Happy Late Christmas - I Won a Giveaway

Wow, I have been so blessed lately! I won that beautiful floral arrangement from Sheila, and now I've won another beauty - Heart nesting bowls. Since the site of the giveaway isn't on the blogspot platform, I couldn't click that handy little link to follow it. Sooo, I thought I'd be all organized and copy and paste the url to their blog in an open notepad that I always have on my computer. Welllll....my computer sometimes freezes up, and if I haven't saved the info, I lose everything unsaved. Yep...that's what happened. I couldn't find the blog or the giveaway post. (They have an amazing blog, by the way).

Anyhoo, I had wondered about the giveaway and their great blog, but couldn't find the link. Didn't really think I'd win it, but I wanted to keep tabs of the blog because they post about such pretty and interesting things. Well, today I was surprised by an email saying I won the nesting heart bowls! That was so sweet of them to go to the trouble of contacting me, instead of choosing another winner within a couple days of my not contacting them. They had even lost my contact info and spent time trying to find it. Wow, that is really sweet!

Anyway, here's a photo they have on their blog about the giveaway. (JD Wolfe Pottery has some amazing items for sale, by the way. I'm drooling at all the pottery. I love pottery)!

RAKs and a Giveaway

I love the idea of RAKs (Random Acts of Kindness). I was wondering how I would go about doing RAKs on this great craft blogosphere, and the very next day I saw a post on Dixie Samplar Designs regarding her RAKs. So I thought I'd just do what she's doing. If you want a little gift box of a random act of kindness from me, just send your snail mail address to me (held in the strictest of confidences) at iluvffmn at yahoo dot com. I'll put your name in rotation. Make sure you put "RAKs" in the subject line. I get so much spam, and I'd hate to delete your email by accident. I'd like to be able to send out one goodie a month. I'm sure I can swing postage for that. My sweet son said he'd pay for the postage. The silly boy - he doesn't have a job, even though he's saved up some money. I told him no, he has to save up his money for other things.

Anyway, I'll be having a giveaway soon. I'll announce it after the first of the year. Not sure what I'll be giving away, but I do know I'll have it end on February 14th. It'll be in celebration of my son's and my birthdays since they're just a couple days apart and fall around the 14th. So stay tuned...!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!

Photos! I've Got Photos!

Thank goodness I posted the much prettier photo Shelia had on her giveaway post at Seasons of Thy Heart than my attempts at photography; otherwise, y'all wouldn't be able to appreciate how very beautiful it is. (Though no picture could do it justice). Anyway, here are a couple photos of some of the gorgeous goodies Sheila sent:




I think they're blurry because I had to hold my arms higher and my shoulder just hasn't been the same since my injury. I'm sure there must be something in the camera manual to help stabilize...just gotta find it.

Anyhoo, here are pictures of our snow. The first one is my chicken-less chicken coop. (Hopefully when the warm weather arrives again, I can get chickens). It's all recycled material. The bulk of the building is an old outhouse!


My back porch...what back porch...lol!



Note how I "primmed" up the side of the house with the chipping paint. Haha! Yeah, it's all on purpose - lol! Actually, we can get some major hail storms, so paint doesn't stay on the houses all that nicely. (You should see the sidewalks)!

My outhouse and an outbuilding. (Most of the houses here have a working outhouse in the backyard). I haven't used mine yet!



Another angle of my chicken-less chicken coop made out of an outhouse.



Here's one of my foot prints. I guess I should say leg print because the snow came up over my knee when walking around taking these pictures.


My dearest puppy Tessa, who is now sleeping on my lap. After all, posing for pictures and barking at mommy standing outside taking pictures makes a puppy very tired!



I guess technically she's not really a puppy anymore, since she's 13 months old. And here's our 12 year old "puppy" Sage. He was a rescue dog from the mean streets of Detroit. (We think he was used as a bait dog for the pitbull fighters). We've had him since 2001. He knows he's very loved, but sometimes he gets very skittish. I'm sure it's due to a lot of horrible things that happened to him before we got him.

Christmas Swap

Here are a couple pictures of the goodies I received from the Christmas Swap at Chickens in the Road.




There's a really cool painted fabric Santa, snowman, framed stitched Christmas tree, a notepad with a fabric holder and felted sheep, and a felted mitten ornie. All very cute!

I'll be posting more pictures soon.

A White Christmas

Whew, it's been awhile since I've written in here. Been busy sewing a couple rag quilts. Hopefully I can get some pics up soon. I don't know why, but I hate taking pictures. I guess I better get over that if I want to sell things on Etsy, huh?! I need to take time to read the manual that came with the camera, so I can take better pics and not have such an aversion to taking them.

Anyhoo, I've had an early Christmas with getting my lovely giveaway gift from Sheila at Seasons of Thy Heart. She was so sweet and put several other gifts in there and has really made a wonderful holiday for me. (We've shared several emails, and she's a wonderful person). As a single mom, I haven't had any gifts for awhile, and this year has made up for all those years. I even got a few wonderful gifts from an online Christmas swap over at Chickens in the Road. I'll take some pictures soon...I promise! Really, truly!

I was also eyeballs deep in a huge writing project that took all last week to complete. It was a client I hadn't written for in a couple months, so it was nice to get back to working for him. His work is sporadic, but when he needs some writing done, he usually sends large chunks my way. Also, the Aussie woman who owes me so much money paid another installment today, so she's slowly but surely getting current. At the rate she's going, though, it probably won't be until spring when she gets down to owing nothing - lol! But at least she's chipping away at it.

Yesterday we had about a foot of snow dumped on us. It snowed all day long. It was pretty, but it was kinda dicey walking in it. I went to the post office yesterday, and the wind was blowing that snow almost horizontal. At least it wasn't below zero...that happened later. Ah, winter in North Dakota. Definitely a sure bet on there being a white Christmas. We have a couple feet on the ground now and are due for another inch or two in the next couple days.

I Won!

Oh my gosh, I won a beautiful "grungy" floral arrangement from Seasons of Thy Heart! It's sooo beautiful! Take a look:



Wowzer, it's beautiful! I'm just so over the moon over this. Yay!

Busy, Busy - That's What I've Been

I can't believe it's been a whole week since I've written in here. I wanted to write more frequently, but sometimes time flies too quickly and before I know it, a week has gone by.

I finally finished up a denim rag quilt I was working on. Need to wash and dry it one more time, and then it should be nice and fluffy - at least I hope so! It's the first rag quilt I've ever made. I can't wait to see what the "finished" product will look like. Last week, I also made some yummy candy cane scented soap. It's not just your usual peppermint, but it smells of vanilla and butter. It's divine! I also made some chubby and grungy looking candles. The grungy part came quite by accident. I'll be posting some pictures of them soon. They smell wonderful as well. Soap making and candle making is a wonderful smelling hobby! Once I finish up the grubby candles, I'll be putting them up on my Etsy shop. Same with my quilt.

I've also been taking art lessons from Roses on My Table. I love the videos thus far. Zinnia is a very capable and engaging teacher and very easy to understand. I can't wait to start my mixed media crafts!

In the meantime, I'm waiting for some fabric from Joann's as they were having an impressive sale. When I got my initial order confirmation email over a week ago, they said it'd take 7 to 10 business days to receive my order. Eight days later, they notify me that they're finally shipping it. Um...that's kinda a long time to wait to ship out my order. No wonder stuff was no longer in stock. And then they charged me twice for the order and didn't credit me for the out of stock items. I'm none too pleased about that, as you can imagine. I emailed them earlier today but still haven't heard anything. Hopefully it'll get straightened out soon. Also purchased some various yarns and ribbons through a site that was having a 75% off sale. I'm going to have my son build me a loom, and I'll be doing some weaving, which I'm keenly interested in.

Hmmmm...quilting, candle making, soap making, weaving, mixed media, jewelry making...sounds like I have A.D.D. when it comes to crafts! At least I'm trying to discipline myself enough to finish up one project before I move on to another.

Tomorrow I'll be going to the second hand store and see what goodies I can find. I purchased some lovely sheer curtains last week and then this amazing, huge pottery plate. Oh my, it's beautiful! I had to send my son to pick that one up, as it would've been too large and heavy for me to carry with my bad back and shoulder. I'll be taking pix of my second hand store loot as well and sharing with y'all.

Tomorrow I'll be doing a whole bunch of writing, since I received a ton of writing projects over the weekend. Yay! Still haven't been paid in full by the woman from Australia, though she did send a meager amount last week towards the balance. At least it's something!