MIDAS/ WOYWW

Yippie! Midas is finally finished! The piece is very stunning and designed by my friend Brian. I quilted it all in Superior gold metallic thread. I felt like I was joined at the hip with this quilt by the time I finished. Some very long hours and even some mistakes where I had to unstitch and restitch. Right now I am jumping for joy!

I was able to sneak into my studio and work on a 3 X 5 chunky book piece. The theme is "French inspired" so I did the French corset. Lacing the sides was my chunky embellishment.

I also love the back of the page with the humor that I added.

If you would like to see what is on the desks of others, check out Julia's Stamping Ground! I will be back to view the other desks after a much needed sleep.

Mother's Day Weekend/ WOYWW

Hope you have all had a wonderful Mother's Day! I am just getting my things put away after a wonderful retreat weekend with friends and my SIL. Even our sweet papillon got a chance to go along and helped celebrate my SIL's birthday.

 It was a great way to spend Mother's Day, doing things I love.  I also got a chance to play with some polymer clay. These are the results.

I can see where I need to work on smoothing things better, but for the first time making cane, I can't complain. At the moment, I have them all laying on my desk to admire, wishing that I were going to finish them into projects, but they will just have to sit still for awhile, as I have a big quilt on the machine that I must complete. On Mother's Day, both of my sisters announced that they are going to be grandmas at the end of the year! If only my daughter would follow the act, but no children are in the future for them, sigh! At any rate, I will get a chance to make a couple of baby quilts. Speaking of babies, I am sure you are all wondering what we named our little guy. We liked the name Echo and Radar, but he seems to respond to something as simple as PIP! As it turns out that a radar echo is a Pip! Pip is also a character in a Dickens novel. Even though the name wasn't chosen from the name the dog contest, I am drawing from the participants in the post. And the winner is........ Redanne! Congratulations! Send me your address so I can get your prize out to you! Now for some other wonderful desks, check out Julia's followers at the Stamping Ground!

Wild Weekend

It seemed to be an awesome weekend.   I started taking some photos of our critters.  Some were cute and some were funny.

Some were seriously sweet.

 But mostly taken of new dog of which the cats protested and wanted some claim to fame.

Nova cat claimed the dog house, while Boa claimed the cat nip!

 Ani claimed the back porch.

 And then there was the dog that claimed the cat did it!

It was an awesome day with things beginning to bloom, and I was even proud of how gorgeous my azalea bush was this year. My iris plants were going to be great and so was my hosta and rhubarb plants.

The Wild Turkey Festival was in full swing, so we decided to run to McArthur to walk around and grab something to eat.  It would get the dog use to getting out more in social situations.  I carried the little guy on the crowded streets all the while he sniffed all of the wonderful aroma from the food vendors.  Off the beaten path, he liked being center of attention, especially if there was a smoked turkey leg to eat!

 The clouds had begun to darken so we headed back to Logan and would stop for an ice cream before heading home.  By the time we got into town, it began to rain and it rained and rained.  Earlier, the weatherman hadn't predicted any until the next day.  We got into the house about 9 PM. and the cats were eager to come inside. Within the half hour it just rained all the harder.  It seemed not a good idea to turn on the computer or the quilting machine.  It became a torrential downpour and before we knew it, it was too late to move the cars out of the flooding waters.  I had never seen it so dangerous as this, as the water rose and brought along lots of debris crashing into the bottom of our house.  We live in a double wide and the skirting buckled in and broke away in several places.  The water was within a couple of inches of deciding if the inside of the mountaineer would get wet and the strong overwhelming smell of gas filled the air.  It was too dark to get photographs but you could see reflections of the rippling waters coming in from the back creek and when that seemed to stabilize, then the waters rose from the side creek engulfing the whole yard in a matter of min. Power went out from Nickle Plate Rd and didn't come back on until almost 10 A.M. today.  I began to worry as one of our cats had not shown up as well as worrying about the other outdoor cat.  As the waters began to recede, I heard a wail beyond the creek and knew it had to be Honey cat.  I walked through the muck in the yard with a flash light enticing him to walk just a bit further down so he could cross a fallen tree.  He was never so glad to see me as he jumped into my arms and we crossed the wading waters to the house.  We were both wet and muddy.  He kept rubbing my feet with his face in gratitude.

 I hadn't been in the house long when  In the near distance, I could hear another cat crying.  I knew that this had to be the semi feral cat, Tang.  Finally got her coaxed to the step and grabbed her to come inside for the night.  She cried briefly, but I think she was more relieved that she wasn't stressed out in trying to fight the elements.  By 2 A.M. I was exhausted and fell into bed. 

By morning, I began to walk around accessing the damage.  It was a real mucky mess as I sank into the well soaked yard.

The gravel in the driveway was covered in mud along with lots of missing red rock leaving a gorge where the car use to park. 

My beautiful azaleas had been quite battered and beaten by the fury and debri landing everywhere in the path.

The side yard no longer looked lovely.  The dog house was filled with water, the catnip and the pussy willow disappeared somewhere under the house or down the stream. 

So much for my lovely hosta plants!

 

 You can see where the waterline was on the skirting.  When we had the house put on the property, we purposely had it set up higher since we were in a flood way.  Other homes would have had water on the first floor.  This would have been over my knee here.  It's never been this high and is perhaps considered a 30 year flood according to my husband.  

At the end of the fence, you can see that all of my iris and rubarb plants were flattened and where the debri buckled the fence.

We have some standing water, but now the need to dry out and clean up after mother nature, trying to be beautiful once again. 

For The Love of Dog! / WOYWW

There's nothing really much productive on my desk this week, only stuff that needs to be put away. I know it seems a disappointment but have been busy and gone this past week. I'm sure there are more exciting desks at Julia's Stamping Ground.

 Instead I have something more important laying under my work desk. It will be a work in progress!  For you see, I must be getting crazier in my old age.  I was already a crazy cat lady, but now I had a yearning to own a dog.  We haven't had one in 30 years!  Several years ago, I saw a guy with a papillon and I decided that someday I would have one.  I started doing my research to be sure it was the right dog for me and not just its looks.  It's those butterfly ears that had me so long ago.  I knew it had to be a furever pet so I wanted to be sure!  I also didn't want to go through a puppy phase or a breeder and wanted to do a rescue instead.  I actually started looking for a female, but then this little guy came along and melted my heart.    

 

Isn't he just as cute as the dickens?  In fact it may be his new name... Dickens.  Other names that people have come up with are Radar, Ears and Bones.  SO, tell ya what,  I need to do a "name the dog contest." The winner will get an initialed pendant for themselves in the process.  Throw in your vote or new name and let us know what you think.

You see, my former name is Jack, but since my new mom and dad have a cat named Jack, they said it should be something different.  I really don't care as long as I have this comfy bed!

Cat can't sleep in bed now. Neener, neener, nee.... ner! (sticking tongue out) I think cat should live in tree.  She look good there!

I have lots to learn about being spoiled. So far I have been to Arfy's (Mom says it's Arby's)  They have really good roast beef and then last night my step brother grilled chicken and that was really good too!

I am really shy and am having a dickens of a time.  I didn't have much social contact for the first 7 months of my life.  Then my former mom worked with me for about a year, but I had lots of Papillon friends to play with then. It was time to move on.  Now I have to get out of my shell, what ever that means.  I still don't know what toys are for.  All I know is that I like to lay at my new mom's feet and if she moves into the next room, I have to go find her so she doesn't get lost or the cats gang up and eat me! I'm a good doggie and I don't bark or cause any trouble.  My only problem is that I am scared in social situations and stiffen up.  I am even scared of some people trying to pet me as I think that they might hit me or something so I let them touch me slowly.  I do like to ride in the car and I even won a special prize with my first mom. She says I was Champion!  She was a good first mom, she just knows with all of the doggies she has, that she doesn't have the one on one time to spend with me that I need to have, so was thinking of my best interest and was willing to give me up for free if I had a really good home.  I think I has it!  Just gotta figure out how to chase the other cats up a tree!

Well, there you have it, my new little 9 lb. bundle of joy.  I drove 8 1/2 hours down to Georgia to go get him.  Even with the price of gas, he was worth it.  Shhhh.... don't tell him he's adopted.

All Things Altered

I was inspired by a doll I had seen on Etsy of an art doll out of found objects.  I love the vintage feel!  She had used a single piece of wood for the body and for proportions I wanted to use, I had a couple of children's blocks that I glued together. The neck is a vintage spool of thread and the head a smaller vintage child's block.

 

The front of her body is covered in vintage medicine bottle labels from a Tim Holtz scrap book paper.  I adorned her with scrabble tiles and jewelry hardware.

 The better sides of the blocks I let show through.  An old folding ruler and a child's vintage toy silver ware knife became the legs.  One of my old favorite worn out brushes became one arm while the other was made from wire, buttons and springs.  I drilled holes to attach the limbs and worked with fun wire as it is much easier on your hands.  The wings were from a dragonfly I had found at a yard sale some years ago.

I had a metal medallion that I had bent in half and used brads to attach her crown piece.  Her face a vintage photograph and some old lace.  I used an old bobbin and some metal bead spaces for the limbs so that they could swing free for her to sit or be fully upright.  I have had thoughts of adding a screw eye so that she could be hanging if one wanted her to.  She was a lot of fun.  I have enough old blocks to make at least 3 more dolls later on.  I will have to hunt yard sales this summer for more old limbs that would work.  

I also did a challenge piece for a swapbot group.  We were to use this photo of the sailor boy altered on an ATC.  I knew I was going to put some thing different in his hands and what came to mind was a bucket full of Carona bottles on ice that I had on a placemat from a Mexican restaurant. LOL  Then I ran across this mermaid tail and seahorse, so the rest fell into place.

I almost didn't reduce it enough to fit on the ATC!  I used fish charms and some metallic stars for embellishment.  Anyone want to try the challenge?  I would love to see what you come up with!  

  I had found a funny image to add to the back of the ATC. I think it's hilarious!

I love how people can be so creative to come up with some unique photos.  Here's another one that I found while doing a search.

A shark was used and digitally altered to make up this crazy new species!

apparently this photo and the woman with the fish eyes can be downloaded as wall paper on your computer!  

I prefer for my cats to be pretty tame though! So in the jungle, the mighty jungle... the lion sleeps tonight!

(Azlan my little "dandy" lion who's fur is starting to grow back.)

Dominos...And I Just Don't Mean Pizza!

I have seen some lovely domino books, so simply had to try one myself.  Aside from my hands being painted copper and being stuck up with glue, it was a lot of fun!

Except for the images that I recently purchased from Cemerony, I had everything else in my stash.  The little tatted center piece was made by my friend, Peggy. (Note, the images I chose had to be cut down an inch to fit)

I also had this wee little stamp from Stampin Up that was the finish for the back.  If you would like to make one, there's an excellent tutorial and more examples at Artfully Musing.

At the same time, I purchased some new images from Cemerony for a circus themed swap.  I couldn't resist doing entertainers and circus freaks with mix and match body parts.   I will have to make myself some coaster size ones to add to my chunky circus book that I had started earlier.

Then I managed to make a few chunky blocks for a Tim Holtz swap. (Sorry for the poor lighting)

Remember the puzzle pieces I made awhile back?  This one needed more to it so it sat in my unfinished pile before I added some changes to it.  This was before:

This is after:

She will be traded out in my paper doll group.

And I had a couple of photos of Honey that I wanted to put into an ATC. I couldn't resist putting glasses on him. lol

Our poor Honey cat was missing for two days.  I was getting pretty worried.  We all hunted for him and just by chance, my step son, Rob opened up the old house next door and there he was!  Poor guy, I suppose he was a sneaking in the work shop when Rob finished up.  He was very hungry and sure was glad to see us! 
I couldn't help but to add this funny LOL cat photo of the way things could have gone, if he had been there for awhile. LOL

Well I am off to my studio to clean up my mess from all of this artful activity.  See you in another chapter!