truthfully tracelaine

This project is for the birds!!   Just kidding, I have actually had a really great time creating these Christmas bird ornaments.      Recently, I had a great response to a post I had shared on Facebook about my latest crafts.  From that Facebook share I got a few orders and my first order was for Christmas bird ornaments.  I am loving that I get to create these cute little things.   Partly, because it is exciting to find out that someone is interested enough in my creativity to place an order.  But even more importantly, I was able to spend some quality time with my family, getting the order put together.   See, the birds were a hit, but I had only made about ten for the booth.  A friend of mine saw them and thought they would be perfect for her staff at Christmas.  She needed 25, so the "special order" got underway.  After a quick shopping trip, for scrapbook paper, trinkets and do-dads, we called in rei...

You Guys!!  I am so excited!  As I have mentioned before, my husband has a wood shop that he allows me to make whatever I want out of the scraps that he discards. I use the scraps, along with wood glue, staples, paint, stain, scrapbook paper, and any other trinket I find to make a unique crafty project.        Well, putting these craft projects together has been such good therapy for me. It truly makes me very peaceful.  The only problem I have come across, (besides the occasional sanded knuckles) is that eventually I run out of space to put all of my little projects.  So, with that in mind, I decide to jump in and see what would happen if I made them available for others to see and buy.  I rented a flea market booth and decided to open my own little craft boutique.     It really took a lot of courage for me to jump out there. I worried that the product wouldn't be attractive to to customers.  I worried that n...

Aren't these the cutest things?      I love this little pumpkin trio, but it took some imagination to get them all stacked together.  You see, mm sister and brother-in-law are building a new house.  In this gorgeous new house you will find ship lap, hardwood floors and plenty of Farmhouse charm.  My husband is building the kitchen, bathroom and utility room cabinets for this house.  So there is plenty of various hardwood scraps for me to choose from when I'm feeling crafty.      One evening, my husband and brother-in-law were in the shop planing and ripping boards to make trim for stair tread.  The excess strips of wood that they felt were unusable were being tossed into a wagon to later be hauled down to the burn pile.  The thing that caught my eye was the curved edges along those discarded strips.  As I stared at them and felt my imagination start humming, I realized that stacking them side-by-side, presented a ...

So, I don't mean to sound like a spoiled baby, but I was a little let down on my birthday this year.  I turned 44, which means that I shouldn't be so bothered by a birthday unrecognized.  If anything I am at an age where I should want folks to forget my birthday and the reminders of getting older.  But, me and God have an understanding about life and I am thankful for everyday that he gives me so....I have to love getting older, too.      This year, my kids, friends, and family were great and I know they all love me.  What more could you really ask for, for your birthday???  I think it might have been a date with my husband. We got up and got busy trying to meet the deadlines of the cabinet business.  We worked HARD all day long and at the end of the day, we were both too tired to go out and do anything.  But when I realized the day was over and my birthday had basically gone unnoticed (other than the 5 minutes of birthday cards my ...

     I know that you're not supposed to tell a lady's age, but somewhere along the way I passed my mother and she is now younger than I am.  Now, I understand that as women have more birthdays something happens, and they stop aging.  But since she had actually become younger than me, I thought it was time to celebrate with a pretty cool gift.  She had been eyeing a laundry sorter that I had re-purposed out of an old dresser, so this November, for her birthday, I made her her own laundry sorter.   You may notice the cute little bee on top, telling everyone to "Bee Happy".  This was purposeful.  My parents raise bees and sell the honey once a year.  They love their little free range bees.  ( We all love the honey!!)  So if it goes in the house, it needs a honey bee.  I think it turned out pretty cute.  It has also freed up alot of space in her laundry room and made life a little more organized.  Plus, she reall...

Everywhere you go...  especially if you're going to be anywhere near my house, yard, or shop.         You see, around the middle of September, I really put on my thinking cap and start coming up with the coolest homemade gifts that I can think of.  It all began when my nieces and nephews were little.   We started a tradition at my Mom's house allowing all of the Aunts to fill the stockings with gifts for each little one in an effort to save grandma a little time and money.  When we started out, we were all buying little $1 and $2 dollar gifts because they were all so little that a pack of crayons and notebook were more than enough.  However, as the kids got older and our family grew, we had to find a way to continue buying for everyone and still picking out something unique that they would like.  In short they started testing our creativity, because the pocket book wasn't stretching any further.      ...