Resolve



Sunrise from our balcony at
Disney's Wilderness Lodge

It took a week away from home for me to realize some things about my life. Vacations are restorative, fun and, if you go to Disney World, immersive. Even on vacation, or maybe especially on vacation, I require a long wake-up time. Early mornings with my coffee cup in the quiet resort hotel suite gave me time to sort my thoughts about the previous day, look at our vacation photos, and plan for the day ahead. It also gave me the time to contemplate other things...especially how I structure and use the time I have every day at home. Away from the familiar surroundings of my house, yard and community, I could visualize days ahead spent in more comforting and productive ways...days with greater purpose for me and everyone with whom I cross paths. The goals and resolutions will still be listed on lined paper, highlighted, reviewed, rearranged, revised, and probably sometimes ignored; but for the most part I'll try to be more mindful and purposeful in my daily thoughts and actions. My keyword for 2019 is, and will be throughout the year, "resolve".


So, having arrived home with my heart warmed by time on vacation with family, and a fresh perspective on how I want the new year to unfold, I can say with enthusiasm that I am looking forward more to this new year than I can remember in the last few years. I am planning to tackle things that I have put off for a long time. Even though I have been trying to purge closets and cubby holes, there is still a lot of stuff I need to deal with. So, purging will be my January focus. This time I will not try to purge, but I will purge. There is a big difference in those two words, "try" and "will". By the end of the month, many things will be moved out either by donating them, tossing them, or selling them. When February rolls around, in just 25 days, I will work on something different and will work on it for the entire month. I don't know yet what it will be, but it will be immersive, like a Disney World vacation and hopefully my new approach will find me at the end of each month with a sense of comfort from my purposeful and productive approach.


Last year I stepped away from some organizations and from making commitments that would take away from my life with my husband. After four years of his attentive continual care-giving following my surgeries and hospitalizations, he deserved a break. The focus needed to change from being on me to being on him. The year was happy and uneventful. Of course, we had some things come up from time to time that complicated our days and challenged us. There were many opportunities for learning and better ways to do things we have always done the same old way. My decision to focus in 2018 on my husband and our home was a good one. It gave us our lives back and we returned to some normalcy. Now that I feel like I have my feet back on the ground, I hope to get involved again in organizations and activities that I enjoy. But for now, I need to focus on my January resolve and start purging.


Thank you for taking the time to read my post. As always, your questions and comments are welcome here on my blog or on Facebook. I will read them and respond. I hope you and those you love are happy and healthy as you begin this new year. And until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the Hollow of His hand.


Emmy

Happy New Year!

Here's to a wonderful new year of old and new traditions, happy times with friends and family, and the hope that a new year brings. New Year's Day has always been a bigger deal to me than New Year's Eve. I have written before about my upbringing on a farm. On New Year's Eve, my parents and we children would cluster around the black and white TV and see the old year out and the new year in with Guy Lombardo. On New Year's Day we would have a big dinner, much like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and invite relatives to join us. It was a nice way to begin the many new years that we shared as a family. I miss those New Year's Day gatherings. The hustle and bustle of getting the dinner ready by noon, or one o'clock at the latest . . . farmers eat at regular times, even on holidays . . ., the warm yeast rolls just out of the oven, the relish tray filled with home-canned pickles, cauliflower, beets and other delights, The huge dishes of mashed potatoes, hubbard squash, fresh applesauce, cabbage salad -- never coleslaw -- , a ham or turkey, and my mother's scalloped oysters, followed by lemon meringue pie, mincemeat pie and pumpkin pie. After dinner there was a card game in the kitchen for the men and canasta in the dining room for the women. And later on, there might be time for the ladies to get their handwork out and do some crocheting or knitting or sewing little stuffed pincushions in cute animal shapes. I loved watching them and learning from them. Their hands were never idle and I was the happy recipient of so many things that their hands made for me.


Of course, the glitz of a New Year's Eve party always looked appealing to the little farm girls sitting on the floral-patterned rug in front of the big TV in our living room. As I got older I attended a few of those kinds of parties, and while it was fun to dress up and toast to the new year, it never gave me the same feeling of contentment as those New Year's Eves and New Year's Days on the farm. And living in Western New York means you may end up wearing a down parka over your glamorous sparkly dress and carrying your pretty high heels in your hands while you trudge through the snow in your ugly boots with lug soles. It can be pretty cold and snowy on December 31st and it kind of takes away from the dramatic feeling of making a grand entrance when you walk into the party bundled up like you are going on the the Iditarod Trail!

If you would like a closer look, click on the photo.

Happy New Year Wreath

Whatever way you celebrate this new year, I hope it is spent doing something that gives you a feeling of contentment. I have learned it is okay to celebrate and commemorate special days in my own way, with my own traditions and rituals. If you have special new year's traditions or stories you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them!


As always, I hope you and those you love are happy and healthy. Your questions and comments are welcome and if you comment here on my blog, or on Facebook, I will respond. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post today and, until we meet again, may the Lord bless you and hold you in the hollow of His hand.


Emmy

More Christmas and Winter Wreaths!

Christmas was just five days ago, but it seems like it was longer than that. I have been transitioning out of the Christmas mode and getting ready for the next season of wreath making, crafting and quilt making! My most creative time of year is during the winter. I am not housebound and on nice days I like to get outside; but on snowy days, I really enjoy staying home and hunkering down and making things. It is also the time of year when ideas for writing short stories and essays come to me. I like to think winter is the time that God gave us to rest, just like the earth does. When springtime comes, I can hardly wait to get outdoors and smell the fresh earth as it awakens from its long winter sleep. For now, though, I am so happy to be inside making things while it snows and the rooms are filled with the reflected light from the snow-covered ground.


To catch you up with what has been happening in my studio, here are some photos of wreaths that needed to be gifted before posting here on my blog. I would hate to ruin a surprise by posting too soon.

Please click on the photos below if you want a closer look.

After Christmas has passed and we get into January, I love the look of cool blues, whites and silver. This wreath just screams cold winter days to me! Brrrrrrrr!

A custom order for someone who saw the wreath I donated to the Gateway Home Winterfest fund raiser. You can see the other wreath I am referring to here:  https://studioemmy.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-no-autumn-autumn.html  This one is a bit fuller and fancier with a few more embellishments than the one I donated. Buffalo check and the little red truck was very popular this Christmas season.

A bit simpler style winter-theme wreath, than the one pictured above. As it turned out, the colors of the ribbons and mesh I used in this one matched the recipient's living room perfectly! Wreaths can be made without a center ornament and still be very pretty. This one is very calming in those denim-like shades of blue.

There are only two more days left in 2018. Something my husband and I like to do is write down a few of the highlights of the past year and share them with each other while the old year passes. When we look back at our calendar, a lot has happened in the last 365 days. Some days were wonderful and some were challenging. But the good news is we survived. We definitely learned many new things, thanks to new experiences, people we have met, our smart phones and Google. If you want to know about something, it is as close as your fingertips. That is a wonderful thing about technology and expands our knowledge and spurs us on to new interests.


As always, I look forward to hearing back from you with any questions or comments you may wish to share. You can comment here on my blog or on Facebook. I read all the comments and will respond.


I hope the close of the year brings you a sense of peace and that the promise of 2019 fills you with hope. May you and those you love enjoy good health and happiness, and until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the hollow of His hand.


Emmy

An old adage proves to be true . . .

There is that old saying "if you want something done, give it to a busy person". I believe this is accurate and I have experienced it in business and in various volunteer organizations. This is the first Christmas in 5 years that my husband and I have not been impacted by me having surgery or convalescing from surgery. Looking back, we both wonder how we got through those years or got anything done. They were very challenging, especially when almost every time I needed to see my surgeon for checkups last winter, the weather was blizzard like, which made the 45 minute drive to his office a white-knuckled ride. I am very grateful for wonderful surgeons who have helped me get to where I am now . . . healthy again. And even more grateful for my husband, who did everything for me to assure my recovery was the best it could be. From grocery shopping, drug store runs, listings and sales for our real estate business, to nursing care, cooking and cleaning, my husband more than stepped up to the plate. He was my guardian angel. Nobody could ever give me better care than he did. It was demanding and tiring, but not once did he utter a discouraging word, complain or leave me needing anything. He was there for me at all hours. He sat up with me on the tough nights and somehow held it all together.




So, this summer and fall, when Christmas was in the distant future, we were sure this would be more like the kinds of Christmases we used to have . . . before 2014. We'd go to the theater, enjoy long leisurely lunches and dinners while out Christmas shopping, and visit some favorite places that make the holidays more special. But, this Christmas, without the urgency of pre-planning because we knew we'd be quite impacted by me being housebound and him my caregiver, we kind of just drifted through the fall and suddenly, it was almost Christmas! Happily, we had gifts in mind for most people on our Christmas list, so we got to work on shopping and mailing things out. We put the final gift in the mail yesterday with a guaranteed delivery in time for Christmas. Decorations are partly up, but there is much more I want to do. I think that I will be able to focus on those things now that I am finished with gifts!


Because it is the Christmas season, I only show photos of wreaths on my blog after the intended recipient has opened them, like the one below. After Christmas, I will post others, . . . and the new year will bring more designs and wreaths. Watch for Winter-themed, Valentines, Mardi Gras, Easter and Springtime wreaths! I am excited about the new year and what it will hold. I am already taking special orders. :-)

Click on the photos below if you want a closer look.

"Nutcracker Christmas Wreath"

Side view to show the wreath's depth.

My husband and I love the Christmas season, with the special festivities, the pretty lights on people's houses, and our home with our big Christmas tree and all our cherished ornaments. We might make some cookies and decorate them this weekend. We plan to have a nice day here at home, just the two of us, on Christmas. We will make a special breakfast, open presents, and later in the day we will have a special dinner. We will hear the voices of our family members, who all live in other states, when they call; and we will spend the evening enjoying the warmth of the fireplace and the glow of the lights on the tree. We will cue up a favorite old Christmas movie and that will be our Christmas day.




We aren't looking for any more years to be like the last 4, but we are looking forward to being busy and having our lists made by the end of summer, our decorations and purchases taken care of and being ready earlier than this year for Christmas. I think that having things going on, like surgeries and the sense of the unknown recovery time that followed, required  us to be better planners and do-ers. It turned us into the busy people who got things done, instead of the content and complacent couple we have been this year, who just kind of drifted into the holidays. In some ways, we were more ready and on our game then, than this year when we've had good health and the gift of time to carry out our plans . . . had we made any!




Regardless, we are still enjoying every minute of it and the next 4 days will be filled with the fun stuff we have been putting off. So here's to Christmas! I hope yours will be merry.




Thank you for taking the time from your busy day to read my blog. As always, your questions and comments are welcome. You can post them below, or on Facebook. I will read them and respond. And until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the hollow of His hand.




Emmy

"The No-Autumn Autumn"

Autumn weather went missing this year. It threw me off balance and now I am feeling like I need to play catch up in the gardens, which are still snow covered, but might see the light of day during the warm spell we will have this weekend. The weatherman is predicting a balmy 43 degrees and partial sun for tomorrow! Even though I knew what the calendar on the wall was telling me, I experienced a disconnect between the date and the weather. Out of the 30 days in November, only 4 were without rain or snow! The odd weather patterns fooled the trees into holding on to their leaves, and they did not drop until mid November when we had a hard freeze. They all came down at once, leaving a deep mushy mess on the yard and gardens. Too wet to rake, the brown waterlogged leaves laid on the ground . . . heavy and slippery to walk on. I continued to wait to go outside to do a few things and lost track of the passing of the month until I flipped the calendar page. December arrived . . . right on time and just as promised. Then, it became very cold and snowed. It boggles my mind that today is December 14th! Fall will be officially over in one week when we observe the winter solstice. The best news about that day is that the days will slowly start to get longer. The darkness at the end of the day will fade during winter into spring light. But for now . . . I am playing catch up inside, not outside, since I put off my annual autumn inside chores while I waited for it to arrive. But, do I really have anything to complain about? The answer is "no." When I think about some of the news I have received this week about people who are having serious health concerns, my problems are minuscule and while I pray for them to be comforted during their trials, I thank God for sparing me the unimaginable heartache that is theirs to bear 24/7. There, but for the grace of God, go I.




While I spent the days inside in limbo, awaiting beautiful autumn days that never came, I continued to hone my wreath-making skills. Here are a few I can now show you because they have been given to their recipients. Each of the wreaths is approximately 24 inches across and about 6 to 7 inches deep.

Click on the photos to enlarge them, if you want a closer look.

"Let it Snow"

This wreath can be left up well after Christmas! My husband liked it so much, he asked if we could keep it for ourselves.

Since he has chauffeured me around Buffalo on countless shopping trips for the materials I needed, and has been my sole design consultant, I think he is more than a deserving recipient of this one! 💖

"Little Red Truck"

I donated this to the Gateway House in Attica, New York, for their basket raffle event during the Attica Winterfest. It sports the very popular little red truck and Buffalo check that you find just about everywhere this Christmas!



"Merry Christmas"

I made this for my sister and her husband. It made the trip across the country in one piece! My sister has a Santa collection, so I thought this would be the perfect accompaniment to go with it

Part of today will be spent getting more of the house decorated for Christmas. Even though we are behind schedule, we are not going to let the joy of decorating be diminished by any feelings of being late. Every year just can't be the same, and they never really are. So while we listen to Christmas carols, watch Christmas movies and eventually get all, or just about all, the decorations put up, we will rejoice that we are able to spend one more Christmas season together and pray for those who are having challenges and difficulties that are sometimes made larger by the existence of all the merriment surrounding them.


During this season of advent, I am grateful for you, my readers, for taking time out of your busy days to read my posts, and I will keep you close in prayer, hoping that your holiday will be one of comfort and joy. As always, your questions and comments are welcome. You can leave a comment below or on Facebook. I will read it and respond. And until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the palm of His hand.


Emmy

Mid-November . . .

This morning, as I sit down at my computer to write this post, we are experiencing some bone-chilling temperatures. Thank goodness for our fireplace insert. It keeps our house warm while we await the installation of a new boiler to power our steam heating system. There is really never a good time for your furnace to quit, but this was a much better time of year than in the middle of December, January, or February! We will be toasty warm in a few days and, if this boiler has as long a life as the last one, well . . . let's just say, it will be another 35 or so years before the next owners need to replace it.


And, while I am on the subject of goodbyes, I will mention how hard it was for us to say goodbye to our 2001 pickup truck this week. It has served us well, but it was at that age where we weren't going to invest in more repairs to keep it road worthy. We have used that truck for taking trips up and down the east coast, moving furniture, hauling mulch around the back yard and countless other things. We both agree it rode better than any car we have ever ridden in, including a few very fancy rigs. We were happy the young family that purchased it can put it to good use and enjoy it.


Gardening is definitely off my To Do List now; but it would be nice to have just a few more days of warmish weather to plant our spring bulbs. They arrived in the mail just before we had weeks of cold and rain, and we thought that we would get them in the ground before now. But, I have planted bulbs in very cold weather in the past and they were fine. I convinced my husband that we needed an auger that he can put on his cordless drill to dig the holes, so I am sure he is very enthused about this new bulb planting project. There are only 200+ holes to drill! ;-)


I have been making wreaths and spent a lot of time over the past few months watching tutorials and assembling the components for various themed wreaths. There is an endless array of materials you can use and it is fun to see how they turn out. Of course, sometimes what I plan is nowhere near what I end up with, but that is all part of the adventure of making things with your own creativity. I have learned through crafting and quilting that I need to embrace the opportunities for creativity when things don't go as planned. In my early days of learning to sew at my Aunt Mabel's knee, I learned perfection was the goal. I don't want to even begin to count how many seams and zippers I had to rip out when she was teaching me to sew! Aunt Mabel could sew anything. She made her own custom slipcovers for her furniture, with encased seams and piping, that rivaled anything from a store. Her dressmaking skills were excellent and she showed me how to alter patterns to get a perfect fit. The clothes that she and her sister, my Aunt Blanche, made for my sister and me were beautiful and I still have one dress she made for me when I was about 3 years old. Often our dolls sported matching dresses to ours. We were very lucky little girls.

For a closer look, you can click on the photos.

Welcome! 

After watching several tutorials, I tried my hand at a fall-themed wreath.



So, I bring the skills and the caring that I was given by Aunt Mabel to all of my handwork. I like to do a good job and I know I always need to practice, but I also know there is room for error and that is okay. Like I said, I need to embrace those times as opportunities. Walking away and doing something else for a while is often all I need to get a better perspective and when I return to my project, I can usually come up with a solution.


While researching how to make wreaths, I discovered there are several other ways to use my newly learned skills for other projects. I decided I would decorate the lantern that has been residing on the stairs. I have never given it much thought as it sat there naked and cold. But, now it has a cloak of flowers and ribbons and a flameless candle to keep it warm . . . figuratively, at least.

I gathered the florals and ribbons I wanted to use for the lantern swag.



Lantern Swag
After a couple of attempts, I was satisfied with the results.



Different View
The view of the lantern from my chair in the living room.
You can see the bottom half of the floral portion that is hidden behind the ribbons in the photo above.

When I started to make a birthday card for my youngest grandchild, I was given many creative opportunities! Luckily, I started planning and sketching and shopping early; so when it came time to implement my ideas, there was time to regroup and take a different tack.

My granddaughter likes fairies. And now that she is 14, she may not be as interested in fairies for much longer! So, I decided that her card this year would have a fairy theme that would also incorporate a few of her other interests.

For a few weeks, I gathered the components I thought would work for a fairy-themed card and placed them in a box so I could find them when I sat down to start. Sometimes half the battle when I make things in my studio with all the little doo-dads that go on a project, is finding which bottle they are in! I try to stay organized and label things, but, well,. . . . it doesn't always work! So, my solution is to gather everything up and keep it together while I am deciding on how to approach whatever it is I want to make. You see, I can really make things quite complicated, can't I? I mean, for heaven's sake! It is just a birthday card!



Welcome to the Fairy Forest!

I found this cute fairy door at Michaels. I had the butterflies and dragon flies in my stash, along with the little bottles that a crafting friend sent to me from Texas. The background is watercolor paper that is stenciled with layers of various colors of stamping ink to give it that misty look of the interior of a forest. The greenery is cut from a die of sparkly cardstock and layered to resemble the forest floor.



 

Fairy Dust

I am sure that any good little fairy would have these in her arsenal.

Two of the bottles have nail art decorations inside that came in the bottles. I filled the other one with glitter.

A peek inside a little fairy's domain.

14 butterflies flutter above the clothesline where the fairies hang their skirts to dry.

A closer view.

The clothes poles are fashioned of wire and held by butterflies.

I took this little fairy and her books home with me from Michaels.

 

She enjoys reading.

The little fairy sits among some of her favorite books, just like my granddaughter who loves to read, surrounds herself with books.

This ended up being a rather long post . . . once again, . . . but I hope you enjoyed reading it and seeing the photos. I appreciate the fact that you have taken the time out of your day to read my blog and it is my wish for you and those you love that you enjoy today and everyday in good health and happiness.


Thank you for stopping by. Your comments and questions are welcome. I do read them and will respond. And, as always, may the Lord bless you and hold you in the hollow of His hand.


Emmy

Themed Birthday Cards

If you have read my blog before, you may already know that I like to make greeting cards. The cards I make are kind of a hybrid I have come up with that combine what I have learned over the past several years . . . thanks to the hundreds of paper crafting and mini album tutorials I have watched on YouTube. I have a lot of supplies for making cards and really enjoy coming up with a theme for each recipient. And even though I have most of the materials on hand that I need, I still enjoy doing a little shopping for a few special components. 😉


When one of our grandsons came to visit us for several days this summer, one of the things he liked was playing Monopoly. It is possibly my least favorite board game, so I bowed out and listened from afar while he and his grandfather played game after game. They really enjoyed their time together. Being one-on-one with our grandchildren means so much to us, and we know the kids really enjoy it, too. There is no better way to get to know each other than having the gift of time together. There is no substitute for it. Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, to name a few social media platforms, have their purpose and are useful for certain kinds of communication, but cannot replace the time spent in the physical presence of another person. Period. So much gets lost in the translation when communication is via a keyboard and a selfie. Body language, facial expressions, the sound of someone's voice are all missing with those modes of communication; and the give and take of a real-time interaction is missed when there is a lapse of minutes to days while you await a response from someone electronically. I'm not the first person to write about this . . . and I won't be the last, but I will always be one of the first to agree that being in the same room and experiencing things together is the best way to make memories with our grandchildren. We remember times we did things together much more than text messages or emails we shared. It takes planning, prioritizing and effort to build relationships, but the payoff is priceless.


So, when our grandson's birthday rolled around this year, I knew what theme I wanted to use for his card. I just needed to figure out how I would make it! After some Internet research for images, I settled on a small travel-size game I found online. I ordered it and used some of the components from the game for the card. It is pictured below. You can click on the photos to enlarge them if  you want a closer look.



I used watercolor paper for the card base.
It folded at the top, so it could stand alone, tent-style.



On the inside of the card, above the fold, I adhered the sentiment that I printed on card stock. Below the fold, I placed a card that resembled a property card in the Monopoly game, and used his first name as the property name. Of course, I made the color of the property card blue, just like the most expensive properties on the board! I used the little Monopoly money that came with the game and cut and matted some of the packaging, too. Not pictured are a Community Chest and a Chance card I made and tucked behind the Monopoly money with some funny little remarks on them that I thought he would get a kick out of.



Oh . . . and yes, he loved the card. 😊 In fact, he asked me for advice on how he could hang it on his wall in his room at college. 💓 This made me realize I need to include a hanger of some kind on the cards I make.




The next birthday card I made was for my step-son. He enjoys doing yard work, so we chose a gift for him that he could use in his yard. To go with the gift, I came up with a card that went along with the yard work theme and the season of the year.

For the card, I used Tim Holtz grunge board to make the tree shape and painted it with acrylic paints to resemble the color of a tree trunk. I made the "bark" by embossing the tree trunk with a script embossing folder running up the tree, instead of across. The tree branches were cut from grunge board using a dye that resembles bushes. The background is watercolor paper that I painted with acrylic paint to resemble grass and sky. I glued the grunge board branches and leaves to the background and then glued down the wooden fence that I dyed with Tim Holtz Distress Stain. I found a little basket and a garden tools set in the miniatures section at Michaels. I cut the basket in half and wired it to the fence. I stained the rake handle and wired and glued that to the fence, also. I used pop dots behind the fence. When I had everything attached to the background, I used glue and double sided craft tape to adhere it to the front of the corrugated card. I like the dimension on the card front.

On the inside of the card, I used parchment paper for the sentiment. (I knew there was a good reason I saved that nice resume paper from way back when!) I adhered more of the leaves that I had punched out on the top portion of the insert and adhered it to the card with double-sided craft tape.

When my grandchildren shared with me this past year that they've kept the cards I've made for them, it warmed my heart. I wasn't sure they kept them or if they realized how much thought and effort . . .  and love . . . went into each one. I hope they will continue to keep them and enjoy looking at them from time to time, the same way that I do when I look at the handmade cards and gifts that I have saved over my lifetime. It always humbles me and I get a little emotional when I think that they were made especially for me. And like all of us, I get pretty busy sometimes; but when I slow down and spend time with my treasures and hold them in my hands, it brings me a feeling of comfort. It is always nice way to spend a little time alone with the memories they hold, to think back to when I received them and about the hands that made them.


Thank you for taking the time to read this post. There will be more handmade cards in future posts. Your questions and comments are welcome, either in the "comments" section below, or on my Facebook page. I will read them and respond.


As always, it is my hope that you and those you love are happy and healthy . . . and that you are finding ways to spend time with those who are important in your life. Thanks again for stopping by, and until we meet again, may the Lord bless you and hold you in the hollow of His hand.


Emmy