Dreaming of Overland Expeditions

A few years ago Katya Nikolskaya who at the time lived in Alaska told me about an unusual vehicle she spotted somewhere around Fairbanks.  She gave me the web site of the company operating this vehicle and since then I've been checking out their web site off and on, and dreaming that one day I will have enough time off and money to go on one of the awesome expeditions this company opeates.  They are called Exploratory Overland Expeditons and are based in the UK.

The time has not come yet, and I don't forsee it coming soon, but what's life without dreams....

Hello Maggie!

My daughter is obsessed with Hello Kitty.  She has a lego set, a house that came with two kitties, but she lost both of them.  My husband got her another small lego set, and she lost the kitty again.  So I got her a set, not a lego one, but one with a littly kitty, a mouse, and ice cream cone.  She kept misplacing them and I got tired of it all. So I remember I had some altoid tins that I was going to make sewing kits but never got around to it.  I needed some practice to break my 'fear' of mod podge, and this was a perfect project.

Here is Maggie's Hello Kitty storage box.

Seed beads

Ah it appears that I am hooked on making these cloth broaches now.  So instead of coffee staining my fabric, I found this large piece of remnant I probably picked up somewhere and got a great deal on it.  It's golden color, so I don't have to dye it, yey!  But it's also a bit of a heavier fabric, almost like upholstery fabric and it frays pretty bad, but that's pretty good for me and the effects it gives it.
However it's just one color, no print on it.  I can't have that....so I've been stamping it with stamps of course and permanent ink.  And then I've been sewing beads on it.  I almost forgot that I have a whole suitcase full of beads (no joke, it's for real).  How could I forget I had so many beads?!  Since these broaches are not really big, my seed beads work perfectly.  Here is a sneak peak, and I have about 5 more that need beading. 

Northern lights or desert skies?

I had traded the first part of my shift today, so I was heading to work during rush hour.  I left early to give myself plenty of time for any unexpected traffic jams and also because I was dropping my kids off at my sister in law.  Typically I would be annoyed to have to stop at every single red light, but I was delighted today because each stop gave me an opportunity to take pictures of the beautiful and epic sky in front of me.  On the southeast the sky was clear, but on the northwest there was a cloud that appeared to be a dust cloud however my retro camera effects on my phone made it look like the northern lights you may expect to see at this time of the year somewhere in Alaska.  But the palm trees give it away.


The black and white effect through my dirty windshield made it look like the 'twilight zone'.



And here is the last one, which I think if I was good enough to photoshop the stoplights and some of the traffic, would look celestial.  The colors reminds me of something I saw in National Geographic several years ago, an article on the birth of a star, although I am really not trying to say that I take any National Geographic quality photos....far from it.  I am just having fun with cool technology that I also don't know much about it, but it makes me look like I know what I'm doing.

My daughter the artist

One of my daughter's favorite things to do is to painting.  She mostly likes watercolors and constantly asks me for more water. When she was just a little baby I got an easel at a garage sale behind our house.  It sat unused for a long time, but in the last year it has become one of her favorite.
I let her paint in my craft room while I work on whatever I am working.  It makes it easy to keep an eye on her, while she keeps an eye on her paints and paper.  And blessed be the dollar store, because she goes through a set of watercolors in just a couple of days.
This easel came with a roll of butcher paper, and at one point I was saving everything she painted.  But I started feeling like a packrat, although I didn't have the heart to dispose of her work.  Eventually I did get rid of a lot of stuff, but here are a couple I kept.  These are actually fairly new, she made them in the last week or so.  I think they are pretty cool.
This first one is supposedly a self portrait.  All right?!

This second one she said she was painting snails.  Hmmmm I think maybe...ok sure I see the snails.