Busy making stuff in my workshop~

Call me cheap but I will be sharing with you gifts I am making that cost me next to nothing.  With my financials being the way they are I am having to really stretch my dollar this holiday season and use items I already have on hand.  The first gift I want to share cost me actually nothing to make because I salvaged the frame from the garbage and already had the chalkboard paint.  If you don't have any on hand Walmart carries it for under $5.00, or you could maybe get it cheaper with a Micheal's coupon.  I love this chalkboard paint because you can use on wood, metal, glass,  etc.

The frame is made from....you know I actually can't think of the exact name for it but a house marker where you put your street number.  I love how it turned out.  The natural patina on it is what made me love it so.  It might just be a gift to myself.

I am heart broken this week our shar-pei Mocha passed away.  She was 16.  Two more years and she could have contended with the oldest living shar-pei.  But she was so sick her liver, kidneys, heart.  Then yesterday she suffered a stroke and went paralyzed in her hind legs.  It was the most heart wrenching thing to witness.  Thankfully my mom and I didn't have any kids at the daycare when it happened so we were both able to go to the vet to be with her.  I am feeling so guilty on top of it because I went through the last two years of pictures and couldn't find a single one of her, none the less she was loved deeply.

I wish for everyone to have a beautiful weekend~

I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!  We went hiking in a couple local areas over the weekend.  It was nice to get out of the city for a while.  Kiah hates to go anywhere that is out of a 5 mile radius because he gets car sick.  So we took his cousin along to keep him company.

It was quite a hike to get to the swimming hole.  But this is the swimming hole of swimming holes.  It is called the Garden of Eden because the Mount Harmon boys used to swim here naked.  I didn't like having to hike along side the railroad tracks with two kids in tow.  Thankfully the train didn't come by.  The kids had a huge pool to themselves.

Then to the other side there was this huge rock they could jump off of.

We got there about 5pm and by that time everyone was heading back up the trail.  There were only a few sets of people down there while we were there.  Which was nice, I hate to be in crowds of people.

The day before that Chris and I had gone hiking at a local hiking trail.  I don't think I sweat that hard in a long time.  It was quite the work-out.  At least I can say I exercised.

Besides that I have been trying not to focus on our financial state, working on a couple things for a Stampington & Co submission, trying to keep Kiah off of video games, and praying my sister gets better quick. 

I was so excited the other day when one of my photos made it to explore on Flickr.

This week I am not going to do my to-do list since everything is pretty much the same as the last weeks.  Once Kiah starts school again a couple of weeks I hope to be better at getting things done.  Yeah, yeah that's what they all say.

All that glitters is not gold......

This is the little precious that almost cost my granny her life.  I fell in love with this clip when I saw it.  Out of the whole estate sale this was the only thing that caught my eye.  I asked how much it was knowing that I didn't have enough; I only had $2.00 on me.  So when the gentleman said $3.00 I figured it was meant to be.  Chris and Granny were standing right next to me,  I looked at Granny and said, "Stay right here!" I ran to the car to scour the seat cushions.  I looked everywhere for change.  Why is it when you don't need it's there, and when you do it's not.  I did manage to find $.50.  When I resurfaced Granny and Chris were by the car.  I ran passed Granny and told her, "Go ahead and get in on this side" (the side away from the street) and ran off in hopes the man would take $2.50 instead.

The next thing I know Chris is yelling all the way across the yard," That piece of garbage is worth more than your grandma's life!"  What, is he talking about?  The man just looked at me and was like "Yeah, just take it."  I felt so bad.  I am still not absolutely sure of what all happened.  But from what I gather is that when I walked away instead of getting in on the side she was already on, she walked into the street without looking while a car was coming and Chris couldn't get out of the car fast enough to stop her.  It caused major drama. Since Granny has dementia we have to watch her carefully. Somehow Chris thought it was all my fault, and I was pissed because going to a couple garage sales is my only time out in the week and he was right there.  And I did say, "Stay Here!" in the first place.  Needless to say she wasn't hit and I still got a treasure and $.50 cheaper the original price. 

Does any one know what it is?  Or seen something similar?  It has sharp hooks on the clip so I don't think it could be a scarf or blouse pin.  I was thinking maybe a money clip but then again the hooks are so sharp.

 I am leaving you all with a quick and easy recipe you can use with a variety of summer fruits.

Cut plum, peach, nectarine, etc. in half taking the seed out.  Put halves in a baking dish, sprinkle with brown sugar and place a little dab of butter in each center.  Place under the broiler and let the sugar brown and caramelize.  Making sure not to let them burn.  Once done place a dollop of ice cream on the top with another little sprinkle of brown sugar.

Yeah, it's almost the weekend.

Linking up to:

I have been a baking fool lately.....

First off I think I found the best chocolate cake recipe.  I am more of a vanilla lover, but this cake may make me cross over.  I made it by altering this recipe I found at allrecipes.com. With over 800 reviews it couldn't go wrong

I altered it by adding coffee and using dark unsweetened cocoa instead of regular unsweetened.

This is their recipe with my changes.

Coffee Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup hot coffee
1 cup boiling water
1 cup unsweetened Hershey's Special Dark chocolate cocoa powder
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
2 1/4 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  Grease a 9x13 inch cake pan.  In a medium bowl, pour boiling water and coffee over cocoa, and whisk until smooth.  Let mixture cool.  Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.  Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture.  Spread batter in the 9x13 pan.  Bake for 35-40 min.  Allow to cool.

 

My mom and I made it for my grandmother's birthday.  I was our first time using fondant.  They make it look so easy on those baking shows.  We hand placed each of those damn little pearls all around the cake.

Oh!, I am forgetting the best part the frosting. To use underneath the fondant.

Sweet Butter frosting

Ingredients:

1 pound butter, softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Directions:
Combine everything in a medium mixing bowl.  Mix everything together on low speed until well blended.  Then increase speed to medium for another 3 minutes until totally smooth.

This recipe was actually made by mistake.  I accidentally put in a pound of butter instead of a cup.  At least it doesn't have shortening in it- *gag*.  I like it, but then again one of my all time fav foods is creamed butter and sugar. So it may not be for everyone.  It passed my families inspections though; so all is good.


My goals for this week are pretty much the same as last week.  I had a lot of other things pop up that took presidence over last weeks goal list.  Gotta roll with those punches. 

1. Finish canvas
2. Try to get stain out of dress
3. Vintage Thursday
4. Art Walk
5. Catch up on Kelly Rae's class
6. Gussy up my facebook fan page

This is the vintage dress I wanted to add my etsy site last week.  But on closer inspection I noticed that some of the red trim had bled a bit onto the fabric.  Does anyone know of a way to get that out?  Any stain remover suggestions?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Mom for modeling!!

Hope you all have a nice week!

Well, here it is almost the end of May...

I swear the months go by way too fast.  I wanted to share this picture I took while waiting at a red light on the way to a winery we went hiking at.  Doesn't the cloud look like an airplane or space shuttle?
Crazy, huh?

I have been working on at lot of crafty things, lately.  I made this Dream keeper out of a little box I found left for garbage at the flea market.  It was this~

Then I glammed it up.  I just love the way it turned out.  I was taking pics to post when I noticed that my first dream might come true.  On June 4th I find out if Schmaps Guide to San Francisco wants to feature one of my photos in their magazine.  This project is inspired by two workshops I am in. The Artistic Mother's vision statement banner and the Mondo Beyondo workshop I am in is about finding and realizing your dreams.  I needed something smaller than the vision statement banner because of limited space and wanted something I can tuck away when needed.  I used mostly Prima for this.  The paper is their watercolor paper, and the feather bouquet is one of their pin bouquets.  I went a little psycho with the Stickles I must admit.  I finally got my hands on some Creative Imaginations Mini Foil kits, so I used it around all the edges.  When I went to the scrapbook store they told me they would give it to me for 50% because it was missing the sticky sheet.  Um, okay. When I was putting everything away I noticed it said "free sticky sheet included"  They gave me 50% off when the item missing was free anyways.  I love when that happens.

I also made this really cute frame, in the Artistic Mother they use little inchies which make for a darling frame.  I got the frame for a dollar at Michaels.  I first painted it with a tan color.  Then used a custom creamy beige color for the top coat, then sanded the edges so some of the bottom coat can be seen.  I used my Martha Stewart postal stamp punch instead of cutting out squares.  Glued them on, used some assorted pastels on the edges then mod podged it with the Shimmer color which added a gold tint.  Turned out very cute for a dollar frame.

I am a bad daughter and didn't get anything for my mom on mother's day so I made her this walling hanging using this adorable photo of my great-great grandma Lulu and my great grandma Dee.  My grandma Dee is 96, last week she was hospitalized for having a  minor heart attack.  Come to find out her artery was 90% obstructed.  Despite that, she was begging the doc to let her out because she needed to go play cards.

I love how the Tim Holtz crackle paint looks on it.  I accentuated the cracks with his distress ink.  Fun times.  When I am having good mojo on my paper crafts, my photo editing projects usually lack.  But I was able to process a couple that I was happy enough with.

Hope everyone had or is having a good weekend!

Make sure to check out my giveaway~

 

  

  I absolutely adore this picture of Kiah.  I want to get it printed out huge on a canvas.  He looks so serene and peaceful.  We all went out to the Campbell perk ponds for the kids fishing day.  I even dragged my mom out there.  Kiah and Chris caught 4 fish, and were so proud of themselves.  Since they were freshly stocked we were able to eat them, which we can't usually do in San Jose.  I think Kiah enjoyed spending time with his dad.  He has been on his best behavior the last few days.  At first I thought it was because Halo Reach was coming out.  You can always tell when a new game is going to come out, 'cause Kiah will start being demonstrably good and whisper sweet nothings in my ear.  But no, Halo is not coming out till September- Thank God, and he is still being good.  Knock on wood.

  This weekend I also finished my poetry quote bag and journal.  I must have been disillusioned when I thought the tote bag was going to be easy.  Ha!  Maybe it was because I haven't sewn anything since I was a teenager and even then I didn't actually sew.  I just cut out the pattern, forgetting to cut out the darts, then cried to my grandma, "can you fix my mistake".  Besides the fact, that is was hard to make and almost had me breaking down in tears.  I love the way it came out.  It is too cute.  I haven't had the chance to take any photos of them yet, but will try to post tomorrow.

My brother came over on Sunday and fixed my photoshop.  I couldn't be more happy, I was getting so frustrated with it.  All he had to was uninstall and reinstall, I knew that would probably fix the problem, but I was scared I would mess it up even more if I started to screw with it. 

I found this picture while cleaning out my closet today.  It was probably taken in San Diego.  A couple of times when I was a child my dad took me down there to visit my grandma and grandpa.  I don't have a lot of childhood memories.  But I do remember some crazy times in San Diego......

1.)  Being chased down by a flock of geese.
2.)  Losing my favorite necklace in the sand... you know those ones from the 80's where you can link them together by pushing then into each other... it was a major tragedy back then.
3.)  Riding in the back of a taxi cab, when there wasn't any seatbelts.  The driver was driving so crazy and I kept flying everywhere as my dad was yelling profanities at the driver.
4.)  My grandma and grandpa lived on a boat and for some reason didn't have a toilet, so we had to use a bucket.  Another tragic event, I was so scared I was going to fall in.
5.)  Waking up alone on the boat while my dad and grandma went grocery shopping.  But we didn't want to wake you.   Yeah right
6.)  Picking up a bird because I didn't know it was dead.  My dad scared the hell out of me by smacking it out of my hand, spanking me, and yelling  "You're going to get diseases!" over and over again.  
7.)  Driving my grandma and grandpa's old toyota truck home to San Jose in the pouring rain with no wind shield wipers.  He was totally freaking out saying, "We're not going to make it" and I just kept saying, "it's going to be okay daddy."  and it was. 

That ride home made a major impact on my father's life.  After my parent's got a divorce when I was six, we saw each other on and off.  When I got pregnant at 19 he stopped talking to me and we would only see each other maybe once a year.  He would always tell me the story of us driving home in the rain.  My father passed away three years ago.  We had finally started talking only a couple of months before he passed.  While he was in the hospital I stayed there everyday telling him the same thing I told him on that ride home,  "it's going to be okay daddy".  Until it wasn't okay anymore.  I cherish every single memory I have with my father, as crazy as they are because they are all I have now.

I love vintage goodies

Found some really cool goodies today at the flea market.  They were all from the cutest elderly lady.  I got some vintage buttons, a large flower frog, a 1925 copy of Peter Pan and Wendy, and some little vintage hor d'oeuvre picks with abalone and polished stones.  I'll post pics of the other items tomorrow. 

We took Kiah and his friend to the creek by our house.  There were these beautiful yellow flowers and tons of gnats.  But the kids had fun and I got some good pics.

My photoshop elements actually worked long enough for to me to mess with a pic.  I swear it only worked because we were going to be walking out the door in a couple of minutes.  But I was able to quickly do this.

We will see how my computer will work this coming week.  I want to upload photos but am scared it will just up and die on me.  The Geek Squad guy said it can go at any time.  So I have been using my phone for most of my internet posting.  I apologize  in advance for the spelling and spacing errors.

Till next time

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever lead a life with all the pieces in the right place....

It has been one of those months.  You know the ones where no one listens, everything goes wrong, and when you finally get a smile on your face you start your period.  We have had a lot of problems this month with my Grandma's social services and social security.  Which is really stressful because we had her work in on time and they are still giving us troubles.  I am so grateful for the assistance we do receive for her, if we didn't have it we would have to pay for everything on our very limited income.  That on top of everything else has made it a hard month.

One of the hardest problems this month has been my computer problems.  My photoshop elements isn't working and I can't upload pictures.  So I have been having to use my camera phone.  This picture is the one I am going to use for the Echo group and this was supposed to be my echo but all that other stuff just came out. If that is what the picture prompted out of me I guess I will go with it.  Next week I am going to team up with Becky Dorcsh for the Dim Challenge.  I hope I have my computer working better by then.  My camera phone takes okay pics but is not the same.

Art by Chrysti

Ilka's Attic

The last month and a half has been so full of different emotions. My sister Linsey was sick and we were all fearing for the worst. She was basically in kidney failure and there were times when it really looked the worst. She has a very rare genetic disease Ethylmalonic encephalapathy. We thought her symptoms were related to her disease, but it ended up being a different rare disease called Minimal Change. As of right now she is doing good, out of the hospital and in good spirits. I can't believe how your life stands still when someone you love is deathly ill. Now that she is in remission we are trying to make her life as fun as possible. Love you Lin!!