Grandma and her 4 grandsons, Casey, Cody, Dustin and Kyle

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Kat.

My new twin Great grandsons - Sam & Max

This is Victoria in Uniform.  She is a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps. She is the mother of my new

great grandsons.

This is my Grandson Dustin who is a Corporal in the Marine Corps.  He is the father of my new great grandsons and has been in Iraq.  So Victoria went through her whole pregnancy by herself.  The twins decided to come on August 25, 2009.  They weren't due till Oct. 14, 2009.  So they were premies and very tiny.  Samuel Scott weighed in at 4 lbs 1.6 oz. and 16 " long and Max Michael weighed in at 3 lbs. 5 oz. and 16" long.  They were born in San Diego Marine Hospital by C section.  They were then moved to San Diego Children's hospital as they were better equiped to take care of them.  They've been home about a week now and are doing great.  Dustin got to take the next plane home and arrived just a few days after the birth. 

Above are the crosses that my church, 1st United Methodist, in Hutchinson, KS. gave to the boys.  I brought the two red roses home and stuck them in the microwave and dried them and put them in a box to send to the kids in California.  The crosses are to hang in their room so they start life recognizing the image. The next picture is of the inside of the certificates that came with the crosses. 

Dustin's little family. 

We now have 4 sets of twins in our family and 2 of them are my grandsons. The 3rd set belong to my brother's oldest daughter and the 4th to my Sister's son.  The last 3 sets came into our life in less than a year.  One set in Omaha, Ne., one in Kearney, Ne. and the other in San Diego, CA. so I guess the water isn't safe anywhere. I thought it was a miracle when we got twin grandsons 19 years ago and now their big brother has given us another set.  We are all so blessed with these little wonders & our other grandkids also.  Donny has 6, Andrea's Ben, William and new twins Gavin and Dawson, & Katie's Hannah and Noah.  Gay has 3, Mike's Olivia & twin girls Josslyn and Leah & her new step grandson, Ben.  I have Dustin, (new wife Victoria), Casey & Cody & new greats Sam & Max and from Rod's second wife Becky, I have stepgrandkids, Dawn & son Bryton, Amber & husband Joey & her daughter Reannah and his sons, Christopher & Tyler, and Kyle.  So from one son I have quite a crew.  Love them all. 

Alice in Wonderland, an altered Piano Roll

After seeing a piano roll that someone had altered in one of the Somerset magazines, I decided I wanted to try one. First I covered the piano roll with sheet music. Then I added pictures of many of the illustrations that were used in Alice in Wonderland over the years. Many different artists have illustrated the book. The first & probably most remembered are done by Sir John Tenniel. I followed the story from beginning to end and labeled all the illustrations with the artist who did them. Then I went back and journaled excerpts from the story. I used a crackle stamp and distress inks to distress the entire roll so it looks like a long banner rather than individual pages. This is the beginning of the roll and tells that the story of Alice in Wonderland was written by Louis Carroll (the pen name for Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He told this story while taking 3 daughters of one of his church family on a canoe ride. He made it up as they went up the river. One of the girls, Alice Liddell asked him to write it down for her and so began the long life of the story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

I spent hours looking on the internet for as many examples of illustraters that I could find and downloaded them and printed them out and cut or tore them out to use on the pages.

You will also note that I purchased an unmounted rubber stamp set of Alice and used them throughout the banner also.

Here you can see the story came to its end and you can see the perforations in the roll of paper that the upright player piano would read to play a song.

The story all rolled up and in its box.
I covered the lid with some scrapbook paper with cards since the King and Queen of hearts were two of the main characters in the book. I bought a page that had Alice in Wonderland and the White rabbit as paperdolls and put them on the top of the lid. Below is the side of the lid with a pin of the Cheshire cat that I found in used jewelry at the Et Cetera shop.

This is my copy of one of the many books illustrated for Alice in Wonderland. I didn't use the illustrations in this book except for maybe one because I will lay the box with the roll by this book to display it and allow anyone who would like, to read the whole story.

Above is a link to a site some of my artist friends are using to raffle off an art doll and the money is going to fight ovarian cancer. Check it out. Pretty neat doll made by several artists.

My latest drawing

I sat down and tried to draw our dog Sammy. We had to put her to sleep last July and I wanted to try drawing her from a photo. I pinned it up on the wall in front of me when I work on the computer and I swear if you move back and forth her eyes follow you. Above is the photo and the drawing.

Collage of my Grandson arriving in Al Asad, Iraq

Picture of my grandson, Dustin's group arriving in Iraq after being deployed from San Diego, CA. He is now at Al Asad airbase. A fellow marine, Donald, who came home with him is in the picture also.

ATC - The lady likes cats.

ATC's laying on a blue background. These fold to the 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 size.

ATC's folded front side.

ATC's folded back side.

Lady up close in her Lion Brand Veiling.

Tiger up close.

My Jewelry Show & guests

Well, last minute I decided to have an open house for my jewelry I've made the last few months. I invited all my P.E.O. sisters, all the people in our UMW, my Monday night altered group & two altered book friends from Wichita and any friends on my e-mail address book from Hutchinson. I made jewelry till all hours this last week and I fixed two kinds of hot drinks and several types of dips. Also had my house all decorated for Christmas. A few did RSVP they had other plans but from all these people I only had 7 people come. One P.E.O. sister, one UMW friend, one neighbor, one Hutchinson friend, one Monday night altered group, and two friends who came from Wichita. So not a very good showing. I had this from 9 to 3 and nobody showed up till afternoon. I began to think it was really going to be a one woman show with no guests. LOL. Five of us did have a fun time eating and visiting. Don & I received a magnet each from E.

I really like the way she spelled out Don with the clock for the O.

Dana also brought me a piece of art and you can see it below. Pretty neat huh?

My friend from Hutchinson, Barbara also brought me a Bagel holder. Works pretty neat. The lid comes on down as you take a bagel out of it. She also gave me a zip bag to hold small items in little pockets earlier. As Dana and E were leaving I looked up at a full moon showing through the bare branches of the neighbors tree. So I had to try and take some pictures. These are what I got.

And so ended a fun day as the full moon shown down to guide my last two guests home to Wichita.

My latest jewelry & a canvas molding paste piece

Below are all the things I've made in the last month. Or at least things I took pics of.
The necklace below is made with pearls and some beads that have copper on one side and
glass on the other.



















I went to a shop called Beadalia here in Hutchinson and bought the big pink beads. Then I bought some almost black chain and the filigreed beads at Hobby Lobby and put the next set together. It has 2 necklaces & earrings.













I bought a bracelet at the hospital jewlry store and then took it apart and bought the smaller turquoise beads and used black chain and made this set of 2 necklaces, 1 bracelet and earrings.


This pink set is made with swavorski crystals and tiny pearl like seed beads. It has a necklace, ladder bracelet and earrings. The crystals are cubes and bicones.

















The next set is made from some lavender beads I got at Ebersole's in Wichita and a glass component that has a lavender flower imbedded in it.








This set is made with pottery beads.





I bought a new book and had to try using light molding paste on canvas and some new acrylic tube paint I bought. It started with spreading the modeling paste all over it and then I used a squeegee to make the circle swirls on the right and a rubber stamp for the pink flower which didn't stamp very well but left it anyway. The little girl in the swing is a print from Paper Whimsey and the bird and white flower is a rubber stamp that I stamped in black and then colored with sharpee markers. I colored it all and didn't like it because it was too bright and dark colors for me. So I just mixed some white and made them more pastel and went right over my first try. I wrote It's our nature to swing at the bottom. I'm not crazy about it but it was an interesting technique to try.



The scarf is knitted with nylon ribbon yarn. I've had it a long time and made myself sit down and knit it into a scarf.

The purse I made from parts and a book I bought on the clearance wall at Hobby Lobby. I bought 2 squares of the bottom leather look and 2 handles and the flower. I cut out and sewed the bottom pieces and then punched holes all the way around and knitted the upper bag. I made a lining and hand stitched it in and put a magnetic button in the center of the lining before I stitched it in. Then I sewed the handles on, covered a stiff cardboard with the lining and put it in the bottom. Then I decided to add the bead chain to it. I hate to think what this purse would have cost if I hadn't bought all the parts on sale.