Glimpsing a Crafter's Studio ~ Blog Carnival

This is my house in Littlestown, PA where I have
my studio. It's a beautiful setting that overlooks acres of farmland out the back. My studio is in the kitchen which faces the back so, as I am creating, I can look out on that gorgeous landscape.

I am fortunate that I have many cabinets in my kitchen so that is where I keep my paints, pencils, stamps, inks, and all the rest of my supplies.

Here is a section of my kitchen where you can see I have been baking but I also use all available space to make my handmade cards, as well as my painted pots, decoupage and collages.

The cabinets below and above this countertop house paint brushes, pieces of wallpaper, brayers, scissors and lots more.

I have an island in the middle of my kitchen where I do most of my creating. Luckily, the island has electrical outlets so that I can easily plug in my heat gun for embossing or my quilting iron when I am working with beeswax.


Here is a picture of my island where I do most of my creating. It is a great space since the top is granite so I can easily clean up anything that lands on it (and believe me that is alot!!!)

Also you can see part of the window (on the far right) and the sliding glass door where I can look out and see the beautiful farmland.

My studio is very conducive to creating and I love standing there stamping and coloring and painting.

Finally I want to show you the landscape that I see every day which in itself is inspiring!

I hope you have enjoyed having a peek at my studio! Remember to do something creative every day!

Memorial Day - Their Great Sacrifice

My dad at 19 in WWII

1875th Engineer Aviation Battalion
“"ESSAYONS" Let Us Try”

From the time I was little Memorial Day was an important day. Mother had always celebrated in her little hometown of Grafton, WV by having a parade and all the school children would march to the National Cemetery carrying bouquets of flowers each had gotten from his or her home garden. Their mission was to choose a grave of one of the soldiers who had given his life in one of our wars and lay the flowers on that grave. Mother loved that part. She would comb the cemetery and read the various tombstones and choose her soldier carefully. She taught us early that the true meaning of Memorial Day was to honor those who had given their lives in service to our country. I remember attending one of the parades when I was a child and seeing a soldier from the Spanish-American War. Wow, I thought that was so far back and he must have been so old. He was in a wheelchair but he carried his head proudly.

Grafton National Cemetery

Throughout the years, we would sometimes go to Grafton, sometimes have a family reunion and sometimes celebrate at home. It was always the weekend that they opened our neighborhood swimming pool so we were always excited. One year the kids in my neighborhood decided to put on our own parade. One of the moms helped make costumes and we had an Uncle Sam and everyone dressed in red, white and blue. Our bike spokes were decorated with red, white and blue cards to make a noise as we came down the street and steamers hung from our handlebars. We all worked together to make a giant banner that said Happy Memorial Day. We marched for blocks all over the neighborhood and people came out of their houses just to watch us. It was so much fun! (that was the year I baked my first cake and decided to use food coloring to make the icing red, white and blue. When I mixed the red and blue dye in the white icing, the icing turned a battleship gray color and it was the worst looking cake you have ever seen!)

This is what I wanted my cake to look like!

Whether we put on a parade, attended a parade, went to a reunion or went to the swimming pool we always took time to remember the brave soldiers who gave their lives so that we could enjoy the freedoms we had. Even though we were young we realized their great sacrifice and we knew we wouldn't have been able to be carefree kids in this wonderful country of ours without them. Once again, Memorial Day is approaching and we will remember.

Pieces of April - "April is the Cruellest Month"

Tragedy struck us on April 19, 2000. "The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday." Mine blindsided me on an idle Wednesday.

Be kinder than you need to be. Everyone has their own sorrow. Here is a prayer for peace of mind for everyone who has sadness, especially in April.

April 7 Carnival

Hi all! This week we are featuring Daisies and Diamonds - April's flower and stone. Etsy has some great products and here are just a couple that represent our Daisy and Diamond theme:

Look at this cute little Daisy Flapper by The Portland Beanie Company
This darling Lil Diamond can be seen at Yard 'n Thread Things