Junk and Disorderly

I know, it's been awhile since I have last posted. I have been trying to keep up with customer quilts and working on the house. With 3 rooms being worked on at the same time, it's beginning to look like it's junk and disorderly! Everything from the laundry room and then some have spilled into my studio.

The floors have been cut away where there was water damage and repaired.


An access panel is being built behind the shower in case we should have to get to it again. The toilet removed to lay down the luan sub flooring.

We weren't really using the garden tub and I decided to have more space, so it was removed along with those big mirrors on the wall so more walls to paint and more drywall mud.

Even Miss Swiffer was trying to get a make over with the sanded drywall. She was working on a geisha girl look! LOL

My kitchen is a little disrupted too since I am removing the pantry shelving unit and putting in a doorway between the kitchen and the bedroom.


I also have a new closet added in the bedroom and the double doors for the walk in closet will soon give way to sliding doors. For now the bedroom is torn up and the bed piled high full of stuff so I have been sleeping on the sofa. I am not sure how many cats are stuffed in boxes, but looks like we have found Miss Swiffer!


In between all of this I have gotten some quilting done. This one had to be done before Thanksgiving, so another reason I haven't had the time to post! It turned out really well and is going to a college student which is for his birthday.

I love the batik fabric she has for the border.

I was also working on quilts on my birthday which was on the 21st. I haven't even had the chance to celebrate or even blog about it. LOL Aw well, just another day. I shall celebrate big time when the house gets back together. Well I shall be off trying to get another deadline quilt finished. Hubby is getting the ceiling painted in the utility room so I have a break until tomorrow when I get back to working on the cabinets and the walls in the bathroom.
It will be awhile, but I know it will all be worth it in the end. Hopefully that there will be some dramatical changes very soon to show off. I shall update as we progress.

Caught Red Handed

I did some experimenting. I had gotten 9 nosegays at a yard sale for a great bargain of $5.00! My niece is getting married this next year and she is having red roses and calla lilies for her wedding. Since the cream was really not in the scheme of things and she wanted something more contemporary, I mixed some Set-A-Color dye paints and sprayed them. I think they turned out great! Now just hope she approves and if not, well, I don't have lots of money tied up into them. Thought that they would be great on the tables for the reception. All she has to do now is get some terra cotta clay pots, spray them black and they will be perfect sitting in them for a contemporary look.



I did them outdoors so that I wouldn't have a mess! I think that they turned out great! Sure changed the appearance!

I got red handed! So if I were to do this again, I would have worn gloves, but really it did clean off quite easily and didn't stain.

It must have been red day as I was also working on red quilts the past couple of days getting ready for the holidays! I swear that it gets sooner every year.


Here is a close up. I had a leaf like template that I drew half of it and made a cathedral arch. I love the look of it! I also did lots of ditch quilting so as to show the designs off more in the applique.


Here is another one of Carol's quilts that I finished up with. She relied more on the quilting to make up the design than the pattern.





I am getting ready to ship all of these off in the mail on Monday. I am hoping that I will be seeing red again soon as I anxiously await my red camera!

Quite Crafty!

After halloween, I start getting "crafty" when it comes to the holiday season. I just placed an order for a camcorder that I had my eyes set on at Staples. She's a beauty and in a holiday red too! Anyway, the price rather made me back off, but started to figure out ways to afford the $399. camera. Quite often they run sales and it was listed as $25. off plus another special buy coupon for $75. off so it made it $299. As it turns out if you purchase it online, you get another $25.00 off so now it is $274. So, while that is pretty good, it even got better than that! I have a premier status with Staples, so I bring in 20 ink cartridges in every month to recycle. (How? With home and hubby saving them for me at work! Yes, we get that many!) So each month I get a rewards check for $40.00 to spend as I wish. I had 3 of these saved up for the past 3 months, so that totaled $120. additional that I could knock off the camcorder, making it $154.00! I get free shipping besides, so with tax, the total came to $167.14 .... but wait! It even gets better than this! At the retreat, the girls presented me a surprise gift of $200. cash! I saved it so that means I was in the black with $32.86 and had enough left over for an SD memory card for it! Yippie!!!! And that's how you get crafty and get a $400. camcorder for free!

Along with the crafty department, here are some recent pieces that I made this past week.

I am hosting a trade on FAT this week. Here are some that I designed. These carriers hold nail files and such that would make wonderful Christmas gifts.

I designed the fish one to take a cover off and it reveals it's contents as well as a clever little pouch (the fin) stores the nail clipper. All are made from felt and faux suede.

In another group that I am in, they were doing a contest on a zetti ornament so this is my interpretation. The girl was actually playing a flute and I turned it into a candy cane. The skirt is painted on checkerboard style while the legs came from another photo, the wings made up separately and hand water colored in. I glued it all on card stock. I embellished with sparkling sticky craft foam, added fun wire, buttons and beads.

While on our trip, I also sketched out a Xmas stocking. I cut it out in felt and craft foam. I got it beaded while at the hotel and then finished sewing it together when I got back home. I love the funky festive design and colors. Couldn't you see one of Santa's elves wearing this?

I have also been working on some customer quilts to finish up in time for the holidays, so it's off to work I go, but it was fun making crafty things come to life while it lasted!

Home....Away From Home

Because of a conference held in Vermont, Rog and I were able to take a bit of a vacation in the process! Despite a few rainy days, It was beautiful to see all of the fall foliage. I took several shots in the town of Corinth, NY. It was such a peaceful little town with interesting things to photograph. The lake was so peaceful!

In town there was some architecture that was quite unusual. I loved the use of the snow shoes! How cool is that to be railing and shutters too!

The building next to it was vacant. What a cool place to have a business. Made me want to move in! Love the railing too

Quite a variety of styles of buildings. This little one was next to the rustic vacant one.

Here is another peaceful area of town! I love running around old cemetaries. I am facinated by the ages of the stones as well as the ages of the people that have died so young. One can't help but feel a little haunted by the setting.

Would you believe that I didn't get any pictures of our original destination? It had rained in Burlington, VT so didn't get any the first day that I was out. By the second day, the weather was fabulous and I didn't take my camera when I was running around! Mostly I shopped. I wished that I had taken a photo of Lake Champlain and the market area in town. Really was some nice scenery. While at the hotel I did some hand sewing and spent time at the pool. When the conference was over, we headed north to Canada!

You could tell that we were in French speaking Quebec with the signs.

This is the Montreal skyline when we crossed the bridge. We got to Montreal during rush hour. Such a mess in traffic! Took forever to get across the south side.

When we got to Ontario, the signs were of course back in English. Looks sort of funny to see that you could go the maximum speed of 90! Of course Rog reminded me that it was in killometers. LOL

It was an extremely windy day, but we took time off the road to see this windmill that had it's functions as a windmill, a battle station and a lighthouse. It was a light house up until 1978. Unfortunately due to off season, we couldn't view the interior.

This old rail fence ran outside of the windmill area.

This is a picture of the St. Lawarance Seaway.

At one point we crossed the water with our car in a ferry.

We loved viewing Toronto! So many wonderful skyscrapers and towers.

This double decker bus is a sight seeing tour next to Niagara Falls on the Canadian side.

They had a hill side trolley that would take you to the top of the street to shop and also view the falls.

Canadian Mounty gear on display in the center.

Outside of the center I took this shot through an archway. Loved all of the wonderful mums! My favorite flower!

I still found some very lovely roses in bloom even at the end of October!

We didn't do the boat tour of the mist. I don't think it was operating anyway this time of year. It was facinating to view the rushing waters. We had an overcast day.

This is one of the views from the lakes. It was taken in Ohio.

Although I could get use to the travel scene, it was good to be back home to curl up to some waiting cats. They complained that they missed their humans, but all was forgiven after the first day home. We also couldn't leave without at least one of them getting into trouble! This is Honey's tail full of burrs!

And so was Aslan's tail! He figured out a way to help clean up any tell tail mess by having the burrs stick to a cloth to wipe up the floor!

Well, back to the real world! A cat mom's work is never done. O.K. who's first for a hair cut?