A Home for my Shiny's.

I have this bad habit of taking my jewelry off and just tossing it on top of my dresser, or dropping it in a drawer.
Not only that, but I have a decent amount of jewelry. It helps having a mother who is a jewelry artist (www.quiltedinclay.com). I can't always wear jewelry due to some excema that flares pretty badly at times but I love having it available for when I CAN wear it.



Anyways I decided that I needed a good DIY project to organize my jewelry and I came up with this.

It is just a long rectangular box that my laptop cord came in, I painted it. Added some roses on top (left over from our wedding cake that I haven't found a use for yet, no they are not edible). I then screwed in a bunch of screws and glued a couple of pearl buttons on to cover a couple of blemishes. Tada! Easy peasy. I  made two holes in the back and hung it on the wall with a couple of nails. I put my hairpiece from our wedding onto the top of it, the long skinny red box on top has a pearl necklace that my oldest sister got me. If you can see the paper that I pinned behind it. It is a love letter that Mr.Sir wrote to me once when we were apart. I have it there to remind me of how good he is to me.






A lot of my necklaces consist of a chain and then a pendant, I had this storage container on hand and decided to put my pendants all in it underneath the chain hooks. That way I can pick out my chain and pendant without digging through the drawer.

Then I needed a place for my earrings. What I really wanted to do was take a embroidery hoop and put lace inside, but alas I had neither hoop or lace. So what did I come up with? Yogurt lids. We go through a lot of yogurt. So I took two lids, cut out the inside, painted them black and glued in some tulle. I finished two of them, but I think I am going to do two more to
spread out my earrings a little better. I also need a system for my bracelets.



Hope you enjoyed.
Live and Love

Urine.

Urine.

I know, attractive title right? Mr.Sir and I just adopted a new puppy. His name is Sherlock. He is only 5 months old and needs some training, which is to be expected. Of course, we are still learning what his 'gotta go, gotta go' cue is, resulting in 3 accidents. Two of those three accidents were on our bedroom carpet. Yikes.

We have had a urine problem with Luna too. She is a feisty Siamese and can be temperamental and decide that the couch, my old roommates bed (I am still sooo sorry about that!), or any soft spot on the floor makes for a good substitute for her litter box. So I had done plenty of research for pet urine removers, before the puppy. The best I found was Natures Miracle from the pet store. But at 8 dollars a bottle, it gets pricey and I am frugal, frugal, frugal. So one day, I was talking to my pastor's wife and she mentioned a mix that she used on her puppy piddle spots. I tested it on the kitty urine couch cushion and it worked!

Pet Stain Remover
- 3 tbsp Laundry Detergent, I use a homeade mix which is 1 box Borax, 1 box washing soda, 2 bars fels naptha soap. (I think I keep messing up and telling people 1 bar, but I am pretty sure I used two, just so all you family type people know) I got the recipe from Being Creative:To Keep My Sanity then I drop essential oils in it and shake it real good.
- 2 cups boiling water
- 2 cups white vinegar

I mix the laundry detergent into the boiling water until it is all dissolved, let it cool a bit and add the vinegar. I use an old olive oil bottle because it has a decent spout. The original recipe didn't have as much vinegar but I feel it is needed for the odor. *test the carpet/furniture first like with everything other foreign cleaning mix* then soak down the spot, let it sit just for a couple of minutes. I like to do some rubbing to get into all the crevices of the carpet then I step down on it to soak up as much as I can and let the rest air dry. It is so cheap that you can use a ton, like I did for my couch cushion, I made a HUGE bowl of it and just drenched the cushion, then I used the hose to rinse it all out.
Hope it helps!
Live and Love

Lack of Rain, Grass, and a New Dress

Over here in the Midwest, we haven't received much rain lately. My garden is doing okay thanks to my city water and soaker hose (at least until I see the water bill).

 You may be wondering how I gauge how dry it is? I look at my grass. Yup our grass is brown brown brown, with a hint of green here and there. Especially where the hose leaks. I am one of those people who think that watering grass is just sick. You don't eat grass, well some people might. Green grass is a vanity thing to me. Especially now that I live in town and see my neighbor who installed sprinklers to, yep, water his grass. I know that the water just goes right back down into the earth but wasting clean fresh water on grass? I don't know, it is just one of my pet peeves.

Anyways here is short-ish poem, asking for rain.

Look around, what do you see?

I see the whole wide world staring at me,

candles a-flicker,

flames a-light,

I wish for rain to fall tonight.

I yearn for the dreary,

as it casts the grey ,

It is for rain that I do pray.

To hear the thunder,

as the lightning strikes,

Oh, it has been very dry these past many nights.

 The garden moans,

the fields all cry,

I sit and listen to the wind sigh.

 The candle on the table flickers with life,

my Bible sits open, listening to my strife. 

It is not as dry as it has been in the past,

yet this prayer is for rain, and it won't be my last.

Oh, Oh!! Before you go! Check out this ADORABLE dress I found at the thrift store. It was only 6 dollars. It also fits me like a glove. It goes well with my sequin shoes (of course those match everything)  and my grey vest I sewed. I thought the vest and sequin shoes dressed it down a bit.
Live and Love

Conclusion of Silence

Well, my silence week is over. My conclusion : Silence is nice. Computers are handy.

I did better than I thought that I was going to. I only allowed myself a short amount of time each day to answer email's and check for messages on Facebook. It also got a little tricky because Mr.Sir got a new iphone and boy is that a neat toy *ahem* I mean phone *ahem* ipod? .......computer????

Overall it was a nice week, with lots of work being done. Lots of time spent with Mr.Sir. We went hiking, fishing, and swimming. Some house cleaning, I couldn't figure out what was making my house reek. Turns out that it was a bad egg, sigh, what a mess to clean up. I also did some book reading, knitting, and crocheting. I spent time visiting during sewing day for our Quilt Guild.

It did become a little easier because my brand new laptop won't charge for some reason, so I was down a computer until I get it fixed. I will admit that I like doing handwork while watching marathons/movies on Netflix.

I also decided that it is okay to have a little bit of downtime in front of the computer. You don't need a massive amount of it, that is not healthy but using it as a tool for communication and entertainment. That is acceptable.

So really... honestly.. I didn't learn a darn thing. Except what a bad egg smells like.
 Oh well, Live and Love.