Roses and eggplants!

My eggplants are going to town right now.  I have 3 on each plant in various stages.  I love eggplant plants in the south, because you can keep them going for approx. 3 years!  These are in the first year, but should continue to fruit solidly over the 3 years!  Amazing!  This is my first time growing these large white egg shaped type.  Sure hope they taste great!  I have szechuan ideas for them!!!

1rst plant:

                                                                          2nd plant:

                                      One on the other side of the bucket from the other 2.

My roses are having a bloom fest.  

YELLOW:

                                                            LAVENDER COLORED:

                                                                              CORAL:

The days here are cooling off slightly over the next few days.  I should be out mowing my back yard, but I'm just not in the mood!  Hehe.  Doozey is laying here, looking all adorable!  She loves her new stuffingless toy, Mr. Ducky.  It crinkles...her favorite!!!

Have a great Thursday, Friday and upcoming weekend!

XOXO- Julie

midnight tracing

                                        What does little birdie say, In it's nest at peep of day.
                                          I traced this from the book in my sidebar called

            New Sample Book of Our Artistic Perforated Parchment Stamping Patterns 

                                           Just being silly with nothing to do.  Can't sleep!

Hi to all!  A few pictures for you, and some update.  Here is Doozey just waking up this morning!

 These photos have already appeared on Instagram and Facebook, but just wanted to add to my blog for the folks who don't visit those places.  I found these gorgeous orchids on a walk through the neighborhood the other day. The homeowner had attached to a tree in their front yard!  Aren't they just so stunning???

 Have you tried the seasonal pumpkin spice greek yogurt?  Love this one.  My DIL found them first, and posted on her Instagram, so I had to go get some too!  Really gets you into the fall spirit!

I added in some new fake (yes, totally fake) fall flowers from Dollar General, into my front garden.  I absolutely love them!  It's shameful, I know, but it is still so hot here, I hate going outside.  These look great from the sidewalk and road.  I'm happy!  Hopefully the neighbors enjoy the pop of color!  Of course, behind them are my REAL purple Black Knight plants that I adore, a row of REAL green plants I cant remember the name of, and behind that are my REAL hibiscus.  LOL.

 Me getting a snuggle from my Doozey girl.

 A cute Calvin Klein dress I found for Audrey, in size 4 that she is currently growing into. It was at Goodwill for $1.15!!!!!   It is a thicker knit, perfect for cooler days with some leggings and a sweater. Best of all is that she loves it!

                                                                          The top

                                                                       The bottom

 I had Emily home from school this past Friday, and she needed to practice her writing.  I made her these writing sheets with her favorite things on them.  She thought it was fun for as long as she could do it before feeling bad again.  Poor baby.  Luckily she was  better in just 2 days!

                                        Daughter took me to lunch for our two favorite sushi rolls.  A caterpillar roll, and volcano roll.  It was great, as usual!

                                                      Close up of caterpillar roll.

 I made a shaker bookmark with the acetate pieces from junk envelopes.  I used two to allow the glitter stars to shake around easily.  I attached the two pieces together using double sided mounting tape.  It worked great!  Trimmed the edge, and covered the back in a gold holographic tape.

 Took a few shots of the tape section at Staples!  WOWZERS!!!!  Its gorgeous!  Many options, for sure!  I love my Staples!!!

Well, that's about all.  I see my roses are starting a heavy bloom period, so maybe next post I can show them to you.  I'm making beef and chicken enchiladas for dinner.  Can't wait!  Have a lovely day!
                                                                      XOXO- Julie

My beer box tea folding and a dress for Kelly doll.

What?  Two posts in under 12 hours!!! I just had to show you guys how my beer box tea folding turned out tonight after having a heavy weight on it overnight to sort of press it down a bit since it is so bulky!

The one larger brad that I had left just happened to be a skunk.  Lol.  Turned out so cutely!  I think this bulky type would make a cute set of beer box magnets for refrigerator.

Now, Emily also needed a dress for her tiny Kelly doll (Barbie's little sister), so I cut a little scrap of pink fabric, secured it with a bit of glue dot, wrapped around a peice of eyelet pre-gathered  trim for the bottom, and then some mini pink ric-rac.  

Good for emergency situations where you just need a dress.  No changing clothes at this point!  Hahaha.  Sorry, Emily!!!

XOXO-Julie

A bit of tea bag folding!

Hi everybody!

I finally got crafty minded.  I saw something somewhere about tea bag folding.  I did a YouTube search, and there are quite a lot of videos showing basic to advanced folding techniques.  It started out that people would fold actual tea wrappers, which would be little squares. I would like to save my glossy Twining tea wrappers and try it one day!   I started out cutting origami paper into 9- 2 inch square.  It takes 8 squares for the folded part, using a glue stick to attach them together.  Easy.

 Then I tried some 3 inch ones,

(Origami paper)

and 3.25 inchers.

(Magazine cover, my favorite)

 I like the origami paper a lot, but then I tried fussy cutting my squares (cutting them out from the very best spots) of a magazine cover.  This one was my favorite, as it had some glossiness to it.  The last thing I tried, which were my biggest ones, was scrapbook cardstock.

(Cardstock)

I stuck a square of paper on the back to anchor the whole thing, and then stuck a brad in the center.

(Origami paper)

These turned out more suited to use for package toppers, or I thought if they were even larger, they would be cute to add to banners.  The 2 inch ones can be hot glued to headbands.  The 3 in is a good size to attach to the front of a card.  I made 3 cards with some, and forgot to take pictures.  :(

(Origami papers)

The blue on on the left in photo above is a different folding technique than the others.  I like it too.

Give this a try if you are looking for a fun project!  I'm a little bit hooked on it now!  I'm heading onto the internet now to order some fun brads for future folding.

XOXO- Julie

Hi!  I have some random things to show here.  Most has been seen on Facebook already. 

First, I want to say have a happy, fun, and safe Memorial Day weekend.  God bless our military!  Thank you to my son, too, for his 5 years of military service!  I am very proud of you!  Love you, Brent!!!!

 I kept my granddaughter, Emily home from school this past Thursday not feeling well.  Well, around 11am, she suddenly started feeling better, and became very fun and animated.  We had to make a disco ball, have a party, and here she was being silly blowing up balloons.  She blew up about 8 in the end.  And we had a pizza party when everyone got home from work.  We made a paper mache-d modified disco ball.  She is a trip!  Her she is making the "disco ball".
".

 Here it is finished .  We wrapped multi colored garland on it with hot glue gun and hung it up.

 Of course, we had to hang up streamers too!

 And a pile of balloons and streamers on the floor.  Ignore the skull playset that happened to be sitting there.

Being silly!

The african violet my son and his wife gave me for Mothers Day!  I LOVE IT!  I still had my bottle of Schultz African Violet fertilizer too!  Yay!

 Emily made this bead necklace for Doozey, and we got her dressed up to show it off.  This pic is my phone background now too!  Hehehe.

 I had 2 crysalis' form in my caterpillar screened over enclosure.  One disappeared...so only 1 left!  I think about 10 got eaten before I got them covered, and I have no idea where the rest went.  There is a lip around the tire.  I'm wondering if some may have gone there to attach themselves.  We shall see.  I am watching this thing closely several times a day.  If I get one (out of 20 caterpillars)...its still a good ratio...as in the wild only 1 out of 100 make it to butterfly!  Kinda sad.  I suppose it is good for the birds tho. :)

 Have you heard of this sensation called Adult Coloring Books?  They are highly detailed pages to color with colored pencil.  It is relaxing and zen-like.  This one took me about 2 weeks to work on slowly each night.  I printed this one free off the internet, but gave my friend an actual coloring book for her birthday.

Hers are all animals.  A LOVELY book.I think this is the one she got...but there are many other beautiful ones!  I have to say, I am intrigued!

XOXO- Julie

Hi everyone! Say hello to all of my swallowtail caterpillars! I have at least 20! They love to climb to the top of the stems and sunbathe! I'm so excited to see what happens!

the latest.....

 Well, I am posting from my phone and taking these photos from whatever random way they load.  Looks like first you can see is that the crazy lady (me) who took apart a plastic coated metal sort of cubical shelving that was rusting.  As I did it, I was ending up with a pile of squares.  All I could think of was "GROUP PROJECT"!!!!!  So the first thing I thought could be fun for kids and adults alike, was to try a weaving.  Here's what I've done so far.  I continue to have high hopes for it.  After it is filled in to my satisfaction, I plan on adding silk flowers to form a giant sort of fancy letter, finish off the edges so no rust can be seen, and then add a hanging ribbon. Yes, calm yourselves.....I am just that lazy not to spray with Rustoleum first.  Stay calm. LOL.

 A few views.

 This is a beautiful crystal clam I found at Marshalls and see the pink pearl inside?  The colors you see are all reflections on items around there, as the crystal is basically clear!  It was so pretty.  A paperweight.  10 bucks. Nice.

 This is a car I saw that I felt my husband would look nice driving around in.  Not necessarily this car, but this color for sure.  So sexy!

 Now just this morning while dropping off daughter for her college classes, I saw this big bird trying to see what was going on inside the classroom! He was walking on top of the bushes to spy! So funny!  Eventually, he gave up on higher learning, and flew away! Lol.

I had a long, dry creative spell, and am basically in the same state.  Just staying busy with living stuff, no time for much else.  I've even laid off Facebook as much.

 Look at him just peepin in!

Hope all my (if any) remaining blog readers are well. I think of you all very often and pray that wherever you are in this world, that you are well, and happy!

Until next time! Hugs to you!
Julie