Whatcha Reading Wednesday - August 11

Over at Busy Moms Who Love to Read, the Whatcha Reading Wednesdays prompt this week is to type the first 2 sentences of the second chapter of the book you are reading.

.Of course you have to warn folks if it is a major spoiler, but I am fairly certain that in chapter 2 we'll be pretty safe.

Anyway, I didn't finish COVET. Which quite frankly, baffles me. I can't believe how busy I have been to NOT have finished this book.

Here are my sentences for this week:

....Marcus Reinhardt Jewelers, est. 1893, had been housed in the same gracious brick building in downtown Caldwell since the mortar in iys deep red walls had been set. The firm had changed hands in the Depression, but the ethos of the business had remained the same and prevailed into the Internet era: high-end, important jewels offered at competative prices and paired with incomparable personal service.

Inch by Inch, Smile by Smile, I'll take over the WORLD.

I can safely post these with out fear of exposing them before they reached their destination. These went to Scotland for a Swap-Bot swap. I just love that people all over the world have my works. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. And NO, it isn't the temperature out. Anyway, the swap was to use ONE stamp on FOUR inchies. (I also sent a couple of extra's. Cuz it's always nice to get something you didn't expect.) Anyway, back to the swap inchies, I didn't want to make the same one in different colors, so here's what I came up with:

The first one was inspired by ROSEMARY. I LOVED the ones she made for the Inchie Swap I hosted a bit back, so I made a feeble attempt at re-creating one. I still like hers better, but now I can say I made one. (The stamp on this one is her hat. Not really easy to tell right away.

The one next to it is a clear plastic bubble sticker that I popped on top of three cutouts of the stamp. I think it looks like a lillypad in a pond.

I was trying more for a landscape-y feel (green on the ground, blue in the sky) with the next one, but it looks more like an eye. (Just can't win them all.)

The last one is FAR better looking in person. It is an inch of white cardstock. Yes, I said WHITE. I stamped the flower four times, then colored in the flowers and finally filled in the background with black. Then I stuck gems down and covered the entire thing with Dimensional Glaze. Finally, when it was dry, I outlined with a silver pen. It is stunning in person, even if I do say so myself.

Thanks for looking.

Menu Monday - and what REALLY happened last week...

Last week was, um, an interesting one. Our dishwasher died. Danny is really, really good at fixing things, but this one was beyond repair. So we had to get a new one. We picked one that wasn't in stock and had to be trucked in. That meant we wouldn't have a dishwasher for 3 days. It altered my MENU plan dramatically. Since I have a green mind, we DID NOT buy paper plates (I am not fanatic about paper plates, this was more of a ploy to get out of cooking.) Instead, we ate takeout, out of the containers, and ate at restaurants. Completely acceptable according to the dice, but not planned. Certainly enjoyable. Especially by ME!!! We have a dishwasher again. Hurray. (NOT) SO...

Sorry for the interuption, I'll get you back to the regularly scheduled post now:

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Monday: Steamed Shrimp, Salad and French Bread

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Tuesday: Chicken Enchiladas, Refried Beans and Salad

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Wednesday:Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Baked Beans and Salad

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Thursday: Chicken Stew, Salad and Crusty Cuban Bread

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Friday: Pizza and Salad

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Saturday: Dinner at the Mall, Back to School Clothes Shopping

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Sunday: Pasta with Meatballs, Salad and Italian Bread

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Dog Days of Summer

OPUS GLUEI has turned up the heat this summer.
Nah, not really. They're just using the phrase as the starting point for this weeks challenge.




My first step was to identify the direction I was going to go for this challenge. I had no clue. Then this little darling

(This is the look he gives me when he wants a treat.)

walked by and I had a moment. You know when the angels sing and the lightbulb lights up. Just like that, I knew that my subject would be

DOG.

I had to then get him out of the picture and make a couple copies in case, you know, just in case. I fit 15 onto a 4x6 photo. But printed it onto cardstock cuz it wasn't going to be a real picture and I wanted the texture of cardstock.

I looked through my stash and found some bits and brads that would work for the cover and the inside.

Then I sanded the lid of the Altoids Smalls tin. It's about 2 inches tall and a little over 1 inch wide. I took off most of the color, but left some for interest. I didn't worry about the raised letters cuz I knew I would be covering them up. Mostly.

After sanding, I colored the tin with my Copic markers. Cuz I was too lazy to pull out the bin with the alcohol ink and the markers were right there. You would have done the same thing.

Then I stamped little paw prints in Brown Staz-On and little bones in Black Staz-On. I wanted the paw prints to step aside cuz I had the metal paw prints. Which were also colored with Copics.

Then I let the inks dry. And waited. Not so patiently for the ink to dry.

Then I used UTEE on the lid, for the first time ever. I put on lots of layers because I wanted the lid to be smooth. Morgan is going to be carrying this around. I know she will, and I want things to stay put.

I don't know why I waited so long to use this wonderful stuff, but I did.

I know, I know, Silly Me.

I cut Kraft paper to fit inside. Versamark stamped the paw print on one and the bone on the other. I used my Copics to color this little doggie to be more like Zeke's coloring. Added the other things. Dimensional glazed some seed beads around the inside. (Waiting patiently for drying isn't one of my "talents" as evidenced by the "white" not dried glue in the beads above.) Covered all but the UTEE surfaces with Gel Medium and let it dry.

I added one of Tim's chain/clip thingys and a couple of charms. I only put one layer of the UTEE on the bottom because I like the texture. You can kind of see it in this picture.

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Let me know if you have any tips for future altered tin projects. I have ONE for you:

Don't put anything around the edges of the inside lid.

I tried to put the seed beads around the inside lid. It didn't work because the bottom tin has to have someplace to go. So I had to scrape them all out and used my Copics to dot some faux beads instead.

There, now you know the ugly truth. Some of the seed beads were harmed during the making of this little shrine.

It isn't something I am proud of, but hopefully, by sharing this story, I will save someone from the same horrible fate.

I am also submitting this for:

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge - # 71 Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Creative Craft Challenges - Animal Antics

Shelly's Images Blog - This Place is A Zoo

The Play Date Cafe - PDCC 41 - Color Challenge

Thanks for looking.

Whatcha Reading Wednesday - August 4th Edition

Okay, so I am a day late. But it's not like I have ever been accused of being a habitual punctual being. Ever.
That said, I am at least in the right week. LOL





So, this week's instruction is to:



Type the first two sentences of the fourth chapter of your current book.



If it is a spoiler at all be sure to put **Spoiler Alert** at the top of your comment. (Like if the selection announces the death of an integral character or something.)

Here are the first two sentences of the fourth chapter:

He slept with her.

......The following morning, Jim's first thought was a real shitkicker, and to try to get away from it, he rolled over on his bed.

Wordless Wednesday

Well, it was going to be wordless. Until I saw that my darling, oldest daughter has rabbit ears. Yup. Melissa was in the back seat. The three of us were waiting, rather patiently, for Morgan's riding lesson to end. So we started goofing around taking pictures. Beware Melissa: If she is near, you will get rabbit ears. She's pretty good at them, don'tcha think?!??!?!?!?

Morgan and Me in DC: Days 3, 4 and 5

WARNING - LONG POST - HEAVY ON PICTURES AND WORDS. (for me anyway)

DAY 3 we woke up really late. Didn't get out and about until 11-ish. So we went for lunch and decided to go see the Phillips Collection, which was only a few blocks from where we were staying. As it turned out, we saw a used book store on the way, got delayed about an hour (between browsing and walking the books back to the hotel - we weren't going to carry them around all day in the 100+ weather). It turned out to be a really lovely walk. We passed by several foreign embassies (plus our hotel was across the street from the Tanzanian Embassy - kinda neat.) It was really interesting to see all the cars parked on the sidewalks. You gotta love Diplomatic immunity.

The Phillips Collection is wonderful. The collection is housed in the original Phillips house and another building that was added to hold the extensive collection, and host temporary displays. Duncan Phillips and his wife collected Modern Art. The museum is the First Modern Art Museum. Morgan and I enjoyed most of the pieces on display. She was THRILLED to see a Monet in person. And a Degas. I was thrilled to see Renior's Luncheon of the Boating Party.

There were a couple of temporary exhibits that neither one of us was too thrilled with. Can't remember this guys name, but I liked this piece of his. Most of the other artists works we kind of looked at them, tilted our heads and shrugged our shoulders. BUT, art is subjective. We just really didn't "GET IT" on some of those pieces. And I am usually VERY open minded. Robert Ryman might do it for you, but all I kept seeing was a wonderful starting piece for some really cool projects.

After that we were ready to head back to the hotel for a bit of a rest. We ended up staying in the rest of the day. We read, relaxed and ate peanut butter and crackers for dinner, and watched "Prince of Persia" on their pay-for-view TV. It was wonderful.

DAY 4 the alarm went off at 7. We showered and waited rather impatiently for Rosemary to get there. When she did arrive, we pounced on her. Literally. It had been far too long since our last visit. We hugged, exchanged some goodies and headed out for breakfast. We found a bagel shop that hit the spot quite nicely. Then it was off to the National Geographic Museum for the Da Vinci exhibit.

That man was something else. An engineer and an artists. WOW. It's a rare thing to find someone so adept in both sides of the brain. It was wonderful to see all the models made according to his drawings. And there was an exhibit on the discoveries they made on the Mona Lisa. She really is stunning in her original colors.

The National Geographic Museum has a cafe. Who knew? We ate lunch there. It was pretty good and reasonably priced. Once we had rested and cooled off, we headed back into the oven (aka outside) and made our way to the National Museum of Natural History via the Metro.

I love riding on the Metro. Yup, I am a suburbanite. And it shows. It was Boy Scout Day there. And they were all in uniform. I was very pleased that they were on their good behavior. (But not their teenage boy aroma. P-U. And the 105 degree weather didn't help at all.) Morgan is an animal LOVER, so this museum was on the agenda for sure. We found out that there is a Butterfly Pavillion with live butterflies. Naturally we had to go inside. We weren't in the place for a minute when a butterfly landed on Rosemary. She's so sweet, it's no wonder it landed there. That butterfly stayed on her the entire time we were in there.

One of the butterfly shoo-er's (Yup, offical name) had to brush it off of her before we left. It sure was attracted to that sweet lady. Morgan loved being in there. (Why, YES, this whole trip was about MORGAN.) She wanted to see the big Elephant in the rotunda, the dinosaurs and the saber tooth tiger. I wanted to see the Hope Diamond. It sparkles. Once we had enough of that, Rosemary opted for a cab back to the hotel, where we cooled down and ordered Chinese Food for dinner and a movie. Again, we rented "Prince of Persia". (Who could really blame us!?!?!)

Morgan and I really like this movie. I really, really liked the scenery. And we'll probably end up buying it when it comes out on DVD. Rosemary couldn't stay the night, so we had to say good night to her after the movie.

DAY 5 I woke up around 9. Showered and started to pack. We were going to have breakfast at IKEA. YAY. Ended up having lunch because we got there too late. Such is life. Traffic was kind of heavy. But lunch was good too. I got the bookshelves Danny and I have wanted for a while. He wanted one for his hobby room, and I wanted one for the front entry way to hold lunchboxes, backpacks, scarves, hats, etc... And some new dishes.For some reason I really like plain white dishes. Maybe because they are blank canvases waiting for the color and texture of the meals. LOL. And some containers to put on the shelves.A few hundred dollars and an hour later, we got back on the road. We did pretty well traffic wise. We stopped at Pierces BBQ Pit and grabbed some dinner for later.

By the time we pulled into the driveway, at home, it was 7 hours after we had left the hotel. It's normally only a 3 hour drive. We spent about an hour at IKEA and 15 minutes at Pierces. That leaves us in the car for 5 hours and 45 minutes. Almost double what it should have been. Boy were we glad to be home.

If you've made it this far, come on over for dinner. We're having Steak.