Life Of A Blogger Slacker - Part 1

Alrighty then, I've firmly established that I'm a blogger slacker.  If you're counting how frequently I post, which clearly is not very often.  I prefer to think of it as "my life is so full I can't possibly blog every day."  Which is true.  Sometimes life is good, sometimes not so much.  And sometimes it's both at once.  Like a couple of weeks ago when my daughter and I took a road trip to Maine for our uncle's funeral.  This was an uncle everyone absolutely adored, he is loved so very much.  And there was no way we were not going to be there to say goodbye, so we packed up the car and took off on the Uncle Cy Memorial Road Trip.  The drive was long, but beautiful, we were only in Maine 24 hours and 5 minutes and it was worth every second. We wished we could have been there for a happier occasion; but it was so great to see our family (and the hugs were awesome) and share this slice of life with each other.

Even though it was a whirlwind trip, we took an hour and snuck off to Freeport (love Freeport!).

Downtown Freeport is absolutely beautiful!

We had one mission to complete - visit LL Bean.  It's our tradition whenever we're in Maine.  We were supposed to meet my sister and brother-in-law there, but we never did find them (the place is HUGE).  So we visited the pet department for gifts for our little furbabies, hit the coffee shop for some much needed cappuccino, and scoured the rest of the store for thank-you gifts for the folks that helped us get there.  It was power shopping at it's finest and less than an hour later we were done and took our first breather since we got to Maine.

Just down the stairs on the right is where we took our short but sweet breather.

OK, I did not take this picture, I found it so just ignore the snow. It was a beautiful day and there was a great little sitting area off to the right of this picture where we sat and talked while we finished our cappuccino.  It was the only time we sat and relaxed the entire trip.  But we would do it again in a heartbeat.

Love to all my family, we shared so much love in such a short time.  It will carry me through for a long, long time.  :)

Carla

It's personal! ized

After owning an embroidery machine for.....let's just say way too long, I bit the bullet, locked myself in the studio one weekend and worked on the finer points of machine embroidery.  Now I'm mad at myself because I didn't do it sooner.  So without further ado, here is the first ever personalized item from Carla's Creations. 

My darling daughter was the more-than-willing crash test dummy, she's so easy. :)  I was pretty excited about it too, it turned out better than I expected.  This launched a whole new set of ideas - and I haven't even finished the last set of ideas.  Actually, I haven't even started some of the last ideas.........

Guess that's my cue to turn off the computer and get to work.

Have a great weekend!!

Carla

Bear Musings: Last Will and Testament of Pooh Bear Dog

I'm sharing this post from a blog that I followed because truer words were never spoken.  The author of this blog was Pooh Bear Dog, he had quite an amazing story.  He was attacked by a pack of pit bulls on Easter Sunday 2010 and survived; his pet parent started a Facebook page to keep everyone updated on his progress and it evolved into a chronicle of Bear's life.  He was quite a character!  Bear lost his battle with heart disease on February 24 but he left his Last Will and Testament to remind us how life should be lived.  I hope this means as much to you as it does to me.

Bear Musings: Last Will and Testament of Pooh Bear Dog: "Most of you were unaware that as Bear wrote his Facebook page and his blog, he was suffering from severe heart disease. It was diagnos..."

Whirlwind Winter

Normally my winters are turtle-slow and quite boring.  Not this one!  As much as I've whined (yes, whined and it wasn't pretty) about wanting this winter to be over, I can't believe tomorrow is March.  My vision of long, leisurely winter weekends spent sewing was replaced with a whirlwind of  events of every imaginable type, from parties to meetings to funerals and everything in between.  My car decided to die a slow, painful (and expensive) death, so there was car shopping (loved that part!).  And yes, some of it was self-inflicted, like signing Mimi up for obedience classes, volunteering for a new ministry and taking on another Beth Moore Bible study (with all the accompanying homework).  Don't get me wrong, it's been the most fun that I remember having during winter, but the business side of me is throwing fits because my grand plan of having a website full of wonderful creations by spring has not happened. **heavy sigh**  I actually have made a few things for gifts and I have a couple of new designs in progress (translation, they're cut out and sitting on my worktable).  I can't wait for spring, but for the next 20 days I'll be busy creating.............I hope!

Ready for the new year

Sadly, the holidays are over.  The fun, the festivities, the family celebrations, THE FOOD!!  OK, had a little too much of the last one.  I love this time of year.  But as with all good things, it must come to an end, so I'm looking forward to getting my studio cleaned up (it looks like Santa's elves went wild in there!) and getting to work.  My mom and sister inspired me when they were here for Christmas - they had a field day going through my fabric and patterns; they both left me with a list of stuff they want me to make for them.  It got me excited again and I can't wait to start sewing.  So this week my goal is to clean like crazy so I can spend New Years weekend sewing my heart out.  Nothing like starting the year being creative!  Can't wait to start posting new designs on the website!!!

Have a Happy (and safe) New Year!

Making progress............kind of

Just because I don't want to go a whole month between posts, here's the latest.  (Yes, I barely made it)  My studio walls are painted (the woodwork will get painted later), my stuff is moved in and it's looking good.  But.........I've discovered that I HATE painting.  For two reasons.  #1 - it's boring.  #2 - it's painful.  Well, it's probably not painful for most (younger) people, but I managed to pinch a nerve in my back, so it's been painful for me.  The accompanying meds have left me in a fog and I've found myself doing some very strange things.  So........I'm not sewing until I have a clear head again.  (there are those who would argue that I've never had a clear head!) I did take pictures so I'll try to get those posted.

Here's hoping I get some great stuff made for you guys before Christmas!!

Starting over again

Since my life and Carla's Creations is about to head in a whole new direction, I decided to start a new (and hopefully much easier) blog.  We'll see how this goes......................

The reason for this new direction is that I am now officially an empty nester.  My beautiful daughter moved into her first home over Labor Day weekend (with the help of Mom, Dad, Uncle Phil & Auntie Lin).  It took 7 pickup truck loads, 8 car loads (so far) and one SUV packed to the max, but she is moved.  And her old room is in the process of becoming my design studio!  I'll have to post before and after pics so you can watch the progress, I'm excited!

Needless to say, Carla's Creations is on a short break while I move into the new space.  But once I'm in there will be no stopping me, I won't know how to act with all that new workspace!!  The best part will be no more having to put away projects in progress (it's so hard to pick it back up).  I can just close the door and no one will ever know how messy I am when I'm being creative.  :)

Til next time!
Carla