Music Clock!

Oh My Goodness!! This clock about kicked my patootie!! It has been gessoed and painted and sanded ... I had this image in my head of what I wanted the background to look like and I just couldn't make it come out that way no matter what I did!! This was my first venture into working on wood - not paper or canvas - I guess there was a wee bit of a learning curve, to put it mildly.

In the end, some Versamark ink and UTEE gave me enough of a textured background I just went with it. Distressing a little more with some paint did the rest and I called it a day. Mod Podge and let her dry.

Then I added some beautiful teal flowers I found and purchased - at full price mind you - I just don't normally do that. But one look at those flowers and I knew they belonged on my clock. They HAD to come home with me. Adding them was the perfect finishing touch it needed.

Assembling was even a challenge. I had picked up some pretty black hands instead of using the shorter gold ones that came with the kit. They didn't work. I ended up taking them off and putting the gold ones back on. They worked beautifully ... but I just didn't really like them. A few days later I found a set of black hands at Michael's (which is where I bought the clock parts from) hoping that they would work. THEY DID!! I LOVE the way it looks now!!

Crafting weekend!!

We (Missy, Robin & I) try to plan this at least twice a year. Usually in the spring and fall since that's the off peak time for the Outer Banks. It's a weekend of creativity, laughter, slumming in pjs and fun. Friday morning I'm running around trying to get everything together in one spot to pack the car, while still leaving plenty of room for all Robin's goodies. After all, she brings it for us anyway. :) We stayed at Uncle Pooh's cottage in Avon (thanks Christine!). It was a little bit longer drive than Kitty Hawk but not too bad and we had quite a bit more room. And according to Missy, the biggest perk was the Dolphin Den is right across the street.

After we unloaded the vehicles, selected bedrooms and trashed the place (not really, that came later in the evening and the next day LOL), we walked across the street for dinner. We should've taken pics of our meals. Each one was excellent!! Missy got the flounder, Robin chose scallops and I caved the for shrimp (yes, fried). Sigh. Soooo delicious. Good thing we walked back to the cottage. 

The first thing I did was change clothes and strip my face. Getting ready for some serious crafting. A clock for my craft room and Christmas cards were on my agenda - and whatever else caught my attention. It took a while for the juices to start flowing so I just decided to begin somewhere and pulled out my gelatos and see what happened. This was the result:

It was 1:30ish before we called it a night. Up and atem again around 8:30am I pulled out another canvas I had brought. It was a flower canvas I started during our last weekend back in March. It came together quite nicely I think. 

Finally I brought out my clock to work on. Missy had been working on hers and it was looking pretty damn good. She has a new toy, Silhouette Cameo, that she brought for us to play with. It's a really cool gadget. It hooks up to your computer and cuts files for you. And oh the things it can cut!! She's had this music tree file saved from a tattoo library for a while. Turned it into a cut file and put it through her cameo. There was a learning curve, I won't lie. But the end result is fabulous!

 So ... I started preparing my box. Pretty tickled with my results too - until Robin used my favorite color on hers. Long story short and too much gut time later I "gessoed that bitch" and started completely over. So it went from this:

To this:

AND THEN!!!! ... I decided I had some music stamps that would really look perfect on the background ... At home. Ugh. I put her out to dry and pulled out stuff to start on Christmas cards. Pinterest is always a delightful distraction looking for ideas. Played for awhile, kept some ideas and tossed others. I do love the ugly cards Missy threw my way. I'm going to make them gorgeous and use them for my templates. Eventually the desire for sleep won out over the desire to create.  .... Yup it was around 2am again.

Up around 8:00, we didn't get much done before it was time to start cleaning things up and packing things away. The place was trashed. Truly. It's amazing we could find anything to work with. Missy lost her cutter early on and it was right in front of her face. None of us saw it for hours. It was a weekend full of country music, paint, ink, inside jokes, laughter, food, drinks, light bulb moments, creativity, bonding and much more.

Peace bitches ... Love you!! ;)

Weekend with "the yewts"

I had been looking forward to this weekend for a year!! Cari and Matt went to the Fall Festival at Showalter's Orchards last year. She made apple chips, apple muffins, ate apples, etc. and talked about those apples for months. It ruined her for buying apples in the store. We typically go to Harrisonburg for Cari's birthday every year. The festival is usually the weekend after her birthday, so this year we decided to wait a week so we could do that too.

Bob and I left his office around 2:30 Friday afternoon, thinking the traffic wouldn't be too awfully bad that early in the day. We were wrong. By the time we checked into our hotel and got to Cari's, it was about 8pm. We were exhausted, but thankful we got there safely. The welcome little Button gave us was priceless. She is so precious. Cari had saved us some homemade cheddar broccoli soup and we were starved. That's one dish I haven't tried yet but after tasting Cari's I think I may have to. Was really good. With plans to get a early start in the morning Bob and I headed back to the hotel. That bed felt good. 

I am always so excited to go to their local farmer's market. It's such a treat to have access to such a wide variety of local, unadulterated food. We're addicted to our honey man. He has some of the best honey around and for a great price too. I always load up when we go. I also walked away with some fresh peppers, local grass fed ground beef and hot sauce. Got our sausage biscuit and headed to the festival!

Bob wasn't so enthralled with the idea of picking apples, but he played along. I couldn't believe the price tag - $20 a bushel. Crazy!! Since we wanted sweet apples they pointed us in the direction for the Fujis. What fun!! It didn't take too long to fill our bags because the trees were loaded. And of course we had to sample the bounty while we were picking. Yummmm!!

After we got home I weighed the bags. They were about 20 pounds each. Thankfully we hitched a ride on the tractor back to our car!! Last year Cari and Matt carried them back. 

After all that work, we were starving and went to one of our favorite places there, Vito's, for lunch. SOOOO good. With all the fresh air, apple picking and good food, we were beat. Bob and I crashed on the couch for a little while. Cari took pics. I'm not sharing. LOL 

Matt grilled steak and chicken while Cari fixed some veggie stirfry with rice to accompany it. Another good dinner. Oh and we had pumpkin pie for snacks and dessert. Josh came over for dinner since he was spending the night to stay with Button on Sunday while Cari and Matt went to the game. Good kid, and Button loves him!!

Mr. J's Bagels was one of the few places open early enough for us to grab something on the way out in the morning so Bob and I got there early, ate ours and grabbed theirs for take out. We were on the road about 7:45. All parked and unpacking around 10:30, we had a couple of hours to tailgate. One of the best parts of going to the game. (Especially if you're a Cowboy fan at a Redskins game.)

It was pretty cold for a mid October game. In fact, it was so cold ..... Go ahead, you can say it - "how cold was it?" Well, just let this picture speak for itself ...

Matt' wearing Bob's Redskins hat. Need I say more? I think not. But wait!!! There's more!!! LOLOLOL 

Before going to our seats we stopped by one of the stores. LOL Look what Cari and Matt walked away with:

It was bloody cold with that wind whipping. Good game though and the Skins even managed to pull out a win! Amazing. Skins 19 - 17 against the Titans. 

The drive home was brutal. Traffic was unbelievable all the way. And we hit a backup going through the HRBT due to road work that cost us an hour. It was nearly 11pm when we pulled into the driveway. A long weekend but worth it.