First things first, we finally got up a new page on the site here that lists the upcoming workshops, with pics of classes, etc. I really like the way it turned out. We are still working on pages, please be patient! But now the Workshop link actually works! YAY! I have listed all my October classes with dates, times and fees. PLEASE ~ Check them out!

However, I will give a nod about one of the classes... the Hoot Owl. Last year, I participated in a Halloween Ornie swap with some online friends. The talented gingham girl Mary Burke sent me the most ADORABLE lil owl, made of a houndstooth checked wool. I tried to honor the sweetness of her ornament to do a workshop. I made up a pattern, changing him from hanging to being able to easily sit, so my students could place him anywhere, if they do not have a Halloween tree.
My Hoot Owl



He could still nestle in the branches though! I also designed this hoot owl to be done entirely by hand with blanket stitching. I truly loved Mary's lil owl design. He is just the cutest thing!



Check out Mary's blog too! Thanks for the inspiration, Mary! I only hope you're flattered enough by my version! :)



Will show off the other fairy jar that is on eBay right now.



Closer face shot of our sweet little Witchy!


The top of the jar


Frou-Frou on the side


Extreme Lumina close up!


I just loved the subtle color scheme on this piece. Not your typical Halloween fare. I thought it was soft and fresh and somewhat trendy yet classic. I think this jar and the fuschia baby Wicked Witch were my two favorite jars.

Cabin is looking like a cabin!

The birthday festivities are over! :(
We had a little grill out at the cabin with my Mom and Stepdad on Saturday night. Colten and Wyatt declared that I must have a cake, so Grandma and the boys picked me one out. The boys gave me some new socks, a magazine that I wanted, a couple new music CDs (The Gourds, from Austin... I LOVE them!) and a new grey zip up hooded sweatshirt. Any camper worth her salt knows she needs a grey hooded sweatshirt for weekends!

So, of COURSE, this was my camping breakfast the next morning... leftover birthday cake!


Hardly nothin' beats fresh coffee and birthday cake outdoors in the morning. This was sort of an early present from Mark to me- A new camping insta-start stove and coffee maker that runs on propane.



He doesn't drink coffee at all, so it was truly frivolous just for me. I guess he sorta still likes me some! Which is nice.

Here is how the cabin is shaping up outside. The logs are on, and stained, sealed, etc. BOY did he work hard on that! This cabin is SO cool. If we ever win the lottery, there will be a little room added on called a BATHROOM..... Electricity and running water would be nifty someday. For now, we have little propane tanks, so I gots coffee, and a 12 volt battery hooked up so the kids can watch a movie from time to time and give us 90 minutes of semi-non-refereeing time.



And here is proud Mark, the Cabin Builder Man!



He also just put in the woodburning stove. It was a used one, and needs some fixing up, but it's ready to fire up and get us nice and toasty.



When we get the inside a bit more pulled together, I will show pics of that as well! We sure are loving it out there.

Next, I will show one more fairy jar.
This one is on eBay right this very minute... 3 days to go.



Little tag on the side, and cool button!



Can you see the little spider here? nestled in the feather is a black spider shape.

Ok, so it was my birthday yesterday!
Colten and I went out for breakfast with my sister-in-law Kayla and my niece Jillian. I just LOVE The Athenian Grill in town. My favorite guilty pleasure on a day with no kiddos is to stop there and get myself a gyros. If you are ever in the area... the Athenian Grill in Dubuque You won't be sorry!
So, here was the first stop. The Athenian Grill for Birthday Breakfast!

Jillian had a little package for me to open right away. She did up a little bag for me, with stickers all over it and put the tissue in all by herself. Inside was a pair of funky Halloween Jack-o-lantern socks with light up eyes. If you press his nose, they blink and he makes noise. She thought I really needed those. Which, of course, I do!


Hee Hee! Thanks Jillian :)
We ordered. Oh boy, I got the Gyros Supreme Omelette with double meat and feta cheese, and I also added spinach. I almost forgot to take the picture, and I had already spread the Tzaziki sauce. When the plate came out, it was a lovely dollop on the eggs. It was FABULOUS. I was a VERY happy birthday girl.

The chef came out to talk, and I stopped short of stalkerish picture taking with him. But I cannot rave about this breakfast enough, or the restaurant in general. I do give the Athenian Grill some big fat Greek love.
Here are Colten and Jillian ~ all done eating and ready for the next stop.

Then it was off to the park for an hour to let the kids play. Kayla and I watched and caught and intervened, etc while they were on the jungle gyms. I also got to open my presents from Kayla! YAY!

They were so pretty! And yes - it was windy and yes - I did have to chase down some of that tissue paper across the park once. LOL My first present was more socks. Still funky but no flashing lights or noise.

Then I got me some new earbobs! Kayla said she had a hard time deciding, she said they all "looked like me...." so I said, "What? ANTIQUE?" She just smiled knowingly....
Hardy har har. You just wait, whippersnapper! But they are very pretty, and yes- antiquey looking.

Next was a nifty noodle hostessish cheese/patisserie tray with a glass dome. Uber moderne chicness! (Those little bakery cupcakes are what I let Colten pick out to satisfy his need for me having a cake... I wasn't about to come home and bake for myself. I'll just let the boys eat all the little cupcakes!)

Lastly, I got a really cute Fossil purse. Very Autumnal and stripey.

I really like it with the dark brown straps and the colors in the stripes. And it looks awesome with my new olive green denim jacket! I'll be stylin.

Thank you Kayla dear! I love all my goodies and you too. Even if you did agree that I was an antique...

No, we didn't plan to wear almost the exact same shade. That's just how we operate. Accidentally ESPing. We do that a lot.
But then we look like idiots. Especially if I have made her jewelry for the shirt she is wearing, because I usually make hers very similar to what I make for myself, and we had nearly the exact earrings and bracelet on as well. Same beads, different pecking order. So we just look stupid.

We left the park and shopped awhile. Somehow Colten got a new toy, then we went home. Late afternoon, after Wyatt got home from school, my Aunt Bonnie stopped by when she got off work. She brought me a couple little gifts too. Bonnie grew all these gourds and pumpkins. What a lovely gift! You might not be able to tell but that orange one is HUGE. There is no way I can lift it. Maybe another day I will take a pic of something in reference to how large it is. Meanwhile, Just relate that it is sitting next to a 5 gallon milk can.



There are actually about 5 more little ones not pictured, but the boys snagged those for their rooms and for one by Hallie's bed. So, ALL those gourds & pumpkins!YAY! Also, this little butter crock, which I collect. She filled it with peppers from her garden as well. So pretty!

We had a nice little visit and cup of coffee. Then Mark got home, and we all went to Olive Garden for dinner. Here are Wyatt and Mark patiently waiting for yummies.

Next, there were about 6 pictures that looked like this of Colten and I... while we tried for a NORMAL one and provided entertainment to all the nearby tables.

Finally a nicer shot!

Here is my yummy Chicken con Broccoli, which I *always* get there.

Very nice birthday spent with very nice people. My family.
Happy birthday to ME!

And now to make Kimmy happy, I will post another witch!

Here is one of the little orange witches.

the ribbony side

Top of her jar, with lil owly.



As I said, I put this series of 7 different jars down at the shop. I MAY pull one, or make a similar one for eBaying. Have to see how much time I have. Sadly, I did not keep any witch jars for ME! There should be at LEAST one witch in my collection, I think. Don't you?

All in all, a Happy Birthday, and an orange witch. Happy Thursday night!

The ZEN adventure

I'm gonna get right to some pics tonight...LOL

A woman that works with my husband hosts a Ladies' luncheon every year. She has a lovely yard with small Koi pond, and beautiful plantings, so she has the party out in the garden. Each year she does up a different, very involved theme. She also usually has a few crafts for everyone to do. This takes her weeks of planning and working, but this year she decided to have a ZEN theme, and make the party ZEN for herself as well... She hired ME to teach the crafts instead!

We had several conversations, and decided on an altered coffee filter book in a Zen / Asian theme. I gathered up lots of images to work with and anything that looked Eastern in spirit. I played with all the goodies: nifty papers, rubber stamps, fibers, beads and so forth. I came up with what I considered to be a pretty nice little art piece, and I helped oversee the attendees in working on their projects.

I pulled the Chinese Zodiac charts for everyone to figure out their own birth year. It was a nice way to personalize, if they wanted to. I am the Dog! So here was my cover:

I used the filters on the side, so they resembled a fan. When they opened you saw the two pages at one glance.

This would be the first inner page.

And page 2:

Where the coffee filters open up, we did tags / bookmarks. Here are the ones for the front pocket.



Page 3 and 4

Even though these background papers were not specifically Asian in theme, they worked together.

I thought that overall they gave an Eastern flavor in just the colors and textures.

Another tag. This one was a fresh egg roll bag from my favorite Chinese restaurant downtown. I bought 25 bags for $2.00. We just cut them apart and glued them on a tag. I thought the picture was lovely and the translucent quality of the bag itself lent a really neat look to the tag. It's really too bad that we *HAD* to go eat Chinese to get the bags for a project. I mean, suffering for my ART.... (What ELSE can I use for art that I would HAVE to go eat Chinese again for??? LOL)

Next two page layout

I did some embossing with stamps and played around with 3 dimensional items on some pages as well.

Harder to capture in this photo, but the Geisha was on pop dots away from the golden wings.

I had searched for some Chinese proverbs, and also downloaded an Asian look font. Printed off the proverbs in said font, and voila! "Deep Thoughts" of Zen like thinking for every page, LOL.
The last two tags.

Here is the back cover.

Here are the other sides of the tags



I thought the project as a whole turned out really neat. Once I got into it, there was no stopping me.
Then I found myself so inspired by the Geisha pics I had found, and that Geisha with the golden wings that I just KNEW that I had to make the hostess a Geisha Fairy jar.

Of COURSE I made MEEEE one, too! LOL
Here is the Geisha Fairy:

VERY colorful

Gaudy pretty

I just LOVED her though. I was so happy I made one to keep in my own growing fairy jar collection!


So there you have it.... The ZEN adventure!
I thank Megan for inviting me to come teach at her lovely Garden Party. I appreciate the opportunity.

Tomorrow I spend the day with my little Colten. He is off preschool on Wednesdays. It is my birthday, so he said "I will be looking after you all day on your birthday, Momma!" It is looking like we're meeting a friend for a nice breakfast out at the Greek place for feta/gyro omelettes and then to the park to play! Maybe a little window shopping. Sounds like an awesome day with my little man. I am sure he will be telling EVERYONE exactly how old I am!

He is pretty devastated that there will be no actual party for me though! He said "Momma, tomorrow we can go get your CAKE!" I told him that we might do a little celebration Saturday night out at the cabin, and have Grandma and Grandpa come. But he thought it was sad that I would have no cake on my birthday. That's just the sweetest thing. I had to hug him for that one!