Challanges

My goal is to start doing challenges.  I found one today at Off The Wall Craftiness  that I loved.  The challenge is to use this inspiration:

I chose to make a card for my Godmother, who just found out her breast cancer has returned.

The card was hard to photograph, I had to hold it up under the light.  :)

The sheep has white flocking, so it is soft and nubbly.  The pearls are white and I added the pink stones for breast cancer awareness.  The framing circle is metallic silver and the base is black.

I used the sketch from Annabelle Stamps blog's challenge also!  It is really two challenges in one.

Thanks for looking!

Anne

Best Song EVER!

Yesterday I was hanging out with some of my niblings- Olli, who is 4, his sister Tuna who is 19 months, and Ethan, who is six.  I was singing silly songs to Tuna, putting in their names- like  "Tuna, the red nosed reindeer" and "Jingle Bells, Ethan smells, Tuna pooped her pants..."  When I ran out of song ideas, I asked the boys for some.  Ethan suggested the ABC song, so we sang that loudly, then I asked O for a suggestion.  He, as usual, claimed he didn't know any songs.  I pressed harder, asking if he knew any from daycare.  He thought for a minute, said "Oh, I know one we sing!" and started to sing:

Ess-Tih-May-Shun,

ess-tih-may-shun,

Take a guess!

Take a guess!

At this point he looked up, and noticing the blank look on my face, explained "then we do this" and made some hand gestures and clapped,  "then she picks one of us and we guess!"

I managed to thank him for sharing the song, before running to the kitchen and collapsing in a laughing fit.

I have to admit it stayed in my head all day tho....

BEST SONG EVER!

Anne

winner!

First, I have some new art to put up in the beadroom.  This painting was from Ethan, and it is titled "Flowers".

This one is from Greg, and is titled "Kitty".  The frames are large, the paintings were 9x13 so I just got bigger frames and centered them.  I figure I can change out the art when I get more!

This is the get well card I made for Jodi, using my fave Cat's Pajamas Get Well set.  I got a new "punch around the page" punch for Christmas!

Today I also got a great package from Imaginisce.  I won a Garden Party package in a blog contest.

Here is the paper- 12x12 and 8x8!

These are loads of chipboard and stickers.

Stamps!

Flowers, ribbon and bling!

Can you believe what a large selection of goodies?  Thanks Imaginisce!

Anne

catching up!

As you can pry tell from the lack of posts, I have been pretty sick.  And  mostly sitting on my bed.  :)  My Christmas goal is to post once a week at least, and to start doing challenges.  The main reason I want to do these things is cuz I need to get off the bed!

I am having trouble sitting in the beadroom since my procedure on the 23rd, so I will be putting off the challenges until I can do so comfortably.  I did make a card today tho, for a friend, and will post it later in the week... so she has a chance to get it first, tho I doubt anyone is left reading my blog.  :)

I got a few new things recently that I am eager to try! Hopefully I will be sitting in the beadroom again soon.

Meanwhile, here is a card I sent for Christmas. I forgot the santa hat on this one tho...lol.

Inside it says "Feliz Navi-dog!" I sent it to my nephew who called to wish me Merry Christmas in Spanish.

For the rest of my cards, I will see if I can find any samples to take pictures of this week.

Have a great week,
Anne

hats and thank yous

Loy texted me last week and told me that Tuna had no winter hats that still fit her, so I have been knitting away.

The first hat I made was a size 2-3 and a bit too big. ( I wondered why I kept feeling like using pink, then Loy reminded me of her pink fake fur winter coat....) I love the tulle on top!

For the second hat I mixed a jacquard type yarn and some eyelash yarn. The pattern of the pink/white yarn is all from the one yarn!
Here is the second tulle hat- size 1-2 this time!

Saturday was my big birthday bash. I made 13 thank you cards, and it was not enough! (Yeah, that is a good thing, right?)

Here is the first design- colored with Martha Stewart glitter markers.

This is the second type of card I made, just like from card class except not a gate fold card.

For the sentiment and evnie, I used my fave thank you stamps-

Have a great week!

Anne

Fat people on Tv

There are a couple things really bugging me lately, involving fat people on reality tv. (Disclaimer: Yes, I am fat.)

One of my fave shows is Say Yes to the Dress! This show is set in one of two high end bridal stores, either in New York or Atlanta. They carry THOUSANDS of dresses, yet for the vast majority they only have a "sample" size to try on- which is a 0 or a 2, I am not sure which. How many people can try on these dresses? Rarely do you see an overweight bride, yet in America, sixty percent of people are overweight. (note- on Bridezillas, another fave show, I would guess 99% of the brides are overweight- from chubby to quite heavy. Yet on Say Yes to the Dress, 99% of the brides are thin. Wonder where the Bridezilla ladies get their dresses??)

If you do see an overweight bride, she has a compelling "story"- an excuse to show her. There are three possible outcomes to her dress hunt at these stores, where a bride can easily spend over ten thousand dollars for a dress-

1. She picks one of the few (and cheap) dresses that have a dress to try on in "plus size".
2. She walks out without a dress because all the dress pictures she brings in are only available to try in the "sample" size, and she can't fit in them.
3. She buys a dress WITHOUT ever trying it on, just by looking at the sample size dress. This does freak me out a bit- would you put down thousands of non-refundable dollars for a dress you have never even tried on???

Pry the next time I see a slightly chubby lady walk out without a dress it will put me over the edge and I will quit watching.

It seems to me that any business would kill to double the clientele. If these stores carried sample dresses to try on in normal sizes, say maybe an 8 and a 16 or so, just think- they would over double the clientele! Hellooooo.....

This has been bugging me for a while, so why did I decide to write this today? Well, I watched another fave show last night, Project Runway. (The Thursday night showing is opposite Real Housewives, so I watch it on Saturday night!)

The challenge was to make over a bridesmaid dress for a "regular" woman. The ladies came out, and all were thin/normal weight except for one kinda chubby girl. The first designer to pick a model ADMITTED he chose based on the lady's figure, not the bridesmaid dress. Naturally, the chubby girl was chosen last. I was okay so far, but disappointed in the attitudes of the designers.

As they worked on their projects, OVER AND OVER they commented on how the guy with the chubby girl had such a "hard" challenge. Ohh, he had a tough job. Oh, good luck with that girl. On and on. The girl was beautiful!!! Why is it harder to make her a dress than the usual stick thin/no boobs models they have every week? Are you a designer for WOMEN or for little girls???? Hello!!!! All the whining and saying sorry for his challenging job was very very irritating. I bet when the girl watched the episode she died- he was so nice to her in person, and moaned away about her size behind her back. Jerks. Now I don't want ANY of them to win.

Off to eat some cake now,
Anne

Tuna's Hoodie

I have to admit that the smallest people I know benefit most from my impulses to make things, mostly due to the cost of the yarn. Recently I was dying to make a hoodie, and of course, Tuna came to mind right away. At the time I was readying a bunch of old magazines for a garage sale, so I flipped thru them and found this pattern.

I have to complain that it was a CRAPPY edit job of the pattern tho!! There was one spot that had two right side rows in a row. How is that possible? And the buttonholes were specifically noted to be on wrong side rows, and the first was, but the second two were both on right side rows! Plus there was a few times when the stitch count made NO sense. The big dividing row, for instance- if you added up the divided sections stitch count, it was over 25 stitches LESS than the total from the row before! HUH???

Anyways, I did somehow lose a buttonhole, so it ended up with only two. :)

She seems pleased, anyways! I love the color, I picked it out just for her, and worried by the note by the yarn at Wally St. Cloud, I bought 3 skeins. I only used one plus a tiny bit of the second, so perhaps Greggie would look good in this color?? :)

I have been noticing some of the symptoms I had before when the Lupus was in my brain, so if my posts start not making any sense, please let me know. I know my emails were really... crazy right before I had chemo last time. Misspellings, wrong words, etc.

Have a good week!

Anne