LUCKY ME!

Hi, everyone.
It seems I've done it again and gone and won a blog giveaway!
This win is from Brenda of The Rusty Thimble, and here's
what I won:

Isn't he cute? We're putting our tree up very soon, as soon as the mister is home long enough to bring out the boxes. He's so busy, and he's having such a hard time with his ruptured disc. I don't know
how he does it, really I don't.
The tree will be covered with Rusty Thimble ornies this year.
I'm not writing too much tonight. I've been having a hard time myself with the back pain. I canceled my last appointment because of the compounding companies meningitis outbreak in the corticosteroid shots. That's all I need. I think 23 people have died from it. Until I'm certain that the Pain Center is completely clear (they assured us they are) I won't be getting any shots.
I worked on Polly Daggett some yesterday. It was slow going getting back in the swing of cross stitching on tiny threads of linen.
I love the sampler though. It's really a work of "heart" for some lucky winner someday soon!
Good nite, everyone, and take care of yourselves.
Susan      

Happy Thanksgiving To All

Thank you Graphics Fairy

I wish a very Happy Thanksgiving to everyone; to those of you visiting family and friends, safe travels
to you all.
I'm thankful for every day spent with the man who
loves me, and for my family. I'm thankful for blogging and for all of you wonderful readers and friends.       God Bless You all.

Susan

SUNDAY NIGHT

Good Evening, everyone,

Sunday night and it's sooo quiet tonight. I love Sundays, not only because it's church day for 
most people, there's always been something so
special about Sunday for me since I was little.
The mister is home for the day finally. It was a
long day for him at the job site. The doctor wants
so many awesome things done to the house, it
never seems to end for Mr. Glen Oaks. He doesn't
have time anymore to make furniture for me here
at home; I really miss that. My wish list has cob-
webs it's been so long.
I did a little of this and a little of that today. Some
sewing, some clay work and some enlarging and
tracing of patterns. I forgot all about my enlarging
machine. Mr. Glen Oaks came home and saw me
working with the one square to one inch enlarging
and he asked me why I wasn't using the machine.
Duh, I don't know, I had completely forgotten about
it. Do you girls/guys ever do that, have soo much
stuff you don't remember some of it?
The new survey on Patternmart is out. The free
pattern is a snowman called "Long John" by Michelle Allen of Raggedy Pants pattern design.
It's cute. I downloaded mine. I have about 3 years'
worth of free downloads that I've never touched!
That's ok, good to have variety, right?
It's still not very cold here yet. I suppose that's a
good thing. Saving oil and all. The first snow  is
always exciting, though. My mother and sister are
still wearing shorts! It gets cold in the part of
South Carolina where they are, but I don't believe it ever snows.
I bought some more paint and fabric at JoAnn's on
Friday for my Izannah Walker project. I'm making one for Sis, too, so I wanted to have a lot of choices of small prints. Don't forget, there's a sale going on
there, Christmas prints 50% off. I bought muslin and tiny calicos from the quilting fabrics.
I love the ones I bought from Brenda Gervais at
With Thy Needle and Thread off of her website.
They are the teeniest little prints, so sweet. They are from Windham Fabrics and some are from 
The Coverlet Collection, 1820-1850.  So Sweet!
I just started using Fray Check on all of my cut ends of fabric and cross stitch linens. What a huge
helper it is.
On Saturday, I found the tiniest, old crochet lace and it's going to be perfect for the Izannah dresses.
I'm trying to use old fabrics as much as I can. The
dress material, unfortunately, will be new but I
can't find any old dress fabrics. My antiquing gel
from Gail Wilson will do the trick making it look
very vintage. She has a marvelous supply of all
things for your doll making. Especially if you like to make old looking dollies.
I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday nite and I hope you also have a wonderful week.
Take care of yourselves,
Susan

Note To Self: Do Not Paint Around A Cat

Hi, Primmies,
I have started a Christmas project tonight. I am making a Santa Sculpture from paper clay and papermache. It stands on a little teensie papermache
round box and is so darn cute I can't stand it!
I started painting the little box (another note to self: don't do this again at
Twelve-thirty in the morning) and learned the hard way to dust and vacuum the craft room before painting, and put away all kitties.
Of course I dropped the little box and when I picked it up, yep, kitty hair all over the wet paint. Ugh, just wiped it off and started over.
Here's the little guy all finished from the Better Homes and Gardens website:

Photo Copyright Meredith Corp.,bhg.com

This will be my first paper clay project. I want to get warmed up before  I make an Izannah Walker doll. They aren't as easy as they look to be to sculpt the little faces. 

Paper clay and Modge Podge are so expensive so I've found lots of websites with home made recipes to make them both. I'm trying a paper clay recipe later today (I need Mr. Carpenter's linseed oil and it's at the job site). I can't wait to see if they come out the same as the store bought.

There are basically two different ways to make the paper clay, with and without tissue paper soaked and squeezed out, and some other things I can't quite remember right now. But I've bookmarked the sites and if anyone is interested I'll look for them and give you the links.

I have a package of paper clay from the store and I'm trying that first, and want to keep some to compare with my home made stuff.

See, if I stuck to ONE thing at a time, these things wouldn't happen to me,

like a furball in my wet paint!

Take care of yourselves,

Susan