Month: April 2017

U is for U. Smelly Dog | Now my dog is going to smell better than I do.

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There are two types of dog people. Those that let their animals sleep in their bed and those that do not. We don’t share our bed with our dog; he shares it with us. As he’s gotten older, he likes to go to bed earlier these days. He’ll pace around in front of us at night impatient that we’re not ready to head up at the same time as him. Eventually, he’ll give up and head up on his own which inevitably means pushing him off the pillow when we do finally make it upstairs.

It does a number on our sheets. I wash them regularly, but it doesn’t take long before they start to smell like my pup again. It’s a small price to pay for the snuggles we get each night, but it is an ongoing challenge.

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T is for Tree + Vine | Costumes that match a child’s imagination.

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I have owned a sewing machine since I was thirteen. My Mom handed her’s down to me in almost new condition. It was a Singer and came with a cabinet so you could put it away when not in use. It was a workhorse that stayed with me through multiple apartments and homes. It finally died but it was a slow death. My grandmother, who was an amazing seamstress and quilted right up until her death at 93, knew a repair guy who could fix my sewing machine. He did. He fixed it many times. But, he was also in his nineties and eventually passed away. I could never find anyone else able to repair it.

Eventually, someone bought it at one of our yard sales. I hope they know someone with that special touch who might be able to breathe life into it again. I miss that sewing machine. It was the one I learned to sew on. My other grandmother taught me. We made a Gunny Sack dress that I adored and wore for years. We also made pink satin shorts and a matching jacket because I was in love with Shaun Cassidy of Hardy Boys fame and he wore a satin jacket. The shorts were a bonus.

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S is for Stringin’ Along with ME | Giving new life to old guitar strings.

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My daughter went through a Shrinky DinksTM phase. Shrinky Dinks are sheets of plastic that can be drawn and colored on and then put in the oven where they shrink down forming a hard plastic. My daughter made me a pair of domino earrings out of the plastic sheets one year for mother’s day. I think I’m wearing them in my LinkedIn profile picture.  While I love them because they were made by my daughter, they are certainly not an environmentally friendly creation and for my letter S, I’m focusing on the opposite direction in jewelry art.

I am always in awe of recycled art and crafts people who turn discarded items into something beautiful again. I’ve been known to tackle a few recycled craft projects myself, and blogged previously about one of my creations in my post Recycled Magazine Circles Decorative Bowl. I love this stuff!

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R is for Recycled Lobster Rope Mats | No better way to say “welcome to my home”.

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A recycled lobster rope doormat has been on my wish list for years. I love the ingenuity of their evolution. When federal regulations banned the use of float rope by Maine lobstermen, due to issues with whale entanglement, they had to switch over to sink rope and retire the float rope. While the rope could have ended up in a landfill, instead it became the manufacturing material for a new line of products.

While it’s still possible to find recycled versions of the float rope doormat, there are also other companies that now manufacture them using new rope opening up more tailored designs and colors. They are wonderful, but I prefer the environmentally friendly nature of recycling the used float rope.

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Q is for (Mainely) Quilling | I am in awe of these amazing paper creations.

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While my blog and digital photo books have taken over my hobby time recently, my heart is more in the realm of paper crafting even if it’s been almost a year since I tackled a project. The days are just too short to do everything I want to do, so sometimes things get put aside for a while. I know that eventually I will circle back to my paper crafts and put my obsessively over stocked craft room to good use again.

I have always been drawn to other crafters who excel in the field and have an entire bookcase dedicated to books written by fellow memory keepers sharing their tips and tricks. So, when I realized that there was a quilling artist located in Maine, I knew I had my letter Q locked up. I too have tried my hand at quilling, but on a much more simplistic and less successful level.

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