Craft Insomniac

Oh my.
It has been two years since I posted.
Time sure flies when you can't think of anything to say, huh?
I'm still thinking.
Promise.

Silver Bella 2010

Whew, my fingers were shaking as I signed up for Silver Bella 2010! I kept hitting the wrong button and having to go back and start over! But, I got the classes I wanted and looks like I have classes with a lot of my friends! Here's my schedule:

Friday~

8-Oh, Tannenbaum with Kerry Lynn Yeary

11-Bonaparte's gift with Kaari Meng

2-off

Saturday~

8:30-Around the Eclipse with Sally Jean

11:30-Prize-alicious with Sally Jean

2:30-The Secret Inside Bottle with Lisa Kaus

Yay! I'm excited to take classes with Sally Jean again, I learned so much at Silver Bella 2008 just watching her. Plus, I'm thrilled to take a Lisa Kaus class. I looooved the classes we took in July last year at her studio and both my pieces are prominently displayed in my house.

I wish I could have taken both of Kerry Lynn's classes, but I wanted at least one with Kaari Meng too. Too many great choices! I have subscribed to Kerry Lynn's kit club, Kenner Road, for the last year and I love her style.

Okay, off to get my errands done! We are going to Fort Worth tomorrow to visit Kevin's mom and also there is something fun going on at Shea and Debbie's church in Dallas friday night! I'll have to show pics when I get back! :)

Meanwhile, here's one of my favorite girls! Sorry, Debbie, I know you don't like your picture taken, but I thought this one was pretty good! See you friday!

I was hiding under your porch....

Hello Dolly

 
Have you ever seen such sweet little girls in your life? These sweethearts were our roommate gifts from Colleen! The one on the left is Lonnie's, all sweet in pink, just like our peaches and cream complexioned "dairymaid". :) In the middle is Natalie's with her beautiful lace petticoat and on the right is mine in her "Sunday-go-to-meeting" hat. Aren't they beautiful? I'll have to take more pictures so you can see how cute my little vintage straw hat is. :)

I've named mine May. I always loved that name. In Louisa May Alcott's book, Little Women, she named the character, Amy, after her sister May. So now Lonnie and Natalie have to name their girls either Jo, Beth or Meg. Just kidding! Kind of...

Please disregard the awkward angle of my girlie's right foot, she is not injured, I was just more concerned with having her lace petticoat show than making her feet look ladylike.

I can not wait to get the new Somerset magazine, Prims! Colleen has quite a few pages in it- I feel like I know a celebrity!  It reminds me of the scene in Elf where Buddy sees Santa and yells, "Santa? I know him!!" Colleen Moody? I know her!! Go check out Colleen's blog, she sells her dolls through a few blog sales per year and the next one starts tomorrow!

More pictures coming soon!

 

I hardly know where to start, it's been so long since I blogged! I guess I'll just start with the present...

This month I got the chance to go to An Affaire in Wonderland, hosted by the hostess with the mostest, Kim Caldwell! I had always heard Kim's events were over the top and boy, she didn't disappoint!

We started our adventure at Disneyland's Grand Californian hotel and it was beautiful!  Reminded me of the Wilderness Lodge at Disneyworld. My roomies were my sweet amiga's:Lonnie, Natalie and Colleen! We just loooove to squish into one hotel room!

Here we are, posing with the wonderland arbor, I love the pink flamingo!

On friday we had a fun class with Candace Carpenter and tea, of course! That night we went to go see the new Alice in Wonderland at downtown Disney. Here are Colleen, Shea and Natalie waiting for the movie to start. I loved the movie, even though I have to admit my eyelids were getting heavy in the middle! Hey I got up at 3 a.m. the day before and I was on Texas time!

 

Okay, one more picture and I have to go see "How to train your dragon" in 3D, more later I promise! Colleen, Shea, Natalie, Lonnie and me in front of the castle; I love Disney at night!!!

 

Happy Halloween!

 
Happy Halloween! We're off to trick or treat in our neighborhood!

Queen for a day

If you know me, you know that we celebrate my birthday for the whole month of October. We just call it "birthday month"! And no, it was my husband's idea, not mine. He's a keeper, huh?

So, it was extra fun to get this goodie package in the mail earlier this month from the sweet Amanda of Hodgepodge by Amanda! I won a giveaway on her blog and she sent me these sweet goodies and a custom made tiara for my birthday! Pink and green, how did she know those are my favorites? (okay, she asked my favorite colors, but still!) Here's my crown:

 
Isn't she so cute? I took a picture of myself wearing it but I look bad in it so I'm not posting that one. Oh, okay then:

 
Note to self: Do not take pictures without makeup on! ;)

Here are the goodies Amanda sent me, how much fun to get this in the mail?

 
Okay, I better get packing, I'm meeting my sister in Dallas tomorrow for market and a little shopping! :)

First day of school

First day of school is always a little bittersweet for me. I'm ready to get back to a routine and have some time for myself but I really love having my kids home for the summer. I love the lazy days with no homework or strict bedtime, taking lunch and a good book up to the pool. Well, summer's over and there is something special about buying new school supplies and starting a fresh year, so many possibilities! I usually buy a few supplies for myself too! :)

 

Here's the first grader ready to go conquer the world. She is such a social butterfly, let's hope we can keep the detentions to a minimum this year. She tends to get in trouble for talking, there a lot of words in that little body that need to get out! :)

 

And here's the junior. Wow. Hard to believe we only have two more years with her at home. We are well into the volleyball season now and it's so fun to watch her play, I never thought I would be so into watching a sport! :)

Okay, now that I have all day to myself again I really have NO excuse for not getting things done, right?

 

Portland Part Deux

I know, I know, I'm blogging for the third time in a week. What is going on?

Well, school starts in 2 weeks so I guess I'm in the "get things done" mode. Or maybe I just have too much time on my hands. Anyhoo, here are more pictures from my trip to Portland...

 Here we are: Stacy, Lonnie, Colleen, Lisa Kaus and Natalie in Lisa's gorgeous backyard. We had classes at Lisa's house, in her basement studio, on Friday and Saturday and each day we had lunch on her deck in the back overlooking her lush garden.

Can you see the chaise in the lower right corner? Heaven! I just want to get a good book and a drink with an umbrella in it and settle in.

 Lisa's house was filled with her own artwork and lots of fun things by other artists. I have a bit of jealousy over these pillows I must admit. The green strawberry is hooked wool,  I love it!!

 More fun artwork in her dining room hutch. It was so much fun to just wander around her house and see all her treasures and she was so gracious to let us. I wouldn't let you into my back bedroom/junk room if you paid me. Okay, well it would depend on how much you paid me I guess...

Here are Natalie and I getting ready to start on our "Let them eat cake" class. I started with a white cake (thank you Colleen for switching with me!) and Natalie's is a robin's egg blue.

Natalie started with the blue cake also and Colleen's was pink. This was a fun class, not as stressful as the gridlocked class the day before which, to me, was more fast-paced. I love how all our cakes turned out!

 Left to right: Natalie, Stacy, Colleen and Lonnie. We took these on our makeshift photo studio in our hotel room. I'd like to thank my assistants for holding the sheet, I couldn't have done it without you.

Natalie's cake is awaiting it's cute little paper clay birdie in it's silver nest. (you can see her finished cake on her blog) I am jealous of Natalie's polka dot feet and envision some polka dot feet in my near future. :)

My cake has an old crystal doorknob on top, Colleen's has a french gentleman, whom she dubbed "Pierre", and Lonnie's has a sweet little paper clay bird. I think we may see more of those sweet birds at her Silver Bella vendor table...

Next installment: our gridlocked class projects, stay tuned, I'm on a roll!

Boots

No good reason for this post, just some cute pictures from this week. My daughter likes to read outside and when I drove up yesterday this is what I saw.

Boots, or as we used to call him, our "backyard cat", just wandered up a few years agoand never left. He used to come in the house but unfortunately can not control his urge to "mark" his territory so he lives outside again. (don't worry, we leave one of the garage doors propped so he can come and go) He walks kind of bow-legged and makes the most hilarious mrrooooww sound. After I sat on the grass to take this picture he decided he needed to come over and get some attention from me too.

Oops

Oops! I meant to just save that last post and add more pictures later, but I guess I published it. Also, ignore the fact that it is written in two different fonts.

 Here is a close up of the purses I made for the girls. My friend, Marlis, digitized my handwriting and stitched the names on for me! Have I mentioned how handy it is to have a friend who worked for Bernina for years? Of course, I made her one too but didn't get a picture of it.  I have to say I was inspired by Rebecca's apron in the latest cloth, paper, scissors. I loved how she stitched all the strips of vintage fabrics together!

 On Thursday, Michelle met us at the hotel to go shopping in Portland. She gave us sweet little goodie bags of vintage supplies but I already opened mine and used some of it so I don't have a picture! Thank you Michelle, you're a sweetheart!  Lonnie had arranged for us to meet Sally Jean for lunch and tour her studio afterwards. Wow! Her studio was chock full of inspiration, made me want to come home and break out the soldering iron! Here are more pictures of her studio:

 Boy, I love this flower pendant on the mannequin. I wonder where I could get that "petal glass", hmmm. You can't really see the chandeliers below clearly but boy they were gorgeous in person!

 

 Notice the soldered bird in the lower right corner? I am just now realizing that I need to add the glittered twig feet to my bird from last years Silver Bella class...

 I love the big glass jars of doll heads and bodies, does that mean there's something wrong with me? I think I am just jealous because I want some of these babies for my own artwork...

Okay, that's it for now. For some reason when I start to add a bunch of pictures Typepad starts asking me if I want to quit because my script is running low. I have no idea what that means but I don't want to risk losing my post so I'll post more pictures on another post later. Really. I mean it.