Christmas Tree Twice...

So, I didn't decorate my tree as plan. I could not find the plaid ribbon so I went with red ribbon trimmed in white lace. It has white snowflakes, some with and without glitter and red jingle bells. The top is a big bow of the same ribbon I use on the tree. I use the boxes in the pics from my last blog post. It stood the test of time. Here's some pics. Hope you like and Happy Holidays again! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Oh, No! A Christmas Tree Mishap...

Well I stayed up until 3am decorating my tree and putting up decorations. I didn't go as elaborate this time as I had planned.

 I used what I had to decorate and then I planned on getting some mesh or something to fill in the gaps. I still needed a topper. I thought about a pinecone swag on top. Never made one but seeing them on the internet they looked prettier enough to top my tree off. Here's the link to Google images to get an idea of what mine will look like.

But I didn't get to do anything else to my tree. My grandson and I had made some cookie ornaments.

He couldn't resist eating them so when he went to grab one off the tree, this is what happened.

LOL! The expression on his face. He was so scared. I couldn't do anything but laugh and tell him that's a "no no" and "to not do it again". His Sissy, Avie, she didn't know what to think as you'll see in this picture.

So, I'm back to square one. I think I'm going to go red plaid and pinecones and call it quits. Put some faux packages wrapped in red plaid, green, and white tissue paper and decorate them.

 I'm going big so I don't have do so many. I'll post pics once the tree is done.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Hope all is well on your end and Happy Holidays ♥♥♥!

Ugly Christmas Sweater? How About An Ugly Christmas Sweatshirt TOO?

     I finally decided this is the year to make those ugly Christmas sweaters/sweatshirts. I've always wanted to but never made the time. I know you can buy them new, but I wanted to make mine myself. I got my sweaters from the thrift store and the sweatshirt from Wal-mart.

      The only ones I've worked on so far are for my grandson, Tray and my sister, Sarah. She wanted a sweatshirt instead of a sweater. I got rid of my sewing machine a few years back so I'm hand stitching them myself. In hindsight I believe I should have just went ahead and purchased some fabric glue. Takes a long time to hand stitch. I might finish hand stitching Trays and just fabric glue my sisters down and put faux stitching on the felt.

      Tray's sweatshirt is a reindeer theme. My sister's is "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" theme. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the others. Hoping something will inspire me so I can get them done for this year instead of next  year. LOL!

     Here's some pics and until next time I Hope every ones Christmas is as HOLLY and JOLLY as mine! 

Turkey, stuffing, STUFFED...All we have to give thanks for on Thanksgiving Day!

Thanksgiving comes every year and each and every one of us celebrate it in our own way. There's no right or wrong. We give thanks for everything we have and the good Lord above. Here at my house we don't do anything big and fancy. We don't go anywhere. We all just stay at home, relax, eat, watch football and pretty much do whatever fancy us.

We had a great Thanksgiving meal. We ate turkey, Stove Top stuffing, pan stuffing, green beans, mac-n-cheese, macaroni salad and Hawaiian King rolls. We all got STUFFED!!!

                                                       Here's my plate. LOL!

 I also fixed Spirit and Weewaa Thanksgiving Dinner too. They love the giblets and broth from the turkey.

Weewaa

                                                                              Spirit


Everyone ate until stuffed then went  separate ways to relax and unwind. My husband doing the football thing. "Dallas Cowboys all the way!", he says. My daughter and grandson are gone to Wal-mart. My granddaughter took a nap but now playing in her walker. Lastly, myself, writing this blog and hoping to get in some CRAFTING today.

                                                                          Miss Avah

 Mr. Tray

Oh dear, how shall I decorate for Christmas? The possibilities are endless...

Every year I go through this dilemma of, "How shall I decorate for Christmas?" I try to do something different every year but there's so many possibilities. You have monochromatic, silver and gold, red and white, black and gold, blue and silver, whimsical, etc... I just don't know what to do anymore. I scroll through Pinterest and Google Images looking for ideas but the possibilities are endless. You know the old saying, too many choices, makes it difficult to choose. Well, I'm in that "sleigh". (Hehehe!)


2014 Christmas Tree

2013 Christmas Tree 

So this year I'm thinking either whimsical or brown and red. If I choose brown and red, then I'll have to decide if I'll go rustic or elegant. If I go whimsical, I can mix and match and it'll look great no matter what.
How are you going to decorate this year? Love to get some feedback. Thanks so much for reading and Happy Holidays to all of you! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Altered mask for mixed media challenge

4G or Girls, Giggles, Glitter, and Glue on Facebook has a mixed media challenge which I participated. You didn't have to send anything in nor was it a swap. You just had to alter something you purchased from a thrift store or the Goodwill using some of the products listed for the challenge.
I altered a Halloween mask. I put it off so long because of other obligations that the deadline crept up on me before I knew it. I didn't do it until 3 hours prior to the deadline. Whew! I did it though. I didn't win, but I had fun and in the end that's what count.

I used gesso, paint, crackle paint, rhinestones, glitter, glitter glue, flowers, buttons, ribbon, black oil marker, jute, butterfly bow and bling.

Yep, that's a Thanksgiving tree alright...

Every year it seems like we all go from Halloween to Christmas without really doing anything for Thanksgiving except cooking turkey. So this year I wanted to make a Thanksgiving tree. Why not? We do one for Christmas every year. Easter and Halloween trees are even becoming popular.

I wanted to do something different this year being my grandson enjoys crafting with grandma. Turkey hands it is and we even topped it off with a pilgrim hat. (Also for fillers I punched holes in some cutouts I had gotten from the Dollar Tree, wheel barrels with pumpkins, leaves and squirrels.) On each turkey it has something we should be thankful for. I think having the tree up helps up remember that Thanksgiving not just about food but a reminder of all we should be thankful for. If you like to make one, hopefully ours will give some ideas. 

This is how ours is done.

Pinecone Turkeys Galore!

Today my grandson, Tray and I made pinecone turkeys. He's 2-years-old going to be 3 next month so it was kind of tricky using hot glue around him. So, I did most of them and saved two for him to do. We did ten of them. You'll notice one of them has Avah, that's Tray's sister. In the picture there's only eight because Tray and I haven't did the other two together. Yesterday when I mentioned we would be making pinecone turkeys, he got really excited but it didn't last long because today, he didn't get to participate as much since we were using hot glue. :( Also the corner thing on the counter you see with tape is a bumper I made so Tray won't hurt himself. It's right at eye level so I taped the corner off with paper and tape to cushion it just incase he hits it.

If you'd like to make them, it's really quite simple. Here's how Tray and I did ours.

Boo! My first ATB (Artist Trading Block) and my first swap.

Bored, I went on Facebook to see what kind of groups I could join. I joined at least 25+ craft groups. After a while I weeded those now to just a few. Realistically I knew there was no way I would participate in all the groups. One group in particular, Girls, Giggles, Glitter and Glue, ultimately persuaded me to participate. Originally I would only watch and comment. I participated in an ATB or Artist Trading Block swap with our choice of any theme. Names were drawn and I had a partner. I, myself, didn't have any particulars for making my ATB but my partner liked, pinks, purples and turquoise, girlie theme.

I've seen the ATBs but never really paid attention to them. After looking on Pinterest, I decided to do my with a Halloween theme. I made the box approximately a 4" cube. Used the papers from an old Halloween Collection, I think maybe it's My Mine's Eye, something, something, something. Dyed the lace with some homemade ink spray I concocted after watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M3Ac3QGUyI . Attached some ribbon on all corners, hot glued the lace around the edges, screwed in some blue glass knobs for legs inked with black Stazon, Ranger Stickles, rhinestones, silver chain, rhinestone sprays, WOC (Wild Orchid Crafts) flowers, paper bat and some cut-outs all used on the ATB. Once finished, I just hoped my partner would like it. You know when you make something, you're always worried they might not like it but she loved it.:) Anywho, Thanks for taking the time to read and posted below is pics of my project.

If you like you can also watch a short video of the ATB on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnGmjQBjhbk . Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Oh My, Farming Is Harder Than I Thought!

So if you read my last blog post you know we moved to Crescent City, California last June and now have chickens and how I said once the kinks are worked out anyone can raise chickens. Well I'm going to let you in on our little adventure and elaborate on the kinks. When we moved on this property there was a mother load of blackberry bush. I guess they're native to this area because you see them everywhere. At first, I conjured up childhood memories of how my brother and I used to pick them and sell them for $3 a gallon in North Carolina. Now that was approximately 38 years ago. I got all excited thinking about all the blackberry cobblers and blackberry and dumplings I was going to make. Well, that didn't pan out. There was just too much and I was so overwhelmed that I decided I rather get rid of them being they were pushing against the fence and too much work.

We noticed a lot of goats in peoples yards when we would go out riding around. After talking to the locals and looking around on Craigslist we decided to get some goats ourselves. We came upon an ad with 2 goats which we picked up in Brookings, Oregon. They already had names, Nanny Goat and Peanut. We soon came to realize that it was going to take a long time for 2 goats to clean out the blackberry bush. We decided to get 2 more goats. They came from Arcata, California. I named them Huck and Finn.

After getting the goats, that's when we decided to go ahead with chickens. We purchased 12 hens for a $100 from a local here in Crescent City. As I said in my last blog post, the breeds consist of Americana, Plymouth Rocks, Jersey Giants, and Rhode Island Reds.

We attached the chicken coup to the existing building and fenced in an area for the chickens to come out and scratch. While on the other side of the fence the goats ate the blackberry bush.

Everything was going good so we decided to get a few peeps from the local feed store. We got 1 rooster and 2 hens.

They were so cute. I was so excited. Now realize we're new at this chicken thing. That being said they didn't make it. I was devastated. I decided after that I rather get hens that are older. So we purchased 12 one month old hens of different breeds from Brookings, Oregon. Everything was going great we thought. We let our guard down and our rat terrier, Crystal dug a hole beside the chicken coup where the babies were. Low and behold as they came out one by one our labrador, Spirit, killed about 5-6 of them.  I was so traumatized. The others escaped through the fence and never came back all except one. We looked for them but couldn't find them. The one that came back she died too and one of our big chickens died too. So we're left with 11 hens and 1 rooster.  Now when they're out we fence the dogs up. Lessons learned don't ever assume you know it all because I guarantee you something will happen when you least expect it. Read and educate yourself and also don't be afraid to ask questions even if they seem stupid. I'm happy to say everything is going good right now. Always be ready for the unexpected. (Oh and we got the rooster by trading all 4 goats for it. The goats did what we wanted so it was time to let them go. I was just concerned about them getting ate and was leery about letting them go.) Until next time have a great weekend.

Eggtatta, Fritatta, Whatevertatta...

When you raise chickens, you're going to have eggs galore. I recently moved to Crescent City, California last June, 2014 from the Bay Area looking for a simpler lifestyle. One where less is better and more fulfilling. February of this year I decided to build a chicken coop and get some chickens. I now have 11 chickens and 1 rooster. Chickens consist of Jersey Giants, Rhode Island Reds, Americana, Plymouth Rocks and I'm not sure what breed the rooster. I decided on chickens because the price of eggs kept going up and it's just cheaper to raise my own. They put out anywhere from 8-12 eggs daily (56-84 eggs a week). Now that's a lot of eggs you can say. The colors range from green, white and different shades of brown. Sometimes I end up with "fart" eggs. Lol! Fart eggs are usually harmless and most likely the hen laying the egg was interrupted but after a few days she should straighten herself out. I had 2 farts and then everything went back to normal. Now I get to do more baking and cooking because I have plenty of eggs on hand. I recently made a fritatta for dinner. I winged it from what I've seen on tv, in magazines and on the web. I mixed 3 eggs in a bowl and added the sauteed scallions, spicy hot sausage, bell peppers, jalapenos, which I cooked in olive oil along with some sea salt, black pepper, oregano and thyme. After the egg had cooked on the bottom and around the sides I finished it off in the oven on 350 for about 10-15 mins until done. Topped it off with some shredded cheddar cheese. But you can use whatever you have on hand.

I must say it turned out better than I thought. Raising chickens is easier than I thought once the kinks are worked out. No matter where you live, in the city or the country. Give it a try. There's some great books and blogs on raising chickens that will help get you started. Until next time,

Bon Appetit

.