MUstache Party!!!

Mustache Awards...hee hee

My sister leaves for Alaska on Sat. I am taking her on Friday to drop off her license plate and then we are going out to lunch one last time for 6 months. I know she will have another fantastic time there. She has her own place without a roommate so she can host many visitors. Unfortunately due to the broken window (a few posts down) and taxes owed I will not get the opportunity to go visit her. I am a little sad but I guess I will just experience Alaska through her stories and pictures. It is bitter sweet as I will miss her but I know that she is looking forward to going back.

Last Saturday we had a going away party for her. Last year she had a theme (knee highs and bow ties) so she thought it would be fun to have another. Can you guess...this year was Mustaches. Some of the guys started growing them as soon as they heard about the party...so funny. I wish that I had busted the camera out a little more but here are some of the better ones I snapped. Above is my sister-in-law Julie sporting one of her stashes. She actually won an award for the most Fem mustache. Christie, Nate and Ginger all helped make these hilarious Mustache trophies...ha ha.

Nate - my brother (real Mustache) , Taylor (no mustache) and Scott my husband (full beard as always)

Scott gets his mustache darkened by Kim :)

Chrisssstie and I

good ol eyeliner

Kinda creepy (LOL)

We ran into Beth that I used to work with and had her kids in after school and camp. Christie used to babysit/pet sit and house sit for her. So good to see her!

Alison, Charlotte and me . I had to use the red eye reducer so all our eyes look strange.

This is my other sister Angie and I think this picture sums up the end of the night. I love it. She is down to half a stash and the blurry background.

Anyway, cheers to a safe trip for my sister and happy Mustaches!

For Treasuries Sake...

I thought this was so funny. While waiting for Treasury West to open this morning I just knew London was getting into something. I checked on him when there was 2 minutes left before 222 expired. So below is what he did in those last 2 minutes before treasury opened. Such a stinker. He also filled the dog water bowl and the cat water bowl with pieces of dog and cat food...to the point where the food absorbed all the water. Because I am at the tail end of the cat food I decided to pick it all up and put it back in their bowl (hee hee- hey I vacuumed yesterday).

And do you think London helped me pick up....NOPE. lol

Anyway, here is my treasury (pretties) ..come stop by before it expires in a few days.

look close to see all the scattered cat food.

He's a busy one! :) That's what mommy gets for trying to make a treasury.

Here is "Yellow Expedition Tent" finished and in the shop now..I'm happy with how it turned out! Now if I can just get to the woods...and soon. (I miss you nature)

In the Studio and NEW works!

I have some new pieces here I am working on and then a few I finished but never posted. Above is a new camping piece that I think I love (this picture is still in progress as it has not been polyurethaned yet)! I asked my hubby last night what color I should make the tent and he said, "Expedition Yellow just like my rain jacket". This is true he has a yellow and black rain coat therefore I followed his advice and I think that is what I will name the piece as well.

Below you can see a little more of my polyurethaning process...first mix, then apply.

stirring

applying (first coat- second coat will be applied either late tonight or early tomorrow morn)

The essentials in my upstairs studio. Mallet, brush, razor blade, paint can opener, polyurethane and stir stick. :)

While I was up there with my camera I thought I would show you the backside of my studio. All of these bins are full of my sister Christies (volleyballgirl.etsy.com) fabrics. She is moving in 2 weeks back to Alaska (for 6 months to work) so I get to ship all her sales and store her art stuff again. She still has to bring her sewing machine and a few other things over in the next week or two.

Here is an 8 x 10 commissioned wedding gift piece I have just finished. It will be called "Big Sweet Love II" as it was named and modeled after the first "Big Sweet Love" I made that I only have prints of now. I live for commissioned work..some times it is nerve racking but usually it turns out to be good.

Feeling the Night lady - waiting to be cut out.

"Feeling the Night" new original in the shop here.

Also here is another new one in the shop that I showed an in-progress photo in a lower post.

"Springs First Bloom" is in the shop here.


Update on the windows...they came and took the door out yesterday. Now we are waiting of the glass to come (which hopefully they have ordered by now). Probably will not get in until next week. Hoping the den will not be dreary and boarded up much longer. Speaking of looks like rain and it has gotten chilly out today. Waiting until next week to plant garden...and it is going to be fabulous!

Cracked Glass

It is hard to believe that this sweet little boy could have broken such a big piece of glass. During a tantrum on Sunday, London ran into the sliding glass door. He had no bump, bruises, or scratches on his head or anywhere - we watched him for any signs of a concussion and he showed no signs. We are not sure what he hit the window with but he put a major crack in it. Thank God he is ok and the glass did not shatter...things could have been really bad if it had...so I can't even bring myself to think about all the "what- ifs".

Our sliding glass door is HUGE and it is original to the house which was built in 1960. The window guys have been by a few times and the glass is a quarter inch thick. I think this is going to be quite a project for them and this is what they do for a living. They just don't make them like this anymore. After hearing what could have happened if the glass had shattered we decided to replace all 3 windows with safety glass. This way if they were to ever shatter they will break into a million little dull tiny pieces of glass instead of big shards that can kill you.

Let's just say LARGE broken glass = BIG $$$

Our first attempt to tape it up until the glass guys could come the next day.

They put a giant piece of Orange tape on the door over the break...but we had to rearrange the furniture to keep London from banging on it.

From our back patio.

Inside looking out.

We have now put plywood over the windows to protect them from London (ha ha). Still waiting for the window guys but they can not remove the glass until it stops raining and they can't order the glass until they remove one...b/c they are still baffled by these window and want to make sure they get it right.

3 little new ACEO's in the shop - "Little Spring Red, Blue and Green"

I hope that every one's spring is coming alone. We have been diligently moving dirt from the pile in the driveway to the garden. And actually we have moved all we can for now until my husband finishes digging out this one stump. Then the rows will be made and veggie planted. I will for sure start posting some pictures once it starts too look pretty!

mmmm Dinner!

We have had a week of rain. It hasn't really been cold out but just wet and rainy. Tonight for dinner we decided to make a soup I made up a month or so ago. It is soooo easy and tasty, you will want it for leftovers the next day too!

Chicken Curry and Black Bean Soup

(recipe below)

(serves 4-6 people)

Approx 8 cups of water

1-2 boneless chicken breast

2-3 chk. bouion cubes

2 Med. carrots chopped

1 small - med. onion

1 can of Black Beans (15 oz.)

2 garlic cloves

curry powder to taste

pat of butter or margarine (or veg/canola oil if preferred)

sea salt to taste

black pepper to taste

1 cup or so of Rice wine vinegar

(optional) 15oz can of fat free chicken broth

Fill pot not quite 1/2 way with water and boil chicken whole for 5 - 10 min. Add curry powder to the water while chk is boiling. Chop all your veggies and then saute all (carrots, onion and garlic) in a pat of butter and sprinkle with curry powder and salt and pepper. Saute for only a few minutes until they begin to soften. Meanwhile remove Chk. from water. Add your veggies to the broth and then chop up your chicken and add it to the soup. Empty a drained can of black beans to the soup (and chicken broth is needed or desired). Depending upon desired about of soup you can add more water if needed. And last but not least add approx. 1 cup of Rice Wine Vinegar (this is what makes the soup)! Let it all simmer 20-40 min and serve with crackers or bread.

NOTE: To make this soup vegetarian substitute in tofu for chicken, veggie broth and veggie bouion cubes, add mushrooms for extra flavor...just that easy!

So today we had our dump truck of dirt delivered (pictures coming soon). It came about 9am this morning and I scrabbled to get shoes on London as we thought he might enjoy watching a huge dump truck dump dirt on our driveway- yipee. He was saying "DIRT" all day..so funny.

Scott spent several hours outside in the nasty rain hauling wheel barrow after wheel barrow of dirt to our future garden spot. Meanwhile, I stayed inside with London working on these. There are 3 of them and they should be finished in the next day or so...little ACEO. I am thinking I will price them at $14 each instead of the normal $12...they were a lot of work (but I loved every minute of it!)

ACEO originals - "Little Spring - blue, green and red" in progress -or rather waiting to be polyurethaned. They will be in the shop soon :) OK now tomorrow is dedicated to TAXes...which I meant to start today- YUCKY.

Multiple Rainy Days

New piece that is almost done...they always look so much better once polyurethaned so keep an eye out. It will be finished later today but we are suppose to have a rainy weekend so I may not be able to get it photographed until next week.

Speaking of rain, we have had to delay our delivery of dirt for the garden. Hopefully we can get the garden going next weekend b/c the seeds planted indoors almost 6 weeks ago are ready to spread their roots and claim their chunk of the earth.

Now if you have children then you know all about being trapped indoors on rainy days. You know one rainy day here and there, no big deal, right? Well when the whole week is rainy, and you have a toddler who lives to play outside, then you have yourself a recipe for many tantrums. We have had to get a little creative this week so here are some shots of all the fun we have had while trapped inside.

This is one of my favorite things we did. London loves to color and for now he is still in diapers so we always have several large boxes waiting to go to the recycling center. Normally we just color at the table and it provides approx. 8 - 12 minutes of entertainment. Well tack on an extra 10 mins of fun when you can sit in a box and color. Almost as fun as drawing outside with chalk (almost).

Next we had the fortunate pleasure of getting the Toddler Water table delivered that I ordered online for London last week. Normally we will play with this outside as it requires your clothes get soaked and splashing in the house gets old for mommy. But it came the other day so we had to test it out (rain or shine). As you can see London started out fully dressed.

We played before naptime. When it was time to go down he did not put up a fight (score I wore him out...wrong). He actually never fell asleep but just played in his crib. I decided to be a nice mommy and keep the water table set up for him to play with after nap time which I think was the problem. He kept wanting more and more water and finally it was just a big mess on the kitchen floor so I had had enough. He watched me slowly empty one Nalgen bottle at a time. It was a slow and painful process until total meltdown while I tried to find somewhere to hide it. Ah the joys of being a mother...I acutally sat down and laughed at the whole situation. Needless to say we are waiting for the sunshine to come back out before we play with the water table (outside) again. Although the toys that came with it make for great bath fun!

Yup he tried to climb in... LOL

Lots of bath times...b/c bath's are fun! (do you see all the drawing he has done in the tub with his tub crayons- how can I not let him)?

London hanging out in our dog Alex's crate...yee haw

Granny and Grandaddy stopped by yesterday. London ran circles while singing and we all thought it was cute.

We are supposed to have 2 or 3 more days of this rainy stuff. Hopefully the sun will peek back out soon so this mommy does not go insane. tee hee :) We have a play date this morning and then we are all going to eat some of the best Thai food (from a resturant) around...hello Bo Thai! Yum