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:

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!

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.

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!

Introducing Oscar :)

Let me start off by apologizing... I have been a total slacker for the last week and didn't even try to prepare a new blog post.  I had creative block, a book I wanted to finish, and a house that needed to be cleaned. And then Sunday happened.

First a bit of background.

J & I had been talking about getting a dog for about 2 years now, but only really started looking this past spring.  We had pretty much given up on getting a dog this year at this point as most puppies that come into rescues here are for larger breed dogs, and we were looking for something small to medium in size.  Fast forward to Sunday...

I saw a posting on facebook from Atlantic Small Dog Rescue, about a puppy they had just received: an adorable 8 week old Chihuahua/ Cairn Terrier mix. I called J into the computer room and showed him the picture, and we decided that it was worth a shot to fill out the application.  Not long after I sent it in, I got an email back from ASDR saying they got my application, and not long after that, that same lady called to do a phone interview.  Well we got along great, and she said that pending the home inspection, she didn't see why we would have this little guy in our lives!

Yesterday morning she dropped him off and OH MY GOD HE'S PERFECT!  He's 8 weeks old and weighs 4lbs!  And here comes the proud momma picture spam ;)

I totally made that blanket for him the night before he arrived out of a pair of flannel PJ pants my MIL gave me that I had forgotten about lol

Hanging out with his Auntie LA & cousins

Meeting his sister (that went better than I had expected.  Still a work in progress, but I think it will be fine).

Out like a light!

Me & my boy!

Oscar & his baby :)

I'm sure there will be many stories to come about this little guy, so I'm going to stop here for today and "nap while the baby naps".