Two Hearts Beat As One

Today, I married my best friend and the love of my life.

June-July project.  The rings were made by a silversmith in Michigan.

So happy to be taking his name!

And I get to be both for him!!!

An epic love story, 35 years in the making.

Wedding pics to follow.....

Organized Chaos

So this happened one day when I was trying to clean up or at least reorganize my craft table.  I found a baggie of crystals I ordered to make a project I'm dying to do, but haven't because I have nowhere to put it when it's done. I dug out some driftwood to see how they'd look as a driftwood hanging instead.  I didn't end up assembling it with the driftwood.  

So pretty!

Then I unearthed a few small things I'd been meaning to do so I glued these glass tiles onto a votive candle holder.  I keep forgetting how time consuming these projects are due to drying time and making sure the tiles don't slide out of place or fall off.

I had a bunch of small red skull cabs so I put them on 4 sides of the glass and filled in with red and purple glass blobs.  

These lightbulbs also surfaced on the table so I broke out the glass paint.  The Pinterest project originally showed nail polish on the bulbs but I didn't like the way it looked. I had to pilfer the tops of Christmas ornaments to glue on top of the lightbulb, then added the beaded hanger.  

I made this a few days before the attempt to clean the table off.  10 points to Ravenclaw!  Just a hangie thing I stuck on the wall in the bedroom.  I found the fillable bottles at the craft store and got the copper coloured ones.  Filled it with blue beads and then added the copper wings (for the Ravenclaw eagle) and then the hanger in the House colours as well.  Yes I'm obsessed with Harry Potter.  OBSESSED.  I don't even want to admit how much time I spent on the Pottermore website this month and watching the movies on ABC Family, as well as rereading the last 2 books.

My honey and I were at this great old store called Benny's, which is a real throw back to another era. It's been around forever.  He bought me this black velvet colouring poster which I can't wait to do.

The table may look as bad as it did before it was reorganized, but I truly can tell the difference.  At least now it's organized chaos.  And now I'm ready to start my new poster!

Mini Potions Bottles

The mini bottles surfaced recently.  I printed off some free Harry Potter potions labels and made Amortentia, the love potion.  I dyed shampoo red, because it was thick and I was hoping that the glitter and glitter hearts would remain suspended in it but they eventually settled to the bottom.  I'm going to use hair gel the next time.  

Glued the label to it with mod podge, embellished a key with red rhinestones and attached it and a red heart bead to it with chain.  The cork is glued in so it can't spill.  

.This one is about 1-3/4" tall and filled with iridescent glitter "moon dust". Again I glued the cork in so that it won't spill, and added a large pearl rhinestone to the top, and a tiny silver one to the label.  I realized with some horror and despair that I'm out of crescent moon charms, so I found an old pierced earring in my stash and fashioned the post into a loop to hang from the gold chain.  

I actually like the way this crescent earring looks.  It has a pretty pattern on it.

Here are Felix Felicis and Polyjuice Potion.  Again topped with rhinestones, and I added a chain & key to the luck potion.  I did attempt to use a cat face charm on the Polyjuice, but as I suspected, it was too heavy and pulled the bottle over. NERD ALERT:  Potterheads will recall that Hermione accidentally turned herself into a cat the first time she took Polyjuice because she inadvertently used a cat hair.

Felix is a heavy gel, coloured yellow with food colouring with gold glitter stirred in.  They stay suspended nicely.  The Polyjuice is just black glitter paint that I squeezed into the bottle.

Making these things is just slightly addicting and I'm just about out of bottles.  The ones I have left are really too small for the labels I have on hand.  I might have to start improvising.....

Gutted!

I was absolutely crushed that a spring craft fair at the Legion was canceled due to a scheduling conflict.  Lots of people rent that place on weekends for various and sundry reasons like wedding receptions.  It was supposed to be on March 23rd.  I am still really shy about selling myself to people and am grateful that Marsha was gonna do it with me again.  What I look forward to the most is seeing so many friends.  I felt a little bit cut adrift after that because I'd been making stuff like these votive cups.  Piecing together small glass chips on a round surface is way, way easier than working with large chunks on a square one. 

Seed and microbeads.

Since all the candle votive stuff was still out on the table, I decided to keep decorating them even though the show was canceled.  The ribbon weave was a MAJOR pain in the butt and this is yet another 'never again'.  The results look cool but it was very time consuming and difficult to keep the ribbon taught enough to cover the metal posts, as well as straight.  That one has a separate glass votive cup that fits inside, therefore there is no fire danger.  

Blinged up my eyeglass case the other day, too.  Can't believe I didn't think to do that before.  "The obvious was hidden".  

I also saw a project idea to make a Golden Snitch (from Harry Potter of course).  I found a smallish ball that I had, which was already pre-glittered.  I kind of wish that the ball was more gold than copper but it still looks cool.  The wings are made from bent wire with tissue paper glued over it, then glittered.  I used E6000 to glue them to the ball.

I hope that the show is rescheduled for a date in April or May.  Till then...

Pottermore

Some friends of mine in Portland, OR turned me onto Pottermore.com, a Harry Potter fan site created by J.K. Rowling.  When you create your account, you are asked to pick a screen name from four they provide to you.  The only one I liked of the four options I had was WitchWolf15375.  From that point you are taken through the first book, chapter by chapter (just synopses), in which you look for items to put in your trunk, like books, galleons, chocolate frog cards, Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans, feathers, etc.  

When you get to the Diagon Alley chapter of  Sorcerer's Stone, 550 Galleons are deposited into your account at Gringotts and you get to buy your school supplies.  The wand I received from Ollivander's is 9-3/4" long, made of pine with unicorn hair as the core.  

Once you get to Hogwarts, you are asked a series of questions so that the Sorting Hat can place you into the right House.  I always kind of fancied myself a Gryffindor until the character Luna Lovegood was introduced.  I felt a kinship with her from the start because she's definitely not afraid to be herself and took a lot of teasing for it.  So when I got sorted into Ravenclaw, it just seemed right and really wasn't that surprising, especially after I read THIS information about Rowena Ravenclaw and the students chosen for her house. 

So far the site only has the interactive chapters up as far as Chapter 7 in Prisoner of Azkaban. There are games that have to be played in order to advance to the next chapter in addition to hunting for stuff. In my typical 'instant gratification' fashion, in one afternoon I blew through the first 2 books & 7 chapters of the 3rd one looking for stuff for my trunk.  Now I'm sitting here somewhat impatiently waiting for more chapters to be added.  In the meantime I can practice making potions and spells.

This site is A LOT of fun if you are a fan of Harry Potter.  Let me know if you join and send me your screen name so that I can friend you!!  

My 4 Day Weekend Can't Come Fast Enough

I can't believe it's only Tuesday. I feel like I've done a week's worth of work in 2 days. I love my boss, I do, but I cannot wait for him to leave. He cannot wait to leave.

Sagan will be boarding at Sumner Vet for his annual "July 4th Summer Camp" trip, because of the fireworks, although so far it hasn't been too bad. They went on sale on the Indian reservations last week, but I don't think people have the disposable income to buy more than they want to use on July 4th. But by the end of the week, the firecrackers, whistling Saturn missiles and the occasional (and illegal) half stick of dynamite or an M-80 will be driving my doggies insane. We send Sagan down to board usually for at least 3 days/nights. We also pay for the "Super Deluxe Pampered Pooch" treatment, so he's well taken care of. Pepper prefers to be with us.

As much as I would like to spend my weekend sleeping till 9 and then vegetating, half conscious on my reclining loveseat watching crappy TV, I have set some goals of things I'd like to get done.

First and foremost, as you can see, we kind of let the backyard go. It's been pouring rain for weeks and we can't get out there to cut it. The sun comes out and it grows like crazy, but we have to let it dry b/f we can attempt to use the lawnmower. Then it grows some more.

The grass must be at least 2' tall now, and will have to be weed wacked first, before it can be mowed. I can't take it anymore, it's just wretched. The front yard needs to be mowed too, the weeds are winning again and we have moss growing all over the place. It's taking over the concrete on the other side of the garage.

Other things I would like to accomplish:

• Clean the house really well. Brian's been doing a good job keeping up with the vacuuming and bathroom, but it needs my touch every now and again. Between the dust, pet dander and dog hair, everything is pretty much coated with this icky film.
• Put all the DVDs, books and CDs away.
• Do my 2 new Craft Kit of the Month Club kits. Plus make more jewelry.
• Sweep the garage floor. It's still very clean and organized from my cleaning spree last fall but the floor is, again, covered in pine needles and leaves.
• Wash my car, unless it rains.
• Wash out Sagan's crate and wash all the pet bedding.
• Purge some closets and take a bunch of stuff to the Goodwill in town.
• Suck it up and contact Norton as to what the hell is wrong with my Norton. I loathe making tech calls.
• Do my 600th blog post (this is 599).

It sounds a bit ambitious seeing it all written out like that! I do want to take some time to relax and do some colouring. I've been making myself shut down the computer and/or TV by 9, or earlier, and read for a bit. Just finished the last 2 Harry Potters and enjoyed them way better this time around, now that we all know how it ends. Reading them before bed made me have a few Potter-themed dreams which were pretty cool. Snape was such a repugnant character in print, but I cannot deny a strong attraction to Alan Rickman as Snape in the movies. And also to Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy. Kills me that they are in Slytherin. But I digress...

Finally, a very Happy Canada Day to our neighbours to the north!!