Nacho's Garden,

One of the projects I have been working on this past month has been Nacho's Garden. This area started as small patch with just a few reating blocks next to the tree. When we bought this house 18 months ago Jean's mom gave us a wonderful gift of some irises from her garden. I have since then affectionately called the area Nacho's Garden. Well now I have made it much larger, added shrubs, removed the blocks, added rocks, petrified wood, flowers and still need to finish adding the small red rocks. It has an Asian lantern and think I may add a birdbath and eventually add an Asian piece too. Nacho in Japanese means long life. We are going to add a bench to the left of the garden that sits under a tall pine tree so one can sit and enjoy the garden.This has been such a wonderful labor of love and something that I get to look at from my bedroom window and brings so much joy.

New Bird Feeder

We just bought this new artsy bird feeder for the yard. It is about 5 feet tall and when we saw it we just knew that we had to buy it, It is made of wrought iron in abrown finish and has a patina finish by artist Tom Torrens. Now have to get more bird food for all the feeders.

working on the house

WEll things have been going gung ho around here. With the upcoming festivities we have been trying to get things done in the yard. One of the things that has been annoying had been the firewood pile. So our wonderful neighbors put up some fencing for us from what they had and this morning I got it painted, The color is alight lavender with purplle trim. Still need to add some more bushes there.

Bruce has been busy laying down the retaing blocks to create a division around teh yard that eventually we will fill in with landscaping. But it gives up some kind of idea of where weare going.

We also bought a peach tree thanks to the nudging of my sis. Also put up the a rbor that fell down last year but now looks like I may have to move that over.

ornaments and more ornaments

I have been busy sculpting these lil ornaments for the wedding. They will be attached to the ribbons instead of those usual roses and almonds that everyone uses. The faces are Jean Bernard's Celia mold as well as some others. There are 40 of these and now I have to start painting and embellishing them.

Granite countertops

Our new granite countertops have been fabricated and have finally arrived. It has been an exciting process to picki out slabs. Meet with the granite guys and see how we would like the veins in the granite to be in the is land area and watch part oif it be cut in the shop. what amazed us is how from two different slabs they have gotten the veins to flow and lent an artistic approach. This stone is called purple dunes and comes from Brazil. It is an exotic looking stone and not not the orinary stuff most folks have.

Quilt square

Here is a quilt square by dear friend Annie made for us for my Mom and Dad for our wedding canopy. My Mom collects Precious Moments and this is what they wanted to have on their square. annie customized the colors and the layout and created this wonderful square for them! Mom and Dad hope that you like it.

Coookies and the Monster

Ok the cookies keep coming out and of course you know that they have to be tested. Bruce has been now dubbed the Cookie Monster by one of the ladies of the CIFI group. He is not proud of h is new title. Todays batch is Spiced Chocolate Mexican cookies with cayenne pepper. He complained they were not spucy enough so a new batch will be made using chili powder. Also made was cherry almond cookies and some large Ukrainian honey cookies which you can see him happily testing! They are the size of a plate.

Granite Oh My!

Well I guess I have been good or maybe I have ben naughty and that is why Santa is getting me new countertops for Christmas! Bruce and I went shopping again looking for granite. We had found a stone in another yard we liked and then went to this place our installer recommended. he and his partner met us there and we looked at so many different slabs. We knew we wanted something artistic. we found one but it was out of our range when they calculated. So one of the guys suggested a slab called Purple dunes that was hidden as it was similar to a spectrum that we were almost ready to buy. Well they moved the first piece and our jaws dropped! Then we needed to get slabs because of the amount of counter we need fabricated. Well here is the pieces that will be come our new countertops next year!!!!

Watercolor background=Shower of Blessings!

This morning we found some time to do some art! This is going to be the background for our Ketubah for our wedding. A ketubah is a wedding contract that originates from Judaism. Today there are many different ones available even for interfaith ceremonies. We found inspiration on the internet after seeing the prices we decided to create our own. We will only be using part of this huge piece of paper.

This was done with watercolors and salt. This will then have calligraphy done and also a little collage work. We had an original idea but like all art work it always changes so we will see how this evolves. We meet with the calligraper on December 29th and all our texts that we want and have put together are ready to go. Will post as things come to life on this project.

Reindeers,Santas, Presents and Ornaments!

Ok I am going to be daring and try for 12 types of cookies for Christmas. Don't know if I will be successful with everything going on here. But this is day two's baking. Thanks to Diane Little aka Pixie from New Mexico for this recipe. I have made this wonderful batch of Anise cookies, i used fructose so they are sugar free and I can eat them. Yipee! They are mini cookies .

Bathroom and getting ready for Christmas

Well we are getting ready for Christmas here. I was sick and tired of my bath and since we cant afford a total overhaul I decided to do a apiant job and replace the medicine cabinet and lights. i hired a painter to do the base coat. I then did an overglaze of a light peach and purple. then added a metallic gold for some contrast. It is hard to capture with the camera.

Now with that part out of the way it is time for the holiday baking to begin. the first batch is gingerbread cookies. This was 7 and a half dozen. Of course Bruce had to test them as they were coming out of the oven. he was right behind me snatching them off the cookie tray. While no pics of that here is a pic of him working on my Christmas quilt.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah,Happy Kwaanza snd Happy and Healthy New Year!

Farewell Dearest Shayna

Well today I had to put to sleep my faithful companion of 16 and half years Shayna Maidel. Itw as a hard decision but with failing eyesight she woke up this morning and was twirling around in circles so I knew it was time. She came to me as a pup that was abused a few weeks after I had gotten her sister. She was so full of love and picked up on my hearing problems. She became a service dog and would alert me to people at the door, the microwave going off and even letting me know that the handicapped bus was outside waiting for me. As she got older she retired and just enjoyed being herself. Coming out to Nevada she just loved to run like a jack rabbit in the yard and even climb up the mountains that I could not get her down,lol. When we bought this house and she moved in with Pepper he taught her how to kick dirt. She was always full of love and kisses and loved to cuddle up as a lap dog. She certainly was a love and will forever be in our hearts.

Now my dear Maidey as youa re over the Rainbow Bridge may you have lots of fun times with your sister.Till we meet again I will miss you tremendously. Thank you for all that you have done for me.

She has Clothes

Well she is now starting to come alive. I am really enjoying working on this piece. And working with different mediums. It is hard to see in the pics but the copper really adds a nice sparkle when the ligt hits it. i added that to the mix with teh micromarbles and the glitter. Now have to find out what to name her.

New Wip

As part of the retreat this year we have a challenge. We are to create a Fall or Halloween piece. I started this piece a year ago by doing the head and it was sitting in the closet. i came across it when I had to empty the closet for the new bamboo floors and a few other attemps did not really talk to me. Turns out one of them is to be incorporated into this piece. I was hoping to do a small piece since I am flying but so much for doing a Halloween egg. I am having fun doing this piece and working with a new product I have gotten at the salvage place. It is aluminum which i have used for her bodice and sleeves. It really adds texture and comes in copper too! Hope to use that on my retreat piece.

Class at Reno/Iowa Retreat

Once again I am teaching a mini class at the retreat given by two great artists Sherry Goshon and Jean Bernard. It is a 3 day art doll retreat held in Marshalltown Iowa. It is Sept 19021st but we start the day before by going antiquuing and spending tiome shoppping and just having fun. I have designed two eggs this year but can only reveal one since the other is a mystery egg. I will reveal the other after the retreat.

This one is called Swept Away to India. The face is one designed by Jean Bernard as his her Cassie mold. I have used sari fibers and have handmade the jasmine lilies of cold porcelain. You are seeing the front and back of the egg.

Walkway is poured

Well the concrete foundation is poured finally. We decided to do a reality check and look at our lives and realize that with our medical conditions it would be feasable to start planning for our future so we did away with steps and planned a ramp. Since we are investing so much money in beautiful stone it will be a shame to rip it out or put in ugly ramps down the road.

Here is a pic of Richard and I working on the concrete together. He is our contractor.I am the water boy and Bruce is the driver as he is in charge of driving the power wagon after I load the bags on concrete and bringing them over so they can be mixed. It is so nice to feel like we are part of this project. Next week the stone will be laid down. So this week i have to unload the pallets and lay out the stone on the front so we can see what the stones look like. Can't wait to see what it looks like as it will take a couple of days to get this done.

You can also see pics of the new house colors. It is charcoal gray and red which are traditionbal Asian colors.

This weeks happenings

Well this week has been a real busy one! It started off with me digging out the path for the new walkway. This has been a weeks long project as I have only been able to do it a few hours each day when it has been cool. So I get up at 6:30 and get started on it. Then we have made a few trips this week to get some rocks for the backyard. Someone on craigslist advertised them for free and there was a huge pile from small to boulders so we made three trips with the railer to get them. I am going to use them to make a planter box and also maybe a rock garden. I also started painting the house. This will take a while to do. But the house is no longer looking boring.As our neighbor Mike would say he does not want us to get bored,lol. We also picked up this garden bench for the start of our Asian garden in the front yard.

Some beauty pics

Welll after sharing some death pics I thought I would show some pics of life around here. We have loads of irises springing up all over the property. So Bruce decided to take some pics. We have a couple of shades of purple and to our surprise we found this wonderful orange one! Still waiting for the others to pop up. We went to the master gardeners sale and bought a yellow to add to the collection and our other neighbor is going to allow us to take some from their front yard as Bruce just loves yellow!!!

Paul Bunyan Imitation

Ok well this weekend I decided to change gears from renovation to demolition. we had a huge tree in the yard that ufortunately was neglected by the previous owners so it had to come down. We had hoped it would be alive but no such luck. So lucky me who is afraid of heights had to tackle the job. here I am as Bruce snapped the shots some unknowingly.

Now all this wood has to be cut down to small pieces. Some will be used for a fire pit I want to get and other we will take down to teh community composting program. The yard looks bare so we have to try and get teh roots dug up which may take all summer,lol. We want to plant a mulberry tree to take its place. Who knows what role will come next? george Washington??

Stay tuned for the next episode.

TUb Today, Gone Tommorow

Well the old hot tub is now history. Our wonderful neighbors came by yesterday and dismanted the top as I want to turn that into a gazebo. They then went ahreaf and called in reinforcements to lift this off and move it. Imagine our surprise when all these people walked into our yard to help carry thi this.

After this our neighbors went to town cutting the hot tub up so we could get it into the dumpster. We also found tge concrete pad that it was on was cracked. So Mike went and got his breaking poles and he broke all that concrete up too. It was a hard day and Bruce treated them to lunch at an Indian restaurant. Tommorow I am taking them out to Chinese Dinner. It is so nice to have this open space near our patio.

Heat are some celebration pics.