Words Should Always Be Covered In Chocolate!

A very dear friend once told me she always covered her words in chocolate, so if she had to eat them she would enjoy them!  This is very good advice and I'm so glad I listened to her. Thanks, Deb!

What was it, a month ago that I said I've found what I really enjoy and it's not sewing!  Well, what do you think I got at the quilt show?   Yes, I am the proud owner of a Bernina!  Now, it's a baby one - not one of those big multi-thousand $$$$$$ machines, but it is a Bernina.  Why you ask?  Because I've decided I want to make small quilts.  (I know what you're thinking - I just said sewing wasn't my thing) but I've now decided I want to make small wall hangings with both photographs and painted squares and quilt them.  Oh, how good those chocolate covered words taste!  Ha Ha

  Now don't think I've turned my back on those saws, I have not!  I just cut out a new piece for my front door last Sunday.  I have worked on it this week preparing it with colored papers.  I've added a ribbon and bow to the bottom package and will add  more ribbon and bows to the rest of the gifts, and it will be ready for decoration day.

Pattern

Wood Cutout

 Ready for Bows

And, that brings up a whole other topic - Thanksgiving Day.  My sweet husband and I have gone to "Autorama" every Thanksgiving evening for over 20 years and they changed the dates.  There is no Thursday evening show this year - I can't tell you the disappointment that flowed through our house when we discovered this tidbit of information.  But recovery has been quick and we shall use Thursday afternoon to put up our outside decorations, or at least get started. Friday we will do Autorama and Saturday, I will be in a sewing machine class all day!!!!!  Sounds like a great holiday weekend to me, with much to be thankful for this year, as always.

But now back to the reality of today!  What to do with the new machine?  Every inch of my craft room is covered!  Way too many projects going on at once and to be honest, just way too much stuff.  And so my new machine sits on my dining room table as I gut my room and rearrange, redecorate, get rid of much and make a place for this new treasure.  So as much fun as this is, I must stop, get off of my fanny and head back upstairs and face the mess!  The soon to be organized, great to look at and even greater to create in studio!  I mean it's going to be soooo neat and it will deserve the name studio!  Pictures to follow soon.

What? It's Almost Thanksgiving!

Where does time go?  It seems like only yesterday I was cutting out witches legs and shoes with a pumpkin or two for good measure and now it's November and less than two weeks from Thanksgiving.   I had so much fun with the shoes and the legs and a blast with all of the little goblins that came to our door.  

Our little dog Jack wore a Halloween T-Shirt and loved greeting at the door.  Now if I could just train him to give out the treats!  Ha Ha - he'd eat them all!  We had around 60 little ones this year but none as cute as little Bentley.

Aren't they fun!

I painted a large pumpkin for our front door (left) and two smaller ones for the two other front doors!  Don't ask - I think I may have mentioned before that we have a main front door and two smaller ones.  I painted the backs of the small ones to be Jack-o-lanters and the fronts to be plain pumpkins. When I turned off the lights after the last little trick or treater, I flipped them over, brought in the legs and the shoe, hung the large pumpkin on the door - instant change to Thanksgiving/fall theme!  Quite proud of myself for the double duty on the small pumpkins.


And now it's on toward Christmas!  I've drawn some cute plans for a door decoration and I want to cut out and make some other items for the yard - just two weeks and we'll be changing over to Christmas!

Again, I say, where does the time go?

Jack-o-Lanterns

I finally had some time in my craft room yesterday and got the back sides of my pumpkins finished.  You saw the fronts in my last post and here is the back.  In my earlier post I said I was going to use Martha Stewart decals, but traced some instead and painted them  I just wasn't for sure how decals would hold up over time!  Now I need to drill holes nd add the wire hanger and get them on my doors. I have one more to make - front and back for  side door.

I've put my witch legs into a pot and so now it's just add the wires and the front of the house will be ready for Halloween.  I am going to do one large pumpkin for the front door.  It will take the place of the witch shoe on November 1.  Can you believe we're talking about November 1!  I was going to make some candy corn to place along the sidewalk - beginning to think that will be added next year!  Haha Time just flies by way too fast.

I have pieces I want to make for Christmas, so I'm already in the planning stages those.  I want one large piece for front door and two or three smaller ones for the other doors.

Rainy Day Helps Pumpkins Grow!

What a dark rainy day!  Held off on the trip into town for the plywood and worked with what I already had started.  I put a base coat on the pumpkins to block out the woodgrain and began to paint!  I have the front of two medium pumpkins complete and I love them.  I said complete and that's not quite true - they are painted!  I still need to add the wire for hanging and add some of those adorable little curly cues.  The back is now orange and the stem painted and I'm going to add the face decals later tonight or tomorrow.  With the rain I want to let the pieces have some extra drying time.  They're in my craft room, but still, really dry is very important.

I headed out to "manland" to help Bill for a few minutes and here came another downpour, so I cut out a couple of small pumpkins to make pins!  You know for your coat or jacket.  I think they would be super cute on a blue jean jacket!  Bet you get to see one modeled soon!  Right now they're drying - got them painted and now I wait!

I learned something else today!  A life lesson of sorts.  My mom loved to sew and my cousins do too!  Judy, who will be here in just a few weeks for the quilt show loves to sew and she has fabulous machines.  I would like to love to sew, but just don't.  I can do it and I used to do it well, but it just doesn't give me joy.  I bought a felting machine a couple of years ago (quilt show) and thought I would use it constantly, but it's not what I thought it would be, no joy!  But, today when I turned on that saw and began to cut out these little pumpkins, I suddenly knew how Judy feels when she sews!  Guess all that time in my Dad's workshop as a little girl set this in motion, but I just love it.  I love the smell of the wood as it's cut,  the sawdust, even the sound of the saw as it cuts through the wood! And painting well, that's the real joy of my life!  I love the feeling of God moving my hand across the paper or now the wood!  To God be the glory for through Him comes true joy!

I did two small 3.75" x 5" watercolors - one represents abundance - okra (freezing the extra at this point) and a cornucopia of veggies - representing Thanksgiving - my favorite holiday!

I'll be back soon with the back of the pumpkins and hopefully the large pumpkins painted!

It's All About the Candy!

Well I've been a busy lady!  All of that equipment my sweet husband added to my workshop has me working, working, working.  I've completed the witches shoes that I cut out.  The picture on the left is one freshly cut out and the picture on the right my first shoe. I'm not terribly fond of this one,  but I am keeping it for myself.  The next two I like soooo much better because learned from my mistakes and change up the number of polka dots and the stripes on the shoes and I used orange instead of green!


I took one of the orange polka dot ones to a meeting to show a friend on Wednesday and sold one!  So I currently have one shoe left and we'll see how long that one sticks around.


The next thing on my project list  -  the witches legs!  I cut out three sets of legs and I've got all three done.  So far two sets are sold and I'm keeping one for my front porch.  I was going to just stick them in a flower pot, but found a great black caldron at the Party Store and so I'm going to fill it with dirt and stick them in it.   This picture makes them look like too bodyless witches standing around talking, but when they're on display the legs are upside down, giving the appearance of the witch having flown into or fallen upside down into the pot.  I saw something similar on Pinterest.  They had used mannequin legs and I didn't' have any so I just drew out a pattern land cut them out of 1/4 inch plywood and striped them with black paint and Halloween orange duct tape.  Added gold buckles on the shoe, made the opposite end pointed to go into the ground and I will post the finished look as soon as I have my pot filled and it's on the porch!  So much fun to make these, but three of each is just about it, for Halloween items!

My next project is pumpkins!  I cut out two large and three medium and one little bitty one for wreaths for my front doors.  Yes, I said doors - I have three front doors!  Don't ask - we didn't build the house, so I have no clue, other than it's sort of handy except when it comes time to decorate!  But this year for Halloween I will have the shoe on the main door and a jack-o-lantern on each of the small doors.  On November 1,
I will take down the shoe and put up my new large pumpkin and I will take the two medium jack-o-lanterns and flip them over to show their autumn/thanksgiving traditional pumpkin side!  I actually have a beautiful wreath left from last year, but just have to do this pumpkin thing.  So here's my start!  I put my little one on top of the medium with it's base coat complete and set them on top of the large one so the size difference would show.  I painted the little one just to get some practice doing a pumpkin.  I like the little one so now I just have to duplicate it on the larger sizes.  I have an extra large and medium, so may save them to paint until someone says they want one.  Will see how it goes since I have to do the faces on the back of the medium ones.  I found some really cool jack-o-lantern decals at Joanne's - they're Martha Stewart and so I may use them for the cut outs instead of painting!  Seems like it would save a lot of time, but we'll see!  It will be a little while before I have those ready to post!

I'm heading out to get more plywood in the morning - I have some great plans for some Christmas door hanger - can't really call it a wreath - but I think it will be cool.  Lots of fun items will be appearing here over the next few weeks.