Christmas Countdown!!

Even Barbie has gotten into the Christmas spirit. She has been wraping all day. Me too!!! So much to do, if I don't get time to post again, Merry Christmas to everyone!!

Crochet Hair Clips!

I am doing a mostly home-made Christmas and have been inspired to make some hair clips for my girls. I started with a crochet trim (I got the trim pattern from Leisure Arts: Crochet Embellishments by Jean Leinhauser). It was an easy and fast pattern to whip up.                                                                   

 I then rolled it up and sewed it to keep it together.

 I think it looks pretty good *smiles*

 And here it is with some pearls to dress it up. I stitched it unto a barette.

 I made a couple more in some of their fave colors. This was a fun project. Now I need a couple for me. some of the prettiest hair clips I've seen were by Nichelle @ Vintage Wanna Bee, you should see her blog.

A World of Color

 The first 2 pics above and below are my daughter Emma's room. Because the girls had never had a room of their own, I let them go crazy and pick the colors. Emma's is not so bad, 3 walls were pink and one wall plus ceiling were lavender, the trim was hot pink.

 The bottom 2 are Alex's room, 3 walls are electric lime green (day-glo and really shocking), the trim is hot pink, and one wall (not shown) is cosmic grape.

 Note the plack below (Drama Queen) and believe it. She is one complicated cookie but that also makes her soooo awesome. All their friends love their rooms. Of course it wasn't till later that I wondered how the heck I am going to paint over electric lime green, grrrrrrrrr.....

Yes I Still Play with Dolls!! Hehe

This is my Barbie Fashionista doll, I love the fact that she can be posed in lots of positions but I am not partial to the happy toothy smile so I wanted to change her look.

 A nice blank canvas to work with, but I had to fill in the tooth gap with some gesso, then I changed her face paint.

 Not perfect, but who is, my daughter loved the smeared mascara, she said it gave her an emo edge. I may eventually redo this but for now I like it. Now what to do about the hair?

The Christmas Countdown Begins!!!

To start the month off I picked this picture to show, I made these last holiday season for a fellow dollhouse collector. They are made from polymer clay, individually hand-cut, with tiny candy cane mouths. These are one of my fave miniatures to make.........I love them!

My Niece Peytons New Scarf!!!

I finally finished Peyton's scarf. It's crochet, no pattern, I just made some circles and sewed them all together. I put 2 buttons on it and left the center of one circle loose for the button hole ( normally I wouldn't use buttons for a lil one but she is really great about buttons). She can wear the scarf 2 ways, one way (below) is with a single row around the neck making it longer.                                                          

 The second is double wrapped around the neck for extra warmth ( her mom likes the buttons to keep it on).

 She is pretty happy with it, lol, but the hat I made was to small *pout*. Oh well going to work on it now.

Birthday Cake Time!!

Yesterday was Alex's Birthday, she really likes Fruit Baskets ( a Japanese young adult book series) and wanted a character called Kyo for her cake topper. She found a chibi pic (chibi is when you make a character into a smaller cute version) for me to use as a base. So I started by covering the original artwork with a piece of plastic saran wrap. I decided to use semi-sweet chocolate as the outline.

 I poured the melted chocolate into a sandwich bag and cut the smallest hole I could in the corner.

 I then drew an outline of the character in chocolate. I then used colored white chocolate to fill in the rest.

 I used plain white chocolate to cover the back as a stabalizer since white chocolate hardens faster then darker chocolate. I also made some orange dots for the cake.

 And here is the finished cake. My daughter was very happy with it!!

She had a great time!!

 And recieved her fave series from me!! She has been watching it all day!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! I am thankful today for my beautiful girls and my loving boyfriend! I am thankful for everything I have in my life! I am thankful to have God in my life! I hope everyone has a wonderful day today!!

How Black Mold has Effected my Life!!!

Last July 2009 I finally bought a house ( I was smitten at first sight). I had everything going for me, I had been with my work for 7 years as a security guard and was now promoted to the office making $20.00 an hour. I went to classes and recieved my C.O.S and A.H.M in housing management and became office manager at a HUD building for seniors, I loved my job, my boss, my co-workers, and my tenants. Life was good. Then around October 2009 I started to come apart, I started to have panic attacks at work, my weight sky-rocketed, my blood pressure was through the roof, and I was going through a severe depression. I didn't know what was wrong with me, I was put on anti-depressents and my ADHD medication had to be raised to 90 mg a day (30mg is supposed to be the limit). Then I broke out in a severe rash on my chest that would not go away,I began to sleep whenever I was at home and refused to leave my house except to go to work. I was miserable, I hated my life, wanted to die and couldn't for the life of me understand what had went wrong. I thought at first that maybe I was deep down unhappy in my relationship so I broke up with my boyfriend, he moved out, I still felt the same, we got back together (thank god). I told him several times that I hated the house and wanted to burn it down ( I realize this sounds crazy but at the time I honestly felt that way). Finally I decided maybe it was my job, I figured it had to be the stress of the job, that maybe I couldn't handle it after all ( I know now that I was great at that job, too late), by this time it was June 2010. I quit my job, it did not go well to say the least. 3 weeks later I found black mold in the basement, my boyfriend cleaned it up, my rash went away in the following week, and within the month I was feeling back to normal. But my life has not returned to normal, now I get to try to find another job in this tough economy, and it is not going well. I was really great at my job, my boss told me the month before I quit that I was the best assistant she had ever had, but there is no going back, too much hurt and anger on both sides. Grrrrrrr.....black mold is no fun...I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. On a good note I love my house again ( now if I can find a job before I loose it, lol) and I am doing great on no pop (see earlier post), it's been a week now and I am not craving it anymore. Life can only get better from this point.

Day 3 and all is well!!!!

Day 3 and I still have had no pop!!! Yay!! Usually I can't get past day 2. I was pretty crabby all day today, but I managed to behave myself after 5 o'clock. The bad thing is all I drink during a normal day is pop, so it will take some getting used to. I did have a big sugar breakdown tonight, poor Zeb (my boyfriend) had to run to the store to get the goodies. But I am determined to get through this. This week I have my daughters birthday party to plan, that should keep me busy.

No More Pop!!!

Went to the doctors and decided (after a fighting match with their scale, I lost) to do something about my weight gain......grrrrr. I put on 40 pounds after I got my promotion to office manager and then put on another 20 pounds on top of that after I quit because of the lack of excercise. That puts me at 198 pounds, which is crazy since I still fit in my size 10 pants I wore at 160 pounds. I have no idea where all the weight is going but I think it may be related to the Black Mold poisoning I went through (one of the signs is difficulty losing weight, among many other symtoms I had). I have a feeling that there may still be some lingering in the basement somewhere *pout*. So first step is eating out less, which is going great, I have been cooking a lot more and adding more and more fresh ingredients to my meal planning. Now onto step 2, getting rid of the pop, this has always been my biggest problem. Caffeine withdrawl is just no fun but I have bought some caffeine pills to help with elimanating it slowly. Wish me luck!!!!

A memory of skinny me to get me motivated (me and my friend Mike H.)

Always time for a cake!

 I had been asked by a friend to help her with a cake for her son. I didn't get much notice, maybe 4 hours, lol. We ran to the dollar store and grabbed toy soldiers and butter cookies. Thank goodness I always have cake mix and frosting ingredients on hand. I quickly made the cake, while it was in the oven I made the thin green rice krispie treats for tents. After it was iced I crumbled the butter cookies to use as sand, set up the washed toys and made the tents. I think it turned out ok as a spur of the moment project.

Pumpkins all year long!

I love pumpkins!! Not carved, and definately not halloweeny (although I do love Halloween)! In fact I hate anything pumpkin flavored, but ever since I can remember I have had a romance with the pumpkin!! So I wanted to do my kitchen in Pumpkins, what fun looking for items to fit my theme. Here are some pics of what is done so far.

My kitchen before, pretty tiny,*pout*

I chose sunflower yellow paint, but can't figure out what to do for the ceiling!!

A shelf for my fave cookbooks!

My backsplash, it has a nice pattern but it's hard to see on film.

My tile, it goes nice with my backsplash.

20 Facts About Me!!

I would love to share 20 facts about myself. If you have any of them in common let me know!!

1. I love Bruce Campbell (yes...I love my boyfriend too, but Bruce will always have a special place in my heart)!

2. I love the dragonfly, any dragonfly, anything to do with the dragonfly!!!!!

3. Clutch is my fave band in the world!!! I guess they would fall in the catagory of southern rock, maybe, but I doubt it.

4. I love pointy toed shoes, don't know why. I used to hate them but have definately become quite fond of them.

5. I recently quit my job, after a falling out with my boss who had become my closest friend, I still feeling pretty low about this but it was for the best. I found there were sides to her that I could not respect, but I will always regret that things happened the way they did.

6. I love scary movies!! All of them, no matter how cheesy!

7. I love to cook, but I hate the clean up, I often dream of a world where dishes washed themselves.

8. I have ADHD, which just does not do for a creative person, I get tons of great ideas with no ambition to follow through, I am working on this.

9. I have 2 girls, they are my world.

10. I love Red Vine licorice, in second place would have been Delfa Rolls, otherwise known as Danish Ribbons, they no longer make them but Broadway makes a simillar roll.I bought a whole box once on Ebay, they were pretty good, but still not the same.

11. I love Trivia.

12. I have the best boyfriend in the world ( I know your probibly saying " that can't be, I have the best boyfriend/ husband" but I am afraid you would be wrong, lol, jk).

13. I have 2 cats, they drive me nuts!!

14. One of my closest friends is my kids step-mom, (and no I did not know her before my ex and I split). She is my best ally when it comes to my kids.

15. I love reading others blogs more then I like posting my own, lol.

16. I am heavily addicted to gummy bears (oh the shame....)

17. I used to be part of the rave scene, lots of good times, lots of bad times.

18. I love self-help books, and DIY books. Really I love all books.

19. I hate shopping, but I love browsing.

20. I take a sick pleasure in paying other people compliments, I can't help myself.

Well that's about it, a lil about me.

Turkey Day is coming!!!

I love Thanksgiving!!!! Not only is it my biggest day to eat all those goodies but it also reminds me of the birth of my first born!! 15 years ago my baby girl was born on Thanksgiving Day, November 23,1995. She has brought me so much joy (while bringing me all kinds of drama). And even though she denied me my dessert that year, I still let her have her cake, I tell her she's lucky I don't hold a grudge! So time to start planning my holiday and my daughters b-day!!

My baby girl Alex!!

Attack of the Hood Squirrels!!!

We have been taken over by a gang of squirrels in my nieghborhood. There are at least 40 of them on my block alone, 1-3 to each house, and if another squirrel comes into their side of the hood they bark at each other. I myself have 3 rather domesticated vermin myself. This one, a gray one and a black one (which the other day jumped on my screen with a chocolate donut in his mouth and rapped on the frame of the window till he got my attention, he then dropped the donut on the window sill, did I tell you chocolate donuts are my fave, creepy). So I guess a quick shout out to my neighbor who feeds his squirrels, and now mine are feeling a little left out, grrrr.....

The Craft Room...............well almost....*GRRRRR*

Ok......I have been hating this room for awhile!!! There are many huge cracks in the plaster, I have been doing the best that I can on a budget. There are 7 layers of paint to work through along with 2 layers of wallpaper, yuck, one seems to be a dark blue paper with the thickness of heavy butcher paper. I hope to be done by the end of the year.

Some progress!!!

1000 Cranes!! One and coutnting!!!

I had an idea to decorate the stairwell to my upstairs. I want to create 1000 origami cranes, tiny ones, and shadow box them in a frame (or 2). My boyfriend of course thinks it's a waste of time, but if I listened to him I would probibly have no fun at all. According to legend if you make 1000 cranes you will be granted a wish. I want to make mine pretty small and every one of them in a different kind of paper, very colorful!!!!

A New Journey

I have decided to start a blog. Not only to share thoughts and ideas but to inspire myself to start living the life I have always wanted to live. Hopefully I will find time to post more than once a month!!! I love to create, I am a huge fan of dollhouse miniatures, ooak dolls, and custom art pieces. I also dabble in photography, cooking, and crochet!!!! I get so many inspirations from other blogs and hope to one day return the favor!!! Thanks!!