LollyChops

The mystery of the floor spots...

I have been noticing these odd spots on the tiles in front of the door to my craft room.  They were round and milky lookin'.  We would mop (let me clarify that lest I face a serious chiding all week about how "we" actually means RonChops) and they would go away and come right back again within a few days.  I could not for the life of me figure it out until I was crawling around on the floor picking up who knows what teeny tiny craft supply I dropped and low and behold I looked up and saw this...

DogChops evidently has a little post nasal drip problem...

...and has been leaving little snotty love drips at the entrance of the craft room...

oh
ummmm
yeah

She gets a Benadryl every day (at the recommendation of her doctor)...
...but she remains a drippy little thing...
I am thinking about sewing her a giant dog snot catch all cloth for the doorway.
I think that will fix the problem don't you???

So now that one of life's great mysteries has been solved...
A year ago I bought a Martha Stewart tissue paper flower bouquet kit that was on clearance at Malwart (you can see the one I got HERE).  I tucked it away for a rainy day and promptly forgot about it (I'm pretty sure than when I am a little old Lolly of 80+ years I'll still be finding projects tucked away here and there...  I swears)!

On Sunday I saw a poppy crepe paper flower tutorial over on One Pretty Thing and it reminded me of that long forgotten kit (you gotta go check it out HERE...  they are totally awesome)!!!

(I am getting somewhere with this...  trust me)...

So last week I worked like a maniac. Sadly not on crafts.  On work work.  The "pay the bills" stuff.  Loads and loads and loads of work.  I did not have time for much in the crafts department...  but I did manage to eek out about 3 hours to play around with that kit and oh how fun it was!!!

I am in LOVE with tissue paper flowers (I know.  I know.  They are so 2007 1970's and here I am just now discovering them).

Sometimes Lolly is a little behind the times (more frequently than she would like to admit really)!

I am experimenting with them (so far I have used plain white tissue paper and glimmer mist for some stunning effects) and I have even played around with doing this same flower making method using fabric!  I am searching for tutorials and techniques so if you have any links or book suggestions you wish to share to help me catch up over here, please email me!

I am going to be making a pomander of some sort using these fellas (hopefully using flowers made with fabric) and will share that with you guys next week.  Plus I think a download and print template & tutorial will be order as well so you have a better idea of what size and shapes to cut to get the different petal effects...  so keep your eyeballs peeled for that next Monday!

Lastly...
I wanted to share more of the AWESOME stuff you guys have been sending me!

This is my sister...  VikiChops (she wore teal just for me!)
Amber from The Country Scrapper got a cache of neat old stuff and noticed some tatting books in lot and immediately thought of my sister and her mad tatting skillz!
So what did she do???
She mailed them to me (and just in time too)!!!!
VikiChops was in town helping care for MomChops and I was able to give them to her the night before she went back home to Chicago!!!

THANKS AMBER!

Martine also sent me some pics of cards she made using the rolled flower technique
(see the rolled flowers video tutorial HERE)!

I love how she used a already shaped felt flower
(this is a Making Memories flower I think)
This created a stunning effect!

And to prove that we are not just about crafts and Dogs round these parts...

Sharon from Farm and Fru Fru sent me a picture of her two babies...
Sweetheart The Baby Cow and Jubel The Mini Donkey
I really think I need to get RonChops a mini donkey for his birthday.
He would be ok with that right?!?!?!?!

I mean who does not NEED a Mini Donkey!
Look at that face!

awwwww

Erika made a boat load of rolled flowers and grouped them on a framed mirror!
Love it!

 

Denise made an awesome topiary using paper flowers for her upcoming wedding...
(I so totally love the idea of using these as centerpieces)!
She followed the Felt Topiary tutorial I posted last year.
You can check it out HERE!

and lastly...

Cassandra from So, I Sew made her little cousin a felt owl following the Abraham Owl pattern!
You can get that pattern HERE!

Sew that's all I gots for today (notice how there are at least 4 more paragraphs under this... I am such a fibber!!!)!

Kimbel's momma wrote to me over the weekend to let me know she had sold 10 cookbooks last week!  You guys are so fantastic for supporting them!  I cannot thank you enough (I know it meant a lot to Shaina and her family so thanks from the bottom of my heart)!

Also to report...  MomChops and her Bee's Knees are recovering terrifically (her sister came into to town on Sunday to take over the next shift of cooking and caring for her).  I cannot wait to head over there and partake in some of the meals.  My aunt is an AMAZING cook!

...and last to lastly...  I wanted to share these dog pics (forgive me for beating you guys over the head with my dogs all the time...  I loves them to pieces and I cannot NOT post pics of them).

So HarrietChops was minding her P&Qs on the couch when RonChops came by and rudely woke her up from her nap.

The nerve!!!

Vacuuming while her majesty is trying to sleep!

I think she retaliated by going outside and romping in the mud and sneaking back in and getting muddy paw prints all over his nice clean floors.  Sigh.  If only I were kidding.

P.S.  Have a terrific week!!!!!

P.S.S.T.  Tomorrow is MomChops and DadChops 30th wedding anniversary!  Happy Anniversary you guys!  I love you heaps and tons!

MomChops and the Bees Knees

Last Monday MomChops tried to crochet herself a new knee and for some odd reason it did not work (she even made it in teal and everything)...  so they had to put in a fake knee made from to top secret metals and spaced-aged polymers.  She now has x-ray vision and a brand new sparkly knee (she evidently gained deep insight into the whole area 51 thing with the installation of the alien knee...  so if you want the scoop let me know!!!).

DadChops brought her home from the hospital on Thursday in the midst of a massive Texas snow storm.  We are talking nearly a foot of snow here folks.  It's unheard of round these parts!!

She's already up and around and ready to get back into her craft room (she's been making aprons like a mad woman to sell to Southwest Airlines flight attendants - my sister (a SW airline flight attendant herself) hawks them for her at little craft fairs they have in the lounge (who knew right?!?!?!))  So if you are flying SW Airlines and see a flight attendant wearing an amazingly crafty apron while they are serving you drinks and peanuts...  that's more than likely a MomChops original).

Casseroles Casseroles and more Casseroles
Ron and I cooked all weekend and made up a mess of casseroles for Mom & DadChops.  We'll be going over there nightly this week to hang with them and my sister (who is in town for a week to help MomChops adjust to her new Bees Knees)!  I can hardly wait to see her!  I'll be taking pics of her latest knitting and tatting creations and will be sure to share them with you guys too!

I did the video tutorial for the heart and flowers picture and well...  ummmm... I evidently recorded it in the wrong format.  I shot it 5 times and RonChop edited it all nice and crafty and when we tried to upload it to Vimeo it just would not take the format (I had the post written and everything...  it was a sad sad moment).  So I'll be doing it all over again and posting it real soon!  I swears!

So guess what?
I very quietly reached 1 million blog visitors on Super Bowl Sunday afternoon.  Probably while RonChops & and I were watching the Super Bowl with the Chops Clan (and munching on some KILLER MomChops food creations - she basically made half of what we ate from recipes over on Our Best Bites... not even kidding).  So thanks you guys.  Thanks for linking.  Thanks for commenting.  Thanks for sharing your lives, your crafts, your dogs, cats and kids and even a few farm animals... but most of all...  thanks for hanging out with me these past 18 months!  It's been pretty darn fun and I feel pretty lucky to have virtually met so many wonderful people!

Sew...
Since I was not expecting to reach that goal so soon I am not ready with my handmade prize giveaway.  I'll do that real soon...  Instead of crafts and such, I have something else to share!  Seeing as how I met this lovely lady through my blog and I reached this amazing milestone I figure it's pretty darn fitting to do this today.

Meet Kimble
Shaina from Just Because I Am Me has been a LollyChops blog reader since my second month blogging (she she's been insanely faithful - always dropping by, checking up on things and just in general being there and hanging out with me this whole time).  She's left comments when I had giveaways, craftastrophies, and surgeries!  We did a craft swap and even talked on the phone once when I needed some sewing advice!  What I am trying to say is ... she's good people.

In April of 2009 her and her husband found out they were expecting their 5th child.  Within a very short time they were told their sweet new baby boy would be born with congenital heart defects.  Without immediate treatment after birth, he would not survive.  He was diagnosed with Pulmonary Valve Atresia, Tricuspid Valve Hypoplasia/Atresia, and a Hypoplastic/Hypertrophied Right Ventricle.  Basically, that medical jargon means that half his heart isn't working and would not be able to pump blood to the lungs to get oxygen.  Without oxygenated blood, the body cannot survive.
 
Birth Day
Kimble was born on November 4, 2009 weighing in at 6 lbs 5 oz.  After his birth they were in the hospital for 5 weeks.  During that time Kimble underwent many procedures and heart surgeries.  He currently has a shunt in his heart, which redirects some blood flow to the lungs, and then back to the heart.  This shunt is only temporary, and in the next few months, he will have another open-heart surgery to bypass some arteries, which will send blood flow directly to the lungs, instead of to that broken part of his heart.  In about a year he will have another heart surgery to re-direct more arteries.  If all goes well, he will be able to run around and act like any other child, but will most likely have limitations throughout his life.
 
Kimble also has a cleft lip, which will require surgery as well (that's a lot of surgeries for such a small tender little lamb like Kimble).
 
So why I am telling you all this?
Shaina is a totally amazing cook!  She's been a recipe guest here twice (back in the olden days when I did stuff like that).  Once with her Pumpkin Roll (recipe card HERE) and another time with her tasty Grape Chicken Salad (recipe card HERE)!

So before Kimble was even born she put together a sweet little cookbook (I bought one of the first copies and it's really fantastic).  It's called "Just Because I Like to Cook" !

Shaina is using the proceeds from her cookbook sales to help pay for Kimble's medical bills.  If you would like your very own copy you can get it HERE (they even ship internationally)!  If you want to send Shaina some HUGS you can swing on over to her place HERE (she has loads more pics of her sweet family and gobs of awesome recipes too)!!!

Thanks you guys!!  Kimble is too darn precious not to share with you all!

I'll leave you today with a few Worldwide HUGS (thanks for leaving me so many HUGS in your languages you guys...  that was FUN)!!!!

More hugs than you can stand (as if there was such a thing as too many hugs)!

P.S.  If I goofed up any of those HUGS up there, let me know!  Some of those accents are hard to figure out!!!

O.M.T.  I think my favorite world wide hugs have got to be Drukkies (that's HUGS in Afrikaans) and Knuffels (that's HUGS in Dutch).  They sound so cute don't you think?!?!  Which ones are your faves??

Magic Cheese Box Productions presents... mindless ramblings!

Firstly I gotta shout out a GINORMOUS THANKS to each and every one of you for leaving me so many sweet comments last week (you guys are basically the coolest).  I was really excited to post my video tutorial (finger twinkles and all) and I got so many links and pictures of finished projects (many of you saying you grabbed paper, scissors and tweezers and busted out flowers before I was even finished gabbing!!!)!  I just totally loved the heck out of that!  So thanks again!!  :D

I am working on a video tutorial for a project I shared last year (that heart flower picture thing-a-ma-bob up top there is the 2010 version).  I'll post that finger twinkler video next Monday!  This week I'll be recording my third take of the tutorial (the first take was an hour and 15 minutes long, the second 18 minutes and hopefully this next one will be down to around 10 minutes).  Do you see a trend here?!?!  hehehe...  You can call me ChattyChops-A-Lot.

Mish Mash
So today I have this massive mish mash of stuff to share (the magic cheese box made me do it).  I'll just dive right in and explain things as I go along.

Video Camera Set-Up
Several of you asked how I had my video camera positioned so I thought I would show ya!

RonChops created this stand thingy from microphone boom stand and then he added the head from a tripod to it (so the camera would be securely connected and not crash down on me (it's pretty darn crafty - from a man craft perspective)!

The camera basically hangs right over my work area.  All we have to do is flip the video upside down and POOF...  LC tutorial videos are happenin'!

Shown to the top left is the big ole craft room view with all the crazy lights I have (there are about 5 total and they seem to do the trick since I film around 10 - 11 o'clock at night).  I try to be all artsy fartsy and bounce the lights off the walls and ceiling... I am all about being artsy fartsy whenever possible (snort)!

So for the video table area I Zot a piece of LollyChops paper down using re-positionable Zots so it does not move around on me during filming (which sounds kinda fancy but it's really not).
That also helps me to know what table area I have focused in the camera view so I am not constantly looking up to make sure I am working on screen...  Hello neck cramps, this is Lolly...
(ummm  yeah... I learned my lesson about that on my first try).

Meet OCD Lolly

I document the details from my projects in a little sketch book.

That's not weird is it???

Guys????

Ok so maybe that's just a tad obsessive.
Just a teeny tiny tad.

:)

Some of you have asked me about this so I thought I would share a few pics of my book from some of my recent projects.
That pic up there is the page from the perpetual calendar ScrapyLand project I shared last week.

Sometimes I start from a sketch and sometimes I just wing it (flap flap flap).
I document the list of the products I use (including samples and skews as well as any other details I think I need to remember).
I also document the date and approximately how long it took me to do the project (this includes brainstorming time which sometimes is WAY longer that the project takes to execute).

Disclaimer:  unless you speak, read and write chicken (aka chicken scratch)...  don't even attempt to try to read my scrawl.  It's total chaos.

The last of the year long quilt group... A Notion or Two

MomChops finished off the last of the quilt squares we needed to do for the quilt group I joined
(I should just say she joined it since she did most of the heavy lifting)!

This last one is for the organizer of the whole thing (Dana from Old Red Barn Co).
She sent each person a set of fabric in one particular color.
I got the browns.
I wonder who got the teals.
Lucky ducks.

Catherine from OriginalStitch sent me the following:  Real English tea (loose and of two different kinds), a tea strainer thingy (official English name for it - or so I'm told) and a beautiful handmade bag (which you can see hanging in my craft room off to the right in the pic way way above).
When I did my tea bag carriers two weeks ago, her and I struck up a conversation and she then wrote the most adorable post on proper tea preparation (she then promptly sent me some goodies so I could make the real thing (thanks Catherine!!!)).  You can read her sweet post HERE.

LollyChops Out and About

Dara made a cork wreath after seeing my tutorial on it a while back.
You can read all about her cork wreath making adventures HERE.

Silsine made a mini desk calendar using my calendar templates from a few weeks back.
You can see the video of the entire project she made HERE.

Daniela made some really cute Valentines projects using the rolled flowers tutorial from last week!
(she busted out this cute project and had it up on her blog and theirs in record time)!
You can see her projects HERE on the Elle's Studio blog.
LOVE them!

...Oh and Carrie from DixieMango sent me these lovely vintage canning jars!
They are too nice to put regular old supplies in so I am having the glitter deer watch over them until I can figure out an uber crafty way to display them in my craft room!

...and almost finally...
DogChops is still in love with her Christmas Goose!
(I found them just like this after she was finished playing with her Goose one fine morning)
GooseNaps are the best don't you agree?!?!?

And last to lastly...  I made a couple cards for my latest ScrapyLand DT assignment.

These pics are of bottoms only...  just cause they were the most special parts!
(as bottoms tend to be sometimes right??)

That's all she wrote... BUT...
I have one question for all of you multi-lingual girls!

How do you say "HUGS" in your language?
I have a little HUGS project planned and I need some help in that department!

So far I know "KRAM" means HUGS in Swedish...  but that's about as international as I get.  Lame right?

So please leave me a comment with some international HUGS and I'll share what I have up my sleeves SOON!

Oh and if you have some LC projects or just general crafty projects you would like to share from your blogs or Flickrs, please post a link in the comments so we can all check them out!  Spread the crafty love!

Have a souper week everyone!

More Krams than you can stands!