dmnh's creative endeavors: Kidnapped For Thirteen Days...

By this little kid. Tell me, could you resist that face?

I didn't think so!

Neither could I!

RJson came to get me with Annie in tow (cause she just had 'to go get Grammy'.) Fred dog had a cramped 160 mile ride having to share the backseat of the car with Annie but we all fared well on the journey and for the next thirteen days my kidnapping was nothing but fun!

There was lots of cuddling with Fred on the playroom floor.

Day or night, cuddles were always needed. And that old Fred dog didn't complain one iota about all that lovin' going on either.

That's a good combination: one old big black dog and a three year old girl. She gave old Fred the whatfor whenever he chased the mama kitty, Tootles but other than that they got along quite fine. He didn't destroy any of her toys this trip. He only destroyed one ball and it was her brother's own fault that Fred did so. Brenton gave Fred that baseball. Baseballs have a life expectancy of about 5 minutes when Fred gets a hold of one. Baseball innards make a huge mess on a carpet. Just sayin'. Funny thing is Fred's been playing with the same softball for months. He never tears up the softballs. They're built just like baseballs only a tad bigger. I don't know if it is because he can't get his teeth around the ball just right or what, but he has never destroyed a softball.

Tootles has five little ones running around the place.

Annie cuddles kittens many times a day.

The kittens were a big bonus for me. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE kittens. (Did I say how much I love kittens?)

I resisted the temptation to bring one home. It was quite a challenge to do actually. I had to keep telling myself I already have three cats. I do not want to become known as the crazy cat woman! I would dearly love to be owned an orange tabby. This one would suffice nicely. He is such a little sweetheart!

It is probably a good thing I did resist that temptation cause Annie would have had a major melt-down if I'd left with one of her kittens. She was none too happy about me just leaving!

I think she may become a cat-lover later in life too!

There are two siamese tabbies like the one Annie is holding, two orange tabbies like the little guy sitting on top the riding mower,

and this adorable little ball of fur.

Kittens produce giggles. Full-fledged giggles!

There was much giggling and laughter during the kidnapping.

When you take kittens and add toads you get some entertainment.

When you add an old big black dog to that mix you get annoyed. Fred doesn't like toads. It bewilders him that when he barks at them, they give no reaction except to hop a few inches and wait for him to bark at them again before they go another few inches. Fred is adamant in voicing his desire for said toad to run away so he can give chase. Fred has a one track mind where balls and toads are concerned. You can yell and scream, jump up and down and that dog will pay you no mind at all. He will keep his eye on that toad, barking as loudly as a big old black dog can bark and it ain't pretty. Annoyances usually aren't.

There are no pictures of toads.

We were all out on the patio on Saturday night with company trying to talk to one another. Beings Fred is my dog, it is my job to keep the peace when he starts being a butthead. Butthead Fred. Fits him perfectly at times like this! To make him stop barking at the toads, everytime he found a toad, I would go catch it and toss it over the retaining wall at the back of the house. (Half their house is underground. It's about a foot to the ground on the other side of the retaining wall, so the toads didn't have to be tossed very far.) I caught 17 toads in about five hours time. Roughly three toads an hour. No one else ever got up to take toads away from Fred to shut him up except for me. I got my workout for the day.

I'm sure it didn't impress Mike in the least that I would catch 17 toads and call it fun. I like toads. I like Mike, too. He really didn't seem phased by it at all. He's a married man, no love interest there. He's a nice man. I like him. He brought me a banana box full of three ring binders in heavy chipboard cases, most of them. I'm going to make a shelf out of the chipboard cases. I don't know what will happen with the three ring binders. I have quite a few of them already that Mike gave me when he cleaned out the files at the office.

On Friday early in the evening, Brenton and I tried to convince Annie that if you kissed a toad he'd turn into a handsome prince. She said she didn't need a handsome prince! Smart girl! I say go for the rich ones! LOL I would never really tell her that! I say go for love, it's handsome and rich! She nearly laughed herself silly when that toad I was holding decided to hop out of my grasp when I had it about three inches from her face. He got away from me just enough to nudge her on the cheek. She bust into giggles. Which in turn sent me and Brenton into fits of laughter as well.

I wish now I would have gotten a picture of a toad or two.

We went swimming in the backyard pool a couple times. I was only in the pool a couple of times. Thankfully there are no pictures of me doing so. Annie and Brenton went swimming almost every day. I want one of those floaty things she has for swimming. I can't swim and like floating. Bobbing around like a cork would so cool! The water is deeper than she is tall! There isn't anyone in the water with her. That little vest makes her bob like a cork! We never let her go in the pool without someone out there with her, but there wasn't a need to be in the water with her. She's like a little fish; always wants to be in the water!

She's afraid of all bugs except ladybugs. She wouldn't get in the pool till you removed all the dead bugs. So while she sat atop the ladder, waiting, I would take the net and remove all the dead bugs.

I like bugs so I generally took a good look at what kind of bugs were in there before I emptied out the net to retrieve some more bugs. She wasn't a patient waiter either. "Grammy hurry up, I want to swim!" "Why do those bugs get in my pool?" "I don't like bugs. They bite." On and on with 20,000 questions!

She's a little jabberbox!

She freaked out the day I fished out (in my hand) the half dead dragonfly just inches from her feet on the top rung of the ladder into the pool. She climbed down that ladder and wanted nothing to do with that 'big ugly bug'.

Her mama is afraid of spiders. That is an influence for Annie. She adores ladybugs though, so there's still hope! I'd like her to know the fascination with bugs. She would save the ladybugs in the pool. There were tons of ladybugs too.

There was a storm brewing this evening. Annie didn't want to get out of the pool when it was time to do so. I bribed her with arts and crafts. She climbed right up that ladder and said, "OK." and into the house she went, dripping wet!

After a change of clothes, we sat in the playroom and colored with our markers. I hesitated at taking my markers with me. I'm glad I did take them though. Annie understood perfectly that those were MY markers and she wasn't to touch them! She used a red sharpie to sign her mark, we can't really call it her name, to her daddy's father's day card but that was the only one she used. Her brother handed her that marker when I wasn't looking. They both signed the card with it.

She insisted this was a lion even though I tried my darnedest to convince her it really was a tiger. It's a wooden puzzle that came with 3 tiny markers. The pink one didn't work too well cause Little Miss has a heavy hand with markers. She squished the tip down into the barrel. I dragged it out with my needle tool but it was too late...it didn't work good after that. She really liked the yellow marker though!

I started working on an altered envelope for my June partner over at AFA in the altered envie addicts group while Annie worked on her lion. I finally gave up trying to convince her it wasn't a lion. If you can't beat them, join them!

Front

Back

I found the pictures of the cats blowing bubbles in one of Annie's Highlights magazines. I ran with the idea!

I did the front first. The back was done a couple days later.

I did a bunch of ATCs with my markers while I was there but I didn't take any pictures of them yet. I haven't even unpacked them yet! You'll see those in the next post.

When I talked to RJson on the phone about being kidnapped, Annie wanted to ask me a question. She said, "Grammy, will you make me a dog?" So when I got there on the 13th, I made her a dog. This was the first order of business after arrival! Three hours after I got there, Annie had a dog. A dog whose tail looks like a penis. I didn't intend it to, but once it was attached on the back side...yep, it looks like penis. Annie's mama and I had a good belly laugh about it. Annie, thankfully is clueless. She really likes his yellow hair. He's about 8 by 8 inches or so. And yes, he only has two legs. Annie didn't seem to notice that either.

I crocheted a few baskets in the last 13 days.

The big ball of fabric strips I showed you all in the last post IS no longer. It's gone. Kaput, magic. Turned into a total of five baskets of varying sizes.

This one is large enough for the casserole dish to sit in. Success! I really wish I'd of put handles on it!

I did this one a little different. It's kind of round, but the bottom was started as a square. It's about 7, maybe 8 inches across. I didn't measure.

I thought the square basket would use up all of the fabric ball but there was enough to make this tall basket as well. It's about 5 inches across and 5,maybe 6 inches tall. I just kept adding height till the ball of fabric was gone.

I made this tiny basket a couple days before I was kidnapped. It's about three inches across and an inch or so deep. I'm not sure what kind of yarn it's made from. I think those cones of yarn were originally for machine knitting. I don't know. I found them out in the burnt house when Ma and I were out there cleaning up the mess in RWs old room where things had fallen and made a mess on the floor. There 8 or 10 cones of yarn in that box. I have no idea where it came from, how long it's been out there and why I thought someone would give me $1.25 for at a yard sale. It could have been in my possession for 15 years or so. I took one of each color and brought them in the house to do something with. It'd be great yarn for knitting socks. I don't know how to knit and have no desire to make socks.

I took three different colors with me on the trip and crocheted some round mug rugs that I have yet to finish. I crocheted all three colors together at once with a large size hook for those. Will show you them then. I also crocheted a doll house rug from that same bright green yarn the basket is made from. I'll show it to you next post as well. I think it's a tad garish for its color, but it's actually kinda cute.

One afternoon Brenton took the garden hose out to the driveway and filled the depression up with water so they could play in the mud. It had rained early in the day and there was a little bit of water in that hole to begin with. Brenton wanted it deeper though.

Of course, Fred had to get in on that action. He likes a good romp in the mud.

You see those purple flowers in the distance behind the kids? It smelled wonderful out there at that mud hole.

Her brother did this to her and she just laughed about it!

Good thing she likes baths!

Fred was pooped after the romp in the mud! Surprisingly he wasn't too muddy after that. I only had to wash his feet off. That old dog got more exercise in 13 days than he's had in the last three months!

Annie helped me fold origami cranes. There are 22 large cranes in this pile sitting on my kitchen counter to be photographed. The photograph was a failure unfortunately, but you get the idea.

There are 25 little origami cranes in this picture.

The large cranes are made from phone book pages cut to 5inch squares and dictionary pages and a fishing gear catalog cut to 4 inch squares. The little cranes are all magazine paper from Art in America that are cut to 2 inch squares.

I found it amazing that the smaller cranes were easier to make than the bigger ones. I made my sister Jeanny an origami crane out of a piece of 8 inch square origami paper. I had a devil of a time folding that thing! Took twice as long to fold it than it takes to fold a tiny one.

All in all I made 51 birds on my trip. They all came home in the plastic bag that Annie's wooden lion/tiger puzzle came in.

While I was folding cranes she was wadding up 2 inch squares of magazine page and calling them arrows. I had more little squares than big ones with me so I shared the little ones. She spent many more hours making ormigami birds than I did. Ormigami, that's Annie's word, not mine. I'm sure she plowed through about 50 little squares and a few bigger ones as well.

I made a few more carrots. This one is made from sweater fabric and felt.

This one is just felt. Both are roughly 2.5, 3 inches. Thereabouts. They still need a magnet as I couldn't sew a magnet inside of them. I forgot to bring the magnets along. I'll glue a magnet fragment to the back and call it good.

I finished Mr. Owl while I was away. Ma will be happy that he has feet.

He's about 4 inches tall. He's probably just shy of 4 inches actually. I don't know. I didn't measure. His features are all felt. His body is fleece from an old shirt.

Mr. Kitty came home for awhile.

You all saw him sometime in 2011. I'm going to give him a coat of varnish after I give him a spit bath and them I'm going to enter him in the Rooks County Free Fair in August. He's been residing at my sister's house for some time now. He needs a new set of whiskers. He had whiskers when I took him out of Jeanny's front door but by the time we got back to Nickerson...Brenton and I had yanked everyone of them out of Mr. Kitty's muzzle. We bad. The whiskers were in need of a new glue job apparently cause it didn't take much to yank them out!

This is my sister Jeanny sitting at the table in her workroom/dining room. There's really no need to call it a dining room any longer as it quit being a room for eating a very long time ago. She is Mr. Kitty's owner. That crazy woman told me that if Mr. Kitty won any ribbons, the ribbons came back with him. I told that crazy woman she was nuts! Those ribbons are mine. Mr. Kitty will not be coming home with any ribbons! Not to her house anyway! Hell, he might be empty handed when he comes home to my house after the fair! We do have to be realistic here.

I spent the night at my sister's house on Wednesday and went back to RJson's on Thursday morning. Annie's mama took me over to Jeanny's house in Hutch. When I got out of the car in her driveway, Annie asked her mama, "Whose going to take good care of me while Grammy's here?" She had a melt down all the way home because I wouldn't be at her house. Poor little thing. Her mama said a swim in the pool took her mind off me.

She was mighty happy to see me and Fred the next morning!

Fred is like my shadow when I go away from home with him. I can't be out of his sight or he freaks out. Barks like he's been abandoned forever when I've attempted to leave him at RJson's house. We tried that twice in the past. Both times, a fiasco! Fred scratched up the inside back door trying to get out to see where I had gone. I was down the road, sitting in the back seat of the car, headed to Hutchinson. He didn't settle down for sometime and FIL was none too happy about it. Gotta stay on FILs good side, he's my son's father in law! He lives there too. Fred didn't really get out of his good graces so on another visit we tried again. Fred jumped at the back door, scratching and carrying on like he did the first time and while jumping up on the door, he opened the door and out he went! We were about a block down the highway by that time and here comes Fred at full run down the middle of a state highway, right behind us! We stopped. Picked his hide up and took him with us to town. So Fred doesn't stay with FIL, he goes elsewhere!

Fred always goes with me to Jeanny's house. He visits Ruby. Jeanny calls Ruby his cousin. She babysits him if I have to go somewhere that I can't take him along. Ruby is shepard mix of some sort, a medium sized dog who thinks she's a rotweiller! Her greetings to Fred involve snarling and raised hackles but it's really only show. She settles down after a short while and happily lets Fred share her space. She gets a nip in on his ankles every chance she can get away with but Fred takes it all stride. He seldom snaps back but when he does, Ruby cowers from him! Sis says Fred is welcome anytime. Ruby will just have to get along with him.

She also has four cats. Fred generally likes cats so long as they don't run from him. Tootles ran from him every time she laid eyes on him. And every time he saw her run, he gave chase.

The kids took me out to Chinese Buffet on Sunday for lunch and Jeanny took care of Fred for a few hours. We went to Home Depot too. I bought a new saw and some blades to go along with it. Thinking about dragging out that box of gourd pieces I have and making something. I needed a saw for other things too. I bought something else too....can't remember what it was. I spent just over 10 dollars on it all. I got some linoleum samples while I was there too.

I went to Hobby Lobby on Wednesday with Jeanny. Her hubby, Brad, kept an eye on the dog. I spent too much at HL, but I got a lot things that I will use. I needed some new paper, I thought. So I bought three different kinds. I got some matboard to make into postcards and I got a lot of junk I didn't really need but what's need go to do with it? I also bought me a set of oil pastels and I think I already own two other sets of oil pastels. I probably should have left them on the shelf. Good thing they were less than $4. I haven't unpacked the HL bags yet so I'm unsure just what all is in them.

Does anyone know what the devil I did with the sack of things I bought at JoAnn's on the 12th when I went to Wichita with Susan? I know I brought it home with me. I haven't been home for 13 days and can't remember where I put it! Ma's birthday present is in that sack, along with some other good buys of the arty variety.

I made a couple of juice carton wallets. This one isn't made quite right but it works still.

I figured out what way the template went on the carton and this one turned out the right way. It's a heck of a lot easier to get into than the other one!

I have two more cartons to make a couple more of these. I will have to put some packing tape on my template to prolong its life though if I'm going to make too many more of these.

I gave both of them to Brenton. An 11 yr old boy like cools gadgets. This was right up his alley!

Fred took a lot of naps during our kidnapping. Poor old thing is just tuckered out from chasing kitties, barking at toads, playing in the mud and just basically living a dog's life! I didn't get quite as much napping in as he did.

I wish I had thought of this idea! Because it is just too cool!

I traded some felt food magnets (you all saw them in a previous post) for Ms Apple. I just love her! She will sit proudly on the cabinet in the kitchen. I was expecting her to arrive on the 14th but she showed up on the 13th instead. I was tickled pink that she arrived before my son showed up to take me away for an undetermined amount of time. She is a little top heavy so I'm going to glue her to a base made from a red jar lid.

RJson and I found a piano on the way home today.

Out in the middle of nowhere!

I forget what the name on the mailbox was except for there was sign underneath the mailbox that read

JAY AND HIS GIRLS

The piano is at the entrance to their farm. The keys no longer work. I really wanted to bang out some notes in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how to play the piano but I wish I did! I couldn't believe the bench was there as well! It was a cool find!

And another cool find!

Actually a double cool find! That fly wasn't apparent to me until I downloaded the picture onto the computer. Looks like a massacre is in order. I'm sure he has friends lurking in the house. It was wide open when I came home. And then I opened up the front screen for a few hours before I went around closing all the windows to turn on the A/C.

I found that little red glass elephant sitting in my kitchen window when I shut it after I got home. He wasn't there when I left! I will have to thank Ma for him. I'm sure it was she who put him there! She also mopped my kitchen floor, cleaned out my fridge and took good care of the girls. Tippy, Murray and Lola all fared well under her care. I also have two new baby trees growing in the back yard. A Mullberry and an Elm. And the pear trees have been pruned and the entire yard weed-eated. The place looks spiffy! Will have to thank Sammy for his help as well.

It is good to be home again!

I'm almost done... Just want to update you all on fp7 (fish picture 7).

As I said last post, fp7 might look entirely different when you see it again.

I tore off all the dark stuff from the rock shelf and painted all the white stryofoam rocks yellow. Then I covered them all with some spackling compound. I then painted some blue glitter glue on the dry spackling compound and drizzled some lavendar puff paint here and there. There is no purple or blue on the rocks in this picture.

The map dohickeys after flocking. I think I'll put some orange puff paint on these things...orange, maybe green. They need something more, I think. There are 11 of them. I don't know that all 11 will get used, but that's how many I made.

I made five of these. It's a length of lace gathered into a cup and tied with a green yarn string. I'm going to put some color of bead in the center of these. I'll know what color that will be when I get busy on the finishing touches of the rock shelf.

Starfish and orange dots. Puff paint put on a stryrofoam meat tray to dry. They're flexible so the star fish can be molded around the rocks. I might need to tone the orange dots down a tad. We'll see.

I will get back to working on fp7 in the next few days. I'll have to study it some to get back in the groove of it after having been away from it for almost two weeks!