Recent pictures

Carrie and David


Sarah in her cool outfit from Cootie



Nana and her littlest grandbaby.

Baby Mason Mack

The clean buffet. Anyone who has crafted with me knows that it does not usually look like this. Thanks to Molly and an intervention in the form of a cleaning jag got the diningroom organized so we can EAT and Craft here. Imagine! And thanks to Mary Colleen for taking a break from studying to show me how to do this. Woohoo. Happy Joy joy to you all.

happy holidays

Happy Holidays! I have done not much of artistic value. I did get some nice snowflake hats done for our darling Ohio babies and got them delivered before Thanksgiving. I have cleaned and hung up a mountain of decorations. That means that for the time being the diningroom is off limits for wild and crazy crafting. The buffet is set for a tea party so if you are in the neighborhood and come with cookies I will prepare the tea! Many blessings to you and yours at this special time of year.

banner pictures...I hope!

Tilt your head to the side and you will be able to see three little black cat hats. I am not going to try and rotate this darn picture. Long out of patience. The hats are for our Cleveland grandbabies. Please let me know what could be done to improve my banners. I am on a roll with those.


May I please speak to the genius that has been messing with this blogspot and tell them to LEAVE IT ALONE. What was once easy enough to use is not POOP. Anyhow, having vented I am ready to try and put my pictures of my creations up. Deep breath...here goes.

I have been away from this way too long. It is taking me forever to remember how to load pictures and arrange them. Sorry if things are out of order. I wanted to share my paper banners I have made for Fall. The owls was made using my Cricut and Design Studio. The butterfly banner basic shape was purchased and made as a thank you for our darling granddaughter Bridget for allowing us to use her room on our recent visit there. Collage is not my favorite medium but I am trying to get up to speed with the times...and collage is very popular again.

I finally found this purse album in Fairview Heights, Illinois. It is the perfect way to carry new 4x6 pictures of my grandchildren. I put this one together for my friend Paula for her birthday. It comes with paper cut to use as background for her darling grandchildren. It is so impressive to open this thing up in the check-out line and have 18 pictures of your darlings pour out for everyone to see...whether they want to or not.

I was visiting my friend Marcia and she had this darling purse that she had just finished. It was a Simplicity pattern and a lot of fun to make. I used black denim for the tote base and a cotton blend fabric for the sleeve that can be unbuttoned and changed for the season. With that in mind I went out and bought some Halloween pumpkins and what I thought was Fall leaves. In the light those leaves turned out to be turkeys! I am going to make a green sleeve for March and a bright pink one for Valentines day. Of course, red white and blue for summer. Now if I just had somewhere interesting to carry the new bag.

knittng projects

In the evenings I knit. It is an excellent way to wind down from the day. The yellow sweater is for baby Emmett who now lives in Ohio. I will be seeing him soon. The green stripped sweater was for Emmett but it did not fit him long and did not fit baby Mason who is almost 6 months at all. It is a good size for an American Girl doll so that is probably what it will be used for in the future.

It is August and I have been really busy crafting. I have done little or no drawing but the bag with the materials to do so is out and ready when the mood suits me. Instead I have done a little of this and a lot of knitting. Here are some samples of what I have accomplished this summer. Once I realized I had made more cards than I would probably ever send I found another use for them. I turned them into booklets using my Bind it All. Now I have very manageable sized books to keep track of the photos from our day trips.

I dropped off the face of the earth. Poor blog followers. That is what it must seem like happened. I said I was going to go forth and draw and I did. Two birds captured on paper. Then I got distracted with visiting grandchildren, a mixup in Sarah's anticonvulsants, baby Mason's Baptism and cleaning house. It was all fun (except for the housework)
I am back on track with my decision to dedicate my summer to sharpening my drawing skills. Once I have the knack back I will start posting some of my scribbles.
In the meantime I will be working on scrapbooks and cards and watercolors and beading and knitting and gardening. Have a wonderful summer.

Time to draw

Something about Spring calls to me to get my pencils and sketchbook out and draw. I keep them in a special place so I do not have to dig around for them. I have flowers in bloom that want to be recorded. No time like the present to do that before it gets too hot to sit outside. Look for the results in the days to come.

Tea at the Drake

Oh what a beautiful place Chicago is in the Spring. The tulips on Michigan Ave were in full bloom and the sun was shining off the lake. Molly and I have been talking about taking tea at the Drake for ages and finally we had reservations for Saturday, April 17th.
We shopped first and then when our feet were getting really tired we arrived at the Drake for our 1:00 reservation. Tea was lovely and the company was perfect.
Next time we will shop for books last instead of first. Molly got stuck carrying all the books we bought and there were quite a few. Now we can sit and remember the day over a cup of tea and one of our new books.
Many thanks to our husbands who took three toddlers and one lovely little lady in her wheelchair to the Museum of Science and Industry.

I had intended to make something other than cards this week but aside from the sweater I am knitting for baby Mason I have made lots of cards! Here is a sample of some Spring cards I have found on U Tube and have duplicated. Thanks so much to all the lovely people who take the time to make those videos so I can find just what I am looking for to make. Spring calls to me to make flowers and lots of them.
Let me know if you like what you see.

This is todays creation. I have used the ideas of three other stampers to make this card so it is by no means an original. The petals are from the Stampin Up bird punch that is new this season. The butterflies are a Sizzlet die also from Stampin up. I thought it made a nice Spring card. Of course the words can be changed to suit ones need.
Thanks to Marcia Evers for telling me about the tulips being made from this punch. Leave it to Marcia to know what is new!
Have a great day!

Today I conquered the Bind it All machine I got for my birthday. It was not as hard as I was imagining and made two fine little books that have knitting patterns in them. Both patterns were on a very unmanageable long sheet of paper making it hard to follow so I photocopied the directions, cut them apart and mounted them on colored paper. The covers for the books were made from the back of a tablet of paper. I took some time to cover the front and back covers just as an exercise in how not to do it. I will do a much neater job with the corners next time. It was a simple process and made the creative juices run thinking of what to bind up next.
Once I have the baby sweater done from these directions I will photograph it and mount it on the cover of the book with a sample of the yarn inside. I will photograph that and post it. The sweater works up fast so it should not be too many days.
To those who take the time to post a message, I am very grateful. Joanne, you are right. This is getting easier as it goes along. I LOVE your buttons and your amazing blog.

Happy Birthday to Me! I am having a wonderful day. I got to visit with my darling daughter from Chicago and my perfect grandchildren and I got to babysit my new grandson. Today I am taking it easy and playing with my new craft project which is a Bind It All from Zutter. I have completed over 70 greeting cards. I think that might be carrying that a little far so now I am going to switch to making some books to hold some photos. It will make it easier to way-lay people in the street to show them the grandchildren's pictures.
My children gave me a steam cleaner for my floors. It is marvelous and makes getting the wooden floors cleaned in a snap. Molly brought me a goodie bag of my favorite cookies and tea and TWO new mysteries. So I can clean the floor and kick back and enjoy my new books. I am wearing my new butterfly earrings from my dear friend Penny and once I am done with this I am going to put on the new movie she brought.
The very best part of the day was realizing I was only 62 when I thought I was 63! I am trying now to dwell on the fact that I do not know how old I am!

Two days in a row! What an amazing record I have going. Today was not an artisticly creative day unless you count raking a winter's worth of doogie poo and bagging it from the backyard all the while thinking how much it would cost to send these two behemoths back to their owners who will soon be living in Cleveland. My darling grandchildren would recognize them immediately. The question is; would their mother be willing to spend the money to send them back to me? Probably not worth the effort. It does worry me a little tiny bit that one of them eats plastic and never seems to send it out the other end.
Bills are paid and checkbook is balanced so tomorrow I hope to have something creative to share.
Happy evening to all.
Molly? I hope you are too busy to read this because you know exactly where I would like to send your pets! I mean that in the kindest possible way. :)

One of these days I am going to get the hang of this and not need to wait until one of my children is home to assist me. If you have been following my blog and coming up empty handed and anxious for a new posting then this is a banner day for you. I suspect there are not many out there. My ardent followers are the same children who are assisting me and laughing at my lack of progress in this new venture.
The card I have managed to post on my own ( thank you very much!) is the one I have almost decided to replicate for my Easter cards. I actually designed this one and am very happy with the results. Unfortunately, the lovely stripped paper is from last year and I only had one piece. Not going to go far but I am sure I can make a substitution.
I will endeavor to blog more but you might be saddened to find out the limitations of my creativity.
The big news here is we have a lovely new grandson. I do not have his proud parents permission to publish his picture but you can take it from me, he is just darling.
More to come...

It was a dark and stormy day

Just kidding. Today is the first time I have seen the sun in ages and it wonderful to behold.
The very first of the Card Kit cards is done and it is packaged and ready to send to an eager crafter who wants to be the first to try out my directions. I see lots of eager hands in the air. How about the little lady in the front row who showed me how to put pictures on my blog? Molly! Your card kit should be arriving in about 5 days. Give it a go and make any corrections you think might be necessary. Joanne, I saw your hand up and you will get the next Card Kit. The original idea for the card came from Marcia Evers who makes the most lovely cards I have ever seen home produced. Thanks for the idea Marcia. You can see I have enlarged and tweaked your original card. This was done because I did not have the exact paper you had so I had to improvise.

Good morning! This is a test of my first lesson in adding pictures to my blog. Molly is here directing the action and I picked the first photo I could find to try and send. Let's see how this works.

best intentions for the new year...

It was my intention to start this new year with a journal to keep track of my art work and projects and to share them with whoever might be interested. Day one started just great. Day two saw me looking through the internet for more interesting page backgrounds and that is where I found A VIRUS! $250 a long 7 days without my computer and I am back on track. I am not looking for anything more interesting than what you see. I am just a bit afraid of what I might find. I will get over that but not today.
We have had a lot of bitter cold weather and snow so Sarah and I are housebound. The fire is warming up the livingroom and Sarah seems to enjoy watching it.
I have been sorting the mess I laughingly call "My Studio". Since I was sans computer it seemed like a good time to organize. The result is a mess of stuff all over the floor in piles that are waiting for shelf space. Yesterday I gave up and pushed it all aside and made some Spring cards. I really did feel better. There was a lot of banging going on from the carpet layers who were putting in the carpet on the stairs in preparation for the installation of Sarah's chair lift. It was a good day to play.
My daughter Colleen and I learned a new card game called Split. A lively way to help the long winter day go by.
I hope to have one of the children show me how to post some pictures so I can keep a record of what I have made. If ever you see anything you like and want directions please do not hesitate to ask. I will make the product for you at a reasonable cost or share the directions with you.

A new year...a new project

It is my sincere conviction that the idle mind is a dangerous place to live. I try to always have at least 4 projects going at any one time and a notebook full of new ones that feed off of those. The projects in the works right now are: finish the blue blanket for the new grandbaby due in March, Add to the Christmas journal that has been in the works since 1976, get pictures of the children and grandchildren printed in sepia or black and white for a transfer technique for charms for a necklace, invite my friends to join me in a charm making swap and find the box with all the valentine materials and swap that out for the Christmas box. Happy New Year to all.