You Capture - Togetherness

My maternal grandparents, aunt & cousins came up from Pittsburgh to visit and stay with us last weekend.  There was lots of togetherness. (Especially because my house is small)  It was great to visit with everyone.  Lily was smitten with my aunt.  She followed my aunt around, it was precious!

She also loved grandmother and all of her "pretties".

The kids had a fantastic time together.  My cousins are around Ian's age.  (one is 8mths older and the other is 9mths younger than Ian) 

Yep, there was lots of togetherness.  =)

Go on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry to see other You Capture's for this week.

Wordful Wednesday - Girly Owl

{A customer sent me the cartoon photo of the owl and I created this ornament.}

For more WW check out 5 Minutes for Mom, WW & Parenting by Dummies.
I am also linking to these fabulous parties, here. 
and here...

Take Me Back Tuesday & Flashback Friday

June 1982

From left to right...my friend Heidi (age8), Me (age8), my sister Heidi (age5).  Yep, I had 2 braids FOREVER.  I remember loving that outfit, I am pretty sure it was my aunt's (I loved getting her hammy downs).  My friend, Heidi, lived across the street from us in that red house that is in the left corner of the photo.  I remember those strollers my sister & I have in the photos.  Wonder what happened to them.  I still have my dolly, it's Lily's now.

We had just moved into this house a few months before and my father was cleaning up the yard.  There were bushes along either side of the house and my father cut them back.

Way Back When-esday posts at Twinfatuation.

You Capture - Flowers

It seems wherever I go, I capture photos of flowers!  My scrapbook pages have them intertwined with my family photos.  While we went apple picking this weekend, I took some photos of the roses.

and not sure which version of this shot I prefer...

Go on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry to see other You Capture's for this week.

Wordful Wednesday - Just Around the Corner

Can you believe it....Halloween is just around the corner!?!?

(Custom bow centers for All Tied Up)

(helping a friend out with a wedding she is in on Halloween...I think we are adding glitter to the face & a vine to it)

With the beautiful weather we are having this week, it is hard to imagine.
(these polymer creations are created by me)

For more WW check out 5 Minutes for Mom, WW & Parenting by Dummies.
I am also linking to these fabulous parties, here.  

Creating Ornaments

Christmas of 1992, I decided I should make ornaments for my friends.  I think this was the first time I made them as gifts for people.  At the time I was working at Wendy's and a bunch of my friends worked there with me.  Instead of just making them for just my friends, I made them for everyone who worked there.  I thought that I might hurt some people's feelings if they didn't get an ornament....I wanted to be fair and nice.  I sat in my mom's sewing room and created many many little salt dough bears for everyone.

After they were baked, I sealed them with varnish.  My father made this for us to hang our ornaments on so they could dry after varnishing them.  I am taking the drips off the bears feet with a wooden chopstick, so there are no bumps.

I am still amazed that I made that many of them for everyone.  I still have a tiny box with a few left overs in my basement.

You can read more about my salt dough ornament adventures, see a finished bear and get the recipe to make your own here.


Way Back When-esday posts at Twinfatuation.

Sunday Citar

"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight, red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning"

When I looked out my upstairs window Tuesday night, this is what I saw.  It was beautiful!

Hope you have a wonderful Sunday!!

Thank you for stopping by Sunday Citar! This blog quote meme was created by Fresh Mommy. You can stop by her blog to see the quotes and photos that she and everyone else is loving right now.

Busy Busy...

I have been one busy woman lately.  I have been busy creating custom orders for customers.

I made a couple VW bugs for one customer (one ornament and one photo holder).

Beep Beep...

I also made these holders for a little boy's birthday party.

I have a few more customs I am working on now.  If you have something in mind for Christmas, please contact me as soon as you can.  As you can imagine, Christmas gets pretty busy around here.

In between everything else, I painted my porch finally!  Only took me almost 6yrs to get around to doing it.  The color was supposed to be darker.  I guess when Jeff bought it a couple months ago, he grabbed the wrong color swatch to get.  Still looks 100% better than it did.  Now we just have to install the new iron.

I also had something really cool happen to me at the end of last week.  I was contacted by Polyform Products, the Sculpey people!!  They LOVE my creations and are looking for new designers to work with.  I talked with them a couple days ago and am happy to report I am going to be creating projects for them.  I am on cloud 9!  When I started working with polymer clay many many years ago, I always called it sculpey clay.  You see, I had no idea that it was called polymer clay and calling it sculpey clay was like calling tissues, Kleenex. 

Off to go play with some clay.  =)

I am linking to these fabulous parties, here. 

Wordful Wednesday - Glass Art

Taken at the Corning Museum of Glass.

Edited to add:  This is a Dale Chihuly sculpture.  Here is a video of the sculpture in it's entirety.

For more WW check out 5 Minutes for Mom, WW & 7 Clown Circus.

Camping Day 2

"A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are."

We lucked out, it did not rain the first night.  We put all of our tents together under the trees. (our tent is the one on the right.) 

On Day 2 & 3 my husband cooked breakfast over the fire.  Did I say, he ROCKS?!?!  He was a cooking machine.  (He also went to Dunkin Donuts for coffee.)

While the kids sat and waited, patiently...(yes, we let them play their ds...please remember we all didn't get much sleep & it was really early...)

After breakfast, we got ready and went to the Corning Museum of Glass.  Thankfully, because as soon as we were ready to leave it started to rain. 

These pumpkins were in the back of the pick-up truck I photographed here. 

They were beautiful!  I bought myself a small one.

There was so much to see and do at the museum.  We watched a couple shows...

and played with the interactive exhibits...

Sharon & I made our own ornaments.  We are so much alike we picked almost the same colors for our ornaments.  Mine is purple with with light purple & small white dots.  Her's is purple with light pinky purple & larger white dots.  The shot of the ornament close up in the collage is Sharon's.

Lastly we walked through the museum portion.  The museum has a scavenger hunt for the children to do while doing through it.  The older 2 kids were very competitive.

To keep it real on Day 2...

Each one of us...yep all 10...had a melt down of some sort at one point in the day.  We each took our turn in hitting that wall of exhaustion and crabbiness.  When I felt myself loosing it that day I went by myself to have some "mommy time" down the escalator into the gift shop to take photos of the pumpkins and truck.  I am very glad that I did that because I got a couple good shots.

Looking back, I have realized that if we can take 6 kids into a GLASS museum & gift shop and nothing got broken, we can do ANYTHING!

The second night we ate the rest of the fried chicken and made tacos in a bag for dinner.  It was very yummy!  Everyone slept so much better that night.  It was a bit colder, but we were warm enough with all of our sleeping bags and layers of clothes.

Also, I need to mention...
I took a shower every morning.  The showers were not as bad as I thought they would be.  The water pressure and temperature were actually pretty good.

Thank you for stopping by Sunday Citar! This blog quote meme was created by Fresh Mommy. You can stop by her blog to see the quotes and photos that she and everyone else is loving right now.