Sorry.....

I haven't been around at all lately, I have been really really crazy busy with appointments and such. and I just haven't had the time or energy to get on here. I apologize. I really hope to be back in blogland here soon but until then please remember that I am trying. See you soon!
Until Then here is a dose of CUTE! baby Mountain goats that reside at the Cheyenne Mtn Zoo... adorable huh?

Garden Sunday #3

Just a few pictures this week!

This is my NEW garden, after one of the maybe FIVE good rains we've had ALL year! I've only been working on it for about a year so things haven't "grown in" yet and some of the plants I got as little baby seedlings, they were so small they came in a tiny styrofoam cup! we'll see how it looks next year






This is my red day lily. I got it the first springs we lived here as a rhizome in a bag, and it surprises me how well it has grown. It was one of the first plants i got after the lilac too! BTW i LOVE this picture, not bad for a phone huh?

Funny Furbaby Saturday #2

So this week's feature is BEAU!

Beau is my bloodhound, he is just, well weird.

A few weeks ago we were transplanting a tree from our back yard to our front yard and all day long Beau would come up and help us dig, a little here a little there, he is such a silly boy. Whenever we would look at him he would BOLT off and hide behind the shed. We got him at 6 months of age and I'm guessing he got in trouble for digging at his first home, we really just don't care, its a natural activity for dogs and it keeps their nails worn down so I don't have to trim them as often. He just doesn't seem to believe us that we don't care that he digs.

The best part of him digging is that his big ol' bloodhound ears get in the way and he falls on them!

Not Feeling Well

So guys I haven't been around, and I can't really apologize for that because it was best for me to not be attempting to write anything coherent and it would have just been bad. I've been down and out with my knee, my dog Max sent me tumbling down the stairs and i ended up with a swollen knee, a broken toe and skinned to high heaven elbows on top of being knocked out with allergies this week, I am glad i don't need to water anymore because we are getting rain but now everything that i am allergic to is growing.

I've just been laying low this week trying to heal up a bit more, so I guess I kindof took a vacation from crafting so as to remain safe :-) Hopefully next week I will be back and at it!

See you Next Week~

Black and White Wednesday 2

This weeks Black and White Wednesday inspired by Natural Suburbia is a picture of a horse that lives down the road, a while back husband brought home the "nice camera" from work for the weekend to appease me for losing my camera and we drove around town taking pictures of silly things. I always love seeing this horse as a former horse farmer far from my roots it just makes me happy. He always has a few birds following him around and I love how you can still see the fence it adds a little bit of interest and texture.

Garden Sunday #2

Meet the Illusive garden moose! This is my little bit of silly in my front garden! He hides under the daylily plant and protects the mint from my husband who would likely eat all of it! Isn't he cute? He makes me smile every time I go out my front door!

This is my salvia plant that is beside our little patio, it attracts sooo many honey bees! I love the honey bees, they just do their thing and don't bother anyone!

this is my diantus "heart attack" its a really interesting flower shape and i LOVE the color!

Delphinum: I love this one for its multi colors and layers, its so beautiful! the picture just doesn't do it justice!

Can you believe THIS is a columbine? its called Black Barlow, I saw it at a farmer's market and I HAD to have it! I LOVE the shape but i adore the color. I am known as the lady with the weird plants and i think this one takes the cake on the weird level, who has BLACK flowers? This girl!


And THIS is one of my favorite botanical discoveries ever, It might just look like another yellow daisy, but just another daisy it is not. It is planted by my front window, for good reason, i put all the best smelling things there. It is called chocolate flower, it smells like a good cup of hot chocolate, especially in the mornings, and that lovely smell wafts through my window to make my living room smell like I've been baking, which it is too hot to do. I highly recommend this plant, just give it space cause it gets big but its almost maintenance free all you have to do is pop off the dead flowers so they bloom longer!!!!

Funny Furbaby Saturday

Saturdays I will try to feature a funny story and picture of my pets, this week I'll just introduce you to them! They are my kids, and always will be! I can't have children, maybe someday we will adopt but not until my husband is out of the military, with his job he is gone at least (and i mean LEAST) six months a year, so until then I have pets!



This is Phantom, she is our first kid. She is supposedly an Egyptian Mau mix, she is SMALL for a cat, she weighs in at 8 pounds! She's 5 years old, we adopted her in March 2005 when she was a little over a year old. She had a litter of kitties before we adopted her. She is a good cat, when she wants love she WILL get it, when she doesn't and you try you might get hurt!



This is Max, our second kid! He is about ten years old give or take, we adopted him in March of 2008 and the rescue said he was between 6-9 years old. He is a Golden Retriever mix, He is a goofy creature, he LOVES tennis balls and his daddy, he likes me. He does silly tricks when it serves his purposes. He is getting arthritic and doesn't get around as well any more, and he is allergic to the Remadyl, (doggy
NSAIDS) so it can be difficult!



This is Snowberry, our third kid! She is a pinto african pygmy hedgehog. We named her Snowberry because she has a white spot on her bum! We brought her home last September, and she's been making us laugh ever since! She's a nocturnal creature and we can hear her running on her wheel all night! Yes she is prickly but once she knows you she will "cuddle" up with you! She likes to ride around in hoodie/scrub pockets in the winter to keep warm. Just be careful if she licks you she thinks you have a flavor and might try to take a bite!



Last but not least this is Beauford Beauregard aka Beau, He is a ten month old registered bloodhound. We got him from a breeder in March, he was returned by his first family, I don't know why! He is HUGE first off and he LOVES me, he likes husband but I am his chosen one, which is handy because we are training him to track, because dogs need jobs! He can find me ANYWHERE! He isn't too big on toys but he loves to "find it" yes when he is looking for me the cue is "find it" because you never know what we'll be looking for and its a cue that doesn't sound like any of the other commands!

New Friends Friday!

Thanks for visiting me! I always enjoy meeting new people! Please take a look around and make yourself at home!

This was a rough week but I think we're getting on track now, I'll not be around much this weekend, we're having a massive yard sale to help start the saving to fix our bathroom since the through the wall incident


Have a happy weekend everyone!

Family stories inspire me, but where do i go from here?

My great grandmother passed away two years ago at the (AMAZING) age of 105, and today I found the little "book of stories" that my family collected and wrote down of all the things she had told us. She had seen so much and I always loved her stories. She traveled all over the country and world, but one of my favorite stories was about her parents. When my GREAT GREAT grandparents went on their honeymoon, they went to Alaska to pan for gold. They didn't strike it rich, but they did come home with some really cool things, a necklace made from the only nugget they found, which I believe my sister now has, and a vast collection of pressed flowers that my great great grandmother had collected and pressed on her journey. I don't know where they are now and that makes me sad BUT i can see them in all their glory almost perfectly in my head. They were in brass frames on little pillows of red velvet.

I loved them. I wish I could have them, I wish I knew where they were, but it isn't in the cards, nobody knows where they are. Instead I am going to make my own, with flowers from my own garden.

I love my garden I have so much fun working on it and I have invested a lot of time (and money) on it. Working in my own soil is almost a spiritual experience for me. I am an Army wife, I know someday we will have to move and while I love my house, it will break my heart to have to leave my garden, its not something you can just pack up and take with you sadly.

Two weeks ago as i went out on my weekly photo documentation of the progression of blooms in my garden I snipped a few blooms to give it a test run, they still aren't quite ready, but they look so pretty! So today i went out and got more blooms from different plants and filled another phone book.

Now i have a Question for my lovely readers, how should i display these? each separately in its own little frame? or in one or two bigger frames as a sort of collage like they would be found in my garden? Please let me know what you think! It would be much appreciated!

Favorite Giveaways of the week!

The way I see it, EVERYONE loves to win things occasionally, so I'm going to post a few giveaways every week, and I'll keep it to one post a week so as to not annoy anyone with it but its only polite to share right?


First of the week is at

And it is for some AWESOME scrabble tile bracelets! I love the look of them and I like the little messages that were made with the scrabble tiles that are on the inside!

Check it out HERE


There is an awesome drawing here
for a mermaid treasure that is so cool and so different, you should go check it out! HERE

There is a scentsy giveaway HERE I've always wanted to check out scentsy products!


I LOVE the store chantelle Nicole Designs HERE I am in love with the bird on a branch necklace under Simply Unique. Its sooooo beautiful and yes simple.
Somewhat simple is having a giveaway for a $40.00 certificate to the store and I had to share because its one i would LOVE winning and I am not selfish so I'd like to give everyone a chance too! Check it out here!

Black And White Wednesday!

I thought I would Join up with Natural Suburbia for black and white Wednesday you can visit the blog HERE

I love to take pictures, right now my husband has "misplaced" my camera at work so I'm relying on my handy dandy Iphone. It takes pretty rocking pictures for being a phone, most all of the pictures on this blog have been taken with it.

Today I am posting an older picture. It is a picture of the Cathedral Spires at Garden of the God's park here in Colorado Springs, this picture looked okay in color but in black and white it looks amazing!

Bad Bad day...

It didn't rain yesterday but that is so how I feel.

I didn't do anything crafty or at all productive yesterday, I had a really bad day yesterday, on Monday night my husband was helping me shower (don't get all twisted) because I can't stand and remain stable on dry land let alone on the wet shower floor, and mid-shower as i was leaning on him for support we went THROUGH the shower wall, because our house it appears wasn't built anywhere NEAR properly. They built our shower WITH DRYWALL! DRYWALL.. NOT CEMENT BOARD! So Twenty six years later the drywall has basically MELTED, so now I don't have a shower in my bedroom, and have to run around the house to get cleaned up hopefully THOSE walls don't disintegrate any time soon, because we pretty much don't have the money right now to fix OUR bathroom let alone all the other bathrooms in this house.

The thing is is that with the shower wall (its a half wall) dissolving its also the wall to the bathtub so we have to replace that too, and since ONE wall is drywall I'm just going to guess the OTHER two walls are also drywall so we're going to have to pretty much GUT half of our bathroom to fix this problem, we'll need to get cement board, vapor barriers, wood, tile, thin set, grout new shower pan, new bath tub, we'll more than likely have to rip up the sub floor if the water got down there too, so sub floor and new tile, hopefully we can get some that SORT OF matches the rest of the house.

We don't have that kind of money right now, that's the honest truth and I am medically NOT allowed to work right now because of a terrible knee injury. Our only hope at the moment is that my husband gets the promotion he is supposed to be getting, and qualifies for a reenlistment bonus. I can't wait to be healed so i can work and save up to get this done because its looking like maybe next year before we can get this fixed.

So Tuesday i spent most of the day in a deep dark funk. I mostly felt like crying all day. I did a lot of research online on bathroom remodels, got frustrated, felt even MORE like crying. All that i can hear is the sound of the tiles falling, and the sound of a cash register. I did find out there is a habitat for humanity Restore in town so that might help a little.

I hope that today is better, and that I can start moving in the right direction, maybe even make up some REAL plans and budgets yesterday I was just too much of a mess yesterday.

Any thoughts and prayers you could send my way would be much appreciated, even if its just for my sanity. I am just trying to remind myself that God won't give me more than I can handle, I just wish He didn't think so highly of me at the moment. He's given me a lot to try to deal with right now.

No Sew Calla Lily vase

I was inspired by Amy's Cala Lilies at Positively Splendid Check out her blog HERE, they are AWESOME!
Cala Lilies are my favorite flowers they are so beautiful in their form and simplicity, BUT i am terrified of the sewing machine, and I don't have any needles for it either! Plus my Scrappy vase needed a friend, I like pairs and threes for some reason!
So being inspired I looked down at the jean shorts I had used for the band on the Scrappy Vase. There was a lot of fabric left. So I cut up what was left of the band which wasn't much, but enough to make two flowers.

Here's what i did
I took a piece of the leg of the jeans and a piece of the band.


I put a stripe of hot glue across the small piece of denim and rolled it into a cylinder.

Then i put hot glue on the back corner of the large band piece and twisted it into the shape of a lily.



Then i put a dot of glue at the end of the cylinder and pushed it into the lily all the way to the bottom edge and i squeezed it shut



Then i wanted to add some more of the jeans to the vase so i took the bottom hem of the shorts and cut it down and glued it around the lip of the vase





Then I did the same to the bottom




Then I thought "these flowers need stems!" So i took a strip of the denim and I put a small strip of hot glue down it and twisted it into a stem!




Then i added leaves





And Here is the finish Product side by side with my scrappy vase!











Cost Breakdown
Jean shorts 10 cents
Hot glue already had
Vase gift (free)my momma sent me flowers for Valentines day!
Cost 10 cents!

LINKING UP

My Scrappy Vase!

I got this at a yard sale for a quarter, i tried to use it in its original state but the shiny copper bronze color just doesn't go with my style at all. So i decided to give it a make over, when its done it will go WAY up on the "plant shelf" in my bedroom. I figured if it is going WAY up there it wouldn't have any REAL flowers in it so why not just decoupage some old scrapbook paper on it? So I did.

I had the scrap paper for years, i used to put little messages on them and hide them in my husband's stuff when he was packing to deploy, but since he leaves a lot i was out of the cute little messages. I'll be getting more paper when he leaves again, but its nice to use it for something since i really do like it and i think the husband was getting sick of the same thing over and over again! So i tore the patterned pieces into strips and the solid pieces into squares.

I didn't have any modge podge but i always have Elmer's glue laying around, so I just added water and used an old paint brush to apply the paper to the vase. Just a random question here.. did they add a fragrance to Elmer's? It used to smell like... glue... now it has a sickening floral smell to it, it gave me a headache!

It took me a few hours because I lost my attention span a few times, and my cat decided she wanted to "play" and I ended up having to clean and bandage my foot pretty good after she shredded me.



Here are the current results,








UPDATE!

I thought it needed something special added to it, i loved the kindof scrappy denim look so i added a flower!

I learned to make the petals from cute Like Fox HERE

Mine doesn't look nearly as good but it was my first attempt and I am proud to announce I ONLY stabbed my finger ONCE!

I used this pair of shorts I got at a yard sale for 10 cents, only to come home and find that they were too small ( why can't woman's jeans be in inches like guys???)


So I used a bottle of Aloe to trace a circle on the pants



Then I folded them in Half once, then folded it into quarters like this



Then I sewed the bottoms like this (its not very even but i haven't sewn anything since high school! I did all of the petals on one continuous loop then sewed the ends together, it got a little crooked but I LOVE it!




Then i cut a skinny strip of jeans and twisted it around and around, then i hot glued it to the hole in the center to cover up the (horrible) stitching



I cut the waistband off the pants and cut it to the right size to go around the vase. Then I hot glued the flower to around the button to the jeans,




Then i sized it once more, and put hot glued the two ends of the waist band of the jeans and wrapped them around the vase





AND THE FINISHED PRODUCT! Soon it will be gracing the plant shelf in my bedroom, once i can convince the husband to get the ladder upstairs and I can hand him all the things that need to go up there... ladders scare the living daylights out of me!




COST BREAKDOWN

Vase 25 cents
Elmer's Glue 1.00 for a bottle
scrap paper- already had
jeans 10 cents
hot glue sticks already had
thread- already had

COST $1.35 AWESOME!

LINKING UP HERE