Here's the "sequel" to the blanket...

This is the pillow that I made to go with the quilt for our friend. The squares are from three friends. One had contributed before, but two of the ladies' squares had gotten lost in cyber space.

This is the back of the pillow. It has a removable cover so that it can be washed.

Here are the squares before they were sewn onto the pillow. I should have taken close ups of the sewn squares but I didn't.

Our friend should receive the pillow tomorrow or Wednesday so I'm on pins and needles hoping she likes it!

I spent six weeks in California (left November 10th to go by Amtrak- got there November 14th) helping my son, daughter in law and our grandchildren move to a new apartment. It was a lot of work, but fun too.  I helped by packing boxes,  (I have to admit I didn't carry too many) I helped clean up the old apartment before turning the keys over to the landlord, and then I unpacked boxes and helped by making curtains, pillows for their new barstools they eat on now, etc. I made each granddaughter pillows for their beds too and bulletin boards to match. They each painted signs with their names on too so their rooms would be "coordinated". My dil is going to send me a picture when it's all assembled as Christmas came in the middle of it. Then I went home (Dec 28th) and then my dil had to have major surgery that she is still recovering from (so the curtains aren't up yet).

Here are pictures of the girls with their pillows: The first one is Brianna and then Amber.

It was so much fun to make the stuff for them-- we walked almost every day to the "Michael's Arts and Crafts Store" which was about a 15 minute walk. Then Joel and our sons Chris and Rob came and we went down to be there for our son Tom's commissioning into the Air Force.

I went home Dec 28th. A good time was had by all.

Valentine's Day Pins

I made pins for my granddaughters for Valentine's Day. I knew they really liked the fabric I'd used for their pillows so I used that fabric for their pins. It was comparatively easy to make these pins-- I just made large yo-yos and gathered the top into a point, secured it with a button and sewed a pin on the back I tied a ribbon around the button to further accent it a bit. Sent 'em off and they got there in time for the big Day. The girls loved them, even more than the candy I sent :-). This made my day. Here is a picture of the pins, in case you'd like to try them.

Brianna's pin

 

Amber's pin. 

They were fun to make, and done in like a half hour a piece!  

Working Off The Fall Blahs....

Am I the only one that feels sad in the fall? I love fall in that it's so beautiful-- but a lot of times I feel badly that a) I am soon not going to be able to get into the garden to work, and b) another year will soon be coming to a close.

So now here I am making myself feel better by trying to create jewelry and other things. Last week it rained all week which didn't help- but the rain is over as of today anyway so tomorrow I may go out work in the garden! (I WAS glad to see the rain, because my garden is parched for it, but I'm glad it's over for the time being :-).

So here are the things I've been working on of late:
I just took a class to learn how to paper piece a quilt block... that was fun and I really learned a lot. I also just have completed several pieces of jewelry for a friend.

Here is a picture of one of the three sets--

Here is a close up of the beads which were quite pretty.

There were earrings and a bracelet with the set but I changed them after the picture was taken. I will make some that are similar and post them again. One of the other sets was also black, but instead of the low key milky round beads and the teal freshwater pearls, this had red coral round beads and turquoise chips, and grey pearls to go with it. The third set was of poppy jasper chips, separated by gold seed beads amd accented by peach aventurine and tiger eye beads. I didn't get pictures of those sets, unfortunately.

So I'm getting things done I guess - today I made a card for a friend- I'd made a pin to go on over the weekend -- hope she likes it. I will take a photo of the card with the pin I made and post it after she gets it, in case she might see it and mess up my surprise :-).

Jewelry Gallery Slide Show

Here are some of the jewelry pieces I've made through the years, showing the very first pieces I did (when I had no clue what I was doing!) to the later pieces that I'm pretty happy with. Some along the way were experiments-- and didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped lol. But overall, there was progress....

Previously completed artsy stuff-- first collaged box

It seems I always do things and forget to post them because I am so busy DOING them that I forget to share them. So I decided tonight to post things I have finished some time ago.

The first one that came to mind was a box I made for the grandson of a friend. He was interested in bugs, Egyptology, and tigers. So I found pictures in magazines to decoupage on the box using these motifs.



I found a picture of an archeological dig near a pyramid. Then I added a picture of a tiger that appeared to be looking down to my collection of pictures. I put the tiger on the box so that it looked as if he was peering down into the dig site. A giant moth hovered nearby.

That completed the top of the box. I wanted the sides to be all different. I painted stripes on the sides, that started out looking like the stripes on an Egyptian Pharoah's mantle,



I found a page of stickers of ants at the craft store. The ants crawled up and down the stripes like the rooms in an anthill, and as the box was turned,



the stripes became more and more like the stripes on a tiger's fur.



On the front, I put small cut outs of a bee hive and a few bees flying to it.


For the inside of the box, I found a picture of the bug collection of a famous ornithologist from the 19th century. That was glued in, with a plain black bottom of the interior of the box.


The bottom of the outside of the box was a large picture of a tiger that I found a lovely picture of a giant moth. It resembled a Commodore's hat from the English Navy of old. (My friend and her grandson were British so that was particularly nice for this box.)

My new company-- My Personal Assistant!

It's been a long time since I've written in this blog, but my excuse is: I've been a busy gal!! Here's what's been going on this year alone:

In January, 2007, I started a small business as a "Concierge". I help seniors and disabled people with tasks that help delay having to move to an assisted living facility. I say "If it's not illegal or immoral, and you need help with it, I'm there!"

In February, I became involved with a group called "MOMS-I.N.C." (Moms Improving Nutrition For Children). The goal of this group is to get schools to eliminate sugar and trans fat from school lunches. I am the webmaster of the MOMS-I.N.C. website.

In March, I started a craft group in my home that is a great source of inspiration, skills transfer for all our members, as well as so much fun in terms of getting together with some great people!
In May I was the North Carolina Delegate for The Daughters Of The British Empire, in Long Beach, California. It was soooo much fun!

In August, I joined a "Business Networking International" group close by in Cary, North Carolina. What a great group of people!

In September, a friend took me to a "Cary Leads Group" which is another group whose purpose is to help small businesses with business referrals.

Today, October 18, I signed up to be a Melaleuca representative. I am so excited! The products are awesome, and ecologically and as far as biologically less harmful, so far beyond what is out on store shelves! Can it get any better?? Contact me for more information about this great company, and awesome products.

The Craftin' Life

It's been a long time since I've written in this blog, but my excuse is: I've been a busy gal. Here's what's been going on this year alone:

In January, 2007, I started a small business as a "Concierge". I help seniors and disabled people with tasks that help delay having to move to an assisted living facility. I say "If it's not illegal or immoral, and you need help with it, I'm there!"

In February, I became involved with a group called "MOMS-I.N.C." (Moms Improving Nutrition For Children). The goal of this group is to get schools to eliminate sugar and trans fat from school lunches. I am the webmaster of the MOMS-I.N.C. website.

In March, I started a craft group in my home that is a great source of inspiration, skills transfer for all our members, as well as so much fun in terms of getting together with some great people!
In May I was the North Carolina Delegate for The Daughters Of The British Empire, in Long Beach, California. It was soooo much fun!

In August, I joined a "Business Networking International" group close by in Cary, North Carolina. What a great group of people!

In September, a friend took me to a "Cary Leads Group" which is another group whose purpose is to help small businesses with business referrals.

I have several great clients- in fact, my schedule is quite full. I love what I'm doing!

Making progress...

I know this is not about crafting, per se-- but it's what's been going on in my life. I figure I have to get through the thinking process of this mess if I'm going to be able to do any crafting at all. So here goes: (if you don't have this problem, just come back to read what's happening next time -- I promise it won't be about cleaning house! :-)).

Joel, my husband of 35+ years, has been working in Dallas TX (we live in Raleigh, NC so we have been about 20 hours apart for all but about 6 weeks since July!). This happened in July of 2004, because the money from our savings just "ran out" after Joel had been out of work for almost a year, (give or take a few small contracts that he had -- he teaches Java programming).

It's been rough. He's lonely-- I'm lonely. He's bored, and I'm anything BUT bored-- in fact, lately, I rarely get to do any where near as much crafting or working on my business as I'd like to.

Well! Yesterday (Saturday) Joel came home for a week- just in time for Valentine's Day, mind you :-D! In preparation for his coming home, I got the house cleaned for the first time since he left at the beginning of January. It feels sooo nice to be able to find things again-- I'm not totally sure how it got so out of hand, but I definitely hope to keep it from ever becoming like that again.

Tomorrow, I am going to tidy up the house from the weekend's activities to try to keep it nice and not have to dig out again like I did this last few weeks. (One big problem for me was that I put all the Christmas stuff into my son's old room, and kept telling myself I should go through it and get rid of the stuff that is just taking up space. Finally, I just put it all in the closet, and then somehow, I could think so much easier! Now why didn't I think of that earlier???? Amazing how it just kept nagging at my mind to get it out of the way, and when I finally did, I was free to think of what else needed to be done.

Anyway, after I do the tidying, I am going to work on my jewelry. I will post what I get done. Wish me luck ;-)

Starting out...and learning as I go!

Hi! I'm so glad you stopped by to read my blog :-). I know nothing about writing a blog-- so this is sort of a "learn as you go" experience-- just as my business of selling my jewelry and crafts has been!

First, to tell you a bit about myself:

I am Peggy, a mom of 5 wonderful sons, and a grandmother to 2 equally wonderful grandaughters. I've been married 35+ years to the same great guy. All that being said, now I can talk about the stuff I like to talk about the most: crafts and making things.

I've always loved to make things since I was small. When my kids were little, I made a lot of toys for them, (many of them were not the best quality things around-- but they were cheaper than the stuff in the stores :-)!) Finally, when they were bigger, and suddenly there was more time in the day, I went back to school and got a degree in

Art Education. I ended up deciding I didn't want to get a job in a school district because although I love children, I didn't like huge numbers of them all at once! So I got a job as activity director in a retirement home-- and it was the best of all jobs for me. While I worked there, I started making jewelry for "birthday gifts" for the residents monthly birthday parties. When I finally quit that job for health reasons, I eventually went on and started my own business selling my jewelry online.

So-- I would love to hear from you-- if you just like crafts, if you are a person who is in business for yourself, who have had a business such as this, or would like to. Maybe we can all "learn as we go".