Happy Mother's Day!

Let me start off by wishing all the Mommas and Furbaby Mommas a very HAPPY Mother's Day!

I had a great day with the fam.  We went over to my sister's and had a Mother's Day brunch for her and my Mommy.  I made Mom's famous Wife Saver breakfast casserole, and it was DELICIOUS!  My sister surprised me with a Furbaby Mother's Day gift, which was SO sweet and completely unexpected!  She got me a super cute mug for my tea with apples on it, and some melt-in-your-mouth AMAZINGLY YUMMY fudge from a lady at one of the craft fairs she was at.  Oh, and she totes had it all in a Backstreet Boys (Millennium-era) Gift Bag!  Sweet!

As you know 2 of my favourite people, Lindsey & Glenda (whom I lovingly refer to as my Baby Mommas), were celebrating their very FIRST Mother's Day, so I wanted to make them a card to commemorate the day:

The image is from Saturated Canary, though I believe it's retired now, so I don't think you can buy it anymore.  They were colored with Copics, the patterned paper from Pink Paislee, and the cardstock is from American Crafts. I've been told I should make more of these, so I probably will.  Keep checking out my ArtFire Studio and Etsy Shop!

This is the card I made for my Mommy.  In the drawer I had her gift which was a Kameleon Jewelpop :)

This card was made using Graphic 45's Botanical Tea Collection. The cardstock is from American Crafts, the "Where there is tea, there is love" stamp is from the Botanical Tea Collection, and so nicely lent to me by my darling Mel.  The adorable little handle on this drawer was purchased from Kim at The Cutting Garden in Halifax, and I believe it is made by FabScraps.

The Baby Mommas ordered card for the ladies in their lives, and these are what I made for them.  For Lindsey I tried the Pop Up Box Cards I've been seeing all over Pinterest.  They were SO fun to make!  I have lots of ideas for these in the future!

I used a paper pad from DCWV for the patterened bits and the flowers, the cardstock is Recollections and the little fence was cut out with my Cameo.  The lettering was done with Photoshop and then printed out with my laser printer.

And for Glenda, she liked what I made my Mom, so she ordered 4!  I unfortunately didn't have any more of the Botanical Tea to spare, but I did have some other Graphic 45 papers that I used :)

The Peach and Mint one was made using patterned paper from Graphic 45, Sweet Sentiments Collection, and Recollections Cardstock.  The stamps, again, were from the Botanical Tea Collection.

The Cream and Purple one was also made with Graphic 45, but this time I used Secret Garden Collection paper, and the cardstock was Recollections.

I should mention here that my goal for May is to 'create within my stash'.  Meaning I'm ONLY using products that I have here in my craft room.  It's shocking how much stuff I have in here that I forgot I even bought lol

Again, all of these will also be popping up in my ArtFire and Etsy shops, so stay tuned!

Guess what I did last night??

So, as many of you know, I have this wonderful friend named Norma who has a WIDE variety of hobbies and interests.  Earlier this year Norma gave me her ENTIRE collection of doll houses and all the furniture and accessories to go with them.  Anyway...

Last night Norma hosted a Medieval Dinner at her house, and asked that her guests come in costume.  I have been looking forward to this event since she first brought it up about a year ago.  We'll last night was the big night and I wanted to share some pictures with you all!

My costume:

I purchased my costume online at Costume Supercenter. I got a great deal on it since it's no where near Halloween lol

Jeff's costume:

Jeff made his own costume!  It's part of his grim reaper costume from Halloween a few years ago and he made the other parts out of leftover material from the Chevelle.  I was so happy he chose to dress up, he's such a good sport :)

This is Lady Barbi of Beech Manor!

Here is the Master of the house, Richard!  I'm sad this picture ended up blurry because his costume was fabulous! They rented it from the people who make the costumes for the Nova Scotia International Tattoo!

Here is the Queen herself, the lady of the manor, Norma!! Her dress was GORGEOUS!!!

Barbi and I

The Lord and Lady of Ram's Head Castle (because we drove there in the Ram lol)

1st course - Haddock and roast red onion salad

2nd course - Butternut squash soup

3rd course - Rendered goose breasts and legs with goose gravy, all stuffed with almonds, sage, and apples, served with herbed mushrooms (below)

Chef with 4th course - Suckling pig with pear jam stuffed with chestnut puree, aged Gruyere, served with saffron asparagus (below)

My plate before the pig was served

This is Melissa, the chef's wife, and our lovely server for the evening :)

I know that there are a bunch more pictures floating around, so I will make sure to add them as they find their way to my inbox. The food was absolutely as delicious as it looked! I had SO much fun!!!

Norma also made every guest a chainmaille keychain and cross! I tell ya, she's the hostess with the mostest!!!

Thanks for checking this out!!

Family Dinners, A growing Puppy, and Seperation Anxiety.

Happy Monday, Peeps!

Oscar takes up most of my time and energy these days!  Raising a puppy is  frustrating and rewarding all at the same time.  Now that I've raised both, I can say that CATS ARE EASY!  Puppies take WAY more work lol  On that note...

We took Oscar in for his 12 week needles on Friday.  The vet said he's great, healthy, no patella problems (which apparently is common in Chihuahuas), and he has 'a lovely coat'.  He's now up to 5.7lbs!  Two more weeks and we can start obedience and puppy socialization.  I can't wait!


On the problematic side:  He has now learned to escape from the back hallway (BOOOOOO!) and last night he was crying until 3am.  I think he is developing separation anxiety, and I don't know what to do about it.  I have read Cesar Millan's "How to Raise the Perfect Dog", but it doesn't really go in depth on how to prevent/treat SA, so that sucks.  I think I'll have to check YouTube and see what I can come up with.  Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated!

Saturday morning, Mom and I popped over to Carousel for the Everything Old is New Again sale, and I picked up a few things.  I got there later than normal, so I missed out on all the 'good stuff', but it was still so nice to see some of my crafty gals and catch up a bit!

On Friday night, and again on Saturday night, we were out in Porter's Lake for 2 nights of family dinner's at G&P's and M&R's respectively. Great times were had both nights, and Oscar was over stimulated lol

Yesterday I finally got a chance to pop over to see my sister's new place.  She has SO much work to do over there!  I know how overwhelming moving can be, and she's just moved into a much bigger house that has lots of work to be done to it.  Once she decides her battle plan, I'll be over there helping her clean, paint, sort, whatever she needs.  It was while we were over there yesterday that Oscar made his grand escape from the back hallway.  Sigh.

So today is Monday.  J is home again today because of the holiday, and I was fully planning to take advantage of that and get some crafting done, but now we need to devise a new strategy to deal with 'Houdini'.  Hopefully that won't take all day and I can still get something accomplished lol

Like I said, I know I've been slacking, so I'll try to post more from now on, even if it's a blurb here and there.  Have a great day everyone!