Winter 2012

This winter finds us in Texas working. It seems strange to not be around a Christmas tree lot but I am not unhappy about this. Although I do miss the Christmas tree lot. The aroma was amazing! The children and grown children were so much fun to watch as the delight of looking for the special tree would light their faces with joy. I had mixed feelings running a Christmas tree lot as I do not believe in killing trees.  It also feels strange to not be in Arizona. As that has been our winter home for seven years. Although part of last winter was spent here in Texas. I had hoped to share Christmas with family this year but that is not to be. The job we are at should be available the whole time we are down here this year. So we are choosing to remain here so we can have a steady job this winter. It will be a very long winter as we work 24 hour a day 7 days a week. We work split shifts of 12 hours each. I work days and David works nights. It is not an easy job as some may think. We will be working for about 7 months maybe more straight. No days off. But on the bright side we should have about five months of time off. I have been able to read my bible steadily and grow in my relationship with God. This I am very thankful for. I am not sure what the future of BeFRuiTFuL KReaTioNS looks like at this time. Right now I am selling my patterns. Just wanted to update those of you who are wondering what is going on in my life.

Life Happens

It has been a long time since I posted anything at all. 

We were able to spend the summer at our Colorado Fawn Hallow Ranch. We had so much fun. 

We took a much needed plunge and purchased our new fifth wheel. 

Spent the summer playing in Colorado with family and friends.

My parents are in the middle. They both seem to love going out for a ride on their ATV.

My sister Lynda and Evert. David and I. 

Had a great time watching my niece Julie marry her sweet heart Paul.

Attended the awesome 50th Wedding Anniversary Party of Steve and Diane Laurita. What an awesome dinner and much fun seeing all the family.

Did and Little prospecting. My Dad and David looking for that elusive gold. 

Now we are back in Texas working so we can  pay for that new fifth wheel. 

Our New Fifth Wheel Trailer

We are getting our Aljo all ready to trade in for the Big Country fifth wheel we are purchasing. We go to get our new fifth wheel on Monday. So excited to be more comfortable. We will have a lot more room in the new fifth wheel. Should not be tripping over each other in the new rig. We chose a fifth wheel that does not have an island as this opens up the room. Plus we will be able to get to the frig when the slide rooms are in. Will each have a recliner. The kitchen is huge in comparison to the one we have now. We have been wanting to take this step for several years now. Will share photos when we get the new rig set up.

After we are all set up in our new fifth wheel I hope to get to making the patterns I have promised to make. Halloween is just around the corner and these patterns are for Halloween or all year if that is your choice of decor.

Fifth Wheel Trailer

We have been looking at purchasing a new fifth wheel trailer. 

We really like the Big Country by heartland.

Model # 3250 TS

Have been working with dealers to get the best quote. This process has been time consuming and just a bit scary. 

It has been a long time since we had a mortgage type of a payment.

Say a prayer for guidance for us in this decision. 

It is time to get into something more comfortable.  

With our life style this is a must.

Good to be back Home

It is so good to be back in Colorado. 

It is so quiet. For almost four months we have heard bells from our gate keeping job 24 hours a day. So believe me we are noticing the quiet. Not to mention no vehicle sounds either.

David put the sun flower seed bird feeder up yesterday. Now it is a waiting game to see how long it takes for them to find it. There are no squirrels around yet either.  Will get the humming bird feeder up today. 

We are in unwind mode and really enjoying being here!! Was wonderful to give my Parents a hug, my sister Lynda and her hubby too. All of us live in the same area near Westcliffe Co. 

I hope to get some time in to work on the patterns I have been promising. It appears play time is taking precedence at this moment. Believe me after working for almost 4 months straight at a 24 hour a day job we are in need of some play down time. 

Until next time May God bless you!!!!

Getting Back to the Roots

Getting back to the roots of who I am.

 I am reading through the bible again this year. Being a Christian is at the root of who I am. Even the name of my business is based after this bible verse. 

Colossians 1:10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. 

Many years ago when my children were young I led a weekly girls christian group. We always did an art project of some kind. I tried to come up with things that could be used. Tie die beaded tee shirts. Spider pins are the ones that come to mind right now. I would like to incorporate this more into some of the things I make. As I looked through my blog photos I found that I have stayed true to a usable artwork theme often already it seems. As I looked through my blog photos I found many things that could be used.

My Rug hooked Cat Purse is one of these things.

 My Kleenex Box Cover Dolls

My Snowman Candy Holder I also have a Rug Hooked version

Large Witch Cauldron

 So look for some more things that you will be able to use in your everyday life.

 That is when I finally get some time to work on artwork. This , due to my job,  sabbatical from artwork is actually a blessing as it is making me think about what I really want to do over these next phases of BeFRuiTFuL KReaTioNS artwork. It is also making me ponder who I am now and the directions I want to take in my personal life. 

My feet had been peeling for several years. I finally decided to search what I could find out about natural remedies online. I found out that this peeling can be caused from a fungus on the feet. One of the remedies said to rub tea tree oil on your feet. I happened to have some of this so I gave it a try. I rubbed it on right before going to bed. First night I put it on and crawled into bed David said, "what is that awful smell". True it does not smell very good but my feet are so much better after rubbing this on for three nights in a row and waiting for about a week. Why a week mainly because I forgot to use it. My feet look so much better. So keep this in mind if you too have peeling feet. Make sure you are not allergic to it by doing a patch test first. 

We hope to be working one more month and maybe a bit longer down here in Texas. But what I am looking forward to is being back in Colorado. We were only able to spend a couple of months there over the last year. Looking forward to watching the little fawns grow. Feeding the birds. Watching the many squirrel that make our property their home. Sharing time with my parents, our grown kids, extended family and friends. Attending my nieces wedding. Finishing a few patterns that I have been promising to people. I hope to bind my BHR rug this summer. I kind of have rugger's block when it comes to binding and I spent so many hours hooking this rug, I do not want to mess this up. I was also waiting as I didn't know whether I wanted this to be a wall rug or a floor rug. I also hope to just get some time to do some artwork.

Rambling Thoughts

It has been a pretty long time since I have made something to sell. 

Not even sure where to begin again. 

Do I try the market on Ebay, Etsy?

Join an on line market?

Submit something to Prims or another magazine?

Do I contact my old customer base of emails? Yes

It is a daunting market and truly wonder whether it is worth starting all over again.

Plus I still will sometimes have time to do this and other times no time at all. 

Thus can I keep myself in view and in mind of potential buyers?

Do I focus on one medium? No I can't do this as I love variety and none of the mediums I work with are more interesting to me then others. I love making dolls as much as I love rug hooking.  

I have thought about just making things for myself, family and friends.

I do love to make and create art. Love playing with new mediums and growing in the arts. 

I do love to share what I create with others and it also keeps me motivated to create.

Having said all of this I am about finished with two Witches Boots. Hope to assemble them today. I have been writing the pattern for one of these boots. Not sure where I will try to sell these. 

Maybe on my own website or my blog. 

Eggless Eggnog Recipe

Around this time I start missing eggnog in my coffee.

The below recipe helps me to get by until eggnog hits the shelves again in the fall.

1/3 can sweetened condensed milk

Tbl of honey (optional as you can increase the sweetened condensed milk)

1 - 3 oz. package french vanilla instant pudding

milk 5 cups (you might need to play with the amount of milk start with 4 cups and add more as needed)

vanilla

nutmeg

cinnamon

rum flavoring

mix pudding and dry seasonings together 

mix in 2 cup milk and the sweetened condensed milk whisk for 2 minutes

allow to sit for 5 minutes

Mix in 3 cups milk, vanilla and rum flavorings

chill

Bobwhite Quail

Another new bird for us. 

Bobwhite Quail

The male has the white stripe. 

We have only seen two of these. It must be mating season as they usually are in coveys.

Want to learn more. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Bobwhite

Snowing Butterflies

There is no other way to describe the millions of butterflies that have been present in Texas for over 2 weeks. I have never seen this many butterflies in one place at one time. I could not capture them but all the specs you see in this photo are butterflies. Every where we looked were millions of butterflies. Very impressive.

Below are two close up photos of the yellow butterflies.

 

Witches Boots & Gate Keeping

Finished the punching part of my latest Witches Boot design. I like the 3 strand Valdani but I will try the size 12 perle or pearl cotton as I think I may like it better. The 3 strand was a little hard to work with for me. I contacted Valdani to ask them how the perle cotton size 12 compared to a 6 strand floss. Here is their answer. "In terms of thickness, one strand of perle 12 is comparable to 6 strands of floss." 

Now it is time to assemble this newest Witches Boot design and the Skeleton Witches boot design. Then on to writing up the directions for the pattern. Maybe I can get the first patterns out sooner then I was thinking.  It really depends on how busy the gates are in the future. The gate that we are working at right now it not a really busy one as they are winding down. Should be out of here next week some time then on to another gate. We had one day off between the Paloma gate and the Pioneer gate. Were able to get our laundry washed that day.  Our first gate job was very busy as we were opening the gate up to 240 times over a 24 hour period. David took the night shift and I did the day shift. Here we have our evenings and nights to ourselves. A much needed thing as we were both exhausted. So it is good to know that it isn't always really busy. 

Here is a little guy that comes by everyday. 

Good Bye for Now My Friend

Over the last few months my precious Cat has been slowly declining in health. This weekend I had to say good bye for know. I found a verse in scripture that helped me have hope that one day I will be able to hold my fur babies who have left this life for the next. Interesting that this verse was in my normal reading last week. God is a very present help in trouble.

Ecclesiastes 3:

“As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. ¹⁹ Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath^[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. ²⁰ All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. ²¹ Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” 

My spirit and creative energies have been having a hard time functioning due to this happening over the last few months. I see a pillow of my buddy in the future. I already created my Cat Purse with Toby as the feature. Or maybe I will try my hand at a sculptured cat. Hmmmmmm 

Good bye for know my friend and companion. Have a great time playing with Teak, Shadow, Puddles, Jewel, Jasmine, Jeremiah and Taffy. 

These fur babies give us such joy that I know that there are more animals that we will adopt to share our lives. As hard as it is to say goodbye I want to experience sharing my life with more fur babies. It may be kind of hard on animals sharing our traveling gypsy life style but I know that many would be happy to have a human love them. 

Dancing Skeleton Needlepunch

Decided I will try to do a little needle punching today between gate openings. This should be interesting as I opened the gate probably close to 150 times yesterday during my 12 hour shift. Was a very busy day. But I really want to do some art work too. This is a new witch boot design that I have had drawn up for a while. It is a skeleton dancing. A cute design.

This summer I hope to create several witches boot patterns.

Also want to make my Jack O Lantern's into a pattern with all four styles. 

 

We hope to take the summer off from working.

So I should be able to create some of my creations into pattern form.

A Weeks Worth

We now have one week of our new gate keeper job under our belt. It has been a week of getting used to this 24 hour a day job. David has had the hardest time as he has the night shift. The ringer that is supposed to go off when a vehicle approaches the gate was not working all the time. This made it hard because we had to watch the road all the time. Jamie came and fixed the bell yesterday. Yippy!!!!! 

This is very interesting learning about the process of fracing and watching all this equipment come in.  Yesterday I got bit a several times and noticed that there is a fire ant hill just outside the gate in the grass. Fire ants are something new to us. Now that I know it is there I can avoid it. 

The catering company has come in the last few days and brought us food too. Today a smoker came through the gate the guys get barbecue for lunch. That means we do too or I hope so. He said he would try to bring us some out. I do not eat meat very often but sometimes I will eat barbecue.

Another Adventure

Here I am already working my first day on the new gate keeper job. We got here last Wednesday.

We are about 80 miles or so from Corpus Christi Texas. 

This is day five and we both got a pretty good nights sleep. Adjusting to the 24/7 hours has been challenging. But we are working it out. We have been really busy here. Logging in and out about 96 vehicles on some days. Some really large trucks and lots of equipment. There is already an oil well on this location but this last week they have been working hard to get a new well up and running. 

Every job over the last year has helped us get closer to our goal of getting a new fifth wheel trailer. It is way past time to get a larger fifth wheel. We know what we want in a fifth wheel now. When we first began this life style we were not even sure we would like it. For the most part we do like this way of life. We have been able to see a lot of the Western United States over the last seven years. The hardest part for us is being away from family. Especially our children and my parents who are not getting any younger. We hope to spend our 2012 summer on our property in Colorado and get some much needed family time in. 

Once we get settled into this new job I can begin to do some artwork again. Or that is my hopes and plans.

Until next time. 

Happenings

We are now in Texas after traveling over 1000 miles to get to the gate keepers lot. We hope to be at work by next week as gate keepers. It was good to have a month off but it is time to get back to work. 

It is totally overcast here and it only got to 66 last night. We are not used to those kind of temps at night. 

Plus it is humid also something we are not used to.

 Our cat had not been feeling very well and doesn't like to travel so this was really hard on him. I felt that he was maybe suffering from digestive issues from the antibiotics given to him.  Also UT issues as he has had this off and on his whole life. After researching I found Slippery Elm Bark and how to use it for cats. After being on this for a short time he seems to be better. Getting him to eat what he normally does is challenging. He is being really really finicky about his diet. Can't seem to tolerate the normal raw diet I was feeding him. We both feel that he also may have a sore mouth. So hope to get his teeth cleaned and checked. 

Cameo Needle Punch Extra

Just ordered another Cameo Needle Punch. I have often thought it would be easier to not have to change the threads all the time. I think having another Needle Punch will help a lot. Looking forward to punching several of my witches boots. I hope to have these available in a few months

For those who purchase needle punch patterns. Do most have them have a list of the colors of floss used? 

That is the hard part as I tend to over dye my floss to make it grungy and use several different kinds of floss. Mainly what I have on hand. I am thinking this is an important part to creating these patterns. I am sure many would go ahead and create their own color palette but there are others who would use the same floss I use in my project.

I was lucky and found a great buy on some weavers cloth. So I have A LOT of weavers cloth. In fact maybe enough to last a life time.

Possibilities

Have been trying to decide what creative art I would like to do next. Sometimes the choosing of what to do keeps me from actually doing. 

Maybe I will create a needle punch Easter doll. 

Or maybe start the work needed to get my witch's boot needle punch designs out in pattern form.

Maybe I might work more on designing the memorial hooked rug of my Grandparents farm outside of Unionville MO.

Maybe I could make a wonderful large black mammy doll. 

Okay maybe I should do all then I won't have to choose. :) 

Have a great day whatever you Choose to do.

Blast from the Past

I have been going through archived photos of my art career as a doll maker and fiber artist.

Here are just a few of the photos I am falling in love with all over again. 

I used to make very large dolls but have downsized them due to living space and shipping charges for my customers. Some of these are paper mache doll sets. 

Thought you might enjoy seeing a few.

I do regret that some of the photos are not the best. 

Recooping

After a lot of hard work in distribution of Christmas trees we are in Quartzsite enjoying some much needed rest. I have read several books while we have been here. Before we left Phoenix I downloaded Kindle to my PC. I enjoy reading books on the computer but need to have regular books around too. As we both share this computer. I hope to purchase an Ebook reader like Kindle Fire or a Toshiba Thrive in 2012

Today we will head to the Rock & Gem show. I hope to find some earrings. I keep loosing one so many of my sets are singles now. Ugggghhhhh. Looks like it will be a gorgeous day for a walk around the booths. 

Hopefully my mind and hands will come together to start creating again soon. I have a skeleton witches boot design already drawn and ready to needle punch. I am perfecting the construction of these witch's boots and hope to release these as patterns this year. I have two designs already this it the third. Of course Spring is just around the corner so maybe some other things will be created for that season of joy.