Frosty Dandelion: Black and White Wednesday


A few weeks ago after one of the first light frosts, I stopped and took pictures of the frosty dandelions by our lane.


I love dandelions that have gone to seed and covered in frost, they are even prettier.


As I was taking pictures, this guy crawled out.


I know so little of the small life that exists around us.


 I guess he decided to show off.


I like the sun flare bokeh on this one.


Looks like the snow we will be looking at in the months ahead.

Happy Wednesday!

I'm linking up again this Wednesday with Adrienne.


My Memory Art

Weaving Makes a Comeback


I associate weaving with yarn with the 1970s.  Have you noticed it making a comeback now?  I'm loving it where I've seen it!

This is one of my daughter's weaving projects at the state fair.  She was very pleased to see that purple ribbon hanging there!

While she was weaving she wanted me to weave along.  It doesn't take much to convince me leave work behind and make something.  Mostly, she wanted company down in the sewing room I think.


Well, mine ended up a kind of multimedia weaving and there will be more weavings in my future!  I was hooked. I don't have any instuctions for you as we read many tutorials around the web, looked at some vintage craft books, then just did our own thing using what we had learned.  We used a foam core board for our looms where most use cardboard.   The foam core held up really well.


Rusty washer goodness.

You can see my piece is hanging from a broken spindle and my daughters used branches.


The girls used all yarn and I used a combination of yarn and torn strips of fabric.  The strips came from rag balls made many years ago from an unknown to me woman who was weaving rugs.  I have quite a few vintage rag balls. And, sometimes take pieces from them for projects. That key was blue for some reason; I suppose someone color coded it many years ago as it's old.


A religious medal.


When I added this old blue clip, my oldest daughter happened to be around. We walked around my sewing room looking for something to clip to it.  I had this typed out and hanging on my inspiration board.  She grabbed it and it was perfect.  Just because.

And, yes, above I did say daughters.  My nine year old thought this looked like fun too and made her own for the fair.


She made hers in one day and spent hours on it.  She was so focused (well she was watched tv while weaving too....)

She chose the yarns she wanted from my stash and then just began weaving away.  She need some help with tying off the ends and weaving them in, but other than that once she got going she was on her own.

Links you may enjoy:
View Pam Garrison's weaving here.
My pin board here.
Mollie Makes talks weaving here.

I'm linking up this week again with Thoughts from Alice.  My daughter's scarf was featured there last week!

When Life Gives You Ugly Pumpkins....


This is a sampling of my fall produce from the garden....over the years I've had some funky looking gourds, but this year was the worst.  I think I had one normal Jack-Be-Little pumpkin and the rest seemed to have cross pollinated with the many volunteer gourd plants that I let grow.  The ones you think are a bit normal all have green gourd bottoms on them.  And, the color is more yellow than orange.  


That being said...when life gives you ugly pumpkins, glitter them!


It started out as a project with the kids and we started painting the pumpkins all white. 


It would have been fine if we would have done just a few, but they each had a pile of at least eight and I did a bigger pile. 


The pumpkins needed two coats to cover completely which meant drying time.  So in the mean time we built a scare crow type of guy for our front porch. (which turned out kind of goofy looking)


By the time it came to glittering it was getting late. I started without them and realized how long and messy the process would be with them doing theirs.  So...


I bribed them with a movie if they would let me glitter their pumpkins if they chose their colors.  They went for it, thankfully!  Or we would have been glittering until late hours!
These are my 9 year old choices of colors.


My 8 year old's choices.

So, yes a good kids project, but with your help painting and glittering!  

FYI: I painted the white glue on with a paint brush to adhere the glitter.  Our house will be sparkling for weeks.  Glitter is everywhere!

We also used some of the better looking little pumpkins for baby shower decorations last week.  I will post a picture of them next week. 

Vintage Scarf Updated- Easy DIY




My oldest daughter was wearing such a pretty scarf on Sunday...so stylish, but, still vintage....


She had picked it up at her favorite thrift store and then stitched the two ends together to create an infinity scarf!  She hand stitched it, but you could also use a machine.


Goodness, what an easy transformation!  If worn as it was, it would have looked like a thrifted scarf, albeit pretty. But, as an infinity scarf, it's modernized and stylish.  I love it!

Linking up with:
 Alice W. for Sundays at Home

Around the House--In Cartoon Mode!



I discovered this week that my phone camera has a "cartoon" mode.  Now while it may not use much in the way of editing "skills"...I had great fun with it!  And, looking at one's life from a slightly animated take...gives a different perspective.  So a quick trip through part of our house this morning.  As is.


I've been a champion dish-stacker since my childhood.


The remains of breakfast.


Homework, laundry, and legos.  On the dining room table. 


More homework, books, dance bag, dolls, pillow, and blankets askew.
(Dolls laying around makes my heart smile)

)

This is a portion of my vintage religious artwork collection.  Someday when the bathroom is clean, I'll share it.  Someday. :)


It's so much easier to see yourself in a picture in cartoon mode!


If I could paint a watercolor picture, I would paint this.  Through our bathroom window.  The burning bush outside is stunning.


Through our back door.  Leaves are a gathering.


And, stopping at the computer to download the pictures from my phone.

Here's to rose colored glasses or cartoon mode today...because most things exist in how you choose to see them.


Kim Klassen dot com

Sunday in the Park


There has been lots of celebrating and just life stuff going on here...a baby shower, marching band competition, visiting, coffee drinking, birthday cake eating, bike riding, cheering...
everything but duck feeding.


We went to the park on Sunday to feed the ducks.  There were only 4 geese to be seen, no ducks, and the geese took off when we tried to approach them.  I've taken my kids to the park for years to feed the ducks and this is the first time we went home with our stale bread. 


So we played a bit instead.


My husband and daughter share a birthday and we celebrated on Sunday.  My college son was home, but opted for a nap on the couch instead of duck feeding at the park.  What?!
I'd already had my nap. :)


 My son in law was working on their house renovation. Or maybe he was napping too? Ha!
It could have been a Christmas card picture taking event. But, candid shots = less stress = more play.



I'm a day late, but that's not a surprise.  Linking with Adrienne here:


My Memory Art

Black and White Wednesday


Remember this post from Black and White Wednesday?  Well, my son has had one film developed, but no prints made yet.  The light meter on the camera appears to be faulty and when he took it in to the camera shop he was told it couldn't be fixed or at least not for a reasonable fee.  He was advised to buy a light meter to use separately from the camera.  He's knee deep in college right now so all the picture taking is pretty much on the back burner.

I really liked this photo of him checking out his negatives.  Do you remember doing this?  Trying to figure out which one you wanted reprinted?!  I hope to some day do some type of art project with old negatives or slides, just not sure what yet.  I've seen lamp shades made from them that are kind of neat.  Maybe I need to get an x-ray light box to display some on!  There must be some available somewhere as all x rays are now digital. Hmmm....

Linking with Adrienne:

My Memory Art

Texture Tuesday


Have you seen these head planters in garden shops or perhaps you have one?  I was smitten with them. Maybe someday.  We went to a new to us garden shop this spring and I first saw them there.

Ideas growing and flowing out of our minds is what I thought of.  Reminds me of this post. All that beautiful potential we all have. 

You really can take this further and maybe down a different path. What are the fruits of our thoughts?  Is what we busy our minds with life giving?  Does it produce beautiful growth?  Reminds me of this post. 
These little reminders are good for me.

The above image was textured with Kim Klassen's Plaster texture.

Kim Klassen dot com

Saturday Digest



►Taken with my phone yesterday as I told my garden goodbye....the phone camera caught the sun rays beautifully!

►Sewing for little ones?  These softies are adorable.  I can't decide which I like best between her sets of the farm, meadow, or zoo.  The fabric choices will make all the difference if you make them. Maybe a little grand daughter will be getting some for Christmas...

►You'd spend some pennies saved from thrifting here....but I do like this reproduction laundry basket.

►And from the abundance of apples we picked last week...this pie in on the menu for this week.


►One more picture from my phone...while picking apples.  I liked the red ladder and the teal shed.  You can see a lot of apples hit the ground before we got there.  There are still bags of apples in our foyer.  I best get going. :)

Have a wonderful fall weekend!!


A Parliament of Fun Pretzel Owls


Fun fact: Did you know that a group of owls is called a parliament?  Me either!  Until I searched. 


How about making a parliament of scary owls for your October gatherings?
You will need:
  • Pretzels
  • Reeces pieces
  • Chocolate almond bark
  • Orange and brown candy corn
Easy instructions:  Melt chocolate almond bark in microwave or double boiler, stirring often.  Assemble with the pretzels on parchment or waxed paper as the photo shows.

So would you call this a recipe? or a project?  A Procipe?  A project made from food!

Take note that how you place the eyes will make them look even more ominous.  See the bottom left owl?  If you put chocolate, eyes, and nose lower, they look scarier!  I didn't like that so placed the eyes higher on the rest.


I made a few with the traditional colored candy corn and yellow eyes too. A very stern parliament.

I actually made these last year while watching a Husker football game at home.  I took a few pictures, ate them with the kids and never got around to posting about them.

Happy October to you all!!

Linking today with:
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