Julie Nutting Paper Dolls

I'm obsessed.  Seriously.  I've got it bad.   And like all my obsessions I make sure others get obsessed too.  It's usually one of my sisters.  This time it's Carolynne.  I don't remember how I discovered Julie Nutting dolls. I think it was because my friend Caron is obsessed ( are you seeing a theme here?) and she showed them to me.   I really don't remember.  Carolynne doesn't have her own dolls so of course I stamped out dozens for her and outfits and shoes and leggings and skirts and tops and... and ... and... well, you get the idea.

Last year, about this time, we decided to challenge each other to make a doll tag and stay within some given parameters.  We chose the colors red, white and black and newspaper.  We also had to use the same doll stamp. Then we took pictures of our finished tags and sent them to each other.  Here's the result.

This is Carolynne's doll.  Isn't she gorgeous?  Of course, Carolynne had to alter her from the original.  It's how she rolls.

The layering and detail is just exquisite.  And the shoes!  Are you kidding me??  And the coat!!!

I love the tulle behind the snowflake, don't you?

Here's my doll.

Carolynne was restrained in her use of newspaer.  Not me!  I went hog wild.  The background, the banner, her dress and the flowers are all made from newspaper. I used Lindy's Stamp Gang spray on the background and it has a bit of a shimmer to it.  

I have made seasonal dolls that I put out on my hutch.  I'll post more pictures soon.
 In the meantime, see my post here for some dolls I made for Broadway. 

This Old Girl

I love her so much.  She has served me faithfully for over 37 years!  I have had her longer than I've had my children!  She has been with me through thick and thin.  She has let me down occasionally but I never held it against her for long.  Most of the time it was my fault because I neglected her something fierce.  Norm bought her for me in the summer of 1980 in Chino, California.  She was $100.  We had to make payments because we were so poor.

Every time we moved, and we've moved a lot, I carried her in the trunk of my car along with several other precious things I never allowed to go onto a moving truck.

As her name implies she created a lot of Magic.  She helped me de-stress, relax and be creative.  I made leather chaps, prom dresses, little boys overalls, pajama pants, dresses, skirts and tops, buckaroo shirts and more craft items and stuffed lambs than you could ever imagine. Both of my kids learned to sew on her.  She helped Ty make a pair of pajama pants for his girlfriend who is now his wife.  She instilled in him a love for sewing and now he has his own sewing machine.

I made my first 10 or 15 quilts on her and even quilted a few of them.  Quilting is what drove me to purchase a new machine because this old gal doesn't have some of the features I wanted.  I will never get rid of her permanently.  She is always there, waiting and hoping that I'll use her again.  And I will.  I promise.  Thanks, Magic. I will always love you.

Huckleberry Pie revived again

January 4, 2017

Here I am once more attempting to revive my poor neglected blog.  My life has seen some changes and perhaps now I will have the time and inclination to keep it up better.  It snowed most of the night and rained most of the day so it is a wet, sloppy mess out there.  How grateful I am that I didn't have to go out in it.  

I spent time today reflecting back on 2016.  It was an eventful year for sure.  As 2017 begins I thought I would pick a word for the year.  I know others who have done this and they have found it to be a rewarding, experience.  I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to that for a year but after some soul conviction and a desire to make a difference in the lives of others I decided that I would choose a word for my life in 2017. 

 That word is GENEROUS.  This year I will be attempt to be GENEROUS. 

GENEROUS with my time with others.  

GENEROUS with my love for others.

GENEROUS with my forgiveness of others.

GENEROUS with my grace toward others.

GENEROUS with my acceptance of others.

GENEROUS with my laughter with others.

GENEROUS with my love and kindness and caring for others.

GENEROUS with my prayers for others.

And GENEROUS to myself.

GENEROUS with permission to be the best me I can be.

It may not be easy.  NO.  It WON'T be easy but the I'm going to attemp to do it anyway.  

May your New Year be filled with lots of love, life and GENEROSITY! 

Here is the first Pocket letter I ever made.  I exchanged with my dear friend in Ohio.  We are both obsessed with the Julie Nutting paper dolls.  The papers I used are from Crate Paper.  A line called "Farmhouse"

 This is it all folded up and ready to send.  I made a band to go around it to hold it all together.  

This is a close up of the band.  Lots of little details.  

I just love this paper line.  I used a 6x6 pad for this project but I have the 12x12 pad as well.  I'm kind of hoarding it.  The banner across the top is removable.  

Here's a close up of the doll.  She has a lace hanky in her pocket.  

These are tiny Julie Nutting dolls I laminated and make into paper clips.  The rhinestone on this doll and the heart on the one above are adhered on top of the laminate.  They are just so darn cute.

I am hooked on Pocket Letters now, too.  I made on for a sweet young mom in Italy and received a lovely one back.  Next I am making another doll one for a lovely lady here in the US.  

SYS Cards

I like to make what I call Simple Yet Striking cards.  SYS for short.  Here's one I made using a Stamps of Life set called Crazy For Daisies and the matching dies, Tim Holtz's Tattered Leaves die and a simple sentiment stamp.  

This whole card took me less than 15 minutes to make.  In the time it took the hot glue gun to warm up I had it assembled and then I just adhered the rhinestones to the buttons and glued them to the centers of the flowers and voila. Simple Yet Striking.  Don't you agree?

Crazy Birds for Broadway Boys

The girls got Glamour, the boys got Crazy!!!  I made 14 of these for the guys in the cast. Coloring is not my forte although I enjoy doing it.  I'm just not that good at it.  I figured with these silly birds by Tim Holtz I couldn't go too wrong.  I used my Prismacolor Pencils.

By the time I got to these time was at a premium so I only got this one picture.  I used brads on these instead of the flat back pearls.  The music paper is from an old music book.  Again, I hand stamped Best Night Ever.  I don't think you can see but I used Tim's Tiny Attacher to secure the baker's twine and in 2 corners of the music paper.  Tags inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink by Tim Holtz.

Prima Dolls for Broadway

I'm so in love with Julie Nutting's Prima dolls.  I have "adopted" more of them than I care to admit and joined a couple of FB pages.  Here are some tags I made for all the gals in the cast of the Broadway Under The Stars show I did this summer. I made 17 all together.  Because I had to make so many I kept them simple.  

I used all the same elements on each tag. I just switched them around.  Each doll represents a gal in the cast.  Each one has the correct-ish hair color and usually there was something about the doll that reminded me of that person.  

I made my own "chipboard" letters using my Cricut and handstamped the Best Night Ever phrase.  

Each one had something sparkly or shiny and several had bits of lace.  I love these dolls so much.  I'll have more posts of them soon.  

Materials used: The kraft paper is from Joann's cut using SU's Top Note die and inked with Vintage Photo Distressed Ink Pad by Tim Holtz.  The doilies are Martha Stewart purchased at Michael's.  The bodies are stamped on dictionary paper and inked with Vintage Photo. The papers are from my stash.  

A reminder

Saw this on my way to work.  Need I say more?

I'd Rather Have Jesus

Last week I saw a play called August Osage County in which there was a male character named Beverly.  This led me to think about one of my favorite singers George beverly Shea and my favorite song by him; I'd Rather Have Jesus.  That led me to this

I love tight family harmonies.  The first time I heard it was years ago when we lived at Green Oak Ranch.  Sue Story sang it at First Baptist Church of Vista. It makes me sob out loud every time.  Ugly cry.  Enjoy.  Have a Kleenex handy.

Plate rack for Sylvia

Another great thing that happened earlier this year was that I got my kitchen cupboard done. I have been wanting open cupboards with plate racks like I see in magazines. Plus my Kitchen Aid didn't fit under my cupboard and I had to keep it on the other side of the kitchen which made no sense.  So the plan was to make the cupboard about and inch shorter than the existing one in order to get it to fit underneath.  I've had the plans in my head for about 3 years and I finally talked Norm into doing it.  We bought pretty expensive plywood at a wood specialty shop.  I don't have a picture of the cupboard "before" but here is step one of the rebuild.

Old cupboard pulled off, wallpaper scrubbed off and wall painted.  Originally I was going to leave the wall behind the shelves white but decided to paint it yellow too.  There are a lot of marks and stuff on the wall because of the way the house was built.  I thought painting it would disguise it better.

You see there is a big gap between the wall and the edge of the cupboard.  This whole house is wonky like that. 

After Norm got the other cupboard up he filled the holes with putty and also tried to smooth out the wall a bit too.  By the way, the reason I was able to talk him into doing finally tackling this project is because he got an air nailer.  Gave him an excuse to use his new toy.  Whatever it takes, right?  As usual I was in a hurry so we set up the little heater to dry the putty faster.  We did this project in early March and it was wet and damp so it was taking a long time to dry.

Almost done. 

 Doesn't my Kitchen Aid look cute under there?  And my new Fiestaware?  I had been wanting Fiestaware for about a year and this motivated me to finally get it. I still love my red dishes and have put them away in a cupboard but I got them in 1986 so I thought it was time for a change.  Macy's and Kohls often has Fiestaware on sale so it was easy to get it on the cheap!  The blue flowered dishes are the ones I got in Rossland with my sister Carolynne.  As usual she was very supportive of my purchase - coughcoughshetalkedmeintothemcoughcough.  They are from a British company called Port Meirion and the pattern is Crazy Daisy.  Cute, eh?

Isn't it fabulous?  The cupboard doors are the original ones; just cut off to fit.  I love it sooo much.  Half the dishes were in the dishwasher when I took this photo but you get the picture.  I'm so happy with it.  Thanks, Norm!  Oh.... and happy birthday to me!!!

And I thought they loved me.

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving.  My niece Kirstin and my daughter in law Dusti organized a big Thanksgiving lunch at Kirstin's house.  They called it a Cousins Thanksgiving but were kind enough to invite us aunties too.  Dusti created an Event on FB and then everyone commented about whether they were attending and other stuff about what they were bringing for food ect.  I wasn't able to go and although I was sad to miss it I 'm excited that they all get to see one another as they all get along so well. Ty and Dusti and kids drove up from Washington, Cody-Anne and Penny from Vancouver, several from the neighboring towns.  Soooo, there was much discussion about what everyone was going to bring; some like cooking others not - the merits of pumpkin pie vs other pies, and the like.  Amongst the discussion I wrote "Please don't anyone make huckleberry pie cause if I'm not there to eat it, it'll just kill me if you do."  
So what does Kirstin post on Facebook Sat. evening?  THIS abomination!!

Betrayed by the mother of my grandchildren and my own sister!  Look at them.  Freaking gleeful!!  I guess I can't be too upset though.  They are at least thinking of me.  So have at it, family.  Stuff your faces.  Eat it up.  All of it.  And think of me while you do.  I'm there in my heart.  

Won't You Take Me To Funky Town

Today was Super Saturday at the hardware store.  It's all hands on deck-no parking-long lines-everyone eating popcorn-free employee lunch craziness.  I spent most of the day out on the Patio but came into the store about 3 pm to finish my shift.  Looked up and who was standing in front of me but - 

Peter Krause from Parenthood!  

Apparently he lives in my town.  It was my second time waiting on him.  The first time I didn't acknowledge I knew who he was.  He mentioned his son's name and said he loved coming into the store.  When a customer uses a credit card the register prints the name of the customer on the bottom of the receipt so I took a peek at it to confirm in my mind it really was Peter Krause.  

Sometime after that I watched the Season Premier where Christina finds out she has cancer.  One of the side stories is that Crosby (Adam's brother) discovers that Adam (Peter Krause's character) schedules sex with his wife - Christina - on his smart phone.  They call it Funky Town.  Today when he came in the conversation went like this-

Peter:  One thing about coming in on Super Saturday you end up buying more stuff than         you came in for.

Me: Yes.  No doubt.  I love your show by the way.

Peter: Thank you.  We are very proud of it.

Me: Huge, huge fan.  My friends told me if I saw you again to mention Funky Town but I decided against it.

Peter: - blushing to his roots - then laughing - Thanks so much, Sylvia.

Me:  See you later.

Then I smiled and giggled to myself for the rest of my shift.  LOL

Find a Penny...

I have no idea why I've been away for so long but I'm back with all kinds of things to share.  There have been a lot of great things happen in 2012 but the most exciting has been the birth of my newest grandgirlie Penny Louise Gau. 

Born July 16, she is Cody-Anne's first baby.  She was born at home and I had the supreme honour of witnessing her debut.  It was one of the most moving, bonding experiences of my life.  Every mother should have the joy of sharing their daughter's birth experience. 

I think so, anyway. 

Nonnie (that's me) bonding with Pennylou.

And here is a more recent picture of her in her first swim suit.  Isn't she yummy?

Happy New Year

I know I've been MIA from here for awhile but I didn't want to let 2011 end without one final blog post.  I've been pretty proud of all the posts I've written in the past year.  I like this blog and want to keep in up in 2012.  For now, I just want to wish you all a wonderful 2012 filled with joy, love, peace and happiness.

Day 18 - A Song with the best lyrics

I've never seen a stage production of this show.  The Raven in Healdsburg is doing it in January so I will get to see that one.  The movie, however, is so great.  I've listened to this soundtrack hundreds of times.  They lyrics to this just kill me.


 Cell Block Tango from CHICAGO  

Day 17 - A Song with the best music.

 Tonight from WEST SIDE STORY  - i don't think I need to say anything else.

Day 16 - A song from your least favourite musical, by your favourite composer.

Hate this musical.  Hate it.  This song is ok.  Just ok.  Being Alive/COMPANY/STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Day 15 A song by your favourite musical composer.

Can you tell I love Stephen Sondheim?  SEND IN THE CLOWNS from  A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC.   I loved this song long before I even knew who Stephen Sondheim was.  One of my all time favorite songs ever.  This is the magnificent Judy Densch performing it.  ENJOY!!!

Day 14 A song from the musical you haven't listened to (or seen) in a while

Miss Saigon was the first musical I worked on at the Raven - my first in Sonoma county actually.  I worked backstage.  It wasn't a show I was at all familiar with and actually never saw the first act from the audience.  This song - BUI DOI grbbed my attention and it's my favorite song from the show.  I think I need to pull out my cast recording and give it a little listen to.  


This rendition isn't from a production of Miss Saigon.  It's a police officer.  So good.   

In Flanders Fields

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

I grew up reciting and memorizing this poem every year on what Canadians call Remembrance Day.  It is so haunting.  It is a true piece of Canadiana.  It is a huge part of the memories of my childhood school years.We also went to the cemetery with poppy wreaths to lay on the graves of soldiers.  The bagpipes would play, the faces were solemn and we wore  poppies on our coats with pride.  In Canada most people make a donation and receive a poppy which they wear with pride in the days leading up to and on November 11th.  I have one stuck to my bulletin board in my scrap studio.   I'm going out and about tonight.  I think I'll put it on.  Here in the U.S. they may not know what it means but I'll enlighten them.

Just a bit of history about the poem.  

During the early days of the Second Battle of Ypres a young Canadian artillery officer, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed on 2^nd May, 1915 in the gun positions near Ypres. An exploding German artillery shell landed near him. He was serving in the same Canadian artillery unit as a friend of his, the Canadian military doctor and artillery commander Major John McCrae.

As the brigade doctor, John McCrae was asked to conduct the burial service for Alexis because the chaplain had been called away somewhere else on duty that evening. It is believed that later that evening, after the burial, John began the draft for his now famous poem “In Flanders Fields”.