Happy Birthday Chloe!

A very Happy Birthday to my little grandaughter Chloe Rose~ I made the birthday girl a special hat to wear, along with two noise makers for her and her brother to play with while they celebrated her big day.
Has it been two years already since you were born? My-my-my, where does the time go? To celebrate Chloe's 2nd birthday, we spent the afternoon at the park... feeding the ducks, feeding ourselves and opening presents. She had red velvet cake for her birthday cake. Nothing but the best for this deeply loved little princess. With each piece of wrapping paper Chloe tore off of each gift.... she would say "here Momma" or "here Nana" or "here" anybody who was near, and hand off a small bit of paper. Such a funny kid. Happy birthday you little love bug~

Valentines

Here is a lovely assortment of valentines that I received in the mail~ From left to right they were made by: Vivian, Betty & Laura... bottom row: Julie and Lynda. Lynda also made and sent to me, all of these pictured below. The quality of her work is outstanding :-)
This cute tag below is from Deb, you can't see it for all the candy! its in the lower left hand corner~
I also did a "big-box" swap with Laura. Look at all this loveliness~Here is a peek inside the container... Here is the valentine card/tag that I made. I think I made something like 24 of these~
And lets not forget the 20 monster truck valentines I made for my grandson's preschool class :-) I sent Lisa 13 tags and I'm getting 13 different valentine tags from various people, I'm hoping those come sometime this week :-)
I also want to show this over-the-top-fabulous felted notebook that I received from Angela. It is incredible! (my computer gremlin insisted on turning this photo on its side....) Angela sent this to me all the way from Devon, England. Inside this little felted beauty is a notepad and a good sized pocket, for candy no doudt! I really adore it Angela, thank you so much :-)I've also been meaning to share this fabulous trophy that I won from Kecia who hosted a "Top Hat Derby blog hop" ummm in December. Anywho, here is the fabulous trophy in all its glittery glory!Here is a photo of some of my top hats that I made along with the trophy I won. (both photos were taken from Kecia's blog)Happy Valentines day everyone... remember, if you don't get anything you liked or wanted for Valentines day--- not to worry, the day after valentines day everything is 50% off-- go buy yourself twice as much!
I've linked up to Bluebird Papercrafts Valentine linky party.

Handmade Valentines

My grandson wanted some "Monster Truck Valentines" to pass out to his classmates at his preschool. Of course, no monster truck valentines were to be found..... So, I made him some :-) I found this wonderful side view image of a monster truck online.....I looked through some of the images of my grandson that I have on my computer and found one that with a smidge of fixin' I could use. The photo on the left is the before photo. On the right is the photo in which I filled in some areas with more skin and more of his red shirt.Then I simply printed a copy of the new altered photo, cut it out, and glued it so it appeared that my grandson was leaning out the Monster truck window. Easy peasy! Once the main image was complete, I copied three per sheet onto some cardstock. I wanted the truck bed to be able to hold a small valentine coin, so once all the monster truck images were individually cut out....I made a slit in each truck bed with an x-acto blade to make it possible to tuck a valentine coin into each one. I carefully glued each truck again (keeping in mind that the truck bed had to have a open pocket) to yet another sheet of cardstock which had a red/white polka-dot paper adhered to the back of.... Again, I cut each truck out..... whew. Once the 20 monster truck valentines were cut out...twice, I made a heart stencil to create a glittered heart that my grandson would have in his hand on each valentine. I just dabbed glue inside the stencil and added fine red glitter to each one. Nothing to it :-)I also made 20 lady-bug lollipop/finger puppets :-)He is so sweet... he loves it when I make him things. He informed me that he wants me to "make" him his birthday present (whatever that is) and he wants his mom to "make" him his birthday cake. Such cuteness~
I've linked up to the blog, "Seven-Thirty-Three's" What are little boy's made of linky party. I've also linked up to the following linky parties: Someday Crafts, Funky Polka Dot Giraffe, My Craftie Life , Trendy Treehouse , Make it Yours Day, HOH , A Glimpse Inside, and lastly, Bargain Hunting with Laurie.

Pirate Season

Its full steam ahead on all things piratey.... argh! Our yearly pirate party is fast approaching. (the first weekend of June-- Saturday, Sunday & a potluck dinner on Monday night) This year my two grandchildren will be celebrating their 4th and 2nd birthdays. With that in mind, I thought I would make some games for the little kids to play. I picked up this cute-as-a-button duck motorized matching game for only .50¢ at a yard sale. There is a little pond that the ducks go around and around on, its super caute! I couldn't resist making them all into pirates! One game down... a bazillion more to come up with~I like to give out trophies to the best dressed pirates who attend our parties. I keep an eye out for cheap trophies at yard sales & thrift stores. These ranged in price from .25¢ to $1. I took each one apart and spray painted parts of them black. I then added nutmeg brown, baby blue and lime green to each one to give them the look of aged copper. They look a little "bright" in the photo, but in person they have a beautiful aged patina to them. This is as far as I've gotten... I'll finish these up closer to the party in June, for now, they are going to get crammed into a box and added to the other boxes of pirate stuff out in the garage!

O.W.O.H.

Welcome O.W.O.H. participants! In a nutshell here is a little something about my blog... I like to try my hand at EVERYTHING. Any given day you can find me working on a wide range of things.... Here is a bunch of "key words" to give you an idea of some of the many things you'd find on my blog: soldering, resin, sewing, painting, miniatures, drawing, embroidery, decorating, gardening, sharing thrifted finds... crocheting, tutorials, pennants, paper crafts, tags, altered mixed media pieces, fairy charms, furniture make-overs, and of course, making things for our yearly pirate party.
I've made several slide shows to showcase some of the many things I've done in the past and shared on my blog. The first slide show is of some of the things I've crocheted.....

Other times I like to get out my sewing machine and crank out a few things.....

I also like to paint.....

Don't forget some mixed media stuff....

I also like to show off photos from our yearly pirate party...

Whew...... now, after all of that, if anyone is still here.... Thank you for visiting, as a token of thanks, I'd like to offer up this box of junk fun things. This drawing is open to everyone, foreign and domestic. It weighs in at a hefty 9 lbs! In the box you'll find a bunch of odds and ends of jewelry pieces, watches, beads, a 1949 childrens pop up book, a 1925 diary, some vintage embroidery patterns, a wide strand of pearl beads, 2 vintage ceramic angels, sequins, yards & yards of lace trim.... and an old babies dress. Here is a slide show showing whats in the box....

Please visit Lisa at her blog "A Whimsical Bohemian" to see who else is participating in this event. The drawing will be held February the 17th. Have fun on your world-wide-web-journey.

Cupid, draw back your bow....

and let your arrow gooooooooooooo~
I finished all of my tags for the "tag for tag" swap. I think all together I made 24... I used one of my favorite images, my husbands great-great-great grandfather William. Isn't he a little cherub? The photographer had him sitting bare naked....I guess he thought he looked like a little naked cupid too.Here is a close up of one of the finished tags. He is popped off of the tag a little bit-- holding onto his bow and a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back with a glittered belt. His fluffy white wings just as fluffy as can be for a day of sweet-flight. Of course, lets not forget his "hunting" hat with a bejeweled plume~ I also signed up for a Valentine garland swap. I was needing to make 12 tags for that swap, so I went ahead and used the very same supplies and just continued on making more tags. These ones are heavier in weight, I used foam core as a foundation to build upon. For these tags I used a red & silver tinsel garland around the edges of each heart. I also added a strand of shiny red beads along the hearts edge as well. I had about 1/2 an inch of tinsel garland left over, I am going to hoard buy more of this next time I see if for sale.These were a lot of fun to make, I hope everyone who receives one likes them :-) I'll be mailing them out sometime next week.

Yard Sailing~

It was another gloomy-foggy morning, even that couldn't keep me from yard sailing! I got a huge stack of doll & embroidery patterns. The large envelopes have never cut apart doll patterns-- along with the patterns for the clothing for each doll as well. The little booklet is a catalog which she purchased the dolls from.... she has little check marks next to the ones she purchased, so I'll have a good color photo of each doll along with each pattern. The embroidery iron transfers are all unused as well.I picked up these baby blue strands of beads for $1, the bag of jewelry was $2.....
Lets open up the bag shall we?..... I try to always pick up jewelry when I go to yard sales. I've got two little pirates (grandkids) that have several pirate chests in amongst their toys that they can pull out all of this shiny stuff and play with. I'll pull out anything that has a sharp pin back, or anything of value that I'd like to keep for myself. I'm a pirate as well!
Well, lookie here.... whats this? Gold? Silver?... yep, both. There is a gold ring with a pinkish stone and 3 tiny diamonds on each side of the stone. A 14k gold "I ♥ You Mom" charm. The gold ring with the blue sapphire stones & diamonds is gold plated. The silver ring with the amethyst stone along with the amethyst earrings are both sterling silver.... not to shabby. I'm going to give these to my daughter-- as her daughter was born in February and that is her birthstone.
Here is a close up of my newest favorite ring... I'm wearing it as I type~
It has an old look and feel to it, I really like it :-) The yard sale I went to last Sunday that I hit the mother load on hasn't reopened yet..... I drive by her house often. Her husband waved at me... how embarrassing! You can't be discreet when you drive a '66 Mustang. *sigh* There goes any hope of being a detective huh? I'm hoping next weekend she will have gone through some more of her mothers estate and pulls it out to sell it, cause I'm wanting to buy it!! *woot-woot*
I've been working on my tags for my tag for tag swap. I've got everything cut and ready for assembly..... I'm using an image of my husbands great-great-great grandfather when he was a baby, I'm making him into cupid. Finishing these up will have to wait as I'm going on a 3 day trip to Carson City & Reno. Of course I'll be hitting all the thrift stores while there. I'm pretty sure that is where I'll "hit it big" rather than at the slot machines! Wish me luck!