I made myself a friend yesterday. . .

Meet sweet Sara. The postman hasn't been cooperating with my plans for another project , so yesterday I decided to create Sara. The little doll head is from an old angel I found in a lot I picked up a few years ago, and has these great little round cheeks you can't see for beans in this photo (sorry , but it was one of Those days). The arms are from another lot. I'm not quite sure what happened to her body but I do have some vague memory of wrinkling my nose and the words 'euw' and 'cheezy' , so I think I tossed it.
The little bottle has lettering that reads 'Rogers & Callet , Paris" , which was a perfumery opened in 1806 by Jean-Marie Farina. Napoleon was quite fond of him , but since I picked the bottle up at the flea market I don't have a clue how old it really is. But that's pretty neat , huh? It was probably worth a fortune right up until I glued on wings and a typewriter key , lol.
The funny thing is that although Sara is only 6" tall , I managed to destroy 3 rooms in 'the making of' - millinery boxes , lace boxes , jewelry boxes , sewing implements , glue(s) etc. etc., - I amaze myself sometimes. And I amazed Dan too , since he walked in the front door and had to vault two suitcases and an old lampshade or fall down. And then starved quietly until I finished her off , poor guy. I made up for it lol - he wasn't the only one ready to pass out from hunger! Baby wanted the Big food , believe me.
Enjoy the weekend , everyone - we've got 90 degrees here and it's gorgeous out. Hope you have cool breezes and AC if you're in one of those ugly-hot area's!
take care all.

The "Manlace"

Happy Fathers Day to all of the good daddies out there - may it be filled with Big Food and lots of love from your personal fan club today!
My husband got a Manlace as one of his gifts - I about killed myself trying to make it Manly enough for him to actually wear it and the good news is he actually did - Yay! I was wondering about mid-point what had possessed me to even start , since he's really not a jewelry-wearin' kind of guy.
The finished product here is not what I started out with though - that got voted down by his friend DJ as being too foofoo. I didn't think it was , but o well. I had wrapped some wire around the tags (manly) and strung some spacer beads (very plain ones , tiny little silver balls with some bali spacers) and made about ten double eyepins with slightly larger versions of the same thing to hang the dogtags off of. I only needed two , but I was too retarded to read my own measurements , so I made several. The good news is I was working with Plain and Manly wire - very cost effective as it turns out.
Anyway. So when D stopped by , I asked if he thought it was manly enough and he said no way nice try but a swing and a miss. But he then followed up by asking Dan where his tackle box was (luv D , he was totally feelin me) and brought me back spinners , which replaced the eyepins and I was Really jazzed because that was exactly the Manly slash Cute (shh) little accoutrement I wanted in the first place! And the fact that D can do this with absolutely no coaching from me just impresses me to no end. I mean really - very cool. Perhaps if he's very Very good , I will let him come make more jewelry with me. He's either got mad skills or latent tendencies - not sure which yet but we'll hammer that out later. It'll be fun for me and that's the important thing.
So there you have it - spinners , dog tags and washers - Manly. If the utterly adorable boychild is a little questionable - too bad , lol. You brought it on yourself , darlin'.
Happy Father's Day!

And Blogger strikes again , sigh.

Observe if you will my previous post. WHY? Why why why? I get one paragraph that looks as it should , and in the next one none of the lines have spaces between them and it's all scrunched up - what's up with that?? How screwy does Blogger have to be to actually mess that up? Didn't look that way in 'preview' , did it?! NOOOooooo.
SO messin' with my chi mutter mutter mutter. . .

Ooh -

I was just perusing my Google Reader - boy has it been a while , that is a Very long list now - and found that Dawn at The Feathered Nest has re-purposed something my mother used to do! Mom used to make beaded ornaments for Christmas , she'd buy all kinds of beautiful beads , put a pin through and insert them into fabric covered styrofoam balls. They were absolutely dazzling to my young eyes hung about the house on ribbons , and I still have many of the old pearls , rhinestones and beads she used in my stash. Which I hoard - if it was mom's , it stays here lol.

Anyway , go check out Dawns blog , and see what she's done - it's pretty cute and she's got a lot of other wonderful things to see too.

I'm including a scan of one of my Rewards of Merit for you to use , if you'd like. I don't have many of them , but some were really lovely and awarded to deserving young children who had done well in their studies. I picked this one up a few years ago - enjoy!

Own It

Someone just asked me if something 'had happened' because of my post below and my answer was no , but that's not true. A lot of things have happened in the past weeks , both in my life and in my good friends life as well. Some of them have been really wonderful , but recently there have been some very hard things we've had to deal with too. They've been shattering , and scary , and overwhelming - I think that's why I connected to that quote so much as I was looking through my little collection today. So if anyone else is going through their own season of change , I hope that when you read it you draw the strength to step up and deal no matter how frightened or reluctant you feel. There are times when we all have to face things we don't expect or want to - my wish for all of you is to follow your heart and fight for the things in your life that are important. Know that you're not the only one that has had to make a painful choice or fight an uphill battle , regardless of how lonely it may be at times.
I love what Teddy had to say , and it comforted me. It reminds us that it isn't all about the deed , or having a perfect and blemish-free life. It's about living. It's about growing stronger by digging deep for your courage , accepting your failures because tomorrow your decision would be the same , making choices that terrify you because you know they're right , and knowing that at the end of the day no matter the sacrifice , the people you love will benefit greatly. You only get one life , and you've got to run it like you own it. Because you do own it.
But thank God for the friends that get us through the tears and back to our feet and then walk shoulder to shoulder with us when we're limping a bit. They lend their strength when ours fails - Teddy didn't mention them , but we all know how invaluable they are.
Semper fi , baby.

"It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." -- Teddy Roosevelt