Going Away Card

Why, yes, I DO still make stuff!  :)

This card was for a couple who is moving from a spacious house to a much smaller one, so I knew they didn't want stuff for a going-away present.  

For this card, I wanted to experiment with layering.

I found the best plan was to work with each element separately, and not add it to the card until it was how I wanted it.

For example, I inevitably screw up when stamping.  So I did it over and over again on a separate piece of paper until I got it right.

Of course, some things go on the actual card.  I sketched this in pencil first, with a photo of the capitol on my computer in front of me.

 I colored the background, then added a cut out from a photograph that I just printed on regular paper.

 Then it was time to try out different arrangements.  The flowers are supposed to represent the cherry blossoms of Washington, DC.

 This is the arrangement I finally settled on:

Nora and Horses + Arwen

My cousin's daughter Nora participated in a charity horse show a few weeks ago.  And I discovered that, despite my photography class, I'm not all that good at photographing motion.....

My Friend the Cobbler

My friend Marcia makes her own shoes.  Seriously!  She is like that—she’s always doing cool DIY stuff that I’d never dream of attempting.

Here’s the FB page she started for like-minded amateur cobblers:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/shoemakingfun/

Tea Party Pictures from June 18

First tea, then coloring, then DIY pizzas!

Happy 4th of July!

Stay safe and enjoy the holiday! 

Budget Update

Amazon portal revenue this month = $1.18.  Thank you for your purchases through our portal!

I got my last paycheck from my former teaching job a few days ago.

Today we made a budget for our time when I am between jobs.  It involved things like paying the minimum on the mortgage and not putting anything in investments.  More drastic cuts were things like 'no spending money' and trying to cut our food budget down to half of what we usually spend.  I'm now trying to drink more water and less milk and asking myself if I can afford to take my niece swimming.

The most draconian budget we can come up with still leaves us $400 short.

I did some temp work in June, and I have some scheduled for July.  And we have a healthy savings account.  However, we don't know how long I will be out of work, or if my new job will pay decently, so we are going to try to live as frugally as possible and try not to touch the savings. So it feels like we are "playing" at what it would be like to be poor.  There will be an end to this.  We won't always have to say 'no' to what we want to do.  But some people live this way their whole lives, always scraping and pinching, and saying 'no,' and still just one disaster away from wiping out.

It's been oddly thought-provoking.

Plus there is this unsettling feeling: What if it stays like this forever?  What if I can't find anything and I have to scrape by with temping and freelancing for years?  Unlikely, but not impossible.

Trusting in Divine Providence is proving most difficult right now when it is most necessary.

Making Fireworks A Little Safer

Q.  How can you keep the fireworks' tubes from falling over and shooting fireworks in unpredicted and unsafe directions?  (At bushes, cars, spectators, etc.)

A. Make an easy DIY fireworks platform.

Screw the launch tubes to a big piece of plywood.

Really, you are thinking--shoot fireworks on top of something flammable?   As anyone who has ever tried to start a fire to cook dinner or roast marshmallows, wood doesn't burst into flame as easily as you'd expect.

We've used the same one for years and it's never caught on fire.

Despite us doing this: