October: So Far, So Good....

Spending almost all my time at home lately (which is actually fine by me) has afforded me the opportunity to get back to beading.  My craft table was overloaded with projects ready to work on when life went sideways at the end of August.  It's been so great to get back to it!  

Picked up a couple of glass floats up in PTown this summer and added the beaded strand to it.  I need more of those mirrored tiles to work on the second float.

Drilling the hole through this agate slice was time consuming and required 3 drill battery recharges. Then added the beads for a window hanging.

I'd started this in August and just wasn't feeling it at the time.  I was glad to get this one finished at last.  That red bead on the left strand glows in the dark.

Labradorite & glass beads on the left, watermelon tourmaline on the right.

Matching necklaces

I just love those funky bead strands that are in craft stores and Walmart's craft section!  I restring them in the exact order as they are in the store.  

Another necklace.

I found this rainbow string of beads at Walmart.  Put them on memory wire with a prism on the bottom for a swirly effect.

My friend Ruth has commissioned 3 driftwood hangings from me, one which was requested to be blue & brown.

Annette commissioned this from me, in memory of her sister Debby who passed away this spring

I love love love mini bottles.  I got 4 up in PTown at the same place as the floats so I had fun embellishing them. 

I made this for my stepdaughter.

And this one too

Ta-Da!  My Bear cross stitch is finally done too!

Cool clouds one night

And THEN my friends Deb & Jim sent this Seahawks goodie package to me!  Russell wanted to tear into the M&Ms but there is no way I'm opening it!  The bracelets are wicked pretty and I can't wait to use the cookie cutter.

This one is the coup de grace!  The Space Needle in chipboard to assemble and paint!!!!!  I can't wait to start working on it!!!!  If I do the Hawks colours, I will have to tone down the lime green.  I can't stand it.

I have never been a 'one day at a time' kind of person but this whole past month has forced me into that mindset.  Just taking one day at a time to catch up on my crafting!

Most Miserable Summer Ever

In the 7 summers I've lived here, only 2014 was excellent in terms of beautiful, dry days.  This one was the absolute worst.  The humidity has been off the charts almost every single day.  Add in being sick for over a month and having a great deal of real life stress, this year has sucked out loud.

We did something kinda cool earlier this month.  We went to a storage auction in Wareham cause Russell's addicted to that show 'Storage Wars'.  Fortunately these lockers go for far less than anything on the show.  We bid on, and won, a rather large unit and paid $58 with tax.  So that's not bad at all. Unloading it, however, was another story.  Multiple back breaking trips cause we had to have it empty within 36 hours.  We literally dumped everything in the back yard and covered it with a tarp. Most of the stuff has gone to the thrift shop but we've found a lot of cool things and more than made our money back on it.  The nice patio set alone is worth way more than what we paid. 

Anywho.  I took this pic of an unusual fly which was on the outside of the door, but it looks like it's clinging to the peace sign which is on the inside of the door.

The eclipse was just 'meh' around here.  We had 60% so it got dim, but it wasn't near as impressive here as it was in the states that got totality.  Some of my friends shot amazing photos.  

This hawk flew over as I was waiting for it to get darker.

This chair pattern shows the beginning.

And I had one suncatcher that was positioned perfectly to get a bite taken out.

 This was when it was at it's most coverage in my area, taken through my colander.

This pic got a lot of chuckles on FB.

So sort of dim but just looks like clouds covering the sun.

Dim'ish I guess.  That's the patio set we scored in the locker.  Not too shabby.

A couple pics of Sagan and his puppeh.

My friend Barit, who I have known since kindergarten, was moving and asked me if I wanted a jar of beach glass cause she just had too much.  Is that even a thing?  Too much beach glass? hahaha  We met up for dinner and she gifted me with this huge vase full!!!  Great to catch up and I so appreciate her thinking of me!!

I'd also been wanting to do a Harry Potter sign post so I got out the small soldering iron, sketched out the lettering on some pieces of wood that I'd cut into arrows, and started to burn.  I really love how they came out.....better than I expected.

I've been chipping away at my Grateful Dead bear but they didn't include enough floss in several colours.  I went to Michael's to get what I needed but when I got home, I was just so fed up with the skeins and skeins of floss that were in such a mess that it was easier to buy stuff for projects than try and find it in my stash.  I picked up some bobbins and storage cases and spent a week off and on 'bobbinating' the DMC floss and putting them in numerical order.  Now I can see what I have before I go off and buy one.  For example I have 5 bobbins of black, 4 of Christmas red, etc etc etc

I had to take a break on my Dead bears cross stitch while I bobbinated the floss.  This is the progress as of 8/25.  It's taken me 2 months to get to this point and this shows pages 4 completed (on the left) and the black outlining for page 5.  

Our 3rd wedding anniversary was the 17th but that was the weekend we did the storage locker and we didn't have a chance to celebrate properly, so last weekend we went up to Plymouth to have lunch at the Rio Brazilian Steakhouse.  It was quite good.  Brazilian Churrascaria dining is very popular here. There's a big salad bar and some hot food, buffet style, and then chefs come to your table with freshly barbecued meats of all kinds on skewers, and slice them at your plate.  You have a round thing on the table and green side means you want them to come and red means you are done.  We were stuffed!

Can't believe it's the end of summer already and we are coming into Labor Day Weekend, which is the last gasp for summer tourism here.  We will still get weekenders in September, usually retired folks who skip the summer crowds (but still make weekend travel a challenge for residents).  At least the weather has finally cooled off!

Mid July and Nothing to Show For It

This hasn't been a banner summer, thus far.  Haven't been anywhere since Newport a month ago, partly due to weather and partly due to my car needing to pass inspection this month.  I didn't want to push it....as it is I had to get a new headlight.  Fortunately it passed.  It's either been rainy/cloudy, or hot/humid, neither of which are conducive to day tripping.

And then our fridge decided to start dying right before July 4th.  Home Depot was having a 40% off sale so the morning of July 4th, we're down there begging a sales associate to please sell us the floor model because our food was going bad really quickly.  The guy did us a solid and sold it to us.  I sang his praises on their customer survey after I got home too.  Buying and getting the thing home went relatively quickly.  Getting it in the house was another story.  It got stuck in the door way so we took off the fridge handles.  Still wouldn't fit so we took the coat pegs off the wall.  Still stuck, so off came the door.  Finally get it in and I had to transfer what was left of the food we could salvage, and all the fridge magnets cause we had to get the old one out before putting the door back on.  We were supposed to have my stepdaughter & her hubby over for a cookout but she was under the weather and we were just too tired and sore, plus I had to throw out most of the food.

After the holiday week, Russell got sick....and then of course I got sick.  Worst sore throat I have every had without it being strep.  I was at urgent care 2 days in a row.  We're both finally getting back to normal but it's been very slow going.

But I have had some time for crafts this past month.  Broke out my driftwood & beach glass stashes and put this together.

Birthday card for Marsha.

Marbles in driftwood.

This was a project that my stepdaughter tagged me in on FB.  I loved the idea of a blood splattered glass but I am not a horror show fan so I wasn't sure what to do.  Then realized I love The Shining, so why not do an Overlook Hotel glass.  It's done with enamel paint and baked in the oven to set it.

I love Makit Bakits.

First 2 pages done of my Grateful Dead butterfly cross stitch.  I've gotten fairly far on the next page's outlining but I've made a mistake that I have to backtrack and figure out where I went wrong.  Been too sick to concentrate on that so that's been put aside for a bit.

I couldn't resist buying a bag of letter beads.  

Made a bracelet for our daughter in law.

I wanted a wide angle lens but I really don't have the cash to get an expensive one.  So I got this $35 lens off Amazon and you get what you pay for.  It does have potential for artsy shots so I'll keep it, but it's not something I would seriously use when out on a day trip.

Canada's Sesquicentennial was on July 1st.  I ordered the commemorative coins from the Canada Mint.  

I am not a coin collector, but it came with a special  Northern Lights toonie that glows in the dark.

Pretty cool, no?

I never realized how much housework I did until I got sick.  I still have a lot of catching up to do with cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.  Hoping to salvage what's left of the summer.