Happy Christmas Eve Everyone.

For the last several days I have been wistfully looking at my craft room.  I purchased some Tim Holtz product a week ago, and have not had a chance to use it yet.  With the Holidays and all, we have been pretty busy here.  So maybe after things settle down a bit, I can get back to creating.  I still want to finish my 12 days of Christmas tags from his series.  It's quiet in our house tonight, I am getting ready to settle down and watch A Christmas Story with my family, something we do every Christmas Eve.  For the last 2 days I have been baking.  Every year for the past 19 years, I bake cookies for our neighbors.  8 trays of cookies go out.  I took some pictures this year to share.  I make my favorites, Sugar, Gingerbread, and Date pinwheels, and then I always do something different that I have never tried before.  This year it was Wilton's chocolates with a creme center.  Here are the trays finished.

I want to wish all of you a Very Merry Chirstmas, and A Happy New Year.  I hope you get everything you wish for Christmas.

Beth.

This and that

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't posted in awhile, it has been busy. busy, busy here in Indiana.  This post has nothing to do with art or the Cricut, but thought I would share.  We have chickens, 7 to be exact.  Just enough to get a few eggs everyday.  One of them was a rooster that did not get along with my daughter.  In May I purchased 7 more chicks, hens so we would have more eggs next year, so now I have 14 chickens.  I am thinking this would be a manageable amount of chickens and just enough to provided plenty of eggs for family and friends.  Anyway one of the hens, a small bantum was sitting on a nest like she has every year since we got her.  She has only ever hatched one chick, so I did not think anything of it.  In fact I thought the rooster was sterile because in April we tried to hatch several of the eggs in an incubator, but didn't have any luck.

We decided to get rid of the rooster due to him not getting along with anyone and the fact he was picking on the hens.  We gave him to a very nice neighbor who has a bunch of chickens and didn't mind one more.  2  days after we got rid of him, my daughter ran to me and yelled, "Mom, Lillies eggs have hatched", and I am thinking oh no, I don't need anymore chickens, I have plenty.  We decided to move them to a cage because we have cats, and an occasional raccoon.  Even though I really didn't need anymore chickens, I didn't want to see anything happening to them.  I pulled the hen out of the nest(she wasn't too happy by the way), and then I started to pull chicks out.  This little hen had nineteen baby chicks, 19....

It appears she layed 23 eggs, one tried to hatch and couldn't so that left 3 left that didn't hatch at all.  I moved the eggs with her just in case they weren't done hatching.  19 baby chicks, I was amazed and shocked.  The next day, she had rolled 2 of the eggs that didn't hatch out of the nest and the other hatched.  So now I have 20 baby chicks.  I have no idea what I am going to do with all of them, but for now they are so cute and cuddly, we are just enjoying them.

This week I am a guest designer again for She's a Sassy Lady, so stay tuned for a project(I promise).  Oh I have included pics of Lilly and her new family.

Have a great day, Beth.

Busy week and weekend!

I am sorry I haven't posted any cool projects lately, I have been busy getting ready for the garden tour and I had a horse show this weekend.  So far in my garden I have planted 14 flats of flowers, and I think I still need at least another 5 flats.  I am almost done with that and I am hoping to get back into cricut crafting.  That's not to say I haven't been shopping, oh no....  My Cricut Cake machine came on Friday, and the most I have done is open the box and check out all of the contents.  I can't wait to play with it.  I also purchased in the last week, Give a Hoot, Summer Vacation, Summer in Paris, and Hello Kitty cricut cartridges.  So I have been busy, BUSY SPENDING MONEY.

With all of my supplies I bought, you'd think I would be able to make something really cool, but I have to be in the right frame of mind, and have a block of time of about 4 hours to get started.  Right now I am experiencing crafter's block, a dreaded affliction that everyone of us has had at least once.

I went to a one day horse show yesterday, and last week during the evening, I either, clipped horses, bathed horses, or cleaned out horse's stalls so they wouldn't get dirty after I bathed them.  As it turned out. I bathed my mare and had her tied in the corner so she wouldn't roll in her stall, fed her grain, untied her so she could eat her hay, went to get her hay, and when I got back, not 1 minute later, she was rolling in her stall.  She is a pinto and it took me at least an hour to bathe her to get her clean.  To say I wasn't happy with her was an understatement. But there was nothing I could do about it except dust her off.  I did go get a horse blanket and a thing called a slinky that is made of lycra that has eye, ear and a nose hole that goes over the horses head and covers there head and neck entirely.  I put the slinky and the blanket on her, and when I was done she looked like fearless fly and the Michelin tire man all rolled into one.  I told her if she wouldn't have rolled, she have to where all those clothes overnight.  That'll teach her.

I have some ideas of projects I want to do, and I promise dear reader I will get to them and post.

Thanks for being patient with me.

Beth

Very Interesting Week

First it was my BD this week and hubby made me a very good dinner on Tuesday night.  I think it was the best dinner he ever made.

Then I get home from work yesterday and there was a 750.00 check in the mail to me.  I had won a drawing and the winner got 750.00(long story.)WOO HOO.

I had been wanting a cricut cake machine, and even asked for one for my BD, but hubby said I has enough Cricut machines in the house(GASP!)  How could he.

So with my winnings, I bid on a cricut cake on EBAY today and Won!  YEAH.  I got a great deal.  HB to me!!  I am hoping to post pics of my new toy soon and of other projects I will be making with my regular Cricut E.  I have been very busy lately and haven't had a chance to make anything.  But last week I was playing around with my regular old Expression and cut some fondant and decorated this cake with it.  Don't laugh, it's the first time I ever covered a cake with fondant.

Hopefully I will get better. At least the projects in my head always turn out wonderfully.

Well off to bed to finish that Stephen King book.

Goodnight everyone,

Beth

Today

Thought I would post quickly about my day.
Today started out very early, you see my husband likes to hunt, and turkey season is open in Indiana. He has never hunted turkeys before this year and was quite happy to try for the first time. Well today he got one. So in the hubbub over the turkey, I was woke up earlier then usual for a Sunday morning. I do not like the taste of wild game, and he is always trying to get me to eat it. I have been told that wild turkey is excellent and now have one in my freezer.(It better by good as much as I have heard about it:))


Today I tried to cut fondant for the first time on my Cricut Expression. I have been wanting to do this for over a year and finally got brave enough to try. I moved the rubber rollers off to the side, wiped it down thoroughly with soap, got my new cake mats out, rolled my fondant as thin as I could, and cut with my deep cut blade housing. The first time I started too close to the edge and it pulled up the fondant, but the second time, I started the blade further from the edge and it did not cut too bad. I actually got an image I could use on a cake had I baked one. This was just an experiment, but it has encouraged me to try again. Unlike some of my endeavors, this one was not a total flop.


Today I finally got my blog fixed so the butterfly's wing is showing instead of being covered up by the middle columns. I have no idea how I did it. I was creating a background from scratch using Paint.net, and in trying to post my new background, my old one fixed itself. So I am going to leave well enough alone for awhile and stick to the butterfly background.


Today I made one of two window boxes for the front of the house. My old ones were up so long they rotted out, and I needed new ones for this year. So one is done, but I ran out of wood and have to wait for a trip to Lowes before I can finish the other one.


Today I jumped on the trampoline with my daughter. She is very young and I am very old, or at least I feel like it most days, but she always persuades me to jump with her.


Today I rode my mare. You see she has been quite a challenge for me. I have worked very hard on getting her to be a good show horse and she is very stubborn, more so then any horse I have every ridden, but she is coming along and trying, kind of. Maybe by the end of this year it will all come together. Showing horses is the most challenging thing I have ever done. Unlike most sports where it's you trying to do your best, you have another partner that needs to practice with your everyday, and sometimes that partner doesn't always do what you want them to, but when they do, there is no better feeling in the world.


Today I got a blog award from Shesasassylady. See pic below. Thanks Sheila. Where would I like to be in 10 years? Right here posting away, and maybe having a little more time to get things done. Time just goes by so fast anymore. Thanks again Sheila, I really appreciate it. Check out her blog by clicking the link above, when you get a minute, she has some great ideas, and great instructions, I love her layouts.





Well it's getting late, and I have a Stephen King book I am trying to finish, Goodnight everyone.


Beth