My New "FancyCrafty{Me}" blog!

I just started a new blog all about my arts and crafts. I love to paint, scrapbook, make cards using stamps and other mediums among many other fun things. I just uploaded my first set of photos of things I've painted way back when.... over 10 years ago. When I say I painted things I meant I've painted on furniture, dolls, birdhouses, etc. In the next few days I hope to upload photos of baskets I was hired to paint. I got a bit burnt out on painting since my job took over my time after a couple of years. Then Jessica started to get sicker and I discovered scrapbooking... so the painting took a backseat and I delved into preserving our memories. I've made two scrapbooks of Jessica so far and am working on one for each of my sons.

My mom talked me into becoming a Creative Memories consultant about 6 years ago (so we could both enjoy the CMC discount - hehe) and I've really enjoy it. It gets me out of the house and I've been able to meet so many great friends. I still do workshops every month and on occasion I host "Get Togethers". My CM unit hosts some pretty awesome specialty events a few times a year. We have our "Croptoberfest" every October, National Scrapbook Day every Spring and the biggest and best of all is our yearly Retreat! A whole weekend of scrapbooking, winning prizes and having fun with friends. It is the only time all year that I get to go away (usually in town!) and not have the responsibility of my medically fragile child 24/7. I have pictures that I plan on posting later on of some of these awesome events.

I got into stamping a couple of years ago and am involved with a group of ladies where we exchange cards that we've made every month. This group is hosted by a "Stampin' Up" demonstrator and she shows us new techniques and ideas at these meetings. We exchange cards and we also order from the SU catalog. We each take turns being the Host so we can earn FREE stamps! ahhh... freeeeeeeeeeeeee crafting supplies! How could I say NO?

Crafting is my therapy. Seriously. If I go awhile without doing anything creative I get very depressed. Crafting and painting is good for the soul! In fact, I include ARTS and crafts because I am an artist! I've sold more items that I've painted than I've kept - and I've kept a LOT! You should see my house! So I think that I could be considered an artist. I like that term.

So hop on over to my FancyCrafty{Me} blog and check it out! Yes, I'm bragging here! And why not? I'm so thankful for the talents that God has blessed me with. Why not share it?

Hobby

I just started doing this fun thing called Photo Hunters. If you click on the Photo Hunters logo above, it will take you to the instructions on how to participate. The founder of Photo Hunters, TNChick, also has a blogroll so you can go check out other people who are posting photos if you like. There is a new theme each Saturday. This week's theme is "Hobby". TNChick has a schedule posted for all of 2007 so if you want to participate, you can see ahead of time what themes are coming up and you can take your pictures and get them ready. Of course I'm not that organized so I am posting a picture of one of my Creative Memories Scrapbooking Retreat pictures from a couple of years ago. I am a CM consultant because I LOVE to scrapbook, meeting and helping people and I LOVE discounts. hehe... This is a picture of us showing off some of our favorite pages we made during our weekend.

Left to right in back: Mona, Reesa, Denise, Julie
Left to right in Front: Me and Valerie

I have so many hobbies that I don't have time/money/room to do them all. Did I mention that my hubby is building me a craft room? I like to paint, sew, sing, play the piano, scrapbook, make cards, write in my blog, take photos and other artsy/crafty things. I showed off several pieces that my hubby and I made here. He does the woodworking and I do the decorative painting.

Update: Well, this isn't really an update, just something I thought I would add. The first few years of Jessica's life were very difficult. She was hospitalized over 35 in just the first 3 years. She would get deathly ill from just a cold. She also had two heart surgeries and suffered strokes which left her blind, paralyzed, and other very difficult complications. With a lot of love, tears, and endless hours of therapy she was able to recover most of what she had lost. Those days were very stressful and as I look back on that time I mainly remember the difficult times. Once I started scrapbooking, I found a lot of pictures of Jessica smiling and having fun. I hadn't taken many pictures of her when she was very sick, I had mostly taken pictures on the good days. It was therapy for my soul to be able to scrapbook the good memories. I really enjoy getting those albums out and seeing her beautiful smiling face when she was so little. There are times that I wish I had taken a few more pictures of her in the hospital - mainly so others will know what she went through and what a strong person she is, but at the time I knew I would never forget and I didn't want pictures to remind me how awful things were for her. I have done some scrapbooking for my sons, too and I am having fun remembering them as little guys. I am currently working on my youngest son's album. I have realized that whether a child dies or grows up they will never be this age again - so enjoy it NOW! I take a lot of pictures and really enjoy posting them here on my blog and putting them in albums.

Hand Made Cards:

I belong to a card making group and we meet once a month for a card exchange. Here are two cards and envelopes that I made for the swap this Wednesday. I am behind so I owe cards, otherwise I'd only have to make one set. The way the card swap works is, we each make 10 of the same card so when we swap we come home with one of our own and 9 different ones. It's a lot of fun. We get to learn some stamping techniques (which I usually don't remember). It keeps me out of trouble and helps with my creativity. Also, I get to use a lot of do-dads on the cards that I won't put into my scrapbook albums.

This first card was inspired by Miss Mary's handmade card that she sent me which you can see in my post Visions of dead flowers, broken chocolate and a hand made card. Mary's card is much nicer but I used the same technique (at least I think it's the same). First I used a roller stamp and then added color with coordinating stamps. (Mary did hers on white paper, I used yellow) I then cut the stamped strip and then mounted onto a wider strip of turquoise paper and mounted that onto the card. I added a button with ribbon. I stamped "simply said from the heart - thank you" on the lower right hand side and then stamped coordinating flowers on the envelope. I tried and tried to get the lighting to turn out better on this card... the pink is almost right but the yellow is much prettier in person. Oh well, at least I have a sample to show you:


On this card I stamped the large flower directly onto the card. The card is made of textured paper so the texture showed up when I stamped the flower. I really liked the effect. The stamp includes the lop-sided circles inside of it. I thought it was quite boring with just plain white inside the flower so I stamped just the circles onto printed paper and then cut it out and adhered it into the center of the flower. I thought it was kind of clever if I do say so myself. ;-) On the left side I have a strip of pink paper, I tore it on the right side, adhered some ribbon onto it and then pierced the holes along the torn side. I stamped the little "hello" and the stem of the flower. I then stamped the set of 3 flowers onto the back of the envelope in the same pink as the flower on the card.

Showing off our talents

Karl and I make a pretty good team! Good thing too, especially considering we've been married almost 22 years! (*gasp*! How did we get so old already? lol) Karl really enjoys woodworking and I enjoy decorative painting. Some of the things we do have patterns, like the Santa, decorative pieces on the shelves including the birdhouses, country girl doll, the door on the bear cabinet and other country painted items, but none of the furniture had any instructions at all. I had the pattern for the painting on the door of the bear cabinet and Karl made the cabinet to fit the door! Same thing with the bench with the pansies on it. We designed the decorative shelf with the hearts and pegs on it together. We had a picture of the bench and Karl made it to fit right on our small front porch. The only thing that Karl had a pattern for is the armoire. Here are just a few of the projects that we've done together.

A long awaited update... well, not quite sure how many of you have waited, nor how long you waited, but here it is:

I have been accused of having too much time on my hands so I figured I should update - since I have nothing else to do. ;-P

Let's see.... after getting to bed at a mere 4:00am this morning, I was up again at 8:00 to call and cancel an appointment for Jessica. That's right, she had a bad night - yet again. I was able to go back to bed for awhile. Poor Miss Jess was coughing more today and needed an extra breathing treatment. She was quite tired most of the day but perked up in the evening. It's 12:20 am and she just got up. She really wants to go to school tomorrow but I seriously doubt it will happen. If she can get up and wants to go, then by all means, I will help her go, but she wasn't feeling that great today. School started on August 15th and she has only been to school twice.

Today I found papers for Jessica to sign to give me the legal medical power of attorney. We need to find two witnesses who are not in any way related to us or to Jessica's doctor, or an employer of her doctor or could in any way benefit financially from her "estate". lol... I don't see people lining up at our door wanting her barbies, coloring books and video games.... well, maybe the video games. :-P We also need to have the documents notorized. I need to get this done ASAP so that I can file an appeal concerning PHS denying to continue to provide mental health care for Jess. Maybe they will provide MY mental health when I'm in a padded cell from having to deal with all this stuff? Anyway, I still don't know how to go about getting legal guardianship without spending thousands of dollars, so I guess the medical power of attorney is better than having nothing at all. I need to call SSI and find out if they will require us to have guardianship before we help Jess apply for it. I doubt it but I think it would be better that way. Hey, I just had a lightbulb momment... maybe Jess can get on SSI then her earnings can pay for the lawyer to help us get guardianship? Is that legal? *gulp* Having her parents as her guardians is in her best interest since she doesn't understand more than an 8 year old would.... about anything. Well, I'm sure we'll figure it out somehow...On a lighter note, Karl finished cleaning out the store room off the carport. YAY! Now I can move all my junk - erm.... stuff - out of the house and have a more organized home. That's the plan anyway.... I did whittle down a huge stack of stuff off of my painting table. I used to paint baskets as a job and I have a table in the corner of the livingroom where I have all my paints, brushes, books and an area to paint. Well, I stopped painting 2 years ago when Jess went into hospice and that area has just gotten all kinds of stuff piled on there. I will be glad to get that area all cleaned up and maybe even paint a little again. This time for FUN! On the left are some pictures of baskets that I painted. Mary Friedrichs and her daughter, Misty, hand-weave the baskets and take them all over the SouthWest to shows to sell. Mary would pay me to do the painting. I really enjoyed it but after a few years it wasn't as much fun to paint... it became a "job" and I got a bit burned out. When Jess was placed into hospice I just knew that my time had come to retire from the basket painting business with Jess needing so much of my time and attention. (She still does - it's now 1:33am and I just put Jess back to bed for the 3rd time.)

I also painted some birdhouses and other fun stuff. Karl has made a lot of things out of wood for me to paint including the bench that I have pictured here and of course I painted the pansies on it. I have been so busy running my scrapbooking business and making my own albums that I haven't paid much attention to painting. I am starting to miss it.

Next week is my birthday and I have people guessing how old I will be. It doesn't really matter to me since I FEEL like I should be in my 60's (arthritis, fibromyalgia and crankiness catching up to me - especially with such little sleep at night). So if you want, feel free to guess my age. And yes, I expect a lot of nasty guesses especially from Dan. :-P But here's my logic: Dan's birthday (and he will be an oooooooooold 30) is on Sep 17. My birthday is on Sep 20... so Dan is 3 days older than me. So neener neener.

My sister, Karen, will be almost as old as me on Sep 19th. hehe... Happy birthday sis! Wish we lived closser so we could celebrate our birthdays together like we used to! :-)

Jessica is quite the author and artist

Most of you know that Jessica has invented her own story regarding Harry Potter. Mary Potter is Harry Potter's long lost twin sister. Mary is in the Slytherin house and is in love with Draco Malfoy. ooooooo..... Harry and Mary get a long really well and Mary and Draco get along, but there is still the rivalry between Harry and Draco. Very interesting...

Here is a picture that Jessica drew of Mary Potter's room at Slytherin.