Time to Relax!

As I mentioned in an earlier post we took a day trip to Southeastern Arizona recently. This area has a lot of history that includes Tombstone, Bisbee and the Chiricahua Mountains. Here are a few of the pictures I took...

Tombstone...can you imagine the Earp brothers along with Doc Holiday strolling down this street on their way to the OK Corral?The Courthouse Today... The Court House in 1882
The site where Geronimo surrendered..

And, the beautiful Chiricahua Mountains where Geronimo had his stronghold...

And, are so awesome, reach an elevation of 7500 feet...and a great place to cool off.

Oh, I almost forgot this cute little friend!

Grocery Shopping Rudeness

Well I have to vent. I just came back from grocery shopping and am still amazed by what rude behavior some people exhibit. I was in the aisle that contains all of the canned and jarred spagetti sauces...you know Ragu..etc. There was a little old lady parked on the right side examining a jar of alfredo sauce. I could tell at that point that she was having some difficulty seeing the micro-size print on the jar, but didn't want to assume that she needed help --since that can get you into trouble as well.

I pulled my cart up behind her since I was stopping to get angel hair pasta. When I stopped another lady stopped behind me and there was an aisle display further up on the left. The little old lady who was examining the Alfredo sauce walked up to me and asked me a question about whether she could just spoon some of the sauce out and use a little bit at a time for single servings, after cooking the amount of noodles she would use. I told her that she could do that since the sauce was entirely cooked, but I would heat up that little bit of sauce and would make sure to put the rest back in the refrigerator immediately.

Well during that brief conversation another little old lady, who was coming up the left side and had plenty of room to go around yells... HEL LO! CAN I GET BY???? I looked behind me and knew that she had plenty of room to get by all of us and the display. Now, this is the kicker, she was the exact same lady, who over in the canned fruit and vegi aisle parked her cart smack dab in the middle of the aisle so that no one could get around. I waited for her in that aisle to pick out what she wanted, move her cart over and merrily I went on and said, "excuse me."

Feeling badly for the little old lady that I was helping and her getting flustered by this outburst I said to the rude, little old lady. Excuse me, but there is plenty of room for you to go past us, and this lady asked me for some help. If you can't get past, can you be patient while I help her. She then got this mean, impatient look on her face. So, then I told her, you know you were the same person in the previous aisle who parked right in the middle so that no one could go by and that I waited for as you picked out your cans of fruit. I wasn't rude to you, so please don't be rude as I give this lady some help --you may need help some day and you'll be thankful that someone stopped to help you. She waited impatiently, didn't apologize and every time I passed her in an aisle...she clicked her tongue....and gave me that mean look. And, they talk about young people being rude and impatient!

The good news is that I saved $47.00 on my grocery bill with all of my coupons! Woo Hoo!

Bonanza!

Last Friday was such an exciting day. I was out most of the day doing business and stopping at some thrift shops to see what treasures I could find. I found some pretty cool things, but will share that later. I bet you're wondering what was so exciting if not the treasures I found. Well, let me tell you...

One of the blogs that I follow is Cicada Studios and this designer has some of the most beautiful fabrics of her own design. She has created lines that are now manufactured by Henry Glass & Company. Plus, she has some linens that are beautiful. I've been wanting to order some of her fabric for a while, but hadn't gotten around to it. I finally did about a week or so ago and it arrived on Friday. Isn't this beautiful. Her packaging and customer service is perfect.

Then I took a chance. On what? Vista Print. I've heard so many opinions on this service that I really was hesitant, but then I took a closer look at their site and products and thought well the investment isn't so great that if it doesn't turn out well it won't be that big of a loss. There were some constraints, but I was able to work most of them to my advantage as I designed my card. I ended up with 2000 premium cards (printing on both sides), address labels, and post-it notes for about $18. Yes, you do end up getting daily emails from them, but I think it's a small price to pay for what you can get and most of the emails are filled with great offers. I am very picky about graphics and marketing materials and was so pleasantly surprised at the results...what do you think?

Moo Cards...yep I ordered those too and got them on Friday as well! I bought two sets and while I know that you can have a different picture for each and every card (how do they do that?) I chose to only use 20 photo's for each set. I used some of my creations that I sell, some creations that I will never sell, and some beautiful vacation pictures. Their packaging is incredible. They use recycled plastic to create boxes that hold each set of moo cards. How great those little plastic boxes will be once they are empty! Recycled once again. I also ordered, for about $5, a little plastic, swing open moo card holder for my purse. The holder is designed so that the card just slides out and has a ring so that you can hang it from your keys or whatever if you wish. Your cards stay protected and beautiful!

That was my "bonanza" Friday!

Rodeo Country Quilters --What A Find!

I found a great quilt shop yesterday! We left yesterday morning heading for Bisbee, AZ (pictures later), but didn't end up stopping there since the town was absolutely filled with people. It appeared that there was a blues festival. Well we love to drive and find fun places so we weren't necessarily disappointed. As we drove north on Route 80, passing into New Mexico, I looked over at a building and thought I saw the word "Quilt." I shouted,…"hey, I think I just saw a quilt shop." Well, DH, who is use to sudden outbursts, knew what that meant, stepped on the breaks and turned around. Yep, a quilt shop. Woo Hoo!

What a charming quilt shop and the owner, Sharon "Dianne" Smith welcomed me and told me how she came to owning a quilt shop. She has always had a passion for quilting and dreamt of owning her own quilt shop all of her life. Many quilters have that dream and it's so wonderful to come across someone whose dream has come true. First, I looked at her quilts, they were beautiful, and two that I saw were award winning.

Another quilt was her own take on a Ricky Tims pattern. She began quilting as a child in West Virginia and her grandmother was her teacher. She in turn has begun teaching her granddaughters to quilt.

Dianne told me that she loves giving classes and ladies from as far as Tucson enroll. Many of the classes that she gives she charges $5 per person, plus supplies. What a great deal! I'm sure it's fun to be in one of her classes. She carries reproduction fabrics from the 1800s through the 1930s and has a great selection of batiks and southwestern prints. She gets new fabric every two weeks and will be receiving a new, beautiful southwestern collection that includes turtles. There is a great selection of fabric in the shop, along with books, thread, patterns, and gift items.

If you are ever in the area (the shop is only 27 miles south of I-10), exit 5 on Rt 80. Her shop is open, Monday-Wednesday and Friday-Saturday, from 9:00am to 5:00pm. And, as she says, come on in…the coffee is on!

Rodeo Country Quilters
73 Portal Rd
Rodeo, NM 88056
575 557 6833
quilter@vtc.net

Steampunk Embroidered Cuff

I really like the look of steampunk and thought it would be fun to create a piece using embroidery and some ancient time pieces that I have. It was a bit of a challenge as I tried to take apart an old watch. A hammer came out and then some pliers. Now don't worry no valuable, vintage watches were harmed in the process! Then I was surprised how teeny, tiny the pieces were inside of the watch. I found my eyeglass repair kit and used the screw driver from that set to begin deconstructing the inner workings. Luckily I had needles thin enough to fit into the microscopic holes that were in the pieces and gears. And, this was the result of my efforts!

Haboob

The other day a haboob came through that was probably the worst one of this monsoon season. They are amazing to see, but painful to be in the middle of.

I have been caught in them while driving between Tucson and Phoenix and it's very similar to being in a very heavy fog where you can't see 2 feet in front of you. While driving you have to be very careful. I have also been caught in them while outdoors, in rain and you are literally being rained on by mud. Then I've also tried to out chase them to get home and cover my pool and everything else that I could before it all became covered by the dust and dirt.

When watching them from afar they look like a huge wall of dust and dirt and can vary in color. The ones in these pictures were taken by the ABC affiliate KNXV are a white/grey in color. But I have also seen them as a brown/red color.

It's interesting to see them, but I'd rather be indoors as they blow through!

Alebrijes Oaxacan Mexico Wood Carvings

This is the only piece of art from Oaxacan, Mexico called an Alebrijes that I own and my wonderful hubby got it for me for my birthday last year. However, I have purchased many pieces over the years, but have given them as gifts to special people in my life. Not only are they beautiful, but also great investments. This, of course, is a peacock and all of the feathers are removable. I arrange them differently from time to time. When you pick it up it's almost like lifting air –it is so light. Prior to being made of wood, they were made of paper mache.

The wood used to create these beautiful carvings is fresh cut copal wood. The artisan then carves the piece out of the wood and then lets it dry in the sun. Once dry it is sanded smooth. Many different tools are used to paint the intricate designs and the color palette is chosen.

You can generally tell which village an Alebrijes comes from since there are different styles used from each of the different villages. Keep your eye out for them in thrift shops and unusual place, since I think that there are many people who do not understand the quality and think they are just tourist novelties. This site seems to have a really nice selection.

My birthday is very soon and I'm hoping that I get another to add to my collection!

Call Me Nerdy

I love science and was reading a book and had an "aha" moment again. The book was discussing genetics and DNA. As I read through and imagined the DNA chain, and with colorful thread all around me I decided that I would make a DNA cuff and ring. I also made a couple of other felt rings....

Waterrose Handcrafted Obsessions Website!

Announcing the launch of....

Waterrose Handcrafted Obsessions

You may have seen the link in the upper right corner of my blog for a few days, but I didn't want to announce it officially until I had most of the bugs worked out. If you are ever building a website in Dreamweaver, don't ever, ever capitalize any of the html pages. One little "i" had me scratching my head for an entire day as to why it wasn't uploading. Rather than saving the page as index.html I had Index.html. Everything else I saved for the entire website was in lowercase...I must have had a tired moment.

A wonderful customer service representative at GoDaddy helped me figure out what was wrong. I read a lot of bad press on Go Daddy, but let me tell you, every time I've had to call them in the last two years they have always been helpful and worked with me to figure out my issues. They even went as far, after I had purchased their web hosting package a year ago, to notice when I called this week a feature that I never use, but had paid for. When they asked if I planned on using it and I answered, "no" they proactively refunded the fee for that service for the entire year! I've had another website up with them for almost a year and have not had any issues.

Overall I really enjoy working in Dreamweaver. I was intimidated by it for a while before I began using it a year ago, but it really is user friendly. The other website builders that I have attempted to use were so complicated and never turned out a webpage that I liked. I kept this one pretty basic with a little interactivity on the gallery page. I have stayed away from flash since I have read that search engines don't really like to index pages with flash and optimization is what we are all aiming for.

So, come and visit my website! I would appreciate any constructive criticism that you may have to help me make my website spectacular! There is one page titled, Quilt, that is link less. That is a project that I'm working on and hope to surprise you with early next year. I am so very excited about this project and can't wait to share, but a little detail is in the way .....I have to finish it!