An Open Door

Is your door opened or is it closed?  If you have it shut, please get off the couch and release the light.  Our doors should always be open and free for new discoveries.

Don't you love an open door with sunlight pouring in?  I know I do.  It just makes for a sun shiny day. Who wants to live in the dark with all our options closed to us?  Not me.  I want to have all possibilities open.  I don't ever want to shut anything out.

An open door in our lives allows us to learn and grow.  Never shut out what is being shown to you.  Wouldn't you want to know if you could do something better?  We hate criticism, but at the same time we cannot simply slam the door on it.  All the wonderful comments and praise is great.  We all love receiving them, but when we suddenly get the negative, we tend to cringe and feel some anger well up inside.

But what we should be doing instead is to leave our minds and hearts open to the possibility that someone is hollering out to us to change our ways.  They really don't want us to do it for them.  They want us to change for ourselves.

So, when you get criticism from anywhere, look at it as yes, I see my faults and I will try to figure out my own way of improving and bettering myself.  I want to grow and change and be the best that I can be.  You can too.

This is so true for anyone who has ever been a writer or an artist.  You can't just stop at your first best masterpiece and call it good.  We have to keep trying to outdo ourselves and make ourselves refined.  We only get better with practice.  And this goes for anything that anyone wants to do in life.  If you decide to stop and not do things anymore, you get rusty.

I can honestly say I have done this before.  For instance, my drawing.  I kind of stopped for a long time as I wanted to write novels, knit, make paper dolls and anything else I wanted to do.

Now, I'm thinking that I need to continue drawing.  I have to come back to the arts.  And now, with my scrapbooking bug, I think I will be coming back to this.  As I know have all these plans in my head for new designs, new scrapbooking and collage pages.  They most likely won't be your typical scrapbook page.  They will be beautiful.  I've seen some scrap bookers that do some really awesome stuff, or art journallers.

But, in the past I always associated scrap booking with the basic pages with family pictures on it and images of flowers, footballs, baby rattles and the basic scrapbooking pages.

Not the intricate pages with butterflies, words, and well thought out collage pages.  That's what mine will be.

I even started to take my original manuscript for my first published novel and was thinking of paper punching part of it.  I started with the synopsis I had sent a publisher and started to take my scallop punch to it.  It looks neat, but then I'm seeing words in it like killer, rape, sex and lots of other stuff.  So I am not sure if I will be chopping up the manuscript.

Maybe I can just photo copy some pages that have good stuff in it and choose that.

And I would like to try drawing some different things.  One thing I am thinking of is just of hands with butterflies and all kinds of stuff in it.  But I need to slowly get back into it.

And I just never want to close the door on it forever.  That is just a no.  Although, sometimes we do need breaks so we can concentrate on other things we would like to do.  We can't do it all at once.  I wish we could.

I have read about some artists that have stopped creating art for ten years.  I can't remember which famous one did this, but one or two of them did.  I will have to read and see if it was Van Gogh.  For me it has been about two to three years for a real drawing that I create in pencil.  Those ones were mostly of objects in front of me or from family pictures.  I should find the one of my Grammy sometime that I did.  And have the photo next to it.  I can get a good likeness usually.  Or sometimes I don't get it exact but I get my own little image of it that is just as lovely.

So, I will continue.  For right now, I have been sifting through all the artwork to know what I have, to figure out which ones have to go and get ripped up.  Many are good, but some were just starts.  And some I have looked back on and they are okay, not great.

Now, as I look ahead to the future of my artistic talents, I would like to create new and better stuff.  And I want to design.

I used to do the craft shows and people would look at my paper dolls and say that I should be a designer.  Maybe.

Maybe it will be in the form of scrap book pages.  I've never really dived into that.

Well, I did used to scrap book with Sean when he was little.  I still have the scrap book.  The pages are filled with flowers, favorite actresses, pictures of dolls and other stuff.  Maybe I should photograph the pages sometime and share.

But, at that point I was just cutting out the pictures and pasting them into the page.  I wasn't going all out to design my own pages.

I took a 2-D class in college that allowed us to do collage work on some level.  We all had to start with this particular pack of 2-D paper.  It was all just plain colors.  Kind of boring.

I was the rebel in the class that started to break free from the package we had to buy.  I started collecting magazines and cutting them out.  One of my favorite pictures I used was a picture of an old Anais Nin perfume ad.  The photographs were done by Sarah Moon.  I cut the pictures out and used them in my stuff.

I really pushed my teachers buttons and he encouraged us all to push the boundaries.  I think I compelled others to do the same.  For a few of the pictures with the Anais Nin image, I found some colored nylons and stretched it over the image and nailed it to my wooden frame to pull it tight so that you could still see the image, but it looked different.  Then, I also painted over parts of the collage.  I saved all the colors from the magazines.

And I remember the smell of Rubber Cement like it was yesterday and rubbing the access off with this little tacky square meant for rubber cement.

And when I draw, I also love those grocery store Bic pencils and I also love to use one of those kneaded erasers that you can pull and clean up as you go.  And then the blender stubs are great too.  And you can actually draw with the eraser.

A trick to do to, is to apply your pencil or charcoal to the whole page and then you completely draw with the eraser.  We learned that in college.

So to end this, KEEP THE DOOR OPEN.  IF YOU SEE A CLOSED DOOR, FIND A NEW ONE AND OPEN.


Jennifer Jo Fay

July 22, 2012

A close up of one of my favorite designs.  They could also be the inspiration for new gothic paper dolls.

The Mandy doll I got at yesterday's yardsale.  I had an old version of her without the outfit and she was more beat up and had blonde hair.  I loved drawing the doll for a long time and using it in photographs.  I sold her for some money earlier this year and was wishing to have her back so I could draw her again.  I saw this one yesterday and snapped her up for 95 cents.

I want to replenish some of my dolls.  But now, I think I want the vintage ones from the 50's.

Queen Anne's lace near the yard sale.  We were parked across the street near a field of queen anne's lace so I took the opportunity to do some photography.  Queen Anne and the doll.

I have always loved the DOLLS.  I have an aunt that used to say, "Ah...the dolls."  every time I would mention them in any way, shape or form.  And in college, my teachers told me that "THE DOLLS" were a loaded object.

The full image of the doll heads.  I should do more of these for the scrap booking.  Maybe they should be resting on a pattern next time.  I might also find myself trying to draw images from Google Images too from time to time to get a part of the drawing.  Like an image of someone's feet or something.

Maybe I can also get my daughter's to get their hands posing or just their feet.

The old magazine I bought at a yard sale.  I bought two for a dollar.  The guy wanted $1 a piece but I talked him down to two for one where this one was ripped across the front.  And he even had to charge me sales tax and give me a receipt.  And he laughed and said that I wouldn't want the police to stop me and say I didn't pay for one.  Ha ha.  Of course he had to be a Realtor too as it was an estate sale.

Close up.  I think this is my favorite part of the picture.  I just love how her hair flows.

This was one of the ads inside the magazine.  I took tons of pictures for my scrap-booking needs.

My mannequin with a wig I am selling on Ebay.  There's three people watching it.  She came with three wigs and I didn't need all three.  The brown one was messy and I kind of preferred the white one too.  Down the road, I want to get a curly wig for her.

Last week's flowers I picked on my walk on Thursday and when I got back to the kid's house, I picked some hosta's.

Blank scallops awaiting my designs.  And I'm also selling packages of 50 of these on Ebay.  I've been paper punching all week and I now have tons of these.

My mother's old trinket box that has some of my collage pieces in it and the picture is of my nana.  I found the color photocopied image that I had done at UPS years ago and I cut around her last week for a collage piece.

Vintage Madame Alexander Margaret doll.

Another page from the magazine.

I finished sewing up another batch of these last night.  Some of this I ended up doing while my boyfriend was in the other chair fast asleep.  I'm tempted to get a picture of him sleeping.  Maybe tonight.  I had to laugh last night as he was asleep, his cat, Tinkerbell was asleep next to his phone, and his other cat, Rascal, was asleep on the coffee table in front of me upside down.  I did get pictures of the cats and maybe will share some later.

These ribbon ones are necklaces.  I ended up making a whole set for these.  Below are the earrings and part of the bracelets.  I have left the strings on the earrings as later, I need to find my metal earring findings and figure out how to attach them.  And all the bracelets might not be completely done.  I do want to try to sew in some beads later on.

Another page from the magazine.  These are two actors from an old play.

Another picture from the magazine.   This could be cool in part of scrap booking.  It's fun to find new ways to use something old.  There was also some pictures done by Charles D. Gibson.  The magazines were from 1896 and 1914.  The other was Ladies Home Journal.

Another Queen Anne's lace picture.  I'm loving editing my pictures in Picasa now.  I have learned to save them as jpegs so that I can find them easily in my folders.  Only thing I have noticed is that not all the pictures show up in my folder, but I'm sure they are in Picasa somewhere.

My Live scribe pen and the ribbon yarn that I have been using this weekend for a few cabled bracelets.  I got writing in my Live scribe notebook Friday night and I tried to do some drawings with it and maybe some handwritten words for scrap booking.  I figured out that I can't convert to type.  But the person I bought it from has referred me to Script for Live scribe where for a small amount of money, I will be able to do it.  So I might get it going within the next month or so and that will definitely save some time of typing something up I already wrote.

another page from the magazine.

Caught the scrap booking bug!

Well, here has come and gone another week of sharing my laptop with Julia.  I hope Santa gives her a new computer for Christmas.  She loves to play her Free Realms and Feroheart games and they don't work on her computer.

So, I have been sharing my laptop with her.  Some mornings, I would find myself waking up early and getting over there before she wakes up so I can have it to check my Ebay listings and other stuff.  I should make her not use it a little bit though, next week so that I can keep up with blogging posts and blog hopping and other stuff that I would like to do.

Now, I am down at my boyfriends for the weekend, so I will have full control of the laptop.  Plus not next week, but the first full week in August they will be gone camping for the whole week.  I am thinking I will camp out at their house while they are gone and feed their pets and get  a little break from my cats.  I love my cats, but they like to sleep on me all the time when I am home.  It's because they miss me.

So some days when she was on my laptop a lot, I was making more of the bangle bracelets.  I have more to sew up now.  I was making some with pretty ribbon yarn.

Then, as I was making this stuff, I was searching Ebay for paper punches and noticed that people are buying the paper punch pieces.  Well, this set me in motion, and I got thinking that I could easily do this.  So right now, I have several listings going for paper punch pieces packages.  I'm selling them in sets of 40-50 pieces.

And, I'm thinking at a later date, I could make my own designs for scrap booking and people could buy my little pieces for their scrap booking projects  I've been wanting to do scrap booking and collage work in the fall so right now, I am starting out by cutting up my pieces.  So far, I have cut up lots of 2" scallops circles and Martha Stewart hearts.  Then, I'm saving all my scraps as I have a really small heart punch that will use some of it.  And I've got a music note punch coming and all this good quality black paper waiting in the kids studio.  I've found some of my old water color paper in there, that I don't know what I'm using that for yet.  I found some scrap booking papers in there that I had bought en quite a few years ago.  So I paper punched all those and am going to try to sell a lot of that as some of it isn't my favorite colors.

So all this paper punching has been taking a few days to do.

I had tons of scrapbook paper leftover from cutting my 8 X 10 pages for the paper dolls.  And I still have a huge stack of the paper doll paper.  And another huge stack of vellum paper.  I just have lots of Strathmore 400 paper and the Utrecht Bristol paper.  The Bristol paper, I would like to save for drawing on, except for the smaller scraps.  Those I will use the paper punches for.  They do punch out the thicker vellum Bristol too.

And a few times, I had to reach down into the crack of the couch for the paper pieces that would fall down. And most of us, don't want to reach down the crack for something as we know that bugs may also be waiting for us.  In a house with kids, there is always  some type of food that lingers down there.  Or an old spill.

Then, I also tried cutting up some cereal boxes with the scalloped paper punch.  It worked fine.  I grabbed about five of the cereal box scallops and stacked them together.  Now, another idea I am thinking is magnets.  These could easily be glued together, then painted over and then glazed and put a circle magnet in the back.  And also for the bottle caps would be good for magnets.

I want to also pull out the beads in the fall and make some beaded bracelets too.  Those were fun.  Right now, I already have a good amount for the fall time craft show.  I've got lots of knitted bracelets, some sewn fabric bracelets, the knitting markers, a few of the yo yo pincushions, a few of the pincushions in the coffee mugs and teacups, the paper dolls, some artwork, photo greeting cards and other stuff.  There's just going to be a mixture of everything.

And I got thinking, that I could easily design my own scrapbook pages for selling.  I could go into my photography programs, drawing and any other program I have and just get creative.  This year, I am going to make my own Christmas postcards.  I usually take a picture of each of the kids and do a collage effect.  It is so hard to get them all together for a picture.  I've got some Christmas scrap booking paper and I am going to do a big collage page with each of their photos and when it is done, I will take a picture of the whole thing.  Then, I will shrink it down to wallet size pictures, nine to a page and print the m up.  Then the picture gets stuck to a piece of art paper to make my postcard.  Yay.

And I started to rip up an old book to think of what I want to do.  First, I had found a few hard cover books at the yard sales and I pulled out the books from the binding and threw out the actual book.  I'm going to do some collage work on the bindings at some point and it might just be something to hold some note cards in or something.

Then, I decided to keep the book.  First, I took these really small flower paper punch pieces and used the ripped up book as a place to set down the flowers and apply glitter glue to.  I've heard you can use your yellow pages books for this too.  Then all you do when you are done with a page is rip it up and start fresh the next time you are ready to glue stuff.  Makes a good little workspace.

And I also started to paper punch some of the written pages for scrap booking needs.  I love the idea, but I didn't like the words.  So what I am thinking of doing is creating pages or documents just with certain words and fonts so I can come up with some cool word documents for scrap booking and using with the paper punches.

For instance, the word love typed all over the page.  Or perhaps cool sayings.  It's got to be something that people would want to show up in their scrap booking pages.

I tested it out with my new live scribe pulse pen.  I hand wrote love all over a page, Picasso's blue period all over another page and van gogh's sunflower pencil hand written all over another page.  I'm going to upload them soon to my live scribe and maybe use my handwriting in other programs too.  All just beginnings of finding scrap booking pieces.  Found stuff is fun to see what you can use.

I want to take my scrap booking to more of a collage level.  I think I am going to look up Joseph Cornell and get my memory jogged of his stuff.

I also want to find a large bird paper punch next month.  And maybe get more die cuts for my Big Shot machine for scrap booking.  I've got three to six die cuts for it.

And I think I will just explore the whole scrap booking world.

I found myself up late a few nights just going through all my artwork and weeding out.  I found myself ripping up a bunch that were just starts and I didn't like them.  When the kids were little, I would draw while they napped and they would wake up long before the artwork got finished, so I've had all these starts to drawings.

Then, I just found extra blank paper all over the place.  And I decided to cut up some of the stuff I did for the video game I was making.  I kind of have changed my mind about making the game.  First of all, I don't foresee it ever getting turned into a video game because I don't know how to do it.  So I am scrapping the scenarios.  Or maybe I shouldn't scrap the scenarios and I could still write them up as a collection someday. Like a set of ten or fifteen scenarios in a book form and not a game.

And I could also still draw out some of the rooms and they could be neat in a scrap booking design page.  Like perhaps a carousel horse or a cemetery scene, etc....

And it felt good to weed out and organize my art stuff.  Just to know where everything is.  I was also able to consolidate and that way, now I have some empty clear folders and containers for the scrap booking stuff.

I might even find some good shoe boxes for storing some stuff.  It's kind of fun to sift through a shoe box for your little scrapbook and collage pieces.

And then, after I use up my paper scraps with the little thumb punches, I am thinking that I can't let any of the paper to go to waste, so I might find myself making handmade paper again to get some little paper punch pieces for scrap booking.  I like to use embroidery hoops with the netting and I've got tons of netting.

And I also want to try some paper mache in the fall.  I knew a girl in the Essex Art League that made these gorgeous bowls from paper mache.  I plan on using a metal bowl as a mold and want to try it out.

And the good paints won't come out until the fall time.  I always look forward to fall.  For quiet time and cooler weather.  I can't stand the heat.

And I am five days into good walking.  I started last Sunday and did a 20 minute walk around their neighborhood.  I've done this five days in a row, either in their neighborhood or near where I live.  It is so nice to go walking in the morning.  One morning, I went for my walk at 5:30 and got serenaded by birds in nearby trees.  Another morning, as I was walking, I got to hear someone play a beautiful song on the piano.  And yesterday after my doctor's appointment, I decided to pick a bouquet of wildflowers.  Queen Anne's lace, some blue flower and pretty pink clovers.

And for part of the collage scrap booking, I brought over my rubber stamps and ink pads and sponges and started rubber stamping too for the scrap booking.  That was fun.  I've got a really pretty baby face stamp, a woman's face stamp and some chrysanthemum ones that I love.

I also got to find some scrap booking stuff at a yard sale last week.  I will be on the hunt for anything related to scrap booking.  This will be a good way to slowly get back into the drawings.  I am thinking my artwork can also find it's way into my scrap booking.  I can easily shrink the pictures down and place them strategically on the page to create a vivid piece of art.  I can draw on any of it.

All kinds of fun stuff.

Well, I will let you go for now.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted July 20, 2012

The first scallops I started cutting up.  I love the one in the front.  The pink lace underneath was a little tablecloth I sewed up years ago for an Easter Card table.  I love it.

Some of the inks I got at last week's yardsale.  I love the green one in the front as it is metallic.  And some of my pens.  I also love the grocery store Bic fine tip pen/marker.  It works just as well as these expensive art ones.  And I noticed with some of these pens and then I used the Martha Stewart markers over it and the color ran and I got this yucky greenish black marker junk.  So that piece got thrown out.

  A few of the shells I got at a recent yard sale.  I got a bag of pretty shells for a few bucks.  I should find some flowers to go with these some time.  And maybe some other month, I can get some sea urchins to go with the collection.

A piece of butterfly fabric.  It's thin and sheer.

Sweet Sue doll with the shells.  I am slowly going to replenish a few of my dolls with some of these old vintage dolls.  Madame Alexander dolls.  I would like to have some that I remember seeing at my great Aunt Mary's house.  I think her's or her daughters dolls were some of the old vintage bride dolls.  I don't want to collect a lot of them, but I would like a few.  I pulled out my mom's old doll thinking I was going to restring her, but then I remembered that she doesn't have any arms, so I am not going to bother.

One of my designs I made about three or four years ago.  I did another one of all easter eggs.  These were fun to do.  And I think I need to start getting back into design work and drawing.  It can start with the scrap booking.

                     Some of my rubber stamps.  Sean and I used to rubber stamp when he was really little.  He had a Spider Man set and probably a dinosaur set too.  I love the hearts, butterflies, dragon flies and the other ones.

Some of the scallops die cuts that I started to draw on.  This will be fun.

More bracelets to sew together this weekend.  With some of the ribbon ones, I actually made a whole set of bracelet, necklace and earrings.  And all these could later have some beading applied to them in the fall.

And the scallops will also come in handy for my tags for my other products for the craft shows.

Making my own pieces for scrap booking.  These the heart stamp below worked well on.

My two favorite paper punches so far, some sponges and spiral graph.  I used to love spiral graph as a kid and found my set of these.  Also could be cool in scrap booking pages.

Summer is halfway over

It seems hard to believe that now we are into the middle of July and summer has almost come and gone.  Well, it's still here.  But ususually it is us Moms that start to think, wow, we're almost into August and we know what that means.  School is just around the corner.  Fall time shopping will start to enter our minds.

Next week is Jake's birthday.  We treated him to the new Spiderman movie on Saturday.  It was really good.  I wasn't sure if I would like the new one, but I like it just as much as the first ones with Toby MacGuire in it.  Jake came out all excited.  I think it was the highlight of his year!  I could just tell that he loved it.

Note:  He's been Spiderman for the last three years at Halloween and will need a bigger Spider man costume this year.  I'm going shopping for him on Thursday.  He will probably end up getting shorts and maybe an action figure.  He already has so many movies and music, that he probably doesn't need another.  But he usually gets one of the new kid movies when they come out onto DVD.  He and Sean are hard to buy for.  I usually end up giving Sean a gift card or one of those credit cards and then he can get what he wants.

So, now, we really only have a few weeks left of July and we're into August.  I like August as it starts to begin to get just a little cooler.  I like the crispness in the air.  You start to get a feeling of fall time.  I like all my seasons, but would have to say that I like winter the least.  Or I guess I can say that I don't like trudging through the snow.  I think that's a universal gripe with all us adults.  But I do like seeing it come down.  It is pretty.

The other thing about end of summer is the thought that the kids will be back in school and there will be a little quiet time again for a while.  I have been enjoying getting to be with them all summer, but I think for most parents the idea of keeping them entertained all summer becomes a big chore.  None of us want to have a bored child on our hands.

Mine tend to keep pretty busy.  Of course Sean is busy in the basement with his games, and his friends.  All my kids tend to be able to amuse themselves pretty well.  Jake and the girls have been going to school this month.  Jake goes every day for a while.  This is a given with him as he is Downs and he automatically needs to go every summer so he won't forget what he has learned in school all year.  For part of his school in the summer he gets to go down to the neighborhood pool a lot.  He's end of the day treat after school work.

And the girls go three days a week for three weeks this month for a math and reading program.  Their on IEPs and need the extra help.

And then, they like to all play on their laptops, and lately for Julia she has been requesting playing on mine for her two games she likes to play.  Free Realms and Feroheart.  The site was down the other day and she got so upset that it wasn't working.

So, I guess that will be one reason why I will like for school to start in the fall as I will get complete control back with my laptop!  The girl hasn't woken up yet, this morning so I am surprising myself by getting two posts done.  Once she takes control for hours, I won't see the laptop back until later.  So, during that time, you can bet I will be knitting instead.

I got back to my house last night and the cats got a hold of one of my knitted bracelets that I hadn't sewed up yet.  I won't be bothering as they tore it in half.  So that is letting me know that if the finished knitted bracelets come home to my apartment, I am going to have to contain them in a special box away from the cat's.  I don't think my boyfriend's cats would tear apart my knitting, but mine will.  So, also, my lovely knitted skirt is also in a place where they won't get to it.  I'm not about to suddenly find a big hole in that.

They have also in the past tore apart my knitted dishcloths.  I had a bunch of them in the ziploc bags for the craft shows a few years ago and I would see them grab a bag and try to take off with it.  I'd go chasing them for those, but if I left one out that I was using, I would later find a hole in it.

It's just nice to see the kids hop on the bus in the fall.  We just know that they need to be there to learn.  Summer is nice and fun, but it's a good thing it's just the summer.  And I think the kids do pretty well to have a well rounded summer.  They've been camping and are going again in a few weeks.  Sean and his Dad are going to Canada for a day to go to an IMAX theater.  I'm treating the girls in a few weekends to the new Madagascar movie.

We watched a kind of stupid shark movie a few nights ago.  My Shark Night movie came in the mail (Netflix) and I wanted to see it.  PG-13 so I figured it would be alright for the girls.  We popped it in and told them that if they get scared, we'll turn it off.  And in the preview my ex and I saw a scene where two girls are undoing their tops and you only see the back.  So he and I were thinking where it was pg-13 there wouldn't be too much nudity in it.

It ended up not being too bad.  A lot of blood more than anything when the sharks get the people.  It ended up some guys were dumping sharks in a lake and were killing people.  And there was one scene in the beginning of the movie where the girls saw the naked body of a nude male model.  Back to.  They saw no front luckily.  Mollyanne said something and I told her that he was just a model for artists to draw.  Then I told her that I had to draw nude models when I was in college.  We had a black male model and a woman that usually posed.  I've got some drawings somewhere of the male model.  I don't think I kept many of the woman.  I had painted her once and the painting came out beautiful.  Of course it was just of her face and I sold it at the school auction one year.

The Shark movie ended up being kind of stupid, but watchable once.

The Reef was scarier.  It had a lot more suspense than this one did.  I had to close my eyes on some parts of that movie.

Well, now the girl is up and we're watching Animal Planet.  She is happy as she hasn't had that channel for a little while.  Yesterday, Mollyanne had it on her channel for a while.  And we were watching Eragon for a few nights.  It was on Saturday night and then again last night.

I was leafing through my knitting patterns yesterday and later today, I might pick out one of the doll outfits and start knitting some little stuff besides the bracelets.

I found a pretty floral binder for fifty cents at a yardsale the other day and have decided to use it to contain my knitting patterns.  i also have decided to replenish a few of my dolls and start collecting a few of the vintage ones from the 50s.  The Madame Alexander ones are nice.  My Aunt Mary used to have a bunch of the bride ones at her house and one year when I was in college, I took pictures of them.  Of course the pictures didn't come out very well, so I was looking very hard to see the dolls.

So now I have a Margaret and a Sweet Sue.  I might call my Aunt sometime to see if she can remember what the names of some of them were.  I would like to someday get my own.  And I've got some of the knitting patterns for them.  Once I can perfect it, I would like to try selling some on Ebay later this year.

And I've got to fire up my sewing machine to make the sewn up doll clothing too.  It looks like it is selling if it is done nicely.

And another thing I am going to try selling later this year is some scrapbooking stuff.  I was looking around for a few of the paper punches that I would like for my crafting projects lined up for fall time when the kids are in school.  I've been cutting up all those cereal boxes and am going to make some collage stuff at some point.  I'll be printing up a bunch of pictures for part of it.

But what people are selling on Ebay are the cutouts from paper punches.  They are selling a package of fifty paper pieces, say butterflies, hearts, etc...   And I have the a bunch of the paper punches already to do it.  So I'm thinking I will start getting some packages done up and invest in a few more pretty paper punches for it.  Some people would rather buy the paper pieces than do it themselves.  I'm trying to think of other things to sell on Ebay for fall time.  As I will only have summer to find yard sale items to sell and I'm running out of my stuff to sell.  So I need to be thinking of other things.

That was also my yard sale treat the other day.  I went to one where I got a bunch of the unopened inks and some scrapbooking Paris paper for a few bucks and there was a baggie of some gardening tape and in the bag was a nice big knitting needle for sewing up the bracelets.  I saw it and grabbed it as it had a bigger hole for stringing the yarn through.  Some of those smaller needles are hard to push the thicker yarn through.  And I hate when I can't find a needle to sew my stuff.  One day I had one at my apartment and the cats knocked it and I can't find it.  Then I found another one and it went down the crack of the couch.

Luckily, I was able to find another one.  And I broke down and ordered a plastic set of 18 plastic sewing knitting needles.  So once that comes, I shouldn't have an excuse not to find one.

What I need to do is organize it and have all the little sewing needles and the cable needles in the same spot, so I can find them.  I hate not being able to find things.

Another fall time project is painting one of those white styrofoam mannequin heads.  I'm waiting to pull out my good paints when the girls are gone to school.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted July 17, 2012

This was the pattern on a bathingsuit that didn't fit me anymore.  But I took a picture of the chrysanthemums before I sold the outfit.  I love this pattern.

Now is the time to Live Healthy

There is really no time like the present to start changing the way we live.  Don't we all want to live better?  I know I do.  I want to have a healthier life.

Are you getting older and need to watch what you eat?  Have weight that needs to come off?  Need to start exercising to keep the heart and cardiovascular system up and running?

How many times have we snacked too much, eaten too much and then just sit at our laptops all day and just decide that we don't want to make ourselves get up and go for a walk?

And then there's the thought of high blood pressure or some other issue that your doctor wants you to work on.  And you need to follow through and do it, for yourself, as it's your body you are dealing with.

Years ago when I was growing up, my siblings and I thought nothing of spending our money at the neighborhood store.  We'd come back with several bags of chips, barbecue corn chips, onion rings and any other chip we were craving.  Well, when we'd get back, we would open it up and start snacking until the bag was gone.

We've been doing this for years.  I'm known as the chip queen in my family.  When I go to Maine for a visit to my family and my roots, I have several bags of chips for the trip.  One for the trip there and one when we get there, and one for on the way back.

And whenever camping, there are always bags of chips.  But, I think that's a given when you are camping and on a vacation.  There's going to be chips and snacks.

And let's face it, during the week sometimes we get a craving for some chips.  Over the last year, I was craving those Salt & Vinegar Kettle cooked chips.  I did get them more than once a week for a time and now have cut back to maybe getting a bag once a week or once every two weeks.

But for me, there's been sleep issues too and discovering that my blood pressure was borderline high earlier this year.  So she's been monitoring me.  It does run in my family.  My dad is on medicine for it and for years when I was growing up, my Nana was on high blood pressure pills.  My grampy would come out into the kitchen and bring her pills over to her to make sure she took them.  I always remember these red pills she took too, but those could have been some type of vitamin.

But, this last week, I gave blood and my blood pressure was normal, so it will be interesting to see what it is later this week when I go back to see if it has dropped.

I am at the point where I am wanting to make some changes in my health and diet and sleep patterns.  I'm not a super big person, but I have gotten to the point where I weigh more than I should.  I've had four kids and the only place it looks like I am fat is right in the belly.  And I am seriously not popping out another kid!! I have that imaginary gun to my head.

All winter and spring and into summer, I've been sitting at my laptop doing my Ebay and blogging, etc and I haven't made myself get up and start walking.  And last month, my sister and my family came up for the girls big birthday party and we went for a few walks while they walked their dog.  They were long 20 minute walks around the neighborhood and I was out of breath and could see that I needed to start doing it more often.

Last Friday, the girls and I decided to walk down to the pool instead of drive down.  Going down was no problem but going back up the steep path to the neighborhood was a killer!  I was huffing and puffing for a good way back and Mollyanne was asking me why I was breathing heavy.  And then I started to watch both girls run up the rest of the sidewalk to the house.

For a while, I have been trying to change my diet.  Over the last month or so.  I'm trying to eat more healthy foods, broccoli, celery and carrots in my macaroni salads.  And other stuff.  And trying to find foods rich in Vitamin B12.  I also take a supplement for that.  And I was told it would be a good idea to take those fish pills.  I'm in my forties, so I guess now is the time to start taking pills for things.

And I also have other things I have to take that make me gain weight.  The pill makes you gain for one thing, but I don't want another kid popping out to say, "Hello, I'm here!"  And I'm on another medicine for sleep that makes me gain.  But I am seriously thinking of cutting it out and trying natural remedies.  I would be interested to see if I would lose a little weight without taking it.

A big culprit in not sleeping is too much caffeine.  I was drinking two big cups of coffee a day for a long time.  And I am thinking that plays a big factor in not sleeping.  And for years, I would sometimes drink three cups in a day, when my kids were younger.  And there's two to three spoonfuls of sugar in each cup.  And then sweet creamer to top it off.  I do like my coffee sweet.  I can't drink it black.  So my sister says, cut back a little and see if you can get used to it.

And then there's the soda.  There's always soda in the house for Sean and his friends and anyone else who wants soda.  So sometimes, soda was in my diet too.

And I'm not a milk drinker.

So now, I have decided to cut back to one cup of coffee early in the morning.  My day tends to start at anywhere from 5:30 to 6am and I'm up and over to the kids house.  This morning, I was ready at 5:30 so I made myself go for a ten minute walk up and down my street.  And yesterday morning at 7am, I made myself do a twenty minute walk around their neighborhood.  I am now going to try to stick to a routine of doing this at least once a day if I can keep it up.

Walking burns calories, increases your energy and metabolism and is basically really good exercise.  I've probably been an inactive person for years and need to start burning it off now.  Now, that I am older it is primarily for health reasons to do it and losing a little weight off that belly will look nice too.  It would be kind of cool to be able to slip on a few of my skirts that I've been thinking of listing on Ebay because they were just a little too tight.  Or when I see a cute shirt at a yard sale that I think I would rather keep than sell, it would be nice if it fit me.

So, after my one cup of coffee, I've been working on drinking lots of water.  Water has lots of benefits for your body.  It keeps you dehydrated for one thing and it gives you what your body needs.  I'm sure it helps with energy and metabolism too.  And I've always heard from aunts and other people that it cleans your body out and makes you thinner.  And of course it helps for better bowel movements.

I also am trying out that Sleepytime tea.  I read that if you have it a few hours before bedtime, it will help you to have a better night's sleep.  Same with Green Tea.  I heard that drinking tea can also benefit in losing weight.  So, I will be buying some green tea next to try it out.  I do find myself putting a little sugar in with these too, as I couldn't drink them without some sugar.  And I found myself putting in a teaspoon of lemon juice for added flavor.  And sometimes with my plain water, I add a little sugar and some lemon juice.

Lemons are supposed to be an excellent source of Vitamin B12.

Dark green leafy vegetables, legumes and seeds, cashews and wheat crackers are also good for sleep.  Look for foods rich in magnesium.  I've heard that eating some crackers a few hours before sleep can help.

I love Triscuits and am trying to switch from the chips to other crackers.  Cheez-its.  But, I can't cut out the snacks.  I do like them.  Just in moderation.  That would be another reason for walking and burning calories. If I can keep up walking every day, then I wouldn't feel so guilty about having a handful of triscuits or eating a bag of chips once in a while.  The good thing about chips is you can't eat them all the time as they are expensive.

And I would also love to eat broccoli every day, but the lovely fresh stuff is expensive too and I can't have it all the time.  I'm going to start getting more spinach.  That is a good one for sleep, so I'm going to start having more of that one.

My culprits too are cooking and adding those canned foods to the meals.  Cream of chicken, etc..  But it sure does make the meal taste good.  I might have to just start getting the low salt ones and then add my own salt to it.  And I love rice.  Rice is a good gluten free meal that is very low in cholesterol.  That's what I am going to cook to bring camping this next weekend.  And toss in some green peppers and celery and maybe carrots.

And I am going to now make myself drink at least one glass of milk each day.  I haven't been a milk drinker really since my kids were born.  Once they were born, I felt that it was more important that they get all the milk that they want so I didn't find myself drinking much.  I did drink it when I was pregnant.  My mom used to say that if they don't get the calcium from the milk, they are going to take it from your teeth.

But, now that I'm getting older, I'm thinking I should drink it more often, for the calcium.  I don't stop to think that even though we get older, we still need the calcium for our bones so we're not breaking them when we reach old age.  Osteoporosis is not what we want.  And I was reading yesterday that milk drinkers are very often skinnier than none milk drinkers.  Another good reason to start drinking.  And it probably has the Vitamin B12 that I have been lacking.  Probably because I haven't been a milk drinker for a long time.

So, there are always good reasons for changing our diets.  Losing weight, exercise and good health is what we should want.  We don't want to find ourselves having a heart attack, because we had a poor diet.

And I have also heard that when you reach for a glass of water, it sometimes fills you up so you aren't hungry for something else.

And we should be careful salting our food.  I've never been one for salting my food too much after it's been cooked.  This is because I know I have added some salt when cooking sometimes and extra salt isn't needed.

Read your labels.  There are so many hidden facts about all of it that if we knew what was in it, we probably wouldn't eat it.

And some of us have to watch the labels to make sure there are no peanuts in them, if you have a child with peanut allergies.  And some years, my kids had a child in the class that did have a peanut allergy so we had to make sure our kids didn't bring it to school.

And then Jake got celiac so we had to learn what contained wheat and what didn't.  He can't have wheat, barley, malt and oats.  So that cuts out a lot of food that he can't have.  The good news is that nowadays there is so many choices for good foods out there that are gluten free.  And even people that aren't celiac are putting gluten free in their diets.

It is so important to eat healthy, eat in moderation and not over due.  We sometimes can't help it on the holidays or special occasions, but if we can be self conscious of it throughout the year and stick to the plan, then we're doing good.

So, I'm starting now and if I stick with it, maybe later this year, I will be able to say, "It doesn't look like I'm popping out a kid anytime soon!  The belly is gone!"

But, we also can't not splurge and cut out the treats that we like to eat.  I'm not a huge sweet eater.  I used to bake more often, but I don't as much now.  But I would like the occasional brownie or a piece of pie.  Or last night was treated to a fudgicle.  I hadn't had one of those in years.  I guess that's why I don't omit the sugar in my coffee.  Because I know it is taking the place of perhaps eating a cookie or a brownie.

But, the simple fact is that if we're good with our diets and exercise, then we know we deserve that special treat.

And we also need protein, so don't eliminate eggs and other good protein completely.


Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted July 17, 2012