July 17, 2014

It has been awhile again since I have posted here at my blog. I spend a lot of my time making plastic canvas gifts and writing for my blog.

I now have 61 stories about Family History, and my crafts and reviews of movies and books as well as family recipes.

My crafts stories will have include a lot of FREE Plastic Canvas patterns. Links will be there for the patterns I made and other patterns at Pinterest.

Photos of some of the Halloween Plastic Canvas I made with the patterns at that link:

Halloween Coffin that holds candy and the Vampire

Halloween Kitty and his trick or treat bag 

The kitty sits inside of this bowl

Pumpkin Napkin holder 

Halloween Ghost

The Halloween link also includes the link to my previous Halloween craft story.   Many free patterns I can send to you via email. Leave a comment here and I will be glad to email you the pattern. 

My Cats

Benny will be 6 years old this month!  Batman and Robin turned 2 years old in May.

Photos of the cats

Left to right Benny, Robin and Batman 

Batman is in the center he is the lighter cat. The twins are hard to tell apart. 

Benny comes in and sits on me in my bed for attention and loves

Robin and his cone sleeping on my bed

Poor Robin, above with the cone, got ahold of a bathing suit top with string ties and chewed off a piece and swallowed it.  It got tangled up inside of him and he had to have an operation to remove it.  He was sick for a long time, but he is well now.  So we have to be careful what we leave out for him to get into. We found out he has a heart murmur. They did not detect this when he was fixed last year. 

Batman and Robin are indoor kitties so they get into mischief.  We have given them a plethora of toys and change them often. I think in time they will settle down.

Benny was having stress when we moved in December to our new apartment.  He licked off his fur again on his hid quarters like our last move 2 years ago.  It now has grown back in.  He used to be an outdoor kitty.  He cannot go out here as they do not allow it and we are on the third floor.

We plan on getting a single level house for rent and then he can be an indoor/outdoor kitty again.

My Mother 

 Mom had her 84th birthday in April!  She had been doing pretty good for 84 until she fell again July 2.

She has been in the hospital with a bone fracture in her spine and bowel infection. She is in a lot of pain.  We are not sure how long she will be in the Hospital and then to a rehabilitation facility after that to recover.  Here is a photo of Mom on her 84th Birthday this year.

Mom Virginia on her 84th Birthday with flowers

The Twins

My niece's twin girls turned three in June! They are just adorable as ever!

              Isabella and Olivia July 4, 2014

New Projects

Besides trying some new crochet projects for Christmas gifts this year, I am going back to some beading for bracelets and key chain holders.

I have ordered beads from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads and purchased some from WalMart. 

Photos in the next blog post.

Key chains so far with plastic canvas:

This was made on Plastic canvas size 10 which was too small for my needle and it was pretty hard to do. 

Some other Plastic Canvas I did this last four months

Fourth of July patriotic decorations

Minecraft Creeper Kleenex box cover

Minecraft Gold sword is more than two feet long

You can see more at my stories from the link above at Squidoo.

Have a great month!

Christmas Letter 2013

Merry Christmas from me to you!

                                                         Photo from LDS.org

2013 was a busy year for me and my youngest daughter.  We had rented a very little one bedroom house in Lake county, California in December of 2011. 

We have been looking to rent a larger place.  We put an application in on a 3 bedroom apartment and we finally were accepted.

We moved just 3 weeks ago. So me, my daughter, the cats and my daughter's boyfriend are here now.

It is great to have my own bedroom and bathroom again!

We had a great loss this year of two family members.  My two youngest children's Dad -  Larry - passed away in August 2013.  It was a great shock when we found out they said he would not live more than few weeks.  No one or the Dr’s knew he was so ill.

We knew that my second daughter's ex-husband Matt was ill with terminal cancer of the lungs.   It was just very difficult because he died 2 days of Larry’s death. 

We look forward to 2014 with new plans and ideas.

I have been busy making the gifts and taking photos of them and highlight the patterns and how to information for the blog pages.  I have also begun to review books and movies.  My third daughter has added two pages of book reviews for the blog.

She works at the three libraries here in the county.   Her boyfriend graduated with 3 AA degrees and is getting ready to start his Bachelor’s degree. He is in the process of applying to colleges in the bay area.

Our three cats are getting into everything and learning about their new home.  

                 

                          Photo of me and the Cypress tree from my best friend Linda!

Me, my daughter and her boyfriend all wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

May the Lord bless you and your Families with Health ~Peace~ and Love

Cats, kitties, and more cats!

Big Changes:

First 

 The reason I have not been blogging.  We had two family members pass away within two days.

The first was a shock as we did not know how sick my ex-husband was.  Here he is in this photo back in 1995 with the birth of our 2nd grandchild.  Our son and daughter in the photo as well.

A week at the most before he passed away we found out that his illnesses over the last year turned out to be end stage liver disease.  He had a cough for months that he tried to get rid of with medication and Nebulizer machine to deliver the mist for asthma.  He was a long time sufferer of Diabetes.  He was in the hospital for a week then came home a day and then back to the hospital.  There was nothing to do for him except make him comfortable.  He passed away a month after his 68th Birthday on August 17, 2014. It has been very difficult for the kids and his 2nd wife.  

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The other death happened two days later.  This one we expected. My 2nd daughter's ex husband had been diagnosed with lung cancer.  We knew that he did not have much time left.   It was very difficult for their two sons and his stepson as well as for my daughter.  

One thing she and I found out - even though they were our ex-husbands we felt very much as a lot of people feel when their spouse passes away.  

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Crafting!

Back to crafting and other things!

So Cats, kitties and more cats!

I had mentioned before that I was going to start using Aida cloth that was size 7. That is pretty much the same grid size as regular plastic canvas or 7 holes per square inch.  Most Aida cloth patterns are for size 10 to 14.  I have done these in the past and here are my past Aida cloth projects:

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The first cats are the ones I have made in the last 4 months.  The first of the Aida cloth in size 7 is this cat!  Specifically "Grumpy Cat!"  

This is the pattern. The print out is for size 14 Aida cloth! I knew it would work fine for size 7 Aida cloth.  There was no actual color code for this pattern. So I had to use what I had on hand and purchased.  I used all six strands of DMC floss.

                         Here is the outline and eyes done.

                          Finished with the word "Whatever."

                               Close up of "Grumpy Cat!"

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Another Grumpy Cat

Almost done. The rest of the cat is white, so it is hard to see where I have left off, but the remainder is going to be white.  I am making several more for family and friends!  

More Kitties!

I found this pattern on Pinterest. It actually was in Russian!  Easy to see what was what on the pattern.  The tail in the original pattern was as large/wide as the legs. I wanted the tail to be thinner. So I enlarged the pattern by cutting out the original print and adding 1 inch to the outline.  I used felt for the eyes on this one as well as felt for the face and nose.  I embroidered the whiskers.

      

   After I finished it I realized I forgot to add the claws!

So I cut out more and also cut out the claws in white felt.  I did not like the face so I decided to just have the nose and eyes felt on the second and third ones.

I was not real happy with those either so the black and white ones and the pink ones just have puffy paint for the eyes nose and whiskers.

                     

 So I added the eyes and nose.   I need to add the wiggly eyes and whiskers next.  Then they will be done.

My cats!

 So this is Batman and Robin now just over one years old! They always sleep like this on my bed. My Mom crocheted that Afghan back in the 1970's!

Robin now sports a Blue collar. He likes to get my attention by sitting on the keyboard of the computer!

Batman sports a silver collar now and he loves to look out the window. I love the way the sun shone on his whiskers!

That is the update for now. Next blog update will be about moving day!  I will also have a blog about my trip to Washington state for the reunion.  We got home from the reunion and that is when my ex husband passed away - so I did not make the blog about the reunion with my Grand kids and 2 daughters.   So I will work on that!

I will be glad to email any of the patterns from any of my projects. Just ask me for which one you want and your email address.    :D

And last but not least: Inspiration

An awesome Poet Artist from Canada has this awesome website. Go see it at        Above The Rayn

Update July 7, 2013

Kittens and Benny 

The kittens are full size now as they turned one on May 19, 2013

Here is the latest photo of them.

You can see that the kittens look bigger than Benny

The kittens are indoor kitties as we want to keep it at way as we will be moving and more than likely will need to keep them from cars and such outside. They are as rambunctious ever!  It took a long time for Benny to tolerate the kittens.  Benny still tangles with Robin as Robin needs to get fixed. They are still adorable looking when they a sleeping!

Vacation to Washington State

My daughter and I are getting ready for vacation and Family reunion!   I cannot wait to see my other two daughters and my 6 grand kids! I will blog photos when I return!

Happy Summer!