I Won! I Won!

Several weeks ago, Maureen over at Victorian Studio took us on a really cool tour of her new Victorian studio where she creates her beautiful crafts and cards. It's wonderfully organized with great furniture pieces, and she has a knack for thrift shopping.  At the end of her tour, she was having a giveaway.  All you had to do was comment and then you were entered in the contest.  This was on or about July 13th.  Well I plumb forgot about it till I saw a recent post announcing the winner. To my utter delight, it was me!!!!!!

My package arrived covered in Canadian stamps, as it winged its way from Winnipeg, Manitoba (aka "Winterpeg").  At first I thought it was from Italy, because it says, 'Fra-GEEE-lay'.  ;-D

I find it ironic that the 'Fragile' side of the box is the one that got punched in.  The whole box looked like it had been through some hard times.

Luckily it was filled with packing peanuts which kept the contents from breaking!

Maureen is a very gifted artist and made this beautiful card.  I tried to take a picture of the amazing texture but it didn't come out.  

Inside was this great large lace doily and this lovely little china set.

See how tiny?  I used a nickle to show scale.

An amazing silver tray that reminds me of scallop shells.

3 roles of old lace

Salt shakers and some fun bits!

This is amazing.  It's a shell design on black velvet and very 'fra-GEE-lay'.

And some vintage BINGO cards!!!

How very cool and how lucky am I?!?!  Thanks again Maureen!! 

Wheee!!! Another Award!!

I was just presented with another award!! Thank you Kathy over at The Giggling Trucker's Wife, whose blog is very entertaining and interesting, and has been helpful to me now that I am a trucker's "wife" too.  Now I have to share 5 fabulous moments in my life, 5 things I love, 5 things I hate and pass the award onto 5 more bloggers.

5 Fabulous Moments in My Life

1.  Russell finding me on Facebook.  The grin-face added to the wall post shows just how delighted I was that he remembered me.  I know this is hard to see but making it bigger cut it off. 

2.  Meeting Bob Weir & Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead in 1990.

3.  My AWESOME trip to Vancouver Island in 2007 (all trips were great but 07 was da bomb).

4.  Getting Sagan back.

5.  Getting to live on the west coast.

5 Things I Love

1.  The Canal/Coast.

2.  Craft supplies.

3.  Dogs.

4.  Rain.

5.  The Interwebs.

5 Things I Hate


1.  Weird food, esp. Indian & Thai (curry = BARF).
2.  Sun/heat/humidity.
3.  Traffic.
4.  Conflict/fighting.
5.  When my camera sensor needs to be cleaned.

5 Bloggers


1.  Cathy at Life on the Muskoka River.
2.  Ady at Crafty Ady.
3.  Mina at Some Dark Romantic.
4.  Dina at Dina Thanki.
5.  C.L. at The Curvy Lady.

Wow!!! Thank You Gina!!

Gina Gao over at Modern World presented me with an award!!!!  Thank you so much Gina! It's greatly appreciated!  I also wanted to do a shout out and say thanks to PurpleMist over at Insomnia Strikes for being my 100th follower! 

I'm really having a hard time coming up with factoids about myself that don't make me seem like I'm not playing with a full deck, or which haven't already been shared.  

1.  I'm obsessed with rainbows.  When I am asked what my fave colour is, my answer is usually, 'all of them'. 

2. I have to separate my m&ms into different colours then eat the colours down so that I have an even amount of each colour, and sometimes I make patterns with them, especially rainbows.

3.  In my past life I was Canadian.

4.  I was so involved with the American Indian Movement in the early 1990s that my boss once said he'd love to see my FBI dossier.  I'm not even an American Indian.

5.  I wasn't allowed to have any pets when I was growing up.

6. If a movie contains an actor/actress I don't like or is a subject matter of which I could care less, I won't watch it. 

7. When I was little, my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I promptly answered, "An artist."  Without missing a beat, she said, "You'll starve."  

Now to nominate my 15 bloggers to receive this award!  

Artisan Denizen

Big Girl Panties

Blue Velvet Vincent

Life and Vincent

Pull Up a Toadstool

The Valentine Cat

Vinnie Vidi Vici

Seaside Simplicity

Southern Northerner

Words of a Pre-Curmudgeonly Zen Pagan

Life on the Muskoka River

Inspire Nordic

The Curvy Lady

Dina Thanki

All About the Buttons

Have a cupcake and pass on the love!!

Crafties & Cake

My mom gave me a bunch of little jars she'd saved.  I wrapped one in this cool coloured thread/floss I found buried in my 'Needlework' box, and then decorated the lid.

I also tried my hand at homemade coloured sand.  Due to my hesitance to believe this would work well, I only experimented with making red and blue.  I'm not terribly crazy about it.

But it ended up looking cool with plain sand as patriotic sand-art.

My friend Marsha pinned what we are calling a 'toe sling' on Pinterest.  I told her I could easily make one for her and here it is.  The large loop goes around the ankle and the bottom one goes around the second toe.  It looks like a sandal without the sole.  The large blue bead sits at the front of the ankle.

I had all these cool sparkly rhinestone things and nothing to do with them.  So I grabbed a dark blue piece of cardstock, splattered it with white paint, then glued the jewels on, using the biggest ones to make a spiral galaxy. 

A few years ago, I bought 6' of this decorative beaded and sequined ribbon, but I forgot all about it till the other day, so I made a large amulet bag with some of it.  It's about 3" wide. This is the back.

And the front.  I added the beaded edging, bottom loops and strap.

Closeup of the beaded edge.

This was also in the same little box with the blue ribbon.  It's 2.5" wide.  

And my award from Abracadebra Designs arrived too!  I began reading it on the deck one gorgeous day and my brain is already thinking about how I can incorporate knotting into the crafts I do.  

Funfetti cake I made for Mother's Day over at Sharon's house.  It was nummy.