Santa, again

Greetings!  I'm having a warm day in PA and I hope yours is whatever makes you smile.  Did you ever make a fool of yourself at the post office?  One of the winners is from Canada, and while I was buying stamps I asked if I could create a shipping label online.  He said yes, you can, but it's international and you will fill out a form also.  ???  What?  Canada is international?  We're attached to them!  There's no ocean to cross, I could drive there.  We're attached along our whole top!  As I started realizing what I was saying, I remembered that I had mailed packages to Canada before, and of course it's international postage!  I started smiling at my stupidity and he thought that smile was related to my joking around.  I'll stick with option #2.

So here's my latest Santa alongside the photo of how he is charted.

I changed the robe to 902, trim to 3829, pants and hat to 3011.  Dropped the toys again and did what I wanted.  The bag on his back was 610 and it was so close to the pants.  I used the new ink trick and ever so lightly brushed the bag with Sepia.  There 'ya go.  Instant color darkening.  I tested it on the corner of the linen and I am so surprised at how drastic the intensity is for such a light touch!  I also tested the stamp cleaner fluid to see if it would remove the permanent ink, and it did.  Then I washed it with a little soap and it was fine.  But I still need to be very careful because it's so much darker than other methods. 

 Speaking of that, husband cleaned the freezer and I spotted what I thought was a large piece of chocolate cake.  Well, as I watched it thaw and saw black liquid running from it, I realized it was my home made walnut stain.   Good thing I saw the liquid and put it in a container before the whole kitchen was stained. 

Doing leaves today again, and we are both exhausted.  Old.  And exhausted.  I made a new lounge hut for the brats with open fronts, lined it with pieces of my old wool carpet, and they are happy happy happy.  Angled from the wind and rain, plywood top extended for a porch, and an additional box for the new brat on the block.

 

I hope you all have a great weekend.  We're been so busy that I really haven't spent much time online and am way behind on blog activity.  So I hope you're all doing fine!  I worked on labels yesterday and will try to paint the boxes this evening, if my hand can hold the brush.

Stay safe!

Thanks for visiting.

 

 

 

 

Winner(s)!

Hey.  How 'ya doing?  Another week gone!  We've been busy painting trim and painting trim and painting trim.  The final color was darker than I expected after their fix and is very close to our current color.  VERY close.  I'm a little disappointed but I'll get over it.

I found these 12 days of Santa cards and now know what that bag of buttons was for.  These were probably from my SIL's stash because I remember her stitching them (and they were cute), and the buttons were from my friend's stash.  Mittens, reindeer, teddy, angel, stars, candy canes, hearts, gingerbread, and snowmen.  So there's my reason for not knowing what the buttons belonged to and selling the whole batch on Ebay.   I thought they were for Shepherd's Bush designs but I sold those charts and included the buttons, so these were extra.  The designs could be stitched without them.  Heartstrings also had 12 days of Christmas as a card set and they were cute too.  I may list these for sale on Ebay, but may be sorry later so I have to think about it.   Cross Stitch Stash has all of them and the other series of Santas. 

 I got an email from Christopher & Banks about a sale and happened to see this on clearance.  Witch tee!  This Halloween tee is selling out and only M and L are left.  Cute!

 

 

Getting to the point of this post - Random's scrambled winner is Jacqueline (no blog).  Uh-oh.  I hit the Random button again, and it's Anonymous Maureen!   Two offers are better than one.  So ladies, let me know what your choices are, and I will pack them up and get them in the mail, chocolate finger prints and all.  Thanks to all who participated!

I started another Santa from book 88 and hope to finish in a day.  Arthritic fingers from painting and ripping open chocolate wrappers has slowed my momentum, but I'm pushing along.

Another weekend upon us - enjoy it - stay safe.

Thanks for visiting!

Thank you Nancy!!!

Hi all.  First, I must say while clenching my jaws, I hate winter.

But I love the information that Nancy from Victorian Motto Shoppe shared in her post.

 My friend uses stamp pads for antiquing but never did I think to use a brush for control until I read Nancy's post. What a difference.

 You can use very light shading and continue until you get the look you're after, but the important thing - you can get right up to the floss without it seeping as dye, stain, and coffee does.  Or brush over the floss too for more of an aged look.  I took her advice and am so thrilled.

 

 

 

Here's the latest Santa from book 53 with changes to his hat.  The beard didn't have much contrast to the linen so I used my angled brush and very little ink, and added some depth around the beard.  On the left side, I just touched around the beard, and on the right, continued down the rest of his body.  I like the control, it's not wet, doesn't need rinsed, a little bottle of stamp cleaner cleans the brush!  This color is coffee and I have the black also to use on dark unbleached fabric.  Just test on the edge of the piece for depth and brush excess off on paper if necessary.  A very light touch of the brush on the pad is all that's necessary.

 

Happy happy happy.  Thank you so much Nancy!! 

  

I've been doing a little shopping - online so there are no "incidents"- but it was for all the family brats.  Wal-mart has a decent price on the pricey flea control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two are very much like me, and could not stand to be out in the white crap.

 

 

I found some Santa cards while roaming in my mess, and will show you next time.

Have a snowfree day and thanks for visiting!




 

Coming soon....

but until then, how about an offering?   And since I can't make up my mind, you can determine what it will be if your name is chosen.  Now.  I have a habit of not being clear so I will try to do better.  There are two sizes of boxes, three designs each, plus journals.  Any ONE of these can be chosen as your offer.  Not one from each size, just one.   The boxes are 4" high, oval or round, journals are approximately 6x8 and 3x4, offered as a set.  The labels are paper printed with photos of my stitchery or snips of antiques. So once again, you can choose ONE item of these following seven.  The photos are bad.  It's that time of year when you think it should still be light, and it's fading to dark. 

 

 If you would like a chance at this decision, leave a comment on this post, with initials if you have a popular name, and also if you are no-reply.  I will pick a name whenever the hell I feel like it Thursday Nov. 14 at 8pm EST.  OK?  OK.

 

The kids say hi.

 

I probably won't be back until then.

Have a good week!

 

Thanks for visiting.

 

 

Sorry for the bad photos.

An old school crab-ass

Good day to you all.  Is time passing quickly for you?  The month of October and all its colors quickly faded to holy crap it's November, now it will be the 10th already!  I remember when my family decorated a week before Christmas; years later people started mid-Dec., then the beginning, then Thanksgiving, now mid-Nov.  Back then, it was much more of a religious holiday to the majority of people, kids were in church every week (like it or not), and that aspect of life created a second and more dire consequence to our bad actions.   So to speak, there was hell to pay!  My cousin's son who was taught in school that we knew Pearl Harbor was to be bombed and welcomed it so rich people could make money, was also taught that there is no God.   Yes, they teach their beliefs here instead of allowing kids to form their own.  Recently, he told me that aliens put us on earth.  I asked him who created the aliens.  ????  No answer young man???  Go ask your teacher.  Please don't take yourself away from your phone, open some books, research, and develop your own thoughts.  Just go ask your teacher.  He has every right to his beliefs, but so should the student, so let them do some work and come to their own conclusion, whatever it may be.  Yes, I am ornery and in one of my weird moods this morning.   Even though we got great news that a biopsy was negative, I still couldn't sleep last night so I'm crabby.

Every year I would like to stitch this little piece from Plum Street Samplers.  I want to have family members' names (furry ones too) and the year of their passing instead of the 1726.  The body is over one.  It's small and I love the design, hate over one.  I'm sure I could do the names over two, relationship, a few words of honor, but I never do.  Wouldn't a small tree with these done in different thread color ornaments make a wonderful memorial tree at Christmas?  Or scattered on a larger one.  I need to leave this out so I can work on it during the year instead of waiting until last minute.

I started another Santa, the mid sized one in the bottom right corner.  I have black fabric but don't have the desire for eye strain so I used the same 28 count as the others.  This time, I'm using GAST threads for a little interest.  I don't have many of the colors and can't believe the difference when I ordered more of the same.  As to be expected, but difficult to order online.  I much prefer seeing these in person.  Several of the deep reds I received lean towards purple and I would have chosen something else.  The only brown I have is a rust and will use it for his bag - I think it will look grand with that soft green.

My Squeaky wasn't in the condo with the others this morning and I hope he returns soon.  It's a very sad day in my area because of a horrific auto accident that killed two local students and severely injured their teammate, badly injured two young children, and killed the man driving them. 

I wanted to go to a shop in Ohio having a Christmas show this morning, but since my neck doesn't turn as well as Linda Blair's did in the Exorcist, I can't get into a limited parking situation flooded with cars.  Probably not a good idea anyway.  I always shop early in the day but after the appointment we ran into Wal-mart around 5:30 and steam was coming out of my ears.  I can't take inconsiderate people blocking aisles, screaming names at their kids, waiting until it's time to pay before taking out their wallet, or better yet - get out the checkbook after checkout is complete and THEN start writing the store name and date, shouting as if they were at a football game, and other rudeness that seems to be the norm these days.  Yes, I'm an old school crab.  I believe in respect, manners, courtesy, consideration, a helping hand, and a smile for others.  But some days I would like to............

Is it me, or menopause?  Don't care at this point.  Just get the hell away from me!!!

 

Enjoy your weekend, drive carefully, hug hard.

Thanks for visiting.

Squirrels, seeds, and sampler slides

Good day!  At least I hope it is for you.  I spent the morning at Hobby Lobby buying fabric I did not need and another piece of linen.  I checked Michael's and my store doesn't have the Charles Craft linen, just the Monaco and Aida.  The DMC (Charles Craft) website doesn't even list an Irish linen, just Carolina linen which is a cotton/linen blend.  So why do Walmart and other places have the Irish?  

I didn't stitch yesterday because I removed the pumpkin from the front porch and took it into the woods for the squirrels.  I always break it open for them, but this time when I swung it into the tree, my body became a human tuning fork.  Tough pumpkin.  After the vibration stopped, I swung much harder, hurt my wrist, the stem came off, the pumpkin landed on my foot, I jumped up in pain, got my hair tangled in a pin oak branch, stumbled backward over the pumpkin, poked a hole in my palm from the needle like short branch I grabbed on to, made up a few new cuss words, and there you have it.  To make a long story short, my hand and wrist are really sore because of my squirrels.  If they want the seeds they can dig them out themselves.

Samplers have not been on my mind, Santas have.  But I'm looking ahead.  Well, not really.  I happened to throw the new linen into the stitching mess which hit my pile of stash creating a chartslide.  As I picked them up while incorporating my new words into complete sentences, I quickly browsed. 

 These Essamplaire charts caught my eye, but they may be too fussy for me right now.  You see Sarah William's hips?  I think she had too many Mounds bars because I had a similar reaction.  I need a simple stitch with all the house projects going on and thought Lise Bagg would be good.  Lots of nice bands, but I don't like the colors.  I may do the alphabet one color and the bands different.

But I may come across a Scarlet Letter or R&R chart at the last minute, which is usually what happens.  I have quite a few R&R small and simple marking samplers (really?).  Lise is short and wide instead of my usual long and thin so it would be something different for the display wall.  That's another problem.  How do you decide which cabinet to hang where, which samplers, which sconce, when you change things continually?  It's so hard to make holes in a freshly patched and painted wall.

I picked my trim color, or rather it picked me.  I am so tired of this that I took the trim's gallon in for adjustment, brought it home, and what it is, it is. 

So that's all I have to report.  My hand is better today and I will pick up some threads this evening.

 

Enjoy your day and stitch away!

Thanks for visiting.

 

Note to Heritage Hall Mary - you're no reply.  Please click on my email link so I can respond.