Living Life Beautifully

It's only a few days until Christmas and then, a week later we start a new year.  Every year you hear people say, "I'm ready for this year to be over so I can start over". It was a tough year and yet our family is safe, we have a roof over our head, food, and our strong faith.  I keep trying to remind myself that that's enough.  All of us know someone who is going through a more difficult time than we are.  Trying to live up to our expectations during the Christmas season is probably the hardest thing about Christmas.  We think of the perfect meal, the perfect gifts, the perfect Christmas card, the perfect decorations, etc, etc, etc......  The build up to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is full of all kinds of pressure.  We spend money on gifts and then try to figure out how to pay our taxes a month or so later.   I was watching a show yesterday that was talking about stress causing your heart to fail.  We hear about stress causing ...

 This is the last Santa of the season.  He's a cutie patootie. I won't be making any more of them this year.  And since Bruce and I missed the Farmers Market this morning.  Sigh.... Oh well.  He is available and is $65.00. Bruce rented a wood splitter for the weekend.  Bring on the cold weather.  I'm ready to sit by the wood stove with a good book. We still have a huge pile to split and cut up.  This stack will only last us about a week of cold weather. As a kid I used to love when dad started up a fire.  He didn't do it often.  It was it's own little holiday for me. I didn't do as much decorating as I usually do for Christmas.  I put up the most important things.  It's funny, when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to decorate for Christmas.  We would get all excited and the tree was a mess of ornaments. (until we went to bed and my mother totally redecorated the tree) My boys don't help with the tree ...

Bruce and I will be at the NB Farmers Market this Saturday Dec 3rd with our own little booth.  He's excited and I'm nervous.  I worked on a few things this last couple of days. All will be at the booth this weekend, along with a bunch of the things I've posted pictures of in the last few months.  Bruce will have a bunch of rustic benches, tables and corner shelves that he made. Unfortunately, I will not have any large Santa dolls there, because the three I had are sold. Although I have another started and, if I have time, I might finish him.                                                                 This is a tree top angel. These little guys are m...

 The other day we were looking online for pajamas for our chihuahua because he's always so cold and thought it might help if we could find something that totally covered him. We found some that were really cute and reminded me of a pair of pj's that Alex wore when he was a baby. Alex asked me if I still have them.  So I went hunting for his pumpkin pajamas in one of the baby clothes totes I have in my closet.  We spent about 30 minutes going through all of Alex's baby clothes.  Alex was amazed at how tiny everything was.  Then he asked me if I would save them for when he has a child. I said, "of course.  That's what I kept them for." Actually I kept them so I could go through the tote every once in a while and see how tiny he was. :)  I love mismatched pillow cases.  When I shop thrift stores and find the old ones with the embroidery on them, I'm thrilled.  I don't just fold them up and put them in the linen closet for special occ...

Here is Santa number 3.  He's probably the biggest out of all of them. His coat is cut from a new unused quilt. One of the hardest things is having to cut the quilts.  I have so many quilts.  I'll cut one that is fallingapart or I will cut a new quilt, as long as it's not expensive.  I will not cut a handmade family quilt in good condition unless someone wants a Santa from it and I have their permission.  Because I make quilts, I know what goes into putting them together and quilting them.  I'll drive by a home and see someone covering their outdoor plants with an old quilt and I want to scream.  Bruce's aunt used to do that so I went to her house and traded her the old quilt for a blanket.  The quilt was in horrible shape but it ended up making some beautiful crafts.  I have a Santa that is made from a ragedy quilt, a pair of one of the boys jeans with holes in the knees and a pair of the boys b...

 This is Santa number 2.  He has a little ball of a nose. He looks kinda like a brainy smart Santa. His coat is from a tied quilt that was given to me, with a couple of other quilts, in exchange for a Santa made from this same quilt. When I gave her Santa to her, made from her family's quilt, she started to tear up and said it would be passed down for many years.  That was truly my favorite Santa doll story.        Here is a better picture of Santa number 1. Here is a better picture of the little Santa with his bag. I love the eyes. And this is all three together.  I pinned a star painted like a flag on Santa 1's hat just for fun.  I was thinking of making him a bag with a patriotic theme. Well, that's all for today.  I'm pooped.  Each Santa takes about two days to make.  I kinda want to make an Angel tomorrow, but they take even more time to make because of the hair.  Not sure I'll...

 This is the first large Santa of the season.  He's so cute!  The one next to him is one that someone else worked up and he had been badly mistreated.  So I gave him a fresh new look.  Kinda felt like I was doing one of those Oprah makeovers on him.  :) He has a belly button.  I'm not sure why. He has hand painted eyes. The Santa bag goes with him. My craft room is busy messy.  I have 5 large bodies sewn and ready to assemble for more Santa's or angel dolls, depending on my mood. I have lots of little rag doll bodies ready to go.  Most are bunnies that will end up angels.  The Santa's will go to a nearby shop in Gruene.  If you see one you like, let me know before I take it to the shop.  I sell them to her for anywhere from 60- 75 depending on what is used to assemble them.  I'm not sure what she sells them for. OK.... I'm off to work up another. I'll post more pictures as I go. Hugs Shannon

I'm not in a good mood today.  I had a bad day yesterday and ended up getting groceries, just to get out of the house.  I woke up in a good mood yesterday, but the day went down hill.  This morning I woke up in an ok mood, I guess, but I was bombarded by every needy animal I own.  I took my oatmeal and my bible out on the back porch for some peace, only to have Lilly come talk to me, non stop.  Lilly is our tortoise shell outdoor cat.  She has a tendency to talk from when she realizes your outside, while she's walking over to you, and the entire time she's walking on your bible and trying to headbutt your face to get kitty boogers and drool on you.  I had to take her from the table three times and put her on the ground. I really need to stop looking at the world as it is.  It feels like all I see is greed and selfishness.  I'm tired of seeing people who aren't responsible for their own actions and think they have the right to take adva...

I made 4 new purses.  This one happens to be my favorite of the 4. I think I have most of these at Maldonados Nursery, if your interested in any of them. I'm having fun working with the heavier fabric.  They look so elegant. I keep wanting to embellish everything and have to stop myself, because not everyone wants a bunch of stuff hanging on their purse. :) I ran these to my cousins place as soon as I was done with them.  I didn't want to take a chance of keeping any.  Occupational hazard. This one is a deeper style.  I don't make any patterns, so everything turns out, the way it turns out. I had it finished and my husband said it needed the tassels.  :) Gotta love husbands. Second favorite. I was telling someone, the other day, about how I have so many purses. When I need a new one or one that is a certain color to match my outfit for a big evening, I just go to my box, and pick one out.  It's kinda nice, but nothing beats getting...

Tuesday November 1st 2011 Wow, it's that month of Christmas decorating and I almost want to start tomorrow. Although I don't like the idea of the animals, peeing on the tree and curling up next to the nativity scene to the point that one of the camels looses a leg. It has been a trying day. I woke up in a good mood, but then I got the traditional bank text telling me my account is below 100.  Sigh. Not the best way to wake up in the morning. I walked into the kitchen to find there were three totes of dishes and a full dishwasher. Blah. Not very encouraging. After dumping the dishwasher and cleaning a few dishes, I decided to take a nap and see if I could get into a mood that was less demanding of my patience. The nap was incredibly successful, until....... my husband got a phone call, that a good friend who had bailed on ANOTHER job, leaving Bruce to scramble to find a replacement, has suddenly decided he wants to do the job, leaving someone to call the person who was ...

I was watching the Oprah life class again last night and I found the subject interesting.  I have them on the DVR so I'm a day behind, but I get to watch without all the commercials.  :) She had a guy on who survived an airplane accident that sounded horrific. He was telling the story about how he looked back at the inside of the burning plane and saw the rest of the passengers still buckled in their seats and the fire from the crash was all around them.  He said he saw the aura of each of the passengers leave their bodies.  He said each one was different, some were bright,  some were less bright, some were dark, as if the energy they lived with was evident when they passed. Whether or not you believe in what the man said or believe in auras, is unimportant.  The point that she was making was...what kind of energy do you bring into the room?  If it was a fact that you could visually see the positive or negative energy of someone surrounding them......

I love the fall. The weather makes a huge difference in my mood and makes the house feel like something out of an old photo. I told someone once that I love when my house looks like something out of a historical romance novel. After I said it, I realized how true that actually is. I always say I was born in the wrong time. It's as if I was born back in the late 1800's, (where people cared about their moral character), and was carefully frozen, only to be woken up in the late 1900's. The busy race to be wealthy, beautiful, live in a big fancy home, drive the fancy car, and have your children placed upon a pedestal for all to see, makes me dizzy. I've been watching the "Oprah's life class" show, for as long as my tv provider allows. Each show really makes me think. I realize that I live a great deal of my life based on what others think. I can honestly say I'm doing better, but I still do some things based on that little voice in my head. That voice i...

I finished this bag today. It was made from fabric samples I purchased from Johnson's furniture. So much fun to make. Although my poor sewing machine is in need of some tender loving care after all that heavy duty fabric. She may be on her last leg soon. I made two cases to match. One for glasses and the other for a phone or whatever. Today was a stressful day. Being a parent isn't as much fun as you think it's going to be. You think the terrible twos is bad and then you have a teen. You think that's bad and then you have a college student. The definition of college student is = I'm and adult so I don't have to listen to you, but I still want to live in your house, eat your food and do as I please. I can't complain too much. I really do have great kids. I had started some bibs back when Justin and Taylor were babies. I made one for each of them so they could wear them to the parade. A while back I found the same bibs in an unfinished projects tote already cu...

I've been working on some shaby chic designs here and there. It's cheap therapy for me. I thought I would post some pictures of the purses I finished yesterday and the sunglass bags I have ready to go. I make them up and put them away in a tote until I'm ready to take them somewhere to be sold. It's kinda fun, every once in a while, to have a look and see what all I've made. This is a cross over bag that is about 8 1/2 X 12 inches. Cross over, meaning the strap is sized to go across your body. I'm curious if it will fit an ipad. I don't have an ipad so I'm not sure. It has a velcro close, one interior pocket and one exterior pocket. I bought this purse with all the basic body of it finished. It has a really pretty purple interior fabric, no interior pocket, but two exterior pockets. It was a lot of fun working on this one and getting to do all the embelishments. It's a solid bag that stands very well on it's own. This bag is very soft and...

As I was walking through the kitchen this morning I noticed one of my ivy plants needed water. I grow them in water without dirt. I then thought about the fact Scott, Mike and I all grow ivy in water. Scott has the most impressive one that grows along his upstairs railing. Mine are the most pathetic. If you take a cutting of ivy and put it in water, it will grow really well. You just have to make sure that when you add water, you don't stir the roots too much because it will shock it a bit. I keep my african violet on top of the frig. I only water it when it starts to look a bit wilted. If you over water, it will die. My one plant has turned into two. I need to transplant it soon. Wish me luck. I've never done that with an african violet. I remember my mother puting an african violet leaf in dirt and watching it start a new plant. I'm going to have to try that sometime. Our pond has been growing lillies ever since the pump stopped running. We had a beautiful gol...

This morning, as I was trying to hook up enough hoses to water trees on the edge of the property, I noticed a baby dove on the ground. A perfectly healthy baby dove that had fallen from it's nest. The mother dove was frantic flying around, but I could only see one nest and it looked a bit of a mess as if the parents were new to building it and didn't really do a very good job. I decided it wouldn't be worth trying to put the baby back in it's nest and instead thought I would try to find someone to take it and hand raise it. I thought about how I had found a dove once before and my parents put it in the pigeon house they had. One of the older birds actually raised the baby dove as their own. So I decided to try the feed store to see if they might know of someone who would be interested in taking it. The owner of the feed store suggested I try to hand raise it myself. I said I'd been there and done that, without success, once before, and that I have too many cats arou...

It's beautiful outside. Although they didn't think it would get to 100 and I think it's close. I have a few minutes before I have to pick up Alex and thought I would post something just to kill some time. I'm trying to think of good stuff. Every time I turn on the tv or think about all the things that are going on...it overwhelms me. So I went outside and watered the crunchy grass, sat on the swing, and opened some curtains to let the light in. I should stay away from the news and even facebook for a while. My husband says I get too upset because of what other people are going through as if it's not enough to just worry about my own life and family. He's right. Watching friends and people I don't even know, going through difficult stuff puts me in the dumps. I hate not being able to make it all better. Bad things should not happen to good people. Or so it would seem. So...today I'm going to try very hard to think about good stuff, and yet still pray for ...

Trying to explain, to one of the twins why the bad stuff always happens to him, isn't easy. I just tell him that God has a plan for him, and maybe he needs him to learn a few things from his experiences. It's hard when your kids, for the most part, do the right thing but bad things still happen. I think I have pretty good kids, but wow how different they are. I'm so glad it's Friday. I think I'll do laundry and work on some crafts. Last week I sold a large Santa and a large Angel Doll. That was wonderful and couldn't have come at a better time for us financially. I also have some sun glass cases at a shop in Gruene called "Simply Chic" at Gruene Lake Village. I also have a bunch of my designs at "Maldonado Nursery". I pray it rains soon. The deer that sleep on our property, with all their little babies, are ravenous. We give them water, cracked corn, and deer pellets, along with watermelon left overs, day old bread and anything else w...