Friends going into the New Year.

Some very special friends of mine.

The Christmas Cactus had only one bloom open Christmas day. The cold weather set it back a week or so. But we will be going into the New Year in full bloom.

Wow What a great gift.

I gave up coffee for the New Year.

Since I gave up coffee I have turned my interest to Tea. Green tea mainly.

I have ordered my plants and they just arrived.
Of Coarse I hear the sounds of friends and family saying "nothing grows here like it does up north" Right? Well it is right some things don't grow in this area,,unless you give the plant what it wants. If you find out the requirements of the plant you can grow anything. Just give it what it wants.




So I spent the day mixing sand, compost, and potting soil to get just the right weight. I have my pots in the cart for now until I find the perfect spot that meets all of the requirement of the Tea plants.

When I find the perfect spot I will unload the cart and next year I will harvest my very own tea.

Baged and tagged

My Christmas bags with the gifts inside and the homemade tags. This may look like alot of work, but it is not! The gathering of materials can be done all throughout the year.

Cut out squares and sew in front of the TV while watching a good movie. Just do a few at a time. Invite a friend or two to come and help decorate the bags. Have a little party made out of it, cookies and coffee some glue and alot of laughs.

Tags can be cut out of anything. Old card or new ones. a whole box of assorted Christmas cards at the dollar tree 20 for a buck and when you cut them up you can get 3 or 4 tags from one card.

The foam cutouts I picked up after Christmas at Joann's for 20 cents, a whole package of them. They are large and with a little ribbon and a marker they are great.
Oh yes, and if you sneak around you can pick up the leftover tags and keep them for next year. At least the foam ones.
Have a happy blessed Christmas and a happy New Year.

make your own gift tags

Don't buy gift tags. Save last years Christmas cards that people send. Cut out the pictures from the front of the card and the inside greetings.


You can cut the cards into interesting shapes or cut around the figures on the cards.


Foam board or foam cutouts are really cheap after Christmas and you can decorate them as much or as little as you want.

Use a simple paper hole punch to make holes in card cut outs and foam. Thread ribbon through the holes and tie around the top of the gift bags or use on your traditional wrap. Pick up a few sharppie markers to write on the card tags or foam. They work great on the shiny card stock. It makes the gift wrap so much fun and the big tag is so much nicer than those little stick on things. Make it personal for yourself.

Forget the wrap.

Forget the wrap. Have some fun, cut up old clothing, gather up scraps of material. visit the local thrift store and buy up some items that have nice material


Cut ans sew into simple bags. simple like a pillow case with one end open. Decorate with felt cut outs glue, fabric paint, glitter, the ideas are endless.

Put your gifts in the bags and use Christmas tags.

Adding book shelves for storage.

Shelves relieved all of the clutter. all of the paints and brushes off of the art cart. Each shelf is dedicated to an area of art. Paint, Brushes, Drawing, Beading, Silks, Petal People
My work area is clear. My desk stands on its own without stuff all around it so I can do my work without having to move everything first. The book cases were cheap and sit on a base made with concrete blocks and white fiber board. the cost of the entire room organization was only around 120.00. The space to work, Priceless.

Art Room clutter

The art room is out of control. the clutter blocks creative flow and I have started to hate going in there.The room is only 8x8 the size of a walk in closet. one end is a closet and the other walls have windows and doors. Sooooooooooooooo It was time to get in there and clean it out. No art supplies were harmed in this clean out. and almost everything remains in the room. Here are the before pics.

pumpkin? did someone say pumpkin?

Oh yes pumpkin time is fun time.

who says it has to be traditional.

This pumpkin found out it is Sunday and I have to back to work tomorrow.

Happy Trick or Treat.

The hard part was getting the dog to get up and answer the door.




Time has passed and the world has changed. Trick or treat is nothing like it once was. Fear has changed it. We would go out in little packs of friends with no fear of our neighbors, we knew them and they knew us and our parents or grand parents. It was a night of ringing doorbells, and gags played on friends parents.

need more space? creat outside rooms.

When the house is getting small, when you just need a little more room.

Somewhere to just sit and have a quiet cup of coffee. Or to sit and read a book.

I put this little space together with things I had laying around in my shed.Some small stepping stones painted with some blue designs to dress them up. The only cost was the farm raised eucalyptus mulch which is well worth it. It helps to run off bugs and I have found that cats don't like it either. Even my pug turns up his nose to it. I don't smell anything from it.

I love my new front porch. The city says we can't "build" a front porch so I came up with my own cost free front porch. My pumpkin spice coffee never tasted so goooood.

great table after paint

We bought an ugly purple iron table with a fruit tapestry colored material on the cusions. We first painted the table and chairs a khaki color and then put on a stone paint finish. Bought some heavy stripe curtians and covered the chairs. It is heavy and slides up under the Island for two or slides out to the middle of the floor for up to 6 people. Buy something cheaper and make it your own with some paint and fabric.
I saw a show that used wool and sweater material skirt and sweaters from thrift stores to make chair and pillow covers.

who's in the dog house??

The old tin shed has been there for 14 years or so. it is showing its age. I am wanting to get a few more years out of the old gal so hear it goes?

Remember how I told you all about mixing the paint. well there it is. My Yard paint. I use it on all kinds of surfaces and it holds up very well. Haven't re-painted anything yet.

A few more details to be added along with a rolled shingle roof to give it that real dog house look. LOL

Paint, What did you say???

You will hear all sorts of advice about paint from the "experts" at the paint store or local mart. But how much do they really know?????
One "Expert" told me " you can't use Outside paint inside because it peels". WHY??? " it is designed to peel. WHY???
You can't mix different paints together. WHY??? Another "Expert" says it just won't work.
Well, the best paint I have on the property is a mixture. It is awesome. It sticks to everything and weathers great. I have painted the fiberglass green/house, then I painted the aluminum shed and the paint never peels, chips or fades.
What kind of great paint is this? It is a 5 gal bucket, with what ever paint was in the shed in it. Yes it is a mixture of white inside and outside paints along with some Kills and 2 gallons of red barn oil stain. Oh I know what you are thinking oil and latex will not mix. LOL Mixed in are some browns as well. I like the color and so does Allison she says it looks soft and it does. The smell is not so good so I wouldn't use it inside but I would paint anything outside and have. So, Have fun and break some rules.

The Web

Like this magnificent web, we creat our lives. Some more simple than others. while others are fulled with caos. We often hear about writers block well, I beleive all creative beings go through blocks from time to time. For me it seems to happen when a big creative job is at hand. Like my kitchen mural, that is in some sort of limbo. So for me the answer comes from going into an organizational mode which has brought on major changes in my workshop area and I am very happy with the changes. You will be seeing them soon. I promise.

So while the cleaning and BIG painting jobs are underway. I am posting what some of the other creative beings in my yard have been doing. I hope you can see that this is not just a normal spider web. Not at all. This creative lady has made a double decker. It is truely amazing how the wind whips this web around without a strand breaking. Now that is creative.

RC's Office wall

First the room was painted "toasted pecan" Flat. It is a warm color and I was surprised that it looked so good in this small office 14x13.

Next was to string out the size for the mat. The mat was painted "gram cracker crust" satin finish. This idea was not mine. Rev. Cydne` and Mr Ed came up with it and I put it on the wall for her.

The satin paint has a shine that reflects back at the camera and it makes it hard to take a pic of it straight on.


with her display in place, I latched together 4 pieces of bamboo to make the frame. Now this took some time and was not as easy as it looks. It is quite a job to tie it together and keep it flat at the same time.


It was a fun project and a labor of love.

dry flower arrangements

Dry flower arrangements are great. they last a long time and look great.

The dry flowers seem to go with almost any type of decore.

An on going project.

My eating program is an on going project. In these times money can be tight and produce in the stores are way over priced. I am not going to undo the changes I have made in my eating. I have lost 60 lbs so far this year by giving up processed foods and eating closer to nature. So I have my old lady shopping cart. You know the ones with the big wheels in the back, well mine is the deluxe version. I load my emergency flea market bag, equipped with rain poncho, first aid kit and water bottle, and off I go. It doesn't take long because after the first 3 weeks I have found the produce stands that I go to. So it takes me about 30-40 min. and the savings are huge. What you are looking at in the picture is:
10 plumbs, 8 peaches, 4 Big apples, 1 seedless watermelon,
10 bananas, large stand of baby asparagus, 4 ripe tomatoes,
a head of cauliflower, head of cabbage, head of broccoli, 5 cucumbers,
2 lbs of Green beans, head of Chinese cabbage, 8 sweet potatoes, 6 banana peppers
total cost? 20.00
result? healthy living and weight loss. Cooking required, but if you prep and bag things it all goes quickly. Loving and living my life.

back yard fun

Adding carpet on old deck. It keeps from being slippery and people with bare feet on wood.

This is a hott part of the job. the glue is drying almost before the carpet can be pulled over it.

Screen room added to keep out the bugs that bite. Also it keeps off sun in the noontime.

Hot tub eye sore

A friend had this hot tub sitting on its side in the side yard at their house. It did not run but the tub was in good shape.


Back at the house the Dog and I take out the motor and install an old sprinkler motor that has been sitting on the deck for at least 15 years

All pluged in and fired up. I am not LOL