I know it seems like I crawled in a hole and didn't really know how to get out, but I've had massive computer problems, and very few smiles these past two weeks. Yesterday was different though, because I visited my friend Kathy, who lives in a town about 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) away. So, today I'm once again joining
Annie at
A Stitch in Time for Friday Smiles.
When I got to Kathy's, I gave her a gift.
I had finally finished the poppy scrappy journal. I'll show the entire journal next week.
For now, at least, you can see the front cover. The entire journal cover was dyed in some way or another.
I also reworked a cuff I gave Kathy for her birthday in April that was too big for her wrist. I HATE rework, but I was finally able to finish it Wednesday.
Here, she's trying it on, but she has it on backwards, so I didn't get a shot of it on her wrist right side up.
Then Kathy looked through the scrappy journal I made for her. There are 98 pages, so it took me awhile to scan them, let alone make them.
Kathy made this floral candle arrangement in time for me to see it. I think she's giving it to a sick friend sometime next week. She even glitzed the flowers with bling.
I had a couple of places I wanted to go, and she also suggested we look for garage sales. Unfortunately, there were none in the newspaper that were on Thursday. Ironic, since most start on Thursday in Wichita, but not so in her town. Kathy's "baby" Watson watched us intently from his bed in the laundry room.
First it was off to eat at a Chinese buffet, since we both love Chinese food.
It was my treat, so I told her to pick where she wanted to eat.
The food was actually quite yummy, and being a vegetarian didn't affect my appetite, either.
As we sat and talked after we ate, Kathy showed me what her latest project is. She's been making these fobs. Hers goes on her purse, and is filled with things that have meaning to her, including the soldered gift I gave her for Christmas.
After we ate, and before we went to the museum we both wanted to see, she asked me to show her where I lived when I lived in her town. I tell people it was all downhill from here (grin), because this was the very first place I ever purchased.
The house has six bedrooms, three car detached garage with a working bath, four fireplaces, a maid's quarters, 4 1/2 baths, and a complete room sized closet made of cedar that was next to the laundry room, which was upstairs (the ideal place for a laundry room, in my opinion). After all, it's a whole lot easier to take a couple of guest towels and a few dish cloths and towels to the second floor than it is to take loads of clothes and bed linens downstairs, then have to cart them back upstairs when they were clean. That's why I'll NEVER buy a house with a laundry room in the basement. But I digress.
When I owned the house, the windows in the turret were original and curved. There were stained glass windows that overlooked the open staircase and front door side windows. The porch wraps around the entire right side of the house.
I was a bit saddened by the look of the house, because all the yard work I had done and all the plants and flowers I had planted were gone. And it had a bit of a disheveled look to it, even though the bones were still solid. At least I got to see it, and reminisce a bit. I was silly to have sold it when I moved, but I had no choice, since I didn't have much capital at that time in my life. Some things
come back to haunt us never change (grin).
Before we visited the museum, we also drove through the park.
I had always loved this place, because there is a water feature that lights up at night,
and the fountains usually run all the time, although it appears a city worker was cleaning the wading pool when we were there.
I won't take up any more of your time, although we also visited several other places, including the museum. We also did a bit of shopping. I'll save those photos for another day. Back at Kathy's, we went through her fabric and lace and she shared her abundance of fabric she assured me she would NEVER use. I felt SO honored. Now I must sew a few scrappy journal covers!
I hope your Friday begins with a smile, because mine has, with the memory of a fun day with my dear friend Kathy. And please visit
Annie for more smiles that are probably shorter than mine this week.
After making a middle ground to cover the background, I looked for positive words, but forgot the prompt.
As you can see, I thought it was "Positive Thoughts." Regardless, it's the same concept.
Two detail shots and a final look at
a few words, thoughts, and ideas that I find positive in my life.
Some of you may have seen my previous post, where I showed the cover to my scrappy journal I made for my dear friend Kathy.
I used my handmade poppy stencil, and reworked the poppies to make them look a tad more realistic. Unfortunately, we live and learn, and I learned the matte finish I applied after I applied my pan pastel (as an aside, my dear friend Kathy bought it for me) ran into the blue reinker and made it even darker than it had been. Lesson learned.
Not to be deterred, I decided to dye some more fabric, this time using oatmeal as a resist. From left: washed and torn cotton bed sheet, spoon that belongs in my craft room, cooked oatmeal*, painter's tape, plastic to cover the work table.
I decided I would not make that mistake again, so this time, I cooked the oatmeal. Remember, this is NOT to be consumed by humans once you have opened and used it in a craft project.
The cooked oatmeal was sticky, and stuck better, but 
certainly didn't go as far as the last batch I made.
I only got one sheet of oatmeal fabric resist this time.
Now it was time to play the waiting game.
The next morning, the fabric was dry, and I got started before the sun got too hot. Like before, I used Staz-on re-inkers, colors of your choice and 91% Isopropyl Alcohol (also called "Rubbing Alcohol" in the US, but do not use 70%).
Once the reinkers and alcohol were applied, they dried almost instantly. However, the oatmeal was still wet from the process, so I once again allowed them to dry overnight. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos. I was under a bit of a time crunch, but you can see how I removed the oatmeal by seeing this post. Sadly, this time, the cooked oatmeal was a bit harder to remove, even with the jet spray. I had to run the final piece through my washing machine to make sure the last tiny bits were removed. As with the uncooked oatmeal, the colors were much duller than I anticipated.
But now it was finally time to sew these pieces together. In a way, I was a bit sad I had covered up all the oatmeal resist fabric.
I combined a failed SOC attempt with an image of a SOC "cabbage rose." It was actually the first piece I stamped, and when I looked around for some scrap fabric, this was all I had. I knew I'd use it some way, but never expected to use it this soon. I used a colored pencil to draw around the cat image. Even Bleubeard approved for once!
And because he approved, he allowed his approval to show by being part of the handmade gift.
Here is the front scanned so you can see its true colors.
And even though I believe the "better half" of this blog is more handsome than this, it's still a good caricature of Bleubeard.
Last Friday I got my staples out and used four to show how fun it can be to bake cookies.
Sew, sew sew. I love sewing disparate bits and pieces to ICs. It's a fun way to get rid of my leftovers, since no piece is too small for these ICs.
I spent a LOT of time lining the fox up so it looked like s/he was peeking out from behind the tree. One staple was used for this one. I think I've mentioned how much I like this technique, so I look forward to more of these one staple wonders.
What can I say? No scrap too small, no piece need go to the trash bin when it can be incorporated into an IC. I think this one should be called the scrap house.
Just for fun, I created a dog house! Bleubeard gave his approval.
Here's another single staple entry. These are LOTS of fun, and I really enjoy this technique.
This one should have read "color, color." I was drawn to the color when I saw it. Instead, I had to find some sentiment, and this was the first thing that looked like it would go with the background.
thank you to everyone who linked up last week. It was an awesome week, 
where some chose to show a favorite post, and others chose something new.
It didn't matter to me, as long as you joined this event.
As promised, if you linked last week, your name was automatically placed in this cup. Since I'm not a big fan of Random.org, because, statistically speaking, the randomness follows a normal bell curve, where the most numbers are in the center of the curve, while the outliers, or those numbers at the ends of the curve, don't often stand a chance of winning.
I tried to get Bleubeard to choose a name, but all he managed to do was dig around in the cup. That meant it was up to me to reach in and grab a name. In the past, NO ONE could read names when I didn't use Random.org. This time, I hope
you can see the name. Look for something 
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