Random stuff

Sitting outside this evening talking on the phone with my mom (which is where I have to go to talk on my cell phone, thanks so much AT&T!), I took a few deck scenery pictures.  Summer has been really hard on my landscaping/plants/willingness to do much out there.

Loving my flying pigs…

And how the water accumulates on big leaves after even a small rain…

I went to an auction in town this weekend and after I parked, I walked by this bush on the way to the action!  I have never seen a bush like this.  The berries are a light purple and they look like those Styrofoam flowers you buy in the craft store. 

The bush was really interesting…just never have seen one like it ever!  If anyone knows the name of this, I would love to hear about it!

And yes, I shamelessly photographed it with my cell! 

And here’s my pooch Rachel Manatee…I caught a face picture of her, she is barking here, but you can see her gray muzzle and her gray underbelly.  She is after all, 77 people years old!

I’ve got this dorm fridge where my big fridge used to be…not liking that very much, but hopefully I am getting someone out here Monday or Tuesday to look at the fridge to see if it is fixable.  I am praying that it is repairable…it just quit cooling and all the food in the freezer and fridge was lost!  Seems like it is always something!

This book is why I didn’t get much else done this weekend.  I started reading it Friday night and basically couldn’t put it down!  I finished it this afternoon, wonderful book.  Can’t wait to see the movie!

This is one of my next projects I am working on…not going to tell you any more, but hopefully next weekend I will have more to show!

These ratty song books I found at the auction, someone had left them on a table and they were going to throw them away, so, I snagged them!  I remember singing this song, Old Folks At Home, in high school music class.  I will be using them for crafts of course, since I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket!!

Ellen

500!!!

Here's my great news!  I just hit 500 followers!  I remember when I had no  followers, no comments, and now I just can't believe I have 500!  Actually now I have 505 followers!

I have  come a long way,  however, it took me probably 20 minutes to figure out how to capture this screen shot, but I finally got it wrestled down and pasted here in the old blog.
Thanks for all your comments and thanks for following me!

I want to do some sort of giveaway, but please tell me what you want for a giveaway, look around and leave me a comment!  

I can’t wait to see what you choose!

Ellen

My Tuesday {Ten}

Surprise lilies make a great bouquet.  I love using the old Ball jar for a vase.  When you get up close you can see a touch of blue/purple on the end of the petals.  Never noticed that before.

The Rose of Sharon bush has bloomed like crazy this summer…my cub scout den planted it probably 8 or 9 years ago.  That was such a fun project, they all got really dirty and loved it!

Queen Anne’s Lace is one of my favorites…

I am starting to work on some projects for a craft show this fall.

Pins and pumpkins…

I took this on a dare from my sister and my mom.  It was a Christmas wreath covered with some really gruesome white carnations and some red berries and a hideous green ribbon that was polyester.   So I am going to try to make some thing out of the 1970s craft disaster!

Trying to get my dog Rachel to look at the camera, she instead chose to look at my feet…but the cat kept looking at me.  Friday we took Rachel out to the farm (my brother and sister in law’s house).  She always rides in the back seat and sticks her head out the window and barks all the way there.  We usually have the windows half down and she has never acted like she was going to jump…well, Friday she jumped/fell out of the car while it was moving (only 35 mph thankfully).  She was fine (except for some abrasions on her underbelly) but looked so confused…and the dog she was barking at ran back to his porch and stayed there.  No more barking from Rachel the rest of the way.  From now on those windows are more than half up!

This is Frosty, the wonder cat…he used to be an indoor cat and now is an indoor/outdoor cat.  He always has the deer in the headlights look when he is outside.  Occasionally he climbs a tree and can’t figure out how to get down.

The little swing my son made when he was little…he wanted a swing but we really didn’t have much of a place to hang a swing.  He spent many hours in that swing.

Ellen

A new felting book & another attempt at wet felting!

My mom and my sister were here this weekend and my mom bought me this book….she’s nice like that!  I have tons of wool and felting books, but didn’t have this one!

It is full of such great projects…even though the cover says it is for kids, I can see a purse made like this…and I am thinking one of my great nieces or nephew would like one of these horses. 

Plus this book showed a different way to wet felt, which I have never had much luck with.  I have tried to felt bars of soap, tried to make wool fabric, just never quite turns out right!  I do have this ginormous (probably this is less than half of the stash) quantity of wool roving from sheep and llama and alpaca. 

I got my stuff together…I used dish soap, an empty dish soap container for sprinkling water onto the dry wool roving, a container of water, two large towels—one on the floor under the table and one under the bubble wrap, and yes, bubble wrap. 

I laid my roving down on top of a piece of bubble wrap which was 24 x 24 inches (I taped two pieces together) with the first layer horizontal and the second layer vertical and then another layer horizontal.  I used three thick layers for the blues, pulling the roving apart as I laid it down.

Next I sprinkled the dish soap on the dry roving…

and then squirted water onto the roving.

I patted the roving down until it started to stick to itself and then I laid another piece of bubble wrap on top of the roving.

Then you roll it up like a jelly roll and start kneading and rolling it…I had to squeeze the water out of mine because I might have had had about a gallon too much on the roving!

This is the finished product…definitely a success…the colors are so deep and vibrant.   And the roving I laid on top adds a lot of texture.

Ok, so that was a success…but this one was not.  I was hoping to make some leaves out of it, with nice fall colors. 

I made this one too thin I guess, my roving was thinner and I didn’t use as much of it.   I had a lot of trouble getting it to felt (might have just been the kind of roving I used) and I tried to repair some holes which left giant hunks of roving hanging out.

So one success and one not so much…

This piece is made from llama roving.   Lovely soft brown color.  I added some swirly designs on top in a cream color.  

It was pretty coarse wool, so it kept getting thicker and thicker.  I decided I had had enough of hand felting it and it was already felted so I threw it in the washer to finish the job.  Take my word, resist this temptation if you try this!  It is close to an inch thick in spots and one half of it attached itself to the other half, so I had to cut it apart with a knife to show the design. Not so sure it will make the purse I had hoped!

You can see how coarse the wool is here.  Looks more like the darn llama itself!  The jury is still out on whether or not this one is a fail!

This project I know is a success!!  I felted a bar of soap.  I have never been able to do that before and I have tried it a dozen different times.   I used a blue/green and wrapped a length of sea foam green around the middle after it was half felted.  

I am linking to these great parties! 

Ellen

Tuesday {Ten}

School starts Thursday for Sam my son and he loves the Yankees and I do too by default.  The Yanks were playing the KC Royals Monday night and Tuesday and Wednesday too, so I surprised Sam with tickets to Monday’s game.  August games can be miserable temperature wise, but this was a 7pm game.  We got there a few hours early to watch the Yankees warm up…Jeter and Cano leaving the field here…

We watched Teixeira hit a few practice balls out of the park. 

When the Royals came out we saw Melky Cabrera come out and hug Jeter and Cano…Melky was on the Yankees last year…and got traded to the Royals, so it was funny to see them on opposite teams.

We couldn’t have had a more perfect night…cool in the upper 60s, forecast was for rain, but we had sunshine until dark, then we had a beautiful full moon facing us. 

And the best part is that Mariano Rivera, AKA Mo or the Sandman, closed the game out!  We have seen three other Yankees games, but had never seen Mariano close.  He is incredible!  Loved to watch him pitch and to see the three consecutive outs!

Wow, that’s all I have to say!  I could watch this guy pitch all day.

Funny thing, I have never been too much of a baseball fan, but now don’t miss a Yankees game! My son has always been a big Yankees fan(atic), so I just became one too!  I have been to two Cardinals games and was miserable both times—one it was 105 degrees, afternoon game with seats in the sun (did I mention I was wearing a knee length denim dress?) and the other game it was 42 degrees with seats in the shade.

Being uncomfortable to watch the Yankees though is no big deal!  Now I am starting to understand those die hard Cards fans! 

Regrettably I didn’t get any pics of Sam and I together, but it was great spending time with Sam and talking with him during the game (much to his distress!).   Of course, he slept the 1 1/2 hours there and back!

Ellen