Quilts and FabMo

In the guest room where I'm pet sitting, there is this lovely quilt. Made for their daughter by her grandmother. It was done really well, grandma must be a pro!

I'm schedule to volunteer at FabMo this morning to help set up for the sale this weekend. Because morning traffic is so bad in that direction, it's a toss up if I'll have time to go home first to shower and make breakfast. I do have everything here except coffee. Sit in traffic or just take care of business here?

This is what I picked up last month at FabMo. I went late so it  was slim pickings in the paper crafting section. It was still fun and I did find a few things that just had to come home with me. :) 

Thimble holder display is for my booth $4, rusty felting needles and handle .50 (going to find out if that works), stencils .25 each (for my sun printing) and felt sheets bundle for $1

Coffee Cards & Tim Holtz Stamping Platform

I'm stilling pet sitting but I do go home everyday. It's just easier for me to shower and make breakfast at my place. Thankfully owner doesn't require me to be at their place all day. 

I'm still having a lot of fun making cards. This coffee set came from the crafter's buy out I did several months ago. 

When Tonic (Tim Holtz) lost the trade mark lawsuit with Misti, I went out and brought 3 of them. Those three cost the same as one Misti back then. He was able to sell whatever was in the stores at the time but could not restock them. That really was a bummer as his stamping platform is so much better. I do have two Mistis that came in a bulk buy, I don't like them at all. Very cheap plastic feel for such a high price tag. The hinges are known to break and the measuring tape sticker fades quickly. Plus your limited on what you can do with it compared to the Tim Holtz one.  I only keep the Misti ones around as back up for my classes. What I like about Tim's besides the cost at the time, is the removable lid. It's great when I'm stamping with different stamps (clear or red rubber) and not have to take my card out of the base. Being able to use both sides of the lid, using multiple lids and open ends is a game changer. Tonic who made the stamp platform discontinue making them after the lawsuit, which is sad. Paying anything on the secondary market of Tim Holtz if super $$$$.
 

Christmas Tree Card 2026

The crafting project I'm working on while pet sitting. I may have finally used up all my green DMC floss!  One of my life goals is to use up my craft supplies. This was one of the cards that was scheduled for the FabMo workshop so I had all the parts ready. 

I can't decided if I should go for the minimalism or maximalism look. As I get down to the last of my floss, it may force me to do the minimalist look. :)

Bird Babysitting

I'm pet sitting for the next two weeks. First time babysitting birds. Mr N bites and he does it a lot! Every time I move, I get bit. It's like a really sharp pinch and so far he hasn't drawn blood but has some close. He's a free range bird so is allowed to fly around the house. Yes, there are droppings but not as much as I thought there would be. It's still a little gross when I do find it on the the kitchen counters. The owner said it was OK to keep him in his cage if I didn't want to deal with his bad behavior. I feel bad keeping him in his cage all day but I'm so over getting pinched. The little dog Ms M, is a sweet heart. She's a senior dog and just likes to sleep when not actively looking for food. Very very food focused. She's a small dog but when it comes to food, she can jump pretty high. :)

Fixing A Leaking Toilet

 

I'm so proud of myself, I fixed my leaking toilet! I first had to track down what type I had and then watch several you tube videos. All of them just showed how to replace the whole thing. I thought maybe the gasket was the problem because it looked loose. I had to study the diagrams of where the parts all went. I'm guessing the gasket is already attached when you buy the unit so that wasn't something anyone said to check or even talked about. Yes, Matt or his dad would have come over to fix it but thought I should at least try. :)

More Cards - flower punches

 Still putting together all the cards I kitted for FabMo and old kits from past classes. I have over 100 cards ready to go into my card rack. With all the dogs here (Posey, Annie, Lilly) I haven't gone anywhere this week. Not that the dogs really need me here but I don't like having to put Lilly in her crate when I'm out. Cards don't sell well at CCB and they take 50% so I really make no money at all. But it's the creative process that's fun and using up what I have. The little flower punch is on it's last leg and it's also harder to use, so I switched to a bigger flower punch. Still deciding if I like the look. 

Using What I have

White or brown background?

After there was a big change in the workshop I was scheduled to do for FabMo, I decided to make all the cards in the kits I had put together. Normally I would have saved them or put everything away. 

Then during my endless hobby of organizing craft supplies, decided to finish all the partial kits I've stored for years. Cards don't sell well at CCB and my card rack is full but it's time to refresh the rack. Knowing they won't  sell, I'm still having fun making them. I keep finding more card parts after years of teaching so there's no shortage of things to make!

Halloween Cards 2026

I'm not sure where these stickers came from but too cute not to turn into cards. I found them during my endless sorting of craft supplies. A lot of things got moved up to the attic when Henk came into town. Slowly working on getting everything back down into my workspace.

 Halloween cards don't sell well at CCB but I still had fun making them. Cards in general don't sell well as there are way to many card makers. Add to the mix all the AI people that have been allowed to sell there. In my opinion, not very creative or even very cute.

Dog Sitting

Now that I'm more comfortable using my counter top oven, I can whip up a small batch of peanut butter cookies. Not sure how I ended up with a big jar of peanut butter but I hate for it to go to waste. I use to always have peanut butter when Annie was with me. I filled her treat ball before I left for work every morning.

This week my babysitting two big dogs named Lilly and Annie at my place. Their cousins to Posey, so they get to sleep in the big house. Lilly gets a little nervous when alone (her family all work from home) so having the TV on helps. Since my extra large flatscreen isn't hooked up, she needs to be in the main house. I'm in charge of feeding and poop pick up. With three big dogs, that's a lot of poop! It's nice to have them around even if Lilly decided the best place to poop is in my raised bed area. At least she didn't climb into the raised beds!

Lilly is a velco dog!

 

FabMo Workshop - Advanced Iris Folding

I was asked to do a class for FabMo because there was a waiting list of people. Well what I wasn't told it was for an advanced iris folding cards. When I found out, I did offer to switch. I only did that because I had found my sample cards during my recent and on going clean up of craft supplies.  Organizing art supplies is a hobby right?

I went to all that work designing a new class but I'm lucky I didn't finish kitting all of them. That would have sucked!

It's not that doing a circle is "hard" but that you have to pay attention and keep things in order. Working with five different washi papers can get confusing if you don't keep them in order in front of you. Toward the end of the circle things aren't in numeric order either so you have to pay attention to the pattern. 
 

Auction Week

It's auction week and here are a few things I looked at. If there's something I'm interested in, I take a picture. Then when I get home I check what the opening bid will be. If it's too high, it gets crossed off my list. What I'm now in search of is a large vintage work table. There was only one table that was a maybe but is also has six gothic looking chairs that I would have a hard time getting rid of.

At last month auction, I thought this hutch was interesting. Thinking that it would sell for more than I wanted to pay, it didn't make my list. It sold for $30, which totally shocked me! Today I saw it was still there which was odd. Then I checked the catalog and it had been "withdrawn" from the auction. I can only guess the seller wasn't too happy with the sale price. I also think the auctioneer made a mistake and didn't see the bid was way below the seller's opening bid requirement. The auctioneer has to keep track of several things on each item, so it's understandable that mistakes are made. Still a very nice hutch and if I had room for it, it would come home with me.

 

Barilla VS Banza Pasta

Barilla $2.50 VS Banza .99

With all the bad press about what is going into our food, I'm always sad when I brand I like is on the hit list. Barilla gluten free pasta has been my go to for years. They never have gotten good reviews from the food and health experts even before I knew about the two added chemicals. Not sure what the extra ingredients/chemicals do but I guess it's bad. 

Gluten free products have gotten a whole lot better from when I first started out. Back in the day, most were not edible at all. When I was up in Incline Village this summer there aren't many places to shop. I would normally not even look at the Banza brand because in the early days anything made with chickpeas were terrible. I really had no choice because that's all the store had at a price point I was willing to pay. Being a vacation town everything is very pricey. All the "experts" said to go with Banza, but in my mind, have they really try it? Did they just looked at the list of ingredients? I decided since I didn't really have any other choice, I picked up a box. It's was actually was pretty good if used with a good sauce. It's basically tasteless (just rice flour and chickpeas) but it holds together well. I'm slowly using up my stash of Barilla and stocking my pantry with Banza. I could make my own pasta (I've done it before) but I like having a stocked pantry.