Wear Red Day - Finished Projects - Tangles - And a Treat

I know it's Groundhog Day but it's also Wear Red Day for Heart Health Month and we're wearing red for this little Heart Warrior who will be 9 mos. old in a couple of weeks.  He's pretty much always in motion these days as you can see it was hard to get him to stay still for his photo.  He had his 6 mo. heart check-up and is holding his own on that front.  He is a little joy!

And it was a joy to receive as a gift from my friend Sabrina this needle felting kit to make these little blue tits last Christmas (2022).  I was half-way through with them last spring and then misplaced the box for a while.  Luckily I was able to put my hands on it earlier in January and got them done.  I've never done needle felting but it really was fun.  You really have to be careful with those needles though.  I might have to do a little more work on those masks and eyes.

Sabrina sent me this beautiful little wooden puzzle this year.  I love the birds - we share that love.  The pieces to this puzzle are very distinctively shaped making it a little more challenging than it may look, but I totally enjoyed the challenge.  It was fun to do during this gray month.

I gave myself two other challenges to participate in.  One lasting just for the month, and the second one is going to go on for 100 days (but it's not the 100 Day Project - that will be starting on 2/18 this year and I'm still trying to come up with a plan for that). 

Last year I had done the 7F5R Fragment of Your Imagination Challenge with similar substrate in pink.  I used the blue tags this time.  

It's good to have these handy when doing original tiles to get some ideas for patterns.

This 100 Days of Tangles is run by a FB group and involves a different tangle for each day.  What's the difference you might ask?  Fragments are the little pieces of tangles that when put together create a larger form.  So you may see, in the small tiles below, fragments that come together in a grid to make a larger tangle.  In any case, I'm doing these on a slightly larger square base of 2 3/4".  I have purchased these tags on the rings through Temu.  I know some people have had bad experiences with them, but so far, I have not, but I have mostly ordered craft-related items and little gadget type things.  I also only use my laptop for ordering things from online sources and only use Paypal for payments hoping that there won't be any issues.  

I have bought a couple of their Lego-like kits, both for GS1 and myself.  This is one that I put together during January - a little cockatiel with wings that move.  Let me tell you that they are a bit challenging with all those little pieces, but fun nonetheless.

And one last thing to share tonight - there's a place nearby called Paris Bistro that has baked goods as well as sandwiches and salads.  Each season they have some specialties and I had to try this one - the Cookie Butter Latte Creme Filled Donut.  It was delicious!

So tomorrow - February 3rd - is Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day and we'll be visiting the little ice cream shop we did last year but it will be for the last time as they're retiring soon.  I'm looking forward to the apple crisp again!

Sharing Their Creativity and Things I Worked on Before the Holidays

I completed another temperature spiral for 2023.  I originally bought larger beads to use on this but they were so irratic in size that I didn't feel comfortable using them although the colors were more intense.  There is size difference in these smaller seed beads but it isn't as noticeable as the larger ones.  2022's spiral colors were not differentiated enough so I revamped the color chart for 2023.  There are still some that are pretty close in color next to each other, but my choices were limited. For this one I attached the beads a little differently so that they would lay flat on their sides and I used the high temperature on the outer side of the line and the low on the inside.  The seasons are set off by the color of the base spiral - blue for winter, green for spring, pink for summer, and a light orange for fall.  Oh, and I did purchase a better cloth for the base this time.

I received some beautiful handmade cards this year.

This sparkling beauty from Lauren, one of the Jingle Belles.  

An sweet ice skating rabbit from Sabrina.

This vintage lovely from LeAnne.

Some gorgeous snowflakes and snowflowers from Sunshine.

This textural beauty from some friends in Maryland.

This stunner from Stephanie, our other Jingle Belle.

And this very special one came with a school photo from GS1.

Sabrina made me this beautiful ornament using glass microscope slides and a beautiful stamped bird motif.  I'll be keeping this out year-round.

My friend J made this cute little gnome in a toque who looked quite at home in the lemon tree with the little bell gnomes that I had made.

My cousing B sent me this darling little wooden matryoshka ornament, also happy in the lemon tree.

And J found another little gnome ornament to add to my collection.

I had some ideas about creating some trees with some of the things that I had lying around (and a few purchased additions).  

This first one is not done - only because 1) I ran out of tags, 2) I ran out of time, and 3) I couldn't figure out what to do with the top.  I'm thinking now that I might add some little greens and some jute to the top with a little wooden star to cover up that top.  What I had done was wrapped a styrofoam cone with brown paper and then used straight pins to attach the kraft colored tags in layers around it.  There are 100 tags on this now.  The cone was taller to start with, but early on I realized that it needed to be much shorter and sliced some of the bottom off.  

This one started with another styrofoam cone and I used the saved seams from old jeans I had cut up for a project a few years ago.  I did see something similar on Pinterest. Again, the top to this is not complete to my satisfaction, but may just need a little round piece of denim on top to finish it off.  The cones that had in my stash did not have pointed tops to start off with - something I didn't think about until I got almost there.

This one was a Dollar Tree idea I found on IG.  It started as a fuzzy white duster that I trimmed in a cone shape.  I took off the handle at the bottom and HWNSNBP supplied the birch base he had in his stash of scraps.  I just wrapped a set of battery-operated fairy lights around it.

  

I also came across a fun account on IG that had free felt patterns for advent and I printed off a couple of them.  The one that I did finish was this little European robin.  I actually did two of them and gifted one.  Check out @whatacurlylife for the free patterns - and she currently has a cute Valentine bear up for grabs now.

I've got some tangle projects that I'm working on this month and I'm debating whether to do another temperature spiral for 2024.  Oh, and I'll be showing off a little needle felting project that I finished soon.  Trying to catch up already.

What Can You do With a Bell?

Found these little wooden bell shapes in $Tree and saw an idea posted somewhere to make them into little gnome ornaments, so of course you know I had to give it a whirl.

I painted the body of the bell red, the clapper a light fleshtone, and the hanger white.  Both sides.

Added some faux beard fur and a metallic cord hanger to finish them up. (The fur is what I looked for for 2 days before ordering again and then finding it an hour after I placed the order.  Thank goodness for returns.  I still have several sheets from the original package to use up!)

I'll have some to gift and some to hang on my lemon tree with the triangle gnomes I made last year.

My dining room table is currently overflowing with "ideas" as I'm simultaneously trying to get the house in order.  The trees are up and decorated.  Well, the lemon tree isn't yet, but I'll get to that today hopefully.  There always seems to be more to put away each year....... things that I don't mind having out like books and craft supplies that seem to multiply but need to be hidden away to make the place presentable.  And therein lies the problem of remembering where such things have been hidden.  Yes, I have a craft room, but that's upstairs and I keep a lot of stuff downstairs so I don't have to climb those stairs so it's my own fault.  

We finally were able to find the cinnamon candies I use to make my marshmallows so that will be put on the agenda for either tomorrow or early this week.  I have one cookie recipe that I want to try that uses a cake mix and a container of Cool Whip which I have waiting in the wings.  Whether I get to make any other cookies is left to be decided.  My kids don't particularly like to have a lot of sweets around for the little guys contrary to what they had growing up which was a smorgasbord of holiday cookies and candies, so we've really cut back on that aspect with just a couple of special things.  It makes it easier with less preparation but more difficult in the choice of what to make.  We all have different favorites.  

So I'll close with a question - what's your favorite Christmas/holiday treat?

Guardian Angel Day

(Angel I created many years ago recently found in storage)

We grew up in my grandparents house - the upstairs was ours.  Seven of us in four rooms with one bathroom.  Being the first born of five children, I may have had my own room for a couple of months, but that didn't last long as my sister came early, just before my first birthday.  So it was a treat when I got to sleep over at my Godmother's house where I had a bed and a room to myself.  At the time she didn't have any children of her own and doted on all her nieces and nephews.  Strangely, my mother was her niece and I a grand niece although my mother was two years older than her.  I think you might have referred to my godmother as a "change of life" baby back then.  I've been told that my grandmother thought it was scandalous that her mother was pregnant after she had a grandchild (my mother).  My mother's cousins often refer to her as aunt because she is closer to their parent's ages, but I digress.  

I was raised a Catholic although my father wasn't.  He went to church with us and drove us to catechism when we couldn't walk because of bad weather.  And he helped us to learn our prayers.  But today I am reminded of another prayer and why I've started this post.  Today is Guardian Angel Day and the person who taught me the Guardian Angel prayer was my Godmother on that sleepover.  It is a very special memory and she was a very special person.  She passed away this summer and I'm sure that she's with the angels guarding over all those she loved so much and I will forever miss her. 

The last time I visited her I took pictures of a couple of things that I had made for her that she still had displayed all these years later.

Remember Holly Hobbie?

My godmother and my grandmother were into collecting chicken-themed things at one point, specifically roosters because my uncle played football at the University of South Carolina and the team mascot was the Gamecock.

These were crewel kits that I did as a teenager.  I used to do a lot of needlework of this kind for gifting and for personal use.  I've noticed a resurgence of interest in this type of handiwork in recent years as patterns and supplies are more readily available than they were long ago thanks to the internet.  I've also seen that thrifters resell these finished items they find in thrift stores that are in good shape.  They purchase them for bargain prices and get a lot more on ebay and etsy from collectors.  And you should see what they're getting for vintage Pyrex and Tupperware.  Everything old is new again.  But I suppose every generation looks back to the past at some point.  

Thursday's Throw Aways Reboot

If you've been here with me from the beginning you may remember a feature that I did during the first year or so of my blogging experience called Thursday's Throw Aways.  I tried to create something using something that would have been normally thrown away.  Although I can't promise that this will be a regular weekly feature, I thought I might resurrect it and in the process use up some of the "stuff" that has been hanging around.  Or at least, in some cases, use a bit of it before I throw out the balance.  Going through stuff sometimes reminds me of the ideas I had that lead me to save it in the first place.  Some of it, admittedly, is just trash and gets tossed.

What didn't get tossed recently were the metal sewing findings that I have accumulated as I've collected jars and bags of buttons at flea markets and garage sales over the years.  That button project that I did recently turned up more than scads of buttons.  Remember this?

Having the tray of buttons and findings still within eyesight got me to wondering what I could do with all those snaps and fasteners.  So I started playing around with them and this appeared.

I originally laid it out on a sheet of paper and then transferred it to a 5 x 7 flat canvas board I had in my stash.  Initially I was getting very frustrated as all the tweezers I was trying were all magnetized and trying to push the findings off and place them just right wasn't working.  I finally found a pair of tweezers in a cheap manicure set that weren't magnetized and they made such a difference.  I was able to pick the finding up with the tweezers and touch it to a blob of glue so I could then glue it in place.

Couldn't make up my mind as to whether I should lay in color on the background before I got started but I'm glad I decided against it because I think the silver ones would not have shown up as well.

If I come across more of these metal things as I'm going through my stuff I might try to make a partner for this one.  Or maybe I should try another saved material.  Hmmmmmm, I'll have to think on that.

Where is Winter? And What Are we Celebrating?

I have to say that, knock on wood, we haven't had much of a winter as far as snow goes.  This past week the temps were in the low to mid 60's and I've been seeing postings all over the place of spring flowers already blooming.  This would include our Lenten Roses (hellebores), which, when I looked it up, traditionally bloom from February to April encompassing the 40 days of Lent - thus the name.  These would seem to be just a tad premature, but they are much earlier than they have been in the last few years that we've had them in the gardens.  Our daffodils are about 3" of leaves through the ground, and the bluebirds are actually starting to bring nesting material into the nest box outside the dining room window.  I hope they don't start laying their eggs yet.  

Saturday, February 18th was World Pangolin Day and I did a quick watercolor and washi tape card to go along with the homemade marshmallows that I made for my blogging buddy and Jingle Belle hostess Lauren.  I had promised them for Valentine's Day as I didn't get to make them for Christmas.  I had to use a different source for my cinnamon candies that we couldn't find before the holidays.  In the recipe, if I want to flavor the marshmallows anything other than vanilla, it calls for replacing 1/3 of the sugar with ground hard candy in the flavor you want.  I have tried wintergreen lifesavers before with okay results, but I haven't endeavored anything besides vanilla and cinnamon.  Note: Pangolins are not pink, I took artist liberty with that so it could match the marshmallows.

I found some gold cording and seed beads and added that to the little button heart project.

I had also found some gold tinsel-like thread that I was able to separate into individual strands and I used that to couch the cording and sew the beads on.  I'm almost tempted to either use gold foil or gold paint on that outside rim, but I'm afraid that it would make a mess of the fabric and I can't take it apart at this point.

We've been trying to have fish at least once a week and I noticed this on the package last week which made me shake my head.  I should certainly hope that my salmon fillet contains fish.  

Now, this may be hard to see clearly but let me try to explain.  This is the view of the garage with the light on inside from the kitchen window.  Unfortunately taking the picture through the window catches the reflection of what's nearby.  Why did I take it?  I told HWNSNBP that it looks like a dead alien lying on that shelf from where I'm standing.  Or maybe he's taking a nap.  

A better view would be of the little friends that I still have out for the season.  Gnomes, snowmen, polar bear, white mice, a husky, and my new little penguin (thanks Sabrina!).

I never got around to decorating this tree for Valentine's Day.  But it looks nice just the same.

Today was our son's birthday and we didn't get to see him in person but we did wish him a happy birthday.  We used a bonus gift card from the Cheesecake Factory to get a couple of slices of cheesecake for us to have in celebration.  They had all those special offers before Christmas where if you bought a gift card for a certain amount you would get an additional card in a smaller amount free.  We only had until the end of this month to redeem it, so today was a good day for that.

If you're looking to celebrate something this next week, here's what's coming up:  Monday is President's Day, Cherry Pie Day, and Muffin Day.  Tuesday is Mardi Gras and Paczki Day.  Ash Wednesday is this week and it's also Margarita Day.  Thursday is Chili Day and National Tile Day.  Friday you can celebrate Fish Fry Day and/or Tortilla Chip Day.  And Saturday have some Chocolate Covered Nuts while practicing your Tongue Twisters.