Birthday!

 Can you stand a few more birthday cards? I made another one for The Mister last night. I printed off three different colored cake cliparts and then cut and pasted them on cardstock, a trick I learned..where else? YouTube.

That job was made easier with my new Cutter Bee scissors. I went to the mailbox everyday for a week and a half waiting for these babies to show up. It was the one time in recent memory that Amazon didn't have what I needed at the door in a flash. They were worth waiting for though.

Here are two more from the card kit. I used the stamps and my new embossing gear with my white gel pens. Note to self: You need sequins. Buy some in lots of fun colors. Everything looks better when it sparkles.

As I've mentioned, today is The Mister's birthday and here he is with Daughter doing what he likes best-chasing a ball around with a stick.

Card Crazy

I've finished my ten Youtube lessons but I'm not quite ready to close the books on the April card kit from Simon Says Stamp.

 This month we got to focus on using cutouts and stickers.

 They were easy and fun.

 I did branch out on my own and create a sheepy card for The Mister's birthday which is tomorrow. I love that sheep stamp. While The Mister isn't overly fond of sheep, I didn't have a golf themed stamp set so this would have to do for now.

I still have a ton of leftover materials in the box. I can probably keep on going for the rest of the month making it up as I go along. Every day I keep checking for the reveal of next month's box. I can't wait!

Old Things

 I am constantly moving things around in the sewing room and I am always running into Daddio's stuff. After cleaning out his house last summer I've got piles of it, finished and unfinished, everywhere. I hated this table runner when we made it but now it doesn't look so bad on my table. That's one thing gone from the pile.

 Then there is this almost finished flannel lap quilt. It's been giving me a guilt trip for months now.

 It was the last one he worked on before things went south. I drug out the machine and put the last few stitches in the ditch that completed the thing.

It will live on the dining room table now until the binding is sewn on.

Talking about guilt trips, I've been also been ignoring his almost finished last paper piecing project and it's starting to get to me. A row or two a day won't kill me, will it? This may even
 turn out to be a fun quilting project if I can ever get it together.

Winning

It was another competition weekend. This time out we were at Piney Orchard Ice Arena on a freezing Sunday morning. It was colder outside than it was in the rink. Brrr....we had to use the parking lot to get in some last minute practice.

It was also windy. At this rink they make us put up the scenery outside. Here is the centerpiece of the 12 foot high gingerbread house right before it took a nosedive into a puddle. It's other two sections also took turns coming apart at the seams in the wind. Grrrr....I spent the morning picking them up and putting them back together while waiting for our turn to skate.

Waiting to go on is so hard. Watching all the teams go before you is nerve wracking. Our Miss Frizzle had some choice words about this particular event deciding it was a good idea to put 9 production teams, several ensemble teams and a slew of synchro teams all in the same place at the same time. It was madness. We also had only about 15 minutes to change between numbers. I had to ungreen myself very quickly.

Me and my little gingerbread friend did some silly selfie posing to kill the time and calm our nerves.

It was one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong. We had mix-ups and near disasters all day but we finished first-in both categories. We had to check the results ourselves. We couldn't believe our eyes or our luck.

 Since I don't have a mommy or daddy to take pictures of me from the audience anymore, I bought some from the digital photographer. I need proof that I actually am still doing this after all these years and at my age. No one believes me. That's me as the librarian in our large production number realizing there is probably a big red dog somewhere in the library.

 Here's that Hungry Caterpillar I built. I do love him. It's going to be sad to put him out to pasture at the end of the season.

 That's me under the table being terrified by the Magic School Bus characters. Beep, beep.

Finally here I am as the witch spooning the Pepto into naughty Hansel and Gretel while the Sugarplum fairies look on. I love that costume. I love being green.

Man, what a long day. I need some of that Pepto myself-and a good night's sleep.

Sunday Soap: Safety First

Last week when I posted that goofy picture of me I got some questions about what it was all about. Since I have also gotten comments lately from some of you who are getting ready to give this a try I need to explain. This is how I really look when I make soap. The headgear protects your face from lye splashes and the mask keeps you from breathing in the fumes when you mix the lye with water. It makes you cough. It's pretty nasty. I have been splashed before and it does burn-just as if you have dropped a pot of boiling water on your foot from hard boiling eggs one week before the first skating competition of the year...ahem. Anyway...I also usually wear two pair of gloves when handling the lye-especially during cleanup which gets messy. I do take off the top pair when I am doing all the fancy color things in the mold. Big gloves and glitter do not a combo make. Once the lye is in the batter there are no fumes so I take off the mask and just keep on the clear splash guard to protect my eyes.

Everything that touches lye or the active batter is stored in a bin out of the kitchen. No matter how clean you get it, you should never take chances.

Now that the scary part is out of the way, here's the fun part. Choosing colors and glitters that go with.......

....all the fun scents they have out there. I just ordered a bunch of samples from Nurture Soap. With soap, a little bit goes a very long way. It's the one hobby I have where everything is so cheap. I love it.

I also bought some different colored clays.

After making so many tutti fruitti soaps last week I wanted something down to earth and you don't get earthier than clay.

I've had this fragrance oil burning a hole in my pocket for weeks now. I wanted to make some "man" soap and this oughta do it.

It was so pretty after swirling I hated to cover it with the final layer of batter.

Since this was a guy soap, I didn't get fancy. I just plopped it on and later took a spoon to it to add some peaky texture.

Hmmm....it's not exactly what I expected but that's what's so fun about soap. Until you cut it you have no idea what you have. That fragrance is strong. The Mister loves it but it's too much for me. Maybe it will cure out. Clay tends to help a fragrance stick in the soap so it may not.

 Of course I had to redo that fragrance. I like it but not at that volume. I turned it down a notch or two in this one and added more colors of clay.

Then I picked up the clays again and made a Cherry Almond loaf that I think is very pretty. I had no idea you could do such fancy designs with just clays.

 Earlier in the week I had made another guy soap for The Mister. Meet Wasabi. I have no idea if it smells like real wasabi or not. All I know it that it smells good-and spicy.

This one is for me and I do know that it smells like Blackberry Sage. It makes me hungry. Now I have a soap room that smells like a fruit stand. No wonder I can't keep my hand out of the jelly bean jar.

More Little Blossoms

 Like almost everywhere, it's been cold here this week. Brrrrr......freeze warnings.

In spite of it, the plants are still going on like they are supposed to while the rest of us huddle inside and complain.

Edited at 11:00 am to show the snow we are getting. Crazy.

April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot

Epic

Keeping track of all those warp colors has been interesting. I had to make myself a cheat sheet.

You only wind 3 strands of each color before you move onto the next.

Because it's an uneven number of wraps you have to tie it off at both ends and I am not a fan. I like to put in my rod while the warp's still on the board to avoid tangles so I had to improvise some system so I could still do that. The jury is still out on this. Who know if I can pull it off. I may be buying another kit in the near future if it doesn't.

Having said all that, I am actually enjoying it. It's perfect for my short attention span. I do a few colors and go do something else and then come back and do a few more. It seems to be going quickly. Perfect.