Sylvia's Simple Shots

We had a snow storm this week.  

It was blowing and snowing pretty hard.

I can barely see the building one street over  through the snow.

I did purchase a fabric marker from Walmart because I wanted one to create designs for embroidery which will wash out after the stitching is done.

Then just after I bought at retail I found this set of markers at Restore.  

I have plenty for my needs now for my slow stitching.

I found this Clover Kanzashi Flower Maker Pointed Petal small at Goodwill this week.

I was wanting to make flowers to decorate my bags and thought this would work well.

It does work well but the flowers are quite small.

Once I understood the concept I could make a large one with out the gadget.

At the same time my sister was looking for something similar.

You can check out the method and flower she made in this post.

I have made flowers both ways and it works quite well.  The pentagon flower requires quite light fabric as it needs to bunch a lot to make the petals.

Recent Photos

On one of my recent walks I saw this huge Bumble Bee.    It almost as big as the clover blossom it is feeding on.

It is good to see bees and butterflies around but not as many as in other years.

I found this beautiful art glass vase at the thrift shop recently.  It was signed so I thought I would at least be able to research it.  I paid my few dollars and brought it home.

After some research I found that it is by an glass blowing artist named Robert Held.   He is located in Parksville BC and has returned to glass blowing in his retirement.

The name of the collection is Blue Poppy and it is the small Classic Vase.   I have placed grasses in it for this photo but it would look great with white daisies.

It was a great find.  I have another piece of his work which is a heart paper weight.

I have been looking for a salt cellar for use near the stove as noted in this post. Especially when salting water for pasta a good amount is needed and trying to get what I need from a shaker was challenging.

This one appeared a little while ago.  It is very cute in the shape of an acorn.

The spoon holds 1/2 tsp of salt that makes measuring easy!

As you can see in the last photo there it is sitting next to the stove ready to serve.

I am finding the clover plentiful and very pretty this year.

I captured this one this morning. I love the color and it was dewy and sparkly as the sun touched it. When reviewing my photos I discovered that there was a grasshopper sitting in the shade.

We had some flooding in my building on Thursday last week.  The source was discovered on Friday, July 19th and this big blue air mover was my companion over the weekend.   The tape indicates the wet areas and the demolition starts this week.

No doubt it will be weeks before my hall and bedroom closet is back to normal.

Recent Snapshots

Here's a few photos from my walk this morning.

The white bloom from the sow thistle. 

I found these gorgeous dahlias at the park.  They were very dark pink and the petals were perfect.

The bees were buzzing around the Spiraea in several shades of pink and purple.

The small white purple bloom is some type of clover.  It was very tall rather than the low to the ground I am used to.

These are grasses of some sort but I was not able to identify it.
I used one of my out of focus photos as the background for the mosaic.

This was breakfast this morning.
Featuring nice tomatoes, ham and egg. 

A small dish of fresh raspberries  from a friends patch.  It's great to eat whole food picked by me.

These are my tomato plants.  They are yellow pear plants which I have been warned will grow very tall.  As you can see it had quite a few flowers.  Soon there will be tomatoes. 

I will let it grow to the top of the posts then I will have to cut off the top ends so it can concentrate on fruit.


During my visits to thrift shops, I have been looking for one of these bottles for a while. The prices are usually more than I am willing to pay.  Finally, last week the price was right and the bottle gorgeous.  It is 3.5 inches square with a super round ball stopper.  I am not fussy about the discolored plastic on the stopper.  It may have to go.  I removed the labels which were for Essenza Sweet Pea fragrance diffuser oil.  It was sold with reeds. This is the third in my collection. 

The bottle in the center has a Avon mark on the bottom.  The silver lid is plastic so not quite the same level as the others.  I don't know what it held originally. I loved the swirl pattern on the body of the bottle.

The bottle on the right features alternating clear and frosted bands running vertically along the body.  It has a metal lid with embossed pattern on the top with Doulton embossed on the band.  This was an expensive Eau de Parfum bottle. 

These add some flair to vignettes that I create for photography.

Sharing with Mosaic Monday #48 hosted by Maggie at Normandy Life.

Through my Lens #102 hosted by Mersad.

St. Patrick's Day HB

I made this card for a friend who have an aunt who celebrates her birthday on St. Patrick's Day. 

I started with an olive card and found a piece of damask designer paper in a color that matched well.  I cut that layer to leave a small border.  I then punched my 4 hearts with the Stampin Up Sweetheart punch to create the four leaf clover.  With that I designed the greeting layer, color printed in Always Artichoke it on vellum, embossed it with clear and trimmed it near the border.  I adhered the 4 hearts onto the vellum aligning them with the stem. Then I placed adhesive again only behind the hearts and placed it onto the damask designer paper.  I wrapped a piece of white seam binding around this layer and tied a knot in the front. Trimmed the ends and adhered it to the card front.