Random Thoughts 11/12/2012

An announcement:
Starting with this post, I'm going to do only 2 posts a week now. I have so many other things I have to get done that I can't possibly keep up. With the issues I've had with health this past year I need to get to work getting healthier. I think this will be a major concern with everyone in the coming years. We need to be healthy. I'm not making any drastic changes just ones I think I can do relatively easy.

We all need to be prepared. And if you doubt me, just look at the recent hurricane and its results in New York and New Jersey. It's not a doomsday scenario; it's common sense. 

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I haven't yet eaten enough pastries to be willing to trade this world for one in which the existence of sugar is not guaranteed by theologians. That goes for Pepsi and Coke also.
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How any woman can be stoked with her new cookware is beyond me!
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Worry is the anticipation that the outcome will be bad.
Faith is the anticipation that the outcome will be good.
Faith in God is the anticipation that whatever the outcome, it will be for your good.
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I shop at Costco and love it. The French Onion Soup there is the best I've ever eaten. It's frozen in little pouches and is a very quick dinner with some crusty french bread.

But the other day I got to wondering why they have limits on some items. Just how many people would buy more than 3 screens, 3 office printers, 5 GPS' or 5 PCs? I couldn't figure that one out.
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I can't tell you why but this room drew my attention mightily. Maybe it's the wrought iron. It looks more like a man's room as there is nothing much in it that is feminine, but I really do like it.

Beautiful purple and pink roses.

Beautiful bougainvillea up close.

Yes, I know. You all would love this kitchen sink in a french home. But if your faucet ever went out you'd need a jackhammer to replace it. Lovely however!

Pretty ribbons.

What a pretty and inviting table.

I decorate jars and bottles. Some hold screws or nails or sticky things to hold pictures on walls and some hold wire. Some hold a plethora of other things but they have one thing in common: They are all lovely but hold the ugliest things that we would normally want to hide in drawers in our home. And since ours isn't a big home with lots of storage places I make do with making the "ugly" attractive enough to line a shelf above my sink.

A bold statement in a bathroom with pink/white/black toile and a geometric black and white shade for the window. Gorgeously done!

Just a little tease with a cute shoe to show you. I love it and would wear it if I could walk in high heels again. ;-)

A truly beautiful and elegant bottle or carafe.

Pink bundt cake.

A scrap of ephemera for you to use. I plan on using it to decorate a bottle.

A simple kitchen with a lot of character.

A porch of some kind but quite lovely.

I love little little ruffled clutch purse.

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My Ribbon Roses

I'm going to say this ONE MORE TIME for those of you who haven't read it before or don't know this: If you send me a question asking for help, then you need to send me an email address to respond. If your "settings" in your blog do not allow me to see your email and it comes as NOREPLY-COMMENT@BLOGGER.COM or as a Wordpress.com blog and there is no email to contact you on your blog, I'm just going to ignore it. It does no good if I have no way to get in contact with you to answer a question or offer help. In fact, it looks to me like the comments are simply spam. Plus the fact that if I try to find someway on your blog to leave a comment and you haven't posted for....oh say, 6 months , 2 years or EVER, then that leads me to believe you're not serious about your question or even worse, (gasp!) a serious blogger. Tell me it ain't so! And I handle spam by deleting it! You won't get past me, trust me, so don't waste your time. Okay? I'm really not mad, just wanted to make this very clear. :-)
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I just noticed the date I'm posting this and let me say since it's been 11 years today that our country was attacked and my heart still remembers it.

I had just gotten out of the shower when my phone rang and my neighbor told me to get over there immediately since we had no television. I stared in horrific wonder at those two buildings coming down. I still get teary thinking about it. I hope with all my heart our country never, ever lets that happen again. Being a very religious person, I knew the end times were going to be tough and our Church advises us to be prepared—economically, temporally and most of all, spiritually. But that day just stuck in my mind, thinking about the moms and dads who wouldn't be going home that day. I also think about those brave NYC firemen and police who tried to help and lost their lives doing so. So mostly I pay tribute to them. I love our brave soldiers, firemen, police and emergency personnel. (I'm blubbering like a fool typing this.) Just be prepared, my friends, to defend our country.
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First of all, I'm doing something on this blog post that I don't normally do. When I was selling on eBay, I would make the photos 2 different sizes so when they clicked on the photo it would enlarge. This can only be done when using a template, which I use every single time I sell on eBay or do these blog posts. This took a bit more time and I decided early on not to do it with my blog. However, I did it on this post with only my own photos. I can't do it with photos I didn't originally take. So if you click on each photo of mine you'll see a larger photo of the roses, etc. I really like large photos but they take up much more storage space on Photobucket or any image hosting so I rarely ever do it here. Enjoy.
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One of my passions is making ribbon roses. I don't use a lot of them most of the time so I don't make many now, but with the redo of the chandelier shades I'm going to make some. I'll need five of them. Below are some of the ones I've made in the past. I have more than I'll ever use but I love making them. It gives me peace when I craft. My dilemma is which one I'll like the best on the shades.

A flower I made years ago. It isn't velvet; it just looks like it. Red—and purple, for that matter—are very hard to photograph unless you are a professional. I'm not!

This is a flower I had hot glued to a craft—can't remember what at the moment—and I took it off. Yes, you can get them off using a heat gun (hubs') but I do not recommend it as you can burn your fingers severely. I haven't so far but I'm very, very careful when I remove things I've hot glued on.

I have no more of this exquisite ribbon or I'd do the flowers I want in this. I can't even find this ribbon anymore.

I wanted to see how a 7/8" ribbon would work. Way too small.

This one worked pretty well.

But this is my all-time favorite ribbon rose besides the red one. They are assembled differently. This one is much quicker to make. Both are lovely.

Making the red rose requires much more work and time. I'm just starting this one to see how it comes out.

This is another favorite of mine. I pinned it to my jacket to wear to church recently. Simple and very quick to make.

My craft room and table are a horrible mess at the moment. I'm very fortunate that I have a room all to myself and can just shut the door if I have someone come over.

I'm thinking of doing a ribbon rose in this polka dot. The only down side is that it's one-sided. Hmmmm...maybe and maybe not. I hate to cut into this ribbon and destroy the 2 long pieces. We'll see. Oh, btw, that's me and hubs during one of our frequent trips to Mexico, but the picture was on a sight-seeing day cruise on the ocean and a dinner. They put that silly hat on him to take a picture. He hated it but was a good sport about it.

While I was in the craft room I noticed a pillow I had. I made this pillow out of some leftover fabric from the 2 chairs in our family room. They have since been recovered in another fabric, but I doubt I'll ever part with these pillows. It's a moire fabric and beautiful, but you all know how photos don't do justice to the actual item. Even though Ethan Allen makes pillows to come with the sofa, I may put these on there in place of or rather with the other pillows. We'll see how they go.

Now, enough of me. Look at this glorious area in a homemaker's kitchen. Cute!

These lamps are among some of the most elegant I have seen. I'd take these in a heart beat.

Haaa, you thought I wouldn't include a little cottage-by-the-road, didn't you?

And more from Green Gate for you to see. Isn't it a "fun" kind of dinnerware?

And a beautiful bouquet of roses in a french pitcher.

And I leave you this day with 3 boxes of beautiful candy, cookies and cupcakes! :-)

I know this is a long post but back here I promised to a few more tidbits on our U.S. Presidents and their Secret Service men from this book, In The President's Secret Service. So here's another tidbit.

At a dinner party given at the home of a personal friend of this President, the Secret Service gave the hostess some recommendations that she really had to adhere to so that the President and his wife could have this small, personal dinner with her and a very small group of friends.

The SS agents asked that draperies be put up on her windows. Agents were stationed everywhere around the yard and no-parking cones were put up in front of the house. Another request was that she empty a closet nearby big enough to fit at least two men as that was where they would take the President in case of a threat. They also selected where the President would sit. (Going out to dinner with friends as a U.S. President requires a lot of preparation. It's not done lightly!) She acquiesced to their demands and she then asked a question about what would happen to all the other guests and what they should do in the case of an emergency. The agent's response was, "Madam, I have only one client: the President." I wonder if she thought about reconsidering the invitation!
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Linking up with WOW and At the Picket Fence.

Saving Photos and a Ribbon Tree for Froufrou Friday #6

Isn't this adorable? Well, read on.

Recently a blogger was lamenting that her photos on Photobucket were deleted because she had reached her limit. I mentioned that she could upgrade to PB's paid account. I did several years ago because I believe nobody does it better than Photobucket. She asked why should she pay for something that is free. The answer was pretty obvious to me: you have unlimited photos for a $25 a year upgrade and they don't get deleted. You also have no ads, which is very important to me. I'm extremely visual and ads vie for my attention, and I like to stay focused on the task at hand. So I pay for the service of not seeing my photos deleted when I've reached the "free limit" of photos and not being distracted by ads.

But the biggest reason is something that happened to me about 5 or 6 years ago.

I joined an image hosting site recommended to me by a man who was making a template for me. It was Image Link or something like that. (It's been so long I've forgotten their name and I see one on the internet now, but it doesn't sound like the one I used unless it's been bought.) I really liked that site and entrusted my photos and icons for the template to them.

But one day my photos and icons wouldn't upload to my template for eBay. I was so ignorant about those kinds of things then, but have since diligently educated myself in the workings of computers and websites and HTML, etc. I contacted the owner who was doing this as a sideline and just happened to spend most of his time playing baseball! We emailed several times and he found out that the money he was paying to his server was not being paid to the place it should have been going. In other words, they went belly-up overnight. That cost thousands of us to lose our photos and icons overnight and to not be able to retrieve them. (I had deleted them from my Mac—stupidly, of course—so they were gone forever). The server was somewhere in Australia and there was nothing to be done about it here in the U.S. So I lost some valuable things, valuable to me anyway.

I then found Photobucket. I've been with them ever since. They've been extremely helpful to me and very reliable. Of course, I now save them on an external HD and on CDs so I doubt I'll ever have that problem again. Friends and others have recommended other sites: Picasa, Picnik, Picturetrail, Free Image Hosting, Webshots and a few others but I'll stay with PB. I like them and I don't think anyone does it better than they do. And I certainly should know.

So what's it worth to you to never lose your photos? For me, the $25.00 a year is one heck of a deal. I have nearly 7,000 photos on PB. That's not much by some standards but it sure is enough that I'd hate to lose them!

And I don't get paid one penny for saying these things! That's how much I love them.
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I just couldn't resist! I had to make another ribbon tree. This one is smaller as I had to cut a branch off our dead pear tree. I love it, and it's for sale here.

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Join in!

Bow Making Tutorial

When I was young I had a job with a department store working in their display department. It was a stepping stone to bigger and better things but the experience was invaluable in many ways. I learned the advertising business well and I picked up how to make bows. Now, can you beat that? ;-) It has served me well. So when froufrou-ing up the tree this year I thought about it and decided to give you a tutorial on making bows the absolutely easiest way. I bought this large roll of sparkly silver ribbon just to show you. While this is 4" wide, it can be done with smaller width ribbon.

Make several loops of ribbon. I did about 8 here to show you. The more loops you make the "fluffier" the bow.

While I did 12" long loops they can certainly be smaller.

Now, you will cut a "V" in the middle on each side being very careful to not cut through; otherwise, you have loops of useless ribbon. (Hmmmm, but I'd figure out something to do with it, for sure, chicks!)

Now, with a piece of string or yarn, tie it tight.

Then start separating the loops. One to the right, one to the left and so on until you've brought all of the loops towards you and twisted a bit to make them stay in place.

I do from right to left and front to back with each loop. You'll adjust better later. Now you are just separating the loops.

Now, just fluff and adjust and you'll have the best looking bow in your neighborhood.

The final bow. I used these on the tree. Using this kind of ribbon isn't the best but it'll do for decorating or any kind. I'd normally use an organza ribbon for this, but you can use any kind you want.

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Pink Saturday 9/5/2009

Yep, it's another pink saturday! If you wish to view all the participants go to Beverly's blog and go around blogland to visit each one. I think you'll get a treat visiting with them.

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Some close ups of my message boards that I call "memory" boards because it's one of my favorite places to hang the things sent to me by friends or members of my ebay group. The rose with the hanging beads are from Bertie of AuntMaysCottage. You don't want to miss this woman's sales on her website. She makes the most exquisite things with vintage wedding gowns.

The little hand painted ornament was painted by Lorena of RoseChicFriends. I have several of her hand painted items as well as a canvas she painted. Just beautiful! Give her a visit.

Just little tags and cards sent to me when I order something over the internet. They do bring me joy and I'm always surprised at the loveliness and generosity of these women.

This is another creation of Bertie's. She spoils me! But the little valentine heart creation is Rhea's of sweetnshabbyroses. She's been very ill for a couple of years now and isn't creating much these days much to the chagrin of those who have purchased her creations. But I do talk to her from time to time on the phone.

More cards and one little one that looks like an evening gown. Isn't that sweet?! I just loved it and knew immediately where it would go.

More cards and tags. I have the privilege of knowing some of the most talented women on the internet. The little red heart is by Lorena also. The pink string hearts are by Shirl of Shirlsrosecottage. She does the most exquisite silk ribbon embroidery.

Lorena also does clay roses that she makes into little pins as evidenced by the little pin in the bottom center left of this photo.

I thought I'd show you my favorite shirt. Orange is my least favorite color but when it was combined with red, pink and fuchsia in this shirt I couldn't resist. You can't see the front but I "embellished" it with pink pockets and ribbon strings. I need pockets in everything I wear, chicks!

Roses hanging over my bed attached to the canopy of netting.

I'm sure you've seen these paper pompoms before but it's pink saturday and I'm showing them again. They hang in 2 corners of my bedroom.

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Random Thoughts:

Idealism becomes exhausting. I much prefer realism.