Chumley

My sweet ol' hobo kitty Chumley passed away on Monday. *sigh*  Here is an old photo of Chumley taking a nap on top of a pirate chest in my backyard. He was a perfect pirate kitty...

Chumley wandered into our yard one wintery day and took up residence in the bushes. For weeks I tried coaxing him out with tuna, turkey, and wet cat food. He wasn't falling for it, and would wait patiently until I set down the food and walked away before he would come out to eat. One night I was sitting on the front steps enjoying the night breeze and Chumley snuck up and rubbed his face on my hand-- scaring the heck out of me because I didn't see him coming. Of course that little gesture of his.... gave me complete permission to scoop him up and love on him! From that day forward he would never shy away from being touched again...
Chumley was a skinny, malnourished boy when I came across him. He was missing one of his fangs... and you could just tell life had been hard on him. Many a time, I would catch him looking around to see if he was alone... tilt his head to look up to the sky and then start these long mournful, howling-meows. It resembled a dog howling, only Chumley would be meowing at the top of his lungs.
As a small remembrance of my little hobo kitty, Chumley, I made a statue of him. Chumley wasn't a soft, smushy kitty. Chumley was more of a rigged, no-nonsense cat. I assume because of his advanced age and rough life that he was this way, I'm not sure. Although, with that said, I could easily turn him into a drooling, foolishly happy beast none the less just by petting him and showing him affection...  

 I added the word "Meow" to the statue.... His howling meow's will forever be a sweet-sweet happy memory.

I was lucky to have loved him for the time he had left. My precious hobo kitty... Chum. *sniffle*
big hugs,
 

Minion Movie

Last night I went to see the new Minion movie with my daughter and my two grand kids... I thought Minion hats were in order!

Here is the one eyed little guy, he is my favorite....

 and the other one I made.

Here is my grand daughter Chloe wearing one of the Minion hats.

My grand son Jonathan is a good sport and at least put on his Minion hat for a photo.

 They told me they both wanted to sit by me, so I got to sit in between them last night... made for one happy Nana :-)
big hugs,

Day of the Dead Necklaces

It has been awhile since I've created any new spoon pendants.... I felt it was time to get back to it.

 I have a few new venues that I am going to be selling at this upcoming year and I felt I needed to go in a slightly different direction for those events. I love the images of the highly decorated skulls of the "Day of the Dead" so that is what I used. 

I created these using much smaller spoons. These are surprisingly much smaller than a teaspoon.

 I think I like the itsy-bitsy  spoons over the larger spoon pendants. I have a lot more of these spoons all ready to be decorated... which probably means I'll crank out another large batch in between...working in my yard, crocheting, playing with metal tape, etc, etc, etc... you get the idea *wink*

I like the idea of having a little shrine to remember a special someone who has passed on... although, I don't need one to remember my best friend who passed away... I do that automatically- daily... I think I'll make myself a special pendant just the same, in remembrance of her.
big hugs,

Recycled T-Shirt Bags

I try to have some sort of fun craft for my grand kids to do when they come over for the day during summer vacation. You know how boring summer vacation can be. Summer vacation sounds so fabulous on the last day of school... but a couple of weeks into it, your so over it... Luckily,  Pinterest came to the rescue. I have a board on Pinterest called  "Summer Time"  One of the cute ideas that I had pinned was to make a bag out of an old t-shirt. I had my daughter bring over some of my grand-kids old t-shirts they had outgrown to use in making their bags.

The majority of the work was done by me...  Basically I had them nearly completed but for a few cuts to be done by the kids. These t-shirt bags have a bottom sewn seam. So, I first  turned each t-shirt inside out and pinned the bottom of the t-shirt making sure it was smooth, then I just hemmed along the bottom, easy peasy. Of course, I had to go a step beyond just the basic straight stitch across the bottom of the bag and gave each one a "boxed bottom." The boxed bottom will make it easier to hold wider things and it just gives each bag a better overall appearance.

Next, I flipped each shirt right side out laying them as flat and smooth as possible. I made some cardboard templates to use as marking guides for cutting the shirts since I was going to be marking a lot of them at one time. I pre-made a stack of shirts ready to be cut into bags, all the kids had to do was cut on the chalked lines to complete them. I placed pins very close together so that the two layers of each shirt wouldn't slide around while the kids were cutting the fabric.
It worked out pretty well...

It was nice for them to have immediately accomplished a task and get rewarded with a finished product so quickly... I wish I had someone to pre-make something for me so I could swoop in last minute and finish it up!
The t-shirt bag for my grand daughter just screamed for fringe. For this bag, I didn't turn the shirt inside out before stitching the bottom hem. I stitched across the bottom front and then fringed the remaining fabric of the shirt. The pink cutting line is chalk and will wash away.
I had my grand daughter add some beads to each piece of fringe along the front and back of the newly made bag. Each bead was slipped onto the fabric and held in place by an overhand knot. Easy-peasy.

Of course, Nana needed some recycled t-shirt bags too, why not.... I used two Ed Hardy t-shirts that are heavily-rhinestoned for my two bags. This Nana rocks the rhinestones *wink*

Well that was fun... When is the first day of school? *wink*
big hugs,