Felt, Sequins, Beads and Louisiana

Long time no see!  It has been awhile since I have been on here.  I tell myself that I am going to post more often but then time just seems to fly by in between my post.  I have been keeping busy. 

First I want to show you a picture of my cactus.  I keep calling it a Christmas Cactus but really it must be a Thanksgiving Cactus as it blooms right around Thanksgiving.

I have been busy working with felt and sequins lately.  The man who owns the building that the store is in where I work and he also has a business next door came over one day with a felt Santa that he was trying to sew sequins and beads on for a stocking he was making for his new grandson.  He had made a mess of the thread!  He said that he has made these stockings in the past but that was 19 years ago when he was 50.  So he asked me if I would make the stocking for him.  I told him sure thing.  Here are some pictures of the stocking and closeups of the objects on it.

He and his wife were very happy with how it turned out.  Working on this socking got me in the mood to work with felt, sequins, and beads.  It has been years since I had done anything out of these supplies. 

First thing I made was this beautiful redbird pin.  The picture does not do it justice.  Sequins just don't photograph well.  At least not for me.  It really looks a lot darker and sparkly then this photo shows.

I also made these gingerbread people ornaments for my best friend in Minnesota.  She lost all her Christmas ornaments and decorations.  This was a great loss for her.  I put the word out to all her friends so they would send her a special ornament to rebuild her collection.  These are the ones I sent to her.

I also made several of these little Kokeshia dolls that are lanyards.  Below are two of them.  I forgot to take pictures of the other two I made before I sold them.

Below is the Nativity scene I have at work.  It is clear acrylic and I love it!

We made a trip to Lafayette, Louisiana this past weekend.  We went to celebrate the graduation of my nephew, Ross, from college.  My husband's twin came down from Michigan.  My husband had not seen him in almost 3 years and their sister and her husband came from Arizona.  They had not seen her in quiet a number of years.  It was a nice little family reunion.

My husbands twin Mark and my husband Clark.  Do you think they look alike?  Everyone says Mark looks older then Clark.  That is because he lives in Michigan with all that dry air.  I told him he needed to move back to the humid South!  He said he looks older cause he is older as he was born first.  hahaha

 My husband with my niece's rat on his shoulder.  My nephew put that rat on my shoulder and it climbed into my hair!  I was screaming at him to get it off!  I hate rats!  I told him not to put it on me in the first place.

 Mark & Clark with their sister Jackie.  My husband is on the right.   All three of them kept taking off their glasses for the pictures so I told them to leave them on for one!

 My nephew Ross and me.

 Me, my son Keith, my husband Clark, my daughter Amber, and my daughter Tara.  My husband was loving that yacht in the background.  We had the party at a small yacht club that my nephew is a member of.

 Here is the whole clan.  My nephew Ross, my brother-in-law Claud, my sister-in-law Jackie, my brother-in-law Mark, Clark, Keith, Tara, me, Amber.
My camera does not take very good pictures at a distance.  My nephew's friend took some really good ones with her camera and is going to email them to me.

 My husband's sister Jackie and her husband Claud.  This was at breakfast the next morning.

 The sunset on the water at the yacht club we were at.  It was beautiful!

We had a great weekend.  It was a long drive and I tell you having three grown kids in the back seat is worse then having three little kids back there, I think!!!  They were always fussing about something.  Mostly about how croweded it was!  Poor Tara is the smallest and she had to sit in the middle.  She said she felt like a sardine crammed in between her brother and sister!  hahaha  I was so glad to get home and get out of that car!

Hopefully I will post again before too much time has passed again!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Magnolias & Earrings

Have you ever noticed the seed pod on a Magnolia Tree after the blooms all fall off?  I hadn't until recently.  There are a couple of Magnolia Trees at the nursing home where my Daddy is.  The past few days I have noticed the pods with red berries on them.  I figured it must be seeds and not berries.  Today I pick one off the tree.  Following are some pictures I took of it.  The red color is beautiful!  I think I am gonna try to plant some of the seeds.  I looked it up on line how to plant them.  My cousin, Minnie Mae, has a huge Magnolia Tree at her house.  When it blooms it is so beautiful and smells wonderful!  I have always loved Magnolia Trees.

I have tatted a few more pairs of earrings.  I hope you like them.  I am having the most fun picking out thread and beads to make my earrings.  Although it seems to take me forever to decide which thread and beads to use!  hahaha  The pattern for the first two pairs of earrings is by Jane Eborall.  Here is the link to the pattern if you would like it : http://www.janeeborall.freeservers.com/Palmetto3DEarwigs.pdf  Jane does beautiful work and has some great patterns!

CHRISTMAS RED DROP BLOSSOMS - $20



JUICY WATERMELON DROP BLOSSOMS - $20



MOCHA BROWN DARK - $15

MOCHA SWIRL CHANDELIER - $12

The next pair of earrings is my first attempt at macrame' earrings.  It has been a lot of years since I did any macrame' at all and I never did do very much of it.  But when I saw Donna Littlewood's, of KnotGypsy Designs,  beautiful creations I had to give these earrings a try.  I bought the pattern from her and got right on them.  I am afraid my knots are not very good.  I had the hardest time with the Double Half-Hitch Knot.  I still can't seem to do it very well.  I sat and worked on another pair of earrings last night and just finally gave up on the knot.  Maybe it was because it was late and I was tired.  I'm gonna give it another try today. 

These are called Fan Earrings.  They are not for sell as they are my first macrame' earrings and like I said before the knots are not too good.  Be sure and check out Donna's website and see all her beautiful creations!

First Day of School & Tatted Earrings

My baby boy is now a Senior!  Today is his first day back to school this year.  I can hardly believe this is his last year of high school.  Seems like just yesterday I was taking him to kindergarten.  Now he is all grown up.  He has turned in to a good Christian young man and I am very proud of him.

I have still been tatting earrings.  I love making these with the large beads in the center!  I have been digging through my boxes of beads looking for large beads.  It is so funny how when I am tatting earrings with small beads then I am digging out all of the small ones.  Then I change to large beads and have to go digging through for large beads!  It's an ever changing process with me!

Pink Earrings - $20

Zebra - $20

I have my poor car in the shop for repairs this morning.  Nothing too bad.  Just needed new brake shoes.  Friday as I was driving home the brakes were locking up on me.  The man told me this morning that probably the pads were slipping causing the brake to catch.  It was fine when I drove it to work this morning.  It is so nice that the man who works on my car is right next door to where I work.

My Daddy is doing good.  For those who have been keeping up with the saga of my Daddy being in the nursing home.  His mind is so much better since I had the doctor take him off that medicine called Seroquel.  My cousin saved his life by telling me he should not be on that!  He was so confused and agitated when he was on it and now that he is off it his mind is so clear!  It is unreal!  I love to visit with him and sit and talk to him.  I ask him a lot about when he was young and he remembers it all.  Yesterday when I was visiting with him his cousin, Earline, came by to see him.  That really made him happy.  He does not get many visitors and it is nice when he does.

New Tatted Earrings

These are some new earrings that I have tatted to sell. 

This pair sells for $20

This pair sells for $15

This pair sells for $12

Victorian purse

I found this old Victorian purse pattern and just had to crochet it.  It is crocheted out of size 10 cotton thread in single crochets.  Took a while to get it finished.  Here are some pictures of it during the process.  I just love it!  I don't know when I will ever use it.  I just love purses and bags, though.

It looked really neat turned upside down like this when I was working on it.  It would have made a pretty decoration just like this! hahaha

Then I flipped it over the other way.  Look how it just stands up by itself!

Here I added the rings to it.  I wound up crocheting over plastic rings twice as they were too large to begin with and I had to go buy some smaller ones.

I think this is pretty just like this!

Here it is all finished.  I had a hard time getting a good picture of it.  I hung it in front of some scrub pants where I work.  Hahaha

I then laid it on the counter on a piece of white paper so you can see what the straps look like too!  Hope you like my little purse!  It's definitely not big enough to hold everything I carry in my purse, but I can use it when I just run up to the store for a minute. 

Daddy's brothers

I could just kick myself!  My Daddy's brother's came to see him on Sunday and I totally forgot to take any pictures of them with him!  How insane is that!  He did recognize them, though, and that was so great!  He also recognized my cousins, Sandra & Janet.  He had not recognized them on their past two visits.  Since we got him off this certain drug he is much more alert and clear headed!  He is still somewhat confused about things and will say off the wall stuff, but that is not hard to deal with now.  This morning he did not say anything that was off the wall.  He was totally clear headed talking to me.  We were even discussing the fact that my daughter, Tara, is a carhop at the Sonic here and my Mama was a carhop at Shaw's Drive-In in Gulfport, Missisisspi when she and my Daddy met back in 1950!  It's hard to believe that has been 61 years ago!  He was telling me once again how she would tell him he owed half a dollar and so he would take a dollar out and tear it in half and give her half!  He was always doing this and Mama had told me her boss bought a roll of tape for her to tape the bills back together!  I have always loved this story!   My Mama had a half of a dollar bill in her jewelry box when she died.  I have it now in an album I made of my life.  Daddy used to have a half of a dollar bill  in his wallet, but when he was robbed once and his wallet stolen then it was gone.  That is sad. 

Here is a picture of Daddy & Mama on their wedding day - 1951!

Since I did not get a picture of Daddy and his two brothers on Sunday here is an old picture of them!  Actually this is Daddy and 4 of his brothers.  Two of them are dead now.
Left to right:  Daddy, Uncle Tom (dead), Uncle Bill (dead), Uncle Goat, and Uncle Junior.  Uncle Goat and Uncle Junior are the ones who came to visit Daddy.  Uncle Goat lives in Miami, Florida now and Uncle Junior lives in Orange Beach, Alabama now.

This was when they were first starting their furniture making business called Dumas Brothers.  Next time they come visit Daddy I am gonna get lots of pictures!

Doll, Reunion, & Brother's visit

I have a doll that I have had since I was 7 years old.  I can still remember when I got her.  My brother, Freddy, and me were going to spend a week with our grandparents in Gulfport, Mississippi.  Our Mama gave us each $5.00 to buy something for ourselves.  I bought this baby doll.  Freddy bought a little radio.  My doll must have been under $5.00 cause I remember Grandma making me give Freddy some of my money to finish paying for his radio.  My doll had light auburn hair, blue eyes, a cloth body with plastic legs and arms.  Sometime during my young age I cut her hair.  She lost eyelashes through the years and her clothes.  Her cloth body was really stained and wearing out.  I made her a new cloth body and glued on some new eyelashes.  I crocheted her some new clothes.  I cut out all her hair and ordered her a wig.  In the photo below I crocheted her a hat to wear while she was waiting for her wig to arrive.

Here she is with her new wig!

Now that I have made these clothes for her I am not really liking them.  I think I want to make her something more pastel looking.  These just don't seem right on her.

Our local high school here had a reunion spanning 10 years (1970-1979).  I had several cousins to graduate during this time span and my brother and I both graduated during it.  My brother did not get to come to the reunion and quiet a few of my cousins did not get to come.  Below is a picture of the ones who did come including me!

Left to right are:

Me, Mike, Janet, Sandra, Anita, Donnie, Jeff. 

It was like having a small family reunion along with a class reunion!  It was great!  Some of us got together for lunch earlier that day.  I just love having my cousins around.  We all grew up more like brothers and sisters then cousins.

This is a picture of my cousin, Anita, and me.  We are the same age and were always playing together growing up.

This is a picture of Janet, Me, and Sandra.  They are sisters.  I think I was over at their house more then anyone elses.  They only live a couple hours away and I have been so blessed to see them more in the past few months then in several years.

This is a classmate of mine.  I had not seen her since we were in grade school.  I did not even recognize her! 

This is lunch with my cousins!

Janet & Jeff

Shelia & Me (Shelia is Jeff's wife)

Sandra & Janet

We really need to have another family reunion soon!  I just love all my cousins, Aunts and Uncles and miss seeing them!

My brother, Freddy, came to visit this past weekend.  He got here late Saturday evening after a very long drive up from Florida.  He spent all day Sunday and Monday with our Daddy in the nursing home.  I made his favorite cake for him.  In fact I wound up making two!  My son, Keith, helped me make the first one on Saturday.  It was gone by Sunday night.  So Monday we made another one!  It was nearly gone by Tuesday morning!  They love that cake!  It is a Coca-Cola cake.  My brother had to leave Tuesday morning and go back to Florida and work.  I sure miss him!  We had a great visit and Daddy really loved having him with him.

Here is a picture of Freddy & Daddy.

I had carpal tunnel surgery on my left wrist two weeks ago.  It is still sore and there is still some numbness in the end of a couple of my fingers, but it is getting better every day.