To blog or not to blog, was my one big question.
Keeping in touch on line, I thought might be one solution.
Can I reconnect with family and friends with no interruption, follow my blog and check out my life's celebration.
Last week we decided to take a short trip and spend a few days with my cousin who lives in Blaine, Washington. There were two reasons for the trip, not that we needed a reason. My hubby had ordered a few items that can only be shipped in the USA. Also he was checking one of his favorite store (tools, etc), and they were having a big sale. While we were visiting we helped my cousin remove an old microwave and install a new one. Since she was having some renovations done in her bathroom, my hubby helped a little bit and did a bit of demo. In appreciation for what he had done, my cousin took us to dinner at a Mexican restaurant which was recommended by one of her contractor. The food was amazing and the portions were huge. My entree was enough for two meals and I ended up having a box to go. What was very interesting about the restaurants was the very colorful and artistic chairs they have all over the place. There were a variety of different designs and I took some photos of my favorites. Since I am practicing my Spanish, I have named each of the chairs myself. LOL.
It has been a while since I have done any type of creative arts like painting bottles or acrylic painting on miniature canvas. Yesterday since it was a day off from golf, I decided to be a bit creative and productive. First I had to finish sewing a cell phone holder charger for my friend KL. That did not take long to complete since I had done a bunch of them before. After breakfast I decided to paint all the empty wine bottles that I have been collecting since the beginning of spring. There were a lot of these bottles so I decided to pick only ten to do and the rest, I ask Jeff to take them to the recycle depot. I have been wanting to paint my mini frames with something that I can decorate my laundry room. You are probably wondering who decorates a laundry room. Since I am the one doing our laundry, I thought it would be nice to have something to look at when I sort the clothes and each and every time I do our laundry. Now it is time to share what I have accomplished in one day. I could have done more, but I had to get dinner ready for a neighbor who was coming over.
The red ones will have Christmas theme, the ones in the middle will have dots and the last group will be either floral or scenery.
This is how it started,
And this is how it ends.
I might hang it this way instead of all in one row.
Now that I am used up all my mini canvas frames, I decided to get more at the dollar store. I thought if I have some of these done, it could be a nice gift for friends who are visiting. Of course I will only give it to them if they want to put it somewhere in their home. Some people don't like collecting stuff only to be placed in the box and never actually use it. That is why I am just keeping them until some one ask me for any of these paintings. So far I have done six and I have shared the two cactus one and the two flowery ones. This time I did a couple that are more like southwestern. It inspired me when I thought about my girlfriend from San Jose who moved to Albuquerque, NM. The idea is from some of the pictures I saw that are from that part of the state. I remember going through that area on our RV last year. Anyway, my friend who lives in Kelowna has some type of southwestern theme in her kitchen/dining room. Maybe she might like it. Otherwise, I will just keep it until someone asks for them.
Now you are probably going to say, it must be another snowy day. Correct. I need to make use of the days that I stay indoors and be productive. Since I have not done any painting since before Christmas, I took out the paint brushes, acrylic paints and four very small frames. You might ask, how small are there? They are 4 in. x 4 in ready to paint canvas from the Dollar store. I had done a couple for my sister while she was visiting and she really liked it. Now I am doing 4 for my room or for someone who might like it and it will become a gift (souvenir from my collections). The next project I completed was a sign for our front door. Since we have taken the Christmas decor from the front door, it looks empty. I needed to make something that will be great for all year round. Of course I would make up some other theme ones like (Valentines or Easter, etc), I actually got this idea from a floor mat that I saw at one of the stores. I wanted to get it but by the time we return to that particular store, they mats were gone. That is why I am making one as a door sign.
It just happens that we decided to come back to live in Canada this year when this country is celebrating it's 150th Anniversary of Confederation. There's still a lot of celebration going on probably till the end of the year. Since I have lived in Canada for over 35 years, it's really what I call home. While checking out some fabrics at a store called Fabricland, I notice they had a lot of materials celebrating Canada's birthday with some just the red and white maple leaf but there's a set that really caught my attention. In fact it was Jeff who noticed it first and gave me the idea on what to do with them. After checking it out, I thought of thinking things through but after two weeks, we went back since they had a big sale and we bought the fabrics. Jeff helped me with this project and we finally finished it last night and now we can say we are celebrating Canada's 150th anniversary in our own way. These are the two Territories I have lived (Northwest and Yukon) and two provinces (Ontario and British Columbia). Although I have visited almost all provinces except Newfoundland and have never visited nor lived in Nunavut, I am very happy to be back in the country I call home.
My sister sent me this as her house warming gift to us. It is very fitting as when we lived in Yellowknife we did see this scenery live.
Another very familiar scenery during the winter of children wearing their parkas and going to a small schoolhouse.
Happy Labor/Labour Day to my readers/followers in Canada/USA and other parts of the world, that is if I have readers/followers from that part. I am sure for those who area still working, this was a great weekend to catch up with everything as well as getting the children ready for school. It is also a good time to clean up areas in the house and start thinking of the next season and maybe even do some decorating. That reminded me that I need to change the flag in our front garden. Anything and everything today means I will just share a bunch of things that I have been doing around our new home. It is still pretty new because we have been here for only one month and 4 days. Hopefully you'll enjoy these photos. They are all part of my labour day weekend projects.
This is an oil painting on satin fabric my cousin Mallu gave me. I used a piece of plywood with batting under.
The new bar stools and dining room chairs needed some booties, so I crocheted 12 and need another 16.
Bought this plain heart shaped wood and I painted it using acrylics from the Dollar store.
As well as this old napkin holder I bought for 25 cents, I used the left over paint from the door.
The California winter is here and that means rain in our area. It's cloudy, dreary and wet which means it's pretty well an indoor kind of day. What else can I do but stay at home and complete some of the chores. Aside from completing an abundance of paperwork, there's always cleaning and tidying up. While I was trying to find some information that I needed to complete some of the forms, I stumble upon a photo of a drawing I did a very long time ago. Probably sometime in 1989 when we first got our first computer at work. There was no real training nor class that was given. Basically he said to me to just play with it and you will get comfortable using it. The first program that I notice was called Paintbrush, does anyone remember them. Everyday after I have processed and completed the files that was assigned to me, I would work on my one piece of drawing. I thought since I like working with colors and brushes, I began drawing one fruit at a time then added some of the shades to give it some dimension. In a way I am so glad I have kept this copy because I have put a lot of time and details on this piece. Now that I have been retired for over five years, I am contemplating on taking up this hobby but not on computer but on real canvas. With all the different variety of craft store that's available, I could start on smaller canvas to see if I could still do it. There's also a few painting classes offered at the senior community center that I could try. Here's the paintbrush picture that I completed from 1989.
Can you identify all the different type of fruits?
When Jeff is working from home, I am always amazed at how colorful his computer screens are. It's not really the desktop or wallpaper, it is the current printed circuit board he is working on. It starts with just a plain board. Then he reads some sort of schematics and he starts placing different types of components. I believe he starts with one layer and it ends up with a whole lot more layers by the time it's ready for release. Let me see if I can remember the terminology of the board just from hearing him talk to some engineers or when he comes home and has to vent, here are some of them.
Annular ring
DRC
Drill hit
Mouse bite
Finger
Panel
Paste stencil
Pad
Plane
Pick and place
Slot
Solder
Thermal
Trace
Via
Not really sure what each one does but some of these I kinda get it. So I took a photo of one of the board that he was working on. In case you are wondering what Jeff does, here's an example. It takes a lot of patience and a very detail oriented person to do this type of job.
What happens when your BFF comes to visit? You end up staying late the first couple nights because you have so many stories to share. That is exactly what happened. TL arrived on Friday night and we stayed up till midnight just to catch up with our short stories but that did not stop us from getting up early on Saturday. We had our CPBB special breakfast to give us our energy for the A la carte and arts festival in Mountain View. Before we headed out, I decided to give TL one of my special manicure. Check it out.
I started with a pale pink base, then an off centered white line and ended with three silvery moon beam dots.
On the way to the festival after parking our car, we stumbled upon the remnants of a garage sale. Bargains to be had!!! What I learned from my daughter is that expression "you snooze you lose". I was not looking for more furniture but this cutest little desk was an offer too good to refuse. To sweeten the deal, they threw in an otter music box for free for the visiting Canuck who was wearing a pashmina in 80 degree weather??
My garage sale bargain - $5
The icing on the cake - free souvenir that plays "You are my Sunshine" - perfect from California.
There are many more days of fun ahead, we have to pace ourselves. My friend TL doesn't even know that I am going to make her do the Just Dance 3 with me. I wonder if she would like this dance.
