New things to do

Well... I participated in my first blog hop. It is one for card making lovers. I saw some cool things and learned about new techniques. If you are interested in stamping you can see the new "digi stamps" and cards here.
http://shellymc2.blogspot.com/2010/10/all-new-dude-time-doodles-come-hop-with.html
I am looking forward to making some cards again.
On another note. I hope you all had a happy Halloween. I am looking forward to November and all the family fun and creative things that will be bringing for me. My first cool thing is that I will be going to Tennessee to my sister's mountain home. I will get to play music with a man who played in my father's bluegrass band when I was young.
Then the next weekend I will be going to a doll workshop taught by Susie McMahon. What wonderful dolls she makes. I hope I will learn something new.

I picked up my State Fair entries today. I will take pictures soon and post some of them.

I recently discovered digi-stamping. I used to be a rubber stamp demonstrator for a major company and only quit because I was spending more money than I was making. At one point I started designing stamps and have sold a few of my Hammered Dulcimer designs. Now I am getting interested in finding ways to use my graphic art and previously designed stamp images as digi stamps.

That is one of my images above. It was part of a "Quilted Cuties" series I had made. There are seven already created and never distributed.

The way I understand it people can purchase images online to download and then use like they would stamp images to make cards, scrapbook pages, crafts. I took this image and colored it using photoshop and then layered it over backgrounds, used a star brush and a little of my graphic talents and made this card. It is strictly a digital card so there are no embelishments that I would normally put on a card.


At any rate... we will see where this leads.

Woah! It has been a long time since I posted anything. I have been really busy keeping my new little doll baby Lillianna. What a wonder to see all the new 'first's. In fact, today she rolled over by herself for the first time. Of course, no one was there to really see it because she was in the bed.

I also had another exciting adventure when I was able to see my second little granddaughter being born the end of September. So I am doubly blessed this summer. Plus gaining a new 7 year old granddaughter when my son married her mom. So this year I gained 3 new granddaughters.

Emily, the 7 year old, and I put more things in the craft competitions at the State Fair this year. I won 10 (or 11) ribbons and Emily won 3. We were very happy.
Here is my little Savannah Rose. She is now 3 weeks old. Today we discovered that she has "Cat Eye Syndrome" in one eye. We are praying that it will not be a problem for her.
I do not get to see her as often as Lillianna, but maybe as she gets older she will want to come and play with her cousin that is only three months older.

I am still working on dolls, just not as often. I have a few to post so maybe soon I will be able to catch up.
In the mean time you have to see this picture..

I have been having a great time holding my newest little dolly, Lillianna. She mostly sleeps when I hold her. But I am looking forward to the time when she can coo and smile and all those sweet things that make us use funny little voices and smile with funny faces and squinty noses and eyes.Here is the latest picture of her.
I have also been working on some felt doll faces. The technique is not quite as efficient as I thought. And now I am thinking of trying something a little different. The detail in the faces are not what i had hoped for.oops, baby is here. It's lovin' time.

A new time

I have waited for this day for a very long time. As long as I can remember I have wanted to be a grandmother. Even before I ever wanted to be a mother I wanted to be a grandmother. Something about being the old lady on the block that made cookies and read stories to the children. The place where all the kids wanted to go to make crafts and have fun. And then go home later.
Well, it happened. I now have a grand daughter. She weighs 5 lbs and 9 oz. My daughter had her first baby last Friday. They named her Lillianna Leigh. What a big name for such a little thing. My cousin said that she hopes she will not be one of these children who cannot pronounce their "L's". If so, she would be saying her name is "Wiwwianna Wee". Got a big "waf" out of that one!
I did not know that I would have so many different feelings and thoughts about this whole thing of being a 'Grandma'. I feel old. I feel afraid for my daughter and all the scares and fears she will have to face. I feel afraid for myself, that I will miss something along the way.
But I always have this to fall back on. That my God is in control, He loves me, and He loves my children more than I do. He is good even when life is not. And this world is not the end.
I have to post one picture.

I have been wanting so badly to make some outfits for my Annette Himstedt dolls. Someone gave me some dresses that were made by a doll dress seamstress and I was able to alter those and add some accessories. I had a very cute baby sweater that I altered, a hat that I had to cut down and I made ear rings and a necklace to match. Doesn't she look sweet? I listed the outfit on ebay but is is not going for very much. Right now I will hardly get the cost of the dress, much less the accessories I added.
But it was still fun and I have a few more dresses to accessorize and alter. What a beautiful doll!

Whatcha' think? These two girls were made using blank muslim bendable starter dolls. You know, the ones no one uses because they are so plain. Well, I suppose some people must use them or they wouldn't sell them. Anyway, I've never used them. But I had purchased a couple at a craft/antique store and ended up using them as demos for face painting. Then I got into it and painted their bodies and the underwear.
The red head has felt hair and the blonde has baby yarn.
They were fun to make and pretty easy. Now if I could just find more! I can't find any more with the 'baseball' heads and the full straight unseamed legs! I'll have to take a trip to Tennessee and see if I can find anymore where I got these.