a new pincushion

I finished creating a new milk chocolate with white chocolate swirl truffle today for allyegator. (She requested one similar to my avatar.) It's been a month or so since I created a new chocolate pincushion. I really enjoyed sitting down with my needle and thread to create it. Thanks allyegator! :)

I have three finished chocolate tops that are waiting to be made into magnets or bookmarks. I have to decide.... hmmm... maybe I'll do both! A chocolate bookmark and a pair of chocolate magnets. I'll have to look at them again and figure it out. I'm kind of dragging today so I suspect that they'll stay in their current state a little longer. I've been having more good days than bad, but those bad days sometimes just seem to creep up on you. I definitely feel the pressure from it this morning. My next doctor's appointment is on Friday, it will be nice to hear about the results from the test I had last week. In the meantime, today is one of those days that I think I'll need to take it a little easier.

chocolates & radioactive scrambled eggs

I made these cute little chocolate candy tags for barneybetty today! It had been a little while since I had put together my little chocolates and I had fun cutting and pasting them into yummy candies. Thank you barneybetty for the order! :)

This morning I went to the hospital for the gastric emptying study. They had me eat some radioactive scrambled eggs (not yummy) so they could watch my digestion (or not). I had to lay still for an hour and a half in a confined space while the machine did it's job. I'm hoping that somehow I've gained some super hero trait through the radioactive eggs... at least maybe I could glow in the dark! :) I'll keep you posted! I'll get the results from this test next Friday when I see my gastroenterologist.

Hmmmm.... super hero traits... what would you choose as yours?

celebrating a new year clippie

I'm so thrilled to have some energy today! I got to work and finished an item that's been on my "to do list" for WAY too long. (Thanks mommab for your patience!) This little hair clippie was a custom order for a mom of a soon to be 3 year old. She's just going to look so precious showing off her newest number/year! :) The number "3" and all elements of this clippie have been hand embroidered.

initial beauty

Initial Beauty... I like the sound of it! It's the new name for my initial/monogram cards. MommaB custom ordered this card to match the booties she purchased from me. It is going to be the card to go with the booties she's giving as a gift. She has inspired me to begin offering matching cards to go with some of my items... (I'm really excited about making a card to match the Skull Mary Jane Booties I have listed right now. I think that will be on next week's project list!) I hand cut, pierced, and embroidered the "j" on this card. It is mounted slightly above the card stock. The dimension really finished off the card nicely. YEAH! Initial Beauty! :)

I'm imagining lots of ways to play with initials... this is going to be FUN!

photos

It's done... 57 photo cards packaged up into sets. I was very happy that I was able to resolve the wage dissatisfaction with the Oompah-Loompahs. They were a really big help in assembly line production! (OK... maybe I need to get outside for a little while...)

It felt so good to put this order together. The photos always seem to "pop" when I mount them onto the beautiful, white card stock. It's amazing what that little border does! No matter how many art photo cards I put together, I still get a little thrill that a beautiful photo has become a functional art piece to be shared OR framed. (I was so happy to read that one of my clients HAS framed one of the art cards she purchased! Yeah!)

I also FINALLY got to my camera and went through my beach shots from last week... Oh... what a gorgeous day it was! So beautiful AND so much fun spent with family! I still have lots of practice to do with my new camera... but I feel like I got some really nice shots. Want to check them out? Click here to see "The Beach" set I created on flickr. Looking at the photos makes me want to go back...

plastic surgery results

Look at that....

My baby's back home! All spic and span and good as new after the plastic surgery. Ohhhh.... it's so good to see it sitting in the driveway once again. I can hardly wait to drive it to volleyball Sunday morning. All my volleyball friends have been missing it as well! :) I was definitely a little nervous as I drove it home... I don't want ANYONE else to run into my little MINI! (Check out my April OUCH! post to read what happened...)

I completed the set of cards for Eva today! I put them on her doorstep and she called me about an hour later. It was sooo nice to hear how much she loved them! She was excited to give her friends sets as gifts. About ten minutes after I spoke with her my phone rang again... Eva wanted to order 48 (!) more cards for next month! YEAH! I'm so glad that she loves them! :)

Let's see, my last post I mentioned that the twins were in the hospital... well... they went home yesterday afternoon, but my mom called earlier today to say they were returning to the hospital. They still aren't able to keep anything in their little systems. Get well soon sweeties... Meanwhile, my dad is now starting to get better from the same illness and my mom came down with it today. Sounds like pretty rough stuff. Everybody batten down the hatches and GET BETTER!

Norm, Cami, and I went to see Iron Man. (We tried to take one of Cami's friends... I ended up having to run her home at the beginning of the movie because she suddenly felt sick. I missed about 20 minutes.) What a great, fun movie! We really had fun (except for being worried about the friend)! We don't go to movies often and when we do it feels like a very special treat.

OK... so I've completed a couple of items on my project list so far this week. (They were two BIG projects!) I don't often get a chance to work on projects on the weekend. I may have to forward those same two projects (sigh)...

good deed = ORDER

I found a note on my door this afternoon from Eva (my neighbor across the street)... She invited me to go into her backyard and take photos. She asked that I call her when I was finished. I was excited to have the opportunity to check out her backyard as I hadn't seen it before. The roses were amazing! I took many photos although the wind was blowing slightly and some of the shots I wanted to take just wouldn't cooperate. I was a little upset, because I felt like this was my only opportunity... I didn't want to be staking out her backyard every day! She might get tired of me and call the police! :) (She's a very private person, we've lived here for 5 years and have just exchanged cursory greetings in the past when getting the mail, etc.)

I gave Eva a call this evening after Cami and I returned from Cami's volleyball league. (I'm one of the coaches.) She asked if I would put together 10 sets (4 cards each) for her! 40 cards!!! :) I guess she really liked the set of cards I made for her as a gift for her to enjoy her roses a little longer! My good deed really paid off! I'm excited to get back into her yard tomorrow and take a few more shots, hopefully with no breeze! I'll print out my favorites for her to select from and then order the prints I need. This will be a fun order! (I just wish I could list it on etsy... I love seeing those "sales" numbers go up, alas, she does not have a computer (I know, shocking!)...) She's planning on giving the sets to her friends as gifts... It just makes me smile...

Tomorrow is a big day... Leila is doing a presentation in Cami's class for her Peace Communication class. She'll then do an additional art project with 3 of Cami's friends after school. She'll use the information she gets to prepare her class project. I'm excited to watch her in action!

Also... Norm's returning home from his Seattle business trip... It will be nice to have everyone home!