*Dust's off blog*

The past few weeks have been busy around here. Life's taken its toll on my crafting. ^-^ But that's ok.

I managed to get my secret swap item finished and I can't wait to give it.

I've made a couple of pairs of earrings over the last week, a new bracelet and started a necklace. Plus I've sketched out some designs for new poppets. So not all life in the past little bits been devoid of crafting. ^-^

*yawns* But all this rain were getting is making me sleepy. So I'm off to snuggle with my boys!

I have to say a big Thank You!

To Denise Felton.

She asked to feature me on her blog and I couldn't be happier. ^-^

She's a great collage artist and a member of the ArEtsy Street Team, so head on over and check her out. Her Blog, You can also find here Etsy shop, Here

Oh! And if your on Flicker and an Etsy seller, check out the....


ArEtsy threw a challenge out to see if we can reach the goal of a million etsy related photos. So grab your street teams and head on over! Find the Flicker group Here.

Whew....that was a day.

Well yesterday started out like any other Thursday for us. Other than the fact that we no longer have to get up at the crack of dawn so we have time to drop Hubb off at work that is. (Hooray for a second vehicle! ^-^ )

The morning went as it almost always does. Drop boys off at Mothers Day Out, head over to the barn, help with tack and prep for kids, then walk for hours with one hand in the air. Best exercise plan ever. ^-~ Then head back over to pick up boys.

We had scheduled my youngest to get a speech evaluation yesterday and the therapist had hoped to squeeze him in while they were still there at MDO. Unfortunately she couldn't so we hung out a bit afterwards to see if she'd have time before lunch. The speech therapist came back out and told us she'd had to schedule him in at 3pm and she was so sorry. I was ok with that, it meant Lil Man could take a nap and get some lunch. Lucky for us, LoLo(thats what my boys call my mom) showed up and so we all went to lunch.

The boys and I went to LoLo's house to let Lil Man take a nap and then when it was time we headed back to the clinic for his eval. The eval went well and we headed out. It was around 4:40 when I stopped at Wal-Mart that I noticed my diaperbag was gone. I dug through the van and couldn't find it. So I called the Wendy's we'd eaten at and asked if anyone had turned it in. They said no.


I drove to LoLo's house and ran quickly around the rooms we'd been in to see if I'd taken it in and set it down. Nope.

Called the clinic. They didn't see it.
I called Hubb to let him know and he said to go look at Wendys.
I did, and still didn't find it.
Hubb called me about 18 times not making me any less stressed.
Finally I called our bank and reported my card lost/stolen. They said they'd send me a new one and that they'd stop the old one.

Hubb called me again and said to go back to LoLo's one more time and look around all over the place. So I did. By now it's nearly 6pm and I've driven all over the place. I started looking around when my sis showed up. I stopped looking a few min to talk to her. When the boys came in the room with us and wanted to change the channel on the tv we headed into that room. It was getting dark in that room so I went to turn the lights on. And there...sitting on the fireplace...was my diaperbag.

Maddman had moved it. Where he put it was right next to my mom's wood burning stove fireplace thing. It's one of those inserts. It's black and large, my diaperbag, black and large. So sitting right next to each other I'd easily glanced over it when running through looking earlier. I nearly cried. The funny thing is, Madd told me earlier in the search he'd moved it. But the answer he gave when I asked where, instinctively, was not any thing rational. So I didn't give it any thought. *laughs*

The boys were so wiped when we got home they were snoring in their car seats. I just needed a drink!


In the end it all turned out ok, I'm happy my diaperbags not gone for good, and that Hooray the speech therapist said she doesn't think Lil Man needs speech therapy ^-^ He's just a busy kiddo, and sometimes too busy to talk.

Calypso

My first sewn doll!

I joined a craftalong on Craftster a while back and have just not had the time to do the project until this last week. So for the past three days I've been sewing off and on trying to get her finished.

I started out following the pattern, then got distracted and all the sudden knew she should be a mermaid. So I pulled out some icy blue suede that I had in my stash for her tail.

I cut out my own pattern and just went with it. The day before I started I stopped by an area of town I hadn't been around lately and found some of the neatest yarn to use as her hair.

So after all the finger killing work, I'm very proud to introduce you to my mermaid companion.


She's got a necklace with two fish beads and a clear shell bead.



Her tail is beaded with a large set of beads around her waist.

In her hair I put a few wooden beads to accent, and in her ears, she has some clear drop earrings with one wire wrapped pendant earring I made and a dolphin charm I found.


I found a design online I liked for her face and painted it on.

I nearly killed my sewing machine trying to sew her hair into tracts so I could stitch them to her head. And my fingers, oy.



But boy howdy was it fun to see her come together. I think I'll do a faun next. ^-^

A very merry Unbirthday to me ^-^

To me.


When the treasury box popped up it's all I could think of. *laughs* We saw the movie the other day and my boys loved it. I on the other hand, have the song running through my head. Hooray for songs that loop really easy. ^-~

So heres a list for friends and family....I love these things. ^-^
Ya know, since my b-days in March




I ended up picking things from my favorites that were almost all black and white. Mmmm I love that color combo.

On that same color scheme I posted a new series in my shop. Quirky Quotations.


They will be odd things I think up and put on pins or patches to wear. Plus mustache designs as well. I mean they are just fun ^-^ So keep an eye out for them.

I tried to sculpt with clay.

And all I got was a good laugh. ^-^


Ok, so it's not horrid, my little huskey/fox creature is kinda cute. But in that my 6yr old made it kinda way. (Please don't remind me I'm not 6)


Don't get me wrong, I love him, but he's not exactly what I had pictured when I started. I almost completely ruined him in the baking process. Somewhere along the line we'd picked up some clay and I'd tossed it in the kids craft box. Well when I pulled out my sculpey yesterday, guess who wanted to craft along side me. Madd.

So I pulled out the nameless, instructionless clay package and let him have at it. When he saw I was putting my creation in the oven to bake, his just had to go in too. His clay ended up being no bake clay. *laughs* I glanced in the oven after a few min and there was a puddle of colorful mess on each side of my critter.

So out they came and into another dish went my fox guy. Thankfully the puddles hadn't seeped under him though there was a bit of oil underneath him. No color contact though. I popped him back in the oven and said nothing to Madd, who was still happily playing with the rest of his clay.

So now I have my fox guy, and on my counter, is a tray of creative marbles/planets, a couple of what he said were monsters and one mass of clay bars stuck together. Oh and the poor dish that sacrificed itself to the gooey mess of melted clay.

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So I went back to fiber sculpting, until I can get better reacquainted with polymer clay.


I made a new monster guy out of fiber, he'll have friends in his species as I have a few color combos planned. Jess has a new home she'll be leaving for tomorrow, so Mimi insisted on some new friends. A whole house party of them. ^-~



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Oh! I got my business cards in the other day. They aren't exactly what I wanted, I had hoped they would be darker and that the light grey stripe across them would actually be as silvery as it looked on the web site, but oh well. They look good and I'm happy to actually have cards ^-^

Thought I'd share a bit of our holiday...wordy and pictures abound!

Hubb always gets into the cooking scene around holidays. I think mostly it's because his grandmother cooked large meals and he associates them with the holidays. I realize that most do, My family did bigger meals than normal, but I just wasn't that interested in them.

Hubb on the other hand has a semi love affair with food. Ok forget semi, its a full blown affair. That man loves food. ^-^

So every year he forces a turkey into our freezer along with the various other foods needed. This year I managed to talk him out of a large bird since everyone else in the family was already doing big dinners and it would never get eaten! Then his boss got him a ham for Christmas.


Whoo......hoo....


He was excited and I was happy to let him cook.
The ham took hours and hours. This ham was huge! I'm talking....well why talk when I can show you.




So yeah.....most of that's still in my fridge.


Our boys enjoyed the holidays. I bought them lots of goodies from Etsy, Hubb found them a couple of things in the mass market, Superman, board games and the like. Not that that bothers me ^-^ I love that he likes to shop.



The house was all lit up. I tried to talk Hubb out of putting the lights up..I'm not sure what was wrong with me...I love Christmas lights, just didn't feel like we had time this year. But up they went ^-^



We had the fireplace going for a week, ya know with the heater going out, and that was something I enjoyed.



Ok, I'll hush now. One last shot of a family friend who's been around for years and years. He's always right by the front door and the boys love to hear him tinkle out jingle bells. He's one of the first things I put up each year and one of the last things to come down.


Ah Christmas.