Blizzard = Craft Time!

We were hit by the Blizzard people are calling Nemo (Why Nemo?  I don't know.  It doesn't really strike fear in me, more like the urge to cuddle it.)  So I had quite a bit of time indoors this weekend and I finished an upcoming card class I will be teaching at Carousel in March (Pics to come!).  I also began researching some new projects, and oh boy, am I ever inspired right now!  I will share some pictures as soon as I do my next photoshoot and I promise to let you folks in the loop for my new project before anyone else ;)

In the meantime, here is what Oscar thinks of all this snow:

Finally! A video on YouTube!

So I know I have ABSOLUTELY been slacking on updates here, but Februray is apparently "Resolution Do-Over" Month, so I'm starting again. 

I finally got around to uploading my first video to YouTube.  It's just a quick little video of Oscar playing in the snow, but I wanted to share and see how it worked on my blog.

And there it is! Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, I'll be doing some tutorials in the future.  And, of course, if you like my Blog, give me a follow :)

Adventures in Sewing: Oscar's Halloween Costume! (And how I spent my October)

I know this is kind of late, but better late than never!

If you know me, you know how much I LOVE Halloween!  So this being Oscar's very first Halloween, I wanted to make sure he had an extra special costume.  So what I came up with was a Frog Pond.  I know, completely random, but complete unique too, right?

I went to Atlantic Fabrics and bought some cheap cotton fabric that looked like water and some different colored sheets of felt.  At first I was just going to use one of his coats as a template, and then I remembered my McCall's M6455 pattern I used for the bed also had pattern for coats.  Bonus!  Side note, that coat is SUPER easy to make!

I used the leftover fleece from the dog bed to line the inside of the coat as I wasn't sure how chilly it would be on Halloween.  So I got the base of the coat made and then I cut out some grassy looking shapes to use for the underwater plants, some small brown ovals for rocks,  some fish shapes and, of course a big lily pad.

I decided to sew sequins on the fish to make them stand out more and I sewed some more around the outside of the lily pad.  I had thought I'd just be able to glue the felt on, but ended up going back and hand stitching all the felt pieces down, just to make sure they'd stay on.

I got the little frog from Michael's ages ago in a 97¢ bag.  It actually came in handy!

So without further ado, here's Oscar, the Frog Pond!

Originally I had a lily pad hat for him to wear too, but he was NOT havin' it at all.  So I gave up lol

We went to an event called Howl O' Ween Around the Shubie Canal Festival at Shubie park.  It was so much fun!  There were all kinds of booths set up with information and services for dogs, and as you went around, your dog could Trick or Treat and get goodie bags!  Oscar loved it and his costume was a big hit!  There was a costume contest at the end, and we won a prize!

Hard work paid off!  Now I'll have to start planning for next year lol

Since we're on the topic of Halloween, I'll share a few more random shots from October :)

On our way to the Valley

At Howard Dill's

At Howard Dill's sitting on a giant pumpkin

Not sure what to make of the Jack-o-lanterns

Had to share this.  My nephews.  My sister MADE THESE COSTUMES.  By hand. from scratch.  She's amazing!

I guess that's enough picture spamming for now.  That's pretty much what I did in October lol  All Halloween. All the time.  Let me know how your Halloweens were!

Slacker Update!

Alright, so it's been at least a week, alright, more than that, but I DID actually start getting things accomplished!

Let's take a look at the original list:

1.  Plan out blog posts
2.  Make August ATCs
3.  Make Sept. ATCs
4.  Start planning for upcoming Craft Shows
5.  Sort unfinished scrapbook projects.
 
Okay, so I only did 2 of the 5.  TWO IS BETTER THAN ZERO!  I probably could have crossed off number 1 too, as I did get a couple of good suggestions for blog posts, and they can at least get me through September. 

So what have I been doing?  I'm ashamed to admit it, but since Guild Wars 2 launched at the end of August, I'd kinda gotten myself sucked back into the gamer world.  I was playing a lot, and ignoring my other responsibilities, so obviously I had to put a stop to that.  For the last couple of days I've limited myself to an hour a day.  And surprisingly it's been in the last couple of days that I've started being productive in life again lol  Go figure.

Oscar is growing and becoming more awesome each day.  Puppy Socialization is going MUCH better.  He's actually getting out and sniffing/kinda playing with the other dogs!  And yes, here comes the mini photo spam ;)

He seriously gets cuter every day :)

As far as crafting goes, I'm FINALLY feeling creative again!  I've finished my ATCs for August (lol slacker) and September (EARLY!).  I have a few cards I need to finish up, Christmas Cards to start (for craft shows and for my peeps), and a couple of potential card classes to plan.  I'm not even going to include all the Scrapbooking projects that are staring at me right now... 

Oh, and I made a YouTube Channel!  There's no videos on it yet, but I've been asked to do some video tutorials, so I figure I'd at least get it all set up before I start.  So Subscribe to me!

Well that's about it.  I PROMISE to be better about blogging.  I have my list to work from, so I'll get something up by the end of the week.  As always, feel free to give me topics to write about, ask questions or request tutorials!  AND FOLLOW MY BLOG IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!

;)

A Week of Puppy Firsts

Another week has come and gone, and this was a week of firsts for Oscar.  Now that he's 14 weeks and all his immunity has kicked in, I feel better about getting him out and starting to expose him to new things and other dogs.

On Wednesday we took him to his first Puppy Socialization class.  I don't really know what I was expecting, but in my head it was a few new 'puppy moms' sitting around drinking tea on fabulous plush couches while our extremely well behaved puppies all frolicked happily together on the floor.

In reality it was in a concrete room with about 30 people, their puppies of various sizes/ages/temperaments, and 1 instructor. 

This was just part of one wall, people lined walls of the whole place.

  








 Oh and Oscar hiding behind the humans.

















  He did do a run through the tunnel though, so that's positive!






 I'm sure this week will be better.  He was just checking things out, and apparently the class won't be so large now as some of the puppies 'graduated' last week.





On Saturday Oscar let us sleep in until 9am!  INSANITY!  So as a treat, we decided to give him his first trip to the beach.  

On the boardwalk at Rainbow Haven

SAND!

We actually saw a tiny Piping Plover on our walk! (Not pictured lol)

Me and my boy!

Frolicking in the Atlantic Ocean

The aftermath... he had a bath once we got home lol

Getting a drink.  The ladies at Tim Horton's were so sweet, they gave him a chili bowl of water to take with us, and his very first Timbit!

We've been waiting patiently to get him out to Shubie for a walk, and Sunday was the day!  He was REALLY over stimulated and pulled the leash the whole way.  He chilled out a bit near the end, but it's something we'll have to work on for sure.

 

It started off a little rainy, but cleared up fast and was beautifully sunny for the rest of our walk.  We saw the usual squirrels, chickadees, ducks and crows, but this time we also saw an actual chipmunk, and freaking blue heron!  So awesome!

All in all another great week for PupPup.  Hopefully this week's Puppy Socialization class will be better, and he can start making some little puppy friends.

Adventures in Sewing: Making a Dog Bed

So I bought this McCall's pattern (M6455) at Atlantic Fabrics 2 weeks ago:

And finally got back there to pick up my fabric to make Oscar's new bed on Thursday.  Well, thanks to J, I got some spare time today and was able to get it done!

 

My supplies cost a little more than $20 after tax, and I only needed 1 bag of the stuffing!

So cutting the pattern was the easy part.  Trying to figure out how to lay the pieces on the fabric was another thing.  The way the pictures show how the fabric is supposed to be folded is so confusing!  Well after a couple of calls to my amazing sister, I finally started to get it.  But seriously, eff sewing patterns. 

Sewing on the Velcro.  I realized there's probably a proper way to do this, but I didn't want to bug my sis again lol  Fake it 'til ya make it, right?

 And done!  Removable outside cover and inner pillow!

Top

 I used fleece for the top part of the pillow, and the receipt says "pant-weight" for the bottom.  Not sure if that's a technical term or not, but it absolutely looks like the material old man pants are made from  lol

Bottom

I think it turned out great for my second project!  I might be ready to tackle an apron!  Now to see if it's fit for my little prince...

Success!  He loves it!  Let me know what you think!

*edited to add*

Thought I'd add in this little LOL that happened while i was writing this post.  Spellcheck suggestion fail (and yes I know my original spelling was crazy, but I tend to just type first, look for squiggly red lines after.  Don't judge me lol)