I was at W@lmart earlier with Dawn. Her ex-mother-in-law sent money for Cherokee & Justin to get some clothes with & her car is broken, so I volunteered. I was looking around at some stuff, just trying to pass the time and saw this great cake decorating set by Betty Crocker with one of those big red & white as seen on tv stickers on it. I never saw it on TV! It has an icing knife, seven different tips, the bags, stencils, a rose nail and comes in a really nice storage box. I’d really like to get one & as soon as I have enough extra money, I plan to buy it. I really enjoy decorating cakes, cupcakes and cookies and I think this would be a great purchase.

I’m planning to knit a few dishcloths this week. I went & bought myself an extra set of 6mm needles (I have a UFO on my other set), some red & orange cotton & printed off the patterns I want to use, so we’ll see how I do. I’ve never tried to make one that has a picture in the center before and I’m excited to try. I want to put these in our motorhome and also make some for my mom to use in their’s, too. I also need to cut off some pants for Jason, hem them & add some elastic to them for him.

Well, I need to go, time to start some dishes so I can get dinner started in a bit.

The other day, when Dawn & I were at the store, a woman was checking out behind us. She had this really cute (and cool) tool set that came in a bag that looked like the old bowling bags, with gray play & pink trim. I seriously started coveting that tool set as soon as I saw it & wished I hadn’t been so broke at the time. I really want my own set of tools again, just so I know where all of the tools I need are, any time I need to use them. Its not like I’m asking for a set of Ingersoll Rand air tools, I just want a set with some pliers, screwdrivers, a measuring tape and a hammer, because I used that type of thing all the time & I can never find anything. Troy and my daughter are terrible about putting things back when they’re done using them (my craft room is a prime example of my daughter not putting things away) and I hate having to search the whole house when I want a darned hammer.

Troy bought me a set for Christmas one year, and it lasted for awhile, because I kept my stuff in the case, hidden in my room. The minute it was discovered by the kids, parts started disappearing and I still haven’t found them all. Maybe I’ll ask for a set for Christmas, I wonder if everyone will leave it alone this time?

A few weeks ago, I posted that I had found this cool set of luggage that a woman on Craftster had made for her son, remember? This morning I was looking for a particular post where a recent art school graduate (I think) had taken a small suitcase & made a really cool art portfolio out of it, but I never found that post. What I did find were several posts where people had taken old hard-sided Samsonite type luggage and totally revamped it. They redo the outside, sometimes by painting it, sometimes covering it in fabric & decoupaging it and often a combination of techniques are used. Some of them tear out the old lining & replace that, too. This is one of my favorites, I just love how she made the green painted part mesh so well with the monster print fabric! I have a small hard-sided suitcase in our storage unit that might be fun to try this with, maybe I will sometime this winter. Luggage like that lasts forever, its true, and I think these projects are a testament to it!

I was just remembering my mom & dad’s former neighbors and his crazy schemes. He’s a fellow faire vendor & I’ve known him a long time – as a matter of fact I ran into him at the Las Vegas Faire, too – but some of the things he’s done have given me pause or really made me laugh out loud, at times. I believe that before they came up here he & his wife & kids lived in a commune in Arizona (it was very likely a polygamist commune) and so doing things differently was pretty much par for the course. They had two single wide mobile homes that they had joined together (badly) and were living in. I never went inside, but my parents did & so did my kids a few times, I was told it was very dark and that one wall was lined with animal cages for snakes, lizards and such. At one point, he had rigged up a system with manual treadmills to generate power in there, at least for awhile, and yes, he made the kids operate it. I’m not really sure how it worked or how well, because it didn’t last very long and they were back on the grid (if they ever actually left it). It very well just could have been one of his ideas that never got off the ground. He was forming his own religion for awhile and also kept pigeons (he used to go stand on the coop & flap his arms up & down at them).

He’s a good craftsman and makes nice chainmaille, he also sews fairly well, he’s just a little crazy, and somewhat scary, too. He & his wife divorced a couple of years or so ago & she just recently died in Arizona. We had been told for years that she had MS or something, it turns out she was mentally ill and just believed that she had it. Its quite sad, really. Erin dated their oldest daughter for a long, long time. I was upset when they broke up, but I’m happy he isn’t dealing with the dysfunction of that family anymore.

While I’m in here, don’t forget to vote for me in Christine’s contest! I really would like to win something & you all are the only way I can!!

I feel a lot more rested today, I really slept well last night (which is unusual when Troy’s on night shift). I’ve seriously been considering my product line up lately, knowing that I need to get started if I want to be ready by July. I’m thinking of a soap & body line designed for camping, with hand sanitizer, a body spray with natural bug repellents in it, and a soap with anise, plus a good lotion and some of my sunburn soother maybe. I think it might sell fairly well around here. Hey, if we weren’t landlocked, I’d come up with something for people who take cruises, but since we are, I gotta go with what we do around here. I know I need to start thinking about which soaps I want to make, based on what actually sells, that will include Dragonsblood & oatmeal, milk & honey, because that’s already sold out & I know people who want it.

I very nearly sold out of lip balm this year, and did of several flavors, so that’s a do-over for sure. The tooth fairy pillows didn’t sell very well, but I did sell two of them, so I’ll just put what’s left back in the booth. We saw a lot of things that I want to try to make for next year, so we’ll see what I’m actually motivated to make & how those things turn out. I know I want to try to make baby & toddler slippers/shoes, these cool skirts that can be worn in tons of ways and several other things, just need to have the time to try them out.

The first two pictures are Dawn, Vicki & Myself after we had lunch. We were sitting in the picnic area of Sunset Park, where the faire is held every year. We were quite lucky to get a seat, although we had to share our table with other people & so we had turned around on our seats and were doing a bit of people watching.

This other picture is my husband, Troy, in the doublet I finished for him a few days before we left. I designed this a couple of years ago, had it all sewn and such but it had no closures & the eyelets hadn’t been installed yet, so it wasn’t wearable until now. He’s very pleased with it.

I just can’t believe how incredibly tired I am today. I was in bed my 10:15 and asleep before 11, so I don’t know why I can’t wake up today, but I can’t. I seriously need to figure out a Halloween costume, since our party is this Saturday & I haven’t thought of anything – maybe I’ll go as a member of the Fort Hamilton Watch, or something like that (it’s a small town here in SW Utah). I doubt it, I’m not the Night Watch type.. although the thought of another Terry Pratchett/Discworld inspired costume does interest me. Sadly, I have no money to spend, so I’ll have to come up with something based on what I already own. I’m thinking it’ll have something to do with my new striped witchy socks because I love them so much. Anyway, I plan to post those picture from the LV faire in a little while here, I just need to grab a shower really quick (I have to take Dawn to court today for her daughter Cherokee – again) and such, then I’ll post away.

A few weeks ago, I clicked on a link in someone’s blog that took me to a site where they were offering a free cultured pearl necklace, if you paid the shipping & handling. I have always wanted one of my own, and thought it would look nice with my nicer garb that I’ll be wearing when we do the royal processional next faire, so I ordered it. I was told a few days later that it had been shipped, so I waited. And waited. And waited. It took an extremely long time to get here, you’d have thought they shipped it from Japan by SAL honestly (it really did take as long as that would have). When it finally did get here, the cheap little plastic “envelope” the shipped it in was open, the insert was partially out of it & the pearl necklace was gone. I was so disappointed and angry. I have no idea who opened my mail and took it, but since we have a locked mail box, it had to be someone in the postal service, between where it was shipped and here, which really doesn’t give me a lot of confidence when ordering things anymore. I stressed out until everything I had ordered in the past few weeks was safely here. I’m still a bit nervous, since I’m waiting for a package from Japan & a couple of books, but I’m imagining they’ll get here safely. I hope so, anyway, one of them is a gift for my daughter for Christmas.

I’ll get back to my LV faire recap eventually, with pictures even, but I’ve been a little busy & preoccupied lately. So, soon.

I swear, buying a new computer is a great thing & a pain in the rear at the same time, you know? When we ordered ours, Troy got me a really slim one because I have so little room here at my desk & he wanted to uncramp my space a bit. By doing that I sacrificed storage space on my computer. We had intended to just take my extra, bigger hard drive from my old machine & install it in this one. That was terrific for me, because I keep everything for my business & craft ideas on that one anyway. We couldn’t install it on this computer. Technology has advanced so much in two years that it couldn’t be done. I was frantic and angry, all I wanted was my hard drive on my new computer, I couldn’t fit everything from it onto this one & still have a decent amount of space. We went to the stores around here, hoping for a solution & finally ended up getting this nifty adapter that turns an internal hard drive into an external one & the problem was solved. After that, it was a situation with my monitor, which kind of resolved itself until this past Sunday, when it changed my resolution & lost the proper settings. It found them the next morning. I’m thinking of making a blond wig for my computer, it certainly acts blond part of the time.

I’m just happy I was able to keep my hard drive, it has so much information I really need on it, from soap recipes to invoices, and patterns and links and labels.. I think you get the picture. It was stuff that my daughter would have deleted if I had left it in that computer, because it would be useless to her, and then it would have been lost forever.

Do you remember that great contest over at Christine’s that I posted about earlier this month? The one with the Tag-A-Long Starter Kit and the dies and such? Well, the voting started today & if you liked my entry & reasons for wanting to win, please vote for me. You can vote once a day & I’d really appreciate it. Having that set would make so many things I’m trying to do for this wedding easier & faster, and I’m pretty much doing it alone. Faster & easier needs to be my life right now!