Back to my plush-making roots...

I noticed that I've been using store-bought fleece a lot to make my monsters (although I usually try to only buy the remnant pieces in the 50% off bin at Joann's). But I have bins and bins of socks and clothes that I've saved to make monsters with...so I've been trying to get back to my original plush-making roots lately by repurposing those socks & clothing to make my monsters...

This guy is from an old fleece I had lying around. One of my favorite things is making pocket mouths...especially with zippers!



This gal is a pretty simple monster. My favorite part about her is her long hair. I envision her as an eccentric, hippie art teacher. All she's missing is a long funky necklace and tie-dye.

(Sorry if the pictures are a little blurry. I was trying to snap some quick pictures of these two monsters before the craft show tomorrow in case they sell. I need to set up a photo shoot area again in my craft room with decent lighting and a tripod for the camera. )

"Spools" by Abby Try Again

I came across this image by photographer Abby Try Again via the second storie blog today...

I LOVE this photo of vintage spools of thread. It's gorgeous. I'd really like a print for my craft room. There is a giveaway at a blog called Poppy & Leo where one of the prizes is a 8x12 print of this photo. I entered it, but there are 200 more comments besides mine. Of course, I have won a giveaway before...so it could happen. ;)

Even if I don't win, Abby is having a clearance sale until this Sunday (May 9th)...so I can still purchase the print for $15.00.

I think I remember Abby from the second storie indie market show I went to back in December...she was out of business cards, so she just wrote her name & info on the back of one of her small prints and gave it to me. The print was of a jar of colorful crochet hooks or something. I remember thinking that was so sweet of her, because essentially, she gave me a free print!

**EDIT:** Yes, it WAS Abby Try Again that gave me that print. I found the picture when I went home last night. They're not crochet hooks. I think they're hand-dipped candles...

***ANOTHER EDIT:***
I didn't win the giveaway. Bleh. :/

More Cardmaking: Monster Cards!

Mom and I are on a cardmaking roll! She did most of the work yesterday (I just gave constructive criticism, moral support, and supply wrangling)...but today I have actually been cranking out my own cards!
Both Mom and I have a Cricut machine. She has the Cricut Expression and I have the smaller Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter (which Mom got me for Christmas). Yesterday, I didn't have any of my Cricut cartridges, and one of them, "Wild Card" is perfect for making cards. So I asked my lovely hubby last night if he could bring them today on his way in to the office, and he dropped them off when he dropped off Luna before he went to work. So today I got to use my favorite design from the Wild Card cartridge...the monster card!

I made Mother's Day cards to sell at the show on Saturday (since Sunday is Mother's Day).




I did some other cards as well..

I love that monster design!

Spending time with my Mommy

I am hanging out with my Mommy this week (how appropriate for the week before Mother's Day!) Mom had intestinal surgery recently and is on the 2nd week of her 6 week recovery time. My Grandma came to help her out last week, and I am over this week to help her with the housework. She's recovering very well though. She's not bedridden like I thought she would be. She's actually supposed to get up and walking occasionally during the day. She's not supposed to lift anything over 10 pounds though, and she is supposed to get rest. So I am doing the laundry, cooking, vacuuming, etc.

Anyway, we are going to a birthday dinner for one of my parents' friends tonight, and Mom needed to make a card...(since she is the Queen of Cardmaking!)

I love the design of this card she made. Simple and colorful. (and I love orange, yellow, and blue together).


Mom is trying to crank out some cards to sell at Presence on the Patio as well...


And this is what King, my parents' dog was doing while we were cardmaking...

Sorry to wake you King! :)

MayDay! MayDay!

If you're around Rochester, NY tomorrow, come check out MayDay Underground Crafts & Art show!
I'll be there, but just as a shopper, not as a vendor. I was invited to be a vendor by one of the organizers, but sadly ended up having to decline, since I'm organizing Presence on the Patio the following weekend (which is NEXT weekend!)...plus I am helping my Mom this week, who just had surgery a week ago...so it would have just been too much. I hope to be able to be a part of it if they do the show again though! In the meantime, I'll show my support by being a patron.

Homeschool Co-op Art Class (8-12 year olds & chalk pastels)

Had homeschool co-op yesterday. I was teaching the 8-12 year olds about chalk pastels this week.


I tried a project I found online about drawing with white school glue and then using it as a resist for the pastel when it was dry, and we tried it, but drying time was as issue. Another project we did was a kind of stenciling with shapes I cut out with my Cricut. The kids really seemed to enjoy it.

Window Display at Shirt Factory Cafe

We finished the window display this weekend at Shirt Factory Cafe for Presence on the Patio.

Big thanks to my hubby for helping me out! (only real men will help their wives fluff out tissue paper pom-poms in the middle of a coffee shop!)

I love using these pom poms to decorate. (I first saw them when I was helping decorate for a baby shower) They're so easy to make. I have instructions on how to make them in my baby shower post, but you can also check Martha Stewart's website for a more official tutorial (she's where my friends got the idea from in the first place).

I even saved the scraps of tissue paper I cut off the ends and used them as a kind of confetti...I think they look like fallen flower petals.

I need to get more tissue paper and make more of these for decorating on the day of the craft fair. The flowers/pom-poms are taking the place of the paper lanterns we had up for the winter show...since they have a springy feel and the spring show is during the day instead of in the evening.

Paper Flowers

I went over to my friend Kim's house late yesterday afternoon to help watch 4 of her 5 kids while she took care of some housework. We hung out outside and I did a craft with them...


We made paper flowers out of coffee filters and pipe cleaners and painted the flowers with watercolors.

This is Kim's oldest, Lydia, with one of the baby goats that was just born this weekend!

Backyard Garden Boxes

This past weekend, my lovely hubby made these garden boxes for the back yard. Not only does it give me a place for a vegetable garden, it helps to further define our property line in the back.

CJ made the 4x4 boxes, we set them where we wanted them, I put down some anti-weed garden cloth/plastic inside the boxes, and we filled them up with garden soil. Each box took 4 large bags of garden soil to fill.


We thought three boxes is enough to start a decent vegetable/herb garden without getting in over our heads. On my list of things I want to plant are...

• tomatoes ( at least 2 different varieties, cherry tomatoes and then a larger variety)
• cucumbers
• lettuce (maybe a couple different varieties)
• sugar snap peas
• garlic
• rosemary
• basil
• dill
• mint
• chamomile

There's probably a few more things, but that's what I have in my head so far. Next Saturday we're probably going to go shopping at a nursery for plants. My friend Amy lent me a book called "The Square Foot Garden" that's being very encouraging and helpful.

This is the bud on the lilac bush I planted a few weeks ago! It's gotten bigger!

New Presence on the Patio Poster

I designed a new poster for the spring Presence on the Patio craft show I'm helping to organize...
We needed a new design that would catch kids' eyes. I think this cute monster will do the trick!

My Doggy Diva

The theme for the Photography Contest on Facebook this week is "Dogs". I was looking at the pictures that had been submitted and saw this one from Ashley...

I thought "Hey, that dog kind of looks like Luna." and then realized "Hey! That dog IS Luna!" It's from the last photo shoot I did with Ashley when I had Luna with me. It's funny...you can't even tell she's a small dog by looking at that picture! My Dad said it makes her look like a wolf. It's a gorgeous picture though.

I submitted my own photo of Luna as well...it's my favorite picture I've taken of her...

I was thinking it would be funny if both pictures placed in this week's contest. So far, Ashley's picture has 7 votes and mine has 10. The highest rated photo so far has 12 votes...a picture of a mama bulldog carrying her pup in her mouth. (I'd post a lnk, but the pictures get cleaned out every week... so check the Contest Pictures before the week is up, or check the Photography Contest Winners Blog at the end of this week. I'm sure it's going to be in the top 3.)

More Backyard Pictures...

I realized after the last post that I forgot to take pictures of the actual planted bushes yesterday. So I went for a walk with Luna this afternoon to take some!

Cedar bush (I'm not sure if it's actually a bush or a tree, but I'm calling it a bush)

(I found that pictures of plants are so much more interesting if they include the dog!)

That stick is one of the Rose of Sharon bushes. My mom has a couple of big ones on the side of the garage at her house...and when the blossoms fall off at the end of the summer, where some of the blossoms fall will plant new bushes. Mom doesn't want any more bushes there, so that's why she let me dig two out. She has a bush that blooms purple and two that bloom white...I'm not sure which kind I got. I'm hoping I got at least one white...since I already have a sizable purple one next to our driveway (my car got covered in fallen blooms at the end of last summer).

Mom also let me have a itty-bitty lilac bush that was also starting to grow on the side of her garage. It already has buds on it. I hope it survives the shock of being transplanted (as I hope for everything else I planted this weekend) I planted it way on the back edge of our land in order to compromise with my hubby and be merciful to his allergies.

Here's a view from the property corner cedar bush. My house is the yellow one on the right. if you draw a line from this bush to between the two garages, you can visualize our property line. It's only slightly less than three quarters of an acre, but it feels like a ton of land to an ex-city-dweller who is used to living in an upstairs apartment. It's not very wide, but it is long, and I think it's the length that makes it feel like we have so much. It just feels cool to actually own land and to do whatever I want with it. And so much of it in the back is just like a big. grassy, blank canvas. I never imagined I'd ever get into gardening...but I'm finding that it's so satisfying.

I've also discovered that we have wild daffodils in the back in the woods that bloomed this week. I'd like to transplant them closer to the house.

Gardening...

I've been wanting to plant something in the backyard to mark our property line. My grandma gave me three baby cedar bushes back in the fall/early winter. I didn't get around to planting them before it got cold and they've been sitting in their little plastic bags outside all winter. I'd forgotten about them and was afraid they were dead, but one of my friends informed me that cedar bushes go dormant in winter...and I noticed recently that the leaves on the baby bushes were green. So I took advantage of the nice weather this weekend to plant them in the back yard.

Luna says "I'm helping!"

"Dig dig dig dig dig..."

Then, yesterday, while at my parents' house for Easter dinner, my mom told me that someone down the street from their house had a cedar bush on the curb that they had dug up and were discarding. So CJ went and put it in the bed of our pickup truck and we took it home and planted it last night.

Leave it to me to get plants out of someone's trash! "Waste not, want not"... right? "One man's trash is another man's treasure!"

This is the view of our back yard. Our property goes all the way to the back. That small dark dot toward the center of the picture is the bush we planted. It marks the corner of our property. I also planted two Rose of Sharon bushes and a lilac bush, all dug up from my parents' house. The other bushes I planted are too small to be seen from this far away.