Chocolate Chip Scones

Yummmm! My son surprised me with a scone he made in his Culinary Arts class. I spent a quiet Friday night at home working on some knitting and taking a break with my special treat and a hot cup of joe. It was nice to just enjoy some down time.

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Beautiful Blooms

I love hibiscus flowers, huge blooms and lots of color!! The rest of my garden looks like a jungle at the moment, but these have remained gorgeous!
We recently had an old falling down garage removed from our back yard. Plans for the new open space are in the making. Not sure how soon we will be able to work on building a shelter over what I would like to be our new outdoor patio, but I am looking forward to having a place to cook out and relax!

Crochet Flower Pillow

I've seen these Blooming Flower pillows all over the place on the net....it's just one of those fun, bright projects that bring a smile to your face. Upon first seeing this project, it said "summer and sunny days" to me.

Again, I chose some of my favorite colors...and nope it does not match a thing in my house! 

The pattern was easy and fun, repeating itself throughout with small changes to allow for increases.

Attic24  made her beautiful flower pillow in rainbow colors and posted the pattern and tutorial on her blog.

  I did notice there are some differences in how mine turned out and the ones shown on her tutorial. 

She wrote the pattern in UK crochet terms, which she made easy to change into US crochet terms. She used a smaller hook according to the UK sizes (4mm) and I used the closest in US terms (4.25mm G). I must have been really relaxed while making this pillow, because I tended to crochet loose throughout the whole project. That being the case, I could have went down a hook size. My pillow has 14 rows of petals including the last row on the back of the pillow, where hers has 16 rows of petals and appears to be crocheted closer together with less gaps. I luv the way it turned out though and wouldn't mind trying it again in other colors.

 One problem I ran into was that after I finished the pillow top, I couldn't find a round pillow form any where....only square ones were available in my area. I ended up ordering an 18" pillow form off the net. It didn't take long to get here, but it's some thing to keep in mind.

As you can see, Khloe loved the finished project and was sure I had made it just for her. She wasted no time at all cuddling up on this comfy pillow=)

Little Things

Went to the train station, and the train was delayed. So, we checked out some of the quaint shops in the area. We found this really cool ice cream / coffee shop. My daughter enjoyed the specialty ice cream while I indulged in a warm macchiato. It hit the spot perfect. It was cool outside, and I have been trying to cut down on my coffee intake. That was my first coffee of the day!Yum! This shop had the coolest lights....they were swirls of bright colors, it also had some guitars, and groovy decorations. There was a welcoming court yard that featured some metal art work that changed colors with the outdoor lights. That was our little treasure of the day, we got to share a few moments and enjoy each others company....we made it back just in time for my daughter to catch her train.

I've been working on a couple projects that I hope to post soon. All of life's daily dramas have been keeping me pretty busy lately, but that's what life is all about right?

Iris Folding

Teapot ATC's

free pattern: http://www.iris-folding.com/AugustPattern.html

The original pattern for this was to large for an ATC , so I just shrank it down to the size I needed. I've been enjoying iris folding for the last few years now and even though it's easy to do, it always seems to amaze the receiver. I also like making cards or framed pictures for gifts with this technique.

Again, since ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) are only about the size of a baseball card, I used tissue paper instead of scrap booking or origami paper. Since each strip of paper is individually placed, it can become quite lumpy or thick on a small project. There are tons of shapes and free patterns all over the net, so you can pretty much just pick your subject and look for the pattern.

As you can guess, the subject for this swap was teapots...any color, any technique. Both of my cards are on their way to the Netherlands this time around. 

Book Page ATC with Butterfly

Once again, it was a dark and rainy day, so I started digging through my craft supplies and tried to get creative. I have noticed its harder to come up with some thing creative if you haven't done it for a while. For this swap you could do any type of butterfly as long as the background on the ATC is an actual book page. So, I headed to my local library and picked up a 50 cent book and found some fabric in my stash that had butterflies on it. The butterflies are fabric and scrapbook paper. I've seen 3D paper punches and liked the effect, however, I don't happen to own any at the moment, so I had to improvise. I don't think they turned out to bad! They will be flat going through the mail, but will have enough memory from being folded to stick up again once she opens it. Any way, I hope this has some wow factor and adds some thing unusual to their collection of ATC cards.

Time for Prom

Dalton & Ashleigh
Aww, they look so pretty I couldn't resist posting a couple pictures!

Mail Art Swap

Mail Art Envie

Back of Envie

US Postage Stamps

I always see the mail art swaps posted, but I can't draw or paint to save my life. So, even though they looked like a lot of fun, I've always skipped them. Not this time though! The theme was hearts, which is one of my favorite subjects...I just couldn't pass this one up. You had the option to use any medium or mixed media.
I made the main envie (envelope) out of black and white scrapbook paper and then embellished with inks, stamps and lots of different size punched hearts. Now, I just have to figure out what to put in it! I bought the heart postage stamps just a couple of weeks before I found this swap. Lucky hu? I just love these!
My biggest concern is getting it through the mail machines in one piece.  My post office always seems to have a problem with regular envies, so I'm not sure what might happen with this one. I thought about stamping the mail art envie and having them post mark it, then putting it in a larger envie to actually send. Not quite sure what I'm gonna do yet, I'll have to see when I get there. Either way its sent, I hope my assigned partner will be pleasantly surprised!

Spring Fever

At the end of March, beginning of April my family ended up with the flu for the second time this year. Needless to say I pretty much missed Easter this year since it was so early. Every one is feeling much better now, but the weather doesn't seem to be co-operating with my spring fever. It has once again turned cold, and  we are getting all the spring rains and flooding now. Clean up has started , but I usually don't start planting until at least Mother's Day. We always get late freezes! I've picked up some seeds and started looking through some of my gardening journals from previous years.
I started these journals when I was new to gardening, and have to say they were a huge help. I kept records of what I planted, their care , plant names, tips from magazines, and if they survived in the area they were planted... You get the idea.
For the most part I think I have more garden clean up than planting to do this year .
Since I can't actually get out and start my gardening quite yet, I joined a couple seed swaps in anticipation. It's an international swap, so maybe I'll get some thing uncommon for my area.

I found a photo taking gardening tip in" Better Homes and Gardens" (July 2007),so of coarse, I had to experiment...the tip was to take a picture of your flowers at dusk instead of bright sun light for better color.
The photo on the left was taken during the day, and the photo on the right was taken at dusk! Wow!! What a big difference.The photo on the left was not photo shopped at all...in fact this is a photo of the original photos side by side in my photo album. ( Guardian Blue Delphinium Perennial .)

I love these stepping stones...we spent a day painting them at this really cool ceramic shop.Once you paint them they fire them and you go back and pick them up. It was really fun to see the dull colors you painted with turn into these bright works of art.
The photos on the bottom of the page are of May Night Salvia when I planted them...

Ok this blurry picture is of the same Salvia , but this photo was taken the following summer. You can see a huge  difference and how large they grew in one year. Stunning, lots of compliments from the neighbors.

Seed Swap

My neighbor let me borrow her "Chicken Soup for the Gardeners Soul" book, and I loved the heart warming stories. When I borrowed it, I couldn't image what sort of stories they would have about gardening, but I was pleasantly surprised! I'm thinking to copy and include one to send along with the flower seeds. The best advise I've gotten on gardening so far has always been from other gardeners.

We celebrated my husband's birthday tonight. Kelsey made a wonderful birthday supper for dad ....seasoned and grilled steaks, crab legs, salad , loaded potato rounds... and she decorated with streamers, he loved it! He is definitely a meat and potatos guy. It never ceases to amaze me how good of a cook she is...I'm so proud!
Since she made supper, I baked his birthday cake. We tried a new recipe.... Cookies and cream brownie cake. It turned out great, easy to make, but very rich! The only problem I had was the spring form pan I used didn't spring . Go figure, we tried every thing to get it out of the pan. We finally gave up, but it tasted good all the same. My son likes to help me cook some times and he had never heard of a spring form pan, so when I was trying to open it he was standing there waiting with his hands out.....hahaha he thought the cake would pop-up and out of the pan. Mom and I got a good laugh out of that one!!
Happy Birthday Dad!

Carmen stole my seat while I was up getting drinks....yes, she saw the crab  legs! Stinker!

To funny, she must be tired ....I caught her mid yawn. Awww

Birthday Boy!!

Cookies and Cream Brownie Cake

You can see we had a little trouble getting it out of the pan.....but it was still good!