Seeing this ad for the first time yesterday, made me laugh out loud. The designers who work for me often hear that kind of description from me.  

"It should be not a light enough teal-ish color so it looks aqua or girlie, and not deep enough to feel like you are in the woods, something kind of in between, a little bolder than that color that is trendy right now.

Weirdly, that makes sense to them.

Guessing the writer of these TV Commercials (there are a bunch of these on You Tube), spent a day in the design department, and came up with these "design-speak" commercials. That's where the magic happens, hahahaaha!

Use your verbal Vitamin C!


Heavens to Betsey

 I had to be at the mall today. It's no secret that I would rather be most anyplace than the mall. Especially on a Saturday. So, to improve my attitude, I stopped to see what Betsey is up to. I have followed Betsey's design career since high school. She started as a clothing designer, and now designs accessories too.

Maybe I am drawn to Betsey's work because she and I have something in common.  We both performed in many dance recitals while growing up. We both have a soft spot for costume. In fact, I have always wondered if I should have been a costume designer for Country Western singers.



So, while I am not going to wear a googly eyed pink lobster, I do like keeping up with Betsey now and then.

                                    

Her stuff is definitely not for everyone. But it's fun to check it out.

One more thing about Betsey...she does a cartwheel on the runway at the end of every one of her fashion shows. She is 71 years old!

Tap into some Betsey kind of creativity this week!

My Ebenezer is not about Scrooge

I am currently working through a bible study about Gideon. There are all kinds of gems in it that I want to remember. The way I remember is to write or draw or paint something about it. I am a kinesthetic learner. That means I learn and retain best if a physical activity is connected to the learning process.

When you create something, a memorial if you will, to help you remember what God has done for you, it is called an Eben-Ezer. Eben-Ezer in the original Hebrew, means "rock of help."

Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” 
I Samuel 7:12 NASB

That rock and others used for the same purpose by Old Testament characters, was a reminder. 

When Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan into the promised land, God stopped the water flow so they could walk across the river bed.  From that river bed, they collected 12 stones. They carried them out and placed them where they stopped for the day.

Those twelve stones which they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. He said to the sons of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall inform your children, saying, ‘Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the Lord your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed;  that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
Joshua 4: 20-24

When God's people walked by it, they remembered. When their children asked what the big deal was about a rock, they could use it as a teaching opportunity.

I think Samuel must have been a visual person, like me, and having something he could see jolted his memory. It works like that for me too and so I make some sort of Ebenezer when I want to remember or keep it fresh.

Plus, it is fun to doodle and color.



These are two of my latest journal pages. I did them with watercolor pencils and Sharpies. It takes less room than stacking up rocks, and it works for me!

Use Your Vitamin C!

Layering Glass on Beads

 New beads for my next column...

Made a bracelet using them. You can see them in the December issue of Bead Design Studio. With instructions!

Had to brush off my Vitamin C a little....

Introducing the 10 Year Plan



Three weeks ago after a kind of toxic confrontation from a co-worker (I did not bite because I refuse to be on the Jerry Springer Show), I decided to make a 10 year plan. For retirement. I do not have confidence that I will have enough money in 10 years to be able to retire...because of all of the same reasons all of us are worried about it.

I totally believe that I will still need to work past retirement age. I will have had my fill of corporate America in 10 years...not that anyone will want a 65 year old woman working for them...and I really do not want to be the greeter at Wal-Mart. Do you need a cart today? So, I need a plan. I do not mind working, but I will need something I can do at home, setting my own schedule.

Following is my initial 10 year plan. 


  • when I am ready to retire, I am going to sell this house and buy a small cottage by a lake and a tree, and make it stinking cottagey cute. It is going to have screen doors that will swing shut and a fireplace for the winter, and I am going to track sand inside and work whatever hours I want, and say no to all toxic people.
  • I am going to plant a vegetable garden.
  • I am going to have a sleek little wind turbine for electricity.
  • I am going to build patio furniture out of palettes, or whatever crazy thing people are doing on Pinterest in 2023.
  • And I am going to support myself doing design work and writing, and maybe selling some jewelry at the local tourist boutique. The thought of sitting and working by a sunny window (or the fireplace) in my lake cottage makes me very happy. I think about it every day now.
  • I will drive my stinking cute canned ham trailer, with my Jeep, down to see The Human Pin Ball in the winters.
  • And I am going to praise Jesus for taking care of me and blessing me for a life of working my heinie off


That is actually more like the 10th year plan, isn't it? Now I need plans to work on for the first nine years that will get me to that place.  Stay tuned.......

Anyone else planning for retirement? Or in it already? Do you have anything to share?

Going to need my Vitamin C for the 10 year plan!

Update on Bleach Doodles



Consistently, one of my most popular posts is Bleach Doodles.  In that post I said that if you leave the bleach on the shirt until it is dry, the lines will be nice and white.

Now, many washings later, I find that the places I left the bleach on to dry, the bleach has eaten through the fabric.

Holes, yes, but, doesn't this have possibilities? You could do delicate cut out designs. It warrants trying.  

Use your Vitamin C!

Mailbox Refurb

Oh how I wish I had taken a before picture of this mailbox.

Some years ago, my brother in law volunteered to put up my new mailbox. We discussed how to attach it to the post and cement the post into the ground. And I left on a business trip. When I got home, he had nailed it to the side of the porch railing. Yeah. Classy.

Worse, I left it there until it was falling off, all bent out of shape. and rusting. 

Deciding to finally fix it, I pulled it off, straightened out the wonk, sanded off the rust, and sprayed it with with a primer. After that I sprayed it green. I used a big Spouncer (flat round sponge on a stick) and printed white dots all over it. 

I had considered buying a new mailbox, but I really didn't have to. It looks great, for only the cost of a can of green paint, since I had all of the rest of the stuff I needed.

Use your Vitamin C!


Surprise Blessings

The city is two years into the project to redo my street. Last summer, the north end got a facelift, and this summer it has been our turn down here on the south end. The plan gives us new sewers, curbs, and street.  I admit I was not looking forward to this, afraid of the mess, noise and dirt.

Turns out, it was not only painless, but there was a surprise blessing I had not thought about. Traffic has not been able to drive down the street for two months. It has been delightfully quiet, and I am now wishing for them to take a little longer to finish up. There has been a bit of noise, not much...and dirt has filtered in the windows all summer, and this has been the view out my side window the whole time, but sleeping at night without the crazy high school kids squealing tires and blaring music has been like a vacation.

Loving my Vitamin Ahhhhhhhh!

Prayer Flags


Prayer flags have been kind of on my mind for awhile, so when I facilitated a summer Bible study at my house, I thought it would be a good addition.

I cut out fabric and batting triangles with my pinking shears and stitched them together with ribbon loops.They are two sided, so I can have two sets of prayer flags if I turn them around.


When my classmates arrived, the flags were hanging in the living room where we would have class. Anybody who wanted to write a prayer, did that on a white fabric triangle and pinned it to the line of flags.


We prayed scripture and thoughts that were meaningful from our study. We even had a prayer written from a verse of the song Swing Low Sweet Chariot. I never really looked at the words to that song. Some of them had great meaning to us.


Everyone will get to take home their prayer flags. If you are interested in the history of prayer flags or would like to see other kinds of flags people make, try this website. You can also search facebook for prayer flags and you will find some pages.

Use your Vitamin C and your favorite technique!

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