A froggy makeover and Ornament update

Happy Hump Day!

We had some severe weather blow through last night but today it's sunny, there's a slight breeze and it's absolutely gorgeous out! Not much damage in our part of town but lots of power outages, downed trees etc. across the metro. Abby was driving home, or trying to anyway and she finally called and asked if maybe she should pull over somewhere as she couldn't see. Gee Abs, ya think?? Sometimes, I just gotta wonder about that child! She pulled into a parking lot and sat there for a bit until the tornado sirens went off. Then she called again. What should she do? I had her head to Gram's house as it was closer than home. But I forgot to mention to her that she should not drive through any areas with standing water.....they had been showing lots of cars on the news that tried to drive through water thinking it wasn't very deep and they ended up floating away, flooded or stalled in the middle of the intersection. My bad. She drove through standing water and got some inside the car. At least she didn't get stranded but really, at 22 I shouldn't have to remind her of these things! Haven't checked her car out yet but she says it got hammered by wind driven hail. Never a good thing.

Before I went to Last Saturday Stitching last Saturday, Dan and I went to the thrift store. I had been given a flower frog by a stitching friend quite some time ago and then a week later Dan bought one for me too. But they both needed little containers to go with them and this was the first chance we had to go together. It's always more fun to go thrifting with Dan than without Dan. He's always finds something to get excited about. This time it was the worlds fugliest lamp ever. We're talking so ugly it hurt to look at it. Dan was all, we gotta get this, we can make better, faster stronger than it was before....I just gave him "the LOOK" told him it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen and walked away. Trust me, there was no making this monstrosity better. I found two little vessels that fit my frogs or is it that my frogs would fit, so we bought 'em and then I went off to stitching and he went on home. But as we were leaving the thrift store parking lot, I saw this couple that had been nearby when I told Dan to back away from the ugly lamp leaving the store. You'll never guess what they were carrying......Yep! The fugly lamp. And it took 2 of them to carry it. I wish I had had my camera!! We were laughing hysterically as we left the parking lot!


Stitching was great as always except we had to say goodbye to one of our original stitcher's this month. Her hubby got a new and better job in Peoria and they will be moving there soon. Stacy is/was the youngest member of our group and she found us through Craigslist. I had posted an ad looking for people interested in a stitching group. Her husband was a bit leery of letting her go the first time but Stacy came anyway. Despite being quite a bit younger than us she had a good time and continued to come when the demands of young kids, a part-time job, the husband and going to school would allow. Stacy, it has been an honor getting to know you and teaching you that there are other materials out there than aida and dmc. Corrupting you has been a pleasure. My only regret is that we have not been able to corrupt you so thoroughly that you have stash (seriously, she buys one chart at a time and stitches it) or that you have more than one project going at a time. We failed at absolute corruption. Hopefully we'll do better with the next victim youngster to cross our paths. I wish you and your family great success and happiness in your new life and please come see us when you are in town. We'll miss you.

Returning to the frog story....I wasn't thrilled with the little vessels I found. They worked just fine but I thought they were lacking something. The silver vessel I had Dan paint with brown hammered metal spray paint. that was better but still not quite right. The clear vessel we sprayed with the spray that makes it look frosted. Again, that was better but not perfect. Down the stairs I went to the craft room. Which reminds me, I forgot to mention the movers came Friday and took away all of Adam's stuff so I can get in there again. I was sad his stuff was gone as that meant the move was really permanent but it only lasted about an hour before I was all good. Anyway, to get back to the story...I found some rub-ons in my scrapping supplies that I thought might just do the trick. I think they turned out really cute. How about you?



And here's an update on the Wise Men Ornament. I'm about half done now and thrilled with how it looks. Just too pretty.


That's it for now. Think I'll head outside, pull some weeds and enjoy the nice weather. You all have a great afternoon!

Take care,

Julie