I took one of my favorite photos of my grandson, Peter James, and uploaded it to Pixel Hobby. The original pallette called for 100 colors, but I reduced it to 52. Will I ever stitch this or make a mosaic? I don’t know, but the software sure is cool and it’s FREE! Get it at www.pixelhobby-usa.com.
Those tiny pockets on the t-shirts at Walmart reminded me that I had a couple of small iron-on appliques that didn’t get put on little onesies. I sing Ernie’s “Rubber Ducky” song to PJ, and he is just crazy about a ball. I think he’s gonna like ’em!
Now, I’m pretty sure reading is a craft, and internet shopping is definitely an art form, so I’ll share with you what came in the mail today!
I have loved this book as long as I can remember. When I left my elementary school as an eighth grader in 1970, this book, copyright 1957, was getting old. I asked the librarian if she would call me when it was discarded. By the time I returned to that same school as a teacher 7 years later, that librarian was gone and so was the book.
I could remember the book’s name, but only that the author’s last name started with “L.” You can see why I didn’t have it memorized!
I was doing some online craftbook browsing last week and decided to type, “The Young Mustangers” in a search box. Up it came, at a used book seller’s for $4.99, used, first edition, very good condition! Mine!!
I took a chance on it being the right book, and was thrilled to open it this morning! The horse illustrations looked right, and there was the map of the ranch surrounds!
Chapter One started with that beautiful use of imagry I’m a sucker for:
And, flipping through, there he was, just like I remembered, the sorrel stallion with the flaxen mane and tail!
Now, about that giveaway; no, I’m not giving away my new book after 40 years of searching for it! But to celebrate my find, and my 200th blog post to boot, I’m giving away a copy of my new favorite craft book, Craft Hope. Just post a comment here, and next Monday, after Mother’s Day (May 9, 2011,) I’ll use a random number selector to pick a winner. Make your post before 12:00am, May 9, and make sure it links back to a way I can find you. Thank you and good luck!
Karla
Speaking of my favorite subject, PJ loves school buses, which he calls, “school cars!” He also loves Elmo and Sesame Street (He calls it “La, La,” as in “La, La, le, La, Elmo’s World.”) When this image showed up in my Weekly Dover Sampler, I knew what I had to do! I bought a plain white 2T t-shirt, grabbed a sheet of printable cotton, and hunted out my Wonder Under. Here’s the result:
I didn’t want to waste the unused portion of the fabric sheet, so I found an image of Elmo and proceeded with my printing. The fabric sheet got stuck in the printer and I wound up with one school car and half an Elmo. My husband encouraged me not to throw the half an Elmo away, I’d think of something, he assured me. A few hours later, I did remember seeing some little boys’ pocket tee’s at Walmart. I think you can see half of Elmo peeking out of PJ’s pocket, below!
My favorite food in this world has got to be cake, especially a good birthday cake, iced with thick, swirly buttercream and decorated with fancy, frothy dangerously colored fru-fru. And don’t talk to me about, “Oh, thank goodness, it wasn’t too sweet.” I want that full of confectioner’s sugar, feel-it-rot-your -teeth-sweet frosting. Yum!
I’d like to learn to decorate cakes, too, so much so that a couple of years back, I set out to collect all the Wilton Yearbooks from as far back as they were published. Of course, it starves me to death to look at them, and I usually head out for the Lowe’s Foods Bakery/Deli, the one over at Winkler Mill Road that has the lady that does beautiful work and piles that icing high, high, high! I’d buy one of those little “cakes for four” and eat a good 7/8ths of it myself.
I had to stop that because together with watching every cake special on the food network, I put on a great deal of weight. I resorted to keeping a container of Betty Crocker Frosting in the fridge and just grabbing a couple of spoonfuls during a cake wars commercial.
Lucky for me, I’m just not good at cake decorating. I get nervous, and my hands get all warm and sweaty and it melts the frosting and makes it too runny. I don’t like spooning the icing into those bags either. I wind up with multi-colored sleeves. Otherwise, I’d be broader than I am tall, and probably suffer from adult onset type 2 diabetes.
I do, however, appreciate a cake that looks and tastes good:
My daughter ordered this one from Elizabethan Delights (Charlotte, NC.)
She very wisely requested a small “smash cake” for PJ. This is what he did to it:
I finished PJ’s Winnie the Pooh quilt just in time for his Winnie the Pooh party! The outside border is quilted with hand embroidery following the stamped design. The center area has hand embroidered details here and there. I decided to hand tie this area and hope that the little ties looked like more bees swarming around the “hunny” pots.
PJ’s first birthday party is coming up! ‘Wish I could say I designed the invitation, but my daughter did it! She used an online website that I’ll have to find out about. I scanned it and opened it in “Paint” so I could cover up the personal information.
I’ve got to get his “Pooh” quilt finished!!!!! I’m also considering composing a “PJ Dictionary” so folks attending can understand all his precious first words! “Pooh Buh!” is Pooh Bear by the way!
He loves the Winnie the Pooh theme song and will always stop fussing if you sing it–a very useful tool, indeed!
AND DO NOT LET ME FORGET TO TRACE HIS LITTLE HAND! I’d like to do that every birthday, transfer them to fabric, and make a quilt someday.
