Finished business on a Houston Snow Day

Today was an official snow day in Houston.  Yesterday businesses closed early and announcements were made canceling school for today.  The weatherman said it was going to be bitter cold, and promised us 3 -5 inches of snow.   But everyone knows you can't trust a weatherman and although it was pretty cold, we totally got jipped in the snow department.  When I got up and looked outside, all I saw was this: 

Just a little ice, ice baby.  Boo! 

But all was not lost.  because of the ice, highways have been closed until tomorrow and we have been told to avoid going out unless it is absolutely necessary.  So I stayed home today, and finished some unfinished business. 

And this is how I spent my ice day:

So even though the weather was a bust, this snow day turned out to be a pretty good day.  My project is completed and framed.  Now I only have two decisions to make:  

Do I keep this or give it away? 

What do I make next?

I'll let you know next week what I decide. 

Happy Snow Day!

Remember Alex Brown

This week I watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition for the first time in forever.  We watched this particular episode for two reasons.  First off, I had received an email Sunday morning telling me that the episode was about a family who had lost their daughter in an accident that was caused by her texting while driving, and that they were trying to increase education about how dangerous that was.  I must admit I am guilty of texting while driving.  I know it is stupid and I felt like watching the show might impact me enough that I would never do it again. 

Although I had made a mental note that morning to try and watch the show, by that evening I had forgotten all about it.  Luckily I was sitting down to stitch about the same time that the program started.  That, combined with the fact that my youngest daughter was flipping channels when they showed a clip from the episode with Justin Bieber.  My girl has Bieber fever, so of course we had to watch.

And I'm really glad I did.  The story of Alex Brown was heartbreaking.  She was a beautiful, loving girl with who whole life in front of her.  And the decision to text while driving cost her her life.  Her Dad made the comment that he knew that Alex would change the world.  Now Alex's family is making sure that she does that even after her death.

I'm going to take the The Pledge never to text while operating a motor vehicle.  I hope you will too.

Unfinished business, part 2

Yesterday I told you how ink disappearing too quickly left me with this unfinished project:

Although I had packed it away, apparently the project was still filed towards the top of my memory.  In December I saw light box that was on sale at a local art supply store.  Finally I had a work in progress that screamed for a light box.  And since up to that point I hadn't been able to come up with anything that I wanted for Christmas, I decided to let Santa bring me one.  And Santa was happy to obliged.  OK, to be perfectly honest I took Santa to the art store and he stood by me while I bought it. But what really matters is that I got this for Christmas:

Because we were going to spend Christmas with family, Santa dropped my present off a little early.   But I was a good girl and didn't open it before Christmas.  In fact, you could probably say I was a little naughty because I didn't open it until this week.  But it's open now, and already been put to use.

I pulled it out,

and started tracing, 

and turned my project from this...

to this:

And after a couple of hours of stitching 

and watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition my project had become this:

I love the progress so far.  The light box, combined with the fact that the disappearing ink seems to stick around a lot longer than before, made getting to this point so much easier.

Next step--the painting, which I'm hoping to have done by the end of the week. 

I love cupcakes!

One of my friends taught a class on cupcake decorating tonight.  It was the best kind of class--the kind where you are handed a cupcake and told to decorate it. Here are my creations:

They did not last long at my house.

Unfinished business, part 1

A couple of weeks ago while writing about my bedroom cleaning project , I mentioned discovering a some unfinished projects I had totally forgotten about.  This week I decided I needed to get at least one of them done.  This one to be exact:

I picked this stitchery project up over a year ago on a quilting shop hop with my sister in law.  I used to do a lot of cross stitching, and I loved how this kit incorporated stitching and painting. 

I decided to make the larger of the two projects:

Guess I should have known better and started smaller, but I just loved the full range of people and animals that are in this one.

I went and bought my supplies, which included this disappearing ink pen. 

I then traced the pattern onto the material.  This was kind of a pain because I have never been able to let myself spend the money on a light box.  I have really wanted one a couple of times, but have alway wondered if I would actually use it enough to justify the expense.  So for this project I waited for a sunny day and then taped the pattern and material on a window.  This turned out to be a bigger project than I had expected.

There's a lot of lines in this project!  But I pushed on, got the pattern traced and started to stitch.

Then I learned something unexpected about my disappearing ink pen.  It disappears faster than I can stitch.  I had spent all that time tracing, only to lose half of my markings before I was finished. 

I was so bummed.  Since it was no longer sunny outside, I decided it was time to take a break from my project.  I sat it on my craft table, and unfortunately didn't pick it up again until I was packing up some craft supplies.  So in the box it went, and I didn't really think about it until on time last month.  

I'm out of time for today, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to tell you more.