What am I thinking?

I am enjoying everyones comments on the post below. I sure want to bless someone, wish it could be everyone. I have some bunnies, but it is probably to late for anyone to purchase one for Easter now. I am going to picture them, and if anyone would like to buy a set, the price is $28.00 + shipping, leave a comment, and I will list it in my etsy shop tomorrow so you can make the purchase.

  It has been a very difficult week for me. I have been trying to help my sister get back on her feet, after a very nasty divorce, a severe back injury (her x tried to run her over with his suv, and left her on the side of the road) the loss of her job, all her worldly possessions, her apartment,and nearly her life.
   She came to live with me last July. The police found her in her apartment "barely breathing". After convincing them to "break and enter"( She was in Florida, we are in New York).  She spent three weeks in a hospital in Florida, and another three in a rehabilitation center to gain back strength and weight.
   I flew her to New York, July 4th and she has been with me since then. She only weighted about 95lbs and could barely walk by herself. At that point I did not know what I could possibly do for her, except to give her a place where she could feel safe, loved and valued.
  We got her some medical insurance and began the process of getting her healed physically. I am happy to say she is mending well. She is almost like herself. She has been so wounded, and is just now opening up to people and is beginning to trust more. I am proud of her! Blog land has been good therapy for her, many of you have visited her blog and have left many encouraging comments for her, I thank you so much!
 No one knows, the extent to which another person can harm another. It is my prayer that she will continue over coming and will be able to live on her own again, To be gainfully employed. She is very brilliant and has a heart of gold. She loves to teach, and she is very good at it. Please join me and pray for her to be all God has created her to be, and to take back EVERYTHING the enemy has stolen from her, because she fell in love with the wrong man.
This week she has been very busy getting her life back on track, she is getting legal aid, is applying for jobs, and is visiting my brother this weekend, to buy her own car. This scares me, a bit because I do not know if she is ready, but I support her, and I do so want her to succeed.
 Not sure if she is going to appreciate me posting this, but I wanted to congratulate her on her accomplishments and to tell her not to worry about my stress, because it has been worth every ounce of it, to see her today. My embroidery orders will get done, she is more important. God is good, all the time. Vanessa

Bunny hop Give away, and the end of a very busy day!

      http://alegacyofstitches.blogspot.com/  
Today is the day I am suppose to post my picture of my giveaway. but..... It is not finished yet! It will be soon, I promise. I have gathered a lot of really cute items and my basket is almost ready to receive them. Do hope you all are having a good time hopping around blog land to peek under all those hiding places and leaving your mark to win one!
 I was so busy today with other matters, that I ran out of Sunlight to take my pictures. I will post them tomorrow.  My sister has been busy scampering all over the place inviting everyone she meets to her bunnyhop giveaway, maybe I can take time tomorrow to visit everyone's blogs and leave my own invites. Her blog is http://poemsmyway-valrie.blogspot.com Be sure to hop over there and take at peek at what she will be giving away! So looking forward to meeting new people!

Everyone has been enjoying my picture of my princess Racheal, and her kitten pal Carmel, so I will not take it off the post. But I am ready to post my pictures of my giveaway now. Sorry to those who said they like surprises, but , I want to post what you will be getting. I will show you my empty basket and then show you what I put into the empty basket, and then the full basket. So here goes!

So, there you have it! I hope you enjoy the things I have selected. The bunnies I made,all three of them, the bookmark, I used my embroidery machine and an, EMBLibray design to make the cross bookmark. I also made the little bird, the heart, and the soft sided box. Do you like candy? It is well represented, because what is a basket without candy! Can not wait to meet you all! Vanessa

A New Week

Here it is another week starting. I hope I can accomplish this week, all I need to! I have three big embroidery orders that need to be completed. Last week I did an order for a Dairy, and I have another Dairy this week. Some aprons for a local Restaurant,that I have been sitting on, and a large order for a hunting club. Hopefully they will be here this afternoon.
 My Hubby took me to "Alice in Wonderland" this  past weekend. The movie was so enjoyable! So loved the ending! This was my first time at an IMAX theater, and I so loved the experience!

   In the previous post I had said that my swap Partner's favorite Character is, the caterpillar. I was not sure where to take that, but I think I did quite well, after seeing the movie! I could not find much in caterpillar items so I used a blue butterfly also, so glad I did. I am so pleased I kept the color blue for the caterpillar I designed for my partner also.

Wonderland swap

I have been busy the past couple of weeks making things to put into a box for a very special swap. In celebration of the opening of the Movie by Tim Burton, the swap was based on
Alice in wonderland.
I had a lot of fun creating for my partner. Sure hope she likes what I did! Her favorite character is, the caterpillar, and her favorite colors are green and purple. Her and her Husband like to up cycle things, soI based my box on the knaves painting the white roses, in the queens garden, red.
  I made her a very pretty charm bracelet, creating all the charms myself, out of old pieces of jewelry, and then I added some charms that I purchased, to go along with the Alice theme. Unfortunately, I neglected to get photographs of it,and the tray I laid it in, and the choker necklace, and the velvet bag I put them all in. Oh!I included a charm bracelet for her daughter also, and just remembered I forgot to mention that to her!

  The first thing I made for the box was a pennant style banner. This project just kept growing, but I love how it turned out!
  I first down loaded the pictures off the Internet, then I used water colors to paint in certain details that I wanted highlighted. Then I made my lettering by tracing and cutting them out of cardboard three times, and then out of a pattern scrap booking paper the forth. Being that the caterpillar is the favored character, I used the question he asked Alice.

  My partner just applied to continue her education  her Doctorate  degree, so I wanted to give her some office supplies, a journal and an address book, to help her on her way in style.LOL The little boxes are filled with push pins, paper clips, and magnets that I made using glass half marbles for flower arranging and teeny tiny graphics from various illustrations of Alice in Wonderland. I topped the boxes off with fabric flowers, that I have hand sewn. There is also an up-cycled paper weight with a graphic of the caterpillar and a tiny jar of glitter commemorating  this advent and our hostess.
  I then decided that a few treats were needed for a true celebration. What is that ,with out a tea party? So I had this little tea set (I buy them all the time at dollar stores) that I put into a little decorated box, to which I embroidered the top to say "Time for Tea", I also decorated another little  wooden box with the graphic of the hatters tea party. I filled this with different flavored tea bags. Then I baked her some spritz cookies using the heart and the spade in the cookie press. Sprinkled them with decorating sugar in black, red and crystal.Then placed them into this little heart box, that I had on hand. I also made her something that I had wanted to try for some time now. Meringue Mushrooms. I did not post a picture of them, for fear of getting into trouble, lol, tee hee! but they do taste good, they are in the white bakery box. I purchased a bag of purple gourmet M&M's, because she likes purple. I also made her some sugar cubes, they are in the tussie mussie in the cute little bag.

   

The red cello bag contains a jar of my chia tea mix. It is so yummy! She gets the recipe also.

  Next I wanted her to feel really special, so I made her a spa bag, in her favorite colors! I machine embroidered the flowers on the pockets and made extra pockets on the inside. I filled it with little dollar store spa what knots. To go along with the bag I created this crushed velvet pillow and attached the pretty brooch.
  So now, I wanted to get back to the Alice theme, So here is my box to hold my goodies. My partner likes to up-cycle things so I wanted to do the knaves "up-cycling" the white roses. I lined the inside of the box in a playing card fabric, but forgot to snatch a picture of that!

I made a pin cushion mushroom with a caterpillar laying on top. This is my design. I glued some plastic letters to the top of the pin cushion also (I painted them green) which spelled out the question "who are you?"  I made a little "Alice" and a Queen finger puppet. I found this cute little white tea pot, and created a little door mouse to fit inside it. Two tags to go along with the theme, and a cheshire cat ribbon brooch to go into the box.

Last but not least so to speak, I wanted to do something really special. On her blog my partner said she would like to have a pick up truck, so she could go traveling with her puppies, she loves her puppies and the she wants to live in a rural community and grow flowers. So I found a small die cast pick up truck ( not in her color of purple, or in the vintage year but...) filled the back with flowers and two tiny pom-pom doggies. This I glued to a jar I filled with some wild flower seeds, and tied a pair of garden gloves around it!

Sure hope Elisha likes her swap box! Vanessa

Where has the Time Gone?

Well I last posted on Feb. !6th. I can not believe that much time has passed! I certainly have been busy enough. With my husband an over the road trucker, who is gone for two weeks at a time, I have many responsibilities. I am thankful he was not a trucker when we were raising our children! I think I would have lost" it" a very long time ago.

  Anyway, responsibilities, I would prefer not to have! It snowed and snowed and snowed some more. I shoveled and shoveled, and shoveled some more! After sleeping all night, I woke up to more snow than I could ever manage! I called the guy we used a few  years ago to come and plow me out. He was so busy.... he called someone else, and that guy came and plowed me out. The local pennysaver had an article about all the snow and the official snow count on Friday was 27" which does not include the snow that fell all day Friday, and all day on Saturday. I was plowed out in less than ten minutes, for $25. So, I am still breathing ! I had shoveled a path from my front door to the mail box, only to discover that the mailbox its self was buried underneath the snow. I gave up and went inside and made the telephone call for help, after all the time it took to shovel just a narrow path, I would have been out there all day and well into the night! I had other work that was calling my attention!

The other work I had, that was calling my attention, were these custom ordered towels. They look so bright and happy, and warm, I could have gone out and picked some myself, if it was not 30 degrees out,with ALL that snow on the ground.

So with the towels completed, I started on my next project. This was a delightful, whimsical custom ordered piece, which is what I absolutely   love to do! My customer wanted a pin cushion with a palm tree on it. So I thought and thought about, went to the fabric store for inspiration,sat at the computer and researched what palm trees actually looked like,  and came up with an idea.
I stacked a gusseted 8' square that I tufted in the middle (I made this out of some tropical fabric with palm trees and surf boards, tropical flowers and  waves) on this came a tropical blue, eight petal flower shape that I also stuffed and tufted, then I made a raspberry pink fro-fro, on this I made another eight petal flower shape only smaller and this time in green and also tufted. Then I made a large coconut out of some fabric that had some nice texture to it,I used a large doll needle and crochet cotton string, to string all these pieces together. Then I made a cardboard platform and covered this in green and put a tropical blue ruffle around the edge,I glued this to the top of the large coconut, to this I glued my palm tree. The palm tree is made from felt, I used my very own pattern for it, and added some coconuts, out of the same fabric as the large one. Then I made some pink and raspberry colored flowers, and the leaves, and glued them around the pincushion in cake decorating style. Then I added a lamp work monkey shaped bead to the tree. I bought the bead at "Shipwreck Beads" in Washington state while I was out west a while back.

 This project took way longer than I had wanted it to, but the time was well worth it! I so love this piece, sure hope my customer does also, it is on its way to California. My customer has a glass cabinet she keeps her pin cushions in, hope mine is not too tall that it will not fit on her shelves or be unworthy of the honor.
 I am proud of myself with how the palm tree came out, and I could not resist hanging the little monkey lamp-work bead from the tree!