Deborah's Daily Dish

It's nearly the weekend!

2012-01-26T20:15:00.000-05:00

Another day down and I got nearly everything on my List done today too!

1. ~~List 5 items in my Etsy shop~~ Check them out HERE. I was super happy to get them up there!
2. Find a home for the last pile of Studio boxes...yeah well they are still sitting here. :-( I am short a craft armoire as we gave our oldest one of them for his computer. So I have to be creative about where this last bit of stuff is going. BUT it will find a home, eventually! lol


Polymer clay bracelet

3. ~~Photograph my new Monster High dress.~~ This is an original design by me! =D I used a super cute red tulip cotton and a bright green satin ribbon. I gathered the ribbon at the shoulder to give the dress a toga-like feel. This outfit included the dress, little black handbag, red polymer clay bracelet and the red edged rose hair pick. It can be found in my Etsy shop

Rose hair pick

Tiptoe through the Tulips


Gathered shoulder detail

4. Make blueberry 'muffins' (in mini from clay) Haven't gotten to these yet, but they are still on my list and it's still kind of early. ;-)
~~5. Make English muffins~~ (real ones this time). I've kind of gotten addicted to Pinterest and I found this recipe a nd since we LOVE english muffins I knew this one was a must make. I made them tonight and aside from not having cornmeal (and substituting grits...bad idea) these were AMAZING! I will be making these often for sure!

So for the most part I accomplished what I set out to do! Now to start thinking about tomorrow's list!

I feel accomplished today!

2012-01-24T23:19:00.000-05:00

I am trying another something new...I am making myself a list of things I want to accomplish each day. There is something wonderful about crossing an item off a list! Today I got all but one item on my list crossed off!
So what was on my list, you might ask? Well, here it is:
~~1. Pack For Trade items~~
~~2. Mail " "~~
3. List candles in etsy shop
~~4. Finish Ghoulia's top~~
~~5. Make matching green skirt~~
~~6. Photograph the MH gang~~
6. Blog (and I suppose I can technically cross this one off to, since I'm doing it now! ;-D)

Bff's Ghoulia and Frankie

#1 and 2 came about after reading April's blog and discovering she had some Stardoll shoes and Monster High items she was looking to trade. Turned out I had several items I would gladly trade her and a deal was struck. As the items going to her contained some of my hand crafted food items, she was willing to wait a few extra day, but went ahead and shipped me my items. So her goodies went out in today's mail, and surprisingly I got my items FROM her today too! We ended up trading for more than just the original shoes and MH stuff as she had a ton of Bratz clothes that she thought would fit the MH gals, so we added more items to her goody bag and I eagerly awaited mine! (I hope she adores the things she's getting!

Ghoulia Ready to Strut

Sadly #3 didn't get done today, BUT it will become tomorrow's #1.

Clawd and Draculaura

#4 and 5 go together. Although I suppose I need to back up a little and explain where Ghoulia came in! (oh and Frankie Stein arrived the same time too!) Forgive me for rambling, I tend to do that sometimes! lol Oh yeah back to the ghouls. When I bought Cleo back in November my intention was for her to simply be a model for me to expand my 1/6th scale fashion and accessory business. I wanted a male and female Monster High as well as LIV dolls, plus of course Barbie and Ken. I found the LIV pair on clearance and am happy with them. After Christmas I found Gil Webber (Monster High) at Wal-mart...I thought I was happy, I know had my 'couples' from each line I wanted to work on. Then I won Clawd and Draculuara... These 2 changed everything. I fell in love with the MH line, they are just so completely unique and different. And gosh are they expressive too!!! So I started perusing everything MH...back when they first came out I just adored the Home Ick Frankie Stein. I mean, Hello! She's into sewing and cooking and crafty things...yep I wanted her! However the stars never aligned (nor did our wallets) and Frankie stayed where she was. Until...I stumbled upon another awesome doll blog by Emily. Turns out she had offered a Home Ick Frankie as a give away to the first person who wanted her! That post had occured a day or so before I found her, but I thought what the heck...can't hurt to ask if she was still available! SHE WAS!!!! YEAH!!! I was stoked!

Then of course came Ghoulia. She has been one of those characters that never really called to me...except for one version. Of course the version I really liked was the one that came ONLY in a 3 pack exclusive from ToysRus...with Cleo and Draculuara. (neither of which I wanted duplicates of.) So I trolled ebay and managed to find and win a nude Ghoul Spirit Ghoulia!!!! By this time I was happy dancing in my chair!

Gil and Cleo

Gil & Cleo, Clawd and Draculaura, Ghoulia, Frankie

Blowin' Kisses goodnight!

Oh geesh, sorry rambling again! To make a long story short both of those girls arrived yesterday, bringing my total MH figs to 6! So here are some pics of my gang

Hey y'all!

2012-01-22T02:44:00.000-05:00

Here it is the wee hours of Sunday and it's been a wonderful weekend. A little on the wild side too, but it's all been good! I am so excited about the prospects for my shop. I had a couple of orders last week that went into the mail on Friday, plus I sold off 2 of the Barbies that I have decided I no longer wanted. I included a couple 'samples' from my shop so hopefully that will help generate some business. I am also doing a couple trades with some awesome ladies...I am getting some fabulous Monster High goodies in exchange for Barbie items and handmade goods from my shop. =D
I've purchased several 'new' patterns for Barbie clothes (which hopefully I can modify for MH too) including a couple 1920s outfits and 3 japanese pattern PDFs that have LOADS of clothes! I have also been dabbling in miniature art work too. I am honestly a terrible 'draw-er' but I like these! It interesting that many of my ideas come from area rug designs!

This first design is patterned after some pallet art I saw HERE

This one came from an area rug ,

As did this one . While I love the idea of this design, the execution was not what I was hoping for. Not entirely sure how to manage a smooth solid background color, but the design is fun!

We got our first taste of winter yesterday! And to say we got caught unawares is a bit of an understatement! There was a Winter Weather Warning from Midnight Friday night until 3pm yesterday. Well when Hubby and I went to bed around 2am Saturday morning, there was still no snow on the ground. It must've started snowing right after we went to bed, because I woke up to THIS!

There was atleast 4 inches on the ground with a steady flutter of snow. It continued to snow until almost 3pm! Remember me mentioning we got caught unawares...um yeah, how about no boots for anyone (but the oldest he's got a pair of my hubs' old combat boots) and no SNOWSHOVELS! Eeeeep! So off we ran to the PX (military shopping plaza) hoping they had something. Well not only did they have plenty of shovels, we found GOOD boots for the rest of us and great prices AND the younger 2 got new shoes for school too!)

We were hoping to make a snowman, so my littlest one help me make some polymer clay snowman features. Sadly the snow was too fluffy to make a snow man, but we will be ready to photograph the pieces we made as soon as we can make a snowman. Since there was no snowman making to be had a giant snow fight ensued! =D There was snow flying everywhere!

On the clay front, I've futzed around mostly, nothing has really been created although I've worked on 'parts' of several things. Hopefully I can share more of those next week.

Well y'all it's almost 3 am, time to go curl up into bed with my hubby and snuggle away the rest of the night. Until tomorrow!

Goals for 2012

2012-01-19T13:05:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but I don't make New Year's Resolutions...they always seem to end up broken by the end of January. Seems like an exercise in futility to 'promise' myself that I'm going to do something if I pretty much know in my head it's not gonna happen.

That being said, I have decided I need to challenge myself this year. I want my Etsy shop to do better this year than ever before! I've done ok in the past, but that was with minimal, heck NO, effort on my part. Ok, just isn't good enough any more. Now, I'm not looking to make a living off of my doll work, but I'd like to be able to contribute to the household in some way. Maybe pay a bill here and there or use my "OWN" money to buy the doll things I want. (Not that my husband has any issues me buying things, but still...)

So this year I am challenging myself to weekly goals! I'm hoping if I share them here, maybe you all will hold me accountable!

Ok so here goes:
Weekly I NEED to:
1. Sew AND list one complete outfit in my shop, be it Barbie, LIV or Monster High.
2. Create AND list atleast 10 items, these can be foodstuffs, accessories or art work.
3. Photograph atleast 1 'scene' with the dolls. Just something fun to show off my collection

I don't think these are goals that are too lofty or unachievable. I'm ready to get started and make 2012 craftily awesome! =D

Deborah

What to do, what to do?

2012-01-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

So today I just putzed around fiddling with several different mini projects. I started some art work, none of which I am super-OMG-thrilled with, but it's nice. I also made several polymer clay candles in orange, green and white (purely random colors! lol). I am trying to figure out what kind of project I want to work on tomorrow after my errands in the morning.

So I asked Draculaura to help me out, but it seems that she got more bewildered than I was at all the possible choices. Hmm do you think you can help a couple of ghouls out? What should we work on tomorrow. Doll clothes sewing, mini-food baking (suggestions on foods would be helpful) or more mini art work?

(BTW the melted red candle and the dark green round candle were made by me from polymer clay! =D )

It's SNOWING!!!!!

2012-01-16T22:36:00.000-05:00

About 2 hours ago my middle son Hunter went to let the dog out, only to discover that it was snowing. Now having heard this from him and his younger brother several times I was expecting to turn around and see a few random flurries as we've had in the past. But no, THIS was what greeted me!!!

About a quarter of an inch of the fluffy white stuff! Now I'll be honest I am not a huge fan of it, since it makes driving a royal pain. (But secretly I'm almost as excited to see it as the younger 2 boys are!) It makes everything look so pretty. It has continued to fall at a leisurely pace and the footprints (yes BARE footprints, the younger 2 just HAD to run out onto the patio to play in the 1st snow of 2012!) and dog's lead marks are now gone. I am actually hoping that the snow will stick around enough so that the boys can go out and play in the snow after school!
I have been working on some little clay things, but nothing enough to share right now. Hopefully tomorrow! =D
Hugs from snowy NY!
Deborah

Um wow 2 months... (horridly wordy, sorry)

2012-01-12T09:09:00.008-05:00

Geesh, it's been 2 months since my last blog post. And gosh how my life has changed! If we're friends on Facebook, you already know most of this so feel free to skip ahead! ;-)

oooh Hey you're still reading, cool! My last post was the 14th of November, we ended up leaving Georgia on the 10th of December. After a harrow ordeal with my husband trying to clear Post(get all his military stuff taken care of) and me trying to get our house in move-out condition nearly completely by myself, we finally made it. Although it would not have been possible without some amazing awesome dear friends! We left Saturday morning and headed to Kentucky. We stayed overnight at the campground where Hubby's family reunions take place. OMG it got so cold that we ended up shutting off the water so the hoses wouldn't freeze!!! (I totally understand the need to insulated or heated hoses now! Heck even with the water off the next morning as I was attempting to empty the sewer drain,(thankfully it was 99% sink water) the house was so cold and brittle it BROKE!

Sunday morning we headed on up the road to head to my Mom's in Ohio. They have several acres and graciously are letting us store our camper there for the winter. It was wonderful to get to visit with my Mom, Step-dad, brother and sister for a couple days. My mom has been in poor health lately and had only just recently come home from having a partial hip replacement done. My Father-in-Law came down to visit us that night and we had a lovely dinner.

Monday was spent running around trying to find everyone 'real' winter coats and such, as well as renting a Uhaul and having to buy another hitch since the ball on ours was much to large. It was a busy day, but after spending a couple hours in the cold we had everything (or atleast what we thought was everything! lol) that we wanted to bring with us to New York.

Tuesday morning we set off on the last leg of our journey. It was a wonderful trip, actually. Pennsylvania is gorgeous as is the portion of New York we drove through. The last hour was rather nerve wracking though as we never realized that the closer you get to the east coast the earlier the sun sets!!! Thathttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif day coming in it was pitch black by 4:30 in the afternoon!!! OMG!!! To make matters worse this area is very mountainous and having never driven these roads in the daylight, we pretty much had ourselves convinced that there were sheer cliffs and steep drop offs on both sides of the road! (While there are definitely those things here, the road we were on was actually very nice, after we saw it in the daytime! lol) But we made it to our hotel by 5 and settled in.

We ended up being in the hotel for about 5 days, and nobody killed any body! We didn't drive each other crazy and the dog and the cat didn't freak out...too much. We got into our house here at West Point, NY on the 19th and started settling in. Our household goods that had been in storage since the end of September were schedule to be delivered on the 23rd of December. Sadly that didn't happen...it almost did, but the truck driver drove 90 minutes from their base to our home only to realize he'd left his ID at home! If you know anything about military installations you know that getting onto one without ID is impossible...so all of our belongings were little sitting less than a quarter mile from our home! Sadly after making several attempts to find a way for them to either get a copy of the ID here, or finding a rental truck, the shipping company was forced to call their truck back and redeliver our stuff Christmas Eve morning.

Thankfully they showed up bright and early Saturday morning (with a NEW driver) and began to unload our goods. Sadly my dryer was badly mangled somewhere between Georgia and New York, so I am dealing with claims to try and get it replaced. And believe it or not I was actually looking forward to being able to do laundry. But other than a small dent in the control panel of the washer and the mangled control panel of the dryer, all the rest of our goods came through perfectly! It's taken me almost 3 weeks but I have nearly all of the boxes emptied and everything put away. The last things I need to do are the boxes in the Master Bedroom (todays chore) and a few more in my studio, doing slowly as I don't have nearly the storage space I used to, so I'm having to be creative!

On the doll front I have reopened my Etsy shop and happily made a sale within the first 30 minutes! I now have a permanent set up for taking pictures of my product so once I have it the way I want it I can start photographing items as soon as they are finished. Which means hopefully I can get them listed and up for sale right away as well. I have also added to my collection by 5 dolls. I found a LIV Sophie and red-haired wig on clearance for $8 for both, a Jake by LIV for $7, a Gil Webber from Monster High for $12 and oh my gosh my new faves Sweet 1600 Draculaura and Clawd Wolf also from the Monster High line. These are not only amazing to look at, their detailing is fabulous, but I WON them! Which makes them even better! =D Shuga Shug had a giveaway for them over on her (totally awesome BTW) blog...I honestly didn't think i had a chance or winning, but said what the heck, I'll enter anyways. So imagine my total shock and surprise when I got her email telling me I had won! I about fell out of my chair. I received them less than a week later and am totally in love! My hubby even thinks they are pretty neat.

I have decided that while I still intend to create for all three equally I am going to focus my collecting on just the MH figs, they are just so unique and different. My plan though is to only collect one of each character though. (although if I find the various heads out there I am not opposed to picking them up to be able to change looks without buying a TON of dolls.

So that about catches up my life and I will really try to post way more often! I miss all my pals! Have a wonderful long weekend if you've got one, if not, well take heart tomorrow is FRIDAY! =D

Still in GA, and playing around...

2011-11-14T15:23:00.006-05:00

Things are very much still up in the air as we wait to find out when we need to be in NY, so we are just enjoying the time we have here and getting this house ready to move out of. We were planning to travel up the eastern seaboard to get to NY, but have decided to travel to OH first as my Mom and Step-dad have graciously allowed us to winter our travel-trailer on their property, since all the parks in NY are closed for the season.

In the last few weeks I have been working on some more clothes for my Monster High doll. (I'll get back to Barbie stuff too, once we get moved. I love Babs and will always come back to her, but I'll tell you I am loving the challenge of creating for the uniquely shaped MH girls!) I created a top to match the Purple Gingham Skirt I created a few weeks ago. This one was completely from my own mind and I love the way it turned out.

My next top was created using a Barbie doll pattern that I reduced and altered to fit the MH body. I was very curious to know if this would work as I have several patterns for Barbies and would love to use them to create more clothes. For the most part the process was easy and worked rather well. Because of the exaggerated curve of the Monster High spine, the back doesn't close completely like I'd like it too, but with some time and tweaking I think I can make the work too. I love the way the top turned out and will be adding some slim black ribbon trim to it to finish it off!

November Already??? (pic heavy)

2011-11-05T13:27:00.010-04:00

Happy Anniversary to my dear husband and me. Twelve years ago today I married my best friend and soul mate! I look forward to many many more years of happiness! =D

It's been ages since I blogged, as many of you also are facebook friends you might already know how my life is right now, but just to play catch up... hubby's deferment was approved, so our new report date is the 10th of December. We are still heading to NY and are trying to decide when we want to leave GA. I saw my doc on Halloween for my final appointment and have been given the all clear to get back to normal life. (although he did say not to over due it, no gymnastics and such! ;-D lol)

Speaking of Halloween...money was a little tight this year so we kind of made due. My youngest was a soldier, my middle was Jack Skellington ad my oldest decided he wanted to dress up too. He was a character of his own creation. He was the God of Fortune from a story he is writing. (no he wants to steal my cape because it's so warm and comfy! =D On a side note I've had that thing for close to 15 years {it was a gift from my Dad and Step-mom!} I love it and now that they are back in fashion I cannot wait to wear it this Fall and Winter! ) We had tons of kids...nearly a thousand!!! How do I know, you ask...well I bought a HUGE pail of 1000 suckers and aside from a few dozen kids that came around twice and a small handful of kids at the end, I was only giving each child 1 sucker, and after 2 hours of trick or treating (ours lasts from 6-8) ALL the suckers were GONE!!! There were tons of really creative costumes, but honestly none of them topped the adult wearing the homemade Optimus Prime (Transformers) costume! It even had working lights!!!

On the crafty/doll front I have been playing around making clothes for Cleo...I started out with a simple one piece vest pattern I created, I altered it several times and ended up with half a dozen various felt and denim versions. Then I used a small scrap of left over denim (I'm repurposing the legs off an old pair of jeans!) to create a halter top. Since all my ribbon is in storage in NY I took 12 strands of sewing thread and sectioned it off into 4 thread groups which I braided to use as the halter ties! Next up I created 2 different skirts... a slim pencil skirt with black trim and this purple gingham trimmed skirt! All of my other Cleo pieces can be seen over in
my Flickr photostream.

As far as nail go, I have been keeping them painted most days, but I've been rather lax in taking pics. :-( But here is my Halloween mani... Revlon's Mad about Mango scented polish on my ring fingers, and 2 coats of China Glaze's Ick-A-Bod-Y from their 2010 Halloween collection. On my ring fingers I did a quick free hand jack o lantern face. Right now I am wearing this pale simple pearly number. I've got 4 coats of OPI's Pearls of Wisdom on all my fingers. On my ring fingers those layers are mixed with 3 coats of Wet n Wild's Party of Five Glitters which I them topped off with Hard Candy's Matte-ly in Love (which I am totally in LOVE with, and seem to use it over nearly everything! lol)

So in a nutshell that's what's been going on in my life. Next week I'll be busy working on cleaning and painting and such to get ready to head to New York. (man I'm still not totally ready for that, but hey that's where the Army wants us so that's where we're headed. We'll make the most of it! :-D ) Thanks for stickign aorund and reading all this. HUGS

Holy Holo Batman...

2011-10-19T20:20:00.005-04:00

Last night before bed I decided to add a coat of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Pink Rose Diamond over top of yesterday's Into That Dark Knight polish. OH MY GOODNESS...talk about wild holo-goodness! The Nail Prisms are some of the most holographic polishes I've ever seen. The are discontinued but still available on ebay. (just know that the ones with Pearl in the name are NOT holographic!!!) Pink Rose Diamond is sheer enough that on dark polishes it really doesn't change the color of the base that much at all! Just to really show off the amazing holo-ness I posted short video over on my flickr page. The resolution is crappy as my camera just did not want to focus on my nail, but I am pretty sure you can see the amazing look!

On the doll scale I sculpted my first pair of clay shoes for Cleo...of course they still need to be baked. Hopefully I'll do that tomorrw. (I really miss my candle warmer mini oven right now!!! lol) I need to sculpt a few more things so I can justify heating up the oven. BUT so far I really like the shoes!

Woohoo!!! I was crafty! lol

2011-10-18T19:52:00.007-04:00

I started a project yesterday and for a first attempt I'm pretty happy with them! I made my Cleo a pair of shoes! I have actually made a few changes to both the shoes and the doll since the picture in the above link too. I used some lightweight cardboard and photo paper to make the outer sole and the inner soles respectively. I used a strip of ribbon as the uppers and a piece of Q-tip stick for the heels. They are just prototypes as they aren't sturdy enough that I'd feel comfortable selling them. (which is my ultimate goal) But for a 1st attempt I'm pretty darn happy with them! I think I want to 'brand' my shoe line, kind of like red soles are symonymis with Louboutins. I think I want to use a dark teal or aqua as my 'branding' color. I have painted the soles and heaels of this pair with a wonderful nail polish called Figi by Petites. (it's an inexpensive brand at Walmart or Kmart!) I'll share that pic tomorrow.

I want to make some molds of Cleo's feet and legs. Hopefully I can cast them in plaster and then make polymer clay shoes and boots around the molds. If my ideas work I should be able to then remove them and they will be wearable. I also want to sculpt shoe bases that can then be decorated with fabric and ribbons too. There is a lovely lady in Finland who goes by Tarja, who amongst other cool things, makes amazingly cool shoes for several different brands of dolls. I HIGHLY suggest you click on her name to visit her Flickr photostream! =D She is definitely a creative inspiration for me!
On the nail front I switched polish the other day to a custom color I created a while back. I absolutely LOVE holographic polishes and wanted to create a black. For the most part I succeeded! I say for the most part as I used a good bit of navy in my mix to keep it from being overwhelming (and I only had a small bottle of black but a large one of navy! LOL) And while this color reads black on it's own, next to a true black it definitely comes off as Navy. But you know what...I LOVE this color and the holo-ness of it is awesome! I hope you like it! I call it Into That Dark Knight. What do you think?

Well I suppose I can update even if...

2011-10-16T21:43:00.004-04:00

I've got nothing really to share. We are still in Georgia for now. We will most likely be here until about the middle of November. We are doing well, although I must say I almost regret having the movers take our washer and dryer! But thankfully we have been having gorgeous weather, so I've been hand washing laundry and hanging it out to dry. Going to the laundramat is too expensive and takes too much time. So I don't mind the hand washing. And since we get high 70s to 80s most days, the weather is perfect for laundry.
No crafting has been done lately, since I packed everything but one small box of sewing. (Clay is too hard to do on the road) I haven't really been in the mood to sew, so I spend much of my free time playing on facebook. Yesterday was a birthday party for a dear friends' son. While we were shopping for presents we got our boys each a few things too. My husband and I each got a goodie too. Donnie got a cool remote control car and me, well I got my first Monster High doll. I decided to go with the Dead Tired Cleo de Nile.
This is their 'sleep over' line. Cleo is the most 'human' looking of the monsters and honestly I like that about her. The rest of the dolls are really cute, but It's truly a line that doesn't really interest me. So that being said, why'd I even get her? Well to be perfectly honest, it's a market that is huge and once we get moved and settled I fully intend to get back into making doll clothes and accessories. I love Barbies and figured since Monster High and Liv dolls also fall into the 1/6th scale that my creations should be featured with those dolls as well to really promote them to their fullest potential. (so yeah I'll be getting a Liv doll sometime in the future too.)
I love Cleo's face paint but think I might customize her just a little bit. Actually I already started that. lol Initially her hair was full of strands of gold mylar strands. While I liked the look of the shiny 'higlights', mylar is horrible as a fiber. It ends up as a nasty stringy mess if it gets caught wrong. So I decided to remove it all, and I love Cleo much better already. Her hair was pulled back into a 2 part half ponytail which I thought cute. I upped the ante just a bit by braiding the left and right sections for about an inch or so, then braiding the 2 braids into a single one. I really like the look. Cleo's eyes are currently green, but I am thinking about repainting them blue instead. My other 'issue' is her lips, I think they are painted too full, so I might wipe them and repaint them a little softer. I think it will take me a little while to get used to the unusual shape of the MH bodies, they are very thin, and have an odd curve to them. But I am looking forward to the challenge.

I've also been painting my nails every couple of days, but haven't been photographing them, because I guess I didn't want y'all to think ths had turned into a nails only blog. I've kind of felt that it was better not to post anything at all rather than post things that nobody is really interested in. So I don't know how often I will post for now, but hopefully there will be some nails, sewing and who knows what all else. This is what I am currently wearing. It's a custom color I mixed up that I call Turning Leaves. It's a sheer-ish pumpkin orange color that I really enjoy. It's odd because I am not normally a fan of the color orange, but it's a perfect shade for fall and October specifically. And this shade I think looks really good. I hope you enjoy it too! BTW if I ever show a shade of polish that interests you, please feel free to let me know. I am happy to share small bottles of any polishes I have, if you are willing to pay for the shipping! ;-) Later friends!

Wow, October Already!

2011-10-02T20:13:00.001-04:00

How amazing is it that it's October already? I know many of you are friends with my on Facebook, so most of you have already heard what I'm about to say, but if not, I wanted to let you all know what happened with my back. And yes I said "happened" because as amazing as it sounds, my back issue has already been solved. After my nerve tests barely 2 weeks ago Tuesday, I had an MRI on Thursday. This past Tuesday I saw my Primary Doc who referred me to a Neurosurgeon. I was told by my doc that it could take up to ten days just to get a date to get in to see him. But due to a wonderful woman at the clinic that did my nerve tests I got a call from the Neurosurgeons office this past Tuesday. Unfortunately the 1st available appointment they had was the 4th of October. Which at that time would have been the last day that we could be in Georgia before moving to NY. I explained this and told them that if they had any cancellations to please call me and I could be in within 30 minutes. Amazingly I got a call from the office Thursday morning asking if I could come in at 1pm. Of course I agreed. Turns out the disk between my L4 and L5 vertabrae had ruptured. And not just a little bit. Within 5 minutes of being in the office. the doc (who it turns out is one of, if not THE best neurosurgeon in Columbus GA)said my rupture was one of the worst he'd ever seen and he wanted me to have surgery the following day!!! So needless to say the last 3 days have been a roller coaster. I left his office and went to the hospital for my pre-op procedures.
I was admitted to the hospital Friday at 11 for a 1pm surgery. I came out of anesthisia around 4:30 and amazingly was up walking to the restroom within 30 minutes! Within 2 hours I was able to put full pressure on the nurses hands with both feet (whereas before the surgery I couldn't do that with my left leg!) I now have a 2-3 inch stapled incision in the center of my back right about hip level. I am truly amazed at the change that this surgery has done! It will still take me about 45-60 days to be back to 100%, but I feel wonderful. We still are not certain that my husbands orders to NY will be deferred. But his Command Team here cannot imagine any reason why they wouldn't. So as of right now it looks as though we will be here for a bit longer. I'd love to say I'm going to be doing some crafting, but as of Thursday evening 90% of our belonging have been packed and are on there way to storage. We don't plan on trying to get them returned since we will most likely be moving in the next 2 months. So we will just live with the small amount of stuff we kept. (hmm who knows we might like this 'simpler' lifestyle? lol)

Thanks for reading along about the chaotic mess that has been my life the last few weeks! Luv y'all! =D

Just an update...

2011-09-23T20:53:00.002-04:00

Hi friends! We are still in GA for the moment. As of today the movers are due in on Wedsnesday.
This past Tuesday I had two nerve tests done, those were very intriguing. In the 1st test the Physical Therapist who administered it attached electrodes (I assume) to various spot on my legs and basically shocked them to determine how much my nerves were affected. The next test was similar, but tiny pins were inserted into my legs at various points to again assess the amount of nerve damage. (that test was NOT fun at all!!!!) And well the results weren't good. The PT was expecting to find some nerve damage, but was surprised to find as much as he did! He said you expecct to find that amount in someone twice my age or older. :-( Which I must say surprised me, as that morning I got out of bed and manged to come downstairs with no sharp pain! Turns out that the most likely reason for that is the disc in my spine most likely herniated out so far as to no long be pressing against the nerves. So it was on to have an MRI done yesterday. Yet another very interesting test. The results of the MRI confirmed what the PT suggested on Tuesday. So at this point our future is up in the air as we wait for me to go back to the doctors' on Tuesday. When I talked to him earlier this week, it sounded very much like surgery will be in my future. The crazy thing is we have no clue as to where this will take place. So life is pretty crazy, chaotic and stressful right now. So if you all could send some prayers, positive thoughts, good energies or whatever you believe our way I'd truly appreciate it. I'm not worried about the surgery, but the unsettled elements, well have me unsettled! lol

Update...long and wordy, sorry :-(

2011-09-06T20:32:00.003-04:00

Argh I hate being away from my blog...it's been almost a month and well life has been a little crazy! Aug. 12th was the last time I made a post. That week we found out that we would be heading to the Spring Valley area of New York as our first Army Recruiter duty station. (My husband just finished his recruiter school this past Thursday and is now HOME! =D) The following Saturday I got out of bed to answer the phone, only to discover it was a telemarketer. So I crawled back into bed and rolled over to get more comfy, when BAM!!! my back felt like it exploded! The pain was horrendous and just getting out of bed to use the bathroom (like 10 feet) left me sobbing. I called my husband (who was still in South Carolina) and cried. He told me I needed to get it checked out. I had my oldest son run next door to see if our neighbor could drive me to the ER. I ended up at the hospital for almost 7 hours. They gave me 3 shots: an anti-inflamatory, a pain med and a muscle relaxor. Told me to go home and call my dr as soon as possible. Well the next day was Sundau, no body was in the office. I tried Monday, but no one answered the phone and no way to leave a voice mail. By Tuesday I had been in bed for almost 3 days and everything I read about back pain said not to stay laid up more than 3 days, so on Tuesday I ventured downstairs...SLOWLY and rather painfully! But I was finally able to get in touch with the dr and had an appointment made for that Thursday. My appt was almost pointless as the dr did nothing more than listen to me, feel around on my lower back for about a minute and order x-rays. Went and had those done and went home to wait. I got a call from the neurology dept to set up a nerve test. Unfortunately she said with this type of injury they have to wait 4 weeks from the inital injury. Soooo I won't see them until the 20th of this month. Let me tell you this in amazingly frustrating as we have to be in NY by the 10th of October! (My house is still in a lived in state and very little packing has been done since I have been unable to bend of stand for more than a few minutes for over 2 weeks now. This could not have happened at a worse time for me!!! But I know things will get taken care of one way or another, so I'm trying not to let that stress me out)

So needless to say I have nothing to share with y'all on the nail or clay or doll front, and sadly probably won't until after we get moved. I miss crafting something fierce and wish I could play. But until then, please know that I am reading all of your blog posts and following along with everyone! Take care and I promise to get back to blogging as soon as I can! Much love! <3

MOTW...sort of

2011-08-12T22:15:00.005-04:00

Well as I sat down to paint my nail, I realized I had totally forgotten to take a picture of the mani I just removed!!! Argh, so please excuse the fact that I only have one nail painted! But this is what I was wearing on all 10 digits until about 2 hours ago!

I started off with 2 coats of Barielle's Snow Day. They call it an ice blue metallic with silver undertones. I call it real pretty. After this I used 2 coats of Maybelline's Blue Brilliance. BB on its own is really sheer but it is a lovely color that tends to shimmer with pinks, purples and greens depending on the light. It kind of disappearred over SD, but I swiped it diagonally on my nails. (it's on the portion below the black dots.) Ok so I guess my next step was pretty obvious but I added black dots in acrylic paint. After that dried completely I added 2 coats of Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat.

On a crafty note I have been attempting to sculpt little polymer clay guinea pigs for Barbies. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with my first one! =D

MOTW

2011-08-11T19:49:00.004-04:00

Well I had planned to share this one with you yesterday but Blogger didn't want to co-operate. Soo here is yesterday's mani. I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with this one. The end result turned out gorgeous, but getting there was a royal pain. Color 13 on my wheel is by Piggy Polish, it's called Teal me About it. In the bottle its a luscious glowly teal. Sadly this color is DEFINITELY a layering polish. It took me 5 coats on my sample wheel to get it to look halfway close to the bottle. :-( (and once you throw the pink of the nailbed, well you're screwed! So I chose another of my e.l.f. polish from the other day. This one is called Blue Mist. Like it's Lilac sister, Blue Mist went on very sheer and rather streaky. It took me 3 coats to get a nice covereage, although had I not been putting TMAI over top of it, I would have gone with a 4th coat. I added 3 coats of TMAI and then did a thin strip of Petites Figi. Figi is a much darker and more opaque verion of TMAI. In the end I did love the final results as with Blue Mist underneath the TMAI really glowed, and there really appeared to be a ton of depth to my mani. Sadly the downside to lots of layers of polish is they do then to peel rather quickly. So this glowy mani only lasted 2 days. :-(

MOTW

2011-08-08T16:36:00.005-04:00

OK so next in line for my 1st nail wheel is #7 Milani Totally Cool. I wore it back in early June. Number 8 is a deep purple from Goldie that doesn't have a name. I thought I wore it already so I skipped it. BUT as you can see in my sample wheel pic it's so dark it's nearly black! Following that is b. Lilas Optique. This is another one I already wore also in June. This really is a neat polish as it looks totally different by itself!
This brings me to my mani today. Number 10 on my wheel is by Barielle it's called Jess' Champagne Toast (I don't quite get the name as to me I think of cream or amber when I think of Champagne, but that's neither here nore there. lol) I lucked out and foudn this color at my local Ulta comsmetics store on clearance, but it is available on the Barielle website! =D
JCT is a blue leaning lilac with a pink glitter. It dries kind of gritty so I decided not to do full coverage on this one. Saturday while out shopping for kids school supplies I stopped into Biglots and found a 5 pack of e.l.f. brand nailpolishes for $4.50.
While I don't really need any more polish, I loved the colors in these and it fell well under my $3 a bottle price cap. So into my cart they went. I laid down 3 thin coats of the Lilac shade. (Sadly these are out of stock on their website as they say they are reformulating them) I decided to matte all but my ring fingers before sponging on the JCT. On my ring fingers I added a white outline sticker of a hibiscus flower before topping off with a clear coat.
That's it for me for nails and that ends the purple reign (heeheehee) from wheel A, up next are some gorgeous teal-y greens! =D Later friends!

MOTW and a New Pet

2011-08-07T19:15:00.006-04:00

Ok so today's mani is the next 3 colors in wheel A. I first laid down a base coat of Mystical by Petites, then I free-handed a diagonal triangle of Purple Pizazz Frost by NYC, and lastly I added another triangle going the opposite direction using my paler version of Lavender Marquise. I added a small lilac acrylic gem into the wet clear coat, and toppped it off with 2 more coats of clear. It's a fun mani because PPF and LM both change color slightly depending on the light. I initally thought afterwards that I should have placed the gems in the little overlapping triangle at the tips, but I think that would have driven me nuts. Feeling the bump of the rhinestone is odd, but not too terribly bad. I really wasn't expecting the rhinestones to stay on, but they are hanging on nicely.

Every now and again I peruse ebay looking for Barbie 'stuff'. The other day I was searching out animals and found a listing for a dog I had as a little girl. AND they were offering free shipping! Sweet. So needless to say I bid and won Beauty the Afghan Hound! Sadly she is in kind of rough shape, but her body (under all the fur) seems to be in good condition) So I think I will skin her and try to replicate her plastic pieces so I can maybe possible make as sell these. I am currently researching color variations for this breed as well as fake fur sources.

MOTW and more Barbie goodies

2011-08-06T00:02:00.005-04:00

Hey y'all, sorry it's been a few days, been busy getting my kiddos ready for Back-to-School. My oldest started his Junior year of high school on Thursday and my younger 2 start 1st and 5th grade today. Yes our kids go back really early here! lol After having them home for a few monthes, it seemed strange for the house to be silent all day. I'll admit I slept for most of the day. I haven't been sleeping well for the last few weeks with my hubby being away at school so I guess I was catching up.

First off my MOTW (which I actually just took off today) was using the next 2 polishes in my first nail wheel. They are both by Sally Hansen. Royal Romance #2 and Lavendar Marquise #3. I started out with 3 coats of Lavendar Marquise which is a sheer pale pink leaning Lavendar. (the weird thing about this polish is there seems to be 2 variations of this color and I managed to get them both! One is distinctly pink while the other is more pearly with just a hint of pink (#4 in the wheel pic) even using 3 coats of each!) I had initally planned to do a french mani with the darker Royal Romance as my tip color. I tried using the curved tip guides and just couldn't get them centered right. So I decided to just sponge over it. While the edge of the tips still showed only up close, so I was really happy with my sponged gradient mani!)

Up next is a few Barbie items. I really should be cleaning and packing and all that good stuff, but I think I'm kind of in denial about this whole moving thing! :-( So I have been playing with clay!
I started out making a peach slice cane. I got the idea while eating my breakfast peach the other day. It took me some foodling and messing about to get the right colors for the peach flesh as well as doing a skinner blend to get the inner red shading you find in a fresh peach. I think I did this cane atleast 3 times before ending up with a color combo I was happy with! I ended up making it a round cane for ease of reducing, but simple cut each slice in half at the red center before gently shaping. I think they look pretty darned good! I spent several hours on Flickr searching for peach desserts looking for the best ways to use my slices. I'm happy to say I found several and look forward to making some yummy desserts eventually!

MOTW x 2

2011-07-30T23:50:00.007-04:00

I have for you today my last 'ruby' mani of July. It's 2 coats of an un-named pink polish frmo the Goldie brand. I got mine in a back of 6 or 8 that I bought at TJ Maxx several monthes ago. The color is a nice silky pink creme. To bump it up a bit I added 2 coats of Nubar 2010 (which is by far my favorite top coat heck I ordered 2 more bottles so I wouldn't run out and so I could play with it a bit! ;-D) I really liked it shiny, but had seen other nail artists use a matte top coat over it. Mattifying it does something amazing. Since I recently found Hard Candy's Matte-ly in Love I knew that's what I wanted to do. Personally I love the subdued iridescence! BTW the pic with the spoon is to show what my mani looked like before I matted it. =D
I had iniatally planned to do 'peridot' (green) manis for the month of august, but I actually don't have that many green polishes and most of them I have already worn and posted. I really want to try and get through all of my polishes so I have decided to start at the begining! ;-) After a disappointing pedi using a color I had purchased (2 coats looked NOTHING like the bottle) I decided I needed a way to know what colors I had and how many coats each should take. So I picked up a pack of art wheels from Sally Beauty Supply (btw I have since found the same ones cheaper on ebay! There are 10 wheels to a pack and each wheel holds 18 samples. So I sort of sorted my polishes by color, grabbed my laptop and set to sampling every polish I own. Last week I filled up my last wheel with one of my holo frankens so I have more coming. Filled up all the wheels...omg that's 180 polishes! Well actually it's more like 162 as one wheel is pale polishes over black to see how they'd look! But still! lol

So anyways I am going to start at A1 and work my way through until I am all done! A1 is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Purple Potion This is one of the first polishes I bought when I got back into doing my nails. Hubby says his favorite color to see me wear is purple so there aer several. This one has a really great blue duochrome effect. and yes the 2 pics are of the same polish, I just wanted to show off the cool color 'changes' this polish can go through. (there will be another pic of this mani tomorrow too as I am playing around with some nail art!)

Cherry love and a 'finished' outfit

2011-07-28T13:09:00.003-04:00

I LOVE cherries! They are one of my favorite fruits. Here in the last few weeks they have been on sale at the stores for between $2 and 3 dollars a pound. That's pretty good! So we have been eating a ton of fresh cherries with our meals. (and me as a snack. =D) Well last night I was enjoying my snack and happened to look down before popping this cherry in my mouth. And lo and behold this was what I saw! I KNEW I had to take a picture and share it!

I spent 2 days working on this top to go with my Round and ROund We Go skirt. I found this great deep rose colored material that was a dream to work with. Although the pattern needed editing a bit, I love this top! However... not with this skirt. While the deep rose of the top goes perfectly with the pinks in the skirt, there just isn't enough of those pinks on the front of the skirt. To me it looks weird. So I am going to try again with either a pale blue or a yellow-leaning green material. AND I will be making a 2nd skirt in the circular material, this time making sure that the pink part is front and center! =D

Woohoo, anouther outfit nearly done!

2011-07-27T11:48:00.004-04:00

Well I have started on tops to go with the 3 skirts I finished last week. I think the one that I thought was going to challenge me the most was the pale lilac skirt. It's a rather unusual shade of purple. I lucked out with the lace and hoenstly didn't expect to be so lucky with fabric for a top, BUT I opened my box of purple swatches and right there it was on top and begging to be used. It's a pale shimmery lilac satin-y type material. It actually came from a friends formal gown she asked me to shorten for her a few years back. It's PERFECT! Thankfully there is a bit more of this fabric as I want to make her daughter dolls each an outfit using Mommy's fabric! =D I still need to add a few accessories to complete this outfit though. I am thinking about a purple accented silver necklace and a silver purse!

Next on the sewing line is a deep rose colored top to go with my Round & Round We Go skirt. Although I am thinking that the cut of this top will actually cover up the majority of the deep pink at the top of the skirt, So I might save it for another use and make either a teal or lime green top instead. We shall see once it's finished though! ;-)

No new nails today as the mani I did earlier is holding up amazingly wear. There is no chipping and very very little tip wear, which is awesome! That said I will probably change my polish today or tomorrow, so look for new colors coming soon!

MOTW and time for change...

2011-07-25T17:07:00.003-04:00

So here I am again, it's Monday and well life is what it is. Feeling kinda blah today, but I will explain that in a minute. For today's mani I have another holo polish. This time it is Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Golden Tourmaline. This is a gorgeous candy apple red with a great gold shimmer and subtle holographic quality. I decided to do my accent nail in Romantic Blossom also by Sally Hansen. RB is a rich brownish red creme finish. I accented each ring finger with 2 hearts done in Golden Tourmaline. I am super happy with this mani. It makes me smile and that's a good thing!

On to changes and feeling blah. I mentioned a few posts back that my husband is gone to Recruiter school, we were hoping to get an assignment in Texas. We found out right away that, that wasn't gonna happen. Some of the places where we could wind up were Los Angeles (um no, don't wanna live there) NY (not keen on this at all either) Maine (um really 0_o) Tampa (urgh not really into big towns) Montana (eeep winters there, I shudder to think) and South Carolina. So needless to say we were really really really hoping for South Carolina. We we got our general assignment today. We are headed to New York. Can't say I'm thrilled, BUT on the good side we are headed to the Albany area as opposed to NYC like we both feared. It turns out the Albany area includes Connecticut, Massachusets, Vermont and Northern New Jersey too. Sooo it's not nearly as bad as we thought, but I'm not looking forward to going from GA (hardly ever snows) to WINTER!!! But our kids are super excited and even eager to shovel the stuff. (we shall see how long THAT lasts! lol) So over the next 2 months I will be cleaning, sorting and packing as much of our home as possible. Nine years worth of belongings for 5 people seems like a daunting task! *sigh*

But we are definitely ready for a change and I have heard this area is lovely. While I will bitch and moan, I really am an adaptable person and really do look forward to this newest chapter in our life!

MOTW and custom polishes

2011-07-22T19:18:00.006-04:00

Today I pulled out a color I've worn before but hey I LOVE it! It's Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Pink Rose Diamond . This polish is actually what started my love affair with holographic polishes. (and heck even if you don't like pink the holo-goodness makes this a yummy color!)Sadly this line isn't available in retail stores anymore BUT it can be found on ebay quite frequently. Just be warned that the Nail Prism colors with the word PEARL in the name are NOT holographic! (But they are lovely sheer colors!) I started out this mani with 2 coats of Sinful Colors Star Fish which is a nice dusty pink. I added 2 coats of Pink Rose Diamond on top. After letting them dry I added black polka dots to my ring fingers with acrylic paint. Word of advice, be sure to let the acrylic FULLY dry before adding a clear coat. I smudged my right ring finger just a bit! lol

Trying to stick with my 'Ruby' manis for the month of July is kind of tough...I have been playing around with my Spectraflair pigment powder and mixed the pink I wore HERE. Plus I also made a purple and a charcoal grey! I am super excited because my order from TKB Trading arrived today. They sell supplies for making custom cosmetics, including nail polishes!!! I ordered some empty mini bottles for storing colors as well as sharing them, as well as the little ball bearings that help mix the polish. I ordered some syringes in 2 sizes (these are going to be used with my resin for mini making) and some cool holographic glitter.

I found a recipe for a deliscious looking cake on the Betty Crocker facebook page, and decided to save myself the calories and make it in mini. I am currently slicing a tiny brown wrapped cream color polymer clay cane into about a bazillion tiny almond slices for the cake topping. I forgot just how may strands the smallest disk on my extruder makes with just a peach pit sized piece of clay! (I'll have 'almond slices' coming out the wazoo!)

MOTW and Barbie goodies

2011-07-20T18:59:00.005-04:00

My mani today is a nice straight red, fire engine red maybe even. It's called Red Tape by Wet n Wild. It's rather sheer, I've got 3 coats on my nails! But 3 coats covers pretty nicely and it dries really fast. The brush is also unique as it seems to be asymetrically curved which I thought was very nice. I want to do something to give this mani an extra pop, but at the moment have no idea what to do. Any suggestions?

Onto the Barbie front. I finally finished the ruffled tube dress outfit. I added pink and black shoes and bracelets, switched out the pink neck ribbon for a black on and added a nice gold bag. As soon as I can set up my 'studio' I wll get good pics taken and list it in my etsy shop. I have also been working on making dishes of Macaroni and Cheese. It's one of my kids favorite dishes. I initially was wrapping the clay around a toothpick and then quartering the wraps. but after a bit I realized that I was still reshaping them by hand so I just started cutting them my hand too. Taking out the wrapping step sped things up tremendously! I saved space in the dishes by baking mounds of pasta color clay to put under a thinner layer of macaronis. I am not a fan of the liquid polymer clay sauces as they need to be baked for them to set. Since I am often using plastic Barbie dishes this is well nearly impossible. So I came up with a mxture of glue and paint that I customize for that ever I am making. So, what do you think?

MOTW...watermelons! =D

2011-07-17T19:18:00.003-04:00

No fruit says Summer to me more than watermelons, crunchy, juicy, sweet and sooooo yummy! I remember my mom buying these huge watermelons from the grocery store that would take up the entire bottom shelf of the fridge. And the smell, oh that heavenly smell! And heck nothing like spending an afternoon with your friends and siblings trying to see who can spit a seed farthest! =D I don't buy watermelons much these days as well they seem way too expensive and they just don't seem to taste the way they did when I was a kid. I'm looking forward to having a place where I can grow my own one day. But in the meantime I saw this video on youtube, by nail artist Robin Moses and just had to give it a try. What do you think?

On a non-nail or doll related front, my hubby is off again, this time it's only for 6 weeks, while he goes to school to become a recruiter. Today officially marks the beginning off the end of our time here in GA. We will report to our next assignment (unknown location as of right now) sometime in October. I'm glad he's off to school as this will be a good change for us but at the same time I can't help but be sad and well kind of annoyed that he's gone AGAIN. Nope not annoyed with him, just with life in general. And just like the last 2 times I moved I get to start all the packing, sorting, and cleaning with him gone. *SIGH* gets kind of frustrating, but hey this is what we do! LOL So starting tomorrow I will be buckling down to drudge work for much of the day and will avoid my laptop as much as I possibly can! (atleast until dinner time, then the evenings are mine!

Today I have been working on more 1/6th scale raspberries, and I started making scale mac n' cheese. I haven't decided if I want to do individual plates or do serving bowls. What do you think, or maybe should I do both?

MOTW

2011-07-16T12:36:00.004-04:00

Earlier this month I order a batch of Spectraflair holographic pigment powder. This was originally designed for custom car painting, but some industrious nail artists discovered you can mix it with nail polish to make custom holographic colors! Since I missed out on many of the original awesome holo polishes I figured hmmm, $18 for a gram of this stuff, which will make about 9 bottles of custom polish was better than paying between $8 and $20 a bottle for the holos I missed. When my powder arrived I knew I HAD to play with it. I broke out a deep purple polish, some clear and the powder. I chose purple since I didn't have a purple holo already. You basically mix half and half clear and color and then add about 1/8th of a teaspoon of the pigment powder. Shake it all up really good and swatch it.
Keep adding drops of color or clear until the color and holo shimmer are perfect. The only downside to the powder is that it is silver in color so you won't be able to get a crisp color say a red, you end up with more of a muted frosty looking color. Which in my book is fine! =D I ended up mixing up 3 colors, purple, fuschia and a silver (which was actually just clear and the powder) I am planning to order some empty polish bottles as well as other things for making my own custom nail polishes and well I can't wait! =D I'm currently wearing my pink holo polish...any thoughts on a name? The color in the bottle is closer to the actual color of the polish. it's grey and rainy out so I'm trying to make do with my indoor lighting. lol

Argh, time slipped away AGAIN!!!

2011-07-15T21:54:00.005-04:00

*sigh* time slipping away seems to be a recurring theme for me, and not just in blogland either. We've been home from our Reunion vacation trip for almost 3 weeks, yet I haven't finished blogging about it. My husband has been home from his last deployment to Iraq for about 3 and a half months and he's off again. (Thankfully this is only a 6 week stint for schooling here stateside, but still...) And heck my oldest son turns 17 next week! Where oh where has the time gone???? I would like to say I will try to be a more consistent blogger in the future but I really try not to lie and that MOST definitely would be a lie! Our lives are going to be turned upside down in just a few short weeks. As a recruiter we will be headed for parts unknown (well unknown at the moment anyways) We will get our assignment while Donnie is at school, but we already know that wherever we are headed we are due to report in October! One one hand October seems so far away, but knowing that I need to clean, sort, sell and pack the belongings of 5 people accumulated over the last 9 years is well, terrifying! So over the next 6 weeks I will be as busy as I can be trying to get as much done as possible. BUT one day I WILL be back and be active and current! LOL

So back we go to the reunion... Donnies' aunt had been watching me do my nails through Facebook and asked me to bring all my nail stuff with me to do her and her granddaughters' nail. I of course agreed and it quickly turned into no just their but anyone who wanted them done. I think I ended up doing almost a dozen sets of nails that day! =D It was a blast. The reunion itself was great with loads of great food and catching up with kin! We left Sunday afternoon, and stopped in mid Tennessee for the night. We made it home on Monday and were very glad for it. Vacations are wonderful but there is nothing like coming HOME! =D

The last few weeks have been filled with cleaning, relaxing, and just spending time together. (there's been a bit of procrastination going on too as I could have {and SHOULD have} been doing more to prepare for moving in less than 3 months, but I am doing some Barbie work and just finished some Chocolate Raspberry Parfaits (I'm not sure if I should have added spoons to these?) ...)
I have made several polymer clay raspberries, and plan on making quite a few more, but they are very tedious and time consuming as each little 'blip' has to be rolled by hand, then all the 'blips' are very very carefully rolled together into a single raspberry! But I like the way they turn out so I don't mind too much. I was searching Flickr the other day for raspberries, and found several desserts that inspired me. After messaging the owners of the photographs and getting their "Ok" I will be recreating several really yummy Raspberry dishes in miniature. I'm super excited as one Flickr-er gave me free reign of her entire photostream! YAY!!! She has some amazingly yummy looking foodie goodies that will be fun to recreate!

I am still working on clothing as well, but havn't 'finished' anything just yet. Well, I'm off for now, but will pop in when I can to update! Hugs to y'all! =D

Back to my Vacay recap and another MOTW

2011-07-09T11:52:00.007-04:00

Eeeep, so sorry, didn't mean to be away so long. Let's see where was I, oh yes, last Friday was our 3rd leg in our trip from Georgia to Kentucky.
Amazingly the day dawned beautifully (although once again the power was out at the campground we stayed in, but that didn't hamper our efforts to be on the road by 8) We enjoyed the scenery for our shortest travel day and arrived at the Reunion site before lunchtime! (the pic is of a bridge crossing Lake Cumberland in Bronston Ky)We got the trailer set up right quick and headed off to the pool. (I threw some laundry in while the boys attempted to swim) I say attempted because the water was frigid!!! The younger 2 played in the water for about 30 minutes before their teeth started chattering. Meanwhile, my FIL arrived so my hubby took the boys off to go say Hi to their Pappaw. =D I stayed poolside to wait for the laundry to finish. I grabbed a book from the 'library' and settled in the sun to read. (can I just say that I am really good when it comes to making sure my kids get sunblocked, but suck when it comes to remebering myself!!!) Yup you guessed it, I burned my butt! (well not actually my butt but the backs of my legs all the way up to the tuck just under my tush! (argh I really wish I had taken my board short style bottoms instead!!!) And what didn't I pack...aloe! So needless to say I was rather uncomfortable the next few day! lol
Most of the family arrived Friday evening and we had a great time roasting hot dogs over the campfire and just hanging out! (more on the actual reunion tomorrow!)

Since I knew my nails would get scuffed up while traveling I left mine plain, so for you today I have my current mani. Special FX by Funky Fingers is a great rich red, (I figured since July's birthstone is the Ruby I'd make each mani this month include a nice rich red! =D) After 2 coats I added a swirl of polka dots done in pearl acrylic paint.
I much prefer using acrylics paints for my nail art as it doesn't dry as fast, so I don't feel like I'm wasting as much nor do I feel quite as rushed. After the dots dried I added 2 coats of Orly Fifty Four which is a sheer shimmery pink.

Ooooh ooooh ooh, I almost forgot to share the Barbie dress I made last week while we were camping!
I used some hand dyed pink knit material and made essentially a tube dress. To zhuzh it up a little I added a trio of ruffles down what was supposed to be the center front. I used the technique shown HERE. While I like the ruffles at the front I twisted it as I went to remove it and realized I liked them way better down the side. I did a bit of gathering at the neckline and then stitched on a gold hoop jewelry finding to hold the ties. It still needs a few accessories, but it will be up for sale shortly! =D

I interrupt my vacation recap for MOTW

2011-07-04T12:59:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone! To those in the US (or American living abroad) Happy 4th of July!!! IN honor of the day I did a quick little Red, White and Blue mani. Hope you like!
The red is called Frosted Raisin, it's by a polish company called Love My Nails. I found this bottle while cleaning out a kitchen cabinet that I swear hasn't been touched in 3 years! Amazingly the polish went on beautifully. I used 2 coats, then a clear coat. I followed that up with 3 curving strokes of navy blue acrylic paint and 3 little dots of pearl acrylic paint as well. After the paint dried I added a layer of top coat and voila! =D
Wishing you all a safe and fun holiday. Please remember to take a moment out of your celebrating to remember the men and women of our Armed Forces; past and present, here and gone, home and abroad; for it is THEY for truly allow us to enjoy our freedom!

Onto Day 2 of our vacation... (lots of pics)

2011-07-02T16:53:00.007-04:00

Well shock of all shocks Thursday morning broke to what but more pouring rain!!! We were up and putting up the jacks on the trailer by 7am and on the road by 7;30. While a small part of me wished we had been able to stay longer at Vogel, (it truly was beautiful) my saner brain knew that the rain would've made us all miserable! We headed off down the road and stopped for gas at a station/shop called Booger Hollow, I swear only in the South!!! LOL
After a bit of soggy driving we crossed into North Carlina for about 30 miles. (did I catch the Welcome to... sign, nope I missed it! LOL) The 'big' town we drove through in NC had several charming antigue/junk shops I would've loved to check out but alas not in the cards.
We continued driving and crossed into Tennessee. Our plan had been to drive on to the TN-Kentucky border before stopping, but Donnie was still wiped out and a bout of car sickness from our youngest (note to self, NO orange juice for little man on car trips!!!) had us deciding to cut this leg short by about an hour. The rain thankfully let up as we headed into the Tennessee mountains...It was very evident why they call them the Smoky Mountains. We ended up stopping at a family run campground about an hour south of the border. While it was nice we did experience a power outage for much of the time we were there.
The boys were bummed since the power was out they had closed the pool. :-( BUT the power came back on and we were not only able to play at the pool for a few hours, but watch a movie after dinner as well. The power went back out during another deluge of rain. Now me personally I was truly dreading trying to sleep as I am very used to having a fan on, and with the pouring rain it wasn't a good idea to leave the windows open. Thankfully the power was back on before we headed to bed and stayed on long enough for me to fall asleep. I'm not sure how long it stayed on as when we got up in the morning it was off again. No matter though as we were on the road by 7am again. (more pics from our trip are being added to my Flickr page HERE)

Holy Smokes it's July already!!!! (wordy, wordy, wordy)

2011-07-01T15:13:00.006-04:00

Where on earth did the time go???? Sorry to have been away so long, but right after my last post I celebrated my 34th birthday. (Yay me!! =D) Didn't really do anything special just tried to relax before leaving on vacation.
My husbands' family reunion was the 25th so we headed out on Wednesday. We had planned to be on the road by 10am... we hit the campground at 9am to hitch up our trailer and be off. Well we had purchased a solid-arm weight distributing sway bar to replace the standard towing package. We didn't think it would take very long to install it...well boy howdy were we wrong! It was almost 2pm by the time we got the thing hitched up and got on the road. (in hindsight, things like that should ALWAYS be done the day BEFORE you leave. Although thankfully we discovered the 'tricks' to it and are now able to hitch up and be ready to roll in less than 15 minutes! =D) So anyways we hit the road and were on track to miss rush hour traffic in Atlanta, except Mother Nature had other plans and threw a horrendous storm at us as we were hitting the outskirts of ATL. Traffic slowed to a crawl as we slogged through copious amounts of rain and huge wind gusts. Now ATL is not my favorite place to drive on a good day so needless to say this portion of our trip was not cool. Thank goodness my husband is an excellent driver and we made it through the storm without any issues. However since the weather had traffic slowed to between 15-25 miles an hour by the time the storm let up we were stuck in rush hour traffic. (yes it literally took us almost 2 hours to get through the outskirts of atlanta!!!)
What should have taken us 4 hours ended up taking us 7!!!! By the time we reached Northern GA and Vogel State Park it was 9:00pm and pitch black, oh yeah and btw it was pouring down rain again!!! We hit the park after hours and grabbed our reservation info off the Late Arrival Board. There was a map, which sadly was poorly designed and a notice.
What did said notice say... Be Bear Aware!!!! ( the note went on to advise that a black bear had been seen repeatedly in the park/camp and reminded folks not to leave food out! Ugh talk about freaking me out. Thank goodness we found a pull through site right across from the comfort station! It was late and raining so we didn't even bother to unhook the truck fromt he trailer. We dropped the jacks (in the rain!) and settled in for the night. Within an hour we were all in bed!
I'll post about Thursday's journey either later tonight or tomorrow. Bye for now, friends

MOTW

2011-06-19T23:31:00.003-04:00

Purple...I love me some purple! =D I seem to wear a lot of purple and have loads of purple nail polishes too. So when I asked my hubby to pick out my next mani color, I wasn't a bit surprised to see a purple as his choice. lol What did surprise me was the actual polish, or should I say 2 polishes. I have one round 'sample' set that is nothing but black polish with various color toppers. After pulling up my polish list I grabbed my Sally Hansen Black Out polish and did 2 coats over a base coat. The topper I uused came from a group of polishes I bought on ebay a few monthes back. It's from a company called b. Turns out this is a French company. Their website appears to be completely in French. The color I used was called Lilas Optique...in the bottle and on it's own it is a lovely pale blue color. But something magical happened once over the black, the blue turned into a gorgeous purple color.
And I LOVE that my mani matched my shirt almost perfectly!!! =D

MOTW and what I'm doing now...

2011-06-15T11:43:00.006-04:00

Last Saturday was my sisters' baby shower, on my way there I stopped at the Walgreen's just up the road from her hoping to find the Sinful Colors brand copies of the OPI Pirates of the Carribean On Stranger Tides collection. These colors are gorgeous dirty/murky pastel shades, but I honestly can't pay $8 a bottle for polish. So with Sinful Colors being only $2 a bottle I was excited! Long story short my Walgreen's hasn't gotten them in yet, but since I need to break a $20 anyways I picked up 2 Sinful Colors bottles and a Wet N Wild glitter! ($6 total! =D) So without further ado today I have for you Sinful Colors Mint Apple. Mint Apple is a pretty green leaning turquoise with what appears (in the bottle) to be a silver shimmer. Although on me this does leave the tips of my fingers looking a little red I adore this color!!! I've got 3 coats on as the 1st two are a little streaky and leave a good bit of VNL (visible nail line) showing, the 3rd coats evened everything out and left my nails pretty darned opaque. What I discovered was the silver shimmer is actually more gold on the nail! Even better! To top off this mani I used some gold swirly nail art stickers to add a little pop and play up the gold shimmer. I added a clear coat over top (although I should have done 2 to hide the edges of the stickers better) Et Voila! =D

This is what else I've been working on this past week. I want to get back into making Barbie doll clothes so decided to get several pieces ready to sew. So I picked my favorite pattern SEEN HERE. So I grabbed several fun fabrics and set to work tracing out the pattern pieces. I hate working with the tissue paper patterns so I scan and copy them onto card stock and then just trace around the pieces onto my fabric. The other reason I do this is so I can seal the edges of the piece. I use Crafter's Pick The Ultimate glue to keep the edges from fraying. The Ultimate is billed as a water based super glue. I LOVE this stuff, I use it for EVERYTHING!!! (Heck I love it enough that I ordered a case from the manufacturer =D) But anyways, back to the dresses, I now have 8 dresses ready to sew as soon as I break my machine out. For the most part there are just 7 sets of basically straight lines of stitching on these pieces. Of course there are darts and details, but hey that's the fun stuff! So be on the lookout for new attire coming soon!

MOTW x 3

2011-06-09T13:44:00.008-04:00

Yeah so I'm a little behind with sharing my nails! Sorry, I'll start with the oldest: my Memorial Day mani. We took the boys camping down at Kolomoki Mounds State Park. It was about a 2 hours drive hauling the camper but turned out to be well worth it. We were situated on Lake Kolomoki and aside from the swarms of gnats it was a wonderful quiet relaxing weekend! We hiked and toured the mounds and museum. (Pics can be seen HERE!)We grilled out, had campfires, roasted marshmallows and just enjoyed quiet time together. For my weekend mani I used 2 coats of Wet n Wild in Waves of Enchantment WoE is a gorgeous pink-y, coral-y gold flecked color. (that really dislikes my camera! LOL) On my ring fingers I added a layer of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Pink Pearl, on top of that I added a nail art sticker. I liked the look and all polishes went on very well! =D

My nails went bare for a bit while my husband and I finished up the dollhouse. My next mani was purple. LOVE me some purple! I couldn't decide what color to paint my nails so I asked my facebook pals. Purple was the first color suggested so that was what I went with. I went through my little sample wheel and picked a shade I hadn't already worn. Totally Cool by Milani looks just like it's name in the bottle. It was a bit of a disappointment on the nails initally though. In the bottle TC looks like a warm maroon-y purple with a multi-chrome shimmer. (shimmer that changes shades)
My nails ended up with 4 coats on them as the 1st 3 coats went on ridiculously sheer and with way more of a blue cast to them. It isn't until that 4th coat went down that the maroon-y color really shows up. The other thing that bugged me about this color was the shimmer. In the bottle it appeared to shift from red to orange to green, but on the nail only the red really showed up. While I did like the end result, the fact that with base coats and top coats I had like 7 coats of polish on my fingers bugged me. :-(

I started taking it off last night as I decided to 'bump' up the shimmer a bit by adding a coat of Nubar 2010 over it. 2010 is a gorgeous top coat with iridescent flakes that is just stunning over nearly anything! However I discovered that the 2010 reacted with the TC and caused it to shrink and peel off my nails. :-( Bummer.
But anyway, that cleared the way for todays' mani. When I asked my friends about polish colors, green was the 2nd color suggested. Today I have 3 coats of Nina Ultra Pro (at Sally Beauty Supply stores) in Leaf Me Alone topped with 2 coats of CoverGirls Boundless Color in Ruby Dust. LMA is a nice apple-y green that is a little dusty in coloration. RD has tiny round silver glitters in a sheer pink base, my favorite part of RD aer the larger holographic hexagons. Now of course these hexs are only about the size of a ball point pen tip, but they do pack a nice punch. I actually with there were more of them in RD. My left hand has 2 coats of RD while my right has 3 as the glittle didn't seem to want to cooperate. But all in all I like the fresh crisp look! =D

It's done, it's done, it's DONE!!!!

2011-06-05T15:27:00.005-04:00

Of course if we're friends on Facebook, you already know this, but my hubby and I finished the dollhouse Saturday morning at 3am and delivered it about 12 hours later! Even with all the stumbles, pratfalls and missteps along the way I am thrilled with the final results. AND my friends were stunned at the final results and I think the squeals from the twins was a PERFECT exclamation of their thoughts! =D

Five of the 6 rooms were fully furnished: A kitchen/dining room, the Purple Monkey bedroom, the Pink Butterfly bedroom, the bathroom and a living room. I was lost as to what to do with the sixth room...so I let the girls choose. They want a tv room so that's what my final project for them will be. Their family is moving to Washington state next week so I will ship it to them after they arrive in their new home.

More pics of the house can be seen on my Flickr HERE

I'll have a few more posts later to catch up, but for now I've got to let my latest mani dry! Later friends! =D

MOTW and more dollhouse updates! =D

2011-05-22T21:16:00.005-04:00

My poor nails looked like crap, but I've been so busy I hadn't had a chance to take care of them. After dinner, Hubby and I watched a movie with the kiddos so it was the perfect time to give my tips a fresh look. And fresh was exactly what I went for! Bright crisp green with some great sparkle and shimmer. I used LIME Alright by Piggy Polish as my base coat. I bought this one on clearance at Ulta a few months back and I don't see it on the Piggy Polish website. BUT...any creme lime green will work. LIME Alright is actually a matte polish and was a bear to apply. I have 3 coats on and honestly it's a little streaky. I am not sure if it's just this color or if all mattes apply like this. But it being matte is kind of a moot point since I added a top coat. Actually first I used a single coat of Sally Hansens Nail Prisms in South Sea Pearl to all nails but my ring fingers. On them I added a layer of Sinful Colors Call You Later. South Sea Pearl is a wonderful sheer polish with a blue/green shimmer and Call You Later has fine gold and green glitters as well as small green round glitters. I tested CYL and was able to achieve near opacity with 4 coats all by itself if you wanted. The Sinful Colors line is available at Walgreens for just $1.99!!! =D

On the dollhouse front I am nearer to completion! I finished laying the flooring for the 2nd story. This is the bathroom and secondary living room or rec room. Hubby and I found an awesome green 'tile' looking material for the bathroom floor. I ended up laying it twice as I realized quickly that the wood grain showed through the fabric after decoupaging the fabric down, so I yanked it up, layed down some gift wrap (white side up) and then reglue the fabric down. I used Mod Podge to both glue it down and to seal it. I put 3 coats on top. It looks amazing! The other room has a green dark sage green diamond patterened 'carpet'! The 3rd floor has also been done. These are the bedrooms and are stained in a pinkish stain on one side and a purplish one on the other. That layer also got a coat or varnish to seal it and make it shine! The 1st floor is drying now. We found a black and white checkerboard vinyl for the kitchen and the main living room will get the same 'carpet' as the 2nd floor! Tomorrow I will get the walls painted and then we can hopefully start assembly tomorrow evening!

More dollhouse goodies!

2011-05-19T00:09:00.007-04:00

Well I'm still wearing the same nail polish from the other day. Been too busy on the furniture to bother with changing it. lol Yesterday I finshed the armoire for the 2nd bedroom, the nightstands for the 1st bdrm,
the sink (which OMG is awesome!!!!)
and built the coffee table.
I just got the first coat of 'ceiling' paint onto 2 of the 3 shelfs. The 3rd one is waiting for the wood putty to cure. Somehow we managed to grab a crappy board that had split, but thankfully my awesome husband was able to figure out how to salvage it and make it near perfect! (Luv that man! =D)

I've also got the 2nd pair of nightstands waiting for glue to dry before assembly, and the lamps are getting painted silver to match all of the hardware. Tomorrow 9after we help a friend move into her house) I've got to run out to Hobby Lobby and return the dollhouse tile and carpet I bought. The sheets I bought are going to be to small for the rooms and rather than spend $7 a sheet, I'm going to but scrapbooking papers and decoupage them onto the floors. For the rooms getting carpeting I'm going to pick up some velvet yardage and use that instead! So instead of spending almost $60 on flooring, I should be able to get it all for around $20 or less. =D

MOTW and dollhouse update

2011-05-15T17:01:00.004-04:00

Friday night I had to take my oldest out to get something nice to wear. His girlfriends' parents were renewing their vows on Saturday so off we went. I found him a whole outfit for $30 (pants, shirt, socks and shoes!!!!) Of course this was after I used the $35 of customer rewards cash I had, but hey it was free money! While there I of course had to check out the cosmetics department. I have decided that I am really going to try to keep any nailpolish purchases to under $3 a bottle. I have a hard time justifying spending more than that on a bottle of polish. My find Friday night was Wet n Wilds' Gray's Anatomy. In the bottle this color is a gorgeous oilslick/peacock gray. (I would like to say that I am a sucker for peacocks!!!) Actually on the nail this one was a bit of a let down. :-( First of all it's really sheer. I have 3 coats on my nails and there is still a good bit of VNL. (visible nail line) That's not that big of a deal as the polish is very thin, and dries fast so adding a couple more layers wouldn't have been to bad. I think in the future I will use this as a layering polish over different dark colors. It does have an awesome shimmer to it and as you can hopefully see in the pics it looks like anything from a dark silver almost pewter color to purple or green depending on the light. While I'm not totally in love with it, for less than $2, I'm glad I bought it!

On the dollhouse front I have finished several pieces: the kitchen island is so far my favorite piece. I have also completed the fridge, claw-foot tub, commode, 2 bedroom chairs, and the vanity. You can find pics of them on my Flickr page here. Currently in process are the wardrobe (which just needs the trim done),a pair of ottomans, the bathroom sink which still needs painted and assembled, the 2 poster beds which need painted and linens made, and the 2nd loveseat.

There will be other pieces as well but to be honest at the moment I'm still not sure what those will be....oooooh yeah the dining room! lol I will be working on this for the rest of the week rather diligently so expect to see updates all week long!

Eeeep! Way behind! (long winded! lol)

2011-05-13T22:21:00.003-04:00

Ugh, I'm rather behind on just about everything...this week has been an emotional roller coaster. It started Monday as I was settling in to really kick tush on finishing up the dollhouse. Middle of the afternoon I get a call frmo my sister asking me to come take her to the ER. Her blood pressure wa sky high and her OB nurse (she's 29 weeks) told her she needed to come straight in. So I spent about 6 hours at the hospital with her, long story short she was admitted for what was supposed to be 48 hours of bed rest. Well with great joy (and loads of panic, stress, fear and prayers) Sophia Jo was delivered via c-section yesterday at 12:37pm. She was one day shy of 30 weeks and weighed 2lbs 5oz, and was 15 1/4 inches long. Amazingly my gorgeous niece is currently only on oxygen! Both mother and baby girl are doing wonderfully. My sister will get to come home Sunday or Monday. Sophia will spend the next few months in the NICU, but she's a strong feisty little gal! =D
Needless to say I spent 2/3rds of the past week at the hospital with my sister. I am blessed to have wonderful caring friends who sent prayers, thoughts and well wishes for the pair. The owner of the dollhouse happens to be one such person and she told me to not worry about the house and concentrate on my sister. Now that the initial 'drama' has past I am back to work full tilt. In the hours while I was at home and couldn't sleep I have managed to paint the kitchen island, fridge, claw-footed tub, and toilet. I also finished painting the vanity and reupholstered and painted the 2nd bedroom chair. I ended up buying a wardrobe for the more tomboy-ish twin and that is nearly finished as well. It rained like crazy here this afternoon, but hopefully I'll get some sun tomorrow so I can take pictures of the finished pieces. (if not you'll just have to make do with my chaotic messy desk as a backdrop. lol)

On the nail front I purchased a set of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms polishes off ebay. It's a set of 12 polishes for $45 including shipping which works out to $3 a bottle, which to me is a great deal. I was under the impression that this line was all holographic. Well sadly it's not, it seems that half the line is what are called duo-chromes. (This means 2 toned basically. It's one color when you look at it from one direction and another color when viewed from a different direction) So it was a bit of a let down, but they are all still gorgeous colors. My current mani is the Blush Diamond which is a holo. It's a rich deep pink with a fabulous holographic shimmer when viewed in the sunlight.

I have loads more to update, but I've droned on long enough. Thanks for reading along and I'll be back tomorrow! =D

MOTW (fail!!!) and A new House!

2011-05-06T23:37:00.003-04:00

I decided yesterday that I had had naked nails long enough, so I asked my oldest son to grab me a polish out of my boxes. (after explaining that I wanted a COLOR not a clear...lol) he brought me CoverGirls' Iceberry. I got this color in a lot of polishes I bought on ebay, so to be honest I have no idea when this came out but I'm pretty sure it's not a current color. :-( On one hand I honestly don't think that's a bad thing. Sadly this polish was not a good color on me, not to mention I've got 5 (yes FIVE) coats on each nail and this is still ridiculously sheer! VNL (which means Visible Nail Line) is something that most nail bloggers consider a bad thing. This means that you can still see through the nail that over hangs your finger tips. After 5 coats the VNL on this is glaring! So for me this color is a no go. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I might keep it for layering over other colors, or I might decide to mix my own custom color with it, or heck I might give it away.

Ok onto the new house, nope I'm not talking dollhouse, or barbie house, or honestly even brick & mortar houses...but houses on wheels! My husband and I bought a travel trailer today!!!! We've been talking about this for several years, and finally found an amazing deal on a brand new Heartland North Country travel trailer. While this floor plan isn't exactly what are is it's 95% right. I'll be taking loads of pictures over the weekend! We are going to spend Mother's Day weekend camping and I'm in the process of trying to find a campground where we can camp locally over the summer and on into the fall as well.

Well I'm off for now, but I'll be back on Monday with loads of pictures! To all the moms out there...Happy Mother's Day!!!

Loveseat is done!!!

2011-05-05T16:15:00.005-04:00

Yippee, my back is finally feeling good enough to sit at my desk for several hours without more than some discomfort. (several days ago, more than 10 minutes in my chair would send me to my bed to lay down. :-( ) So I am thrilled to be on the mend! I finally finished the 1st of 2 loveseats for the barbie house. While I am very happy with how it turned out, the 2nd one will end up a little different and a little better thanks to lessons learned while building this one. But that being said I think this one looks so fun! I am still trying to decide what colors to use as the accents, but I couldn't be more happy!

I have also nearly finished repainting the vanity. This one went from hot pink and fuschia to crisp classy black and white. I still need to paint the very edges of the drawers (ugh must keep my hand steady!!!!! ) and repaint the drawer pulls silver (or gold). I haven't decided on which color pulls yet as one twin will get silver and the other gold. One gal is a girly girl and the other is a tomboy, so I'm thinking the girly girl will get the gold and the silver will go to the tomboy. So these knobs will be gold. (nothing like making a decision as it's written! lol)

The other 'big' thing I'm working on right now is seating for the bedroom. In the 2nd loveseat pic there is a curved diamond-printed chair. I bought 2 of these as the print is prefect for the tomboys room (who happens to LOVE monkeys!!!) The second chair is being painted gold and being recovered in a pretty cream fabric with gold butterflies! *sigh* So pretty. Hopefully I will be able to finish it tonight and be able to share pics of that tomorrow!

I'm naked!!!

2011-04-28T21:11:00.003-04:00

Ok not really, but my nails are. I removed the last mani Tuesday, with the intention of doing a bright pink one with a glittery top coat. Well all went well until I added a layer of clear polish over top. The glittery layer and the clear layer reacted poorly.(As I've discovered they sometimes do. Seems not all polish formulas play nicely together!) The glittery layer actually shrank on my nails and looked like your fingers do after you soak in the bath or pool for too long! Not a good look. So I stripped it all off and added a fresh coat of base coat and called it a day. I planned on redoing it on Wednesday after grocery shopping. Unfortunately I managed to pull a muscle in my back out at the grocery store. Soooo For now my nails are au naturale. I must say though, they haven't looked this healthy in ages! They are a little thin though as over the last 3 weeks I've managed to split 3 different nails. So far I have saved them all using a super glue type nail glue and small pieces of single layer plain tissue. You simply brush the glue over the break and layer on a piece of tissue, let dry and repeat 1-3 more times. Let dry fully them file smooth. Maybe if I'm feeling better tomorrow I'll get a few coats of polish on my nails.

In the meantime, thankfully sitting at my desk isn't uncomfortable, so I have been working on the 1st of 2 loveseats for the dollhouse. I'm a little further alonger with it than these pics show, but not far enough to take more pics. Hopefully I should be able to do more tomorrow. These pieces are made from foam core, a this foam sheeting, fabric and wooden balls. I started with a basic pattern from Freida Gray's Dolls' House Furniture. This book is designed for 1/12th scale but many of the projects work really well for 1/6th scale. (with a few modifications for stability and play ability!) This 1st piece has gone together relatively easily and I figure the 2nd one should go together even faster! More pics to come tomorrow! =D

MOTW and Serendipity

2011-04-25T18:48:00.004-04:00

I changed my polish Saturday night and decided to use a fun blue glitter nail polish I made. (Well I mixed the color anyway... lol) It seems within the polish 'scene', creating custom colors is called Franken-ing. (Like Frankenstein! heeheehee)
Sooo last week I found some nail polish that came in some clearanced make-up kits I bought a few years back. I really just wanted the cool cases! ;-) The bottles are tiny and I truly figured the paint would be old and gloppy. Surprisingly the consistency was still good. I picked a sheer beige color (I figure it was meant for doing French Manicures) and found some gorgeous teal holographic glitter in my craft stash. Little did I know that the polish would leach the color right off the glitter!!! So instead of a sheer polish with teal glitter, I ended up with a sheer teal polish with SILVER holographic glitter! I gotta say I love serendipity! To get the full coverage on most of my nails I needed 3 kinda heavy coats. The sparkle level is amazing, but the texture is a little rough. I've decided to call it Sunlight on the Water as it reminds me of the way sunlight sparkles on a smooth lake. On my ring finger of each hand I started off with a single coat of E by Essences' Forever Mine then topped that with a single coat of my franken. I think I actually like it better this way!

On the Barbie front, I sold several of my heart topped cupcakes this weekend! YAY!! (I did realize that I need to list the chocolate versions of these though!) I am working on the 1st loveseat, my husband is a great problem solver and an awesome out-of-the-box thinker and he helped me out with some stability issues. So this pair of seating should be awesome and perfectly capable of standing up to the imaginative play of a pair of 8yr old twins! =D(hopefully I'll have pics tomorrow)

MOTW and Yay...PROGESS!!!!

2011-04-23T15:09:00.005-04:00

Last nights' mani was loads of fun. I used 3 coats of Cover Girls' Aglow Pink as my base. (over a coats of clear base coat of course!) Then I used my ball stylus to add dots in 6 more shades of pink. For the most part I am happy with this look, although I can't ever seem to start my manis' before 8pm, which means they aren't fully dry by the time we got to bed. They looked good this morning, but after using acetone to get the last bit of residue off the furniture to be painted( a bit more on that in a sec...) The tips look atrocious. Soooo I'll be repainting my nails here in just a bit.
After spending a few hours out this morning with my hubby, we came home to an empty house. My sister had 'stolen' our kiddos to take them swimming at her place. (yep I did know they were being stolen. ;-D) Hubs and I chilled for a bit, before I got to work masking off the parts of the Barbie furniture I didn't want to have to repaint. Then I laid down a nice big tarp and some newspaper and set to work with several cans of Krylon Fusion paint in white, hammered aluminum and cast iron. The kitchen island started life being deep fuschia, the first vanity (there is a 2nd one coming soon) was hot pink, and the pair of 4-poster beds which were pale pink out of the box are all now crisp satin white! YAY!!!
After the paint has cured for a day I will start on the detail work. (although I think a trip to the craft store is needed to pick up some model paints) On the kitchen island I masked off the 'countertop' which is a pretty flecked pink color.
The vanity has a nice black top to it and I decided to leave it that way. I repainted all 4 of the night stand tops white, but and thinking about repainting 2 of them black to match the vanity top. I also repainted the refrigerator from deep pink to hammered aluminum. I had originally intended to paint the interior white but yeah, um...I decided that 8yr old little girls aren't going to care that the inside is silver! lol Last on my To-Be-Painted List was the dining room set. I had planned on leaving them white when I bought them, but once I realized that the seats sat way to low, I figured out a way to raise the seats. However doing this was going to leave things looking a little rough, so I used the 'cast iron black' Fusion paint to repaint the chair bases (the seat cushions are getting black sateen covers) and the table base. The also got left unpainted as it is grey with flecks in it so it looks like granite. (btw here is a link so you can see what some of the pieces originally looked like!)

A late MOTW

2011-04-22T16:36:00.003-04:00

Eeeek I painted this mani back on Tuesday! I just got around to photographing it today! It's pretty but I'm ready for something new. I asked my friends on Facebook to pick my color for this one, and the first one suggested was orange. Since I was drooling over the Butterfly Wing mani from a few days back on Dee'z Nail blog... I felt orange was perfect! I started with my normal clear coat, then did 2 coats of Revlon's Siren. I must admit I was NOT happy with the way it covered. Maybe I didn't wait long enough between coats, but it smudged really badly. With most polishes by the time I finish all 10 fingers I can easily put on the second coat. Not so with Siren. Oh well. To try and even it out as well as add some shimmer I added one coat of OPI's Conga-line Coral. (if I decide to try the butterflies in orange again I think I'll just use 2 coats of this instead!) To add even more shine I added 1 coat of Nubar's 2010 which is a holographic flakie polish. On my ring finger of each hand I used Sally Hansen's Black Out and a fine brush. I now know why many nail salons use acrylic paints for artwork...this paint dried so quickly it was hard to get a clean smooth line. Next time I will definitely try using acrylics instead! The white dots were added using Petites French White, I dropped just a bit on some plastic and used a ball stylus in 3 different sizes and just dotted the polka dots. Dots are FUN, I will definitely be doing more of them!!! =D

On the doll front, my husband and I picked up the wood today for the 3 story Barbie doll house we are making. We decided to go with pine rather than plywood, partly because they had the exact size boards we needed, but also because the wood looked so much better. We decided that it was to pretty to paint, so with the 'customer's' ok, we chose a nice rich stain that will match the twins' bedroom furniture. I'm going to get down to business tonight on the furniture, and we will start construction next week!

MOTW

2011-04-17T14:18:00.003-04:00

This week I promise I'll be back to crafting. Yesterday we had a BBQ to celebrate the return of my husband and his unit from Iraq. (2 weeks ago) While we did have some nasty weather Friday night, Saturday was lovely. We had a great turn out of friends and family, loads of great food and tons of fun!

After we got home from the BBQ my mani started to peel. This is the second one to do this. Not sure if it's the base coat I am using or what, but the polish peeled off like the BOPO (Brush On Peel Off) polish I remember having as a little girl! So I removed all of the last mani and started fresh with something bright and Spring-like. I used 3 coats of China Glaze's Laser Lime from their Tronica line. I bought mine at Sally Beauty Supply's brick & mortar store. I checked their online shop, but didn't see it there.(which BTW Sally's has a buy 2 get 1 free sale on polish right now!!!) I topped it off with two coats of top coat. On my thumbs I did one coat of top coat, let that dry and them added a butterfly nail art sticker made by Kiss. (these are readily available at Wal-Mart, Kmart or other stores) After pressing the sticker down I brushed a second coat of top coat over the sticker to seal it in.

Starting tomorrow I will be getting down to serious business on the Barbie house. So be prepared for lots of crafty stuff! =D

MOTW

2011-04-14T21:37:00.003-04:00

My youngest son picked out todays' mani. I have several nail polish sample wheels done up with all my polishes and I asked him to choose. One of the wheels is nothing but my pale and glitter polishes sampled over black. This was his choice. Sally Hansen Black Out (2 coats) topped with Northern Lights Hologram top coat. I bought mine at Sally Beauty Supply. I did use 5 coats of this as I wanted the holo effect to be rather strong. BUT this does look fantastic with just 2 coats! (I'm tempted to do a couple more coats just for grins and giggles just to see how holo I can go! =D)

Still no minis or Barbie work as we've been doing stuff here at home. I'm throwing my hubby a 'Welcome Home' BBQ on Saturday, but hopefully Monday I will be ready to dig into my crafty pursuits. In the meantime thanks for being patient and enjoying my manicure fun. Have a great weekend y'all!!!

whee!

2011-04-11T23:04:00.000-04:00

Ok, this is completely random, but YAY! I can blog from my phone! Lol!

MOTW 2.0

2011-04-11T13:59:00.002-04:00

I decided to play a little today with the rich teal mani from yesterday...I took a kitchen type sponge cut a small piece and then tore and edge to rough it up a bit. Then I took a pretty silver polish called Athena by Stila dropped a bit on some waxed paper. I used the sponge (which I dampened and wrung our really good) to dab the silver onto the tips of the nails and then up about a third of the way up the nail too. I am really happy with the way it looks now. I think this color is a bit dark for a fun spring mani, BUT I am loving the technique and will do it again for SURE! =D

MOTW and new phones

2011-04-10T19:38:00.004-04:00

So today was a gorgeous day and we had intended to take the kids out bike riding. Instead we found ourselves drawn into a River Monsters marathon on Animal Planet. None of us fish (heck I don't even eat fish!) but this is an awesome show! So after watching about 3 hour long episodes we decided it was too hot to hit the park. (it had hit 90 degrees by noon!!!) The hubs and I decided to venture out to Verizon to trade in our old phones and switch over from T-Mobile. (With T-M, we barely got signal in our HOUSE!!!) My hubby got a Brigade which is a heavy duty phone. And with MY husband that's a good thing! LOL Me, well I went in intending to just get a simple phone. I mean I really don't use it for much other than making calls and texting...well needless to say I walked out with Droid 2!!!! Now I can take my 'computer' with me anywhere I go! I love the QWERTY keyboard and love that I can facebook and twitter from my phone. hmm I might even be able to blog from it!

After getting our new phones the hubs and I went used car shopping. While he was deployed we dropped down to just a single vehicle but now that he is home he needs one so that I can have transport to do things during the day while he's at work. We didn't find anything that we both liked that fit all our criteria. So we'll save that for another day. (although we do have a lead on a dealership a few hours from here that has some NICE looking cars on his lot)

After a dinner of slow cooked pork roast, brown rice and fruit, I removed the pink holographic polish from the other day. I had hubby look through my polish sample wheels and asked him to choose. (He's got a great eye for color!) He narrowed it down to 4 that he liked, 2 greens and 2 teals. He liked the teals just a bit more so I decided to go that route. Since my Sees-ter is wearing one of the 2 colors he picked on her toes I decided to go with the other one.

This polish is from a cute little set I found at TJ Maxx. It was 8 full size bottles of Goldie brand nail polish. My sister said this was a brand that Bath & Body Works used to sell and my research online confirms this. However B&BW no longer sells it and so far the only place I've been able to find it is online for RIDICULOUS prices! I think I paid about $8 for the SET in the store, but online they are selling it for around $30!!!! That to me is insane! My color today is a rich dark teal with a heavy metallic shimmer. While the shine is gorgeous without a top coat the amount of shimmer in it really requires one to have a smooth finish. honestly 2 coats of top coat would be better. The polish goes on really smoothly and 2 coats left me with a fantastic rich coverage!

A little something new...

2011-04-08T20:32:00.003-04:00

I recently got back into doing my nails on a regular basis. No long acrylics, just a nice comfy length that still allows me to work with clay. I went on a bit of a polish buying spree a few weeks ago and wound up with about 90 polishes!!! So I'm going to start doing my nails atleast twice a week. (that way I can justify them! LOL) Some days it'll just be a simple paint job, but I also want to try doing some nail art too. So I'm going to try to add a Mani Of The Week (MOTW) feature to my blog!

This weeks mani is an awesome holographic polish from Sally Hansen in their Nail Prisms line called Pink Rose Diamond. (these are available on ebay) It's a pale rose color with an amazing color changing holographic quality. It goes on super smooth and covers well. It also looks awesome as a single coat over a dark polish too!

HE'S HOME!!!!!

2011-04-03T13:47:00.002-04:00

After nearly a year my husband is home from Iraq!!!! He arrived in yesterday evening and we are enjoying just kicking back and savoring having our family all together again!

I am sorry I haven't posted anything in ages. Shortly after my last post (in January!!!!) I hurt one of my feet, so since I normally sit cross-legged at my desk (which ironically is I think how I hurt it in the first place) I brought my laptop into the living room. So I haven't created anything lately. Then once my foot was healed I started getting into my 'holy-cow-my-husbands'-almost-home' mode. Well now that he finally is I will be getting back to creating soon, as I am rather behind on my 1/6th scale dollhouse commission!

So be on the look out for more posts and new creations soon!

Weigh In Wednesday

2011-01-27T01:00:00.002-05:00

(ok ok I know technically it's Thursday, but I'm still awake so I'm calling it Wednesday! LOL)

This past week has not been good for me as far as the gym goes. Due to various other commitments that either I or my gym partners had, I only made it to the gym once. But I tried to be good about what I ate, so hopefully things won't look too bad tomorrow.

Short and sweet today, talk to you hopefully tomorrow.

Sheesh... (very wordy)

2011-01-24T21:13:00.003-05:00

Time sure does fly. I had a rather busy weekend, with 3 birthday parties. They started on Saturday with a 9:30am party at Chuck E Cheese's. Although getting up that early was a pain (of course the fact that I couldn't sleep the night before and didn't go to bed until 4:45 didn't help any) BUT with a nice tall caramel latte from the bookstore next door, and lots of good friends the CEC party went well and the boys had a blast. Left there with just enough time to come home, wrap the 2nd present and take the youngest one back out. More good friends and a fun time was had by all. My workout buddy invited me and some other friends out for dinner and drinks to celebrate her birthday. Her wonderful husband played Designated Driver, so the 4 of us had a wonderful time! I made it home around 12:15 relatively sober. Stayed up talking to my husband online for about a hour before he laughingly told me to take my drunk butt to bed! (I am a stickler about typos, they drive me nuts. But Saturday night I just couldn't make myself care enough to correct them. In my head I KNEW they were wrong I just didn't care. lol) I am not normally a drinker, heck it's been months since I had a drink, probably when Donnie was home on R&R in July at his family reunion. But I had a grand time letting loose for a little bit. Thankfully I woke up Sunday morning in a wonderful mood with no hangover. =D About 2pm I picked up my 'house cleaner'. (my friends teen daughter comes and does some basic cleaning for me every 2 weeks) By the time I got back it was almost time to take Bradley to the final party of the weekend. Another fun party and fun time.

There I met an amazing photographer, that I will be having take loads of pics here soon. She does kids and family pics, weddings, babies, couples and boudoir pics. I've decided to have a shoot done for Donnie for Valentine's day!

Let's see on the creative front...um nothing going on really. I finally got the spray paint I need for the barbie furniture and appliances, but it's been too cold to work on them. I have a commission that I will be starting this week for a set of Winnie the Pooh characters for a 1/12th scale toy shop. But other than that I need to list some more of my Valentine's Day 1/6th scale miniatures in my etsy shop. Maybe tonight.

Well that's it in a nutshell. Y'all take care!

Wednesday Weigh In

2011-01-19T12:21:00.005-05:00

Before the holidays I was doing really good hitting the gym 4 days a week. Then with the boys out of school for the holidays and then sick kiddos off and on for the last 2 weeks, today was the first day I got back into the gym in almost a month. And boy do I feel it. BUT it feels good! Hubby is due home from the Middle East sometime in April, soooo it's time for me to get my ass in gear. I have decided to join Marsha over at Sassy Mini Dolls for her Wednesday Weigh In. So I am startinf fresh today and going to put it all out there. I think this is the heaviest I've ever been and I am trying to get rid of it. I know it's not going to just melt away, and it's going to take work. I didn't get fat over night and it's going to take time for it to come off. I weighed myself today at the gym and at 255 I am NOT happy with the numbers which just convinces me even more to work harder at getting it off. More motivation is of course Donnie coming home. I would like to be able to find something really pretty to wear when he comes home but WILL be buying it in a smaller size!!!

Today at the gym we did 30 minutes on the treadmill...I did 8-10 of them at a incline of 4 and spent my time at between 3.3 & 3.5mph. I averaged a 17.5 minute mile. After that we did 5 sets up and down the stairs...I didn't count, but I think there are atleast 20. (those about killed me but I did them!) Then we moved on to the strength training part of our workout. Each day we work a different area of our body. Today we decided to do Chest. So we did 3 sets of Incline, Decline and Flat bench presses. Very little weight, but it felt good. The Decline ones always make me feel like I'm going to slip of the bench! LOL After that we did 3 sets each on several of the Chest machines. (sorry I can't remember what they were) It was definitely a workout but like I said I feel really good!

Thanks so much to Carrie and Rhonda, my workout buddies! I really appreciate you gals!!!

Well I gotta scoot...gotta hop in the shower and then run to the grocery store. Take care!

I've officially started... (wordy & picture heavy)

2011-01-07T21:58:00.005-05:00

About 6 weeks ago I was approached by a friend about making a dollhouse for her twin daughters. They will be turning 7 in May. So I sat down with Mom & Dad and we came up with a relatively simple design. The dollhouse will be a 4 foot tall by 3 foot wide bookcase style dollhouse. There will be 3 floors and a rooftop patio. The 1st floor will be the living room & eat-in kitchen. Next level is the spa-style bathroom and den/rec room. The final floor will be a bedroom for each girl complete with canopy beds!

Since not only are the girls fraternal twins (one is blond the other brunette) but they also have VERY different personalities, I will be making their rooms similar but unique to each girl. B is a tomboy who loves the color purple and monkeys, while A is a girly-girl whose favorite color is pink and loves butterflies!

Both girls love Disney princesses, each has a unique favorite. B's is Snow White while A's favorite is Cinderella.

My intention is to create a dollhouse that blends both girls likes into a fun place for their dolls to play! My drawings are almost complete, and I will be heading to the home store in the early part of next week to buy my lumber and supplies. I will also me making a trip to the craft stores to check out scrapbooking papers for wallpaper. Although now that I think about it, I might have to check out the stationary and party stores instead. Each floor is going to be about 15inches high, and unless I want to do wainscoting (which I might do in a room or two) in the entire house...scrapbook paper is NOT going to cut it.

Tomorrow will be spent getting my kitchen table cleared off so that I have a place to start building. Although the dollhouse will live out in my Garage for a few weeks while I sand, paint and wallpaper. Then I will bring it inside to assemble. That way I can work on it inside where it's warm.

I initially hadn't intended to put true windows into the house, I had thought to make faux ones with scenery pictures on the inside looking out and pics of the interior of the house on the outside looking in. But I have a feeling that will be harder than I imagine...so I an going to reconsider putting real windows in. I'm building the frame out of 1/2 inch ply or MDF...so I will need to look into some kind of cutting tool that can do the interior cutting. ANY SUGGESTIONS???

On to the official start...one of the pieces Mom specifically asked for was canopy beds...I found a pair of this great bed on ebay. It wasn't until it arrived today that I realized in addition to the bed, was a pair of nightstands with LIGHTED lamps!!! The battery pack sits inside the nightstand and by twisting the lamp the little light turns on! I decided I want the lamps to look like the brass ones from my childhood. (I really MUST remember that enamel paints take WAY longer to dry than acrylics! LOL) I think I've smudged them atleast 4 times already.

I'm contemplating adding some gold trim and fringe to the lamp shade as well...right now it seems way to plastic-y for my liking. I am also thinking about a coat of matte spray paint to take the shine down a notch. I've only put one coat of gold on the lamp and already it looks 100 times better, all the neat details are actually coming out. Tomorrow (or atleast several HOURS from now) I'll add a second coat. I think it will also get a light antiquing too, but not certain.)
I also got another awesome furniture buy, but I think I will save those pieces for another day!
Have a great weekend!!!

Wet Wednesday

2011-01-05T22:49:00.005-05:00

Urgh...can I just say that I dislike grey rainy days!!! I woke up to a steady drizzle of cold rain this morning. After getting the boys ready and driven to school I came home and got ready for the gym. Met my friend for a good workout. Today we worked our backs and did 30 minutes on the treadmills. I'm bummed cause I put back on the 10 pounds I had lost, BUT I didn't add anything to that. So it a bit of a victory, right? BUT I am determined to lose atleast 25 pounds between now and April 1st! (Hubby should be home in April some time.)

Zeus is doing much better today. He spent about 3 hours at the 'spa' and when I picked him up he was trimmed, shiny and smelled fresh! Yesterday morning he wasn't limping nearly as bad as he was Monday night and after having his nails trimmed he barely limped at all. today he is doing even better. So my theory was pretty much confirmed. He now has a standing monthly appointment for a Spa Day! =D Here he is chillin' on the folded 3rd row seat in the truck on the ride home from the Spa. He looks pretty comfy huh?

Nothing newly made today, but I'll share a couple pieces from over the weekend and earlier. First up is my version of a Rement piece (seen here!) Each of the blueberries and cherries was hand rolled. The pie is Barbie sized and made in a bottle cap 'tin'.
Up next is actually one of the first miniatures I made...it's a pizza with everything. I was intending it to be dollhouse (1/12th) scale, but at the time I didn't know how to do that size properly. However it's perfect for Barbie. I staged the pizza with some Rement pieces and I must say it looks pretty darned good! The pizza is topped with pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers, and black olives. And of course EXTRA cheese!

1st Tuesday in 2011

2011-01-03T23:58:00.005-05:00

The boys all head back to school today, and me...I'm hitting the gym. Time for me to really buckle down if I want to lose 25-30 pounds before Donnie comes home in April. After I hit the gym, I've got to stop by the vet's to pickup Zeus' vaccine papers. He's heading to the groomers for a spa day. He started limping this afternoon, I think it's his claws though.
Donnie usually trims them and I am ashamed to admit that since it scares me to do it (Zeus knows I'm scared of hurting him so he tends to be jittery too, which makes me even more nervous. Vicious Cycle really!) I haven't trimmed his nails since July when Donnie did them. Zeus let me look at the leg he's favoring, and even with putting pretty firm pressure from shoulder to toes, he didn't flinch, yip, nip or anything which is what leads me to believe it's his nails. BUT if he's not better by Wednesday I will get him in to see the Vet!!!

On the mini front I have been hard at work on Valentine's Day goodies. I've been decorating cookies, cupcakes and even made a heart shaped Red Velvet cake! More of my current pieces can be seen on my Flickr.

2010-12-27T16:44:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was pretty good. As good as the holiday can be without Donnie being here. I was up until about 5am emailing Donnie and wrapping gifts. The boys slept until around 8, but played in their rooms until I woke up at 9. The boys enjoyed opening gifts, then spent the rest of the day playing with all their new stuff. Me, well I napped off and on most of the day! LOL

I've been doing a little bit of clay work, I've started on my Valentine's Day cookies and such for my store. Hopefully this year I will actually find myself ahead of the game!

Take care and Have a safe and happy New Year!

Um yeah, sooo...

2010-12-24T00:10:00.003-05:00

How is it possible that tomorrow, whoops today is Christmas Eve??? Where on Earth has the year gone? On a good note with the fact that 2011 is only a week away this also means that my hubby is that much closer to coming HOME!!!! =D (April won't be too far along!)

I am sorry for not posting since Thanksgiving...I've been busy but honestly feel like I haven't done ANYTHING! I know I actually did, but none of it really seemed post worthy. I have finished my gingerbread house. I love the way it turned out in the end. The base is 3 inches square.
I also made a dozen pearlized snowflakes and another dozen poinsettias as ornaments. These were roughly 3 inches across and I must admit being very happy with them. My customer was very pleased with them as well.

Let's see I also have started a partnership with a local jewelry artisan. It started out with me making tiger stripe beads for Auburn University. I think these will become a regular part of my repertoire as she says they are selling really well for her! I also made some houndstooth patterned beads. Personally I wasn't happy with them, but my customer says her customer are going WILD for them. I told her if I can figure out a better way to make them I will. (the cane started out around 2 pounds, but I only came away with about 8-10 of useable cane!!!!) I'm not sure what I did wrong in the reducing, or what I could have done differently. :-(

I have also been working on little bits and bobs of Barbie (1/6th-Playscale) items. My Flickr page has my most recent additions on the first few pages, including a small tutorial on how I make Slice N Bake cookies.

On the Barbie front I received and amazing yet terrifying commission...a dollhouse!!!
A dear friend of mine has asked me to build and decorate a bookcase style dollhouse for her twin daughters' birthdays in May. My goal is to have it near completion by the end of March, that way during April while my hubby is coming home or finally home I don't have alot to do. Soooo expect to see lots of posts about that starting in the near future.

Well I think that's about it for me, for now. Take care and have a wonderful Christmas! (of course if you don't celebrate, well, have a wonderful weekend! =D)

It's beginning to feel like Christmas!

2010-11-27T14:24:00.003-05:00

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! The decorations, the scents, the sounds! Yep I love them all. Christmas music in playing on my laptop, and our Christmas tree will go up today. This years theme is Patriotic. Each time my husband deploys and is gone for Christmas I always decorate the tree in Red, White and Blue ornaments. It's one of my most and least favorite trees. I love the way it looks, but it means Donnie is gone again. *sigh* I'll share pics either later tonight or tomorrow. =D

I have been making lots of Christmas-y items, so far my favorite is the gingerbread house and tradional-colored 1/6th scale Christmas tree.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2010-11-25T12:03:00.002-05:00

To all my American friends home and abroad, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. (To all my friends who don't celebrate, have a wonderful Thursday! =D)

Thanksgiving will be a simple affair at my house today since my husband is overseas. I don't cook a turkey and all the trimmings for just me and the boys. So on the years that Donnie is away the boys and I nosh on a snack food/appetizer buffet. This year it's pizza spread (cream cheese topped with tomato sauce and pepperoni) eaten with crackers. Something we affectionately call Bacon Crackers. (thank you Lisa!!!) These are Club crackers sprinkled with parmesan cheese and topped with about a 1/3rd of a slice of bacon. They get cooked to crisp up the bacon and our family likes them chilled afterwards. I am making a small veggie tray and some spiced mixed nuts too. So we will just nibble away today.

My sister is coming over later to spend the day playing on the Wii with us. Then tomorrow she and I are hitting the shops for Black Friday. Everyone take care and have a blessed day!

Gingerbread Update

2010-11-25T01:10:00.004-05:00

The house itself is almost done...I'm not sure what else I want to add, but it just doesn't look complete to me. I think tomorrow I am going to start the base. I made a cream puff snowman to go out in the yard. My oldest son thinks it looks silly, but I love him! I'm thinking some 'edible' landscaping might make things better. Unless you can think of something the house needs?

My Gingerbread House so far...

2010-11-23T23:09:00.003-05:00

It's by no means finished yet...But it's getting there. I am waiting on some 'candy bars' to dry, they will become the front pillars on the entryway. I am thinking about a 'cookie' wreath for around the window too. I also made a cream puff snowman that will sit in front of the house too! (pics of that coming soon!) Over on my flickr are a couple more pics including a Big and Small comparison of some of the candies I've made so far. =D

Decorating HELP needed

2010-11-22T11:11:00.005-05:00

So I am working on a couple of miniature Christmas trees while doing other things. I am stumped at the garland stage. Right now the tree has gold beaded trim around it and a sheer red bow with long vertical ribbon 'tinsel' on it. These are glued in place and not removeable.
Late last night I decided to add some of this really neat 'tinsel' garland to the tree as well. This is just wrapped on and can be removed if the consensus is that it doesn't need it. Someone on facebook mentioned the the green didn't really stand out. It actually does in real life, it's a rather bright metallic green. I like it BOTH ways and can't decide. Is less more, or since it's Christmas is decadence the 'rule'? The ornaments on the tree will be red, green white and gold. So waht do you think?

Been busy with little things

2010-11-22T00:03:00.004-05:00

I was inspired by several other bloggers including Mo Tipton over at The Mouse Market. She's been making some of the most gorgeous gingerbread houses in 1/12th scale. She even has a little mini-tutorial on her blog! Since I am working more in 1/6th, I took a pattern from a cookbook and printed it out at the right size. Then I turned the printed patterns into templates by laminating them with clear packing tape. I lightly pressed each piece to some gingerbread colored clay. (which I also scented with a cinnamon Christmas oil, and added several herbs and spices for texture) I used my slicing blade to cut out the pieces. I actually worked with the sheet of clay pressed to my tile, and just peeled away the excess so as to not distort the pieces. After baking and cooling I started glueing them together. Today was spent starting on the candy making process. So far I have made candy canes, patterened hard candies, cherry sour balls, lime Dots, and Necco wafers. I need to make more Dots tomorrow and I'm also making some Kisses. While making the gingerbread I made some donuts and cupcakes too!
More pics can be found on my Flickr site here!

Clay Friends...WE HAVE A PROBLEM

2010-11-19T22:46:00.003-05:00

Ok so today I found out about the impending changes to Polyforms' Premo! clay line. Facebook Topic here They are introducing several new luscious sounding colors. Ok this is good news, however there is BAD news attached to this. Due to sales volumes Polyform has decided to discontinue the following colors
Red Pearl, Green Pearl, COBALT BLUE, SEA GREEN, Copper, ZINC YELLOW, Frost, Fluorescent Green, Fluorescent Yellow, Fluorescent Red and Glow-In-The-Dark

Cobalt, sea green and zinc yellow are VITAL to most artists' palette! Cindy Lietz of Polymer Clay Tutor has been in constant contact with the people at Polyform and she is starting a petition to keep these PRIMARY colors in the line-up. It's about a quarter of the page down. If you use Premo! I urge you to read her article and help save these necessary colors!

Bren's been baking again

2010-11-07T21:59:00.003-05:00

She's getting into the holiday spirit already. Today she worked on cutout cookie. (I love them but find them WAY more effort than I care to put forth) After mixing up a fabulous sugar cookie dough, Bren cut out trees, stars, hearts and teardrops. I was a little confused by the hearts and teardrops but Bren turned them into masterpieces.

I added the How-to pics to my Flickr.com account HERE Just clike the Next -> button at the top of each picture to see the next step. Written descriptions are underneath.

YIPPEE!!!!

2010-11-06T23:32:00.002-04:00

My laptop is HOME!!! It is sooo wonderful to have MY computer back! I picked it up Friday morning and wanted to spend all evening on it, but decided to meet some friends for a free Trace Adkins concert. He performed over in Iraq for our troops earlier this week and came and did the same show for us military last night. (it was kinda cool, my hubby said he could hear the concert from his 'room' =D) Last night was also our 11th wedding anniversary. It was kinda weird to be out with friends rather than my baby on our anniversary, but such is the life of a military wife. The concert was short; about and hour, but he is a great performer and put on a great show. We had really good seats too!

After the concert I came home and played around on my computer for a bit, then headed to bed. This morning I got up early to do a craft show. (I shoulda stayed in bed!!!!) It seemed that who ever was paid to do the advertising for said show dropped the ball BIG time. I didn't even make back my table fees!!! :-( Oh well that was my last craft show for the year, so I'm not too worried about it.

I have actually made a few things over the last couple weeks, but not much. I've added some pictures HERE!
Right now I am working on some Barbie sized Christmas cookies! They are looking really good so far too!

Howdy y'all!

2010-11-02T20:10:00.002-04:00

I'm still here and still waiting on my laptop to come home. It's on it's way back from TX right now. HOPEFULLY it'll be back before the week is out. So please forgive me for being around here as much. My hubby's old laptop just can't handle the volume of time that I am 'normally' online.

I just had my final pre-show meeting for the craft show this weekend. I don't think it'll be as good for me as my last one was, but if I atleast make back my table fees I'll be very happy!

Haven't really made anything new lately...just haven't really been in the mood. Next week I'll get back to my workstation as I have a couple of custom orders I need to get started on. Hopefully by the time I get back to work I'll also have my laptop back so i'll be able to share pics!

Hope y'all have a fantastic weekend! =D

hey look at me

2010-10-27T18:51:00.002-04:00

I'm blogging AGAIN today! LOL

Thanks to all my friends who shared congrats on my working out. I am so happy that I am doing this. I feel great (granted it definitely tires me out, but even that hasn't been too bad since our internet has been acting up lately as well, so when I head to bed early cause I'm too tired I know I'm not really missing any emails from my hubby. His internet has been acting up too)

Today was another awesome workout: I did a mile and a half on the treadmill then we worked our abs. Then a few hours later I joined my middle son at school for his mile run in PE. I am happy to say that I walked about 3/4 and even ran/jogged a lap with him! (It hurt like heck, and left me horribly out of breath. But it motivated him and he finished his mile in 14.36 minutes! Pretty good for a 9yr old who half walked and half ran! =D)
Tomorrow the girls and I have decided we need to change things up a bit, so we are hitting the pool to swim laps, then next week we are gonna start adding some outdoor hiking to you 'routine'! I'm very excited about this as I love both swimming and hiking. Oooh that reminds me...I need to take in the straps on my swimsuit. The girls are hangin' out just a tad! LOL

Got lost somewhere along the way.

2010-10-26T23:05:00.002-04:00

One of these days I will get back to daily blogging...so where have I been the last 3 weeks...um around. I had a craft show on the 16th & 17th (which did very well for me actually) so I spent the week leading up to it trying to gets stuff finished. Then in the midst of that week, my laptop started acting funny. Turns out the video card was starting to go!!! That was NOT cool, so $300 later it's off to the computer hospital to get fixed. Hopefully it'll be back in the next few days. I really miss MY laptop. While I am grateful for the use of my sister's desktop and my husbands old laptop; neither one is MY laptop and it's driving me nuts. I have made several new items but don't want to upload pics into a computer that's not mine, so I am holding off for now.
At my craft show I sold off all the remaining barbie outfits and several of the cakes and desserts. I have another show on the 6th, so I am already planning more. I also created a couple of monogram ornaments that I am hoping to sell as custom order pieces. They are simple but I think really lovely. I am also trying to find a decently priced chocolate scented fragrance oil. Last month I did a few pieces of Barbie desserts that were scented like cinnamon spice cakes. I'd LOVE to do some chocolate items too!
Um let's see what else...I've been reading up a storm...I think I've read atleast 15 books in the last 2 monthes. I'll try to review them at a later date.

Oooh I've also been working out Monday through Thursday for the last 2 weeks. Today was actually day 2 of week 3! I feel great and have actually already lost about 2 pounds! =D I feel really great after my workouts and am actually enjoying them too. (for the most part! ;-D)

My latest project to play with has been turning the bottle brush trees sold for Christmas displays into more realistic trees using lycopodium or Princess Pine. It took me about 7 hours, but I completely a 2 inch tree, and 8 inch tree and have a 5.5 inch tree 3 quarters of the way ocmpleted. It's a tedious, time-consuming and messy process, but they trees lok so amazing when they are finished! I promise to post pics as soon as my laptop comes home!

Thanks for reading along with where I disappeared to and what I've been doing! Until next time!

busy busy busy

2010-10-09T10:58:00.002-04:00

ok so it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post...yeah the one about my goals...sadly I didn't keep up with them past the first couple days. The last 2 weeks have been kinda crazy, lots going on mentally and physically. I'm fine just got into a little funk. But I am feeling much better and am ready to spend the next couple days going crazy in my 'studio'. Well starting tomorrow night anyways. Today is my youngest sons 6th birthday. I just don't know where the time has gone! My sister will be coming over in a little while and we'll be heading out for pizza. B-man's favorite food! Then it's home for cake, ice cream and presents!!! This month is his month for a 'day out with mom'. So we are heading out for some fun tomorrow.
Although I have not kept up with my goals, I am ready to start fresh...it's a new month and it'll be a new week. I am going to be joining another mom at the gym every morning starting Tuesday. I seem to do better at keeping on things if I feel accountable to someone else. I know that's weird, but she's a great gal and since we see each other every day after school there can be no excuses. I did get another little exciting kick in the pants last week...I needed a new pair of jeans, and not only did I find them on sale, BUT the best looking style were SKINNY jeans AND they are a size smaller than I normally wear!!!! =D So color me motivated and now I have a plan too!!!
As for my other goals...well those are going a little slower, I am creating and I have listed several pieces on etsy as well. But with being in a funk for a while there, well it slowed things way down. But I have decided not to stress over things and just enjoy the process. As my husband wisely reminded me...I got into clay (and subsequently miniatures) as a FUN hobby! When it starts not being FUN, it turns into work and that's not what I want. So it's time to get back into having FUN! =D

Goals!!!

2010-09-26T15:02:00.002-04:00

Yep 2 posts today!

So yesterday I discovered that I have managed to lose 5 pounds without even trying. WELL let me tell you this has given me a kick in the pants and really motivated me! If I can lose this without trying imagine what I can do if I put my mind to it!!!

So I am setting myself 3 weekly goals. I'd be thrilled if y'all could help keep me motivated!
1. Work out every weekday. NO EXCUSES!!!
2. List 5 items in my etsy shop every day!
3. Make atleast 2 items every day!

I am really feeling refreshed and ready to get back into the swing of things so HERE I COME!!!

Cakes and sales

2010-09-26T13:09:00.003-04:00

So I really enjoy creating things. When I finish them I usually snap a quick pic on my desk to share.(with all the 'stuff' behind it) Listing items in my Etsy shop seems to be a whole 'nother matter! Yes it takes me a while, but I don't even really mind sitting down (or crouching as is often the case) to spend a few hours taking photographs and editing them to best show off the product. BUT sitting dow to list each and every item on Etsy about drives me insane! It's not that I don't like writing the descriptions, that part is pretty easy for me. But it's the monotonous plugging in details that gets me...Heck I've had items where the listing took longer to do that making the item itself!!!
BUT if you're going to sell online this is something that needs to be done. It's silly to complain about lack of sales when the same few items have been sitting stagnant in your store! Thanks to the late night urging of a dear friend I listed these 2 cakes Friday night. Saturday morning I received a message from a gal in Canada asking if I'd ship the cream and chocolate one to her. No problem, (I prefer NOT to list shipping prices for international, but I will gladly do so after I adjust the listing accordingly) I emailed her back and confirmed that I would indeed find out how much shipping would be then alter the listing accordingly. Well not 5 minutes later someone ELSE bought the cake!!!!
My poor first customer was heart-broken, but I told her I would gladly make another cake custom for her! Then later that evening after posting my good news on Facebook, someone else custom ordered a version of the cake in Chocolate and Hot Pink!!! Soooo this just goes to show how important listing is!!!! (And listening to the urgings of good friends! =D)

Gosh I LOVE books!

2010-09-23T22:50:00.006-04:00

(Sorry this post is a 'tad' wordy! lol)

I really don't think there is anything like the rasp of pages turning in a good book! I didn't realize just how much I'd missed sitting down to devour a good book. Back in January when I first challenged myself to read 100 books in 2010, I didn't think anything of it. I mean I read each of the Harry Potter books from cover to cover on the day they were released! So really reading 2 books in a week should have been a cake walk. And it was until my husband deployed in April. It was kind of my ritual that I would read in the mornings while he got ready for work as well as in the evenings while he got ready for bed. Finishing 2 books was easy. But when he left, well my whole routine changed and I really didn't read as often as I had before. Heck there were several weeks that I didn't even pick UP a book, let alone read one. Oh sure I made sure to buy the latest releases from my favorite authors and read them. But the total immersion into them wasn't there. It certainly wasn't for lack of story that's for sure and I really did enjoy each book I read. It just wasn't with the same 'OMG-I-Can't-Put-This-Down' attitude that I truly love about a book that really draws you in.

I was at the bookstore a couple weeks ago looking for a new release and stumbled upon a couple other books that I had seen reviewed. I felt as though something let loose in my chest, as I grabbed those books...I could feel the need to read them, that sweet voice in the back of my head, calling out to me, crying to be fed the words written on those gorgeous pages. I finished the 4 books I bought in record time and went in search of more! And just last night I ordered yet more books! It feels so wonderful to be back to the point where I just want to lose myself in a book! =D

Ok so on to the reviews...I have finished 3 books and listened to one audiobook since my last post.
Book 54 was Guardian by Angela Knight. This is the most recent release in her Time Hunter series. I've written about her other books in this series of futuristic romances. Guardian follows Riane, a 23rd century Temporal Enforcer who, in the hunt for a traitor, gets stranded in the 21st century. Nick has been alone since his early teens, when 'monsters' killed his mother. Little does he know that his mother is actaully part of the very race of 'monsters' that killed her. Monsters which are also the enemy Riane fights against every day.
Book 55 is also by Knight, Master of Fire is the latest in her Mageverse series. (remember me mentioning King Arthur, Knights of the round table, vampires, witches and werewolves? yeah THAT series! =D) Master of Fire is about King Arthur and Queen Guinevere's son Logan. Logan is a Latent (someone capable of handling Merlin's Gift) who was long ago cleared to accept Merlin's gift and become a Maja (vampire) BUT Arthur and Gwen swore they'd never force that decision upon him, so Logan has lived a normal life in a small town as a fireman/arson investigator/bomb squad member. But when Latents start dying in suspicous 'accidents' Gwen fears for her son's life and sends a Maga (witch) to protect her son. Her only rules: Logan must NEVER know what she is or WHY she's there. Oh and NO FALLING for Logan. Let's just say "Best laid plans..."
These 2 were wonderful additions to Angela Knights wonderfully woven worlds and I look forward to reading even more!
Book 56 I just finished tonight, was Captive Desires by Diane Whiteside. This is the long awaited sequel to Captive Dreams which I read a few years back. (Heck that was the book that got me hooked on Angela Knight!) Captive Dreams follows Danae who is a successful Prima ballerina who writes fanfics in her free time. Imagine her shock and surprise to see her perfect envisionment of her favorite leading man at a fan convention. Alekhsiy has watched his pretty dancer through the veil that seperates the worlds many times, but even he is stunned by the rush of meeting her in the flesh. Now he must remember that he is in her world on a mission to save his own.
Book 57 is actually the audio book I listened too. Archangel's Kiss by Nalini Singh picks up where Angel's Blood left off. Guild Hunter Elana Devereaux must attempt to adapt to her new life by Rafaels' side. Demons from her past haunt her dreams, and begin to haunt even here waking hours. Murders in The Refuge must be investigated and lives must be protected. Is Elana strong enough? This was another fantastic installment to Nalini's Guild Hunter saga, but as with Angel's Blood, this definitely pushes the boundaries of our perceived notion of Angels. This one might not be for everyone. BUT I loved it1

So, what can it be???

2010-09-20T22:27:00.004-04:00

I've been toiling with this idea for quite a while now...I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to go about doing it. I'm still not sure this was the BEST way to do it, but I'm on the right track. I know at this point you're going, "Ok it's a white vase???" Maybe if I turn out the lights?

I printed off some wolf silhouette clip art and then trimmed each one individually. Each one got a good layer of black sharpie front and back. No clue if this helped the effect or not, but from the inside it look nice too! The images were then decoupaged onto the clear rectanglular vase with Mod Podge. While it dried i mixed up a 4:1 mix of Translucent-White premo polymer clay. I conditioned it until it was almost completely mixed but left a few striations for 'texture' so to speak. Then it got rolled out really thin in my pasta machine.
(a number 5 on my Atlas) The clay was then smoothed over the frame trying to eliminate as many bubbles as possible. I got most of them. I then baked it for 20 minutes (since it was so thin!) let it cool and sanded it a bit. I think it will get more sanding as well as some black trim along the top and bottom. I am trying to decide between black clay or a ribbon or fabric trim of some kind...black leather or suede 'ribbon' seems really appealing right now. Each side has a different image which can be seen here.

So what do you think?

Meet Dolce!

2010-09-19T11:26:00.004-04:00

Last month I was commissioned to make one of my Kudzu's Whimzy-style dragons. I hadn't made one in a while, so I eagerly accepted. The customer only had one request...she wanted her to look sweet and kinda goofy. GOOFY?!?!?!?! Um ok so this had me rather stumped as I never have been able to capture the wonderful facial expressions like Sally can. But that's why they are HER dragons and mine are 'in the style of' LOL

So I knew right away I wanted pink...nothing says sweet to me like pink! As I fiddled around mixing colors and saw a butterfly land on a plant out in my flower bed...and it was a lightbulb moment!

Dolce was entirely sculpted by hand using polymer clay, her eyes are a blackish purple faceted Czech glass bead and her wings...well her wings are my secret! Just kidding! =D I actually recycle used dryer sheets, by painting them with a mixture of acrylic paints and tacky glue. after they dry I make the wire 'bones' which get glued down. After that glue drys the 'bones' are covered with either fabric paint or more glue/paint mix. When they are completely dry the wing shapes are trimmed out and inserted into the hole I made in the back.

I've been reading...really I have

2010-09-16T20:30:00.003-04:00

I just kept forgetting to post about the books after I've finished them. I've read 10 in the last 2 monthes so my reviews are gonna be super quick. Most of the authors are ones I've talked about before, just current books in their series or new series by them. So without further ado, books 44-53 (in no particular order, mainly cause I'm not entirely sure which order I read them! LOL)
Nalini Singh's Bonds of Justice, the most recent release in her Psy/Changeling series. I also started her Guild Hunter series with Angel's Blood. I LOVE Nalini and have enjoyed everything she writes. Her GH series might not be for some folks who have very definite ideas and opinions about Angels and vampires. BUT if you are open to interpretation and creative liberties, this is a very well written storyline with plenty of twists and turns.
From Gena Showalter (one of my faves!!!!) comes the latest in her Lords of the Underworld series with The Darkest Lie. She also had a short in the anthology The Bodyguard.
Ok so what to vampires, witches and The Knights of the Round Table have in common???? Nothing, unless you happen to be Angela Knight. This is probably one of my favorite authors, I can read her work over and over again and never tire of it. The first set is her Mageverse series. In it King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and the other knights are all immortal. Pretty cool, they've been protecting Earth for centuries. An old threat has come back seeking to conquer the universe starting with Earth. Oh by the way...Arthur and his Knights are vampires, and Gwen and the other ladies of Avalon are witches! (or Maja as they prefer!)Throw in werewolves and the Fae adn you have one wild ride of a story. Master of Night is the first book, which I HAVE read, just not this go-round as I can't find it! =( then comes Master of the Moon,
Master of Wolves,
Master of Swords,
and Master of Dragons
Her newest book is Master of Fire (which I am reading now, so not counting it...yet!)
Angela also has a futuristic series that deals with time-traveling genetically engineered warriors. Warlord which contains the short stories Jane's Warlord and Warfem starts of the series with a bang...actually I think it's more of a sonic boom as the hero Jumps into the 21st century. The second book in the series is Warrior. (again I've read it before, just not this time as I think I might have loaned it to someone. eeep!) Her newest book is called Guardian, which I just finished yesterday. Guardian features the daughter of the hero from Warlord as the heroine. Angela has a wonderful grasp on the future and her writings never fail to keep me entranced!

So there you have it...3 awesome authors, 10 great books in 2 monthes. I really need to do more reading or I don't think I'm gonna make my hundred. :-( Good thing I have several awesome books lined up waiting to be read!

It's beginning to look alot like...

2010-09-15T22:49:00.003-04:00

Ok so I know it's only the middle of September, and I can't STAND seeing all the Christmas decor being put up in stores already...BUT as a crafter, I KNOW I MUST get started on Christmas decor (heck I probably should do some all year round so there is no rush) So I started out with these cute 'stained' glass items. I bought the little frames last year intending to make them then. Well best laid plans... Sooo here is teh 1st wave. 3 became ornaments with the fourth becoming a votive holder. I am including a battery operated tea-light flameless 'candle' with it. Right now I have one that changes color, but I am thinking that a plain one might be better. (More pics here!)
I have one more of each design...I was thinking about doing votives with the 3 that are ornaments and and ornament with the other. That way each design will be available as either an ornament or a votive holder.

I also finished a round 1/6th scale table. I'm rather happy with it. The base was an unfinished candlestick and the top is 2 thin rounds wood-glued together. I painted the base white and the top got stained Oak.

ICE Resin

2010-09-12T19:24:00.004-04:00

Ok, so when my first batch of Barbie accessories can in months ago, among the goodies were several pretty perfume type bottles. I knew instantly that I wanted to try and reproduce them...well early experiments failed epicly! Until yesterday. In one of the yahoogroups I belong to someone mentioned a new jewelry grade resin that could be cast as well AND it took detail really well and stayed crystal clear. So I hopped over to the website. www.ICEResin.com It looked incredible...since I had some questions about ICE Resin and casting small items I sent off an email to their ICE Queen. (heeheehee, I love that. =D) And within 2 days, she replied and answered all of my questions and then some. I then discovered that my favorite online beading store carried it, so into my cart it went. While I was waiting for it to arrive I made some molds to try it out with. I made 3 molds from miniature plates, those can also be used with polymer clay! I also molded a simple bottle from my stash o'bottles. Yesterday I followed the instructions and mixed up 1/2 an ounce of ICE Resin. When you'r making miniatures 1/2 an ounce goes a loooong way! LOL The picture above is the result from yesterdays play. NOW I did realize that I skipped a very crucial step...letting the resin rest for 5 minutes after mixing. The bottle and the 'cut glass' plate are both full of bubbles. But the other 2 plates are pretty clear due to the resin resting a bit. The molded items will take about 3 days to fully cure, but I am totally thrilled with the way they turned out and already have another batch curing, as well as some new bottle molds setting up as well.

I took come pics today while I made the current batch as kind of a mini tutorial. Check them out here!

way behind, sorry!!! (plus Dresses 10 & 11)

2010-09-05T13:22:00.003-04:00

Ok so let's see I last posted over a week ago...not good...been kinda hectic. First off I finished 2 more outfits by the 31st. The Robin (jeans, top, and bird watching accessories) and the Patricia (a blue and white paisley dress with Red accessories). The craft show I'd been working towards was Wednesday the 1st. Not the best show but certainly not the worst either. I did sell 3 of my barbie outfits. (the Rachel, Traelyn and Marsha!) So I was very happy about that. I sold a few other little things as well but not really all that much. Although I did hand out a ton of business cards and was invited to do another show in November, and had several folks ask about custom orders. =D

After that well I promptly got horribly ill! Like ugh thought I was gonna die ill. Thankfully it only lasted 24 hours and I have a wonderful teenaged son and 2 very well behaved younger sons. Joe took care of his brothers and such while I slept away most of Thursday. (Glad I was able to up up and mobile long enough to get the younger 2 off to school and then pick them up from as well.) I have no idea what cuased it, but I honestly think it was my bodies way of telling me I'd not been taking care of myself. So it forced me to! I am back to my old self again, but will definitely NOT be pushing myself so hard this time around. I don't have too much going on over the next couple of months, but there are some biggies. Yard Sale on the 18th, just a bit of rummaging around for that. Custom order miniature Miss Piggy and a dragon to go with the other Jim Henson characters I made last month. Another larger custom dragon, a set of custom Christmas ornaments, and Army Camouflage pens, oh yeah and some wedding accessories in miniature. THEN in October is the Fort Benning Bazaar show, then 2 more shows in November. None of these things will take up too much time and I promise to make sure I am eating and sleeping better. =D

Good Mail Day! =D

2010-08-28T00:10:00.004-04:00

2 fabulous packages arrived today! I do so love it when packages arrive! And it's even better when it's something you've won. I follow a wonderful blog called Reanna Lily Designs. Jen is a quilter who not only makes gorgeous quilts, but makes quilt patterns too! I myself don't quilt but my mom does so I always like seeing what is going on in the quilting world. Well last week was Jen's birthday...to celebrate she did the gift giving! Every day she held a drawing, with Fridays' drawing being for 12 half-yards cuts of gorgeous fabrics!!!! Well being the fabric-hound that I am, I HAD to enter. I honestly never expected to win though. So imagine my surprise when in my inbox Monday was an email from Jen asking for my home address cause I had won the fabric giveaway!!! Weeeeee =D Well my fabrics arrived today being even more gorgeous in person! I simply cannot wait to get to play with them and create several fabulous goodies with all my pretty new fabrics!
My second awesome package held more fabric; a vintage cheater cloth in tiny prints and gorgeous shades of brown. This will eventually become a quilt of 2 in my mom's quilt shop doll house. From the same seller I purchased a 1999 issue of Barbie Bazaar magaine. Sadly this magazine is no longer being published but I am bidding on a couple lots of mags on ebay. I wish there was a magazine like this being published today. I chuckled at a editorial in it that asked "Now that the internet is here to stay..." This just completely made me giggle. I vaguely remember being in my early 20's around this time and the only time I dealt with computers was at work in the furniture store doing office work. No internet though. And here I am barely 11 years later and I feel weird if I don't check my email every day! We've come a long way, baby!!!

I am currently working on a pair on 1/6th scale pillows using striped material. Hopefully I'll be able to show them off tomorrow. I'm also lengthening a pair of RL curtains for a friends daughter's dorm room. Which reminds me I better get back to that! LOL Have a great weekend y'all!

Bren's Busy Baking!

2010-08-26T00:42:00.004-04:00

Bren was sooo very excited when the mail showed up today...a package from Hong Kong! I ordered some more Re-ment dishes of ebay and Brens' chef whites arrived! She had to try them on right away. Ooops didn't realize the pants were capris, but
Bren says they'll be really comfy in the kitchen. Although we are thinking about adding a bit of lace to the hem for a little bit of 'flirt'! Our resident fashion maven Ellie declared that the red scarf would be better suited to tieing back Brens' hair. We both agreed!

After she got into her whites, she flounced off to the kitchen for a marathon baking session! I could hear the mixer going and bowls clattering as Bren sang along to the radio as she worked. She is a rather impressive baker as she got quite a bit accomplished today.
--Scrumptious Nibbles Sampler...Chocolate and vanilla butter cookies, jumbo cream puff, and a key lime tart in chocolate cookie crust. Also on this tray are a couple bars of the gourmet chocolate Bren uses in all of her chocolate dishes.
--5 layer chocolate and yellow checkerboard cake with whipped cream frosting.
--Black Forest Cake with buttercream frosting and homemade cherry filling
--Cream Puffs, Jumbo and MiniBite
--Bren's Famous Rich Dark Chocolate cake with Madagascar Vanilla Bean frosting!

Crafty people are wonderful folks!

2010-08-23T22:54:00.005-04:00

So last week, Kathi over at Beautiful Mini Blessings posted a picture of some fabrics she bought at Walmart. Her favorite is a gorgeous teal blue paisley print. I fell in love with it too and asked if she'd consider picking some up for me as our Walmarts have phased out the fabric departments. She agreed and told me the other day that that my fabric was on it's way. So imagine my surprise when this good sized box arrived today. What I found inside simply blew my mind. This box was stuffed to the gills with gorgeous fabrics and trims that Kathi found and put together for me! INCLUDING of course my pretty teal paisley! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU KATHI!!!

Dress #9---The Halle

2010-08-23T16:13:00.003-04:00

You know like Halle-ween! =D
Yeah ok I know it's a bad bad pun, but I couldn't resist! Dress number 9 (...hmm maybe I need to make a little Love Potion too! hehehe) Ok sorry back to the outfit! Dress #9 is an orange and black fringed, plaid wrap-around skirt, with jet crystal 'button'. The matching sweater is black 'knit' material with a decorative jeweled accent at the shoulder. This is actually a bodysuit which allows for the 'tucked in' look. Matching black mules and a Halloween tote bag make this a great ensemble for taking Kelly out trick or treating and then out to dinner or a party with one of the guys afterwards. (hmmmm has Edward taken an interest in Ellie?)

2 posts in one day...

2010-08-21T21:16:00.003-04:00

Yep I just had to show off the new jackets I bought today! (Oh yeah and the Liv outfit that Ellie is modeling too!)
1. Liv jeans and lacey top. The jeans are a tad too short, I am thinking about adding a 'cuff' of brown suede (since the stiching is brown) The top is also a pain to get on as the Liv dolls must have slightly narrower hips than Barbies do. BUT once on it's really cute! The purse and dog bowl are Liv, the shoes, sunglasses & chihuahua are Barbie.
2.& 2a. Yellow Houndstooth hooded jacket
3. Coral 'puffy' parka, with 'fur' trim. I like the asymetrical collar, but want to tack down the right side.
4. Camo Nehru style jacket. I LOVE the hot pink trim with the camo
5. Aqua Short Flare Trench. Possibly my favorite, my sister informed me that she wants THIS jacket in HER size!!! LOL

Ooops I did it again...

2010-08-21T16:39:00.004-04:00

Ok so after the craft supply haul the other day I really hadn't intended to buy anything else this month. BUT...then I hit one of our local Walmarts. And FOUND a TON of Barbie/1:6th scale stuff on clearance! The gorgeous red-haired basics doll was $7, normally $20, the Basics accessories in black and gold (with chihuahua) was only $4 again regular $20! The Taylor Swift 'directors' chairs were only $2 a piece so I bought all 4 figuring I can replace the glittery pink fabric. (Of course getting them home I discovered that they are REALLY unsturdy, sooo I will have to see what I can do to stabilize them!) The Liv pack with the pinky striped scarf was $1!!!! The other Liv items came from Toyrus as they were running a promotion that if you bought $30 in Liv items you got the Gift Shop playset free!!! (retails for $20) I love the way the Liv items work with Barbie so I snagged up the adorable coats as well as the lacey denim outfit!

Last but not least is the Harumika fashion design sets. This is an intriguing concept where you take 'sheets' of fabric and fold, drape and then tuck into a specially designed slot in the back of the Mannequin! I got the large set for $8 and the smaller one for $3. The thing I like is one, the mannequin, and 2 all the pre-made belts and such. I think this is gonna be alot of fun to play with! It seems that these items are not clearanced at ALL Walmart stores as I checked 2 others and these items were still full price! *sigh* Oh well!

Dress #8---The Roxie

2010-08-21T01:21:00.004-04:00

I found the plaid ribbon the other day at Hobby Lobby and knew it was meant to be a skirt. Since it wasn't wide enough to make the entire thing from it I used it as an accent on a fitted black skirt. The tee shirt came from Big Lots and is a scrapbook embellishment. It took a little alteration to make it fit though. For one it was constructed like a real tee...but the neck opening doesn't stretch. So I sliced it up the back and added a bit more black t-shirt material to each side and added velcro. Now it fits properly and is removeable! The shoes are from my first Fashionista doll (now Bren) and the satchel is from the Liv line of dolls. It also had a camouflage jacket, but that'll wind up with something else I'm sure1 LOL
I think I am going to try making her a Music Theory text book to go in her satchel since it opens.

Craft Store Finds and Latest Creations

2010-08-18T09:05:00.009-04:00

I am very lucky when it comes to craft supplies...I live in a major city where I have not 1 but 3 different craft stores as well as 3 fabric stores (I just discovered 2 online yesterday!) I LOVE it, granted my wallet doesn't always love it, but we have come to terms with our disagreements! LOL Over the last week I have visted each of the craft stores and my favorite (for the moment) fabric shop. Wanna seem my goodies???

First up is fabric. I thought I had kept them seperated, but guess not...so these came from Joann's and Hancock Fabrics. The top row 1st and 4th fabrics are going to become an over the door hanging doll storage bag. 2,6,7 & 8 in that same rose are destined for doll bedding, with 3 becoming holiday pillows and 5, 9 and 10 becoming doll clothes. The second row will all become doll clothes...I am planning to dye my own cotton with the tye-dye kits below! =D Most of the bottom row is destined for bedding of some kind although the mottled reds might become clothing.
I got these tye-dye kits for around $5 each (they hold enough dye to color 8 shirts!) Plus buying them pushed me into the coupons bracket at the time which gave me $10 off my entire order! =D There are 9 different colors and 18 packets total. So watch for some dye work eventually!
These items came from yesterday's shopping trip. I hadn't intended to go, but a friend asked me to go with her...how could I refuse???? Not to mention I discovered that morning that I DID infact need to go! More fabric, yes I know I have a problem! BUT I like my 'problem' =D The 'standing' halloween fabric will become mini tote bags, pillows and possibly even a quilt! The rest will become doll items in one form or another. The red floral on the left I think will make a great sofa. The flocked spiderweb fabric will become part of a witches costume, the black and orange plaid a fun Halloween pleated skirt, #5 & #7 (the paisleys) are going to become dresses. My niece just bought this gorgeous dress that featured a very large paisley print and I want to recreate it in Barbie size! The far right fabric with the very LARGE paisley is actually going to become a RL size pillow for my living room. It's currently decorated in Sage Green and Burgundy, but I'm tired of the 'red' sooo I am going to slowly slide over into Sage Green, Aqua and Brown. The pink and black plaid ribbon will become another fun pleated mini skirt! The colorful jars in the back are Crushed Velvet Flocking by Doodlebug Design Inc. They came from Hobby Lobby and are the most amazing flocks I've ever used! And the colors are brilliant and there is a ton of flock in these little bitty jars!
Saturday when my son and I went out we stopped at JoAnn's I bought these gorgeous laces (I lOVE the one that is 3 layers!) I also got some Ceramcoat paint kits (although once I got them home I discovered WHY they were clearanced. Half of the paint is dried up! Does anone have any good ideas for reviving it?) I also picked up these 3 packs of ATC (artist trading card) blanks. I want to try my hand at some modern art in miniature! And I figured what the heck they were only a dollar! Oh yes and some hot pink ribbon...that way I won't have a repeat of the ribbon fiasco from last week! LOL
Next stop was Target. My sister was there a couple days earlier and told me about the ribon packs in their Dollar section...I got 6 packs which will become belts, trim and bag handles. I also grabbed the set of 'inchie' stamps figuring they'd make great designs on polymer clay pendants! And the flameless votives are going to be for polymer clay candle holders!
My last craft store stop was Michael's, I think I hit the jackpot here!!! Everything I bought was either clearanced or on sale! The back row has painting boards (which appear to be gessoed chipboard, these will either be moer mini paintings or as bases for furniture) Artists Chalk and mini canvases with easels. These 3 items were only $10!!! Gotta love a good sale! the next row is a gold finish paint, brass model paint and pale pink crackle paint. Oil Pastels, a velvet remnant and more pink ribbon make up row 2.
In the 3rd row/2nd picture are a bag of blonde doll hair which I plan to try dyeing, a multi heart punch for flowers, color diffusing paper (????---I am planning to try painting these and using it to make flowers) and some chipboard octagons. I also found a set of LONG cording needles with make threading tiny elastic and drawstrings soooo very easy! Everything in these 2 pics cost me less than $30!!!!! (I am a happy crafter! =D)

Soooo what have I done with my loot you might ask? well not too much really. I had company most of yesterday so I really didn't get too much done. BUT a few months back I got a commission for some Sesame Street/Muppets characters. Big Bird and Kermit were the first 2 finished. I still have Elmo and Miss Piggy to go. BB was the reason I needed to go to Hobby Lobby yesterday as I discovered that my yellow flock was more of an ochre rather than a true yellow. BUT he looks amazing so far. I have a little bit more 'finishing' touches on him, but he is otherwise complete and YES he is adorably fuzzy! Kermit was a bit of a challenge as I wasn't sure how to pose him, with those long spindly froggy legs. In my research I found a pic of Kermie sitting much like I posed him. And I figure since his new home will be a 1/12th scale toy shop, this is a reasonable shelf-sitting pose! Kermit sits just under an inch tall and BB sits almost 1.25 inches tall.
I also pulled out one of the mini canvases and played around a bit. The canvases are 2 inches square, so I figured they'd be a good size for a large sized modern painting in 1/12th scale. or a cute smaller pic in Barbie size. The easles are rather chunky for 1/12th scale and too short for barbie scale, but I am able to figure out the mechanics of how they work so I hope to make some more with better scaling. I used turquoise blue, trail tan and silver on a black background for my 'Circles' picture. I am very happy with the way it turned out although I think I might need to go over the outlines in black pen to cover up my pencil lines. ooops, newbie painter mistake! lol Hope you enjoy!

Dress #7---The Deb

2010-08-16T13:09:00.003-04:00

Ellie models my latest piece. A classic LBD! Classic black satin is demure yet sexy. Comes with matching silver shoes, hand crafted purse and necklace.

My twisted sense of humor & Ellie channels her inner rock star.

2010-08-15T14:04:00.004-04:00

Ok so my sense of humor is incredibly twisted sometimes...I rerooted the red heads hair a while back. I used a vintage doll whose neck had broken...to fix her I wired in a wooden bead. I glue the wire in place and twised it in tight. Well I must not have twisted it as tight as I thought as i noticed her head was rather loose. So I re-removed her head and tightened the wire and glued the bead onto the neck joint. Since I couldn't replace the head until the glue dried I decided to 'have a little fun' with the dolls. My 16yr old son is amused by the poseability of the Fashionista dolls and always chuckles at the way they can be posed. Sooo I set up this little scene for him to find. He likes to come in and ask 'Whatcha doing?' since these gals sit on an eye level shelf I figured that if I mentioned I had to fix her he was sure to look! OH I wish I could have recorded his expression!!! It was priceless! =D
I spent yesterday out with my oldest son, (I'm gonna take 1 son out every month for some US time! =D) We hit the mall and then saw The Expendables (excellent movie BTW!!!) While out shopping I found this fabulous 'leather' jacket and tank top. They are for the Liv brand dolls but fit the Barbies perfectly! I found on ebay this great Fedora, boots and purse. Ellie modeled them for me, although she was complaining that she has no full length pant or leggings to wear under the boots. (so guess who'll be making some soon? lol)

Dress 6 -- The Traelyn

2010-08-14T21:52:00.004-04:00

She asked for purple and long...sooo the Traelyn was born. I also added a little darker shade of purple paint as well as some purple glitter to the 'wrap' panels. A silver 'chain' necklace, clutch purse and black and purple strappy pumps completes this ensemble. I hope you enjoy!

Dress 5-The Rachel

2010-08-11T22:24:00.006-04:00

I started this one last night and finished it just after dinner. I had a few stutter steps along the way, but for the most part it went together very easily. This combo was inspired by my sister who owns a dress almost identical to it. The way the pattern shows it it almost appears like a country girls dress...NOT my version! =D Stylish and glamourous is The Rachel. (I've decided to name my pieces for the folks who either suggest styles, colors or inspire me in some way! So if you want a Fashion Doll dress/outfit named after you...give me some ideas! =D)

The Rachel will come with the dress, a pair of black pumps, black satin purse and maybe another accessory. (gotta check with my sister and see what she thinks! lol)I've added a pick of my Sees-ter in HER dress...I think my version is pretty spot on!?!?!?!?

Dresses 3 and 4

2010-08-09T22:41:00.003-04:00

Ok so sorry I'm a little behind, but I will admit dress 3 gave me the run around. (if we are friends on facebook you've probably already read this stuff. lol Feel free to scroll down to something new.)

So back to dress 3...I initially planned on making this great lime greem dress trimmed in black lace and ribbon. Something along the lines of Lola's dress from back here. BUT I wouldn't find my gathered black lace. (which now that I think about it, I think I used up ON Lola! Whoops) Since I had already cut out and started sewing the lime green fabric I decided to just paint it with daisies. You know a cool handpainted dress. Um ok first off I really had NO CLUE just how long it would take me to paint an entire dress with simple 5 petal daisies. Let's just say i was very glad I started painting at the top! LOL I got bored with the flowers about halfway down the bustline, it was just taking way too long. But I perservered and painted dow to the waist. I wanted to making a hot pink belt to coordinate with the centers of the daisies. BUT could I find any solid hot pink ribbon in my stash...NO, tons of sheer ribbon but no hot pink solid. So I thought...oooooh I'll just use some of my alcohol inks and dye some white...well I wet the ribbon, added a few drops of the right color ink and added the ribbon. I smooshed it around in the baggie I was using. I even popped it into the microwave to set the dye. Well needless to say when I rinsed off the excess dye, my hot pink was a lovely shade of PALE!!! ARGH. Next brainstorm...friendship bracelets. I made them all the time as a tween and young teen. Easy Peasy. 90 minutes later I realized I had made the very same mistake I would often make as a girl. My embroidery floss was too short. it ended up about 3/4 of an inch to short for me to use! Just wanting to finish the *@&#&$ dress grabbed some white ribbon that was sitting on my desk and sewed/glued it in place. AND DANGED IF IT DOESN'T LOOK PERFECT!!!! (That annoyed me btw!)
Today I made a little shoulder bag to match. Bren came out of the kitchen to model it for me. She says it's perfect for wearing to the farmer's market while she looks for fresh ingredients for her cafe. (Cafe...hmm...last I heard it was just a bakery?!?!? Oh well. )

Before finishing my little bag this morning I took the kiddos to school and started my walking regime. (ok so it was really just a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood, but I did set a pretty brisk pace and worked up a good sweat!) I'm very proud of me and am actually looking forward to working out tomorrow too. I think I am going to see about hitting the pool to swim some laps.

Ok back to the Sweat Shop (I mean sewing room/craft area) I set to work on another dress using the same pattern as the green one. I had envisioned red satin trimmed in FLAT black lace, like an overlay. But for some reason I grabbed a chunk of red suede instead. I didn't like the idea of lace over the suede like I was seeing in my head, so I found some hand crocheted white lace. (atleast it LOOKS hand crocheted!) Once I saw them together I knew...Santa Baby! This one went together a good bit easier. Ellie is back from her break and is showing off this fun, flirty holiday number.

Dress number 2...

2010-08-06T21:25:00.004-04:00

Finished!!! I'm not entirely happy with it, it's rather 'gappy' at the top. HOWEVER I am trying to keep reminding myself that these clothes are intend for children to play with. SO it's better that they be a little loose for little fingers to have an easier time with. I did deviate from the original pattern by adding the front vertical 'darts' and I added a strip of velcro down the length of the back. That way the dress opens completely. I also added the ruffle of lace at the bottom. Oh and the underbust detail was supposed to be a thin ribbon tied in a bow. (I think they put WAY too many bows on Babs' clothes!!! LOL) I LOVE the overall look of this piece. I have added a pair of platform strappy sandals. I am thinking about making a bag to go with this ensemble, but not sure what kind or what color. I don't really want to make a matching bag, but the outfit needs something more. The grey outfit I finished yesterday will be sold as follows: pink tank, hat and shoes and grey vest and skirt. See my dilemma...the sheath dress needs more!
BTW MARSHA....Does the fabric look familiar????? =D

Books abound!

2010-08-06T01:09:00.004-04:00

Since Darren has been so patient while I work on stuff for and with the girls, I let him pick out a few books. Like my husband he enjoys war stories. As a matter of fact he's been reading the Hubs' Mack Bolan series. He said that the only comfortable way for him to read them is completely 'unmanly!' So he requested a copy in his size. Hmmm no problem, I can manage that. He surprised me by them choosing a cook book for Bren and a home decor book for Cassie. The girls were just thrilled with their gifts! (Darren is such a sweetie...he may be tough on the outside but he's got a heart of gold! ;-D )

Hello, my Name is Deborah...and I'm an Addict...

2010-08-04T22:41:00.005-04:00

OK before anyone freaks out...no drugs, no alcohol...nothing like that! I have discovered Re-ment. Re-Ment items are collectible 1/6th scale miniature accessories from Japan. I bought 6 sets last week and they arrived today. So as to not overload y'all with a zillion pics see them all over on my Flickr. The other super cool thing about some of the rement packs is they have shoes, shoes that FIT Libby!!!! Hooray! So now I just need to set about altering some Barbie patterns, (or hunting down some Skipper ones) to make Libby some new clothes. I did also discover some of the skirts that at 'scandalously' short on Barbie are the perfect APPROPRIATE length for Libby!

Next up is Ellie, modeling a mottled grey Skirt and 'fur' trimmed vest. (the pink items were purchased) The Skirt and vest have both been machine and hand sewn, as well as darted to allow for better fit. Vest just slips on, while the skirt closes down the back length with velcro. (which has been attached with Fabri-tac glue AND stitching!) The hems have also been finished in this double method to protect against the seams and hems pulling out during playtime!