Purple Cows & Birthday Treats

It's been a busy weekend around here.  Good thing I have lots of helps and helpers to get everything done!  My new cutting/trimming board arrived a couple of weeks ago and I was just itching to make something.  It is a Purple Cows brand and in my book it's the Crow's Toes.  Cuts, trims, perforates... perfect every time.

My first official project was making some labels for Ethan's birthday treat bags.  He's SEVEN now and very interested in helping.  He's especially helpful in the kitchen and doesn't even mind when Chandler steps in to lend a helping (but usually short-lived) hand.

 
Ethan was more than happy to help bake a cake to top off the spaghetti & garlic toast meal.  His favorite part was the frosting.

I'm pretty sure it was his Daddy's favorite part too... and Macy was amazed that licking the bowl was not only allowed but encouraged!

When supper was done it was time to package up the birthday treats.

And with a little help from Ethan, they were finished in no time at all.

All 24 of them!

Thanks to Purple Cows and Ethan, making birthday treats just a little more special was fun and easy!

Love

Love is in the air and what better source for knowing what it means than those who know children?

The new products have arrived!  "Memory Mixer" and Crafty Secrets' "Creating with Vintage Patterns" and "Illustrations"  I'm having fun with the new stuff - but true to form for me... I like some features in one program and others in another.  End result... combine them!   

Christmas is over, of course, but you have to put the pictures together after they're taken, right?  Not to worry, I still have Valentine's Day on my mind.

I'm sure having fun!

Dinking With Digital Design

I just ordered another software program to dink around with.  I'm tired of the 100,000+ graphics I already have.  Seems I always use the same ones over and over and I'm truly bored out of my gourd with them.  Of course it will take a few days for the new program to arrive, so I played around with what I have.  And what do you know... I figured out how to tweak some of those same old - same old graphics!

For a change, I'm ahead of the season.  I have Valentine's Day on my mind already.

I like the looks of the old fashioned, Victorian, Retro - or whatever you want to call it designs.

There's just something about the old-fashionedness that I adore.  I also finally figured out how to format them so they can be used in a variety of ways... pictures, stationery, greeting cards, collages, etc. and so on.  That was quite exciting in and of itself!

Are you kind of getting the idea of what the rest of my house looks like since I've been playing around with this fun stuff all day?

While I love the old stuff, the new attracts me as well, especially when I can incorporate my little cutie-patooties in the design.  This one worked really well because the picture had a white background.  I'll have to scratch my head a little and figure out how to get the other 7 grandkids worked into something cool :)

I think I feel some Valentine Blocks in my future.

Food Locker

100 years ago, or so it seems, we started to paint the kitchen cupboards.  Actually, we started in March and by November we were finally finished with the cupboards and countertops.  The walls still need painting and I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the space above the cupboards.  For now, the shining star of the whole adventure is the bookcase which is now my food locker.

I find her beautiful, practical and oh, so useful!

It is truly amazing what a little paint, a handy husband and a lot of patience can produce.  Before the transformation, when I was much younger : ) I spent hours trying to decorate the open shelves with seasonal displays and books and dishes, etc.  Then, when I got a little older, I got tired of digging in the bottom cupboards by the sink for the canned goods.  My brilliant idea to put the foodstuffs on the bookcase created a "poor farmer" decorating style all my own...

I think my decorating style had a great deal to do with the fact the first cupboard doors hubby made were put on the new food locker.

Of course, since the food locker looked so nice, I had to do something with the rest of the wall.  I got rid of the red paint, replaced the old dry sink (which I really love, but just didn't fit with the "fresh farm" decor) with a bench seat and decorated the top of the foot locker.

Since there is no such thing as remembering to take a picture of the kitchen when it is clean and everything is in its place (more like there's no such thing as everything in its place in the kitchen) here's a peek at another part of the kitchen after the facelift.  I love the new faux beadboard cupboard doors and hardware.  All total, hubby made 23 doors!

It is really hard to believe how scared we were to paint everything white...

The change has been wonderful... but some things never change.  I still don't like to cook!  

Hopefully my creative juices and ambition will kick back into high gear.  I've missed being away from blog land.  Even though the kitchen still needs a lot of paint... we're already toying with the notion we will redo the bathroom this winter.  You might say we suffer from DIY ADHD!

More of the Dow House & Events

I do believe the Dow City Christmas extravaganza, A Christmas Carol was a big hit.  I was able to get more pictures  of the Dow House all decked out for the holidays.

The Dow House

The structure itself is beautiful, inside and out.  The grounds are well kept year round and the carriage house is an attractive addition.

For sake of simplicity, here is a collage of highlights from inside the house.  There were so many wonderful things!  The chandeliers were probably my favorite.

There were activities for everyone all day long and into the evening.  The cookie exchange had lots of goodies including these adorable little melting snowmen.

The Christmas Market Place is where I spent most of my time... debuting my candles (finally)!  I was pleased with the results.  My Kenny - well, really my daughter's Kenny - was a great help.  And so was Mardi.  Hope they had as much fun as I did!

My favorite Street Guy:  Ye Olde Popcorn Vendor!

The grand finale of the event was a lighted Christmas Parade.  Wow!

I believe that is Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past.

And a lighted Christmas Tree in the middle of the street.

God Bless Small Town America!

Old Fashioned Christmas

This year I jumped at the opportunity to join the talented gals in Dow City, Iowa, in decorating the historic Dow House for Christmas.

The Simeon E. Dow House is a beautiful two-story, 13-room red brick house that was built in 1872.  The locals have done a wonderful job at preserving the vintage originality.  

I was assigned the Maid's room.  I headed down the dirt road for inspiration, knowing a Maid in the late 1800's would not have any money for lavish decorations.  Much to hubby's chagrin, I returned home with his pickup loaded with all sorts of ditch goodies for my project and filled the garage with greens and weeds.

But what wonderful weeds they were! 

One of my favorite finds, a little difficult to appreciate in the picture below, is the Sunflower stem... it dries to resemble (at least in my mind) shepherd hooks that worked perfect for hanging tissue paper snowflakes for an interesting and "poor Maid" creation.

I was delighted to be able to incorporate some of my past projects into the room... hand-dipped candles, antiqued rag dolls & mittens, Christmas stocking, etc.  The most elaborate item in the room was the fruit basket, designed to be a gift from the Dows to the Maid, complete with nuts in the shell and three Silver Certificates for her faithful service throughout the year.  (They're fake, of course)

Oh how divine the aroma of those orange slices & cloves!

My room, of course, pretty much pales in comparison with the rest of the house... pictures of which I hope to take and post soon as the decorating wasn't finished when I left.  

So today... I'm off to join in the festivities in Dow City... and debut my candles at the Christmas Market!

Happy Fourth!

I've been itching to create something... anything.  It's been a while and I fear the old creative juices are gonna dry up and blow away if I don't do something!

In the spirit of the holiday, I put together a little something that was inspired by Gail at My Repurposed Life.

One day I hope to be able to create a beautiful and unique piece of functional furniture like Gail, but for now I'll settle for just a little holiday touch to brighten the kitchen.

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday!

Lions & Tigers & Bears - Oh My!

Good grief.  I guess I better stop complaining about the weather because it seems the upper atmosphere has ears and doesn't like me grumping about all the rain.  I think there are very few places in the United States that have actually had a nice Spring.  Fires, floods, tornadoes - you name it, it's been awful everywhere.  Guess I really didn't have much to complain about compared to what others are facing and losing.  I was complaining about cold, cloudy and wet.  Nothing, I tell you, nothing compared to the devastation elsewhere.

So, I guess it's my own darn fault that I lost one of my good (tree) friends in the storm last night.

He was a goofy looking thing, for sure, but he was like the Sentry at the end of our driveway.  Our personal Wal-mart wanna be greeter. Our unique, not-another-one-like-it-in-the-world tree.

Snap.  Gone.

By far, the worst damage we've had out here from storms since moving out here in 2003.   We've had wind storms that picked up pieces of outdoor furniture and blew them across the yard and downed huge limbs, but never have we had whole, giant trees destroyed.  

Okay, so we didn't have lions and tigers and bears, but there were plenty of "Oh My's!" as we walked around the property surveying the damage.

Inside the spare garage... at least the new garage door opener wasn't destroyed.

Poor little spare garage.

Grain bins don't belong in corn fields.

(If you click to enlarge the picture, you will see Dolly Llama is a little confused about the large object in the corn field too)

The charming old machine shed took a beating too.  The same tree that embedded itself in the garage roof, banged into the machine shed...

... and actually moved the building.

Mind you, the building wasn't in the best shape to begin with, but at least it was straight.  The boards were not leaning to the east before the storm.

This was another giant beauty that was hard to see fall.  It held remnants of a tree house built years and years ago and was a wonderful source of shade for the little grain building and the llamas.

It fell into the fence and took out a couple sections.  The llamas, like the goats in one of the other pens on the north side of the property took advantage of the breaks and were roaming freely around the yard this morning!

Considerable damage, for sure.  BUT, there are more things that weren't damaged... our vehicles, our house, our little pond, our family.  It could have been much, much worse.  

The big machine shed will have to come down now before it falls down with the next big wind.  (but won't those 100 year old boards make some awesome, rustic items?)  The spare garage may disappear too.  Its cement floor may become a basketball court.  The trees, as they were, cannot be replaced, that is the saddest part of all.  The appearance of things out here will change - slowly, dramatically, but isn't that the way it is in life?  Change, always change.