Fire Sale! Up Date!

ETSY SALE: Joining into the mood of the season I have drastically reduced prices on many many of my items for sale in my ETSY shop. See the side bar and click on items of interest to take you to the store. Maybe there is something there for that certain person on your gift list...I hope so. I love the idea of my art finding appreciation in new homes. Check it out! [a beautiful satiny bag made from old dresses patched together;several fun small art quilts one almost all made from sari ribbons turned to sun and waves;one with tiny fabric scraps as leaves hiding an owl in the tree; one with hand made paper beads; three different paint brush holders that could be used to store any number of items, use your imagination; those fun 'paintings' made from repurposed paper towels and dyed dryer sheets on painted canvas; and much more!!!!] Get your own original ARTBYLYNN!

Up date on the mailing of the package! I made my own box as you saw yesterday and took it to the post office today. Instead of the $40 plus UPS wanted to mail it in their box I was able to send it off for less than half that. I had a choice between $11 for first class which would take a week and $15.30 for Priority Mail that would take three days. I decided on the latter so the box would spend less time in mail trucks being moved around and possibly damaged. I feel more confident now about it reaching it's destination in tact.

Thank you for your shipping experiences shared.

Interesting and informative!

Thanks too for your own fire experiences!

Nice to know I am not alone!

;-)

New Secret Project = Kitchen Fire + other stuff

So I was busy this Sunday morning working on a project I cannot show (Seth Apter's request for art submissions for his new book being published in 2012/I'll find out in Feb. 2011 if I get to be in it or not, but my submission must be in by end Dec. 2010) so I am working on it and had put a pot of apple cider on the stove to heat up and I was out in the garage when I heard this beeping sound, and I wondered what it was...was the surge protector going off on the computer? Was it the house security system going off for some reason? No, it was the FIRE ALARM and I came in from the garage to find DH dismantling it to try to make it stop beeping! But then I went into the kitchen and found out WHY it was beeping! My pot of apple cider was boiling away and flames were shooting up from under the stove burner from the accumulated drippings of cider that had formed there. LOL We really had a fire and neither of us knew it. OY VEY!!! Just wanted to make the damn alarm shut up. LOL I could have burnt down the whole house! Okay, I am not laughing now. It's not funny. Shame on me. I think I have been banned from cooking anything ever again! Showing off my busy endeavors. Yesterday I went to UPS to try to mail off the art I had sold and they wanted over $40 to send it! I had only charged $10 for shipping~! So I brought it home and found and cut up an old box we'd used for our renovation packing this past summer. I made my own box. Now I hope it ships for much less!!!I will take it to the post office tomorrow.

DH, finally over the awful cold he got right in time for Thanksgiving break from school, is upstairs for the second day in a row grading 150 notebooks! Due tomorrow when he returns to school.

And this is a very sweet story about my grandson: When the family was all here on Friday for our feast I was sitting with them in the living room drinking some egg nog (I love egg nog) from this cup. I saw my six year old grandson sitting across the room from me staring at the cup. I could see his mind churning. A little later we were up and walking around and I still had the cup in my hand. I asked him if he knew what it said. He said "Yes. Ema!" Ema is Mother in Hebrew! And he was right! He could READ THE HEBREW WORD!!!

Needless to say, their new school is doing a bang up job and he is brilliant!

Proud Grandma!

Stuffed and Sold ART!!!!

Yesterday was our Thanksgiving feast with family and friends. Once again I had relied upon my Joy of Cooking cook book for the stuffing recipe I have been making for years. I roasted chestnuts in my small counter top oven. I love them in the stuffing, but the work it takes to separate the meat from the shell is not an easy task. I still have one piece of shell wedged under my thumb nail.

Sauteed mushrooms and onions add a wonderful flavor...

and celery, parsley and more mushrooms go into the mix...

I prefer corn bread stuffing crumbs the best.

This 13 lb free range naked bird raised in a farm near where we live got stuffed and gave enough meat to feed 11 guests and we still have enough left over to feed a small army. You are all invited over for leftovers.

The stuffing inside the turkey is always the most moist and best in my opinion but there is always too much and I heat up the excess as well.

My design table became the buffet and three smaller tables became the guest seating. It looked, my daughter said, like a restaurant.

I think everyone had more than enough to eat and left feeling quite "stuffed!" Just like that turkey!

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Other News!

Remember this art work I did last year using re-purposed dryer sheets and paper towels?

I sold "EARTH" this week on my ETSY shop!

The other three pieces in this series are still available for sale:

"Fire" "Air" "Water".

SOLD: "Earth" Still available for sale:

left to right: "Fire", "Earth", "Air"

top: "Water"

Close up and personal they are must richer looking with their gold threads, hand done stitching, and rich texture from the soft papers!

Check out my ETSY shop on my side bar

for your holiday shopping needs.

;-)

Happy Thanksgiving

Abe and Ella

begot

Estelle, Janette and Miriam

who married

Al, Joel and Harry

who begot

Richard, Lynn, Niel, Barbara, Judy and Jerry

who married

Judy, Michael, Meloney, Mike, David and Rebecca

who begot

Dan, Adena, Lisa, Debra, John, Amy, Ashly, Jake, Sarah and Laurel*

(*most of whom have married now and have 0-3 children each)

By the time we were this many (40)

and you added Joel's father and mother, brother and his wife, and their two daughters, (55)

and later their husbands;

who also married and begot four or five children

and you added the family who worked for Uncle Harry in his store (61)

and you added another family friend and/or neighbor (65)

Our Thanksgiving Table(s) GREW and GREW and GREW

until the children of the grandchildren had children

and no one any longer had a house big enough to hold them all

and they began to split up into smaller households

and have their own Thanksgiving dinners in their own homes

with each original grandchild with their children and their own grandchildren

and so it goes some near

some far away

some passed on

and so it is

Thanksgiving

a

traditional Family Holiday

one of being together

and one of

Giving Thanks

for all we are

and all we have

counting our blessings

PS: In the photo that's me about 64 years ago eating the turkey leg!

(with my grandparents Abe and Ella, my parents, brother, two aunts and uncles and the first two cousins)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS

ENJOY!

Creative Long Weekend; I can Craft! I can Iron! I Can Laminate! I can Sew!

I had a few gifts but no boxes to fit them so I made these boxes on Friday!

I made them out of brown paper bags covered in fabric inside and out Then added brads and wove yarn up the sides and tied them together!

Added buttons and loops.

Yes, the same box design I taught my grand kids to make

a week ago.

So practical and so cute!

On Saturday I got out my linens for the up coming holiday dinner

and ironed the napkins (I found a few years ago at the thrift store! Like new!)

Perfect~! I found some of my decorations that went missing in the recent house reno!

The flowers I got at Michael's at 90% off...almost free!

Today I made these coasters. I can't remember if I got the idea off

someones blog or a website; but they are really easy to make.

I laid out strips of cotton in fall colors on brown felt squares

and added laminate on top and on the under side as well.

And then I sewed them on my sewing machine!

I made ten of them! This is the laminate I used, which I bought at Michael's in the scrapbook dept.

Easy Peasy!

I am so ready for the party to begin! What are your plans for Thanksgiving?

Apricot-Cranberry Conserve or I CAN TOO COOK!

Okay, granted, my dear husband does most of the cooking around here. But a few times a year, especially around holidays I take to the kitchen! Today I am planning/cooking ahead. Making this wonderful recipe called Apricot-Cranberry Conserve that I have been making for several years now. It's stuffed into the Joy Of Cooking book, that my dear mother sent me when I lived in Israel on a Kibbutz in my early 20's. I did not cook there either, as we ate communally. However, I would read the book like a novel, becoming more and more homesick for dishes I loved and no longer had access to. Back to the present: This recipe was torn from a copy of Better Homes and Garden's magazine November 1996. Wow, I've been making it for FOURTEEN YEARS??? Where does the time go????????????? And I have had that book 44 years!!!!!!!! OMIGOD! Sorry, let me regroup here as soon as I catch my breath. So, I gathered the few ingredients: fresh cranberries (1 bag is a little more than two cups called for so I added a little bit more of everything else); dried apricots; orange marmalade and sugar. I buy sugar once a year to make this needing only a forth of a cup. Then it sits in the cupboard!

Maybe you can enlarge the recipe to read it yourself. If not let me know and I'll write it out.

So you boil the water with the 1/4th C sugar!!! Oops! I just realized I was supposed to use 3/4ths cup sugar. Well, I like tart! And tart is shall be!

Then you add the rinsed off fresh cranberries to the boiling water letting it boil again and popping the skins open on the cranberries.

Then you add the apricots and marmalade! I taste everything as I go...oh so sweet and good.

Stir them in...

for about 3-4 more minutes... That's me stirring, PROOF that I can cook!!!!

And that is all there is to it. I am going to freeze it till next Friday when we'll eat it with our turkey sandwiches and yams and stuffing. Since we are celebrating the day AFTER Thanksgiving proper I am having the more casual "left over" turkey meal for family and friends!

I love the sweet tart taste of this mixture. Maybe you will too. Feel free to try it!

What is 69 supposed to feel like? Some thoughts on Aging.

More turkeys discussing their get away plans!

Yesterday I had so much energy and accomplished a great deal, including carrying very heavy things from outside into my garage. I found myself wondering how it was that I had this energy and strength to do these things. I mean I am almost seventy years old. I think I must have had a notion of what that meant years ago, thinking that it meant old, and maybe infirm. I feel neither. I am sure I have the same energy and maybe even more than I did when I was forty.

I know I am happier than I was then. Just am.

I just needed to note this here, as my blog is my life journal (and I do put them into book form now for my kids and grand kids to help them remember me when I'm gone). I guess I just want them to know that their mom and grandma was pretty darn young and spry at sixty nine and a half. I hope this lasts a good long time! I can't see why it won't. I have a whole new notion of what old is let me tell you!!!! And it's not me now! ;-)

Seven Plus One Days before OUR Thanksgiving Day!

It's been a busy day for me, this Friday my day off from work! I am preparing ahead for our Thanksgiving Day, which for us will be on Friday next, the day after Thanksgiving proper. I got up earlier than normal and started cleaning house. I picked up my art studio messes, not an easy task; I swifted the floors and mopped three bathroom tiled floors and the kitchen tile floor. I dusted. I covered patio furniture outside and took in things to the garage to protect them from the rain that is to fall any minute now. (garden tools, my hammock frame); I went to the grocery store for food, all the things I need that won't spoil between now and then. I'll shop again later in the week for the perishables. And on the way home................... I saw these turkeys in a field one block from our house. I drove the block home for my camera and drove back to photograph them from some distance. I like the slightly out of focus look to them almost like a painting don't you think? I may post a picture of them each day from now till T-Day! I think they are discussing hiding places knowing that the date is coming near.

Run turkey's run!!!

How to fill a few empty hours!

Yesterday I had a hole in my day, a few hours with no scheduled clients, so I took myself downtown (a few blocks from my office) where I went into the hospital guild thrift store and found a gift for a friend. I'm always amazed at the cool stuff I find. And I got the "senior" discount for being over 55! LOL Boy, am I so over that number! Then I headed to the bakery for lunch. What a beautiful day it was. The trees downtown are all showing off their fall colors. It's so pretty. The sun was shining brightly. Someone was up in the sky painting it with wonderous art!

On my way home the colors darkened in places and the sun shown through and brightened the day all over again.

This pot on my front door way is full of morning glory seeds coming to life. What a bouquet this will be soon...I must have thrown a handful of seeds in there at one time.

Henry enjoyed a roll in the sun on the warm cement...

He and I are wishing you a happy Friday and a fun filled weekend.

Enjoy!

And don't forget to smell the roses.

Body Parts and Another Riotious Night With Donna!

Sam, The Fearless Threader, a member of our ARTSHINE TRAVELING BOOK blog, asked that the pages in her book have a human form theme. I played with the idea, thought of trying to draw a nude. But Sam's page for her own book on this theme was such a good nude that I thought I would do something different. She also wanted textiles to be used if possible. Well, that of course is right up my alley. So I took a piece of felt, covered it with this piece of burlap, then cut out body parts from felt and felted wool and machine sewed them down to the burlap. Then I used embroidery floss to enhance some and circle others. Threw in some X's and French knots, straight and blanket stitches. I used my free motion sewing foot to write words and sentences. The words say: "My heart is full; My body serves me well; I appreciate my eyes; walking; My hands create. and Art by Lynn."

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Donna called this evening saying she had another free evening if I wanted her to pop over again. She did and we played more cards and I won! But the best winning was just having my friend to reminisce and laugh with again. We are thinking we still have some traveling desires in us and know we are great travel companions! So we shall see. In the meantime I am looking forward to her making it down with her dad and son for Thanksgiving day after!

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I am so grateful for my friends

old and new

&

all of you here as well!

Special Guest and Animal Wednesday!

My girlfriend Donna and I go back over 35 years...We once called ourselves a couple of wild and crazy American Chicks! Donna is an attorney now in So.California and she needed to be up my way for a deposition tomorrow. It's been a couple of years since her last visit up here. So I was really excited when she emailed to ask if she could drop by on the 16th after work. The three of us went out to dinner and then came back here to talk, play cards and reminisce about our long gone youthful days.

We play a game called Spite and Malice, such a wicked game for old friends who love each other as we do, but it's fun and we had a lot of laughs.

Our history includes her being my roommate in a shared rental house where I was in charge of killing bugs and she took care of any mice that showed up. We traveled together to places like Ashland, Oregon/Shakespeare Festival (the weekend before my first date with DH); Hawaii before I knew DH, and Israel and Paris, France the same year DH moved in with us both.

Donna told me tonight she will be back up to visit her family for Thanksgiving and just maybe she'll be able to pop in again here the day after when my family will be visiting. I sure hope so. My daughter was ten years old and used to lay on Donna's bed when Donna did her hair in the morning before going to work. Yes, the same daughter who has the six year old twins today! It would be fun if we could all be together again. Last time they saw each other was at my daughter's wedding about nine years ago.

**************** Henry has taken over my art studio this week as found here

laying on top of my fabric stash on my design table.

Okay, I'll let you rest in peace dear cat!

Happy Animal Wednesday!

Bloom'n Tuesday and More Art from "Quilts of a Different Matter"

Remember this succulent plant and its unusual flower? Well Julie told me it's name. "Old name is: Stapeliad variegata, new name is Orbea variegata". Thank you Julie. She also gave me a link to visit and I share it with you if you want to see more of this variety of unusual flower: Here. And this is what it looks like now. It has gone to sleep...or is dying, I am not sure which. Julie?

I still have more photos to show from the Quilts of a Different Matter show and this one is perfect for Bloomin' Tuesday!

I liked the use of beads for seeds in the center.

It is so precious to me to see how my grand kids showed interest looking at the various art pieces by themselves.

Love how the wall color makes this quilt pop!

Nice mixture of drawing on fabric too...

Doesn't this one make you want to get up and dance with them? Did me!

And here are Kirks nine glass pieces hanging like a quilt.

Oh, and there's one of mine again!

Another Ann Jacob's piece in metals.

And I know Jane Waters put a lot of time into layering this digital piece.

This piece is by Robin Rossi.

I like it very much. Okay, shows over here. It can still be seen at the Lawler House Art Gallery till end of January.

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Happy bloomin' Tuesday!