"no it wasn't the dog"

The big bad shredder jumped out and ate our fly-swatter today.
Scared Lance half to death in the process.
All I can say is that Gamma is blameless on this one... I was at work, the kids were here picking up the mail and checking the computer.
In case you are wondering,yes the shredder does still work,( the swatter does not.)

Nativities

I had the last three days off of work this week. ( working this weekend instead for one of the ladies)
so I spent that last three days working on some nativity sets. One is a full set with all the animals, and the other two are just Mary ,Joseph and baby.
Haven't done these for years but thought I might do a couple of sets this year to sell. We'll see. Oh and I picked me up a shop vacuum/air cleaner... makes it a joy to power carve these.
this is what I have done so far.

quotes from a shoe store.

"God's in his Heaven Things are good here on earth. I woke up this morning on this side of the dirt."....(Leona --a favorite customer )

"Busy bees"

Each year you can tell that spring has finally arrived when the box elder bushes start to bloom. They have a definite smell to them, and when you are near them you can here a buzzing noise. You don't want to get too close though because they are just swarming with bees.
Last week we had a couple of nice days followed by lots of rain since, now the wind is blowing which is no surprise. We are so ready for spring here, how about you.

Taking Chance

The other day, my husband was switching channels and came in at the end of a movie with Kevin Bacon in it. He watched the last 10 minutes of it which was enough that we really wanted to see it all the way through. The next night it came on and we got to watch it from the beginning. It is about a Lieutenant colonel who escorts a fallen soldier home. This is an HBO movie, which we tend to avoid because they usually are anti military ,but this was an exception. We both sat through this movie with a box of kleenex between us and sobbed all the way through it. It showed the respect that people gave him and the soldier all across the country. This man then wrote about it here.
It's called "Taking Chance" and if you get a chance to see this you won't regret it.

"Shoe store wisdom"

I work in an old fashioned shoe store that has been around for 56 years. We have a lot of regulars that come in quite often. Some come in weekly, monthly ,quarterly and at sale time. We have ladies that come in just to talk. (I am sure they are lonely).We have people who have moved away and are visiting come in because they remember coming in as a child.(As a kid my parents would take us to JC Penny's for shoes .I always wondered what was behind those curtains, now I know. Morris Goates used to sell us shoes there. ) At Christmastime we have even had people bring us gifts . Almost daily we get the gift of wisdom passed on so I thought I would pass some of what we hear at the store.

....Today's quote is: "Fair is a completion, Life wasn't meant to be be fair."
and: "Come what may and Love it." (Elder Wirthlin) this comes from a good talk that you can read here.
More to come later.

Still Organizing

My schedule has been backwards this week , I have had the last three days off and am working the next three instead. My boss is going to shoe market where they see the shoes for fall and pre-order most of them. , so I am covering her days.
I have intended to carve some nativities this week, but ended up doing some organizing of the shop. Went through papers I have had all over the shop and spent almost the whole day filing them away. Cleaned out and reorganized the desk as well. I may have to make a master list so I remember just what files I have,(maybe on the front of the drawers?) Now I can slowly go through the chip chat magazines and file away the ideas I want to remember.
It has been a long day ,but a productive one, and it feels good to have gotten this done.

Happy Birthday Barbi

With all the buzz about Barbi turning 50 this year, I just thought I would mention that we happen to share the same birth year, and maybe I am a little jealous but no one is giving me a year long celebration. I don't know if she has been getting anything in the mail lately but we are getting AARP mailings weekly now. there was a bulletin I was reading and it shows how Barbi would look today if allowed to age. you can see it here. Amazing thing is that the aged Barbi's hair is my hair color if I wasn't coloring it. (sigh)
I really didn't play with Barbi's much ,(my younger sister did), But I do have fond memories of her. My younger sister and I used to play with my older sisters dolls that she had. My older sister being a young ,struggling newly married lady, would make us handmade clothes for our doll for Christmas. There were even a couple of times that we attempted to make them ourselves ,but I they never did turn out as well as my older sister could make. She had a real talent for that and seemed to really enjoy making them. Anyway just wanted to say Happy Birthday, and many more!

Son # 2 and L. stopped by tonight to work on their van. He picked one up from a friend
they work with who wanted to get rid of it seeing as he'd just bought him a new car. Son
was going to sell it to the cousins but on doing more thinking decided that they would buy
it for themselves.
They had been to the Doctors earlier today so brought pictures. After dinner while the boys
were working on the van ,L. and I worked on a scrapbook page for her. (Her first page she'd ever worked on) . I hope she had fun doing it .

"Daddyism"

"The car runs just as good on the full side of half as on the empty side of half."

Now how did we learn this great bit of wisdom, you might ask. Well the same way you probable did. Being young, poor newlyweds we played the game of "how far can the car run on E ".
I am sure we weren't the only ones who played this game. our first car a 68 Ranchero you had plenty of time to get to the gas station.(don't take too many side trips getting there though.)We had a 70 mustang mach 1 , which was a great car,but if it hit the E mark you had better be in the gas station not headed there.( this is where we learned this particular Daddyism seeing as My husband ran it out of gas on his way to town and had to push it to the station.) Our 72 Montego was the best, the E. marker could fall onto the floor before you were out of gas. I am liking our current truck the best , It has a nice "idiot " feature that tells you how many miles you have left until empty.
This all came up again recently when Son # 2 called and said that "Honey's" car had died a couple blocks from their house and could we tow it home before it gets vandalized.
We went to their work to get the keys, then over to Richland to search the neighboring streets for the car. Dad tried to start it up but no go. So he hooked onto it with a tow strap and we towed it to the nearest gas station a couple blocks away. He thought he would put some gas in to see if it would help. Put $15.00 in and it started right up. (hmmm) got out of the car to take the straps off,went to get back in the car when he discovered the doors were locked. (locks automatically) , the car was still running. Now what do we do. There was a Sheriff across the street, Dad runs over to see if he had a slim jim ,but finds out they are no longer allowed to use them. so he drove off. (Thanks for helping ). So he called Son to see if there was a spare key. There was but at the house, so off he goes to get the key .leaves me watching the locked running car. He gets to the house and the doors are locked so ends up having to crawl through the a back window to get the spare key. he gets back unlocks the door and we take the car back to their house.
Needless to say "Honey" has been avoiding Dad the past two weeks, afraid he will give her a bad time. (well Of Course he will.) all we really wanted to know was just how long had it been on E before it died.

"Household Shuffle"

I have been going through the house today trying to get rid of a few things.
cleaned out a desk in the back room ,but mainly I have been trying to organize my
magazines. Many are hard to get rid of cause I tend to use them for reference material.
I feel like I am playing the household shuffle game. I move stuff from one room to another,then out to the shop , to the back garage, then eventually to the trash. (sigh)
I have tried to keep a handle on most of "the stuff" but I sure have gotten behind on the
carving magazines. Oh well, one thing at a time...

Moroni carving

A few months ago a friend of ours was asking if I could" pretty- please" carve her an Angel Moroni.
She has been working on her part time business called Heaven's White Wings, where she releases white doves for your wedding, funeral ,valentine's, anniversary, military event ect. She has beautiful cages for the birds with a cross on it for these events, but wanted a statue for LDS events.I was a little non committal ,but said I would give it a try .
I sort of put this off for the last couple of months because the techniques I would need to do this I hadn't tried before so I was a little panicky.
First off there is no pattern I could buy to cut one out, also nobody I know of has a roughout to buy. I would have to make up my own pattern. So lots of time spent searching for a picture of the statue that I could use. Most of the pictures I found were from an angle (,which from a photographic standpoint is a better view), But to make up a pattern you need a good side and front view . I finally found a few that I thought I could use, but I was still struggling.
I then made up some paper profiles .Then spent a couple of hours cutting these out in various sizes and putting them together with brads. ( My husband thought I was losing it). I was then able to come up with a pattern of sorts.
I needed to cut the arms separate of the body as well as the head.( never done this before) As I was working on the details I was going to put a sash on the waist that was in one of my reference pictures,, when I noticed that the next pic. didn't have a sash it had a gathered waistand the next one had a completely different robe, and one picture had a hat. More investigation was needed.
so after lots of wandering on the internet,( I tend to get distracted) I found this article that tells about the history of the many Moroni statues there have been over time. You can read about it here.
I am feeling so much better about this project now, cause anything goes. (Whew)
I finally finished carving him ,glued him together, a little wood burning and some sanding, then a couple coats of gold metal spray and this is how it turned out.
Patricia picked it up on Saturday and they were quite tickled with it.
I learned a lot doing this project ,both about carving in general and many things about my
subject matter. Its good to try something new once in a while. I may have to try this one again, now that I got some of bugs worked out.

"Indian trade"

A few weeks ago my husband sold a truck bumper to a gentleman who he runs into
frequently at the gas station. When he came by to pick it up he saw some of my carvings
and was interested in my sticks. He has spent many years in Alaska and has learned the
art of bartering. so he wondered if he gave me some soapstone that he had ( quite a big piece) and some ivory , would I be willing to carve him an Indian on a stick. he wanted it fairly simple so
he could then do some of his own carving on it afterwards.
He came by to pick it up tonight and was quite pleased with it. He is an artist so needless to
say I was sweating bullets worrying that he would find fault in it. ( I guess that's not new, I
always worry that the person won't like what I made) .
This is what I came up with.

donated

This past year there has been a number of changes around here resulting in our being busier
than we already are. One of the things that I tended to let go was my crafting time...
...so this year my goal is to do one thing a week, "just for fun", but also for the practice.
( if you want to carve good faces ,you have to keep on carving faces. practice ,practice ,practice.)
I also keep tossing the idea around of sometime doing a bazaar, which means you have to have enough stuff around to sell.
Anyway I was working on this wizard when my husband asked if I would like to donate it to his
work for a silent auction to benefit The Junior Achievement program. so I finished it up and he
took it to work on Thursday.
The gentleman who bought it hovered by the sign up for the last hour telling everyone to go ahead
and bid but it was going home with him..needless to say the price did go up ( good for the cause ) but he got the stick,( good for him).
I also got an order out of this...somebody wants a goofy on a stick for their granddaughter, sometime before August so I have a little time. Pictures anyone??

Pirate bottle stoppers

A friend of mine asked me if I could make her a couple of pirate bottle stoppers. this is what I finally came up with...She seemed pleased with them.( The first one I did just for fun.)
Thanks for looking.