Happy Easter 2024

My first foray into the stamp cave I decided to try to go simple and grab dies and paper.  Some tools were nececessary to use upstairs like the Big Shot for the Lily of the Valley die and I think the wagon below, but the others were small enough for me to put my little die cutter into a basket along with the papers needed and dies for HWNSNBP to carry downstairs for me.  The challenge was to find something for the machine to stick to as it uses a suction base and I left my glass work matt upstairs, but he came through with a piece of plexi-glass that did the job.

This card I made a few of with different colored backgrounds and that of the sentiment to match.

These cards were for the GS's and were actually half of a half sheet made into a smaller card just big enough to hold a gift card for each of them for their favorite fast food restaurant as we knew we weren't going to see any of them in person for a while yet.  I've had these little bunny dies for some time and was glad to find them without too much of a scavenger hunt.  Putting them together at the dining room table was easy enough in between naps and laps.  

My birthday happens to be today also and I received a lot of beautiful BRAK cards which I have yet to take pictures of, but when I do, I will certainly share them.  I also got a couple of art works from the art site that I belong to.  I have a stash of cards that I've been using for birthdays and such that have come up the last month since I wasn't able to create something new and it's made me realize that I really should be doing more BRAK's and RAK's myself to use them up because I don't know what I'm saving them for.  I guess a change in your health situation can cause some good lightbulbs to go off too!

Anyway, though it may be late in the day for some of you, I hope that you enjoyed this Sunday!

100DayProject 2024 and 100 Days of Tangles Updates

I'm so glad that I took the time before my surgery to grid out the placement of all the stickers on the black poster board that HWNSNBP was so thoughtful to pick up for me because bending at the waist is not allowed during my recovery and it would have been a real chore to try to do it without the bending.  As it is, there will be a lot of erasing to do after all the stickers are placed, but I'm pretty sure that it won't be that noticeable.  Also, photographing such a wide piece of paper is a bit challenging while trying to stand up straight and not move so I apologize for the wobbliness of this video I did of the first 30 days worth of stickers.

I found myself running low on the tails so I grabbed some more strips and made some more wishing stars and had to get a bigger jar to put them in.  

These little projects are fitting in pretty good right now because between the muscle relaxant drug and the inabilitiy to sleep through the night because of lingering nerve pain I'm very tired during the day and can't focus on bigger things right now.  That and the fact that I shouldn't be sitting still for long lengths of time which is what I tend to do when I start working on bigger projects.  I can do little by little and still get my laps in.

I was a little overconfident in thinking that I could use some of the time in the hospital to work on some zentangles and actually packed a little bag with some tiles and tools.  What made it even more of a challenge was that when I woke from the 4 hour surgical procedure, my left hand hurt and was totally numb.  I could grasp and squeeze with it, but there was no feeling. They gave me something for the pain and said that the numbness was probably due to the position that I was in during the surgery and that it could take several days (or longer) for the feeling to return.  This kind of set off a firestorm with the attending staff and they felt that they had to do a CT scan to rule out a possible stroke.   I was not happy about that and there's more to that story but I won't go to length here.  I had mentioned several times that I was glad that it was my left hand and not my right as I was an artist - something that I don't think I've ever made claim to be out loud.  One of the nurses asked what I did and I mentioned painting and tangling and was able to show her the ring of 100 days of tangles that I had brought as reference in case I was to work on any tiles.  (I did attempt one, but the drugs weren't helping my eyes focus well enough so I tucked it away.)    But I have been working to keep up with the 100 Days of Tangles and here they are........all of February.........

....and most of March so far.

I haven't done much of the shading on most of these and will have to go back to that when I get near the end.  It will be nice to try to do some tiles with strings in the future too so I can see some of these patterns put together.

Still sleeping downstairs for now, but I did manage to get up the stairs and did a little bit of work in the stamp cave to prepare for Easter that I'll share in a bit. But for now, I'm fading fast and have to say good night and to apologize to my blogging buddies for not visiting as regularly and commenting - I will catch up with you soon I hope.

Happy 70th Birthday HWNSNBP

One of the things that I made sure to take care of before my surgery was to get this card done for HWNSNBP's big 70th.  I tried to include some of the things that have brought him happiness over the years - the black and white striped paper refers to all the years that he spent as a basketball official, something he loved to do and only gave up after Covid hit.  The basketball paper attributes to that also, but also to his love of playing the game, whether as a player, spectator, or as a coach.  The fish refer to his love of fishing which continues each summer and hopefully he'll get back to some freshwater fishing this year. The woodgrain paper refers to his newfound love of woodworking on big projects.  I could have included more of what he loves, but there's only so much you can fit in one space, as I try to remind him of what he tries to fit into his days, always wanting to get more done.  Hopefully he'll stop hemming and hawing about retiring so he can get those other things into his daily schedule.  

I am so lucky to have him here to be taking care of me as I recuperate and regret that I don't get to give him the proper celebration that he deserves for reaching such a monumental birthday.   

Happy Birthday my love.  And many, many more!

Flying Pig Day Clarification

It came to my attention last week that currently the official Flying Pig Day is actually September 9th and not March1st as I have become accustomed to celebrating it.  In my defense I have to say that I started celebrating Flying Pig Day prior to 2009 and if you want to read the story behind it you can click here. Unbeknownst to me someone actually made the effort in 2020 to make it an official holiday to be celebrated on September 9th because that's the day they got married and they thought that they never would (and this does not refer to friends of ours who actually did get married on September 9th in the 70's).  I will just say that I will continue to use March 1st as Flying Pig Day and hope that my "Pig Ladies" don't mind sticking to that date.  

Happy Flying Pig Day

Just a few of the little flying pigs on my windowsill.

Thanks to an inspiration from my blogging friend Sabrina, and the coincidental finding of a container of glass microscope slides in my craft room, I decided to make these little suncatchers/ornaments for my Pig Ladies this year. 

I purchased two flying pig infested stickers from Redbubble and went about fussy cutting those little piggies out so that I could fit them onto the slides.  Now, I do have quite an assortment of flying pig stamps, but none of them were small enough for this so I was glad to find the sticker option.   I cut some background rectangles from an assortment of papers and did stamp the "Believe" onto white and cut that out.  The papers, with the stickers and message, are sandwiched between two slides with a length of ribbon for a hanger and held together with double-sided tape.  Another think that I have in my stash is a load of glitters and microbeads.  I opted for the microbeads for this application around the edges where the tape is.  I did put a seal coat of Crystal Effects over the beads to hopefully keep them from prematurely releasing from the tape.  The last thing I did to them was added a stick-on jewel where the tape didn't cover at the hanger point.  

The sticker procedure in process below.  I have to note that when I looked up the directions for these, it did mention using a sealer for the beads or glitter and mentioned clear nail polish as an alternative.  I don't recommend that. I tried it on one of them and the nail polish reacted with the tape adhesive and the beads were starting to lift off the tape.  There is also the odor of the nail polish involved although these won't be worn as jewelry and will not be adding much to the room, after five days I can still smell it when I sniff them.  (I know, so stop sniffing them - got it!)

I got some small boxes and did use a stamp to add a little pig to the outside.   I had intended to mail these boxes but realized too late that they were an inch to short to be mailable so I had to put in padded envelopes.

Remember - "A pig that has wings does impossible things!"