Craftyminx

Happiness is...

 
1. being able to have bare ankles!, 2. Vintage necklace and Thrifted top, 3. Sheldon...being awesome,
4. Dewey sleeping in silly new places, 5. Homemade doughnuts, 6. Old Friends in Town,
7. Organizing, 8. Black Bean Stacked Enchiladas, 9. Funny dog pictures,
10. Making Progress on Projects, 11. Healthy Dinners, 12. Rice Pudding with Strawberries

Bella

If you had read my numerous updates on twitter during the last three days, you will know that we had to put Bella to rest yesterday morning because of kidney failure. I'll tell the story at the bottom of this post, but it is pretty heartbreaking so feel free to skip it. We're doing ok. We mourned her a lot yesterday and know how much happier she is now. Thank you everyone for all of your comments. Bella was loved by many people and reading every one of your comments was soo very comforting for us. It was great to know so many people were rooting for her and were there to help us through this very difficult time. Ok on with the post. I'm going to start crying again.

I've only had Bella for two and a half years.

She came in to my life when I needed a 24 hour friend. I had just moved out on my own and had started having depression and anxiety problems. She comforted me and gave me something to take care of. She was incredibly neglected when I got her and I spent months getting her healthy.

She was such a sweet girl and always made us smile with her silly ways. 

She was definitely the alpha dog of our house. Dewey wouldn't admit it, but she totally was.

Everyone loved Bella. Seriously... I've never met a soul that didn't fall in love with this dog as soon as they met her. She was always in someone's arms.

And that's the way she liked it, thankyouverymuch.

Sometimes she liked to pretend she was a real dog.

and we'd all have a good laugh at her.

She went with us everywhere and did everything with us. I even made sure she had some wedding photos taken. I couldn't have my big day with out her. She was my little girl. 

She was cutest when she was sleeping.

Rest in peace sweet girl. You've been a dearly beloved companion and we will always remember you!

_______________________________

Bella took a fall last Tuesday that really worried me so Wednesday I took her to the vet. They weren't worried about the fall, but she did seem a little lethargic so they took her blood to check her kidney levels. She's had kidney problems since I first took her to the vet so this was a normal occurrence. Her levels were at 57 (25-32 is normal), a little high but not too bad. They put her on lasix for her heart because she had started coughing some and they thought it would help remove some of the fluid from her heart and make her feel like normal again and we scheduled a follow up for this Wednesday.

She stopped eating very much over the weekend and completely stopped eating this Monday. Tuesday I was soo worried and called the vet. They couldn't see her but sent me home with pain meds and some critical care dog food to see if she would eat. She ate a tablespoon of food that night. She was so lethargic she barely moved. I didn't want to leave her to go to work afraid that she wouldn't make it through the day. When we went to the vet Wednesday I was in denial that something was seriously wrong with her. The vet was super concerned which made me flip out. She checked her kidney levels again and they were at 130. She immediately started her an IV of fluid and told me we would have to come back that night and transport her to the ER for the weekend so she could have 24 hour care. I immediately knew she wasn't going to come out of this. She was old (we didn't know how old) but assumed she was 12 or so and she had never been this sick.

The vet said there was a chance the fluid would help but it could just be her kidneys shutting down. After we took her to the ER, it was just a waiting game to see if the fluids would help her.  They pumped her full of fluids, dextrose, antibiotics and whatever else they could. After 24 hours they checked her kidneys again and the numbers were still up around 130. We waited another 12 hours before we went to tell her goodbye, just in case there was an overnight miracle. The minute I saw her I knew it was time. She was incredibly depressed. She could barely hold her body up and didn't really know us. You could tell she was comforted by us because we were holding her, but that was about it. We told her what a good girl she had been and how much she meant to us and then we left the room. My mom stayed with her because she didn't want me to be there but knew how much I wanted to be. We're having her cremated and will get her ashes to spread on my parents' ranch.

We miss you sweet girl.

Some cuteness for your Thursday

Our dogs have been super cute lately.

Impromptu cuddling*...

Falling asleep in randomly cute places...

Helping with wedding preparations...

I love my furballs!

*This never happens!!! They are usually content to stay as far away from each other as possible.

 

Oh Hai

Bella wanted to peek in and say hello this evening. She had a bath and was feeling pretty.

I have class this weekend and hopefully we'll be painting on Sunday, so I may not be around until Monday. I might have some studio progress to share :)

Have a good weekend! And for you Okies out there, I took some new goods over to DNA. Galleries in the plaza district if you feel like shopping. There are Embroidered onesies and bibs, crocheted bows, scarves and some jewelry.

This happens entirely too often...

Look at that, My craft room has exploded again!

It looks like it is time to purge.

Paint is also in order. I'm thinking of these colors:

A bright pink and a light gray. I'll probably end up painting the trim white as well. This is the only room in the house that doesn't have white trim.

And I must have these in aqua or yellow.

A new chair would rock my face off too.

 
  But first, the cleaning has to begin.

And since I assaulted your eyes with my messy studio, have some cuteness:

 

 

Year end review (in lots of pictures)

January
 
My uncle made some awesomeness for my bedroom!

I turned 26 and sheldon got me Hello Kitty Cupcakes - thus proving that I would marry him one day ;)

February

I made meat cupcakes!


Sheldon and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day together.

March

I made a pretty baby blanket in awesome colors for an awesome person.

 
 I got my first tattoos!

April

We went to Vegas for Viva Las Vegas... Yeah that's pretty much all I did.

May
 
I made a lot of these in preparation for the May Deluxe.
 
 
Sheldon moved in.

 June

Sheldon's dog Dewey moved in.


I made some family silhouettes for our bedroom. 

July
 
We spent a lot of time with Sheldon's family in Muskogee, OK where we found this awesome cabinet that now holds, dvds, cds, and ps2 and 3 games.

 
 We had our first dinner party as a couple.

August

I decided I needed to embroider more, and I started by adding embroidered animals to my knitted baby blankets.

 
I started my next big embroidery project/tattoo design

September
 
Sheldon proposed! We'll be getting married September 18, 2010.

 
I decided to try my hand at quilting.

October
 
 I crafted this awesome costume!


We had a family pumpkin carving party!

November
 
Amy and I taught an embroidery class together. We had a great time!

 
Sheldon and I started our own Thanksgiving traditions. Including friendsgiving with my friends.

December
 
I participated in my 3rd Deluxe Indie Bazaar.


Most recently, we had our first family ordeal. Dewey bit Bella on the 28th, resulting in a freaked out mama and 7 stitches to Bella's noggin. She's doing great now. I'm sure it was an accident, where he snapped and accidentally made contact. If it was on purpose he would have done a lot more damage.

Anyways, thanks for reading this year and next year will be full of more crafting, and definitely more wedding planning! Come back tomorrow to see my 2010 goals!

Home

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. We spent most of our time with Sheldon's family. I'm getting more used to being with a big family. It's nice. There is always something going on. Especially with the girls around.

My favorite thing to do after I get home from a trip is sleep in my own bed. Now that I am well rested, I have two days to do whatever I want before going back to the daily grind.

I have to make our advent calendar!!! and finish my holiday organizer. I worked on the latter a lot on Thursday night at my parents' house but it still needs some work.

I crocheted most of the weekend. It was the easiest thing to do without taking up space. I made 3 granny square scarves and 4 hats. I would post a picture right now, but I'm going to be lazy this morning. :)

We are going to clean today and get out the Christmas decorations. I love decorating for Christmastime. Sadly, my house is so small I don't have room for many things. I guess I'm ok with this, but I would really like to be able to put up a big tree and all of my ornaments. 

Tomorrow, I must finish my coat! It is getting really cold here and I'm ready to show off my handmade creation. I'm really close to being done. I just have to hem it and do the buttons. I probably need to take it to the dry cleaners to get off the fuzzies and give it a good pressing, but I probably won't. 

Ok, I've got to get busy! I'll leave you with some cuteness from the weekend...

It's finished! Plus some extras...

The Bella embroidery is finished! I'm pretty happy with the results, but not happy enough.

She just looks kind of bored...

If you've ever met Bella in person, you probably realized that she's really not a dog at all, she's her own weird breed of cat/pig/alien baby. And since I can't embroider her infamous Bella yell, I had a hard time making this embroidery 100% Bella. So I went back to the drawing board... literally. I came up with this.

For some reason, this one captures her essence just a little more. It's weird, because the first one looks like her. I'm pretty sure I would be happy with it if it weren't going to be tattooed on me. I want my tattoo to look exactly like my baby girl. And really, it only took about 6 hours to make a new one.

What do you all think? Which do you like better? Sheldon insists that they are both perfect. I think he just wants me to stop embroidering her so he doesn't end up with a couch full of Bella pillows with ball trim edges (because you know that is what these are turning into).

Side note - don't you love my new $1.50 afghan from the thrift store?!

Ok, so now for a shameless plug...

I'm teaching a class on creating and transferring your own embroidery patterns at the Deluxe Craft Weekend. So if you want to make a dog portrait for yourself this is the place to be!  (like my segway?)

If you sign up for the craft weekend, you get Friday to Sunday from 9am-9pm full of crafting, socializing and fun. All your meals are provided and you get to leave your stuff out for 3 days without having to clean up. I know those of you without a studio would probably love that idea (and so would your household). 

But wait, there's more... If you can't do the whole weekend, for any number of reasons, you can sign up to take a la carte workshops, like the one I'm teaching. If you don't embroider, take my class to make your own design, then take the embroidery 101 class to learn the basics. There are tons of workshops on everything from whittling to serger basics. Take a look.

The weekend is September 25th - 27th at okcCoCo. This is also the place that has a crafting get together once a month. I'm super excited to finally make it out there and have some fun with crafters!