Yaaaaaaaaaaawn....

Black Friday... the biggest shopping day of the year... and YES, I was part of it already!! I left the house at 3:45 a.m.(AM I NUTS OR WHAT?!), stood in line at Kohls Dept. Store for 10 minutes with a looooong line ahead and behind me by the time they opened the doors at 4. I was able to get the things I had made a list for there, then on to Radio Shack, and Staples... I also was there soon enough to take advantage of some GREAT sales... all in all (so far today), I've saved over $430 on Christmas gifts!!

Now it's nap time for a couple of hours...To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; for I must go into work for a couple of hours, but, perchance the daughter will be ready to get up and dressed and out shopping with me by the time I'm back from work??

Happy Thanksgiving to All & To All A Good Night! (and day!)

MAY YOUR STUFFING BE TASTY, MAY YOUR TURKEY BE PLUMP.
MAY YOUR POTATOES 'N GRAVY HAVE NARY A LUMP,
MAY YOUR YAMS BE DELICIOUS,
MAY YOUR PIES TAKE THE PRIZE,
MAY YOUR THANKSGIVING DINNER
STAY OFF OF YOUR THIGHS.



GOBBLE TIL YOU WOBBLE.........

AND IN ALL, AND FOR ALL THINGS, GIVE THANKS.

A visit from the son & granddaughter

Kaine and Jorden are here!! Hurrah!! We had fun playing with Jorden, taking pictures, seeing all the things she can do now... she is growing up SOOO fast, and it really shows when it's been weeks between visits.
It's so much fun to see her new things...she claps, waves, talks more, sits up well, and mugs for the camera! *L*

I made this Tin Man - The Early Months a few days ago... and I found he is just the right size to be a playmate for Jorden..*L*...except he has nails in his heart, and sharp oilcan and funnel hat, so they can not play unsupervised..*L*

But it WAS a fun photo opportunity! (I just had to photoshop a funnel hat on Jorden in a few pictures. hee hee)

Jorden decided she wanted the Tin Man's doll.. so she grabbed it, and then thought she's see how the Tin Man would react if she tried to get his oil can too.. *L*


Jorden sure has become a little ham for the camera!! Makes me just want to hug her and squeeze her all the time! Thank you Lord for our precious granddaughter, and for her Dad, our son, Kaine, and for her mom, Erin...bless them all, in Jesus Name I pray. Amen.

Tin Man - The Early Months

*EDITED* (I've added to this piece since I had posted it here, since this baby appears to be about the age of my granddaughter, I put an old tarnished number 8 on the funnel hat - the age that Jorden will be in another week, 8 months old).

Here's my finished tin man baby (Tin Man - 8 Months Old)... I used an old baby doll that my friend Randy passed on to me. It was one of the toys in his mom's house that the children and grandchildren played with. Randy's mom died recently, and he was cleaning out her home and passed this doll on to me.

The eyes were broken and clouded, so I removed them, gessoed the baby, decoupaged it with silver tissue paper, stained it, put a few coats of polycrylic on, added the heart, oil can and funnel hat, and on the back is a thermometer...and Voila!

Update on Work Bench Projects - UNDER CONSTRUCTION...

Here's an update on the torso I've been slowly working on... some of the different elements that will be incorporated into it are alongside. I finally have the torso the color I want to match the clock frame box in front of it. I need to attach the small doll arms to the box, add a face insert, the branch of timely elements (not shown in this post), the wings... and we'll see what else. Still waiting on the torso to dry more so I can polycrylic it.


This is what I've been doing while I wait for the torso to dry... gessoing and decoupaging the "tin baby" with silver tissue paper... shown here are some of what will go with it too.
I plan on putting a stain over the silver tissue paper to age the piece and hopefully make it match the funnel hat more ... and possibly some kind of insert in the chest area? Still thinking on that.

But for now, I better get busy with my reports I need to finish for tonight's Vestry meeting.....more to come...

French Fry Lesson

This was another visual message we had at our church on Stewardship Sunday, I'd made this box of fries for a Youth Group lesson about 4 years ago, we keep the yellow noodles (fries) in the box to play with for games from time to time, but pulled it out to provide a fun lesson on Stewardship Sunday ... the large box of french fries was sitting in the narthex as people entered. A "French Fry Lesson" was an insert in the bulletin for people to ponder on:

A French Fry Lesson
There was a father who took his son to his favorite fast food restaurant. He bought the child a kid's meal with french fries. His son could not wait to unpack the meal and see what toy was hidden inside. After the food was laid out on the table, the father reached for a french fry. At first the boy did not notice, he was enjoying the new toy that he had just opened. Then his son noticed his father's hand reaching for a second fry. The boy scowled and reached for the bag of fries to take off the table. "Those are my fries," he shouted.

His father thought, "how ungrateful". "Why is he being so selfish? Doesn't he realize that I just gave him the fries in the first place? If only he realized that I could bury him in french fries if I wanted to!

Who Owns Your French Fries?
When you think about it, do we sometimes act just like this small child when it comes to giving back to our Heavenly Father who provides everything?
"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." Psalms 24:1

For Where Your Treasure Is, There Your Heart Will Be Also

I woke up VERY early this morning with this idea... I've been doing a lot of things for our upcoming Stewardship Sunday at Church, and I believe God was putting this on my heart... as a message for me to take heed of as well as a way to share with others.

I have two scenarios this assemblage can take...two different messages, based on the passage in the title of this post and also from the promise that God gives us all, in Jesus, whereby He has broken the chains that bind us and set us free to be able to give our thanks back to Him, to give my heart to God in gratefulness to my Savior, my Redeemer.

In the scenario from Matthew 6:21, instead of my heart being given back to God, there are 2 cents, a pittance,(a sad reflection on the lack of thankfulness to my Savior). Behind me is a treasure chest, filled with the things that take the place of God in my heart..and my heart is there also..."For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
I'd like to say that I am not really the person in the second scenario, but the truth is, I often AM... something I hope isn't as much as it was previously, but something that I still am working on in some aspects of my life.

The second scene will be used on Sunday at our Church, it will be placed near the entrance on a stand, we will place our pledge cards on the wooden tray the assemblage stands on, giving out of thankfulness at what God has given us. Hopefully our thankfulness will be manifest in what the first scenario of this assemblage shows, and not the pittance offering.

Assemblage Torso in Progress....

The latest project on my workbench is taking some time... and I suppose that is quite apropos since the title of this one will have the word time, or concept of time in it. Still thinking on the title...

But here is a sneak peak of just some of the elements...


...what is holding me up right now is the oil based stain I added to the torso...it's been 20 hours and it's almost as tacky as it was at the beginning... the directions said to allow 24 hours to dry, but I think I may have to allow 2 - 3 days and what's worse, as I sit here looking at it, I think I may want to put another coat of the dark stain on it (which means more days of drying time - and I'm not feeling much patience here to wait)...but then I'll have to add the many coats of polycrylic ..not to mention the attaching of wings, a branch of timely elements... a head of sorts, and arms attached to the head, as well as an insert in the "head" itself (which I am still not sure about)...But, I hope it turns out as well as it is showing in my mind's eye.

I'll be needing to put it aside for a day or two as well to get my treasurer's reports & bookkeeping done here... I hate that work interferes with my creativity!

Stay tuned for more in a day or two or three....

Stendhal Syndrome

I was surfing, looking for an old vintage photo of a face I might use for my latest torso assemblage here... and I came across this ailment... gee, I might have a form of this syndrome myself!!...either that or the fumes from the stain, gesso, modpodge and amazing goop are all getting to me..*L*


Stendhal syndrome or Stendhal's syndrome is a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is conclusion exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly 'beautiful' or a large amount of art is in a single place. The term can also be used to describe a similar reaction to a surfeit of choice in other circumstances, e.g. when shopping.

It is named after the famous 19th Century French Author Stendal (pseudonym of Henri-Marie Beyle), who described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to Florence, Italy in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio.

Although there are many descriptions of people becoming dizzy and fainting while taking in Florentine art, especially at the Uffizi, dating from the early 19th Century on, the syndrome was only named in 1979, when it was described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who observed and described more than 100 similar cases among tourists and visitors in Florence. The syndrome was first diagnosed in 1982.


The Stendhal syndrome was named after Henri-Marie Beyle (January 23, 1783 – March 23, 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal.

....off to try to find more vintage Florentine type photos/art....*swoons all faint like*

Does This Tape Measure Make My Butt Look Big??

I'm probably showing my age here, but waaaay back, many years ago, Art Linkletter had a cute program called, "Kids Say The Darndest Things", I think later on it was hosted by Bill Cosby too. It was cute to hear and see the things that kids came up with. My grandson is no exception in that department. Today, being Friday, it was Grandson Day!

So when Jeff arrived, and before Grampa John left for work, Jeff noticed his tape measure hanging off his belt and asked to see it. Jeff immediately went around pulling out the tape and measuring things around the house...one of them being a torso I had sitting out (a recent purchase from Good Will to be altered).
When Grampa John told him he needed the tape measure back because he had to go to work, Jeff was going to run off with it ..*L* I told him I would take him to the Dollar Store later and we'd get him his very OWN tape measure.... and so, we did.

As we were standing in line at the check-out, waiting for a woman in front of us, Jeff took his new tape measure, pulled it out sideways, and proceeded to measure the back side, rear end of the lady in line... heck what else was he suppose to do, eh? *L* That was what was immediately in his line of sight, sooooo....

It was all I could do to keep from laughing, but when I heard the snickers of the other people in line behind me as Jeff said, "Gramma, that's BIG!!" , I immediately diverted Jeff's attention away from measuring that particular item and onto measuring the cart I was pushing instead....whew! Glad the woman in front of us didn't see it or hear it... but it WAS funny!
I wish I would have had a camera at that moment... what a great photo THAT would have been! Ha!

ALL SAINTS SUNDAY ...sinners & saints...

Yesterday was All Saint's Sunday, (All Saints Day was actually Nov. 1st), and at our Church we invite adults and youth to come dressed as a saint of their choosing, join in the processional into Church, and then during the sermon time, we are invited up to tell a brief story about our saint.

Here are some of us, which included St. Francis, St. Bill the Deacon, St. John Leonardi, Saints of the Medical Professions, St. Miriam, and St. Ruth.

I represented Miriam, older sister of Moses & Aaron, who at age 10, helped save her brother Moses when he was a baby, and his mother had set him adrift in the Nile, it was Miriam who went to Pharaoh's daughter after she had found the baby in the basket, and told her she could get a nursemaid to help care for the baby. When Pharaoh's daughter agreed to that, Miriam went and got her mother to then care for the baby, thereby saving Moses' life and allowing her mother to care for her own son.

Later Miriam developed her leadership qualities as a prophetess and leader of songs - "Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her,with tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang to them, "Sing to The Lord, for He is highly exalted. The horse and its rider, He has hurled into the sea." (Exodus 15:20-21)

Some people thought I was trying to represent some flower child hippie of the 60's..*L* Far out, eh? PEACE!

One of the other Saints who came that day represented women suffragettes, and brought her message to get out and VOTE on Tuesday...very apropos for current times.