Happy Halloween

I participated in an on-line swap of banners to spell out the word Halloween. The banner arrived today and it is now hanging from my fireplace.....I LOVE IT!!! this is the first banner swap I have been part of and my next one will be a winter wonderland swap due in February.
I also did a bit of decorating today...my helper, Maggie did not like the black crow and kept growling at it...heheheheeh

I left the 21st Century....for the afternoon

Ohio has had the best weather this last week...in the 60's and 70's ...low humidity and lots of sunshine.... so, today Dallas and I decided to attend the New Boston Fair near the city we used to live in. This fair takes place every labor day weekend and is a two day event of strict ..re enactment of the late 1700's and how life was like in the area ...settlers vs. local Indians, merchants, food, militia etc. The participants must follow a strict code...no modern items allowed even down to their eye glasses and words. We go up and down the various tent lined avenues....dodging horses and oxen carts and the resulting (plops)...and watch magic acts, sword swallowers, musicial presentations, and working craftsmen from lace makers to blacksmiths to basket weavers,soap makers, milners, furniture makers, and even the doctor. All the participants do a great job staying in character and it is fun to tour and observe. It was very crowded today...due to the weather....normally at this time of year it rains and is in the 40's.... we watched the battle, and jumped when the cannons were fired and watched the various militia men march about. I bought some pot metal buttons that were cast from original recast molds...some mititary and others just deocrative, and a "gill" full of white shell buttons, and a thing to hold my hair up....metal and beads...and Dallas got a horn to decorate and a wood whistle...tiny one. We had fun...but smell like campfire smoke....

now back to the 21st century....

The Ties that Bind project is on TV

click on the right side to bring up the ovarian cancer site.

art fair continued

Art Fair/Craft show preparations

Several neighbors and I are going to sell at the Golf Club art/craft show this November. My neighbors sew...I do not....LOL...so I decided to make items that are "green" using or re purposing items for a new use.
Below are photos of how I decided to re purpose spoons, old wooden textile bobbins, vintage optical lenses, rusty bed springs. Enjoy....I am still working on a few other projects and more angels...

Word Queen of the Universe

This page is for a 4 x 6 page swap that will be made into a book. One of my Yahoo groups is 10 years old and one very ambitious moderator is volunteering to collect pages from as many participants who send her a page...she is then going to laser copy the pages and make a book for each participant of all the pages... this will be a treasure to explore once the book returns...I can hardly wait.....

The Fairy Door....

It is said, if one installs a Fairy Door...the Fairies who are wanting to move out of the woods to the more urban areas...will move in....they are said to bring good luck with them. Only a Fairy can open the door and if one forces it open...the Fairy will leave.

At Hobby Lobby this week, they are 40% off in the unfinished wood section....so I decided to get one and painted it today. (I know my shading is off...but maybe the Fairies won't notice?) Anyway...I will put it by the front door...perhaps with a vacancy sign for a bit until I see that a Fairy family has moved in...then I plan to decorate it with the passing holidays...it should be fun...I am also thinking of writing a little story to go with it and record the happenings with the Fairy Family that hopefully comes to live here....

updates

the new roof is on...took 10 days of the workers pounding and making noise and me picking up nails from the yard and driveway...but it is done...mostly,...they still have to come back for some cosmetic issues.

Saturday we had the condo community annual garage sale....I decided to not sell this year so I could walk around and see other goodies....and I did. I picked up some costume jewelry and some keys, a lock and a victorian floor lamp...not bad for $14.50 total!!! I picked up a green malekite stone necklace for $1 and took it apart. Dallas stripped some electrical wire for me to the copper core...and I guess it is around 14 gage...and I made my version of the tree of life pendants using the copper and green stone....they are all different since I was not sure how to make them but experimented.
And I took a jewelry solder class last week and made myself a greenish glass/silver bracelet and also one for DD(Jenny) for her up coming birthday....hers of course is pink. And I have also made a new wreath for over the fireplace. Flowers are planted and looking pretty and we are having more sunshine than rainy days now,..so what could be better?

Ties That Bind Raffle tickets are now available

this is such a wonderful cause to help fight ovarian cancer. About a year ago, over a 100 artists were asked to donate a homemade charm or tie to be assembled to make an art doll to be auctioned off with all proceeds going to ovarian cancer research.

the time has come and from now until September 2009, tickets are available to win this awesome doll.
http://www.scrapbookroyalty.com/tiesthatbind.html

The Hunt

Ok, so who knows what the term..."geocaching" means? Have you heard of letterboxing?
they are darn near the same thing except with geocaching you use a GPS to find the spot or close to it.
So the newbies that we are....I downloaded about 8 possible sites to try to find....noting that I chose mostly level 1's and 2's on the terrain and difficulty scale. Well, the first one we got to the area but could not find the cach...same with the second one....OK, perhaps we need a level 0 difficulty....sheesh....then we found the 3rd, 4th ones....yippie....opened up the micro box and signed the logs....and then rehid in the same location for the next seeker. then we headed out for the 5th one....hmmm....would have to walk into someone's yard to find it....and I won't do that and being unfamilar with the neighborhood, we didn't know how to get to the woods behind the houses that were along a fence line...so headed out to the 6th, 7th and 8th....found them...some were tiny nano boxes...and one was a sandwich sized tupperware like container...it actually had treasures to trade but since we didn't bring anything to trade...we just signed the log and rehid...but I now want to make "signature" treasures...that people will want to collect...got to come up with something not too large but coveted and unique just the same...I may paint wooden nickles and leave those...but then maybe not...LOL...
anyway...the weather was nice and we had fun walking a bit in the woods and parks to locate the caches...and trying not to be noticed by anyone.
If you have a GPS and are looking for something fun to do -outdoors -with the family...go to geocaching.com and read a bit and download some hidden caches in your area to go hunt.

beach in a bowl

OK, so I bought some of these shells since Myrtle Beach has bone crusher waves and breaks most shells. One can get them on some of the smaller beaches that have sand bars...but....needless to say...I picked up broken shells for their color and bought some fancy ones.... but...the sand is pure authentic. I had the bowl and added the fish net a attached some shells to the outside...My little beach at home....all that is missing is the sound of the ocean and the breeze and the cold water....hmmm...wonder if Dallas would mind if I hooked up the hose and turned on the fan....? LOL

Beach Vacation

We have had a time share in North Myrtle Beach for over 25 years. On week 14 every year or there abouts, we either head to Myrtle or exchange it for another destination...but mostly Myrtle. This year we wanted to see some things we had not discovered in the past or for a while. We toured one of Myrtle Beach's wineries and took a day trip to Charleston and Georgetown. We also visited Brookgreen Gardens and walked the beach...a lot. I picked up various shells, and sand and was looking for some jelly fish...(we always see dead jelly fish washed up after the storms) but not this year...instead...we saw this large pile of sponge...I thought it unique that it was in a heart shape, and we saw dolphins and people....LOTS of people when in past years there would be about 50 on the beach on a given day. We had fairly decent weather...a bit chilly at times...but no snow and we took our time and relaxed...no set schedule...nor rushing around...no expensive shows...just a nice week on the beach to blow away the winter duldrums

Rescue

Last week, one of my neighbors who is a quilter and sews everyday...was cleaning out her closet of unfinished projects and asked me to come over to see if I could use anything before she tossed it. Already in the pile to be tossed was a bag of cut out pieces to make a purse. She had cut them out but lost interest and it sat in her closet for a few years... I loved the colors...and looked at the pieces...it was hard to tell what was what but I thought I could put it all together and make a few adaptations from the left over fabric. I had to buy a zipper and take it back as once I got the pieces somewhat hooked together...the zipper I had was going to be too short...then I picked up some black bias tape to use to finish off seams as the quilted fabric would be too thick for a traditional seam. Any way...I used my Baby Smurf...(teeny tiny blue Kenmore) and it worked like a trooper even through 4-5 thickness in some areas of quilted fabric...I don't think my older more expensive machine would have gone over some of those bulges...LOL... I had to do some hand sewing...not my favorite....around the inside of the zipper to hide and finish off the seam...this would not have been so hard...except for the fact..I had no regular needles and had to use a dull round point....yes, I could have waited until today to go buy what I needed but I wanted that purse done yesterday!!!!
I love it....!!!!