Decorating for Christmas

When I was in college, I worked at a mom and pop type jewelry store. As Thanksgiving approached, we were getting excited to see what Mary Claire planned for Christmas decorations. Unlike now, Christmas decorations didn't appear until after Thanksgiving. The Sunday after Thanksgiving was the big day for decorating the store. Dale, Mary Claire, and the other employees, all two of us, reserved that day for decorating each year.

These are some tiles that I made for Christmas. The little moon like thing at the bottom isn't there. That is just the flash. These are a maroon tile that I can no longer find at either of the big two stores. I am going to keep looking when I am out of the area to see if other stores have them.

Petal Pizazz

I know earlier I have a post entitled Raspberry Tart which is the paper that I used on most of these cards. Those cards had a lot of butterflies while these focus more on flowers. This SU set is called Petal Pizazz. Hope I spelled that right.

Adventurine and Freshwater Pearls

Here are two versions of an adventurine and freshwater pearl necklace. The adventurine is exactly the same in both pieces. The summer version has white pearls and the fall version is done with pearls that have been dyed brown.

Happy Thanksgiving

One of our friends is going to her family for Thanksgiving, so her husband will be eating with us. We are having just a basic Thanksgiving meal, no special foods. Most holiday recipes make way too much for just the three of us.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family, friends, and blog followers.

We have fishies!!!

Those of you who know me will be amazed, I finished the pond, not on time, but early! Wow!!

I installed it today and am including picture of that process and the completed pond. It looked so good that one of mom's cats came over to see if she could have sushi for lunch.

The first picture is as I start the installation. In the next you can see why I had holes in some of the stones. All ponds have plants that stick out of the water, in this case an iris from our backyard. The next two are of the lower and upper pond areas. Then one of all ten stones in place and a final picture of the completed pond. Mom's cat is peeking in on the lower right. It was a fun project though it took alot of time.

There is one error in the pond that I didn't notice until I looked at the pictures. I fixed it but Sue says to offer free blog candy to the first to post a comment with what is wrong in the pond. Good luck.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today would have been my dad's 92nd birthday. He was a coffee drinker, but only for breakfast. He had a very big coffee cup that probably held 2 cups of coffee. He liked the big cup because he was also a dunker. He especially liked to dunk my mom's homemade raisin cookies. My friend Anna loaned me this set to make some coffee tiles which I will post soon. I looked for ideas on Splitcoast but they didn't have this set but a similar one. So I used those cards as my inspiration. The one on the left in the first picture uses a little scrap Whitney gave me. That is all I have of it and it was just enough. I thought it looked like steam.

A finished stone

Not really! After popping the stone out of the mold and removing the contact paper, this is what you have. It's a mess! No fear, a little water on a rag and some scrubbing will clean up most things. The goal is to get all of the concrete off the glass and it really comes off fairly easy. A few more washes to shine it up and you are done. At this point I will go back and fill in any cracks between glass where the concrete didn't go. Sort of like putting grout on a tile floor. After that, clean it again and it is done. I'm still hoping to unveil the complete project by Thanksgiving. I have a show tonight and will get back late so working on it tomorrow is dependant on how I feel. (Which is dependant on how I do tonight)

Next posting will be more on plants and jewelry and cards until the pond is done. Bye.

cement

The glass is all cut and now it is time to make the stone. The glass is placed on contact paper, good side down, and then placed in the mold. For this project I am using a hexagon shape so these will fit nice together. This particular stone has two fish and then some unique things in it. There are some stones along one edge to give the pond a more natural look and then there is going to be a hole in the middle for something. You will see why in the completed project. I am using a plastic jar to create the hole, that is the white round thing in the middle.

Then it's time to mix the concrete. I am using a quick dry concrete mix from Home Depot. I mix up a half of a fifty pound bag for each stone. Just pour into a bucket, add water and stir. No special tools, I use a garden trowel. When mixed put some on the glass and gently level it off. Fill the mold about half full and then spread the concrete. Move it around to fill the corners and push it into the spaces between the glass. I sometimes use a mortar mix, it is the same without the stones. it fills the cracks easier but is not as strong. In this case with the number of stones I'm making, I opted for strength and will fill in any spaces at the end with mortar.

I put a wire mesh into the stone at this point for added durability and then pour the rest of the concrete. Again smooth it out and set it it dry. It is not important to get it perfectly smooth, I'm just going to be putting it on the ground after all. The concrete dries in about 30 minutes but I leave it overnight. This gives me time to work on the next stone and do other things around the house. More tomorrow.

Cutting Glass

After transferring the pattern to the glass, the obvious next step is cutting the glass. Each glass breaks differently. Some snap perfect every time, others are a real pain, very brittle and send chips flying all the time. Fortunately for me, I picked stuff that breaks nice. There are over 50 pieces in each stepping stone so this is a time consuming project.



They say that you dont have to grind the glass for stepping stones. The sharp edges are encased in concrete so it doesn't have to be perfect. I grind anyhow. I have the pictures reversed, the second one is after cutting, the top one after grinding. First off, I don't play with glass all the time so my cutting skills are a little rusty. Also I was never perfect anyway. Grinding just allows you to smooth out the rough spots and get neater results. Look at the differences in the lower fin for example.
After cutting, you place the glass good side down on contact paper to go into the mold. This keeps the glass from shifting when you pour the concrete. More about that later though. Bye for now.

Back to the Garden

The next step in the stone involves the glass. I mentioned before that I had to choose what colors I wanted to use. This is compounded by two factors, one unique to stepping stones. That is, glass looks different when it is up against concrete that with light flowing through it. The other is that all glass has a grain to it that you have to consider. With these two ideas in mind the next step is to choose the glass and then transfer the pattern to it for cutting. I sometimes use a lightbox for this but this time I chose to cut out the pattern and then trace each piece directly on to the glass. I cut the pattern with special shears that cut a wider line out between pieces. This allows the concrete to get between the glass when pouring. After copying the pattern you then cut the glass to shape.

More later. Today I wanted to show a few of the more unusual plants that we used. The first picture is a little out of focus (sorry) but is a "bat faced" cupthea. If you look closely, the red petals are the ears and is looks like a bat.

Jasper Necklace

I know some of you are looking for an update on the garden and waterless fish pond. Be patient, it is coming. We had a show all weekend. I am letting him post his project as I don't know much about it.

There are some people though that follow the blog to see jewelry or my paper projects, so I try to post some of each. If you are a client looking for jewelry, just keep scrolling down the page.

This necklace is sterling silver and jasper.

Thanksgiving Tiles

These make a great little gift to bring to your Thanks-giving Day hostess. Whitney taught me how to make these last year. Several of my friends now have one. All but the turkey are Stampin Up rubber stamps. The tiles you can buy at any of the home improvement stores. We probably got ours at Home Depot.

Turquoise

We found the pendant for this necklace and figured it would be easy to match to other beads. I think that is when we first realized how hard it can be to match stones. We finally did find the other beads and they are a perfect match. The pendant is wire wrapped and fresh water pearls add a contrasting color.

glass and concrete

The waterless fish pond is an extension of stained glass stepping stones. I have planned ten hexagonal stones that will sit side by side and create a fish pond. It has two levels, the upper level has lily pads and flowers and a small waterfall to the lower pond which has a variety of koi and other fish.

The first step is to draw out the pattern for your stones. This is the hardest step for me. I can copy anything and am pretty good with crafts but don't ask me to draw. Never took art and can't do it. So I search the web and find pictures that I like and then interpret them. Anyway, first you have to sketch out your plan and draw it lifesize on paper. This is the pattern for the project. This took me a couple of days of research and playing around till I came up with what I liked. Todays second picture shows four of these patterns laid out like they will be in the completed pond. These are the upper pond. The left most drawing should be rotated slightly. Sorry about that.
After this the next step is to choose the glass for your project.  I had to consider what colors go together and which I had enough of to complete the project. Each stone is about 16 inches in diameter so they will take a lot of glass. Blue for water was the largest needed. I hope I have enough. I really didn't want to have to buy more, one reason for this project was to use up some of this glass. Well, thats enough for today. More later.

Front yard garden

This year we lost 5 oak trees in our front yard. They said it was a combination of age, drought for the last three years, and then the heavy rains we had in June. So my project since labor day has been to replace them and build a garden around the new trees. We eliminated a good chunk of grass and hopefully planted things that are more drought tolerant and Florida friendly.

Well, the last plants are in and all that is left to do is a little bit of edging along the sidewalk, and the fish pond. These pictures are taken from the upstairs window of the new garden. In either picture if you look at the two rings of plants around the trees, between them is where the fish pond is going. Now, I killed the last fish I tried to keep and sold the tank. So...

This is going to be a waterless fish pond. I will post more about the garden and the pond in the next few weeks. It will take a while longer to finish the pond anyway. As this is a craft blog, I will explain the craft involved in the pond as I go.

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day and not just a reason to have off from work or school. Our veterans are the reason that we have all of our freedoms. Be sure to thank them for their service.

Two weeks ago I attended a Cards for the Troops event. Over 3000 cards were made by volunteers. They will be sent to our troops so that they will be able to have a Christmas card to send back to their family.

This stained glass pattern was designed by Lisa Vogt, a glass artist, after September 11. All proceeds were donated to charity. Jim used the pattern to make this piece which hangs proudly in our front window year round.

I Wonder

This is a picture that we took in June when we were in Alaska. It was taken on the way to the Yukon in Canada.

This past Saturday we did a craft show, temperature 89 degrees. A woman came by and saw the scrapbook tin that I made as a sample with my Alaska pictures. She had just talked to a friend in Alaska as she was walking around the show. Temperature in Alaska was 8 degrees. I wonder what this spot looks like in the winter? I know I wouldn't be in jeans and a T-shirt with a sweatshirt just wrapped around me.

Fall Cards

I made the card on the left at card class with Lisa. I don't have the leaf set or the background stamp. So, when I got home I made the one on the right using the stamps and die cuts that I have. This would make a nice Thanksgiving card by just changing the greeting.

November Birthdays

The birthstone for November is topaz. Like most months, there are alternative stones. For November the alternative stone is citrine. We do not have any topaz and just this little bit of citrine. The yellow stones in the pictures are citrine.

As far as family birthdays, not very many of those either. My grandma and my dad were born in November. The only person I can say Happy Birthday to is our niece, Becky.