Undeniable Blessings

Just got back from a great weekend with family. We visited my son and niece at college. What fun – and to top it off, it was gorgeous weather! 60’s and sunny. My that’s nice - especially during the first weekend of November in Wisconsin.

I headed out by myself, later Friday night for the five hour drive. The road was pretty much mine – and I kept it at an even 70 on the interstate while I privately bopped to the music on the radio. :-)

My son and his girlfriend have two young cats. Meet Leo. She has six digits on her front paws and is so friendly and loving.

Also meet Lucy. She is so cute and sweet – and has such small, dainty features.

They love being sisters and it’s so fun to watch them play (or some might call it "wrestle") together.

A blessing of a weekend with a blessing of a family. I’m a lucky gal.

Getting What You Wish For

I've been anixous and hoping that maybe I would start getting some nice orders from my Etsy shop. This past weekend, I got an order for 25 of my retractable tape measures. It's a great thing! A nice $200 order - and right before Christmas. How sweet! Now, now challenge will be figuring out when I'll find some free time to make them and get them happily delivered on time.

Luckily, I have 13 already made (which I determined was an extremely lucky number!). WaaLaa -  1/2 of the order is magically complete!

I also spent time this weekend with some fun friends that are ready to "(wo)man a booth" and are going to sell some of my wool items along with additional items from other fiber and paint artists at an upcoming conference.  When asked "Can you get some items ready?", my immediate response was "Sure, I'll see what I can do."

Excited? You bet.
Anxious? You bet.
Nervous? You bet.
Overwhelmed? You bet.
Crazy? You bet.
Thrilled and energized? You bet.

Never give up on good wishes...

Too Tired to Type

Yup. I'm back from a trip to White Plains, New York.

The travel involved a time change from CST to PST and, of course, back again.

Saturday night involved Halloween and daylight savings time.

That all makes for goofy tricks (with maybe just a few treats) on my body.

So, I'm feeling too tired to type.

I hope to see you tomorrow night.

What a Day

My excitement is busting out! After boo-hoo-ing yesterday about not being productive and getting work done, I checked my emails last evening and I had a great Etsy sale order! I actually sold two items that I just posted yesterday (!) and two other items. And to top it all off, as a newer Etsy seller, I’ve thought it would be so fun if my “number of sales” on my Esty page was larger than my “posted items” number. My sale yesterday, moved me there!

When I was having an email conversation with my wonderful customer, I was so excited, that I went ahead and told her the story about the number of sales. After I sent the message, I was a little worried that perhaps it sounded cold and selfish – like the number of sales was the most important thing to me. When in actuality, it’s really all about people liking what I love to do enough to place the order. My customer wrote back the sweetest note congratulating me and calling it a “victory”! How nice.

I’m thankful for nice people. 

Such Great Plans

Here it is - almost Sunday evening already and it's back to work on Monday morning. I had such great plans for the weekend. I was going to be extremely productive and get my house cleaned, fall outdoor work done, pay bills (yuck!) and work on wool.

A little of that has happened - but certainly not to my satisfaction. Why do we always think we have to be so productive in order for it to be a "good" day? And, then when we don't reach those goals, we feel like we've "wasted" the day? I don't know the answer. I just know that I do it all the time.

And speaking of things to do - I keep waiting for the day that I will be more organized and do the postings on this blog that I hoped to do. I look forward to the day that I am prepared to post some tutorials for making wool mittens, flowers, softies, pillows and more. Hang on. I'll get there.

On the positive side, I did at least manage to finish three new wool chicks and a pillow for sale on Esty. 

(And I even got a "heart" on my pillow after just being posted for about 30 minutes - what a nice compliment!)

I even finished a chick for my friend Diane's birthday gift.  Shhh....she hasn't seen it yet!

In the meantime, I guess I'll get back to what I was....or wasn't....doing.

Unleashing a Monster

Come on. You know how it is when you get a new toy. No matter how old you are - you get a little obsessive about it. I got a new camera this weekend. Couldn't afford it but did it anyway. (Hoping maybe I get a few Etsy sales to pay for it!) :-)

After being gone all weekend, when I got home with my new toy, I only had enough energy to play with it from my comfy chair.  But look at all the fun you can have from one chair!

Shot from across the room...

(My dad made the shelf and the two items on the outside were once my grandmothers. Bless them.)

Christmas snowman ornaments soons to be finished and posted on Etsy...

Books I love...

Wool balls, balls, balls...

Pin cushions at work...

Last but not least, my jeans.  :-)

Sleeping in Seattle

I just returned from a trip to Seattle. My daytime job involves helping to coordinate conferences in a variety of locations throughout the year.

We had glorious weather and a very successful conference.  One of our talented speakers, Brene' Brown, posted about her experience on her blog this week. I am fortunate and honored to be a part of her blog.

Take a peek here.

My Fall Excitement

This fall is such a busy time for me - so I'm not able to devote as much time to my Etsy shop and my blog as I'd like.  But, I'm so excited - of the few fall items I was able to prepare, my fall pillow is currently being featured on an Etsy Gift Guide! I'm not sure if it's true or not, but I heard that it often can take a couple years before anyone's work gets featured on an Etsy Gift Guide, and I've only been selling on Etsy for 2 1/2 months! Lucky me! I'm so honored!

Take a peek here: http://www.etsy.com/gift-guides/122?page=2.

It's Scarf Weather

I hate to have to admit it, but here in Wisconsin, it's getting close to warm scarf weather. On one hand, I love it - because it means more fun for me making new scarves. On the other hand, I'm hesitant, because it means cold winter weather on the way.

I decided to use some of the smaller pieces of recycles wool sweaters that I have (which gets to be a lot!) and work them into new scarves. After stitching together rectangle pieces to make the length of the scarf, I knew more embellishment was in order. Enter flowers, grommets and "seam" fringe!

I love to add flowers to a lot of my work - so why not some happy summer flowers for those long winter months? I stitched on flowers and leaves to one end of the scarf and embellished the flowerettes with some simple embroidery using black wool yarn.

Then came the grommets. I knew I wanted to add some fringe at the ends using the seams of the wool sweaters. (I always carefully cut out the seams of wool sweaters when disassembling and then felt them for new uses.) I decided that four grommets on each end would be sufficient and chose to use the nice large size.

With grommets in place, I then tied on the fringe and made small stitches through the knots of the fringe to assure they don’t loosen during use.

WaLa. In no time I actually had two new scarves! Maybe I might just make a few more for some fun Christmas gifts this year…

Fall Fever

I love fall. I don't always love what comes after it - but it's sweet while it's here.

I've decided that I don't really like the mess and work of carving pumpkins anymore - but I still love pumpkins in all their cool colors.

This one is in my front yard. Love the white.

But yet some of my flowers are not quite ready to go to sleep for the season...

Gotta love persistence!

In the Giving Spirit

I'm part of a fun give-away with Kris from Resweater.

You won't want to miss it - Kris is giving away two different wool sweaters and I'm giving away a Tweet pillow.

Check it out!  http://www.resweater.blogspot.com/

Catching Colds

I’ve been down and out since last Wednesday with the flu/cold/crap and am finally feeling a little back to “normal” today. When I’ve been ill and start feeling a little improved, I immediately start to feel more appreciative of feeling “normal” while at the same time I can't help but feel a little nostalgic. And, since I’m still in a waiting-for-a-working-camera-mode, while browsing for photos, I came across this one of my sister and I from - oh - about 40 years ago. (I’m the blonde!)

Looking at the photo, I do believe that I have my seasons mixed up. It looks more like an early spring, rather than early fall photo – but I couldn’t resist.

Mom always made sure that her girls were as safe as possible. This great photo shows mom was taking her normal precautions - assuring that we would not “get sick” while out playing, we were securely bundled in the softest (from hundred's of washes) head-scarves, assuring that the wind couldn’t get in our ears. We were always kept safe from that nasty wind making us sick.

My mom has since passed away, but oh how I would love to have had her tie that cute little scarf on my head earlier this week. I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have gotten sick…

Camera Issues - So Let's Mosaic!

My camera is not working. It has a defective imaging part that needs to be replaced. Fortunately, the manufacturer will pay to fix it – but that means I have to be without it while it's getting a part transplant. So, I’ll work with some photos I already have until I am camera-ready again.

I had planned on posting a few fall projects – but… :-)

Here’s a fun project I worked on some time ago – a mosaic watering can without mosaic pieces or grout! It's created with decorative scrapbooking paper and a great little product called Dimension Magic.

• Cut the paper pieces to resemble mosaic chips.
• Brush on Modge Podge to adhere the paper pieces to your surface. (You can “mosaic” tiles for coasters, glass votive holders, tops of benches – basically any flat, smooth surface – the possibilities are endless.)
• After you’ve adhered all of your cut paper pieces, brush a top coat of Modge Podge over the entire surface. Let dry.
• Dimension Magic is then used straight from the bottle (it comes out perfectly when you tip the bottle upside down – no need to squish or squeeze the bottle). Cover only the paper pieces with Dimension Magic (not the background surface).
• Depending on the size of the pieces, I generally outline the paper piece with the Dimension Magic and then fill in the middle areas. The liquid will level itself and fill in small spaces.
• Let dry well.
• I often apply a second coat of Dimension Magic to give a fuller, more ceramic look to your paper.

WaLa! Mosaic with without the mess!

Cutting pieces

If you work with recycled wool sweaters, you know it's often difficult to find great colors without spending a lot of money at higher priced thrift stores. If I find a sweater that is an incredible color that I "need" to add to my supply, I will sometimes spend a little more on it - but generally, I often cannot justify spending too much money on an individual sweater. If you do, it quickly becomes very expensive material to work with.

In order to create a new item that has wonderful color – but doesn’t have to deplete my entire color stash – I find I can often use the more neutral colored sweaters as the background or base and embellish with pieces that are much more colorful. I keep a full basket of individually cut shapes (from the brightly colored sweaters) handy just for that purpose. I can then grab petals and leaves at any time to quickly embellish a simple gray pillow or handbag. And, I find cutting wool pieces while watching a good movie very relaxing!

I better run - I'm off to cut more flowers, leaves and circles for upcoming projects!

Felted Wool Balls

I love these things! I've made my own - and it can certainly be done - but if you don't feel like devoting the time and hand/arm energy in making them, there are many places that sell them for a reasonable cost.  The large ones below, I purchased from http://www.artgirlz.com/.  If you haven't already checked out their cool products and ideas - do it - you're in for a treat!