A Spring Post

I have been doing not so good for the

past few months.

a lot has been due
to the lung cancer.

That is the non self inflicted lung cancer.

I had no choice, it was not caused

by me or anyone near me smoking.

If you read this and smoke, please quit, if you get cancer, it will be the people you love that hurts and
that will take care of you.

If you really want to put that load on your children,
then I don't think anything,
anyone says,would help to encourage

you to stop smoking.

Well that is enough for the "lecture."

Of course, I did not put the camera down
during this time.

I have some lovely photos from my yard, and some from the mountains after the trees turned last fall. These four, up to this point, are just a few out of the many I took.

Since I have been invited to be a guest at an International Convention, I chose to use some of my photos as gifts for the others that will be attending the convention.

Of course I cannot make 100,000 gifts, nor travel with that many, so I have to call a halt at a certain number.

Being the convention is in Mexico City, I am taking things, the people there can use, but cannot afford to purchase.

Those are things I have been picking up here and there for the past few months.

Hair things for the females and ties for the males.

And then the gifts with the photos. Right now they are a load of postcards.

If I remember how to load the photos here, I will load the final copy, so you all can see what I have to share with the other delegates.

You all, if you know someone that is going to the same convention, could you contact me please.

Those that know me enough to know someone that is attending will already know how to contact me.

If I get someone that posts in the comments part, I will be asking questions, that cannot be fudged by someone not attending.


My crochet hooks have not been resting either, in fact, this afternoon, I have to work on a gift, that needs sent out in the next few days, so that needs done by Friday at the latest.

I have always turned my nose up at making doilies, I love seeing them and having them in my home.

I always thought what a waste, they are just dust catchers.

Well a group of sellers on Ebay taught me the joys of making and having the nicer of the doilies.

Now I not only crochet them, I have them all over the house.

Some aare my granny's and my great grandmothers.

Some are those that others have made, and I have one or two of mine.

Please, please, do not buy doilies from the dollar store or Walmart or stores like those.

There is no machine crocheting, like knitting.

If a dollar store sells a doily for a dollar and it take someone five to seven hours to make that doily, how much are the losers that are selling them to the dollar store paying that crocheter?
It makes me sick to think some woman is paid pennies for that much work.

If you want a doily, hire someone that you know, or go to a yarn store and ask there, for someone. But please, please, do what you can to stop that abuse.

It makes me sicker to think that a child may be the one making them.

I have a suggestion, the dollar stores and other stores buy, on the bases of what is sold. So if no doilies are sold, they won't come up to be bought. Hide the doilies when you see them.

Hide them where they cannot be seen for months.

I know how long it takes a good crocheter to make one doily, so that is why I am mentioning this.

Ok I promised so copies of the postcards I am making for the delegates of the convention.

Here they are.

This is not all of them.

This is starting to underline everything I am writing.

for some reason. I can say I had fun making these and then using a coupon from Walgreens.

The coupon was 50 prints for $5.00.
So I made several and had to correct some of them. Just to waste another coupon!




And others are going where I put them with no problem.


These are small, I may make some bigger tomorrow, with not much writing.
I am getting a headache and getting frustrated, because there is so much going wrong.

Ok there is not much cooperation with those silly things, so I will try and post them, in a bigger manner also, another day.

It is not worth the headache and not worth the frustration.

I also need to get crocheting while my show is on.

August the Month it Rained

The rains fell a lot here in August, The lawns and flowers did so well because of the rains.

The garden is doing great!

I so love the first grilled cheese and homegrown tomato sandwich of the summer.

I ate that slow, slow, slow, so I could savor every bite.

Summer is going so fast. The grandchildren and the younger nieces and one of my nephews are all back in school.

This summer break flew by fast.

It has been a busy summer.


The photo above is a collage of photos that were taken along the river walk in Pueblo Colorado.
This was a very pleasant place to take a good stroll or a good hard walk workout.
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The yard is finally taking on a pretty look. I have been working hard getting the hill to look decent.

I finally gave up on grass growing there. The hill and the neighbors pine tree make grass an impossibility.

The neighbor that the pine tree belongs to, has put in a small wall on her side, and it looks so much better. (She is a fairly new neighbor and very nice) I have to get into that back strip, next year and do something with that.

Maybe some bushy type of flowers and some perennials would work.

I have put bark under the pine tree, and the hill and have added flower plants here and there. I have more flowers to add, thinning out the marigolds in the back and taking them to the front will help.

A friend is going to give me some cuttings from her Russian Sage. I am hoping that will be a good and fast spreader and I can have those making that area of the yard looking good.

Sweet, loving Don has done a lot of the digging and hauling.

Beside yard work, I have been making gifts from my beads and crocheting other things.

♥ ♥ ♥


Now it time to sell things. The International Conventions may seem a long ways away, but time flies faster than we want it to sometime. ♪ ♪

I have to sell things I make, and other things, to help pay for the privilege of being able to attend the International Convention, and the entire trips expense.

I like making small items, so I can work for the money and enjoy some of the work.

Some of the things I make are harder than others, but I like the challenge and it keeps me on my toes.

☻ ☻ ☻

I will be selling mostly through Etsy and possibly EBay. With the changes EBay is forcing on its sellers and buyers, I am not so certain I want to list there.

Here is a link to my Etsy store. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5845307

If that doesn't work. You can go to Etsy.com and click the drop down menu by the big Etsy sign and click sellers usernames and then type in Fawnscrafts.

I may use Wagglepop as a venue, but I have heard some not so good reports about billing in that site.

****

I make small items and will sell those.

Right now, besides yarn, I have retro dress hot pads and a kitchen set for sale on Etsy.

I have two purses that are not listed, that are ready to sell. (See photos if you are interested)This first one is a bit blurry, it is the flower and loop for closing the purse.










The first one is a child's purse. This is a darling heart shaped purse.

It is crocheted with worsted weight rose/burgundy yarn. And has a white handle that is also acrylic yarn, but it has a slight fizzy texture. The closure is a flower and a loop.

The second purse is a faux suede purse.
There is one main compartment. The out side is embellished with a forest theme.
It has pink beads to accent the flowering trees, and the leaves, branches and trunks are embroidered.
This purse is 100% polyester.

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I will be making bookmarks also.

The bookmarks are one of a kind and will be made differently, depending on my mood, or the texture I want to work with, or what someone asks for.

I can make corded, card stock, and crocheted, all with beads and/or tassels bookmarks.

The collage has some of what I have made.


JW’s and others, if you want a specific size, please email me. I can make them big enough for the Reference Bible or small enough for the paperback study books.

♥ ♥ ♥

Tomorrow or Monday I will be posting about other items I have made or will be making.

If you want to see better photos of the bookmarks, then go ahead and post a comment.

The bookmarks made from cards cannot be duplicated. Some crocheted ones can be, but most of those are one of a kind also. I use thread and yarn to make different bookmarks. Also, if you have a bead, charm or pendant that is special to you and you want to have a gift made of it to someone, I can make a bookmark for you. We can email and get a design up together if you want to.

The corded ones are easier to make the same.

I can make hats and scarfs also.

☻

Post and ask if you are interested in pricing. Or you could ask for a color and I could make a listing on Etsy to take a deposit, and when the item is done the final payment is sent and I will send the item to you.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5845307

I can take Paypal and I am looking at a couple more safe payment sites, and I can take only USPS postal money orders, none from any other source but the USPS.

Checks would be up to my discretion.

Thank you for reading this blog and stumbling through my selling pitch.

♥ ♥ ♥

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5845307

One Glorious Month into a Warm and Happy Summer

It has been a terrific summer. The garden is producing tomatoes and herbs, the flowers are starting to come out. We had a proliferation of roses, they looked impressive!

My clematis was doing fantastic. I am trying to harvest the seeds off of those, and that is a hard job. I am still getting the stragglers blooming. The baskets are holding their own; I have to work on those once a week. As the old blooms die, I take them off and harvest what seeds I can harvest.

My first morning glory bloomed today.
I wanted a photo if it, but I needed to take my fellow Mother –in-law to the doctors. So she and I made a day of it, until after lunch.

She went with her husband and I went to the library.

I checked out too many books, a few I have gone thorough some already, and know what I am able use out of them.

About a week and a half ago some new neighbors decided to move in.

They built their place in one day and were dangerous, so we wanted them out of here.

The photo above is of their said home.

DH sprayed it two times, and got the queen at least, there were a few that flew away.

I picked up the nest after it fell and looked at it.

Seven layers, all in one day. I think that is absolutely incredible!

I wanted to keep it and look at it more, but DH went out when I was gone and destroyed it.

But that nest urged me to be determined to make this:

http://www.hankeringforyarn.com/crocheted-wasp-nest

And I did, here it is hanging up front. But it will go in back.



We need the decoy for up here on the deck. Down in the far yonder part, by the back fence a nest would be no problem.

So a summer full of joys and stresses, but all are doing what the creator put in them to instinctively do.

Next summer, I may be going to an International Convention.

To get there, I need to earn my way. So I am selling things. And pinching pennies.

Many will be hand crocheted items, some hand crafted, some will just have added embellishments made by me and some commercially produced items.

The commercially produced items will mainly be crochet and knit books, yarns, and piano music and a few other items.

I am starting to sell items. Some will be hand crocheted and some handmade and some embellished by me, and some commercially produced and I do not need anymore.

I did get all of my yarn books sorted, or at least I think it is all of them.

I found out I have a few books that I have double copies of so some of those must go up for sale. I have offered them locally first, so if you are local and got the email and are interested, go ahead and contact me.

The purple one was a gift.

This set is on sale in my Etsy store.

A Great Time

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This is a photo I took last fall. We went on a nice afternoon drive to see the aspens. This was taken on the Cripple Creek hi-way.



The Family Reunion was fantastic.

We had fun and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Laughter, hugs and love reigned over the entire weekend.

I found out one cousin is a professional photographer. His work is one of a kind. He takes photos in a manner that looses the one flat dimension. Most postcards, as beautiful as they are, are in a one dimension mode.

As soon as I get information, I will be posting more information about his photos.

I can say, and say it with pride, his photos puts my flowers and other photos to shame.

I do not mind, he has an eye for the right light and the correct angle.

I just get excited and click away.

I am still trying to get my store off the ground. Right now, I have only yarn listed. But soon, I hope to have hand crafted items for sale.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5845307

I was super busy making gifts for the family. Now I am getting many works in progress done, some are gifts and some are to sell.

Smiling and Packing

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Tomorrow, well it is later today now, because it is now after midnight.
We get to go to our family reunion.
Mainly it is a celebration of and aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary.
I am excited.

This has been an emotional day, for different reasons, so some things had to be put off until the last moments.

I haven't even started packing the suitcase. But most of what I am packing is sorted and ready to pack.

I have gifts ready to put in a box and crochet projects in their respective bags, the crochet hooks and scissors and other accessories are ready to get loaded in the car.


I have to charge some more batteries for the camera, so I can take hundreds of photos. If I see a flower and am able to, I more than likely will take a photo of that. Well let me say a flower that is growing outdoors. Unless it is an awesome one growing indoors or a cut flower that is worthy to take a photo of.

It has been a busy two weeks.

I have had other family visit me a few days. I started making my plarn that I am going to loom knit into a bath mat.

Plarn you ask? It is plastic bags recycled into a ball of plastic string, to make things with. Nap mats, purses and grocery totes are popular things to make out of plarn.

The part of the bag I do not use for plarn will go to the plastic bag recycle bin at the stores.

I have finished up the bath sets I am making for my aunts. I have one and a half of remote cozies to make my uncles, left to do.

Remote cozies you ask? Yes, for that is all I could think of that is fast and easy enough for my skills for them. Now I just have to make up a goofy poem to let the uncles know what they are and why I picked the cozies to make.

We have almost finished the front yard. It needed some landscaping terribly bad. The back yard has about two more days work, but that has to wait a couple weeks.

My photos today, is one that I took after it rained one day, and then I went into my Photo Shop program and cut out all the background. (That took a lot of work, but it was basically easy) There is a before and after.

I have some brand new blooms on the rose bush I noticed today. I may run out and get a photo after I post this.

A New Adventure

This is a photo taken from an older cell phone. This is near Garden of the Gods, near Colorado Springs.

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For the first time, I am going to try selling on Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5845307


I am going to sell yarn.

I have too many bins full of yarn and need to clear some out.

Eventually, I want to sell hand crafted items.


If you are on the lookout for yarns, please visit my store and see if I have what you want.

When I get the handcrafted items listed in the store. I will be posting here some of the items I have for sale.

You all have a great day, and a great week!