Memorial Day

Vicki's 7th wedding anniversary and I realized this week I had completely missed Mandi's anniversary!  Bad Mom award to me!

Thinking of you Father as I always do this time of  year. 

I have spent the weekend doing bits and pieces. Here are my Journal pages for May:.  First one entitled "I want to lose myself on your song" Followed by "It's been a slice" which translates as "It's been fun"

I have had a great week and received lots of goodies as you can see.  The Cinco de Mayo, Day of the Dead, dottie dolls arrived.  Aren't they cute?  I will certainly bring them out at Halloween! 

Then the Bird Shrine Matchbox set arrived from Marie Girling.  I do like them, they are really neat. Below is a picture of my entry to the bird shrine swap. These went to Marie as we did a straight exchange.

It has finally decided to be summer here and was in the 80's today.  Derek worked at the boat yard and said he almost felt sick it was so hot.  Between the boats the temperature went up to 105.  Too hot to work!

It's a 4 day weekend for me.  I am off on Fridays all the time now, and then the regular Saturday and Sunday, Monday is Memorial Day and a holiday.  To celebrate I finished my gnome dotties and wil send them off to Florida tomorrow.

I had fun sculpting a tiny mouse, well, it does look a bit like a rat, and bird to tuck in Grumpy's beard. I like the embroidered green fellow best but the photo does not show it to advantage.

More goodies for me!  These journal pages arrived from Mary in England.  She always does lovely work and I follow her wehsite Tincantart@blogspot.com.  A very clever lady. She included the pretty tag as a gift to me.  Isn't that sweet?

I have just realized that there are a slew of ATC's I have received and not entered!  Here are the fishy ones:

This "fish" swap was run by Mary and we all had great fun with it.  Many silly comments about the fish swimming across the pond etc. had everyone giggling. :)  Mary made everyone who entered a fish bookmark.  Its on the left at the top of the picture.  I love that stamp but cant find it. I wonder if it's out of production?

 Lauren created a  "Watermelon" swap.  Isabel is very direct about my efforts. "Watermelons can't fly, and that man can't possibly carry that big watermelon Granny!"  Oh well, I suppose I should just be happy that my efforts have at least produced a recognizable watermelon!  :)  

I have also become interested in making buttons.  These are Dorset buttons.  They were made by the women and children of a family for additional income and they were quite well paid for them.  Unfortunately a button machine was invented and the handmade industry died leaving starving families.  Some of these people immagrated to the USA.  I have made some watermelon Dorset buttons ones for Lauren as a hostess gift.  I hope she likes them.

I am going to add  Dorset buttons to my crazy quilt. Here is a small house and garden I added and a rather wobbly bird bath with my very first spiderweb.

I have been working on the quilt for about 10 years now.  I really must get if finished!  This one is promised to Mandi, and Vicki might like one too, I am not sure.

Week End

Sunday and thiis last week has been very, very busy.  I still managed to get the four postcards done for French Kissed.  I have to admit I had NO idea what to do with them in the beginning, however, they just seemed to flow one to the other to finish with: I am especially pleased with the first one which is transferred onto material and embroidered.  I have wanted to try this for a long time.