03-10T10:02:00.003-05:00

Because Mom was still living here when we moved back in, we decided to use her kitchen things that were already in place. Which includes these cute little face bowls.

The girls and I eat our malt-o-meal in them almost everyday of the world. Mom said they came from ABC a long time ago. I wanted to buy another set for the day when our households separate again. But I never pursued it.
Then yesterday...insert eye roll....I dropped the pink bowl and broke it. (Luckily Emily wasn't as upset as I thought she'd be. We each have designated colors. Change upsets Miss Monk, Jr.)

So I got to googling them yesterday (they read "Livingware collection" on the bottom) and I can't find them ANYWHERE! Have you ever seen them? I'm afraid it's a lost cause unless I stumble onto some in a thrift store someday.
I thought it wouldn't hurt to enlist the help of my internet friends. You never know! :)

I want to paint the kitchen

2009-03-06T19:39:00.006-06:00

Because of it's location, and the expense involved, the kitchen will be the last room to be remodeled. However, it's the only room in the house that doesn't have ugly cracks in the plaster from the house re-leveling. So I want to paint it and "polish the turd" until a remodel day comes. It must be a very inexpensive polishing though. Only paint and curtains.

What color would look nice with the black/white/gray color scheme?

You can see from these pics that the floor and back splash are black & white with dark gray grout. The countertops are a marbled gray laminate.

And all the appliances (except for Mom's fridge) are black.

I really like this color. Do you think it would work?

I am very very decorating challenged. I need help! :) I have two prints from Hollyvision Art. I thought I might decorate based on those, but I'm not so sure. I don't think I want a tropical look kitchen.
I also have two Bettie Page 8x10's. (that b&w link isn't the exact photo I have, but it's from the same photo shoot) I had planned on doing a pinup bathroom theme some day...but who's to say I can't do a pinup kitchen?! Our kitchen is authentic retro after all!

How do I make it prettier in there? What goes w/black & white...except red?

Snow White doll

2009-03-05T15:14:00.002-06:00

Snow White is Emily's favorite princess character. Remember her as punk rock Snow White for Halloween?

I thought a Snow White clothespin doll would be super fun...and it was! She even had fun herself...frolicking in the spring weather today.

Sewing is definitely not my thing, so I'm jazzed about how well the dress came out! :) The red spots on her sleeves are a bit big, but that's ok. All part of the dress making learning process.

I debated on what sort of miniature trinket she should have. My first thought was a shiny, red apple...but later decided to go w/something less macabre. So a happy little bluebird it is!

Of course the girls want me to do ALL the princesses, and even a "bad witch", but I don't see that happening. :)

Adorable coffee mug

2009-03-02T08:36:00.002-06:00

What is it about coffee mugs? The coffee tastes delish no matter the container...but I still feel this need for cute coffee mugs. They just call to me. I'm sure it's a girl thing. :) When Aaron needed a coffee mug for work, and I asked him what I should look for at the store he replied "something big and not girly looking...black is good". LOL!

Each week the Try Handmade blog entices me with fantastic stuff, but the latest post of pottery work of Emily Dyer is, well, to die for. :) Oh how I would love to have this coffee mug:

It calls to me. Sadly, I can't justify that sort of a splurge for a mug. But I can still admire her artwork and smile. And who knows...maybe some of you can splurge and will do so on her beautiful pottery!
Buy handmade! :)

Her name is Lily

2009-02-27T15:03:00.002-06:00

I know this b/c she told me. :) As I was putting the final brush strokes on her face, the heard the name in my mind. Lily. Sounds like I need to open a window and lay off the Mod Podge fumes. Ha!

Lily started out much differently. She changed clothes 3 times. I have a limited selection of embroidery floss and fabric...not to mention I'm color coordination challenged...so the outfits are hard for me!

But I live for the accessories. I had no idea how much I enjoy making miniatures.

I wanted her to hold a caged bird. I even tried to engineer a tiny wire birdcage, but after 2 failed attempts I gave up. I can do flowers! I'm sure noone is surprised to see that glittery flowers grow in Lily's world. :)

Sisters

2009-02-26T23:59:00.001-06:00

Sisters
Originally uploaded by ~ChristieToo

They make my heart feel like it will burst...when they are not driving me to drink. :)

1st clothespin doll

2009-02-20T18:04:00.002-06:00

I always enjoy my crafty time, but sometimes I just love it. This week I've been working on my 1st clothespin doll. I was originally inspired by Sweet Imaginations and BeezTings dolls on Flickr. Emily & I sat admiring their flickr photos for probably an hour! She was so smitten about them, I knew I had to try making some.

Of course I wanted to use clay instead of wood! :) After trying several different ideas, I re-engineered a spring clothespin to look more like the peg clothespins. (For the challenge, and also b/c I didn't want to load up all 3 girls and drive to Hobby Lobby.) Here she is, standing in the window sill watching today's sunset.

She was so much fun! Her head and hair is all polymer clay. The base is also. I need to work on my face painting skills. Her rosy cheeks turned into rosacea! Her felt dress is dripping with glitter. Girlfriend even has white glittery highlights in her hair! (Which I would totally do if they were a realistic option!)
And her teeny purse....how fun is that?!

I can't wait to make some more! I'm sure my ADD will kick in after the 2nd or 3rd doll...but my brain is bubbling with ideas for at least a dozen more! She will go upstairs to the girls' shadow box to keep the polka dot bird company.

Emily writes her name

2009-02-19T23:46:00.002-06:00

So, I know this is only interesting to some of us...but Miss Emily is learning to write her name. They are growing up so fast!
Emily writes her name

There is a lot of background noise. Welcome to my world. :)

If I wrote vday cards

2009-02-13T19:15:00.002-06:00

They would be like this.

This is good stuff! :) Courtesy of my buddy, Aunt CharChar, who never ceases to crack me up!
Happy Valentine's to you!

A little birdie

2009-02-13T18:17:00.002-06:00

I did not plan it, but this little love birdie arrived just in time for V-day.

I made her to sit in a shadow box in the girls' room. It has several different 'holes' to fill, and I just happen to have ideas for clay creations to sit in all of them. :)

I went glitter crazy. The base is covered in it, the hearts are thick with it, and even the bird's polka dots are glittered. You can never have too much glitter, I say.

The whole thing is just under 4" tall.

In family news:
Garrett is doing splendidly in school, and making new friends (and reacquainting w/old ones). Him going to school outside the home is the best thing to happen. For both of us.
The 2 big girls are trying to be the death of me. I'm serious. I think they are plotting.
Miss Amelia is growing so fast! She loves her solid foods. Baby food, vanilla wafers, Mom's morning malt-o-meal, and anything else we let her try. She laughs and jabbers all the time. She's still the sweetest punkin ever.
Aaron is working 60-75 hrs a week. And 10-15 hrs a week at his own business (fabricating plane parts out of our garage). So we never see him.
And I'm trying to get over a bladder infection w/out going to the dr. (no insurance now) Anyone have any spare Bactrim they want to send me? :) Only joking.

And now I will adjorn to the kitchen and put on my chef hat. I hope you have a tweet V-day weekend! ;)

Parents just don't understand

2009-02-12T08:20:00.002-06:00

And I thought my girls were hard to understand! :)

Practicing being a big girl

2009-01-26T11:02:00.001-06:00

Practicing being a big girl
Originally uploaded by ~ChristieToo

Just sharing a little Amelia cuteness. She'll be 5 months old in 3 days. Wow!! Time is flying by!

Happy Vday to me!

2009-01-25T11:41:00.002-06:00

No sweets for me this year please. This Valentine's Day I'm getting a treadmill! I'm so excited! Just before we moved, my FIL loaned me their treadmill and I loved it. I really despise exercise but the treadmill and I got along famously. I started feeling better and my fat jeans started feeling looser. But only a couple short weeks later we moved and the treadmill stayed in TX. And I've been sitting on my pudgy butt ever since. :)

I refuse to reward myself with new, larger, more comfortable fitting jeans. It's time to stop sitting and complaining. It's time to do something about it. I'm jazzed! By February 14th (arrival day) I will be like Forest Gump.....I'll be RUNNIN'!! :) Thank you HSN for running a sale w/payments!!

Screw you, youtube!

2009-01-16T20:34:00.003-06:00

Normally I try to abstain from blatant negativity on the blog...but today is an exception. Youtube can kiss.my.ass.

They have "muted" my silver foil video because it's using copyrighted music from Led Zeppelin in the background. Are they serious?!? Of all the MTV videos, tv shows, cartoons, exercise videos, etc. on Youtube....they target my tutorial video with Zeppelin quietly playing in the background?? Good grief!!!

And the real kick in the pants? They offer me the option to use their nifty tool, Audio Swap, to change out the background audio with an approved song. But you now what? It will totally erase the original audio. Which includes my narration of the tutorial. I might as well just leave the video completely muted!

Ugh....I am so ticked off. I apologize for my public spewing of negativity. I needed to vent. It's especially frustrating b/c ALL my videos include background music. So eventually youtube can mute all my videos. My spewing doesn't do any good other than make me feel better for a moment.

The only solution is to delete the original and upload an edited version. Which required digging out the old laptop's hard drive and retrieving old date. *sigh* Maybe tomorrow.......or the next day.

Sculpey the Slug

2009-01-13T11:42:00.001-06:00

If you have 4 1/2 minutes to spare you should watch this claymation movie. So darn cute! It's a guaranteed smile. :)

Life is a highway

2009-01-01T23:43:00.001-06:00

And we drove it back to Oklahoma...

(Edited to add..I originally started this post December 18th, and here I am trying to finish it January 1st, 2009.)

You are not gonna believe this. Well, those of you who have known me long enough will believe this.....we have moved.....AGAIN. :) We are back in our beloved old house in Oklahoma. Aaron's job was downsized in south Texas and we have returned to Oklahoma. Mom is still living here, and we are all cohabiting for the time being. There is never a lack of adventure in our family!

Here is a picture of my favorite ornament on the shortest lived xmas tree ever. We put up the tree one weekend and found out a few days later that Aaron lost his job. The tree was up less than a week. Lovely! (The smore snowman was from my sweet friend, Gina, a few years ago.)

Here's a pic of a WIP I started this a couple days before the layoff. My plan was to make several of these for xmas gifts...didn't happen!!! The neighbor friends...family...all were supposed to receive cute snowmen ornaments for xmas. *sigh* I had to bake the prototype and pack him away before he was finished. The idea was good, I think. An old Kreb's ornament given a new life. Well...next year he'll be given a new life. :)

Anyway. Here it is January 1st. We are busy getting settled into the old/new house again. Aaron is busy busy w/projects around the house. Garrett and Mom have both received new closets in their rooms. The girls' room has been painted 2 shades of purple. The kitchen has received a set of new cabinets.
I've been cleaning non-stop since we got here (December 15th). This place requires a lot more cleaning than the Texas house. My Monk tendencies are going to be the death of me here. :)

Overall things are going well. We are very happy to be back in our house. We missed our house. Here we are in our other house in Texas...just days before the move.

Belated Happy Holidays to you all!

I have had so little computer time this past month that I don't even miss it or crave it anymore. My google reader has 360+ new blog entries and my 2 email inboxes are overflowing...so bear with me if I owe you correspondence. Mmkay? :)

My glamorous life

2008-12-04T10:18:00.004-06:00

After waking Garrett up at 6:15, I noticed Emily was half way off her bed. When I picked her up to move her I noticed she had peed the bed. (She fell asleep on the couch last nite and didn't make her usual pre-bed potty.) Luckily Aaron was home to help clean her up and he put her back to sleep in our bed.

Amelia woke up a while later and ate. After she had time to digest and burp I gave her her medicine. (She has an ear infection AND an upper respiratory infection. She's on 2 meds for the next week.) I got one medicine in her when she got choked and threw up all over herself, me, the side of the couch, and the floor. Luckily she's a breast baby. If you have ever cleaned up both formula vomit and breastmilk vomit...you know the latter is WAY less stinky. It's still vomit, but less nasty vomit. :)
Oh, and in the process of all this she had what I like to call "exploda-diaper". Where the contents of baby's bum explode so quickly the diaper can't absorb it all and it leaks out. Lovely.

I was in the cleanup process when Miss Lydia woke up. She stood nearby watching it all. Then she holds up her nightgown and says "Momma, you wipe me...me all mess wet!"
Wouldn't you know it...her diaper was full and pee had leaked down her leg and she stood there.

*deep breath* That's all you can do. :) Take a deep breath and roll w/the punches. (Thanks be to Zoloft..)I was able to chuckle about it as I moved from one clean up to the next.

Since then I successfully administered Amelia's meds, she and I changed clothes, the couch and carpet were scrubbed, Lydia was cleaned and changed, we 3 big girls had breakfast, the linens are in the dryer, and I have almost finished a cup of coffee while typing this. So....the day is looking up. :)

Here was Lydia a few minutes earlier, talking about Uncle Ray. She had sat there saying his name over and over (along w/other names). I managed to catch a little of it. Cute 2 year old speak.

Name necklaces for the girls

2008-11-21T11:16:00.006-06:00

This idea was much cuter in my head, but the girls are easy to please and love their new "neckies".

The pink glitter is chunky, but I threw in some super fine glitter last minute and it floated to the top. Didn't really want that to happen.

I probably won't be making any more striped cane borders around a round shape. What a PITA.

The hearts and flowers are polymer clay also. Original idea was to have many more in the necklace, but it looked too crowded. Now I think they look bare. LOL! Oh well...like I said, the girls love them. And it's practice for me and the resin. I think I need to buy new resin, btw. Maybe this weekend I'll pick up fresh resin and some molds! Fun fun!

This is Lydia's "I don't want you to take my picture" face. Ornery girl.

Felt clippies

2008-11-20T10:14:00.002-06:00

I've finished a whole three clippies for the girls. Look out! I'm on fire! :)

Here they are in chronological order, left to right.

They are getting better. The 1st one is not great, but it still looks cute in Lydia's hair. I'm getting better cutting out the teeny flowers. I got a new pair of teeny, pointy scissors...I hope they will make cutting easier next time.

After I choose the felt colors I let the girls pick the shape they want, and they pick the seed beads. And they crowd in around me to watch me stitch and drive me nuts. So it's a group effort. :) I'll slowly make more to match their wardrobe.

I can't draw

2008-11-19T18:15:00.002-06:00

But I think the envelope came out cute in spite of me. I need to send a thank you card, and keep forgetting to buy one at the store so I made one. (Thanks to our nifty new printer we got last week!)

Anyway, the card is a big half-folded 8 1/2 x 11 sheet so I needed a large envelope. I used an envelope template from Creative Park and cut it out from plain white heavy cardstock. Since I didn't have any decorative cardstock I improvised with paints and simple flowers. I went overboard with the polka dots (the purple ones are too big, too) but that's ok. It's the thought that counts. :)

Oh, and no I'm not mailing the card in the big padded mailer. That's what the gift came in (with return address). :)

Alternate use for acrylic rods

2008-11-13T11:52:00.006-06:00

Warning: creepy faces ahead.

Garrett started it.

Then I had to try it.

The 1st time I saw my picture full size, my Mom's eye peeping over my shoulder scared me!! Like heeby jeeby moment. Then I realized who it was. LOL!

Lydia was next. Her pic is the best! She looks like a Twisted Whiskers card.

And Miss Emily kept squishing her eyelids.

* On a crafty note...I'm slooowly making some stitched/beaded felt clippies for the girls. Maybe I'll have a picture to share in a few days.

2 new Etsy finds

2008-11-06T09:44:00.002-06:00

jolly happy soul...frosty pendant
Originally uploaded by isewcute

Last week I received a sample size lotion from Red Leaf. The lotion feels so nice on my skin and doesn't leave any greasy or stickiness. And it leaves a nice amount of fragrance that lasts for quite some time. I'm planning to order a couple more samples of fragrances and then order a large bottle.

And look at what isewcute made custom just for me! Isn't he adorable?! I loooove snowmen. Love them! I'm excited for this little guy to arrive in the mail.

Maybe it will arrive Saturday...then it will be a birthday present to me! :) I'm turning 29 this Saturday. For the 5th time. HA!

Happy but sad

2008-11-05T10:21:00.002-06:00

I have sat down and walked away from the laptop several times, debating on whether to write this or not. I've finally decided to get it off my chest so I can move on with my day.

I am full of mixed emotions today. I am so incredibly happy and proud of America for electing an African American president. I can't even really wrap my brain around what an amazing thing this is. It is HUGE! (HUGE! HUGE! HUGE! infinity!) I do not think a person should be judged, persecuted, or for that matter promoted based on the color of their skin or gender.

I am a very liberal American, but I do not identify with either party. Nor totally agree with either candidate. I feel like this election was a choice of the lesser of two evils. I wish I had registered to vote here in time to be eligible to vote this election. I may be a liberal American but I do not think the right man got the job. I hope with all my heart I am wrong.

Both men gave great speeches last nite. McCain gave the most gracious speech I think I've ever heard. Bravo to them both for taking the high road last nite.

But I still can't be 100% happy that America elected a president who won't salute the American Flag and pay respect to all the brave people who have died to defend it.

And since I didn't register in time to vote, I guess that old rule applies to me:
If you didn't vote you don't get to complain. So I'll move along now. :)

Resin question

2008-11-04T07:47:00.002-06:00

Ok, my smart crafty readers...could you please help me with a resin question? I would like to use printed paper clippings. It's from a junk mail letter, actually. So it's laser printed I guess? Do I need to seal the paper before it goes in the resin?

I learned from this video tutorial that you should seal printed images. Does this apply to ALL print? Better safe than sorry?

Also, do I have to use Mod Podge or can I use Elmer's white glue?

Thank you for any help you can give. The all knowing Google isn't helping me so much this time. :)

Halloween pics

2008-11-03T12:25:00.002-06:00

A few pictures from our Halloween. The weather was perfect and everyone had a great time. My little candy monsters thought the entire concept of knocking on the door and getting candy was fantastic! Once they got home they wanted to go walking again. LOL!

Halloween rambles

2008-10-31T15:04:00.002-05:00

Happy Halloween to you! BOO! LOL!
I just adore Halloween. It's never been an evil holiday to me. It's always been about the fun of dressing up, and the CANDY, and the kiddie spirit of it all. Holidays (and any situation really) are what you make them, ya know? ANYWAY! :)
We have a fun evening planned. All 3 kiddos are jazzed about dressing up and trick or treating. We live in a semi-secluded small neighborhood, so the kids can go door to door with ease and safety. Garrett is attending his first Halloween party just 3 doors down at his friend's house. And we will enjoy family time sitting in our driveway, handing out candy to the kids and watching all the neighborhood festivities.

Miss Amelia went for a 2 month old checkup yesterday. Poor pumpkin had to get 3 shots. :( But she weighed in at 10 lbs and 23" tall! She's had a LOT of fussiness and unhappiness lately. I feared it was reflux or something similar, but the DR thinks it's colic. (joy!) So we'll ride it out the best we can. Right now though...she's sleeping IN HER BED and has been doing so for almost 3 hours now! This is HUGE news. She's been refusing to sleep lying down for weeks now. She does all her sleeping in her swing. I hope it's not a fluke. Hopefully she can relearn to sleep lying down soon.

I found a new use for alcohol ink today! I diluted some color in a little rubbing alcohol, and used it to dye the white elastic straps on Lydia's butterfly fairy wings. Now they will blend better with her cute purple costume. :)

Well, I'm out of here for now. I want a cuppa coffee before Amelia wakes up. I'm looking forward to much super shock tonite! I hope you enjoy the holiday and all it's sugariness, too! ;)

Dead guy in resin

2008-10-29T14:11:00.008-05:00

For a first attempt at a new idea I'm quite pleased! It went way better than my attempts at encasing clay in resin a couple years ago. :) It's not quite worthy of this many photos...but my new camera is so easy to shoot macro I can't help but share.

The clay bezel was a tedious pita to make, but I like it!

I epoxy'd on the bail and covered the back. Couldn't resist the mica powders.

The pendant is fairly small. Isn't the iridescent purple glitter pretty?! In person it sparkles like crazy. Love that! The skull is much smaller than the beads I sell on etsy. His eyes were a pita too...but I like them! :) The tiny star beads were a last minute addition. Are they too much?

ADD attack

2008-10-21T10:30:00.001-05:00

There is a reason why I've never mastered any one art or craft or...anything. I have the attention span of a gnat and the overwhelming desire to try it ALL. :)

Right now Amelia is napping and the big girls are happily playing. Am I taking advantage of this time to scamper off to the happy table? Oh hell no. I'm surfing Etsy and googling for examples of the things I want to LEARN to make. I don't have the supplies or the tools or the basic knowledge required...but I have a list! LOL!

First, I need a sewing machine so I can make Amelia a dozen pair of cute little Mary Janes like these. And adorable little dresses/shirts for all the girls like this one. Oh! And a fabulous new diaper bag that I'll customize just like I want it.

Then there's all the hair accessories I want to make for the girls. I'll use that sewing machine for perfect fitting headbands for Amelia. Some sort of soft, stretchy material that will stay put but not bite into her soft little noggin like elastic bands. Then I need to hit the felt department so I can make cute stuff for hair clip decorations that will interchange on the headbands OR clip into the big girls' hair.

All of which (except the hair clips) are ridiculous b/c I suck at the sewing machine! The curtains I made for the Oklahoma house...OY! They were so bad. I know practice makes perfect but holy cow...they were/are terrible.

Oh! And papier mache...I want to learn it too. I think the first and only time I papier mached was a George Washington bust in 2nd grade. :) I've got several ideas for folk art home decor items that would be better suited for papier mache (vs. polymer clay). So I'm reading up on the various recipes and techniques available. Of course I'll read and bookmark and read and bookmark for weeks, but never actually try to make anything. Did I mention I'm afraid of failure?

Oh! And resin! I bought a package of resin mix a long time ago, to use with a BOH idea I had. (and never finished...go figure!) If the resin is still good I want to try some resin jewelry. I don't have any molds, so I'll use it in polymer clay. I have a couple ideas to try.

Now I just need to find the motivation to get up off my arse and DO something. I have spent the last few weeks sitting on the couch surfing and watching tv. I don't even obsessively clean the house anymore! My laziness has reached a new high. I need the tv and internet to die, b/c I don't have the willpower. Help! Someone call our cable provider and tell them to cut me off!

Ok, I warned you

2008-10-07T15:50:00.003-05:00

New camera = spamming you with kid pics. :) Miss Emily and her mini-me, Amelia.

I almost forgot

2008-10-06T14:30:00.001-05:00

I love my Daddy
Originally uploaded by ~ChristieToo

I put 4 new Amelia pics on my *other* flickr account. Click on the picture to check out her cuteness! :)

She's growing and thriving and intermittently happy. LOL! She's started smiling at familiar faces (and not in that gas relief sort of way). Poor girl has terrible baby pimples, but other than that she's perfectly healthy and well...just perfect! :)

Amelia's milk cow has had problems of excess milk production, which has created gas/reflux/spit up pains for Amelia and physical pain for the cow. However! With the help of Google and the Le Leche website we are taking steps to correct the problem and make life easier. Thank goodness for the baby swing!! B/c of the gas issues, she wants to stay upright at all times. So she does most of her sleeping in the swing.

Speak of the sweetheart...I hear her waking now. Amelia update over for now. :)

Bday highlights

2008-10-06T13:23:00.002-05:00

Mr. Garrett turned 10 in grand fashion. He spent the weekend in Ft. Worth with family and attended the Texas State Fair. From what I hear he made the most of it with wild rides, good junk food, games, animal races and exhibits that included a 1,200+ lb. pig! They made it back home just in time for his b-day party. (His 2nd party mind you...his Aunt Charlie threw him one the previous evening as well!)

It was really fun! He hit the mother load on gifts, receiving a new bike, a BB gun, lots of Star Wars goodies he wanted, and many other cool toys. A neighbor friend let us borrow their big bouncy castle. The kids had fun popping balloons with darts, Garrett's bow & arrow, and maybe even his soft air pellet gun (I didn't witness that one). Then they moved to the empty field beside our house to try out his new BB gun. (I even had fun shooting it after the party was over!) And finally they got to attack the pinata that had been stuffed FULL of candies and party favors. It was so heavy it broke off the hanger. And then broke off at the feet twice after Aaron retied it! LOL! Their last act of fun was busting into the living room and showering all of us with LOTS of silly string. It was really quite funny, but Emily (who hates to get dirty) wasn't amused in the least. :)

It was a great 10th bday party for sure. Garrett had lots of friends and family here to celebrate with him. Here are a few picture highlights.

$10 coupon code

2008-09-27T12:30:00.002-05:00

I finally decided on a digital camera. Yay! And better yet...just minutes before I ordered it I got an email from Abe's (my new favorite electronics store) with a $10 off coupon code. Score!!

I'm not sure, but I hope the code will work for anyone. With an order of $75 or more, use the code "LOYALTY10" in the shopping cart for a $10 discount.

No, they are not paying me to pimp their website...LOL...I just wanted to try to share the savings. :)

I'm on Twitter

2008-09-26T17:57:00.002-05:00

I've heard about Twitter many times but totally ignored it. I figured it was just another myspace. (blech!) But just like with myspace, I finally caved in and signed up. I've never been able to stand up to peer pressure. LOL!

I so don't need another online account to distract me from the responsibilities of my day. But oh well...I'll give it a go. It looks fun. Here's my page. :)

Where is Fall?

2008-09-23T14:07:00.003-05:00

It's not here. I had to LOL at the weatherman yesterday. During the extended forecast he said, "Hang in there til Friday or Saturday...it will start to feel more like fall...it will cool off to the lower 80's and much lower humidity". Lower 80s?! HA!!! It's not even cool enough at nite to open the windows. What a goober.

We got back home Thursday evening. Aaron returned to work Friday (and all weekend). Sunday our internet came back on. Garrett started school yesterday. Today Amelia will go to her belated 2 week old checkup. She'll be 4 weeks old Friday. :)

I'd love to have something crafty to show you but alas...still no camera. I'd like to have a help buy me a camera sale on Etsy but alas...no way to take new pictures. Dangit! LOL!

So here's a hurricane video. It's very underwhelming. Certainly won't make it to CNN! :)

Refugees or Evacuees?

2008-09-15T13:22:00.002-05:00

Mom calls us her refugees, but I prefer evacuees...it's sounds less 3rd worldy. :)

We survived Ike. And honestly...at our house (which is 50 miles north of Houston) the weather wasn't that bad. Not by our standards anyway. We had several hours of strong, sustained winds. Probably 70+ mph. We didn't flood, but our neighbord had sewage backing up into their backyards. EW. EW. EW.
Nothing in our neighborhood was destroyed, but there was a lot of damage in town. Certain areas around the lake were heavily damaged. I wish I had a picture of the large boat dock that was blown up and on top of it's neighboring boat dock. It made a huge, mangled boat dock sandwich. Crazy! There were plenty of snapped trees and damaged roofs. And there is no power anywhere in town. Or the neighboring towns. From what we heard, the hospital was about the only place with power.

We lost power at 4:30am Saturday. Not bad considering the weather hit a couple hours before that. Saturday Aaron fired up the grill and made enough hamburgers for a small army and then smoked a huge brisket. We had planned on riding out the no-electricity thing for a couple days. But then we hear on the radio that it could be at least a week, or two, or three, before we got power......we decided to pack up our yummy food and get the heck out of dodge! It's not like Garrett would miss school or Aaron miss work. About noon-thirty yesterday we started driving north.

Mom is happily sharing her house with us until our neighbors call with news of electricity in TX. With any luck it will be one day this week! In the meantime Aaron will do a little work on the house, which is always good.

Thanks for your well wishes and concerns for us! We are safe and sound and waiting it out WITH ELECTRICITY in Oklahoma. :)

Ike Ike Bo Bike

2008-09-11T17:19:00.004-05:00

We are preparing for our 1st hurricane. Growing up in tornado hell makes us not too uptight about super strong winds and torrential rain though. :) And our city is in the evacuate-TO zone, so that makes us rest a little easier too. Still...we may well lose electricity this weekend so Aaron is at the store picking up a few things.

In other non-crafty life news: Amelia is doing well. She's reached a fussy phase unfortunately, but it comes and goes. Gas bubbles and over-eating/under-eating are mostly to blame I think. I wish the camera still worked...I'd love to bore you with a dozen new pictures a day. :) I'll have to settle for a video of the older girls being little Mommies. Lydia was fresh up from a long nap. Her hairdo is funny! But she was being such a sweetie I had to tape it. Unfortunately I missed her rocking and singing to the baby just before. I hope you can hear her ok. I forgot to turn off the noisy oscillating fan. :o\

Speaking of the camera....I'm comparison shopping digicams. The Canon Powershots to be specific. Do any of you have a Powershot? I'd really love to hear any feedback on these cameras. I'm reading good things about several of the SD's and the A's. I'm looking for something less than $300 that will take good macro shots of my clay things as well as be a good point and shoot for family stuff. But I've read so many reviews I'm totally confused.

Well, it's been a few hours since I started this post. Aaron had to go to several different stores to get groceries. Most everything is sold out. He just went back to w@lm@rt at 10pm b/c they promised a new shipment of bread by 10. Every store in the area was out of bread earlier!
We are stocked up on water, non-perishable foods, a gas powered camping grill (in case we can't use the charcoal grill due to weather), we have a new manual can opener, a new corkscrew, and 2 new bottles of red wine for Mom. I'd say he did a good job covering all the important bases. LOL! Please keep a good thought for us this weekend. Let's hope IF the power goes out it's only for a short period of time!

Amelia ANNE

2008-08-30T21:11:00.002-05:00

Amelia Jane
Originally uploaded by ~ChristieToo

Edited Sunday a.m. now that my brain is awake. Her middle name is Anne. ANNE. Holy cow...middle of the nite last nite it occurred to me I blogged the wrong middle name. LOL!!!!! Ok, on to the original post:

We all made it back home about 5:30PM today. All of us including our newest family member, Miss Amelia Anne. (Poor girl didn't officially get a name until lunchtime today. LOL!)

Long story short (b/c I am so darn tired):
Labor and delivery went very well and quickly. Not quite as quickly as everyone expected, but as quickly as with Lydia. I had fantastic hospital staff taking care of me. Unfortunately the nursery staff was very hit-and-miss. I don't think I'd recommend this hospital to anyone I like, but that's a story for another day. :)

Amelia is doing wonderfully and currently sleeping soundly in her bed. She's such a sweetie pie. She's officially our tiniest and shortest baby. But she's got huge feet! LOL!

You can click on the picture to see a few more pics at flickr. These are the pics from my Mom's camera. (remember, our camera is dead) When I get copies of Granny's pictures I'll add more.

All the kids adore Amelia. Lydia is the most smitten and wants to hold and mother and love on her constantly. She even gets pissy when she can't. Hopefully once everyone gets rested and into a routine the emotions will settle down around here.

Of course, if this damn hurricane moves westward we might have to pack up family and retreat to our house in Oklahoma for a few days. I can't even wrap my brain around the hairy hectic mess that would be. OY!! But that decision will come tomorrow I guess.

Anyway....she's here, she's healthy, and we have all fallen in love all over again.

Wired Wednesday

2008-08-27T07:45:00.005-05:00

Ok, so wired might be an exaggeration, but restless or antsy or spastic definitely apply. :) I think today calls for a lengthy bulleted post. Oh how I *heart* bulleted lists!

To get the obvious out of the way: 6am Friday is the induction. With any luck we will be proud parents of 4 by lunch time. And no we still don't have a definite name. LOL! She'll either be Amelia Anne or (thanks to an idea from my Mom) Abigail Renee. I'd place my bet on Amelia though. I like it better with our last name.
A few days ago our digital camera died. Well, the card reader part of it appears to be dead. It says the card needs to be formatted but it gives an error message instead of actually formatting it. I've tried 2 other cards and get the same result. BUMMER! At least we have the video camera. It takes totally crappy still pics, but it's better than nothing.
ANYWAY...the last 3 pictures I took were documenting my O.C. condition. It seems I'm an O.C. embellisher. I can not help myself! I must embellish store bought things to give them more sparkle and pizzazz. For instance:

The wooden letters for the girls' door. Originally the girls painted them and had a good time doing that. But they looked like mud soup, so I repainted them and added glitter paint.

Granny recently bought 2 cute plaques for their room. There was nothing wrong with them, but to me they were "blah" and needed a girly touch. So I drilled holes in the top, made glittery PC flowers on coiled fun wire, and glued them in the holes. Oh, and I added white dots to the front and glittered them. :)

It's a poor picture. And unfortunately I can't get a better one to show the cute flower detail. The other plaque is pink and will have hearts and beads eventually. Doesn't look like it will be this week though!

Garrett is having a great 1st week at school. He's riding the bus w/his neighborhood friends, and seems to genuinely be enjoying his classes and the whole experience. It blows my mind that there are nearly 900 kids enrolled in K-4. In the tiny po-dunk town where I grew up there were probably 500 kids in K-12th!
I had a crazy small world moment yesterday. A fellow Etsy seller convo'd me to say Hi and that she noticed we lived in neighboring cities. I wrote back to tell her we actually live in the same city, but I had listed 3 area cities in my profile for a bigger 'shop local' audience. Then we discovered we both moved here in May. And THEN she told me what subdivision she lives in.....it's the same one WE live in! LOL!!! I haven't told her about the last part yet, but I will. Isn't that just a hoot?!
Ok, change of plans. The bulleted list is coming to an early close. I'm in need of a nap. I opened this post early this morning, and now it's 1pm. I've been cleaning house like a mad woman today and I've worn myself out. Lydia is napping (and it's not hard to snuggle w/Emily and get her asleep) so it's my opportunity for shut eye. I'm guessing the next time you hear from me will be this weekend w/baby pics or video. So....I'll see you all after my extreme weight loss weekend. LOL! Toodles!

Thinking baby

2008-08-21T11:45:00.002-05:00

Tuesday was my 38 week checkup. My doctor agreed to induce me next Friday (29th) if the baby hasn't come on her own by then. So I'm in full-on "to do list" mode. I've got clothes and bedding washed, car set is ready to go, all the family members are on high alert, I've pre-registered and toured the hospital, my bag is partially packed...so I do have several things done.
But we still need to:

Name the baby! That's the biggie. It's between Amelia and Abigail. (Abigail is a name I've wanted to use since I was probably 15. But it always gets pushed down the list when I start name hunting. 2 days ago I decided I really liked it again. LOL!) Last nite we flipped a coin about 50 times. I have this theory that whatever is "heads" will win in a best out of 10 contest every time. And my theory was proven about 80% right last nite! Anyway...Amelia won the coin toss. I think I like Amelia Anne (Wright) the best. And for some reason I sort of like Amelia Jane also. It's so simple and catchy. Like she's ready to be a famous Amelia someday. But I can't come up with anything for Abigail. 15 years ago I had Abigail Grace picked out, but we used Grace with Emily's name. You got any suggestions?!?? I should probably stop over analyzing the names and just go with Amelia already! LOL!

We need to stock up on newborn diapers. My SIL has sent a few packages of size 1, but those are too big for right now.

We also need replacement pads for the diaper warmer. With it being summer, this isn't crucial but the warm wipes do make for less unhappiness at diaper time. :)

And we need to replace the baby monitor system. The set we have now has seen us thru Emily and Lydia, but it just barely works anymore. Actually, it started working really poorly when Lydia was little.

It would also be nice to find her a cute, comfy, coming home outfit. All the hand-me-down newborn clothes are just onesies. Aaron's sis made the baby 2 adorable onesie dresses, but they are long sleeve. I'm thinking they'll be too warm for next week.

And in related to-do items....we need to get Garrett a few new shirts this weekend for school Monday. And pencils. I have all his supplies bought except for pencils. Oh...and a lunch bag. But I think that's it. I think. :)

Jack-o-lady pin

2008-08-19T20:23:00.002-05:00

At least I think she's a lady...she's wearing a sparkly, frilly skirt of a sort. :)

This pin idea creeped into my mind two days ago. I woke up at 3:40am and never went back to sleep. So I had plenty of time to think that morning.
Her hat and her legs went thru a couple incarnations before I liked the end result. Initially her legs were long, tube shaped PC beads. And the hat was embellished with a seed beaded flower. Ironically enough the PC and the beads switched places in the end.

I don't even wear pins, but I want to keep this one. I really like her!

35 week comparison

2008-08-04T14:16:00.003-05:00

I am ready for this roller coaster ride to be over. I've officially reached that antsy point where I'm over-analyzing every.stinking.thing my body is doing, in hopes of signs of labor. (Actually there are things going on...but it's way TMI to share on the public blog.) I'm trying to just chill and be as patient as possible, but patience has never been a virtue of mine. :)

What I want to see right now is that magic baby drop. But this bean has been riding low for a looong time now, so I'm hoping her drop is just not as visually dramatic as the others. (False hope is better than no hope, right?)
Today I found a picture from Lydia's pregnancy, and since I'm 35/36 weeks right now I decided to do a comparison shot. I really tried to make them as similar as possible.

So far I've gained the least weight with this baby. Not on purpose...just good fortune I guess. I don't feel it, but it shows in the comparison. Sadly, I don't think she looks like she's dropped. :( It just looks like a smaller fat belly than last time.

What do you think? Feel free to fabricate some lie to boost my spirits and give me false hope. ;)

Pumpkin Puppy Pin

2008-08-01T12:44:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I woke up about 5:15 and could never get back to sleep. So I had lots of quiet thinking time before the kids woke up. Halloween was one of the many things on my mind, and I pictured this little guy as a fun, holiday pin. In my mind he was dressed up as a jack-o-lantern for Halloween. In reality he sort of looks like he's hiding behind a pumpkin. :) But nevertheless I think he turned out pretty cute.

He's very petite. Only 1 3/8" tall. I'm sending him to my Mom. She's all about the dogs. And since I didn't jack-o-lantern the pumpkin he's more of a Fall pin instead of just Halloween. More wear time!

And in unrelated news: The baby name pool is dwindling. We're talking about Amelia and Sophia. Middle names of Rose or maybe Anne. We also considered Audrey for a day, but it doesn't go with the flow like the other 2.

Halloween Treasury

2008-07-28T15:03:00.003-05:00

I was fortunate enough to get a treasury spot today. Since my most fav-or-ite holiday is fast approaching, I decided to spotlight Halloweeny items. (plus it's a shameless plug for my skull beads) :)

It was HARD to only pick 12 items. Etsy is full of spooky goodness right now. I would decorate my house in Halloween themed folk art year round if I had the money!
Please go check it out if you have a few minutes to surf:

More bird legs

2008-07-27T16:40:00.002-05:00

The turquoise pair of birdies was so fun I had to see what they would look like in other colors. I got busy making all the little birds without considering...how many stinking bird legs I would have to make! LOL!

It was fun bringing each pair to life though. Seeing them together as a group really makes me smile. :) Obviously I don't need 7 pair of bird earrings...so I'm going to get busy taking individual pictures and adding them to the etsy store.

I have almost used up all my sterling earwires. Time to order more. It's been years since I've had to buy jewelry making supplies. No joke. Several years ago I stocked up really well for craft shows and then I stopped doing the shows, so I've been slowly using that up. Ideally I should sell a few things first before I spend...but what fun would that be?! LOL!

New Ronit Golan canes

2008-07-27T12:01:00.001-05:00

New Millefiori Canes
Originally uploaded by Ronit golan

Ronit Golan is one of my favorite clayers. In my next life I want to have an eye for color like her. :)
I was excited to see she's working on new canes for her summer collection. Keep an eye on her flickr...I see beautiful beads on the horizon.

Hot dogs and cancer?

2008-07-25T11:29:00.002-05:00

I just saw this CNN report on the possible cancer risks of eating processed meats. (it's a video clip, just FYI if you are at work) :) This is actually alarming to me.

Now let me preface this by saying, I am NOT a cancer-aphobe type person. Actually I get rather tired of hearing about everything that could cause cancer. If we avoided it all we'd have to live in a damn bubble and survive on IV fluids, ya know?
We wear our sunscreen and our seat belts. I quit smoking years ago. We just try to live sensibly, but don't spend lots of time sweating all the minutia.

But we are family of carnivores. Carnivores on a budget no less, so processed meats are a huge part of our diet. Since the American Cancer Society has even said to limit your consumption as much as possible, I think I'll listen to this warning.
Damnit. Hot dogs are for lunch in this house several days a week! As are meat and cheese sandwiches. Damnit, damnit, damnit.

I have been pregnant FOREVER

2008-07-23T16:02:00.003-05:00

At least that's what it feels like. I'm in no hurry for baby to get here (b/c they are SO much easier to care for in the tummy!) but I'm also tired of being pregnant. But that's a whiny wagon I won't jump on at the moment. :)

Earlier today Emily hugged my middle and looked up at me, reminding me of an old picture I took of her and my alien belly when Lydia was inside. So we took a similar picture today.

Seeing as we have only 6 weeks to go, we are giving more serious thought to names. We've had a half dozen favorites picked out for months now but it's time to pick one already. Yesterday I had the Word document (with said favorite names) open on the laptop when Aaron came home. I had already picked a new favorite and was planning to tell him. He walked in, stood and read the lists, and pondered for a couple minutes. He looked up at me and said the exact same name I was keeping silently in my head:
Amelia Rose, he said.
I laughed out loud and told him it was a sign. (I'm big on signs.) :) It's in no way a done deal, but it was a cool coincidence.

Here are the other names we're throwing around, mixing and matching:
First names - Abigail, Josslyn, Jillian, Isabel, Natalie
Middle names - Hope, Faith, Paige, Elizabeth, Tatum

We already have an Emily Grace and a Lydia Joy. Got any suggestions?? :)

Bird Legs & new video

2008-07-22T12:12:00.003-05:00

Take a look at my new favorite creation:

Aren't they cute?! I just adore them. The little wire legs swing independently of each other for some fun movement. I'm going to list them in the Etsy store (as soon as the camera batteries charge and I get a couple more good pics) but I think I need a pair for myself also. :)

I've been busy making my skull beads again. Halloween (and with it Halloweeny jewelry!) is just around the corner! Last year, September was a good month for selling my skull beads. But this September I'm going to be a liiittle bit busy. (with the newborn baby and all) So I'm trying to get a jump on things and I'm listing them now thru August. Or until baby arrives, should she decide to come early.

Anyway...I also made a little show n' tell video about the beads. And it accidentally turned into a little mini tutorial in the middle of the video. I get lots of questions about how to poke holes in raw beads without distorting the bead shape...so I went into a little detail about how I do it.
So here's a show n' tell AND mini tute video. It's been a while!

New (Etsy) Headbands

2008-07-16T12:17:00.002-05:00

I don't buy on Etsy nearly as much as I'd like. My rule for myself is to only shop w/my Paypal money and that is generated by my own Etsy sales. So there isn't a lot of fun money to shop with. LOL!

Anyway, I recently found some cute (and very affordable!) headbands from Apple Blossom Bows and I had to get a few colors for the girls. (And a black one for myself, which I'm wearing right now and it's very comfortable.)

I had hoped to take a super cute picture of the girls sporting their new headbands, but, OMG. My expectations were too high. Lydia is such a PITA to photograph. The girl never.sits.still. Never! Her larger-than-life-attack-of-the-dimpled-chipmunk smile is neither here nor there. The squirming is impossible to work with.
In the meantime, Miss Emily has posed and smiled and been elbowed and squished by her sister until HER smile looks like a beautiful grimace. **big sigh** I just keep reminding myself someday it will get easier. :)

Until then I have lots of funny blooper shots! LOL!

Catch of the Day Necklace

2008-07-13T18:21:00.005-05:00

Is this a revisited or repurposed idea? Actually it's an idea triggered by some the kids' toys and an old BOH idea. :)

Once upon a time I had what I thought was a fantastically fun idea for a BOH. It involved a couple of little sculpted fishies, a cat, resin, and various other cute things. Everything was going great with the project until the resin. (I had bubble trouble.) Long story short: resin problems and my children and life in general kept postponing my finishing the project and I missed the deadline.
Here are a couple pics of the original cute critters:

So this week I merged the old with the new and came up with the Catch of the Day necklace.

I so enjoy fun, not serious pieces of jewelry. :) I think it even qualifies for the current Art Bead Scene monthly challenge. Summer vacation makes me think about camping at the lake and fishing. Now granted we've never caught any fish quite this colorful, but everything looks whimsical in my imagination.
I currently have it strung on a buna cord necklace, but I'm thinking about changing to a simple seed beaded necklace. What do you think?

Summery sherbert donuts?

2008-07-10T15:36:00.002-05:00

Obviously I could use some help naming these new earrings. LOL!

I think I'm going to play around with this design a little more. I like all the color possibilities.
The teeny little donut beads are a custom mix of translucent clay with inclusions. I originally made a couple larger beads with the new mix, but sadly the "quirky new shape" idea was a flop. But the inclusions really showed up nicely in the larger beads. Maybe I'll try it again for some pendants.

Anyway...I like it when ideas come to life. And I love bead clusters! I was letting the girls play in a box of old craft show jewelry leftovers recently, and I discovered some of my first cluster earrings. I was making trendy bead cluster earrings many years ago before they were all over Etsy. Go me! LOL!

Actually, I've been sifting thru lots of old jewelry and beads lately. I had forgotten that once upon a time (before internet surfing) I had lots of cool, unique jewelry and bead design ideas. The old stuff is pretty crude but the design ideas are there. I want to start revisiting those old ideas. It could be fun.

Shark tooth necklace

2008-07-02T12:00:00.004-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I made Garrett's shark tooth necklace. He picked 3 favorite teeth from the bag of found beach goodies. Two of them had really wonky "gum lines" that I wasn't looking forward to wire wrapping. The largest one had NO gumline, but it wirewrapped quite well so we decided to just use the one.

I made 2 pair of experiment beads that were supposed to go with that found beach treasure look. Garrett liked both pair so we used them all.
I also used some free buna cord I received from IB Moore. (thanks to a blog post from Heather Powers. Thanks Heather!) I didn't have any cord findings, so I made some wrapped end loops courtesty of this tutorial. I doubled up on the wrapping both for strength and for that manly-boy look. :)

Not feeling crafty

2008-06-27T14:30:00.006-05:00

Life is moving along at a normal pace, but craftiness is not in the air at my house. A handful of times I've sat down at the Happy Table and tried to make things but it never pans out.

...Original content edited out after reconsideration....

We finally made a trip back to Okla last weekend. We spent Sat. nite thru Tues. a.m. at Mom's. After 6 weeks down here it was nice to finally get to visit. Aaron got busy replacing the entire roof on the old, leaky Happy Room. So it was also a productive visit.
Here are a few shots of the kids enjoying fresh watermelon on the front porch.

And one last picture of them enjoying the red wagon in the backyard.

I brought home a bag of beach goodies we had found in N. Carolina. Garrett wants a necklace made from the shark teeth he found. Maybe that will be the project push I need to start feeling crafty again. I'll let you know. :)

Took the camcorder plunge!

2008-06-18T14:51:00.006-05:00

I am soooo excited!! I just ordered a new camcorder! Wheee!!! I've been nagging Aaron for 4 years about getting a new camera. We've comparison shopped (in the stores) several times and always walked away frustrated and totally confused. But I recently decided to stop putting it off (and complaining about not having one) and spend time properly researching and just buy one already.

The last time I bought a camcorder was 10 years ago. Oh my it's complicated nowadays! LOL! After weighing the pros and cons of mini dvd, hi def, mini dv, hard drive and all the options that go with....we decided to get a hard drive camcorder in the form of the Sony DCR SR85.

After I spent several days researching and learning about the camcorders, I spend another couple days reading reviews (and watching prices) on various stores featured on PriceGrabber. I just placed a phone order with Abe's and got a fantastic discounted price as well as a free camera bag and free shipping. (The free bag was only possible with a phone order.)

I'm so excited! Now, the free shipping option is for slow ground shipping but I can live with that. But still...I can't wait to start stalking my kids like the Mom Paparazzi! The last time I got quality video of them Emily was a wee baby. My Mom will have to buy some sort of DVD rolodex to keep all her home movie DVDs I'll be mailing her. :)

Crimp Impaired

2008-06-17T12:40:00.004-05:00

It would seem that I have forgotten how to use crimp beads. I am so frustrated. Granted it's been a couple years or more since I made crimped jewelry, but it's not rocket science. I seriously can not get one single crimp bead to crimp. (I cheated with the watercolor bead bracelet and only 1/2 crimped the ends...and the bracelet is slowly loosening b/c of it.)

At some point during our many moves in the past 4 years I have lost my old pair of crimping pliers. My trusty pliers that crimped a bazillion beads and made a 1/2 bazillion pieces of jewelry. Recently I bought a pair of inexpensive replacement pliers at Hobby Lobby. But I'm still using up silver plated crimp beads I got long ago from Fire Mtn. (I think.)

I believe the el-cheapo pliers package said they worked with 2mm or smaller beads. My beads are 2mm.

My problem is in the 2nd squeeze where you fold the bead in half. When I make the 2nd squeeze the bead gets pushed back open instead of folding shut. I have tried finessing it closed at several different angles but it never works. I NEVER had this problem in the past. Did I get a bad pair of pliers? I wondered if the U-channel is not deep enough. But I'm beginning to think it's just the operator and not the tool.

I even had Aaron give it a try. He had the same problem and decided the beads were too big for the pliers. Since he manipulates metal for a living I kind of trust his instincts. :) But here's a picture to let you see the size of the bead in the pliers:

(click to make bigger)

What do YOU think? Since the beads used to serve me well, do you think it's the pliers? What pliers and crimp beads do you use? I'd really like to hear what you think.

But I passed Watercolor 101

2008-06-10T20:16:00.006-05:00

After a 100% failure rate lately I finally made some good beads. I mixed up some 'citrus' colors in translucent and even found some cute silver flower accent beads at Michael's. It's been many many months since I've made any watercolor beads. It's one of my favorite techniques...it's just beautiful. So I thought I'd give it a go in bright citrusy colors. Colors which don't translate accurately on the computer. The colors are translucent but really vibrant!

I used silver leaf in the layers this time. It's not quite as visible as I'd hoped, but I'm still super pleased w/them. This direct sunlight picture shows more of the sparkle.

I wanted flat, comfy beads so I made sort of a flattened peanut shape. (In hopes of any accent beads nesting snuggly beside them.) It wasn't until AFTER assembling the 4th or 5th version of the bracelet that I decided to forget the flowers and go with the bead caps. (Which meant the peanut shape wasn't so great.)

I looove this bracelet. It feels great on. The beads buffed up to a wonderful shine and the flat shape is indeed super comfy. I may restring it one more time though. It's a tad too loose. I like snug bracelets. I ended up with about a 6 1/4" bracelet and I only need 6". Here it is on and modeled atop my blossoming tum-tum. :)

You can tell I love the beads and bracelet...I took a lot of pictures. :) (Click on any of them for a bigger version.)

Flunked Shaving Cream 101

2008-06-10T12:22:00.003-05:00

Lately I've been drawn to all beads speckled, mottled, variegated, and earthy looking. So I decided to try Gwen Gibson's shaving cream bead tutorial from an old Polymer Cafe. Sunday I went to Michael's and bought the Farmer's Market color pack of Adirondack Inks. Yesterday I decided to give the tutorial a try. I used some previously mixed off-white scrap clay and made some quick beads. (meaning I didn't mind the fingerprints) I had watched Linda Peterson's youtube video on shaving cream beads and wanted to try the heat gun technique.

After several different tries, and variations of everything, none of the beads speckled like I had hoped. Shield your eyes...these beads are uuugly.

I am so slow. Just now as I'm typing this did it dawned on me....you did not use Pinata Inks, you big dummy. Perhaps not all alcohol inks are created equal. Duh!!

Was that my major problem? Using the Adirondack Inks instead?
I tried mixing more/less ink-to-shaving cream ratio.
I tried physically mixing more/less. I thought perhaps it effected the amount of air bubbles in the cream. So some beads got thoroughly mixed cream while others got very two-toned barely stirred cream.
I tried really glopping it on the beads vs. a very thin coating of cream, and everything in between.
I tried low and high heat with the heat gun.
I tried horizontally hanging the beads in the oven vs. standing them on end with toothpicks.
I even tried rotating the (horizontal) beads a 1/2 turn during baking.

The 8 beads on the right were mostly heavy cream coated. Some heat gun, some oven. I also gave them a single coat of Future to try to minimize the ugliness.

The 6 beads on the left were new Kato clay. Less ink in the cream. All oven baked. Actually...1 of those 6 was a heat gun bead. With a teeny thin layer of cream. It turned out the best! But then I ruined it by trying a 2nd super thin layer of cream on top of it. (Duh!)

The 3 small beads used leftover cream mixtures with a few drops of Posh Impressions metallic inks added in. Those beads actually speckled better than the rest but the metallic inks left a raised icky residue.

Overall....it was a totally disappointing afternoon at the clay table. I googled the subject and found that I'm not the only one who had less than great first results. But I am an instant gratification gal. With the exception of my 13 years in a classical ballet studio, I am NOT a try try again person. If it doesn't work perfectly the first time...I'm moving on! :)
Sadly, the last couple weeks at the clay table have been failed experiments. After this shaving cream flop yesterday I was totally frustrated and ready to pack it in. But then...I made some great beads! Which I'll share with you tomorrow. ;)

As for the shaving cream beads....do you have any advice to share? I'd love to hear it! I was really excited to make some pretty speckled beads, but I must admit that my enthusiasm fizzled almost as quickly as the hot shaving cream.

Can't Touch This

2008-06-07T17:02:00.001-05:00

This is totally unrelated and non-crafty...but it makes me giggle every time the commercial comes on. Mainly b/c bald white boy gots moves! :)
Enjoy!

Bracelet for Mom

2008-06-06T18:38:00.003-05:00

I made some prototype beads a couple weeks ago. It all started with one little sculpted bead that I planned to make a mold of. I did not get a great mold made so I started using the bead as a stamp. The first stamped prototypes were in earthy browns. (I didn't like them.) So I opted to try black with orange. This way IF they turned out cute, my Mom could get a new OSU bracelet out of the experiment. :)

(It's hard to photograph a floppy bracelet that doesn't fit my own wrist! I took a dozen shots and these 3 were the least sucky.)

Originally I had planned on a simple, casual, stretchy bracelet. Then I decided to try and dress up the beads with lots of silver. I didn't have any silver beads that thrilled me, so I pulled out the wire.
Overall I like the bracelet. It's totally swirly and that always pleases me. But I am concerned with how well it will wear. I was going for low-profile and comfy for typing/computer work. There is a lot of tangle potential with all those S-swirls and jumprings though...so only time will tell if my guinea pig, er..Mom, finds it a comfortable piece of jewelry.

Have I mentioned I'm not a jewelry designer?! I'm a bead maker. I suck at designing and engineering finished pieces of jewelry. I just don't *see* it. (I can't decorate my house either!) So I will probably try more of the little flower beads with different bracelet ideas. Probably. Well, maybe. I've got a brand new page of idea sketches sitting on the clay table that are begging to be tried. (ADD strikes again!) :)

New treasury

2008-06-06T15:34:00.003-05:00

I happened upon a treasury spot today. It's been ages! I had no themes in mind, so I went to my favorites and just started picking. Which was harder than I thought it would be.

So...would you like to have a look and do the clicky-clicky thing?! :) You might find something you just gotta have!

The new Warrior

2008-05-31T21:29:00.004-05:00

Since the move we've been a one car family. And thanks to the crazy price of gas, Aaron's new work vehicle is a motorcycle. He's had a couple bikes in the past and has been itching for another. Since we've been spending nearly $100/week on gas, I didn't complain too much about the new bike. I mean, it gets 52 mpg!

Anyway...he got it Thursday. Today he gave the girls rides around our neighborhood. They loved it.

Garrett was playing at his friend's house or he might have gone too. I say might...he's like his Mom and has NO desire to ride a motorcycle. :)

Here's a shot of the side profile. Isn't it a handsome bike?

FYI: You can click on any of those and see bigger pics at flickr.
Also FYI: They only rode around our little 2 street neighborhood. So please no 'you suck as a parent' emails. Thanks. :) AND Aaron rides with long pants, real shoes, and a helmet at all times. He's like the posterboy for motorcycle safety when he's really riding. Just so you know. :)

Skirt buttons, round 1

2008-05-31T11:39:00.002-05:00

A few months ago I found Emily a cute, denim skort at a second-hand store. It looks new except for one missing button. (there are 3 total) I knew right away that I would make 3 new PC buttons for it. I mean, WHY spend 5 minutes on the button isle at W@lmart when I can spend days or weeks experimenting w/PC buttons, right? :)

Recently Mossy Owl blogged about all her fabulous new button creations and it inspired me to finally stop procrastinating and make those 3 buttons. I decided on light blue buttons that I would white wash. I wanted cute but understated so that the skort could be worn with any color shirt.

I really like the buttons, but they don't look good on the skort.

The white wash didn't work for me either. So that had to go. But the buttons came out really cute, I think. I may put them in the Etsy store b/c I don't sew, so they certainly won't get used at my house. LOL!

First soldered pendant

2008-05-29T13:30:00.009-05:00

I have a tendency to 'jump in the deep end' when I try a new hobby. When I first picked up polymer clay I did so with the intention of making caned beads (for my hemp jewelry). So I picked up a copy of Nan Roche's book on ebay and with my SIII I made a ladybug cane.

Actually, I think I made a spiral jellyroll cane first. But this was my 2nd cane ever, so I didn't wade in the kiddie pool for long. :)

My first seed beading project was the same way. I went to the local bead shop and bought Creative Bead Weaving, a bunch of delicas, and went home to make this square stitch bracelet.

I even drew my own geometric patterns on graph paper and used my original pattern. That sucker took me forEVER. I never wore it. It's way too big for me. But I keep it for sentimental reasons. :)

Now for the subject of this post. My latest *buy a book and attempt the hardest project* project. LOL! The lupin pendant from Silver Threads.

It has been complete for several months now, but just today I saw it and decided to photograph it. It's not bad for a first big soldering project, I think. I made a little faux stone cab for it. Today I realized that I need to sand and buff the cab more. It's not nearly shiny enough. But the mica powders still give such a cool iridescent effect.

I have not glued the cab into place yet. As a matter of fact, it fell out several times while I tried to take pics. I may make a totally different cab for it yet.

The pendant is 2 1/8" tall by 1" wide. Do you think I should oxidize it?

I'm saving up my pennies (a.k.a. Etsy sales) for a tumbler. Once I buy one I will try more solder projects. I'd like to get it for polishing AND strengthening the finished pieces. Until then I think I'll just stick to my trusty clay. I'm getting too fat and pregnant to be jumping off the deep end right now. ;)

Bag lady Emily

2008-05-21T16:11:00.002-05:00

I always accuse Emily of acting like a bag lady. When she moves from room to room, or goes to the bathroom (this particular one drives me NUTS) she gathers up everything she's been playing with and takes it with her.

I couldn't resist capturing today's bag lady moment. Here she is in her sleeping shirt (at 4pm in the afternoon), her little sister's pants, a baby toboggan, a tiara, and mis-matched high heel shoes. WITH her shopping cart no less! Now all she needs is a pink glittery bridge to live under. LOL!

Rainbow group

2008-05-20T21:23:00.002-05:00

Rainbow group
Originally uploaded by ~Christie

I've had these guys sitting on the happy table over a week now. I think I'm the slowest clayer ever. LOL! Didn't I say, not too long ago, that I was not making lady bugs anymore? They are so cute I couldn't resist. Besides, I *cheated* by painting on all the spots. I still made 24 tiny white clay balls and 24 minuscule black clay balls for all the eyes. :)

All these little guys are going to be new sets of stitch markers. They should make the etsy store nice and colorful!

Rainy days and Mondays

2008-05-19T22:25:00.003-05:00

I almost waited too long to make this post on Monday. The afternoon and evening just got away from me.

Anyway, here's a new pair of earrings appearing in the Etsy store today.

This is one of those rare times the creation materialized almost exactly like my mental image. Woohoo! :) I really like these earrings. They are shiny and sparkly and whimsical but not too weird to wear. At least not in my opinion.

While I made them I kept humming Winnie the Pooh's song...oh I'm just a little black rain cloud hovering over the honey tree. Except I sang blue instead of black. :) It was after I'd grown tired of that song that I started humming The Carpenter's song. LOL!

I used some of the fabulous glittery white Fimo in the blue mixture. (I think ALL colors of clay should come in that fantastic glitter version. I love that stuff!) I love the glitter but Fimo Soft is like working with butter. So frustrating. If I ever make more cloud earrings it will be w/out Fimo Soft.

The swirly cloud design is a revisited idea. A little over a year ago I experimented with fun wire and TLS to make this magnet for a weekly Claypen chat.

The clouds and the rainbow are just TLS inside wire borders. Then I raised them off the yellow background with tiny clay spacers. In real life it gives a nice 3D effect. Anyway, I like the swirly cartoon clouds. They are a reoccurring doodle in my idea notebook.

Leafy stitch markers

2008-05-16T16:10:00.004-05:00

I rediscovered these leaf canes in my cane box and decided to reduce them and give them new life as stitch markers. I so enjoy leaf canes. I'm sure it has something to do with my love for trees.
You know, the blue and purple leaf canes were an unfinished idea of mine. (90% of my ideas end up that way) I had planned to make a cane of each primary color and make a rainbow tree! Except it was going to be this elaborate 3-dimensional sculpted tree. *sigh* It has the potential to be really cool...if it ever comes to life someday. :)

Life in the South

2008-05-14T21:15:00.003-05:00

I've lived nearly my entire life in 'the south'. This time I've only traveled one state further south, but it's certainly different down here.

Little gecko lizards run around here like grasshoppers did in Okla. Luckily I'm not squeamish about geckos but it still takes some getting used to!

Snakes! Apparently snakes (venomous ones) are also common here. This is a neighbor I am not willing to get to know. There was one living under our AC unit (outside!!) when we moved in. Aaron killed it straight away. The kids receive regular reminders about snakes and staying away from them.

Humidity! The temperature and the humidity level are usually equal. Ugh. I'm going to start referring to this place as The Amazon. It's just...ew.

So far one thing I do enjoy is all the trees. I loooooove trees. This area is very tree covered. So when I'm looking out my windows (I am NOT going outside in the humidity) I see nothing but trees. That makes me smile. :)

We live in a lake city. We do not have a boat, but it's nice to see water and boats everywhere.
We are close enough to Houston that all the cities run end to end basically. This makes for lots of shopping. Right now there is no shopping money available, but when there is...look out! :)

We are close to a major metro, but far enough away that it has been nearly impossible to get internet and cable tv!! It has been a huge frustration! Right now I'm online thanks to my FIL's wireless GSM card. I've been here nearly 2 weeks with no internet, tv, or phone. I was *this close* to a stutter and a violent twitch. I'm not joking. I'm hoping to have service started next week. Hope! Thanks to FIL's card at least I won't need medication or therapy first.

I've spent the last couple days at the clay table. Yay! I've even made several things. The no contact with the outside world thing has given me lots of free time. LOL! That and it's so much easier keeping this smaller house clean! Anyway, I'll take pictures and get my Etsy store going again soon. It's so nice to sit at that table and piddle all day!

One picture I do have tonight is of Miss Emily. She turned 3 yesterday! Here she is showing off some new shoes. Every girl needs a pair of pink feathered shoes!

Ho.Lee.Cow.

2008-04-18T15:07:00.004-05:00

How long has it been since I've blogged about anything polymer clay related that I created?! A long damn time! LOL!
I did not blaze any new PC trails but at least I MADE something. :)

A custom set of stitch markers for a very sweet and patient Etsier. I had forgot how tedious those bugs are. Those teeny tiny black balls required for all the spots. They are like large grains of sand. Ho.Lee.Cow.

Here is a pair of earrings I made last week. An extremely belated bday gift for Mom.

Seriously belated. Her bday was February. LOL! I had made her a soldered pair of earrings that looked really cool in my mind...but didn't quite cut it in real life. These look so incredibly cute on Mom. The size and dangle factor are perfect for her cute head.

This will be my first and last crafty post for a while. Today I'm packing up the Happy Room. :( May 2nd is our move-in date at our new house. It's killing us to pay $350 more a month to rent about 700 fewer square feet of house than we live in now BUT....it's in the school district we wanted and the overall package is really nice. So we'll deal w/the pocketbook pain for now. Plus it had a dishwasher! I've been w/out dishwasher since October. So I'll enjoy that for sure.

So.....I'll still be "around" but not for a while. I'm checking my google reader when I can, so those of you with blogs may see me pop in now and then. Later taters!

Progession of destruction

2008-04-09T15:33:00.004-05:00

It's raining. A steady rain that is forecasted to last another day or two.
We have had a leak in the Happy Room since we moved in. A minor drip type leak. The past water damage is quite extensive (flaking ceiling texture, damaged plaster, water spots) but when it actually leaks it's very manageable. During earlier rains Aaron poked a few screwdriver holes in the drippy area in hopes of concentrating the drips to that spot. (The drips sort of moved around a few long cracks in the plaster.) The little holes didn't work. :)

Today the rains brought back the drips. I decided to get on the ladder and pull off the moist plaster around the drip. It was starting to fall to the floor anyway. So I broke off the moist areas until I had made a sizable hole, but at least it was far enough away from the drip that the plaster was staying dry.

Then I got my broom and cleaned up what plaster missed the xtra large trash bag. No harm done really.

I then decided to sweep the ceiling a bit to break away a few little pieces of dangling ceiling texture. Totally innocent idea, right? That is what caused some additional plaster to fall to the floor. Being the Captain Destructo that I am (insert trumpeting music and red cape rippling in the breeze)...I decided to poke the perimeter of the hole with my broom handle and see what else easily fell off.

A poke quickly progressed to full aggressive jabbing. (Demolition is fun!) A short time later I had covered the floor with debris and made this lovely hole in the ceiling.

You can see the original screwdriver holes in the top blue circle. The bottom blue circle is my estimate of the hole before I started breaking away moist plaster today. Isn't is odd where good intentions can lead you?! They can either get you absolutely nowhere...or smack in the middle of a huge mess.

The bedroom that isn't

2008-04-03T15:21:00.006-05:00

Do you remember, during the initial tour of the house, the big brown room? It has been a storage room and is currently the wood working room. But after we leave it will be Mom's bedroom. Hard to believe looking at it today:

That picture makes you a little woozy, doesn't it?! :)

The biggest task will be cleaning it out. Luckily all that heavy machinery is not my problem. :) We had plans to make this our master bedroom suite some day. Expand the bathroom a little and build a closet. But now the new plan is to make the room squeaky clean and build some simpler hanging clothes space. Here's the view from the other end of the room:

Oh yeah, the crappy hollow core door (to the backyard) will be replaced. Not this week of course. The backdoor and the closet will happen on a weekend in the near future. Aaron intends to drive home on the weekends. 860 miles round trip. Ouch.

Visual progress

2008-04-03T11:35:00.003-05:00

Just before we leave. Greeeeat. :)

Remember the damage that occurred because of the releveling? Remember this hole in the living room?

It got much bigger the day after I took that picture. (Actually, I took a few WIP pictures this week as the entire wall came down but they have vanished. I must have deleted them by accident when I was cleaning vacation pics off the camera. GGRRR!!) Anyway...this hole got bigger and looked exactly like a reversed image of the state of Texas. We joked about it for weeks and THEN...Texas jumped into our future. It was a sign! Like in Final Destination! OY! I should have taken a sledge hammer to that wall weeks ago.

Ok, back to the subject at hand. Visual progress.
We had fun tearing down the entire wall and Aaron has almost finished replacing it.

You can see the adjacent wall is getting plaster repairs. As are many many other walls in the house. They should be paintable soon.

And since Mom is moving in with a plethora of pooches, there is a new fence going up around the backyard.

It has been a rainy week, so it's not complete yet. Rain or not, I'm sure he'll be out working on it today and tomorrow after work. He leaves Saturday.
That gate cracks me up. Those metal gussets are aviation grade aluminum. He made them at work. That is the same material they use to repair and modify the skins of airplanes. These gates will be air worthy. LOL!

The fence goes down the side street to the alley and around the back of the storage shed. This picture shows how much is left to complete. It will run down the alley and meet up with the neighbors white fence (just barely visible on the left).

(That is the neighbor's sweet dog coming over to say hi.) There will be a large double gate somewhere in that span. In the front of the house, between the side of our garage and the neighbor's white fence there will be a gate. It's a narrow walkway. That gate will completely close in the backyard.
A lot to complete in only 2 short, rainy evenings. May the force be with him!

40" inseam?

2008-04-02T10:06:00.002-05:00

I can not possibly comprehend standing at 6'6" tall. I *grew up* to be a whopping 5'2". And until I had my 2nd baby I pretty much maintained my ballet dancer size. So all my clothing problems revolved around pants being too long and all the *grown up* shoes being 3 sizes too big. It wasn't until marrying Aaron that I caught a glimpse of life on the other end of the size spectrum.

The man needs jeans with a 40 inch inseam! Have you ever shopped for 40" inseam jeans?! From what we have found they are almost a figment of a wild imagination. Shopping "big & tall" is a joke. That's code word for fat guy clothes. I've spent the last 3 hours surfing for Aaron some jeans. So far no luck. Well, no luck finding anything NEW.

From what he's found there are 2 brands of jeans that make a 40" length. Wrangler and Cinch. Right now he wears Cinch jeans. As you can see they are sold as cowboy jeans. Since boot wearing fellows like their jeans to stack up at the bottom these jeans work well for Aaron. Only his don't stack...they just rest nicely atop his tennis shoes and don't high-water. :) Cinch jeans don't look as cowboy-ish as Wranglers. We don't do cowboy. :)

By any chance do you know of another brand of freakishly long jeans? I wonder where Michael Jordan shops? HA!! I'm sure his closet is full of specialty made pants. Aside from his underwear I don't think we can afford his clothes. :)

We. Are. Home.

2008-03-28T13:25:00.004-05:00

Please imagine me saying that with the biggest, most content sigh ever. :) Here are 2 of my 3 totally content children. My Mom came over yesterday to give the gift of welcome home house cleaning as well as leave the kids their easter baskets. After we arrived, the girls made themselves comfortable and began consuming mass amounts of chocolate. :) Garrett is now playing xbox and the girls are playing with all their toys like they are brand new. It's good to be home!

Our trip home was smooth. We made a quick stop by Graceland, but only to snap a pic from across the street and eat lunch. I was not been feeling well so we didn't take time to do the big guided tour. We made the detour for the family visit and now we are HOME.

And I have to tell you...now that I'm home I do not want to leave my home. Neither one of us wanted to leave in the first place, but now that we're here again...I've felt like crying ever since we walked in the door. Not that it would be the first time I've cried since all this news came about (or the 2nd or 3rd..) but being here makes it more real. Oh to be not-pregnant and less emotional about all this. :)

I need to take a deep breath and my friend Susan's attitude and look towards the positives. After all, my home is where ever my wonderful little family is at the end of the day, right?

I would love to say I'll start blogging at PC again soon BUT....I have to start packing now. Well, I'll start after I've slept for a few days. Speaking of sleep...I'm going to put Lydia down for a late nap and lay myself down on MY bed and relax. My bed...oh how I've missed it!!

You're not gonna believe this

2008-03-24T19:06:00.005-05:00

We're going home tomorrow! Well, not home tomorrow but we're starting the journey home tomorrow. The van is partially packed. Aaron and I will make one last trip to the breakfast room tomorrow (early!!) and then put the sleepy kids in the car to begin the journey. After a layover at the relative's house we should get home Friday. Thank goodness!

But wait...I have far bigger news. This is what the title line was really referring to....

We're moving.
Yep. Moving. As in, moving out of the house we worked so hard to get in to. Out of the house that still looks like this and this and is totally unsaleable or rentable.
Long story extremely short: We bought it in September. Late October Aaron's employer was bought out by another company. Shortly after that a "reorganization" began to take place. Things have been getting progressively worse for him and his coworkers since October. ("if only" the reorganization had happened in July or August!!!) The employer continues to promote the undeserving and penalize the dedicated employees. Hell, he's lucky he wasn't laid off with many others the past few months. Anyway....a company in Houston wants Aaron. They made him 2 offers. The 2nd one he could not turn down. Neither one of us want to move down there. At all. (imagine very strong emphasis on the "at all") But the fact is, his current job situation is a ticking time bomb and this is a life raft to jump on before the ship goes down.

The house is definitely a problem. But it so happens that my Mom is in the market for a place. She is saving our asses by living in the house for the time being. We will contract out the work and try to get it sale ready from a distance.

So!! Just when we thought life was settling down....WRONG! :) The kids and I will remain at home for a few weeks while Aaron starts the new job. Some of his family lives there. I am researching school districts like a mad woman, and Aaron will take my info and house hunt for us. So please think some positive thoughts for us, ok? For the time being we live in "play it by ear" mode.

22 days

2008-03-20T10:10:00.003-05:00

That's how long we've been away from home. And while I don't miss being there at all, I do miss my bed and my space. Unfortunately much housework goes along with much space, but I'm ready to make that sacrifice. :) I need to be able to put all my kids in bed behind their bedroom DOORS and for me to do the same. But all in all, our time here has passed by fairly quickly and painlessly. I can not tell you how much I have not missed housework!

We were supposed to be leaving Friday, but as no surprise to us, they changed that to Tuesday or Wednesday. We have big weekend plans though. We will be spending Saturday nite here in D.C. I fear that with all our children in tow we will look like the Clampett's in the big city. LOL! The weather is not what I'd prefer for sightseeing. I would like it to be about 10-15 degrees warmer! But Aaron has his heart set on visiting D.C. while we are so close, so I am being optimistic. And I totally understand where's he's coming from. We are 245 miles away. Slightly better than our usual 1,345 miles away. Besides...inclement weather will only add to the memories, right?! :) I've been there before, but Aaron really has no clue as to the magnitude of it all. I'm just going to tag along w/my camera and try not to whine too much.

Nothing much else to tell I guess. Well, nothing I feel like blogging that is. ~~I'm sure I'll be back here Monday with D.C. stories.~~

Edited to add: We canceled the weekend excursion. For a couple different reasons. Anyone who's known me for very long knows that our life goes through these phases where it's changing moment to moment. We happen to be in one of those phases right now. (Woo. Hoo.) More on that later perhaps.

Aquarium day

2008-03-16T14:37:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was a nice weather day so we ventured up to VA and went to the VA Beach aquarium. It's an interesting setup there. They split the exhibits between 2 buildings that are separated by a 1/3 mile nature trail. Along the trail are several 'extra' trails to take and explore. After walking all the trails (we did NOT walk the extra trails on the return trip) AND walking the 2 building, the girls and I were beat! Here are a few pictures:

Inside a replica Indian hut:

Watching the otters play:

They watched 3 otters 'wrestling' for several minutes when Dad realized...those otters aren't wrestling! LOL!

There are several more pics here in the album if you are interested. :)

PC flickrness

2008-03-14T14:04:00.003-05:00

In an attempt to bring some polymer clay back into this polymer clay blog....I thought I'd share some of the beautiful creations found in my flickr contacts this week.

I'm disappointed my flickr friend Ilil Ziv disabled the 'blog this' feature on her pictures, because she's made some fantastic clay covered glass pieces this week. So click on her name and check them out. This bowl is my favorite. I love how she didn't do the typical spiral out from the center. It looks like it's moving!

crackledfloraneck2
Originally uploaded by rubarb04

Barbara Farjado has taken her flower beads to a whole new stunning level. I didn't think they could get any prettier...but they have.

Asian Inspired Matchbox Amulet
Originally uploaded by Marcia Palmer

I wish I had just a sprinkling of Marcia Palmer's creativity. She's always creating such wonderful things, and this turquoise pendant is no exception.

Hummingbird Bud Vase Group Shot
Originally uploaded by Claylady43

The talented sculptor, Penni Jo, has been very busy making ceramic molds of an original PC creation. Look at all those beautiful color choices.

Pink-Spring Flower Cane
Originally uploaded by Ronit golan

Spring has officially sprung at Ronit Golan's clay table. Her use of colors is always inspiring, no matter what the season. It would seem life is never dull in her imagination. :)

And on a side note: My apologies for all the deleted posts in your google reader. Because everyone (except me, I guess) has disabled direct linking of flickr photos I had to 'blog this' for each picture and then do some HTML hacking. Sort of takes the fun out of doing a multi-photo blog post like this. But I decided sharing all this PC goodness was worth the hassle.

Do you make lotion?

2008-03-11T15:53:00.003-05:00

I'd like to give it a try. Not to mass produce, just for myself. After 3 long, itchy pregnancies I'd like to have my own luxurious lotion to slather on my growing tummy this time around. Allow me to think out loud about what I've been finding online today. And please feel free to leave any advice you might have!

I hate the smell of cocoa butter. Haaaate it. Today I discovered that cocoa butter comes in a refined version that is unscented. Woohoo!!
I love the feel of shea butter lotion. So I'm looking for a combo (unscented) cocoa butter and shea butter lotion.
My tummy is sensitive to fragrance right now. But there are a few smells I can still enjoy in moderation. Another reason I'd like to mix my own.
Sandlewood, lavender and vanilla (in moderation), chamomile. Yeap...that's about it for now. LOL!
I used to wear BLV perfume. Which has nothing to do w/the lotion making stuff, I just felt like throwing that in. :)
I found this recipe for a belly cream for preggos. It looks fairly easy to execute. But, do I have to measure grams with an electric scale? I don't want to invest in one.
Now this recipe is measured in teaspoons and tablespoons. But there are more ingredients to buy.
Where do I buy borax? It sounds familiar. Is it a grocery store item?
How do I know how much EO fragrance I can add?
Should I buy a book on lotion making? Or can the internet teach me all I need to know? I found this book on Amazon and initially thought it looked good. But the reviews are mixed and make me think it's not right for my purpose.
Holy crap! I just found this list of websites with premade bases. Another option I've been looking at. You guys....this is far too many options. I'll be comparison shopping for days! LOL! I hope some of you reading this will have advice or experience on this topic. Because I'm beginning to think I just need to buy some lotion on Etsy. I found several shops with cocoa/shea butter lotions that will scent to suit.
But where's the fun in giving up before I even try it?! I could spend money on all new crafty supplies! LOL!

The fridge in our crib

2008-03-04T09:53:00.005-06:00

Have you ever watched MTV's Cribs? They always show what the rich people keep in the fridge. I opened our tiny mini-fridge earlier and laughed. It made me think of a teeny version of a Crib's fridge. All packed up tight with convenience foods.

Except that we stick to the $1 dinners. :)

The kids played in the pool last nite. I wasn't feeling up to it, so I took pictures. Aaron will hate this picture since he looks like a total goob...but I'm sharing it anyway. :)

I'm not sure what happened with the reflections and his chest. In real life he does not look like a raisin bagel. LOL!
Garrett and Emily floating around.

And little miss rainbow swimsuit.

I took a dozen pictures of her, trying to capture her sitting on the edge kicking her feet and laughing. But she's always on the move.

Day at the beach

2008-03-02T19:55:00.005-06:00

Well, not really. It was more like 15 minutes at the beach freezing our ears off, driving around the Outer Banks, and finally a couple hours at a sand dune state park area. I'm afraid I left all my sightseeing books down in the car, so bear with me while I'm vague on the facts. :)

Somewhere in Kitty Hawk we walked out on the beach and officially saw the Atlantic. It was a balmy 49 degrees today and the beach wind was fierce. The girls were completely freaked out by the waves rolling in. Emily thought they were after her. Here is proof they were there but they didn't like it.

Garrett and I were there too.

After driving around a while we stopped for lunch and visited the pier out back afterwards.

The girls thought some squawking birds were cool.

Miss Emily never passes up a photo op.

In Nags Head we found sand dunes.

Just over the high point (where Garrett is waving) is the (Alberlmarle?) sound.

Aaron just had to climb the broken tower that said STAY OFF. He's all for setting the good example.

Here are all 4 of my kids before wading into the sound. (MUCH less wind here)

The water was only ankle deep for a long way out. The kids had a great time splashing around in it. Garrett ran until he was wet to his chest. (He got to ride home in his undies.) I took a couple little (soundless) videos. I hope you can view them. The first one is the kids playing. The 2nd video I call "My husband Jesus". He walked waaaaay out there. The video clip only shows the first few moments...then Emily fell down and I had to see to her.

1400 miles later

2008-03-01T18:55:00.002-06:00

Our home for the next 2-3 weeks. Notice it's not suite size. *sigh* The hotel would not take the gov't rate for a suite. (buttheads!) So we're in a regular old room. It's tighter quarters than we'd like, but hey...go with the flow, right? :)

Did you catch that 2 to 3 week bit? It seems, after Aaron agreed to come, that they decided his leave date is "TBD". 2 weeks changed to at least 2 weeks to 2-4 weeks to May 11th. Yeah...some email said May 11th. Can you believe that?! Corporate b.s. is so...b.s. Anyway...we're being optimistic for a short stay.

Our trip out was mostly uneventful. The scenery was nice when it wasn't raining. The Smokey Mountains were nice. I loooove mountains and trees. I miss seeing that out my door everyday. *sigh* Lydia threw up once the first day. The 2nd day we bought dramamine. :) Today we just chilled and relaxed and swam. Tomorrow we plan to visit the Atlantic. So I should have more pictures and stories soon. Later taters!

We're leaving!

2008-02-27T11:20:00.003-06:00

We're going on a very impromptu vacation. Thank goodness everyone is pretty much over the stomach flu! The girls are still having problems w/the liquid tooshies, but thanks to diapers we can still roadtrip that way. :)

Anyway. Aaron's work is sending him to Elizabeth City, NC for 2 weeks. And he's arranged it so we can go too. Yay! Instead of one round-trip plane ticket he gets that's money for gas. And instead of a small hotel room 5 minutes from work, they are trying to get a 2 room family suite in a hotel just over the VA border. So he'll get mileage to/from each day I believe.

ANYWAY! We actually get to go somewhere for 2 weeks! Somewhere pretty! Away from BFE and back to coastal life for 2 glorious weeks. Woohoo!! From what I understand it's still a 40 hour/week gig with no weekends. So we'll even get a little family sightseeing time. Even if we have to squeeze into the little hotel room, I'm still excited. :)

I have to get hopping on massive laundry and bag packing now. I'm optimistic about WiFi and internet there, so hopefully I'll be online while we're away. Hopefully!
Later taters!

4 down

2008-02-25T10:17:00.002-06:00

As in 4 of our 5 people down with stomach flu. Blech! Last Tuesday (19th) Emily and I went to the grocery store, W@lm@rt, and the PO. In one of those places Emily picked up a nasty stomach virus. By 6:45 the following morning she woke up vomiting. Poor thing could not keep ice chips down!
By 3am the following morning I woke up with it. Same story, only middle of the nite.
By about 9am (same morning) Lydia had it. By 8pm that evening Garrett was vomiting too. FUN!

Thank goodness Aaron was already off work Wednesday, and took off the rest of the week to nurse us all. Oh my gosh...he saved my bacon. Oh yeah...Aaron never got it. I call him my alien husband. He never gets sick. It's the weirdest damn thing I've ever seen. (especially since I was the kid who practically got her mail delivered to the pediatrician's office growing up!)

ANYWAY. The vomiting passes in 4-6 hours, but the sensitive tummies last much longer. The girls are still dealing with liquid hineys, and poor Emily threw up 2 more times just last nite. Apparently she's inherited Mom's super sensitive tummy. :(

We're all recovering. Some of us slower than others. Looks like the girls and I will snuggle and hold down the couch for yet another day. Aaron is back at work today. We had him home for 11 days. It was really nice and he got a bunch of (hidden) progress done on the house. But that post will have to wait for another day. Looking at this screen still makes me queasy. For now I'm outa here. :)

Aw look!

2008-02-19T11:34:00.002-06:00

It's a real baby!

We lucked into another ultrasound yesterday. Dr. could not find the heartbeat using the little doppler thingy, so she did a quick ultrasound to make sure the heartbeat was normal. (it was) But look! It looks like a real little baby now. Just 4 weeks ago it looked like a lima bean blob.
I labeled the picture for those of you who aren't ultrasound savvy. :) From what I read, the bean is now 2.5 inches long and weighs a whole half ounce.

My doctor is awesome. Yesterday she asked "So how many more times are we doing this?" I answered "None. I'm done." She replied, "Oh, ok!" And the conversation ended with smiles all around. Sooo much different (and nicer!) than my previous Dr. Old Fart. Who started EVERY damn appointment with "So, are we scheduling a tubal??"
Ugh!! Good riddance Old Fart!! :)