Best Trip Ever

Looking back, the whole trip felt almost surreal for how quickly we traveled from place to place, a blurry routine of glance and go. You have to try to soak in as much as possible and take advantage of each moment, reminding yourself that you may see these places only once in life. The moments that were spent away from stop and go were the ones remembered most, like climbing an enormous hill in Wales before sunrise to see a different view of the same old world, feeling like this is something entirely new, a world separate from the predictable one you know so well back home. As I have learned from a fast-paced trip to Greece, only when time passes and I look back on everything seen and done will it sink in that "it was real!".
The trip originally consisted of 2 nights in London, 1 night in Wales, 2 nights in Dublin, and 2 nights in County Kerry. That was true for the group traveling Continental Airlines. The Delta group (my group) was delayed an entire day on account of severe tornadoes and thunder storms in Atlanta, where we eventually arrived 5 hour later and had to stay our first night. The highly anticipated trip began less than expected, however it wouldn't matter once we arrived in London that next day.



We traveled to Oxford that next morning and Stratford later that afternoon


After having the best Fish & Chips of my life, we traveled to our next night's stay at "The Hand Hotel" in Wales. The hotel was supposedly "haunted" because it was built next to a graveyard (which provided some excellent shots). That next morning a group of us climbed a hill before sunrise (my battery ran out right before reaching the top, which was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen...o well.) We stopped off at Blarney castle on our way to North Wales, famous for the country with the longest name.
Our stay in the UK would end after hopping on a freight to Ireland, where we would stay 2 nights in Dublin. I saw Irish folk dancers and musicians, caught a glimpse of the local shopping scene (with street performers), and relaxed with some of Ireland's most famous ale. :)
The highlight of the trip was our last 2 nights in County Kerry, where we saw the most beautiful countryside and parks Ireland has to offer. The first night, a group of us took a walk around one of the parks. I had a great idea to run ahead of the group and scare the wits out of everyone (by sitting in the middle of the road like a mad man). Mr Harris approached me saying, "mam, are you okay...mam?" he told everyone to stay back and then noticed it was me. Priceless. That next morning, we took a day long bus tour around the countryside and saw everything from castles to waterfalls, the Atlantic shore and one of Ireland's most famous parks.

I have to say it was an amazing trip, one that will never be forgotten. There will be more traveling next year, just where and when I'm not sure.

Happy Easter!

Wishing You a Happy and Joyous Easter!

Awesome Primitive Pocket!

I have to show you the coolest thing! I'm doing a Primitive Pocket swap with my Primitive & Rustic group at Delphi and look at what my partner sent me! Isn't it awesome! My partner is Sharon Stevens--the one and only Mustard Seed Originals!




I absolutely love, love, love my new pocket! Look at all the wonderful details she's stitiched into it! It's perfect!


A couple of closeups so you can see some of the detail. The bumble bee is actually puffy and not flat and I love all the stitching and wool appliques.


I love hand & hearts and look at the cross stitching! So many fun details!


And then if that weren't enough she stuffed the pocket with lots of chocolates and these fabulous wool treasures! Wooly Easter eggs--lots of handwork on those too! And cool needlebook and button bag and the little blackbird scissor fob! I love it all! I can only hope mine to her turns out half as good.

Thank you Sharon! You spoiled me royally and I love it all!

Be sure to check out Sharon's Website too, so you can see more of her fabulous creations!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I hope you're wearing your green, so you don't get pinched! In case your blog needs something green to wear, here are a couple of images you can use--just please right click and save them to your hard drive.

National Quilt Day!

March 15 is National Quilt Day this year. In fact it has been extended to the whole month of March!

I am still a fairly new quilter, so I don't have much in the way of quilts to show you. You can see my Dear Jane quilt blocks at Webshots. I haven't worked on this one much for some time and need to get back to it--soon! I am learning so much from this quilt. It will have well over 5000 pieces in it when I finish it--I consider it my quilt college. Click on the rows to see the blocks I've finished so far......

Dear Jane Row A

Dear Jane Row B

Dear Jane Triangles

In case you're not familiar with what a Dear Jane quilt is then click HERE to find out more. It's a reproduction of a Civil War quilt by Jane Stickle that has been revived by Brenda Papadakis.

In honor of National Quilt Day/Month I hope you'll either sew up a block, quilt a few stitches, go shopping at your LQS and buy up lots of fabric or buy a new quilting tool, book or pattern or better yet, share your quilting talent with someone else and keep the circle growing!

Below are a few links to some of my favorite free quilt patterns online. Enjoy and Happy Stitching!

Twist & Turn by Roseann Kermes

Midget Blocks by Sentimental Stitches (scroll down to view quilt and pattern)

State Fair Samper by Sentimental Stitches (scroll down)

Sock Monkey Applique Quilt

Sew Much To Do

Flowers

So I randomly decided to shoot a collection of flower pictures, whenever there were nice flowers. around. Here are all the photos I have taken so far. There were many possibilities for enhancing the roses, which one is your favorite?

Show & Tell Friday--My Easter Tree

Good Friday everyone! I thought I'd share my seasonal tree all dressed in it's Easter finery today. This tree isn't as heavy with ornies as my other themes are, but it'll get there. I have plenty of space to fill in!


As always all of my ornies are handmade by myself and a lot of online friends that I've swapped with throughout the years and I love pulling an ornie out of the box and seeing who it was made by and the wonderful reminder that they all are of such wonderful friends. Here's a few closeups of parts of the tree.....


Ruthie Rabbit there--if you scroll down a few posts I have a free pattern posted for her. I love the rabbit in the top hat, made by my friend Neeners--Janine Jensen to everyone else.


I love the chicky in the basket and the paper mache bunny--but they're not signed and sadly I have forgotten who made them--that's why it's so important to sign your work--however I too forget.


Darling little wooden angel bunny and velvet and wool egg (egg-made by me)


This cutie is painted by Phyllis Shows. I have many of Phyllis' pieces--they are always my favorites!



Carrot nose a wool applique bunny by me and a really cool paper mache bunny by Debbie Rice.


The painted chicky on the egg is another of Phyllis' wonderful creations.



The vintage sytle bunny with the paper basket of eggs is another one I made a few years ago.


This darling little dancing bunny is Torrie Sakalsky.


And last, but not least is this beautiful little wool embroidered bunny by Darlene Mariano.

I hope you enjoyed my tree today and to see the other Show & Tell Fridays just pop by Kellis House our wonderful hostess and you'll be on your way to a real treat!

Spring Break '08!!!

LONDON. IRELAND. WALES. I am sooo excited! This spring break might top last year when I traveled to Greece, an amazing trip. In memory of good times, here are some pics from Greece (all I could save from my broken* external HD). I've mapped everything out and will even have a little companion with me...a great idea that my friend suggested to me (Kate). Can't wait to share my best pics when I get back!

I've Been Sparkled & An Award

Wow! I've been Sparkled and also received the You Make My Day Award! Thank you!


Annette G of Huckleberry Arts actually made my day by giving me the You Make My Day Award. Thank you Annette! If you haven't visited Annette's blog before, she has a lot of fun art collages that she makes that are great to use in your arts projects.

The rules for the “You Make My Day” award are to present it to those whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blog land. Let them know through email or by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on.

I pass the You Make My Day Award To.....

Karoline of Cherished Vintage

Marian fo Crazy Haberdasher

Trudy of Crows in The Attic Primitives

I've been Sparkled by my friend Terri of Primtiques. Thank you Terri! For those of you who don't know Terri is my Whatever Fairy--no wonder she has so much Sparkle!

I hereby officially Sparkle the following people--(who should then put the award onto their blog and pass it on).

You have been Sparkled...

Rhonda of Empty Nest on Mulberry Street (also my sister)

Joyce of Brookside Cottage

Angela of The Country Cellar

Thank you everyone!

High School Musical Costumes

If you are looking for a High School Musical Costume, they have been pretty difficult to find in the past and many people have resorted to making their own. But recently they have become much more widely available even to the extent that the whole range is now available on line.

High School Musical Troy Costume
If you don't know much about the film, High School Musical is basically a story of two high school kids, one, a boy called called Troy Bolton (Zac Efro) is really popular and captain of the school basketball team etc.

High School Musical Gabriella Costume
The other, a girl named Gabriella Montez is played by Vanessa Hudgens and is a beautiful but shy transfer student who is good at maths and the sciences.

They both decide to try out for the leading parts in their school musical. Not to give too much of the story away, but because of this the school basically becomes divided with some of the students trying to prevent them from achieving their dream of playing their parts in The High School Musical. Troy and Gabriella eventually do overcome the peer pressure and all the rivalry as well as inspire others kids in the school not to bow to peer pressure and to follow their dreams as well.

All in all a fun film that sends out a good message to youngsters, so what better than using The High School Musical characters as role models as ideas for fancy dress costumes or even a themed party based around the film - who knows you could even have a karaoke night to go with it!

As always with over 10 000 fancy dress costumes in stock (so they say), Jokers Masquerade are bound to have what you are looking for and they do have a whole range of High school musical children's costumes: High School Musical Costumes

No rest for the wicked

This week is Spring Break for CSCA! Phew! Can't believe that we're already halfway through the course. Had our second Food Basics quiz last Tuesday. Again, due to my working schedule, I didn't get much time to study except for a few hours on Monday before the quiz. I think I did pretty well. Well, the Baking quiz will be held the first day we get back from spring break. Yeah, welcome back!

So, let's see what happened last week. It was brioche for Baking and lamb for FB. Brioche is kind of interesting, considering that it is a cake-like dough that needs an overnight rise. I was never a big fan of lamb but the dishes we cooked were not bad at all.

On another note, the Malaysian elections were held last week and surprise, surprise, BN got bloodied pretty badly. Penang fell to the DAP, considering that the Chinese majority there were pretty unsatisfied with the current leadership. Seriously, I think the non-UMNO coalition parties in BN pretty much kowtow to the Malay leadership instead of sticking up for their own party's principles and be an effective representative for their constituents. Gerakan lost badly in Penang, their once-impenetrable stronghold and the MCA and MIC have pretty much become redundant. With DAP fielding some new faces, the hope is that a new generation of leaders can emerge from this success and be a new voice and replace the ineffective old guard.

Smoke

This is incense smoke inverted in photoshop and given a different hue. Smoke is tricky to work with, it has a mind of its own. The heart was actually made by the smoke! I burned it in photoshop (maybe a little too much?).

Marilyn Monroe & Elvis Costumes

Elvis Presley was in the army during 1958, but continued to receive massive media coverage after his boom years of '56 and '57 which included appearing on the Ed Sullivan show, his first Hollywood films as well as the purchase of Graceland. Elvis remains popular to this day as do the Elvis costumes and Elvis wigs.

Marilyn Monroe, like Elvis has was another icon of the time and like the Elvis costume, the white Marilyn Monroe dress has come to symbolise her and is an image that almost everyone will instantaneously recognise.

So If you are looking for some true iconic costume ideas, why not try the two biggest of them all!

UK Shoppers

Elvis costumes on Amazon.co.uk

Marilyn Monroe Costumes on Amazon.co.uk


US Shoppers

Elvis Costumes on Amazon.com

Marilyn Monroe Costumes on Amazon.com

Show & Tell Friday

It has been brought to my attention by my sister Rhonda--aka closet clicker--she evidentally hides in the closet at work and sneaks computer time. (Don't worry Rhonda I'm pretty sure Dr Gartman doesn't read my blog). LOL!--Anyway she noticed that I have missed a couple of Show & Tells, so I'm back on track--for this week at least.

I thought I would share my first quilt top that I've made. I've been quilting for about 5 years now, but have yet to actually finish an entire quilt. I am very good at starting them however--that get points too doesn't it? I just seem to have a problem getting anything past the completed top stage--well and several not even that far. Oh well I'm sure I'll get there. If not in the mean time I shall live life gleefully stashing fabric and piecing it into beautiful, however imperfect blocks.



This pattern is Crazy Among Friends by Buggy Barn. I love their folkartsy whimsical patterns--and the fact that I don't have to be absolutely perfect--yet! I did this one as a Block of the Month with one of our local quilt shops. I doing BOM's and would like to do more---one of these days.


Just a bit closer of a view. These blocks were so fun to do, because each set of matching blocks is cut out in a stack and then you shuffle the fabric in that stack and voila! It's a surprise to see how each block turns out.

Now for a personal note to my sister--Rhonda you need to take up quilting! It's the perfect thing to do to keep you occupied now that you are totally kidless and have lots of time on your hands. ;) You could be the closet quilter! Just don't leave any pins or needles for Dr Gartman to sit on and be sure to pick any tell tale stray threads off of your scrubs before you leave the closet.

I hope you'll pop over to Kelli's House--our wonderful hostess of Show & Tell Friday and see what our other blogging friends have to share today. Happy Friday Everyone!