Sylvia's Simple Shots

The Canada Geese are back.  

I found this couple at the 127 Street pond.  There is still ice but at least some open water.

The sun was shining and I walked the whole track around the pond this time.

May as well get my steps in while out with my camera.

Still at the pond I found this creature sitting on a branch in the water.

I could not see the tail but I think this is a muskrat rather than a beaver.  Not sure.

Love the gold color on its fur in the later afternoon sun.

I had a visit with my aunt this afternoon.

Adventures of the Yorkshire Shepherdess by Amanda Owen. 

The life in the very rural areas of England are challenging at best to downright dangerous at worse.

Amanda shows deep commitment to her family and her animals in the book.  One needs to be a problem solver and adaptive in this kind of environment.

Some of the situations stressed me out and I was not living them out.

A family of 9 children provides a rich life with the interactions between parents and kids.  The children are learning, becoming adults and finding their strengths in this family.  

Interesting book.

The bugs are back.

I captured this flying insect while trying to capture the pussy willows at the Heritage Hills Wetlands in Sherwood Park.

I'm not sure what it is, and of course I only found out it was there when I got home and downloaded the pics.

A dreamy shot of the pussy willow without bugs in the way.

I have been working hard to have the place ready for listing.

It has been a lot of work to move things back into their place from being stored in the living room and dining room during  the renovations.

It was suggested that I make the room look bigger and I moved the table to under the window and now I can dance in the space.

I can see the TV from this room and so sometimes I do my exercise videos here so I am not in full view to the parking lot.

Lately there have been a lot of vehicles back there.

Sylvia Simple Shots

These days with my living room window facing east I get a very short time that the sun hits northern end of the patio door.  

This is a shot trying to take advantage of the last rays of sunlight on the table before it disappeared.

It was shot for a challenge of light and dark on Flickr.

I love how the glass shot some light into the dark just above the flame.  A reminder that a single candle flame can banish the dark.  

Continue to have hope against dark circumstances.  The light will return in full measure of time and things will be brighter and happier.

The Welcome Committe of Butternut Creek by Jane Myers Perrine was a light read.  A new pastor Adam Jordan arrives in town with his few possessions in his small car.  Miss Birdie and her friend Mercedes are the welcome committee who are there to show him the ropes about the parish and how things are run.  Of course, they have been at this church for years and it's more like this is how we have always done it so that should continue. He is a bachelor so they decide he needs a wife.

Sam Peterson has recently moved into his late aunt's house in town. He is veteran who lost his leg in Afghanistan and is struggling to find his place now he is not in active service. Sam wants to be left alone. Willow is a physical therapist who works at the hospital and leaves nearby. She is divorced and her two boys came to play in Sam's yard unaware that someone new had moved in. 

Birdie, Sam and Willow have to make adjustments in their lives to make the changes which will make them happy instead of staying stuck in their comfort zones.  It all works out in the end.

I have been using essential oils for a long time.  My favorite is Bergamot and Grapefruit which I bought as a body butter and a bottle of oil years ago at a craft sale. It was great.

During COVID I started using Lavender oil to help me naturally relax and get to sleep.

Of course, I chose to make some passive essential oil diffusers recently.

My sister gifted me a wool felt tree ornament for adding scent to my artificial tree so I needed Spruce essential oil.  I took a trip to the health food store and purchased a small bottle. It will last a long time. I bought some empty bottles as well so that I can mix up some bergamot and grapefruit diluted which I use during my morning exercise routine.

I found the book above at the Thrift store. I gather it came in a kit with essential oils. 

I found the book very helpful and very thorough ranging from how is essential oil produced, categories of oil, grades of oils, and which oils can be used to help with health issues.

I felt it was a very worthwhile and the price was not crazy high.

I had this low tire pressure warning message show up on my car a while back and it threw me for a loop.  I had the puncture of a tire in May so I think I was hypersensitive about the issue.  I really had no idea what was going on. My last car did not have sensors and I did not have this issue with the original tires from this car. 

I made an appointment with the car company who installed the tires in June and I told they could not look at the car for 4 days. I checked the tires every day and I did not have a flat tire. So what gives?  I learned from a you tube video that this can happen when the weather changes. After talking to a couple of my siblings they have manual resets once they have checked the air pressure in their tires.  You tube recommended checking all 4 tires and the spare if it has a sensor, filling to the recommended tire pressure documented on the inside of your drivers door and it should just clear the message. I check with my dealership when it opened Monday morning and this was confirmed. So, armed with knowledge I was able to resolve the warning. I called the tire place back on Monday and cancelled my appoint. I am disappointed that they did not make this suggestion on Friday instead of just saying we can see you on Tuesday. What a waste of my time but I guess they had suggested that I leave the car for the whole day. They could do just what I did in five minutes and charge me a couple hundred dollars.  That would have been 5 days of my time without feeling safe in my vehicle. Yeah, Youtube!

While I was waiting and worrying about my car I made myself useful and cleared another round of card stock, designer paper and embellishments from my craft space. 

I had an IKEA Trofast Kids Wardrobe which I used store mostly 12x12 paper.  It was really too deep of smaller stuff.  With the goal of getting all the craft stuff to live in the craft room I pulled most of the 12x12 designer paper from my drawer storage and then decided to could keep that much 12x12 card stock from the shelving unit.  The rest had to go. 

I decided the shelving unit had to go as well because it was not conducive to paper storage and too big for my to handle and I needed to clear stuff from the craft room. This was it.

My sister picked up the shelf and the boxes of paper and craft supplies which will be used in her daycare. A win win I say.

F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton is a book I finished recently.

Another bit of time spent with Kinsey Millhone.  She is hired by Bailey Fowler's father to find out who really killed Jean Timberlake 17 years ago.  The murder his son was convicted of and the soon have he escaped from prison and has been on the lamb since then.

The murder took place in Floral Beach, a town a distance from Kinsey regular area of operation.  She travels and takes a room offer by the father who owns the hotel.  It is a small community, people are wary of a stranger asking questions, some people have moved away. There are a lot of dysfunctional family dynamics going on in this family. There's a mother who seems to be troubled with many health problems, the father has a few too, the sister had ended up being care giver for her parents as well as the hotel.

It was a great read with an interesting conclusion.

The couch was taken away on Sunday. I need to clear the living room and dining room with the goal of replacing the carpet with a hard surface flooring.   With the couch gone there is more room in the living room and less big stuff to manage when it comes time replace the flooring.

Of course the clearing in the craft room was also important for this upcoming project.

All the little steps will lead to the final outcome. As usual it takes longer than one anticipates. Just keep moving forward and I will get there.

Clean Up - Craft Table

I have been working on cleaning up my craft table so I can move my work space from the dining room back to where it belongs. 

I have been at it for a couple of days and I have the table done.  I still have projects on the dining room table that can be migrated to the craft table and completed or otherwise handled. 

On left of this photo is a pile of stuff that came out of the front hall when I had flooding there in 2019. I will have to work on that project soon as well so I can access many of my tools that are stored in the shelving unit on the left against the wall. 

I have decided to so a reset and I am willing to chuck or donate cardmaking stuff down to what is in the storage units.  Then I can start again working on putting things back where they live when I am done at the end of the day.

It is a process and I will start again and move forward with a renewed commitment to the process.  I feel good about my progress.

Photos - Organizing, Storage and Decluttering

I've been working really hard at de-cluttering and creating a place for everything.  Two years ago I added drawers to my craft space which helped a lot.

Top: The boxes in top photo are on top of the black shelving unit in my craft space.  Check here for a photo.  I have always stored them wide which meant they were stacked 3 deep which makes getting to the bottom one was not fun. They were too wide for the shelf as well so the last row on the right were precarious at times. Just by turning them on their side I can get them all in less space and only 2 deep which means less hassle to get to the box I want. Really happy about this.

Left: A new shelving unit to store all the stuff that did not have a home.  I now know exactly how much stuff I have and must stop buying!! The large containers hold yarn and silk flowers - perfect for the top shelf. I will have to organize the contents of pizza boxes and iris cases but I least I can see them all at once now.

Right: I bought an Ikea narrow Billy bookcase which sat perfectly in the space next to the black shelf in the craft space. This stores card stock and 3 classes/project cases.  It will keep the light and dust out and maintain the quality of the paper.

Left: I had a bit of space under my work table which could be used if I had a storage solution.  I knew it had to be drawers again.  I managed to these narrow drawer units a Walmart and they fit perfectly.

Center: I found that I saved boxes in case I needed one but there was no specific place for them to be so again I did not have any idea what I had so I needed a place. With that comes tissue paper, bubble wrap, gift bags, etc.  Home Depot had these containers on sale for $4 each so for less than $20 I got all I needed. What did not fit here went to the recycle center.
Right: I re-wrapped my work surface with new black contact adhesive vinyl.  This station is right across from the large metal shelving unit so it gives me a place to open a box I've pulled off of there and look inside. There's a better chance it will return to it's place if I don't move it too far away.

Craft Space - Labels

I have now placed labels on my wooden drawers.  I color printed the words in black. I then punched them with the Stampin Up Decorative Label.  They are held in place with decorative bull clips which have the added bonus of providing a small handle to help pull the drawer open.  I rubbed wax from a candle to the bottoms corners of the drawers to facilitate the sliding on their wooden supports.  That has helped a lot. 
I'm glad to have my card stock half sheets close at hand which means they will get used instead of my reaching for a new full sheet.

My New/Old Craft Space

I'm finally back in my dining room - craft space.  I had move all the stuff in the place around last August to have renovations done so it's been a year that I have been crafting on the dining table instead of my craft table.
I've been working very steady on this project for at least 2 weeks but it feels like much longer.  I want to be able to get things back to their home quicker so they will since things are handier.  I have my paper cutter on a wood stand which holds my card stock scraps in white magazine holders. Next to that is my card stock storage in a Ikea shelving unit.  Above that is a leaning tower of pizza boxes.  The Cricut in in the far corner on another wood shelving with drawers for storage below.  I'm very happy with the new blinds I bought last year.  The table is my original chrome set I bought years ago.  I have added Ikea storage boxes on the right of the table.  No sure this will stay this way. They hold my regular supplies like tape runner, DS tape, 3D tape, tools like the Cropadile, etc.  Blue garbage bin on the bottom right hand.  The lamp has a natural light compact bulb which is a great addition.

Here's a picture of the shelf that I placed my new drawers onto that I blogged a while ago. I've had the 12x12 storage drawers for designer paper for a long time.  The small drawer unit holds my regular tools, markers, pens & pencils, and pencil crayons.  The blue bins hold hot glue supplies, punches, and less often used tools.  The new drawers hold envelopes, buttons and beads, silk flowers, Christmas card supplies, All Occasion card supplies, punches, and stamps.  There's just enough room above the drawers for the thin stuff like paper cutters, boxes of little stuff, and small ink pads.

Photo - Big Shot Work Space

I was tired of digging my Big Shot out of storage to use it which is at least 3 times a week. I reorganized my storage space to create a place where my die cut machine will live permanently. It includes a light, a place to hang a few tools (scissors and a ruler), quick access to plates and spacer. I added a bit of inspiration to keep the creative juices flowing.

Now, I just have to find the die I want, use it, place the scraps in the red waste basket and return the die to it's storage space. Much less clean up. I've tried it out and it works very well.

Art - My Craft Space

I bought these letters for my craft space. I found them at Michael's in the $1.50 section. The letter selection was not great but I managed to find what I needed for this great word. I found enough for my sister as well. They are black enamelled metal in a great roman lower case font. They are 5.5" tall and have hangers on the back to mount them on the wall. I love them! Michael's had 20% off everything today so it was a great find.

Paper Storage

Paper storage is always a challenge. I have been storing my cardstock and bond paper in a inexpensive file cabinet. The weight of the paper has been hard on the drawers and it was difficult to see the very back of the drawer. I spent several months researching options. I finally decided on an Ikea piece (my favorite store). It is Trofast. It's found in the children section. It is deep enough to lay the cardstock on the eleven inches and still store boxes of envelopes behind. I have 3 shelves in each half. Of course it needed doors. The doors that come with the unit are chunky blue plastic ones which I didn't want. The temporary doors are cut from foam core with handles attached. I will make permanent ones with thin wood with magnets to keep them in place. I now have full access to all my paper. I have not sorted it all in colors yet but it gives me a really good idea which colors I have a decide supply. Much of this comes from my sister's trip south of the border. I use a lot of cardstock and envelopes in my monthly card club.