Rose's Art Show

My sister Rose has an art show coming up on Wednesday June 27th 6:30 - 9:30pm at 1313 Hollis St., Halifax and some of the paintings she will be displaying are below.   There will be 15 artists participating.

Easter Treats

Well Easter is now here and gone and it was a beautiful day to spend with family and friends.  The day wasn't sunny which was part of what made it a great day as you were not thinking about all the yard work that needs to be done on those sunny spring days.  My sister put together a beautiful meal and some of her neighbours came and my BFF came along with family.  Unfortunately my Mom was not feeling very well but she did enjoy seeing Adelyn and yes everyone else.

I did get my three desserts made to take to my sister's which were a hit.  My daughter also made a scrumpcious fruit salad which I enjoyed the next day while I was babysitting.  I think the favorite dessert I made was the Coconut Cream Cake which I had never made before and changed the recipe a bit.  So now I have to figure out the revisions to the recipe to send everyone.   aaaaggghhhhh

Here we have NS Wild Blueberry Cream Cake.  Yummy

Coconut Cream Cake... very yummy

Lemon Cream Tarts with Raspberry & Blackberries... tasty little morsels

Here is my grandaughter Adelyn dancing away with her tutu on that I had made her for Easter.  It is amazing how little girls automatically know what to do with girly things.  LOL  I made a matching tutu for her wear on her dolls.  Too cute.

Here is Adelyn playing in the tunnel of her play tent which the Easter Bunny left for her.  It took quite a bit of rolling around the floor and wrestling with Adelyn, the dog and my camera to capture this picture.  It was quite a workout for these old Nanny bones.  :)

Here she is Easter Monday when I was babysitting, we decided to go out on the deck and get some fresh air and she was obsessed with the snow and then of course being the little minx that she is, she decided to test her Nanny to see if I would let her eat the snow.  Not, so we played a game of chase around the deck with Adelyn chortling away as she thought it was hilarious. 

Here she is modeling a little sundress I had made her for Easter which isn't a great picture as the child never stays still or if she sees the camera she comes running towards me as she wants to see all the pictures on my camera.  Am I little consumed by my grandaughter, yes, yes, yes!  But I mean what do you do when you get them up in the morning and they come out to the kitchen and immediately start dancing for you?  You swoon, that's what and then you start dancing with her like I did.  :)

I am having Adelyn from Friday to Monday this weekend... yipppeeee!  We will definitely have some fun, I have loads of new toys for her to play with so she will be quite busy and we may have to do some crafts and blow big bubbles outside.  Hhhhmmm, her mother may not want to go home..... but I will have lots of pics to share from our weekend to share with mommy and daddy as they still have separation anxiety.  LOL

"Just when I thought I was too old to fall in love again, I became a Grandparent."

Author: Unknown

Maritime Fibre Art Retreat was a great success

Well the weekend was over far too quickly but it was absolutely wonderful.  Relaxing, creative and fun meeting up with people we hadn't seen since last year.  It is amazing to see the talent that everyone brings to the retreat and readily shares their ideas and thoughts.  My sister Rose and I were doing strictly felting this year and we commented on the fact that there were other felters there and how everyone has their own technique and area of creativity.  My sister worked on a beautiful tea cozy, a delicate felted over lace scarf and a funky picture of a face that was totally fun.  I worked on a felted over lace scarf and a couple of wall hangings, one of which is still in the throes of being worked on. 

On our travels to the retreat we came across a wonderful garden and gift shop called Oceanview, wow the things they had there were fantastic.  We could have spent a fortune there and yes we have plans to go back and spend more money.  Everything was unique and lovely and I wanted one of everything. LOL  I asked the owner if I could just move in but unfortunately they don't allow squatters. :)  We also stopped into a couple of used clothing stores as I was looking for buttons and it seems that a lot of these places no longer carry buttons which disappointed me as you can find some unique buttons normally.  I did find a nice pink wool blazer though and a couple of beautiful little dresses and a jacket for my grandaughter.  I got home late Sunday afternoon with all my treasures and crafts, rested a few hours, repacked my suitcase and headed in to my daughter and son-in-law's as I was babysitting the joy of my heart on Monday.  My sister and Mom came for lunch on Monday so Adelyn got to show off her entertainment skills and slay two more victims in her growing following of fellow swooners. She puts on quite the performance once she warms up and it is impossible to resist her charms.  I snapped a couple of great pictures of Adelyn with my Mom, she is a lucky little girl to have 3 great Grandmothers who live fairly close as well as grandmothers, grandfathers and a large group of Aunts, Uncles and cousins. 

Well Easter is fast approaching and I have to get my desserts in order to take to my sister's as she is doing Easter dinner and I offered to bring the desserts.  Should be a fun time and I know the food will be awesome.  So I am off to finish my felting project and gather my list of ingredients for all the desserts.

"The most beautiful thing in this world is to see your parents smiling, and knowing that you're the reason behind that smile".

Sew what, you say, anything and everything

I recently bought a new new sewing machine (Babyloc - Grace) which was a retirement gift from my children and a very dear friend (yup, a heart sister).  Well I took it out of the box and set it on my kitchen table and admired it for about two weeks before touching it.  You have to understand that previously I had a basic Singer which worked great and still does actually and now resides in my daughter's home but now I was faced with this machine that is computerized and tells me what I am doing wrong.  LOL  It's not quite that advanced but close, so I finally broke down flexed my fingers and ripped off the cover and pressed the power switch to on and I haven't looked back.  It is so quiet it is amazing and best of all it does about about 6 one step button holes and crikey it will even sew on the buttons.  So I have been out burning up the miles to the fabric stores buying fabric for....... are you ready?  Okay, okay all the fabric and patterns have been for my grandaughter, surprised... I think not.  Last weekend I sewed a little dress and matching hat, plus a blanket and dolly blankets.

Now I making a bunch of pincushions to put in my sisters gift shop.  I love pincushions and the weird thing is that I don't have one.  Well I do now, I just have to decide which one I will keep for myself once they are all done.

Easter is coming and we are all having dinner at my sisters which is always noisy and a lot of fun and this year I volunteered to make all the desserts.  Yummmm, so I think I am going to make Lemon Raspberry Tarts, Coconut Cream Cake and NS Blueberry Cream Cake.  I have made them all before with the exception of the Coconut Cream Cake but it did have rave reviews so I am going to give it a go.

Well I must get back to my pincushions as I want to get them finished and maybe start another dress for my grandbaby.

"Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory."

Swooning

This past weekend I had my grandaughter stay with me from Friday to Sunday and we had the absolute best time.  How is it possible to fall more in love without my heart bursting out of my chest you ask, I don't really know except that it happened and I survived.  She played with all her toys, her Uncle Dave and dressed up with her princess jewels.  She was obsessed with the resident cat, you noticed I didn't say my cat :) he belongs to my son and he is a one person cat, meaning he tolerates me living in his house which I just happen to own and does not take kindly to other people.  So my grandaughter who used to be terrified of cats is now obsessed with cats and would constantly chase after him when he was in the house so my son was on constant duty to monitor his critter and ensure that there were no scratches or bitemarks left on my wee baby.  Of course I had a few new toys which my dog Molly took a liking to the pink lamb which Adelyn decided she liked as well so they had standoffs all weekend over the pink lamb.  You will see a picture below of Adelyn holding the lamb and Molly in under her arm trying to take it away from her.  It was quite funny to watch the two of them fight over that lamb all weekend.

And here she is cleaning the lambie's bottom with her princess skirt on.  All her dolls and stuffed critters have the cleanest bottoms around.

Princess Adelyn with her jewels on.

I had to include the picture below which I had taken last week when I was babysitting, Adelyn wanted her duck to dressed in her outdoor gear which I did and she proceeded to walk around the house for about a half hour making the duck walk along with her.  It was the funniest thing to watch, the duck took on life and I am sure to Adelyn it was real.



"A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do."

Author: Lois Wyse

Addy's Revamped Toybox

Things have been very busy lately but I have found time to redo an old wooden bench for my grandaughter to use as a toybox when she comes to visit.  I was really pleased with how it turned out, I had found the wooden letters at Home Hardware which I loved as the colors and designs were such fun.  I had some wooden buttons that were painted in primary colors that I used along the top bar and then painted some big lazy flowers on the seat and sprinkled with yes a little bit of glitter.  Every girl needs a bit of glitter in her life.  I love glitter and would roll in it if I could.  LOL  Of course I had to add a few new items to the toybox since she was last out for a visit. :)

I have been busy painting all the rooms in my house which has been a slow process but it's looking good and it really needed it.  On the weekend there was a surprise 60th birthday party for a friend of mine which was a lot of fun and I must say that I imbibed a little too much which is a rarity for me.  Fun though as we all danced the night away.

The Maritime Fibre Arts Retreat is coming up fast and I am trying to decide on what projects to take to work on, rug hooking or felting.   hhmm, I think a couple of felted pieces to work on and I always take some small pieces for those who want to try their hand at needlefelting.  I can't wait, only 31 more sleeps.

It's been a snowy, rainy, snowy day but hopefully this will be the last snowstorm we see for the season.....  I'm just sayin!  :)

I came across this saying recently and loved it and I am putting this out there for all of my sisters.  You know who you are.

"I smile because you are my sister...... I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it!"





Snow Day

Well it is a beautiful snowy day, even though I am not a fan of winter it is a beautiful day.  Of course I was out snapping pictures with my new camera which I finally ordered and received.  I don't have a clue as to what all the different settings are at this point but I am having fun clicking away.

I haven't been up to much in the way of crafts lately as with this cold I just don't have the energy.  I did a couple of things which I have posted pics of below, one is a canvas where I glued a picture of blue poppies and used a paper glaze on some of the black stems.  Dotted some glue around the upper right hand corner of the picture and then glued tissue paper all over the rest of the canvas and painted it white once dry.  Applied some blue embossing chalk and then painted on some black stems.  I think it turned out okay but it gave me lots of ideas for future projects.



I also tried my hand at doing eggshell mosiac on a wooden picture frame.  I was really pleased with the effect of this and again my brain is whirling with future projects and I am busy saving all my eggshells.  LOL even my son is making sure to set aside the shells from any eggs that he is using.  I am trying my hand at making my own alcohol dyes but I have to test them out to see how well they actually work.

It's just a little over a month away from the Maritime Fibre Arts Retreat, can't wait, my sister and I have been going for three years now and it is a wonderful time and it is so great to meet up with everyone and see what they have been doing for the past year.  There are some very talented people that go and everyone is always willing to share ideas.  My sister and I are fascinated with the spinners but have a drawn the line... for now that we would not take up spinning but it is soooooo tempting.  I can picture us a few years down the road sitting on the deck with spinning wheels flying, a cup of tea on the go telling tall tales watching the sheep prance around in the backyard growing all that fibre for us to spin and felt.  Hhhmmm, I will have to get my grandaughter trained in the art of making a good cup of tea so she can keep us supplied.  I intend to introduce my grandaughter to all the joys of crafting and she can in turn teach her mother. :)

Anyway I must finish up as I want to do a bit of baking and the laundry does call.

"Friends don't let friends do silly things.........alone."