Random funness!

It’s been a great week!  I’ve already hi-lighted much of it through the last few posts.

More hi-lights:

~I’ve received some fun, somewhat random comments from other bloggers.  I love to get comments.  One gal, who happens to be a fun fabric designer that I’ve admired for years, left me a comment.  I almost got teary-eyed, I was so excited.  Jennifer designs some incredibly luscious stuff!

~The wholesale order I was working on (my 1st big one) turned out amazing.  I sent in a bunch of random charms along with the 2 sets of monograms that they knew they wanted and they kept everything and ordered more!.. WOW!…what a charge.

~I love gelato! – last night I had tiramisu gelato – oh, yummy!

~Every time I go by the SPRINKLES in the store, I have to stop, look and smile!

~I’m so very blessed!

~I love it when full-length mirrors are sitting at a slight tilt.  Actually, the greater the slant the more I like it!

~I get to spend two nights with my #1 daughter of wonder. Now that she lives 7 hours from us, it’s nice to know that she is being taken care of so well in this place where she spent her first 8 years.

~We started out today at the most wonderful fabric store.  We were both on overload and close to hyperventilation.  She actually pulled out her camera to capture some of the wonder.

this is the most AB fabric we have seen in any one place! WOW!

Now we are at Starbucks sharing food, drink & internet (3 favs for sure).

These aren't the most important things in life but they liven it up a bit!

~We spent some quality time with many long-time friends.  Here is one mother/daughter team that we adore!

It's not too difficult to tell which girls belong to which moms!

~Did I mention that I am blessed beyond words!

*I wrote this yesterday but couldn’t get my pics downloaded @ the Starbucks that I was at, so now I’ve slipped a couple of hours away to another one.*

What’s for breakfast??

…corn on the cob, peaches, strawberries & salsa!  I have to leave again for a few days, so I decided that I needed to check the garden and see what needed my attention.  We’ve had some freezing going on here so I know that if I want it, I had better get it and take care of it.  I didn’t plant this year with the idea of putting lots of stuff up for the winter because I’m really just getting my feet wet with gardening.  I’ve never done it on a real big scale before so I didn’t want to overwhelm myself completely, but there is still some of the wonderful stuff that can hit the freezer shelves.

I got started early this morning so who really needs breakfast when you can just clean off each cob that has had the corn freshly cut from it…& eat that first slice of each peach…nible on the strawberries & dip some chips into that fresh salsa.  Actually this has been my lunch too…along with some fresh juice made with pear, apple, plum & carrot.  Truth be known, my jeans are a little tight (and these are the big ones!).

I’ve been playing some more with the map snippets for my soldered charms.  I have also been cutting up license plates to use in charms and some of the license plates have tiny little letters.  I thought it would be fun to add a monogram to the bottom of custom map charms.  Here’s my attempt.  It’s made with 2 pieces of 1″ bevel glass.  Next time I won’t add so many jump rings to join them – I’ll try just using one.

side one of map charm w/hanging monogram

(side 2) as I leave home again ~ may I always find my way back

More home-canned goodness

I am blessed to have such a wonderful mother-in-law.  She is a Godly, gracious woman and has added so much to our lives.  One of the things that she is passing on to us is an appreciation for corn relish.  She cans it each year and serves it with each holiday meal.  It seems those meals just wouldn’t be the same without it.  Last night was my time to make my one batch of corn relish…so out to the patch I go (with my dad) to pick and husk the corn.

I absolutely love having our own corn!

simmering corn relish

Oh! So beautiful!

As I was making this last night I was reminded of the time I packed up all of my ingredients and carted them over to a friend‘s house late at night and made it there.  I can’t remember why I did this because we froze corn all that day at my house but all in all I just enjoy the good memories! 

One of the most enjoyable aspects of canning is listening for the “POP” as the lid seals!!!!

Hey Friends!

My sales over the weekend were quite meager but I have been promised several custom orders out of the deal and the optimist in me says that I would do it again next year.  The thing that brought balance to this time away was the fact that I was at a ladies conference where there were workshops and speakers and worship and…bottom line…I came home blessed (exhausted and blessed!!).

Monday I worked so very hard on my cabin…so hard I just collapsed at the end of the day but…hard work + aching bones = satisfaction and good rest.  A couple of years ago a friend and I put insulation up under the cabin then we covered it with a black outdoor fabric to hold it all in place…right?   Well, the rats moved in and it was the biggest mess.  We had to redo all of that insulation, add more, piece the black fabric back over it and then…the hard part…cover it with a wire mesh cover (don’t know what it’s called).  It’s so heavy and we have to cut it to fit with wire cutters then nail & staple in place.  We’ll finish it up this morning!  Yeah!

I took a break from that yesterday to spend the day in the kitchen with my mom.  We had fun and were VERY productive.

a day in the kitchen with mom

Here are some pictures from our day:

simmering for hours so it can cook down.

ready to hit the shelves

Chili sauce is something that my Grandma Carpenter started making in the early 70′s.  We used it on our tacos and it’s been passed on from generation to generation.  Some of us can’t have tacos without it.

Then we moved on to apple pie filling…

I picked every apple off of the tree {& off the ground} that I could find.

apple pie filling Yum! Yum!

Then to celebrate “the making of chili sauce”, we invited every family member we could find (we ended up with 15) to come for a taco dinner complimented with apple pie and ice cream…oh yeah…and fresh salsa!  YUMMO!

It was a good day – now back to  hard work!

Ready for business!

I’m all set up and ready for the sales to pour in!  (here’s hopin’)

ready, set...go sell!

I’m just a traveling salesman{gal}

I’ve been busily getting ready for a ladies conference this weekend where I get to set up shop {I feel like a traveling salesgal}.  Here are a few more pics of some things I’ve been working on.

Mr. T was having himself a laugh over my map charms.  He said they could come in real handy if a gal were to get herself lost….this gave me a laugh too and got me to thinkin’

Here’s a sweet piece of tatted lace encased in a soldered frame!…

…and a custom order!

…and now I need to get ready to hit the road!

Stepping up to my own challenge~

I had a great meeting with the gals on Friday who were interested in a wholesale order and I left there challenged to try some new things.

{“Queen of denial” was a saying they wanted me to work into a charm}

This last one is a 1″ bevel with a snippet of a map encased in it with a mirror on the other side. I can do a charm with a piece of map for any city/country/area.  Keep in mind that generally any charm I show on my blog is for sale.  And most of my charms are $20 each, including a 30″ chain.

I just keep poppin' the HAPPY PILLS for more creative ideas smothered with VERVE

Go over  and see Amber Rose and check out this fun, creative, crafty gift swap for bloggers. I am already coming up with some incredibe, exciting, wonderful and fantabulous idea for my swappy lady!

On the home front!

I’m going to share a few pictures that I took around here today.  We’ve been working towards building a cabin on this property for about 10 years.  The story of that (which is very cool!) will be shared in a future blog.  We are trying to finish it in the next few weeks and it has been so fun to see the finishing touches {finally} come together.  Today I painted the exterior trim for the windows.

This is a cabin that sits in front of our house…

…and here is my beautiful, new {for me} house

Our cat, Eli, has never had the luxury of being outside but we’ve been letting him go out on the deck during the day  and he loves it, although he often escapes to further extremities.

Whenever we say to Tripp “where’s Eli?”, he goes out and rounds him up, with great delight, and sends him inside.  We seem to get way too much amusement out of our animals. (we’ve turned into those kind of people)

Here’s a cup of fresh-juiced goodness from my garden {yellow plum, apple, carrot}

{it’s so funny for me to think about the crazy things that I now take pictures of just so that I can share tidbits of this and that…the things which make up my days}

Charms, Charms…and more Charms!!!

Today I have an appointment with a buyer who is interested in purchasing my soldered charms for her store (a large nursery with a gift store).  I haven’t particularly liked the display racks that I’ve made previously; they are fun, functional and go along with the soldered theme but they are a real pain to make and require a lot of glass and solder.  So I decided to dream up a new display rack idea and I really like how it turned out…so much so that it would even be a fun idea to make these and sell them.  (this reminds me of a different story: my charms went to the Country Living Fair (for CL magazine) last year and people were so excited about them that they even wanted to buy my display racks)…(my charms are there again…right now…as I write…they are {hopefully} selling all weekend…what a thrill…I’ll try to keep you posted on this one)   …anyway, I had so much fun making this rack…I tickled myself!  ;0)

here’s a close-up of the sign…made with a 2×8 beveled glass!

and here are the charms, charms and mor charms!!! …and there are still many more to make!

p.s. I forgot to mention in the last post that Mr.Cash is donning his new hunting season attire!

Domesticity!

Have I mentioned that I am so glad to be home???  This is the first piece I made when I got home.

measures 4 1/2" x 6" and sells for $35.00

I’ve been enjoying my garden and we’ve been eating out of it for every meal.  There is very little being spent at the grocery store right now – Oh, to be able to say that year round.

I don’t really want this flower picture to be deceiving.  These are really the only 3 pretty flowers I have in my whole garden and  I have several more sunflowers that are almost ready to bloom.  Zinnias are one of my favorite flowers and I would love to have lots more next year.

Cash was helping me pick beans in the garden and then he decided that it was just easier to take them out of the bucket.  Doesn’t he look so innocent?   He’s so funny in the garden.  We haven’t let him in since we planted it because he’s such a nuisance but now when I let him in, he picks various things and eats them or plays with them.  He loves the plums that are falling to the ground.

Days like these are amongst my favorites as I combine work around the house, garden and my {vintage charm} business.  The mornings/evenings are cool with the days reaching mid 70′s complimented with a beautiful blue sky.  My dad, who has been a logger for 50+ years, is working close enough to the house where I can hear his chainsaw and cat running throughout the day and I love those sounds.

I’ve been trying to make soldered charms like crazy.  This soldered charm features a picture that is one of my favorites.  This cute little gal is making the most of a busy day as she hustles to get her groceries home.  She even has cute shoes on.  The word that kept coming to mind as I was putting this one together was “domesticity”.

soldered charm measures 1"x1 1/2" ~ $20.00

\ˌdō-ˌmes-ˈti-sə-tē,\noun ~ the quality or state of being domestic

The above charm picture was taken on a flour sack dish towel that belonged to my great grandma.  It’s thread-bare throughout, due to the years of domesticity that it experienced at the hands of grandma Alby.  It’s pretty awesome to have so much passed on throughout the generations; some my favorites being love of God, home, land and family.