These are two of the projects I completed for them recently.  The instructions are available to download here and here.

When I was working on these projects, I discovered the GlueFilm was great for image transfers!  All I did was place a piece of GlueFilm onto the surface I was transferring my image to, placed my image facedown on top of the GlueFilm, then ironed it on.  I then rubbed the paper off of the back with wet fingers.  Heck, at one point I even used a ScotchBrite pad to scrub some of the paper off, the GlueFilm is that durable!  The technique for doing the transfer is included in the Sweet Dreams instructions. 

I’ll pop back in later in the week with more news!

The Donkey Spotter  by Rebecca Peck

 Michelle winced as the wagon hit a bump in the long, dusty road.  She and her husband Craig had already been riding in the buckboard for two hours, and they were still only halfway into town.  The recent drought had left the trail dry and dusty, and the hot southerly wind was pushing the dust into every crack and crevice it could find.  Michelle slowly scanned the horizon, hoping that a hint of green or a sign of life would magically pop up from the drab brown and tan landscape.  She knew that when she made the decision to go out West with her husband that it would be quite different from the life they had led back in the east, but some days found her wishing for the crowded, raucous streets of Boston.  She would fondly recall her beautiful silk dresses and expensive hats, the leisurely afternoon teas with her aunt, and the wonderful smells and sounds of the harbor on a Friday afternoon.   But then, as she daydreamed, she realized that if moving back east meant leaving behind her wonderful husband, the lovable, furry donkeys they raised, and their homey ranch along the San Antonio River, she knew she would still make the same choice.

As Michelle steeled herself for a particularly bumpy stretch in the trail, she noticed some movement off to the left.   As she peered through the dust, she thought she could make out a gray object shifting from side to side.

“Stop!  Stop the wagon!”  she yelled as she grabbed Craig’s arm.  “There’s something moving over there!”

“Whoa!” Craig shouted as he pulled on the reins and forced the horses to a stop.  “Honey, are you sure it’s not just some tumbleweeds?” he asked.

“No, I swear I just saw a donkey over there,“ she replied.

“Michelle, we’re the only folks within 100 miles that have donkeys, and none of ours were unaccounted for when we left the ranch.”

Michelle shot him a look and said, “I know a donkey when I see one, just wait till the dust clears.”

Sure enough, as the dust settled, there it was – a gray donkey,  pacing back and forth next to a large bundle lying on the ground.  She immediately hopped off the wagon, hitched up her skirts and slowly walked toward the animal.

“Michelle, would you please wait?  You don’t know how friendly that donkey is!”  Craig yelled as he hopped off the wagon and tried to tie up the horses.  As Michelle got closer, she could see that the donkey appeared to be a little agitated, and she realized the bundle on the ground was moving.  Michelle broke into a run as she recognized what the bundle was – an old man.  By the time Craig caught up to her, Michelle was kneeling down beside the old gentleman, trying desperately to understand what he was whispering.  As Craig stooped down beside her, the old man took one long last breath and passed away. 

“Oh no!” Michelle gasped as she realized he was gone.  “I don’t know what he was trying to tell me!” 

“What did he say?” asked Craig.

“He just kept pointing at the donkey and whispering ‘Take care – Treasure’.  He repeated it three times.”

Michelle and Craig looked at each other and realized that their trip into town was going to have to wait.  As Craig gently lifted the old man’s body to carry it back to the wagon, Michelle calmly walked over to the small brown and white donkey.  It was a female, and she appeared to be well-fed and gentle. 

“Shhhh,“ Michelle said as reached out to grab the donkey’s bridle, “I’m going to take care of you now.”  As Michelle looked more closely at her, she noticed that the donkey appeared to be a little swollen around the mid-section.  ‘Could she be pregnant?’ she thought to herself as she led the female back to the wagon.  Craig looked up as Michelle approached with the donkey, and asked her what she was planning on doing. 

“Why, I’m going to take care of Treasure, just like the old man asked me to,” she announced as she tied the donkey to the back of the buckboard.  “She’s very gentle and friendly, and I think she may be pregnant.”

“Well, since you’ve named her, I guess that means you’re going to keep her.  Great, two more mouths to feed,” said Craig as he helped Michelle back into the wagon.  “What am I going to do with you, woman?”

Michelle just laughed and said “Listen mister, I know a good donkey when I see one, and I know an ass when I see one too, so you’d better just watch that tongue of yours.”  Craig just chuckled, turned the wagon around, and they headed for home.

That night, after they had said a few words over the grave that Craig had dug for the old man, they sat on their porch and quietly talked about the day’s events.  The two of them speculated as to what the old man may have been doing out there alone, and wondered how long it would be before the donkey had her foal.

“I’m going to check on Treasure before I turn in,” said Michelle as she got up from the rocking chair.  “I just want to make sure she’s comfortable in the barn.”

“Fine,” said Craig.  “I’m going to bed.  I’ve got to get an early start in the morning, because I still have to head into town for supplies.   I’ll make sure to wake you just before I head out.”

Michelle kissed her husband goodnight, grabbed a lantern, and headed off to the barn.  She took a deep breath as she stepped inside, and held the lantern high.  She loved the smell of the animals; even though Craig had told her many times that she was crazy.  She listened to the soft breathing of the donkeys as she made her way towards Treasure’s stall.  As she got closer, it was apparent that the animal was in distress.  She was pacing back and forth, making low grunting sounds.  She appeared to be straining, and kept lifting her tail. Michelle approached her slowly, and reached out to rub her muzzle.  “It’s ok Treasure, it’s ok,” she repeated softly as she stroked her nose.  Treasure seemed to like this and gently nuzzled Michelle’s hand.  Treasure’s mid-section didn’t look big enough for her to be ready to deliver, so Michelle began to worry that the donkey might be losing her foal.  Rather than leave the poor animal alone, she decided to bed down in the barn for the night.

Michelle awoke the next morning to find her husband standing over her, chuckling.  With a start, she jumped to her feet.  “Treasure, how’s Treasure?”  she asked worriedly as she tried to brush the hay off of her dress. “She seemed like she was going into labor last night.”

This set Craig to chuckling even more.  “Well,” said Craig, “you’ll be happy to hear that she safely delivered a healthy, 100 lb pile of donkey manure!”

“What?” said Michelle as she looked around the stall.  Sure enough, there was Treasure,  happily chewing on a few strands of hay, standing amidst ten large mounds of fresh donkey excrement. 

“Well honey, I’d love to stay and help you with your new “foal”, but I’ve really got to get to town,” laughed Craig.

“Oooo, you’d better get out of here before I get my hands on a shovel!”  Michelle huffed as she stomped out of the stall.  She grabbed her shovel and turned to the task at hand.   ‘No wonder the poor thing was straining,’ Michelle thought to herself as she started to shovel out the mess.  ‘She must not have gone for days!’  As she stuck her shovel into the first pile, she heard a thunk.  She stuck the shovel in a little farther, and could feel it hit something hard.  She hurriedly scooped up a huge pile, and ran outside to the water pump.  She tossed the pile of donkey dung onto the stone at the base of the pump, and began to push the handle of the pump up and down.  After a few moments, the water gushed out of the spout and onto the pile below.  As the water washed away the dung, Michelle could see what had made the clang – huge, glistening nuggets.  Shiny, sparkly gold nuggets.  Michelle gasped with amazement and ran back into the barn to shovel up another pile.   She came out and dumped the next pile onto the stone, and watched in awe as the rushing water revealed more of the shiny stones.  She continued mucking out the stall, and as the piles of manure dwindled, the piles of gold nuggets grew.   

Once Michelle was sure there were no “special” piles left in Treasure’s stall, she went about the normal daily routine of caring for the rest of their donkey herd.  She laughed softly to herself every time she passed Treasure’s stall, or the stack of nuggets that she had carefully piled in a corner of the barn.

Later that night, Craig finally made it back from town.  “Hey, I’ve got some information on the old man,” he said as he hopped off the wagon.   “Some of the folks think he was Crazy Pete, an old prospector who always boasted that he had found huge gold nuggets in the river.  Of course, no one ever believed him, because he never had a penny to his name.  I told the sheriff that we had buried him and kept the donkey, and he said it was just as well, because the old coot had no family.  Hey, did you have fun playing with your new “foal” today?”  Craig could tell from the sparkle in his wife’s eyes that she was up to a little teasing, and he waited for a witty remark. 

“Well honey, once I washed that foal up, she was as shiny as a new penny,” laughed Michelle.   Craig looked at her as if she were crazy.  “Come on into the barn and I’ll show you,” she said.  Craig grabbed a lantern and followed his wife down to the barn.  As she swung open the door, she told him to hold the lantern aloft.  The soft glow of the lantern winked back at him from a corner of the barn.  Craig stepped closer and blinked, because he couldn’t believe his eyes. 

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked incredulously. 

“Yup,” giggled Michelle. “You’ve heard of the goose that laid the golden egg?  Well, we’re now the proud owners of the donkey that pooped the golden nuggets!”  They looked at each other and started to laugh.  They laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks.  Once they got themselves calmed down, they speculated that Crazy Pete had sensed the end was near, and had fed his treasure to the donkey in order to keep it safe. 

“Well Michelle, you’re right,” said Craig.  “You do know a good donkey when you see one!”

The altered artist, Rebecca Peck, is here with her children to spend spring break with Gloria, who happens to be her mother.  Rebecca realized last night at 10:15 pm that she had yet to complete a project for the Ornament Thursday group that she participates in.

“I was in a panic,” Rebecca told us.  “Here I was, 300 miles from home without any inkpads! I didn’t know what to do.  My mom, who is the greatest mom on earth, saw that I was in distress and courageously jumped in to save the day!” 

Gloria immediately dragged her daughter down into the basement, a veritable treasure trove of all things alterable, and they began to go through boxes and bags, looking for just the right vessel for something to “sprout” out of.   

“Eureka!”  Gloria shouted as she triumphantly held a tarnished silver-plated creamer over her head.  “I’ve found it!” 

“That’s great Mom,” Rebecca said.  “Do you have any wire?” 

“Of course I do, but it’s a little rusty,” replied Gloria. 

“Even better!” exclaimed Rebecca. 

With a vessel and a 30 lb spool of wire in hand, they rushed upstairs and went to work.  Rebecca whipped out her trusty Perfect Pearls from Ranger, and some cool new Blackboard flowers from Cosmo Cricket that she had picked up just the day before.  She taught her mom the Faux Hammered Metal technique to decorate the flowers, and they used vintage beads and rusty wire to complete the flowers.   Rebecca realized that they were in need of some moss to complete the look, but Mom had an even better idea. 

“How about some of these green balls off this strand of ball fringe?” Gloria asked. 

“Perfect!” Rebecca said. 

With the project complete and only 14 minutes to spare, Rebecca ran to the computer and posted her hot link in the folder.  The deadline had been met!

Be sure to visit the other artists participating this month!  This is what they’ve been up to: 

Hey everyone!  We’re visiting mom for Spring Break.  When I realized I had to get my project done, I thought it would be fun to have my mom help me.  The only projects we’ve done together are home décor projects -curtains, lampshades, etc.  I thought it would be cool to do a project together just for fun.  And yes, it’s true, she really did save me at the last minute.   I only added the “Eureka” for dramatic effect.  Mom really doesn’t talk that way!  It’s also true that she’s the GREATEST MOM ON EARTH!

 Since Robin and my kids are Webkinz buddies, they jumped at the chance to visit with her, so off we went to Amish country. 

It was also a great excuse for me to get to the Rubberbuggy, since it’s over an hour away and I don’t get down there very often.  On that note, please support your local stamping and scrapbooking stores.  I know I can always get things at Kris’s that I would never find at some of the chains.  We had a great time, and the kids and I were sorry to go.

Me being a tease is directly related to Janis being so patient.  We started a swap last year, and I just finally got the last package from one of the participants right after the holidays.  Janis was the first to have hers done (months ago), and she has been waiting so very patiently to see what everyone else made, especially Tammy.  Well, I’m going to be a tease and post a picture of some of the cards. 

Of course, I put Janis’s right on top and tucked Tammy’s in behind the others.  I’m not even going to tell her which one it is, she’ll have to guess!

Ok Patti, it’s your turn!  Besides being so talented and one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, she’s a stinker because she tagged me!  Wait, I think that Robin is actually the stinker because she tagged Patti first.  Oh, what a tangled web we weave!  Ok, here are the rules:

1.      Link to the person that tagged you – Patti

2.     Post the rules on your blog – doing that right now!

3.     Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself

•      I can wiggle my ears
•      I like to eat red Twizzlers when I’m trying to figure something out
•       I hated buttons when I was little (go figure, now I collect vintage ones)
•      I went to a different high school every year for three years (army brat)
•      I am a night owl (check out the time this was posted!)
•       I LOVE coffee

4.      Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs – yep, they’re all gonna kill me but here goes:

Lauren

Roni

Kriss

Tammy

Stephenie

Michelle O

5.     Let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their site.  Off to do that right now!

Don’t worry Patti, I still love ya!  I’m just teasin’ about the stinker thing. 

So that’s it, the weekend in a nutshell.  I’ll be up until the wee hours typing, so if you get bored, shoot me an email!  I promise I won’t tease you (unless you’re Janis)!

Ok, I’ll give you all a few moments to recover.  Alright, time’s up!  Oh yes, it’s really me, and I’m back in blogging action.  We’ve got quite a lot of things to cover, so make sure you’re comfy.  First off, I know some of you are thinking, “Where the heck has she been?”  Well, it seems that I have been in project frenzy.  I had some projects due for a manufacturer, some due for the magazine, then lo and behold, another company calls me three weeks before CHA and says “Hey, we want you to do projects for our booth and come to the show!”    We’re talking twenty-three projects in three weeks people!  I had bags under my eyes the size of Heftys!   But, it all got done and the booth looked great.  My nails, on the other hand, did not.  Which brings me to my next topic – a rant.

My pal, the uber-talented, tremendously inspiring, hysterically funny and all-around terrific woman Robin Beam (yes, I adore her), was doing demos at the Ranger booth all during CHA.   Well, in case any of you are not familiar with Ranger, they make ink.  Fabulous, colorful, let’s have fun and get messy ink.  So of course, since Robin loves her ink, she was getting messy and having fun.  Well, she was asked to do a video demo on the fly on Tuesday, and because she is amazing and can pull wondrous things out of thin air, she agreed.  She’s fearless like that, you know.  Well, after the video aired, someone had the unmitigated gall to complain about the way her fingernails looked.  Let’s get real people!!!  Do you want some perfectly-manicured, afraid-to-get-dirty prissy chick showing you how to use inkpads?  I don’t think so!  I want someone that‘s got an “I love this ink so much I want to take a bath in it” attitude.  My hands get messy when I’m crafting.  Hell, I’ve even had stitches!  Really, who cares about a manicure when you’ve got your mojo going?  I’m sorry, but if you ain’t a little messy, then ya ain’t craftin’!!  So, to show my support for Robin, I’d like to get a show of hands – real crafting hands.  Send me pics of how messy your hands get while you’re creating, and I’ll post them into a slideshow for the world to see!

For those of you that live in the area, I’ll be teaching a few classes in the near future.   I have card-making classes scheduled on March 6th and March 12th, and on March 22nd I’ll be teaching a class at Rubber Buggy Art Stamps & Supplies called Miniature Memories.  We’ll be making a tiny scrapbook out of 1 ½ inch Memory Glass, copper tape, and leather.  It should be a lot of fun!

 Now, let’s talk about the pockets.  I received the last set after Christmas, but with the whole project frenzy thing going on, I haven’t had time to bind them up and get them out.  Now that things have calmed down a bit, they’ll be arriving in a mailbox near you soon!  I may even post a little teaser picture on the blog over the weekend (OK Janis?). 

I’ll be back Wednesday with some sneak peeks!

 I love having birds decorating my tree, but I realized this week that I had no place for them to rest, no sparkly nest for them to call home.   I remedied that by using some Beadalon Colourcraft 20 gauge wire in Natural, a few coppery beads, and some fibers.  I also added a few eggs painted with Ranger’s Adirondack Dabbers in Gold, Copper, and Peal mixed with a little Stream.  I hope you (and the birdies) like it!

Make sure you visit all of the talented folks that are participating!  Here are the links:

 Christmas cookie – Jennifer Heynen  

Christmas tree finger labyrinth – Hali Chambers

Ring in the New Year - Kriss Cramer

Quilty pieced snowman – Linda Augsburg
Simply striking sparkling spheres - Margot Potter
Beaded memory wire - Elaine Luther 

Ok, I know some of you are thinking I’m crazy.  One thousand cookies in a weekend is nothing to be sneezed at.  Well, let me tell you, I am crazy, along with the rest of the women in my family.  We are cookie crazy.  Every year before the holidays, we all get together and make Christmas cookies.  Hundreds of Christmas cookies.  Thousands of Christmas cookies.  Yep, this year we baked for three days and made four thousand cookies.  No exaggeration.  We keep track on a spreadsheet, so we know exactly how to split them up once we’re done.

And now you’re all thinking that we must be super organized to get all those made in a weekend.  Well, sometimes we are, and sometimes we aren’t.  This year, we did pretty well.  I think we only had to go to the grocery store twice, and only screwed up the nutball recipe twice.  One year we went to the grocery five times, and that was just the first day!  We also tend to get a bit silly - funnels for bras, doughball fights, floury handprints on everyone’s butts, etc. 

See what I mean? 

A few of the bakers, whose names I won’t mention here, also manage to sneak off to TJMaxx for an hour or so, under the guise of going to pick up some necessary ingredient at the store.  We hand out silly awards on the last day, and take the usual picture of all of the bakers together in front of my aunt’s fireplace.

Then we go home and eat lots of cookies, because that’s the only thing we have room for in our freezers! 

Be sure to visit all of the other Ornament Thursday participants, here they are!

Sara Naumann http://blog.paperwishes.com/sara/
Lynn Kvigne http://beading.consumerhelpweb.com/blog/
Candie Cooper http://candiecooper.typepad.com/savvycrafter/
Katie Hacker http://www.katiehacker.com/index.htm
Margot Potter http://margotpotter.blogspot.com/
Linda Augsburg http://cs.makeitminemag.com/mimcs/blogs/makeitmine/
Melanie Brooks Lukacs http://earthenwood-beads.blogspot.com/
Art Bead Scene http://www.artbeadscene.blogspot.com/
Cindy Gimbrone http://lampworkdiva.blogspot.com/
Suzanne http://suzanne-catching-up.blogspot.com/
Humblebeads http://www.humblebeads.blogspot.com/
Polymer Clay Craft Gossip http://polymerclay.craftgossip.com/
Alexa Westerfield from http://swelldesigner.blogspot.com/
Debba Haupert http://www.girlfriendologytoo.blogspot.com/
Elaine Luther http://www.CreativeTextureTools.com/news
Melissa Lee http://www.strandsofbeads.blogspot.com/
Rebecca Peck http://vintagegirlmodernworld.wordpress.com/
Jean Yates http://prettykittydogmoonjewelry.blogspot.com/
Michelle McGee http://fromichelle.blogspot.com/
Jenny Harada http://pomly.livejournal.com/
Jennifer Heynen http://jenniferjangles.blogspot.com/
Hali Chambers http://www.labyrinthgal.blogspot.com/
Kriss Kramer http://www.art-interrupted.blogspot.com/
Brandy Lung Gill http://accesstoexcess.blogspot.com/

For links to all of the ornaments on this snowy Thursday, be sure to visit Margot’s blog!