Hello to all

I hope this Saturday night finds you all well and at peace.  I have been working on making Christmas this year for my family.  I am sorry I have not been online to share with you, but a lot of exciting things are happening. There are so many awesome bloggers out there and wonderful ideas. I have found that one idea for some one else will get my thoughts going and inspires me to do something different but similar.  As in this one idea, forgive me because I don't remember where I saw it first.  Their idea was to take the round tin cansiters as in murrays cookie tins, but take 3 in different sizes and then thread them and secure each one onto a threaded rod from hardware store.  So with a base  of the biggest round, I suggest making a base of wood so it will sit level without a rocking motion, secure with nut  then place another locking nut down the rod, slip your canister and secure it with wing nut and so forth. This will keep the tins in their proper place so you can place tall or short items.  I have decided to this with altoid tins to make a valet.  I am not going to say for who, but this is something my husband and I can do together so that this gift is truly from us both. He is helping me so much and I am so thankful for his help. I could not get done what has to be done, without him. Nope no way.

The Lord has been so faithful! His word is alive and I hope you all experience His mercy and grace, that is sufficient all the time.

I also wanted to share with you a couple of really terriffic sites, don't be afraid to sign up for email on these sites as it will be fun..as in www.favcrafts.com. They have awesome drawings every week for fun and very useful items.  I keep entering and if I ever win, I will let you all know. LOL.  Also www.allcrafts.net remember Net not Com.  Anything you want to do they have helps and free patterns, knitting, crochet, scrapbooking, card making, cooking , pottery, just everything. and of course, www.crafters.org. Awesome ideas.  They also have swaps and are very moderated and safe. In fact you have to be active on site before one can join a swap or contest. Great info, and Great giveaways.

I have really come to like different blogs, they inspire me in life as in the Pioneer Woman, I will try to link up, The lady at the pink stamper.com great tutorials had sent me instructions on how to link to her, but was ill when I retrieved them and have forgotten how, so I will learn in future and do that for you all. There are so very many great blogs out there: on how to's and those that will hit your funny bone as in the Cakewreckers.com.  So explore what is out there and enjoy some time with some others. You won't regret it or forget it.
Thanks for sticking with me, I would posts lots of pictures but with the gift season upon us I am afraid something will be found out. LOL    Have an awesome life. Live life expecting great things. And remember my friends, that the Lord God Almighty loves you so much that He came to earth to die for your sins, so that you may be saved so that you can have a relationship with him. See God cannot look upon sin, for He is Holy, so the blood of Jesus is the sacrafice, so that you are made clean and can have a true real relationship with God here on earth and in Heaven!  He loves you so much and has so much to share with you.   If you have any questions on how this is possible please contact www.shilohcpc.org
Vernon is the pastor there and I know he would love to answer questions and if you want to be saved now, talk to God, which is known as prayer, and tell Him you want a relationship with Him, tell him your sins, that you know you are a sinner(we are all born in sin every each one of us, none is perfect except Jesus who walked this earth) and tell him your sins and ask for His forever forgiveness and ask him to come into your life as Lord, master, teacher , leader. He will and you will experience Him and know that you are saved. Then please contact me, your local bible believing church or Vernon and any of us will help you get to know Him better, and help you along the way in your new life!!  And it will be brand new and refreshing and so exciting.  God has His best waiting for you and He wants you to live forever with Him.   Talk to Him, He is always with you and waiting for you.  Be blessed! Know Peace that surpasses all understanding.

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God loves us! He will never leave us.

2John1:9Anyone who goes too far & does not abide in The teachings of Christ,does not have God, the one who abides in the teaching,he has both the Father & the Son.

Please study this scripture in the Bible. study before and after passage. I believe the word Abides means lives in the teachings. It is an active verb.

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How to Modifying clothing, first time, you can do it too.!

Hello everyone. So sorry to have been away for so long. I have been super busy and God has been gracious with His ideas. Today I wanted to share with you a modified dress I made. Please remember this is my first attempt and I do realize one side has to be redone. I don't know why it takes me multiple times to get a straight seam, but it does! I don't mind the ripping out and resewing because I know it is going to look good afterward, or at least fit.
Lupus has left my body without a thermostat of some sort. I sweat all the time and especially in the summertime, so when I am at home I dress very lightweight and comfortable and preferably in cotton, because it seems to dry out the quickest. Maybe a little to much information. LOL I live with this guys, really it isn't funny LOL I mean not when I am burning up like a fire is stoked inside of me.! Stop laughing, I am sure some of you can relate? Right? OK anyway this great little cotton dress was way too tight across the chest. Which is a first for me, usually things fit to tight in the bottom area. I was going through the closet, time to get rid of stuff I don't use or can't wear anymore, so I came across this awesome lime green t-shirt. I like color but I wouldn't personally wear a solid lime green t-shirt that is 2 sizes too big. It was perfect for the cotton house dress though as the dress is light blue with lime green stripe in background. Here is a picture of the t-shirt.
I cut the shirt across the body of the shirt, right below the decoration. I then took that piece of fabric and folded it into half again and then cut diagonally to make "v" sections. It made 4 and thankfully I only needed 2. Then take one of "v"s and cut straight up the middle. So I ended up with extra pieces just in case.

This is the "v" before I realized it would be too big and decided to take rotary cutter straight up the middle. Can you see the fold line? I don't know how to use a pointer yet. Please bear with me and contact me if you have any questions. I failed to mention that I took the side seams in the house dress out to just below the chest, so when I held the shirt up to ripped seams I knew how big they had to be. I could see in my head how this was going to work, when you modify for a bigger size remember to do so on both sides and try to get as even as possible. Well I pinned and pinned this knit shirt material to the cotton dress and I pinned again, I don't think I could have over pinned because the shirt material would stretch but the cotton dress will not move so I had to make sure all the seams down to the point would get sewn. I did this on both both sides. It is here where I realized I needed to take out the "v" panel and cut it up the middle and then sew the middle seam so it would match the seam all the way down the dress.


I know this looks horrible but too me it is beautiful. I have never sewn a piece of clothing before in my life! I quilt.or try. You can see at the top where it is cut into and re sewn. I do realize I need to rip this out and straighten the seam, I got the material caught up into sewing of the seam. I wish I had not taken so much of the side seam out I went lower than I needed to on this side. This is a picture of the dress completed. I hope you can see in this photo. I did not know exactly how to get all in the photo, but I am still learning. I thank you for going on this adventure with me. God is giving me ideas all the time, and He is my teacher. I am so thankful for His love and His strength. I would never have attempted to do this in the past. God is so good.
I used a zigzag stitch on my machine and then a straight stitch for double reinforcement, not fun to rip out, but it did come out! Thank you Lord! I know that I will get better at this, and will someday try it on a piece of clothing that I actually may wear outside the house! I want you to know that you can do it too! I love you all so very much. May the peace of God cover you as a warm blanket.
Peaceful musings,
Deanna
PS Musings=thoughts, pondering, inspirations
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Happy Wednesday to all

I hope you all will forgive my absence of the last few days, it has been an incredible week! Trials and Tribulations, Victories and success. Lupus is attacking my body, and Praise the Lord for doctors and researchers and for medications!
DH and I were able to attend a workshop on marketing and it was very enlightening. We are starting our own store online, if the Lord wills it to be so. It has been a dream of mine since I was a small child, to open my own clothing store for ladies. I wanted it to be able to offer the service and amenities that all the "rich" clothing stores with the fashion shows etc but for women like me, champagne taste, very beer budget. LOL Well after growing for many years my ideas of what to carry in my shop have changed. Since I have become a true addict of crafting, my idea is a top notch supply store where everyone will be treated as if they were King or Queen. This is my hope. We still have a lot of research to do and getting started, but Praise The Lord! We are putting some action behind it. May take me longer than most, but I am determined. I just need pain to go away and energy to return. LOL I will update on the progress as we go a long.

Ok I want to show you a gift I made for a special person. Sam, he is my son's father in law and it was his 50th birthday. Sam served in the Coastguard and has a love for boats and lighthouses(so does Deron, dh) I wanted to make him something that would say "you are important to us and lots of love" I ended up up-cycle a canvas that I had purchased at a yard sale about 2 yrs ago. I never ever liked the picture and always had it in supply closet for another project. I knew that all I would have to do is apply Gesso to the canvas to make it look new. ( more than one coat, one horizontally, one vertically and repeat ), used artist bristle brush instead of sponge brush so it would look like a real painting. I am not a painter, artist, nope but as I was experimenting with oil paints and acrylic paints I came up with some awesome things happening on the canvas, now you all know that was a God thing, he moved that paint brush, my hand and was speaking and instructing me the whole time. It was exciting to say the least. I knew from beginning that I wanted to use different materials making this a true mixed media piece of art. I mixed charcoal pencil onto semi dry acrylic paint to make the sky darker, of course mixed many colors, used the oil paint for the boat, God thing!!! He is so good. I used fabric for the sail and remember I said he liked lighthouses, well I purchased a wooden die cut at Hobby Lobby for 39 cents, had to go for different color paint at same time so efficient trip on way to the doctors office. I always try to plan my outings, one for economy sake the other for my energy sake. Any way I wanted to make the boat look like it needed the help of the Coastguard and burned the fabric on the edge, frayed the edges, cut a hole in the middle and sewed a "patch" to sail, and made it look like a lighting bolt and fowl weather caused the distress. I hope I am making sense. I also used quite a bit of painters tape but unfortunately it took off some of the gesso so I had to restart on part of the canvas, but I think all turned out alright. The main thing is the birthday guy , and his outspoken wife seemed to really like it. I called this one a success. Thank you Sam and Kathy for giving me a great reason to use the canvas. I really loved this project. I wish I had a picture of the canvas b4 I reused it, but alas, I don't. Here are some pictures of process leading up to opening of gift. Enjoy. Please leave comments.


Blessings, Deanna

Lupus stinks

Well today I thought I would share a little bit about the way Lupus is affecting me now, in hopes of encouraging other Lupies. As I said before I am a survivor of SLE, Lupus. I live with it everyday and it and its little buddies that sometime come with it, have disabled me. I have days where I can not awake due to horrible exhaustion, some days I may have more alert time, but every day I live with horrible pain of different sorts and can now function with the help of daily pain management with the use of a "breakthrough" pain killer if needed. I can drive and function with that , but while on predisone I have to take a tranquiler to offset the effects of the steroid. Catch 22, anyway when I take that medicine I cannot drive or use machinery etc. Weird I know! Function great with pain meds but not a simple medicine that millions of people use. I have learned that my system and body are far from normal. LOL Sleep does not come at the normal times either and bugs my beautiful husband. I have been doing well on the predisone , thank you Lord! and saw my doctor(rheumy) on Tues and he was so pleased with the way things are going. I mean I can walk now without any humped over or bend over. I spent 2 yrs in a wheelchair because I could not stand etc and the pain was unbearable, but now doing so much better. The dr. was so excited over my excitement on the creative front and starting this blog. I am finally learning a bit, after 10 1/2 yrs, to monitor my activity, not to use my energy all at once, noticing signs of body when it is saying "uncle" enough activity for now. Well got a blow yesterday as the tests that I take every 3 months or more often if needed showed a possible problem with my kidneys. We went thru this about 1 -1/2 ago and all was fine with further testing. I am fortunate that my kidney specialist (nephrologist) is very good, patient and kind. I just can't afford to go to another doctor right now. I am trying to pay off doctors I already owe.
I am blessed to have medicare but I do not have supplemental insurance as they went up $1,000. yes 1k a month and we could not do that, so now I am uninsurable. We are responsible for the 20% and anything that is not covered. Believe me there are a lot of treatments and medicines etc that medicare does not cover. Physical therapy is a thing of the past for me because we can not afford that either. This blow of the kidney thing really hit me hard, especially at the time we are going thru, like most of the country, financial problems. Everyday something new. You all know what I mean, right? Well anyway I was just being still for a moment earlier today, and The Lord reminded me that He is with me and He will work everything out for His good and His glory. That is all I really want, to honor God. I know sometimes that is very hard to do. But please remember my friends, that He does walk with those who know Him all the way. We are not alone, we may not like our situation, but we are being proofed and proven as in the silver refiner's fire, it makes us kinder, more compassionate and stronger people to get through these trials and tribulations. Just hang on to the Hope and promises that God has given you in His word.
If I can help anyone get through a difficult time then going thru my suffering is very much worth it to me. And I am able to count it as a joy, and rejoice!
So I leave you my friends today and asking you that if I can help any of you in way of prayer, encouragement, being a sounding board, listening or talking to you , please let me know. I hope you all are encouraged and feeling blessed. I know I am.
Peaceful musings,
Deanna

Using chalk board paint!

I have wanted to use chalkboard paint since I first heard about it. I found it at walmart but was the big can that one would use to paint on the wall. I knew, because I had googled it, that it came in the spray can but my local Hobby shop was too expensive so my dear husband took me to Home Depot! It was a bargain! Under $5.00 per can. Ok don't laugh, I wanted to paint my sewing machine cover with chalkboard paint. No what I really wanted to do was to paint the back of the door in the magnetic then chalkboard paint, but dh nixed that idea 2 yrs ago, so I settled for my sewing machine cover. It was a fine cover but the label did not come cleanly off and I could not for the life of me get it to stay clean, so I decided since everyone needs a chalkboard to do figuring on, that it would be mine! I don't know about you, but I cannot do math problems, ie: quilting equations, without writing them down! I already have the chalk, my fabric marker and all was left to do was to paint and let dry. It did take 2 coats for me to get it even, but I still have enough paint left over to get into trouble, uh I mean do something good with . LOL So needing no other to do's I show you the chalkboard/sewing machine cover.
I also wanted to show you how white the sewing machine was before hand, yep no picture of that , but nice picture of the white sewing machine. Don't ya think? Yep me too.
Have a blessed day everyone. May we all feel the love and support from our family and friends and remember the love that The Lord has for us all.
peaceful musings,
Deanna

Happy Wednesday or hump day.

Well being up until 8:30 this morning without sleep, meant that I passed out a little after and slept until afternoon. I have enjoyed the day taking it slower and working on a couple of different projects. I also enjoyed watching a show we recorded titled "The Colony" and was very happy to learn that my dear husband and I know what to do, like these guys did and didn't. It was fun to watch and then to catch up and see the season finale of Deadliest Catch. Yep love those guys and have so much respect for them and their families. Don't like the foul language so much and thankful that it gets bleeped out!
I painted part of a mixed media project I am doing for my son's father in law's birthday! His bday is Sat so I really need to finish it up tomorrow so I can come up with a clever idea for wrapping it. I have had a lot of fun on this one as it is my first adventure in using oil paints. It was as if God took my hand and painted that boat! That is a big deal to me. I find that the Lord and I have a grand time when we are busy together, do you?
I also started stringing deli ca beads on filament so I can make a few new Christmas ornaments this year. With money being so tight I dare say I will not be purchasing Christmas decor this year, it will have to be hand made from a stash of stuff I already have. I have taken some pictures and will share them with you and of course the finished project to.
I wanted to show you the knitting needle case I made out of placemats so here goes and praying that when I load pictures they will fall into the right place. Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated , as I am very new to this.

First, I purchase these placemats at dollar tree for $1.oo for the 2 together. Great deal, especially if you want to keep things organized and together and limited money to do so. Yes I want one made of fabric but this will do for now. I am sorry I did not think to take pictures of the placemats before I had them together. Oh , it just occured to me that you could also use these to make a project folder for a scrap page or cards etc. AHA, there He goes again, giving me some ideas.! Love that! Thank you Lord!


I placed the 2 placemats "right sides" together and sewed them along the top to make one long piece. I then folded up the bottom placemat to where I needed it to be so my longest knitting needle would fit into it and then folded the upper portion on the one long placemat down as in an envelope to cover the tops of the needles. I then sewed the sides shut on the bottom half with some black elastic thread, btw using filament thread to sew the 2 placemats into one and sewed the seam down too. (so it would not be bumpy at the seam) Oh boy I hope this will come together and make sense when you see the picture. LOL I will get better, I promise. Well back to sewing the bottom sides together so to make the "envelope " closed on all sides except the top where we want to be able to place needles. Ok confession, not completely finished with this project yet, as I need to staple or sew my little needle pockets. Being plastic place mats I think stapling in the pockets will be fine. So I took each pair of my knitting needles, placed them side by side and marked on the plastic with a red sharpie where I needed to sew or staple . If I marked correctly I will be able to hold 7-8 pairs of needles. At the tip of envelope I folded down the upper placement to fold over needles and scored the seam so it will stay put and keep needles nice and safe. Here is a picture of bag opened and rolled up with the last little bit elastic cording acting as the rubber band. Wala! Viola! knitting needle bag. Shhh, don't tell dh it isn't finished yet. He gets upset when I jump from one project to another. I just didn't remember to get staples.lol
So I will leave you for this evening, I am going to load pictures and pray that I can get them where you all can see this little marvel. Instead of spending $8-10. on fabric for this knitting needle bag I spent $1 for placemats, and another $1 for staples at dollar tree. That will be $2 for a knitting needle bag, to keep them all together! I am happy!
Have a blessed night everyone. I hope to post sometime tomorrow. Thank you for sharing this time with me.

Whew what a night

I am so tired but glad to have gotten to my first post. Ihave been trying to set up to post all night. Can you guys tell that I am a total newbie at this? Well I am. I did try to start a blog on a craft site but it took so much trouble just to get signed into the blogging area so when I started reading other peoples blogs I noticed that Blogger was a more popular spot. The fact that it is tied into google is really cool too. I have never used a friendly service on the internet. Google has got me! My pictures, contacts, calendar, email, health chart and now a blog. I hope they don't get tired of me.

I had actually written this blog earlier but it came out in a language I did not understand so I had to locate how to correct the problem, but alas, I ended up deleting and rewriting. It is about time to get up for the day and I have not slept yet so I will say Good day and promise to write later today or tomorrow about the Awesome Knitting Needle/Crochet hook bag I made out of placemats from the dollar tree. I also have some other pretties to share with you. Have a blessed day and enjoy all that God has for you today.
Blessings and hugs,
Deanna

I feel like it is an opening to heaven!