to weave or not to weave....and batteries

i chose to weave. our little weeping cherry tree does not look pretty in the fall. her leaves turn a sickly yellow before falling off, so as i was dressing the front porch with all that is fall i decided to weave in some leafy vines in the many wonderous hues that autumn brings to fancy her up a bit in celebration of my favorite season.

after our family camera of 4 years suffered near fatal injuries when dropped by our daughter in photography class a week or two ago we were forced to acquire a new camera for my use. our old camera would eat its 2 double a batteries in what seemed like just a few minutes, this new camera chows down on the lithium battery that is required. we discovered that with the purchase of 3 of these i could instead buy a rechargeable battery and the charger. we quickly found that we would probably discover proof of big foots existance quicker that finding the elusive kodak charger. . . . . but our mission was a success and the camera is up and running again and i am heading over to my etsy shop in just a few minutes to start adding on some studio destash which i had planned to add on during the weekend.

in need of some artsy paraphernalia? stop by my etsy shop over the next week and check to see what is being added! once i get this big old mess photographed and listed on etsy then i can move it out of the way and begin on assembling jewels.

chamomile tea and exclamation marks

chamomile tea.....i have always wanted to try it and i finally did.

smells like tree bark and cheap perfume.

tastes like tree bark and cheap perfume.


exclamation marks, i use too many of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i read someone's etsy page today and she had like 50 of them contained within just 3 short paragraphs. by the time i got done reading her page all i could picture was some overly enthusiastic -way to happy- ditzy -cheerleader on speed with her pom poms all up in your face. although she may have been very good at what she does, reliable, and a great serious minded professional business person, i did not get that impression. so, off i ran to my etsy site and began de-exclamation marking it!!!!!!!

i am adjusting to a new schedule. in order to get the landscaping finished, the bedrooms painted housework done and get my etsy site going and make art and destash the studio, and i am still hunting and gathering items for the garage sale, i have been working until 4:30 in the morning in my studio, getting hubby and the kids off to school, crawling into bed between 5:30 and 7, getting back up and getting the youngest off, crawling back in bed and getting back up around noon and doing it all over again. i am a night person and function so much better, and this way my hubby gets the bed to himself and gets a better night sleep and the strength and energy to work the extra hours. i am getting heaps and gobs done, but found i need to back off on the green tea with caffeine a bit. lack of sleep and too much caffeine caused a heart rythm problem that appeared many years ago out of the blue to rear its ugly head earlier this week in a scary way, but once i adjusted my caffeine down to just 2 cups a day and the other 3 or 4 cups of green tea of the non caffeine variety and gave myself a couple hours extra sleep for a couple of days, it has been much better.

the studio de-stashing is taking quite a bit longer than i thought. mainly because half this stuff is not mine. it is a long story. but i have learned a lesson from it all. friends should stay just that, friends, they should not also be business partners. i also need to learn to say no.

i will try to post again very soon.

oh! make sure you come check out my etsy shop, the link is to the right of the page. the next few days lots of studio destash will be added and next week i will be adding jewelry and some art pieces if all goes as planned.

who do we go to, to ask for more hours in a day?

don't ask me why but by the time i was done watching this video i was in tears.

wow.  the magnitude of lives he changed and affected!

gorilla glue and batteries

i can not believe it has been over a month since i have posted, the yardwork is almost done, still doing prep work to paint bedrooms, still gathering garage sale stuff, ( i got rid of about 10 18 wheelers full of crap a couple of years ago, ok, maybe i exaggerated a little bit, but where does all of this stuff keep coming from?! ) and i have been arting my heart out and have lots and lots of jewels to add to my etsy shop, and i am also destashing my studio, i can not believe all of the stuff i have accumulated over the years and have not even used half of it!
ok, so i was planning to add my jewels, a couple of art kits, and just the beginning of the mountain of excess artsy supplies to my etsy shop tonight, and i should have known tonight was not the night when i went to start taking photos of my new jewels i have created and child number 2 had a social crisis that stopped me dead in my tracks, in trying to offer support i found out that teenage boys are just as emotional at times as teenage girls and somehow at the end of it he was angry at me from what a friend did, i am still confused over that one, but child number 2 has now returned home from his social event and loves me and the world again, for the moment at least...as i tried again to gather everything up, i again grabbed the camera, and went to start taking photos of all that i wanted to add to my shop tonight my youngest yelled down from the kitchen something about his hands being sticky and he can't get _______(?) off! the kids know better than to try to talk to me from upstairs since i don't wear my ears around the house and can not understand or hear half of what they are saying, but something told me he was not able to make it downstairs and then camera died....i think it is just needing new batteries....i hope. so off i ran upstairs to get some fresh batteries and to see what word i needed to fill in the blank above that would not come off. oh, so here we go for round two.......ding ding ding......first, a bit of back story......my youngest loved to take the bottle of elmers in his room and coat his legs and arms and the palms of his hands in the stuff and wait for it to dry and then peel it off....remember doing that as a kid? it was oddly entertaining, so anyway i no longer keep elmers bottle glue in the house, just stick glue. well, my youngest used the gorilla glue to glue 2 boards together, as soon as he said that i knew that these boards were going to be used as a jumping ramp of some sort and i told him not to even dare try using it today because there was not way the glue would dry that quickly....., and of course he then gave me the 'how did you know' look. so my son holds up his hands and they are coated, repeat coated from finger tips to the point where the palms meet the wrist......i just looked at him and said 'i guess you have figured out that gorilla glue does not peel off like elmers huh?' so i told him to grab his sisters nail polish remover, at least i was hoping there was some left because she had painted and removed and painted and removed nail polish from her nails about 653 thousands times today and the house smelled like the nail salon at the mall, blech. well, we have discovered that nail polish makes gorilla glue more sticky. so we tried a bit more soap and water and that was not working, so as a last ditch effort to remove the gorrilla glue from his hands we drenched a papertowel in bleach and had him hold it between his hands and tada! it worked!
ok, so now i again try to take photos of my jewels and kits and such and the new batteries did not work, so i grab 2 more, they did not work, then i grabbed the last two and they did not work.....my gorrilla glue kid has 9 gazillion toys that take double a batteries and sometimes instead of throwing the old batteries away he apparently puts them back in the battery drawer!

today during photo journalism class steph accidentally dropped the camera and it still worked as of a couple of hours ago when my youngest showed me video he had taken earlier this week on the camera of the stupid bike and skateboard stunts he and his neighbood buddy were performing, however to get some of the buttons to work you just have to squish the left side together......so off to the store tomorrow to buy new batteries, and maybe just maybe life will be still long enough for me to get those photos taken and put on my etsy store!

so now ends another typical day in our household.

tomorrow.....we go shopping for a dress for steph for her decca class......oh, please pray for us......she is the pickiest person in the world.....this is how our day will go tomorrow.....store number 1 she will try on 10 things and hate at least one thing about them all, store number 2 the same.....and then the tears will come....from her.....store number 3 gets even worse....then the tears come....from us.....then we go back to store number 1 and buy the first dress she tries on and just loves!!!

just wanted to say i am still here.........
i have been busy with art, yard work, painting prep, and school work! yes school work. so far this year i have had more homework than my children! not just the filling out and signing of forms, but actual homework.

so, due tomorrow i have to write about a funny or cute story involving my daughter between the ages of birth - 3, include a picture of her at that age....sheesh i need to organize my photos.....and decorate....the page......my daughter is a high school senior! the assignment reads like stuff she brought home in kindergarten!

i ended up picking the story that was the easiest to decorate around! all in all this assignment is not bad, we talked about alot of memories and it made me realize just how fast time has gone and that no matter how old she is i will always think of her as my baby.

my daughter has also brought home the crud....last week, the first week of school. we thought it was just allergies, but they are not contagious, and now i have it.

with all of this, plus a few other bits of life going on i will try to get back soon.

made these necklaces and bracelet, working of 4 others, and made vintage button icicles yesterday
in between rounds of yard work, and spackling holes in walls.....
so, yes, that means i did not get walls painted before school started as planned, but life threw us a curve ball or two.

jewels and icicles to go on etsy friday night....probably.....
when you add an item to etsy you get about 30 seconds of 'free' advertising. i am thinking friday evenings and maybe sunday early evening might be a high volume time for etsy cruising? i am learning as i go with this.

had to restring this beauty, a necklace for sale on my etsy shop. it needed a bit o' tweeking.

made this one for my daughter to go with one of her outfits.