Some new ornaments....

This first one, the one on top is my own design. Cowboy Santa. He is not quite finished yet. He needs his snow like the bottom Santa. We have been having problems with our well, so I wasnt able to finish him because I have no water to clean up with. (its not the well pump, thank goodness!! there is a 1700gal holding tank and one of the float switches quit, then we dont think they hooked it up correctly, so they are supposed to be back out today. Second night without water this week.)

 The bottom Santa, above, is one of my favorites. I am making sure to finish the backs nicely too.

There are all kinds in this pic, the Angel, the reindeer toys, the sled, and the dishes. These dish ones are painted on antique doll plates that we found while cleaning out the attic. I researched some and they are not worth anything, so I tole painted on them. They were solid aluminum doll plates, probably from the '40s ? I believe they were my Mother in-laws when she was a girl. I will put a small hole in the top to hang them with. I finally received my wood order! So I have more projects to work on!! I have one more shipment on its way with some 12 inch memo clips!! and a pattern for them, Santa and reindeer!! Cute cute cute!!! I love doing Santa's, and the more I am doing the better they are coming out!

Sunday stills....Birds

I took these pics on Friday, looking for a Sunday Stills post!!! I spotted these Three Amigos when I was walking back from the barn. They were squawking at me! I ran in and grabbed my camera and was able to get one shot before the left two flew off!! They were way up in the top of this fir tree, its probably about 40 feet tall. They are Crows.

And these little guys! I hadnt realized that Hummingbirds dont always migrate in the Winter. I have been feeding these all season!! They still fight and carry on and chase each other around. Cant tell if its a male or female, dont know either if they have a Winter plumage. I believe they are Rufus Hummingbirds, I havnt seen the Annas that are usually around all Summer, they are much bigger. They are draining the feeder about every two weeks.

So there are my Sunday stills for this week!!

Snow, and now lots and lots of rain! Oh Boy!

This would be our lower field today. And all the "standing" water, well its moving as fast as it can given where it has to drain.

 Emma on her island again!

 Here is the view from by the horse trough. On the far right, the water is running over the driveway, because the culvert is not big enough to channel all the water.

Silly pony, sometimes I think she wants to be a duck. I would hope I dont have any problems with crossing water on a trail ride!!!

 She is pretty cute though! LOL

 She could go across to that area on the far side of her and be out of the water, but she always stands here. She has her choice, to be in a nice dry stall or out here, sometimes I lock her in so she dries out, but that makes her mad!

 Surrounded by water, lots of water!!!

 All that water has to go through our field, and across the neighbors and through this culvert, and into the Little Washougal River. The River is behind that house.

 The white water is just to the right of the culvert, which is under water, That is all the water just coming off of the road. We are supposed to get rain for the next 7 days! It should settle down quick if we get some dry spells. The water usually drains off pretty quickly.  Nuzz Muzz I wish I could send you some!!

Someone wrecked out here a couple weeks ago and took out the yellow anchor wires in the photo above and hit the telephone pole, they had to replace the pole. Hubby was out BBQing and heard it, it was to dark to see what happened, but you sure could hear it!

Snow, and horsie snow angel!!!

Well in all this Winter happenings, we ended up with about 4 inches of snow. It is now 3 inches of wet wet slush. Yeck!!

 Listened to the snow sliding off of the roof all morning, started around 5AM. Our House in an A frame, very steep roof.

 All the trees and these poor Rhodies were all weighted down by the wet snow.

 Went out to clean stalls and feed around 4:30 tonight.

 Fat old mare LOL

 Easy is up to something! I grabbed my camera quick, cuz you know I took it out to do chores!!

 eh oh she is circling!!

 And down she goes!! We are going to get a horsie snow angel!!!

 She didnt go all the way over! LOL

 I thought for sure that she was just going to make a big puddle where she layed.

 And the shake.

 Silly old girl!!

 Well a very muddy snow angel!! Surprisingly she didnt have much more mud on her!

And they are all snug in the stalls with their dinner.

 They all love their Beet pulp.

 Now all this water has to go somewhere, the lower field in filling up!

 The house.

 These grey skies look like it could rain again anytime!

Winter is here. I hope it decides to leave again soon!!! But, it is January.

Snow, really?

Emma standing out in the "snow" LOL The news stations have been hyping this up so much! Thats all they have been talking about, "snow is sticking" its the end of the world. Enough already!!

On another note, its funny how different settings on the camera show the snow coming down...

 Or not so much. Miss Emma is back to her normal piggy self too!

 Here are the first batch of memo clips. I did add a mouth to the snowman, because the first three people I showed them to, didnt know what he was doing, LOL. Thought his nose was a hat! He turned out really cute and is my favorite so far.

 Waiting to get sealer sprayed on them. I like these Santa stars! And a different Santa on the memo clips.

Emma

Had a nerve wracking evening. Went out to feed last night, brought the horses in, fed them as usual. Emma wouldnt eat. Now if you know this horse, that is not a good thing! I pulled her feed and caught her. I then took her out to see if she was interested in grass at all and walked her some. No go, all she would do is push at the grass. This mare has never refused food in her life! In fact its hard to keep her out of the fresh grass when I take her out in the yard to hose her off or whatever. She stretched a little and peed while I had her out. I brought her back in and locked her outside gate, she usually comes and goes as she pleases.

hmmmmm I made the commitment to call the vet. I dont have any banamin on hand. We have a new vet in town, she recently graduated from vet school, oh, in the last 2-3 years. She is a really nice person and a horse person. So I asked her to come down, she got here and evaluated Em and gave her a shot of banamin and listened to her gut, took her pulse, etc. (not necessarily in that order). Emma wasnt bad enough to warrant tubing her, so we left it at that. She said it was ok to give her her hay. so I did. It was around 7:30pm by this time. The vet only charged me $70. which I gladly paid!!!  I went back out at 9:30pm, still no poop. Went back out when Hubby got home from work, at around 11:30, finally a small poop!! So I rested better! So the vets conclusion of a little gas colic was probably right!

Checked on her this morning when I fed, she was fine and ate her breakfast, she had pooped a couple more times. Still hadnt drank more than a little water. She seems good this afternoon.

I have a theory, I walked down the driveway to check the mail, and through them some apples off of the tree. Bad idea, I think the apples are fermented, hmmm. No wonder they gave her a belly ache. duh.
I googled whether apples can ferment on the tree, and what came up was a zillion stories about drunken Moose and Elk, from eating old apples, hhhhhmmmm again. Well that wont happen again!!! ever!!!!
Live and learn, at least nothing bad happened. So I am passing this lesson on to all you horse people.

So this is what I have been up to....

A long post!!

I have started doing my artwork again. I plan on selling at the local High School Christmas Bazaar this year.
So I have 11 months to build up an inventory!!
This is my studio area. The desk is one that my Father in law made when he was in High School in the '40's.
I wanted a more friendly area to work on, Hubby found me a piece of glass, which I love, easy to clean up.
My Dad come over today and put a removable top covered with Formica on it for me!! He spent about 5 hours doing this for me today!!! Thanks Dad.
I cleaned all my stuff off of the desk so the top could go on.

 The top is wonderful!!! huge! I love it. I wanted four inches over the right side so I could fix my magnify lamp onto it. It also extends about 8 inches over the back, clear to the wall. I forgot to take a pic before I started putting all my stuff back onto it! LOL I was pretty excited.

My view behind me of my storage and staging area. I have since cleaned most of the books from that shelf and have my things on it now too.

 And the view to the right, down the stairs, LOL, the puppies wondering why its taking me so long to come down and feed them their dinner.

The shelf all cleaned off and used for my storage area now. We bought a great big package of those plastic boxes at Costco, to store all my completed stuff in.

This is the project I completed last night. I think these are so cute. I used a pattern Idea for the reindeer, the back is what I call "money strokes" LOL a way to finish them off so they are special, making them my own design. The original pattern doesnt do anything to the backs.

 This is how they start out, a huge 6" memo clip.

 And now I will show what I have done so far.
Let me know what you think. What you like and dont like! Its been awhile since I have done bazaars, so I want a feel for what people like.
This first one is a giant light bulb, about 10 inches in length.

 I really liked how the Santa stars turned out. The hangers were a clearance find at Joanns fabrics. I love them, they finish the ornaments nicely!

 The Santa stars where another clearance find, they were blank stars and I painted the Santas on them. I would love to find a lot more of these! There was only a package of six. The other ones came in a package of 12. I gave some away at Christmas.

 The bear is holding a hand stitched quilt.

 These are my first Santas that I painted in November.

 An Angel. I shopped the craft stores for sales just before Christmas.

 The star above is a little box, the sides are painted too.

 When I was going through all the old Christmas stuff we got out of the attic, I found this box of clothespins. They are vintage!! LOL I really dont know how old they are, but they made really cute reindeer! That is the box they were in! I had enough to make nine, it take 3 each.

 These are keepsakes, that I probably wont sell. They are made out of vintage Christmas cards that Hubbys Grandma collected over the years. She will be 99, in May. Most of them are from the '70's and '80's. I had gotten some cardboard blanks that they are decoupaged onto. This is one side....

 and the flip side.      

 I thought they turned out rather cute, a use for old Christmas cards!
These are smaller, couldnt find enough cards big enough for my blanks, but I found a lot that I really liked, I still have to decoupage them.  Front....

 and back.

And last but not least! I got to use my new desk! This is the one I painted tonight. About 4 coats of paint to cover, I did seal them! Still took a lot of paint. First color coat.

 The backs of this one. I stayed with the same theme as on the front, the star in the word Joy.

 Finished front and back. I need to clear coat them and then reassemble them.

A snowman is next!! So I guess this is one reason I have been scarce lately!! But I am keeping busy and having fun!!