Vacation!

Hi everyone!

It's time for a break! I've been blogging for nearly three years now.  While it has been fun and informative (for me, and I hope for you!) I will not be posting to this blog in the Month of August!  I am taking a much needed vacation!  See y'all in September (maybe late August!) with some new themes and fun tutorials for fall!

In the meantime, I have listed some of my favorite posts in the side bar, maybe you would enjoy reading one of those!  Also, leave your email  in the comments section if you would like to be notified when I return. Have a wonderful end to your summer, and see you in September!!!!!

Thanks to all my loyal followers!

Linda  

Patterns while Waiting for my RX

Seal Antics

As promised, here are the pictures of a seal at Yaquina Head State Park.  We visited the Lighthouse, then an old quarry where we found several seals lazily relaxing on the rocks just a stone's throw from the human viewing platform. This one seal was not sleeping like the rest of them, but seemed to relish the attention of all the onlookers.  I really don't know what he was doing, it looked like calisthenics and he just kept doing all these 'stretching exercises?'  I  just kept shooting to get these pictures. 

Sorry, the pictures are not more crisp and clear.  My photo program is not working well. Pooh! 

Anyway, enjoy the seal antics!    

Thursday Card Making Tutorial

As promised, Thursday is Card Making Day!

Today we will be making a birthday card.  This one will be good for the older person in your life, or, you can make it comical for a younger person.  Start with a purchased card blank or make your own from cardstock (This one has decorated cut edges using a deco scissors.)  Then gather some old photos of your family or whatever you have.  We didn't want to cut up our photos, so I copied them on our printer, for a paper copy that I could cut up. 

With a matching piece of cardstock or card blank, I cut out a simple frame.   Started cutting in the middle of the paper, cutting out the inside of the frame.  Round the corners.

Although I did not, at first decorate my frame, although you could stamp it like this one: (stamped with a Happy Birthday stamp.)

Cut the paper picture to fit the frame and glue to the back of the frame.  For the background of the card, I gathered some wide lace, cutting it and fitting and pasting it to the card. 

I added a simple bow to the top (because I like them) and finished the frame with some hand penciled coloring of scrolls and flowers for the finished product. 

I used this card to send to my mother, on her birthday this week.  She is 83 and I am a few years younger, (but old myself!), so I thought this would be appropriate for the both of us!  I know she will laugh at the insinuated meaning of us both being old!  :)  hee hee! 

Perspective Study - Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Vacay Report

I think I have just returned from the best little weekend vacation that I have had in a lot of years!

Went with my daughter and her family to the Oregon Coast to take in the sites!  We first went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium at Newport.

Then we went to our hotel which was awesome, with a patio that looked right out to the beach.  We spent time on the rocks looking in the tide pools, built a sand castle and got our feet wet in the sea! 

We watched the ocean at night with huge resort lights shinning on the waves.  Gorgeous!

Then the next day after visiting and picnicing at beach, we left for Yaquina Head to see the lighthouse. 

We got a bonus, as the birds were in their mating season on the ocean rocks. 

Then we went to a small cove, where we  got some amazing pictures of seals relaxing on the rocks.  One of them  gave me a show with his antics . . . . but I will save those pictures for later in the week!   

It was an awesome trip as we traveled up the coast past tourist towns and ending up with dinner and ice cream at the Tillamook Cheese Visitor Center! (A few more pictures are on my Facebook page.)

Padriac in the Baby Loaf Cheese Mobile!

Have you taken a mini vacation lately?

Scrappy UPCYCLED Greeting Card

I have decided to do a card making tutorial every Thursday throughout the summer!  Follow me on Thursday's for ideas and inspiration in making your own greeting cards!!

If you are like me, in this present difficult economy, you are looking for ways to cut costs and still live a similar lifestyle, like you did before the recession.  Many people save everything!  I save scraps of sewing supplies, trims and fabrics; paper; anything that I think I might use later.  I even use left over paint that is already mixed up rather than throwing it out!  I recently was inspired to make a greeting card which started from left over paint from another project.  I painted some old music paper randomly, with the remainder of some blue paint. 

I also had some card blanks, that I picked up at the local craft store for a buck.  You wouldn't have to use a pre-bought one, you could make your card from any color card stock paper that you might have.  Cut the edges with one of your fancy cutters to make it look finished.

 Next, I cut a random form from the painted music paper for a background.  I also cut another random form from a leftover piece of floral paper from a previous project. 

 Pasted on the card, they look like this:

Then for the scrappy part!  I went to my scrap drawer--yes, I have one in my plastic craft chest, top drawer!  I pulled out a handful of scraps, including a piece of gold cording, yellow bias binding, ribbon, gold and bronze trim, and a little package of pressed flowers that I bought years ago at a craft sale!

 And, voila! Here is the finished collage product, which I am quite proud!  What cost me a few pennies, would have cost about $4.00 at the card store.  And I am sure I will be happy to give this little card and someone will be happy to get it! 

 What have you done lately with your "scraps"?

Old Friendship Quilt Top - Wordless Wednesday

Vintage Recipe

When I was in high school, in the sixties, (WOW, am I that old?) I would often go to the cafeteria or the student lunch counter and buy flying saucers!  What are those, you say?  They are incredibly large oatmeal spice cookies--about five inches in diameter--thus the name! I loved them, and my mom, who collects recipes, happened to see the recipe, shared by the high school,  in the local newspaper. Of course she clipped it and I have had this recipe for years and years and years--did I say that I am old now???  hee hee!  Here's the 'vintage' recipe:

Flying Saucers

1/2 c.  shortening

   1 c.  sugar

   1      egg, slightly beaten

1/4 c.  honey

2-3 T. milk

1/4 c.  raisins

1  1/2 c. oatmeal (old fashioned)

1 3/4 c. flour

3/4 t. baking soda

1/2 t. allspice
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt

Wash and soak raisins in hot water, and set aside to drain well.
Cream shortening and sugar until light.  Add egg, honey and milk and continue to cream.  Combine oatmeal and reserved raisins to the mixture. 

Sift together all dry ingredients;  then add to the mixture. Mix well until well blended.  Dip with No. 16 scoop (or 1/4 c.) onto well greased cookie sheet.  Make sure you leave plenty of room around the mounds for flattening.  With a glass dipped in water, flatten slightly.  Bake at 300 degrees 10-15 minutes.  Cool to set. 

Makes 12 saucers (approx. 4 1/2" in diameter) 

Note: These will be soft when you take them from the oven.  This is what makes them so good, because the are a soft cookie--DO NOT over cook!  I also increase the spices just a little bit, but I like them that way.

The Garden Gate

 . . . . is it an entrance to a secret garden?

 . . . . the alley entrance to the backyard? 

 . . . . the vegetable garden?

 . . . . or a private garden for meditation?

for me it is . . . . a song:


In the Garden
by C. Austin Miles

I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.

Refrain:
And He walks with me,
and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.
Copyright 1912, 1940

This is for Sunday Sketches.  See the other participants entries at BlueChairDiary.  Thanks!

Summer Kid Krafts

Well, summer is officially in full swing!  What are you going to do with the kids?  Probably looking for play days to swap, locating the local water park, finding the children's story time at the local library, and stocking up on craft supplies. 

Little Sister with the sparkly glue



LaRaya's turn!



Kids love crafts, especially because they love to get messy!  Recently I did a craft with two of my grandchildren.  It started when I found LaRaya who is five, and her sister who is two, nearly three, cutting up little pieces of foam paper.  Pieces were everywhere.  I ask LaRaya if she wanted to make a mosaic.  She really didn't know what a mosaic was, but she was game for anything that I wanted to make with her. So we began.  On a large sheet of paper, she wanted to draw a princess!  No surprise there, everything that she does lately involves a princess!   We drew the outline and I started pasting the little foam pieces onto the paper.  LaRaya just wanted to use the sparkly glue on the princess' gown.  I got the hair done, and started on the crown, before she realized what I was doing.  Finally she joined in and had fun cutting and putting just the right sized pieces in the rainbow that she added to the picture.  All the while, little sister had fun with the glue!



This is fun!



Finished product and proud artist!



The Day After - Wordless Wednesday

WINNER!

WINNER!
WE have a WINNER in my summer clearance and giveaway!  See post

Dolly Madison has won  a $15 gift certificate to be used in any of my three shops!  Congratulations Dolly!   Visit her lovely shop!


My summer discount sale is over, but there are still many, many items in my shop that are clearance priced.  Clearing out the shop to be ready for the fall line.