Tuesday, March 20, 2018

A Tale of a Tiny Garden, 2018 Edition

I have recently discovered something this week that I am sure some of you already know and will share the same preference with me. I love blogs with lots of photos. I have found a few this month that are absolutely awe inspiring with the combination of photos and text. I was just drawn into them. Several pages later, I knew I needed to start doing the same thing with mine. I have had this blog since 2007, most of which I turned onto draft mode so that the posts couldn't be seen.

I also discovered I like seeing what other people are doing with their lives, beyond art or crafts, so here is a little peak into what my family does every year. Gardening.

Starting seeds inside this year with our brand new grow lamp.



Peat Planting Pots


The first bag of plant potting soil we used to fill the peat pots. Potting soil? Are you kidding me? This looks like a bunch of broken up sticks and not dirt.



This is the second bag of potting soil we had on hand from last year. So much better! Wow. This is Jiffy Mix. We dumped out the first pots and decide to drive back to Walmart and buy another bag of Jiffy Potting Mix.



I thought I would take a photo of both bags of potting mix with their contents.


This is a first for us this year. We bought a grow light and decided to start all of our plants from seeds instead of buying plants at a local garden center. The seeds were started two weeks ago and are already to the stage of re-potting or planting outside. The final frost hasn't happened yet. Oops, we found out in our excitement for spring planting we started the seeds a little bit early.

Just some lovely close up photos of some of the first plants.
We planted cucumber, tomato, jalapeno, beets, broccoli, and sweet peppers. It may not be a good outcome for the broccoli, I'm just warning you. We have tried several times to grow broccoli and something always seems to go wrong.

~ Valarie



Some lvely

Sunday, March 18, 2018

New Digital Stamps in my Etsy Shop!

I've been trying to keep up with converting several of my older artwork into digital stamps that craters can use for handmade projects. Here are my choices for spring stamps. Each one was hand drawn, scanned, and cleaned up in illustrator. I decided to save them at larger sizes, so they would work perfectly as a simple downloadable coloring page or can be shrunk to the size you need for collage, card crafting, or whatever other wonderful hand made items you might come up with.

Copyright Valarie Wade 2017

a couple of questions for you...
Do you like the idea of them being larger sizes or as a digital stamp would you prefer them to be saved at a smaller size?
Any feedback would be helpful : )

Butterfly and Bunny Digital Stamp

Cute Bear Digital Stamp

Tea Cup Bunny Digital Stamp

Bunny And Bouquet Digital Stamp

Three Bears Digital Stamp Set

Waving Squirrel Digital Stamp

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Bunny felt hoop art


I started this little project last night with a lot of energy and high hopes. One hour passed and I was still working on the face embroidery. Two hours later, the bunny ears were just starting to take shape.
I finally went to bed three hours after I started without much progress from the first two hours.

I've been obsessed with looking at hoop art on Google and Etsy and different online shops and thought wow I could do that. Apparently after trying, this is not a craft I should be doing. I'll leave it to the Pros.
I have to say kudos to you, because you make it look easy and it's not. I'll stick to painting, thanks. I thought I was going to pop these out and sell them and it be a fun crafts.
This is the first one I've made. It will probably be the last one I make. I'm actually glad I did try it now I know it's something I don't really like to do. I was going to sell this. I had all intentions of selling it when I started, but I'm going to keep it and hang it on the wall as a reminder that when I have the feeling I want to try something other than painting, I won't.

Lesson learned.

Valarie

Friday, March 9, 2018

My first ghost cat visit in march

5am this morning!

I usually toss around at night since moving from our older house a little over two years ago. I had slept on a water bed since I was ten years old, and the subfloor at this new house, well new to use but it is old, is a little iffy until we have someone come and inspect it. But that takes extra money that we don't have at the moment. So, because of being on subflooring instead of a flat cement slab house, I bought a regular bed and I just can't get comfortable.
That's a long explanation to get to the point of this post. I just want you, if you're reading this, to understand that I was awake when this happened.
I couldn't go back to sleep either knowing that I was visited and that my alarm was going off at 630 am anyway.

Ok, 5am, I am awake and lying on my back when I feel one tiny foot step, two, three, four, five, six steps down my right leg and then a curled up lump at my feet. Wow. That is one strange yet exciting feeling.

There are no animals in the house anymore. I never posted this, but my Taffy died on October 5th, 2017. The kitten I was going to adopt was given to another family. This was my choice. Taffy was still alive at the time and they weren't getting along very well. For his sake, I didn't find it fair to have him feel pushed around in his old age.

Fancy crossed the rainbow bridge in September 2016. One week before I finally found a new job closer to the new house.

I tear up even now typing this.

I know some people will think I'm a Looney,and that's ok. Other's will not. You've experienced what are called paranormal events,so you understand. I will think of this as a tiny miracle.

I have had several other so called paranormal happens over the span of my life I might share later on if anyone is interested. I don't just openly talk about things because of the backlash they might cause but felt I wanted to post and document this one.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Cute Bunny Bouquet

How many different animals have been drawn holding flowers or a bouquet? I'm not sure, but I can't think of anything cuter than that. Well, maybe a couple of things.


This cute bunny doodle was created sometime last week in the middle of my Frasier binge watch. I finally took some time yesterday to get out the light box and ink in the stamp for scanning. He or she, which ever you like, is now available in my Etsy shop for instant download and home printing. On $3.00 and ready to paint, color, clip, paste, film, or whatever you can think up.

~ Valarie

Saturday, March 3, 2018

What February Ment for Me

Isn't is strange how fast time flies by. At least it seems to be that way for me. Days tend to blend together and Wow! it's already March. Two more weeks and I will be off work for spring break...
Look at the lovely buds already forming on the trees outside.



February went fast. One week I was practically off work for three full days because of the weather.

1. Anyway, My main obsession for the month was sitting in my front room watching Netflix reruns of Cheers and Frasier.
I haven't fully finished either series, but I am getting close to it. Why Cheers and Frasier? Because funny as it might sound, they remind me of my childhood. What do I mean? Let me clarify a little bit.

I remember Cheers slightly from watching it as a preschooler. I couldn't have been over 4 or 5 years old at the time. You know, Cheers was what my parents watched on TV, so I did too. Did I know what the show was about? No, but I do recognize the characters. So going back now and re watching it gives it a whole new meaning.

Frasier is special because I was attending junior high school and loved the gags and witty humor. I didn't get to see the entire series then for various reasons, (School stuff such as band or homework). I love being able to binge watch them now.


2. I bought another aerobics tape and I have actually worked out with it 4 times in the last week.
That's more than any other program I have purchased to this point. I think if I can change my mindset about it being a "workout" and just focus on it being something fun to do, I just might stick it out this time and drop some of this extra weight I need to get rid of.

3. I started my etsy shop back up
Etsy has changed a lot since the last time I was active on the site. I remember logging on and watching my items float onto the "just uploaded screen". It was probably called something else, but that was so long ago I don't rightly remember. I could have several views in a day from the uploads because everything newly added was first on the search list. Well now I just seem to be lost in space, that is cyber space. : ) But I'm not giving up so easily this time. I need to see how far Etsy can take me. I haven't tried all of the suggested store optimizations and promotions yet. Only time will tell.