Decorated Bottles

Ever see old bottles at the flea market and wonder what you'd do with them?  One way to use them is to add clear decals along with some ribbons, lace and what-have-you.  Use them to decorate your bathroom, kitchen, be a quick gift for someone or sell them.  They are easy to do using water-slide decals.  You're not familiar with water-slide decals?  Gather around children.....

You've all seen decals, on plates, furniture etc and some of you have used iron-on transfers that are a type of decal.  Now you can make your own decals, using your own images with your ink jet printer.  Using a special decal paper, it takes a little time and a lot of patience but you end up with a beautiful item that looks like you spent a lot of money on it.  Put the decal paper in your printer, choose images to print, and you're on your way.  Once you've run them through the printer, they need to be sealed with either a Decal Fixative or Krylon spray and let it dry overnight.  This makes them waterproof.  Cut them out as close to the image as possible, put them in a dish of warm water for a few seconds and slide the decal off the paper onto your bottle - like magic you have your own design!

Here are a few I've just finished applying the decal, now they need to dry thoroughly before I begin decorating them.  You can see the clear glass through the decals.  The more colorful decals will show up more and putting them on frosted glass will allow the color of the decal to show more.  You can see the colors better against the white background.

Call it embellishments, bling or fro-fro there is never too much :)

  
             Inexpensive votive holders can be decorated to coordinate with your seasonal decorations.

Water-slide decal paper can be purchased in some craft stores, office supply stores and on-line.  You can find several difference brands, the one I've used today is Papilio and can be purchased here.

Have fun making one of a kind decorations with water-slide decals!

The Geese are Heading South!

As sure as the days shorten, the leaves begin to turn color and the nights get cooler - the geese begin their journey south to warmer places.  It's always exciting to hear their honking early in the morning, sometimes later in the day.   I love these big Canada Geese and always try to get outside in time to see them fly over.  It's like their private signal to me to prepare for winter.

On the farm they would land on our big ponds to rest.  From the house and deck we could watch them relax and settle down for the night, then again in the morning gather everyone one up, circle and majestically rise in the sky for another days flight.    

                                                                                             

Spoke too soon!

 I was awakened a little after 1am with the loudest thunder I've ever heard, bouncing around in between bolts of lightening.  It seemed to be stalled over our house and the cats were all huddled on the bed staring out the windows.  I got up about 3am and brought the cats into the living room and turned the lights on for them :) It continued for several hours, longer than I remember thunder storms lasting.

Heard on the evening news some areas had so much hail it piled up like snow.  Much of the town was without power although we only lost power for a short time.  I decided I'd better make some coffee in case the power went out, and had just pushed the start button when everything went black.  Fortunately it came back on in a few minutes and I was able to finish brewing the coffee.  I love that first cup of coffee in the morning!

Sunshine is back!

The rain last week felt a little dreary, a reminder that winter is close, but the flowers are showing their thankfulness by rewarding us with more blooms.      

                                                                                    

The roses may not be as big as they were earlier in the summer but smell just as good!  I save the petals all summer , along with the lavender, for gallons of potpourri.

The hydrangeas are still blooming and turning the rusty pink that signals their fall colors.  Every bush rewarded us with big, gorgeous blooms this summer, they were all pink but dried beautifully.

I dried these hydrangeas earlier in the summer and have given them a little moret color for fall arrangements.





And, these were done in a deep purple.  I'll do a few more in some rusty pink for arrangements.  Have a big fall wreath that will be perfect for these big blooms.

                                                                                                         

Christmas is only 97 days away!

I was surprised when I heard this on the news.  When it's hot and muggy Christmas seems a long way off.

My continuing computer woes!

When last we talked my desktop workhorse had kicked up it's heels and died.  So off to Best Buy to get a new one.  Oooh, those new Macbooks are nice but come with a high price tag.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.  Finally settled on a Toshiba laptop, larger than my Macbook but smaller than the desktop.   Two weeks later it gave me a fatal error and quit working.

Best Buy graciously replaced it with a new one - but - I did not like Windows 7 and definitely didn't  like the short battery life!  The 10hr battery in my little Macbook has spoiled me!  Used it for another two weeks to be sure it wasn't just a matter of getting accustomed to the change, but I had so many problems I returned it to the store.  Since I don't work on the computer as much these days I decided to just work with my little macbook for the time being.  I did buy an adapter so I could use my large monitor so was good to go.  Now I had to deal with the fact that all my older programs are windows.  That required some juggling but I'm adapting to that too.

Computers!!

My new computer had to go back and be replaced.  Just one of those things I guess.  Glad I have the little Macbook and the ipad.  I love the new Macbook but they are just too expensive.  There are pros and cons to both, I do love the mac for some things and I know there isn't near as many problems as you have with windows, but it comes at a high cost.  Plus my programs are all windows and to switch over to Macs all together would cost even more.  I'll soon be back on track!

Rainy Saturday

I don't know if we're reached normal on rainfall, but it's trying!
Been raining for a couple of days straight, and looks almost wintery.  Need the rain and love how green everything gets but it's hard for me to get moving on this kind of day :)

Spent most of the day wrestling with adding a Comments Box to the blog.  Found what I want and thought it would be fairly simple but I guess it's been too long since I worked with HTML code.  I may have to look for one that's easier to install.

Can't keep up

Would be nice to have an in-house tech support for the computer :)  They keep changing things faster than I can keep up.

Kinsleigh is here!

We have a new baby in the family, her name is Kinsleigh Paige and she arrived late yesterday afternoon.  I'm excited about having a baby close enough to sew for.  There are so many cute items that weren't around when I was having babies. You saw the quilt I made earlier, which has a double lining of Warm & Natural since she is a fall & winter baby and will need the extra warmth to be out and around in our cold winter.  The other items I finished and sent to the hospital for her Mother to enjoy were reversible receiving blankets, and matching burp pads :) The receiving blankets use square pieces of fabric so I had a strip left over from each length of flannel.  We always used a clean diaper over the shoulder, but I see on-line that burp pads and changing pads are popular now.  The extra strips were just the right size to make matching reversible pads to use after feeding the baby.

I came across the pattern for the reversible, self-binding baby blankets on-line.  The instructions are from the Missouri Quilt CO and you can watch the video Here.  It's called the 10 minute baby blanket and once you master it, it is, but the first ones take a little longer.  The trick is learning to make the 45 degree angle at the corners.  You fold the corner back on itself, not on the blanket.  If you have any trouble just send send me an e-mail and I'll send some detailed instructions.