Chelsea's Romantic Wedding

 My niece, Chelsea had a fairy tale wedding in Long Beach, California. Everything was beautiful, right down to a transformer blowing creating a fireworks display that people thought was planned until we all noticed that we had no electricity for a while. But that didn't dampen the party. The weather even changed for us, blowing in some cooling air after a day of intense heat for this Oregonian.

 My niece, who is also my God child, looked fantastic! She married a great guy. What a wonderful couple and beautiful event.

Chelsea with sister, Taylor

They got so tickled about something.

Chelsea, Nell and Mike

Chelsea and Taylor

Chelsea and Mike

And the Winners Are...

Drum roll please. Each step in the process gets documented
for the sake of security.

Ten names are written on pieces of paper,  folded
tightly and placed in a bowl.

Husband is asked to draw out two names as the
bowl is held over his head so that he cannot see
the papers.

Cameron unfolds the first name and the winner is
FIONA!!!

The two papers are handed securely to Cameron.

Cameron unfolds the second piece of paper
and the winner is AUDREY!!!


Audrey and Fiona have each won a hat and now must send me an email link so that we
can discuss head size. I am not great at this, but I'll give it my best shot. Don't take that literally ladies, if you don't use that expression, means I'll try very hard to get it right. But I think you know that. 

Thank you so much for your participation in my contest all of you. This has been so much fun. I will be having more contests in the coming weeks, so stay on board. 

Also, I have started a new felting hobby. I want you to meet some new friends. Coming soon. For now, many hugs for all of you, Cameron

Drawing for Hat July 1st

The drawing will take place on July 1st, so please let me know on the previous post if you are interested in having your name drawn for one of these hats. Please let your friends know about this contest. Many thanks and good luck. 

Hugs and have a great rest of the week, Cameron

Making New Garments Out of Old and a DRAWING

After a number of years of felting now I have many scraps and quite a few prefelts. I am now using some of these to make new pieces to save a few dollars. Last year at tax time I got a good break because my output in money was quite a bit larger than what I made back. Though I never went into felting to make money, I would like to pay for my supplies a little bit. So using garments that I haven't sold, or that I am tired of is one way to save a bit. 

This colorful vest was a pretty ugly jacket at one time. Hard to believe now as it looks nothing like its former self. I used several of my prefelts to decorate it and had a great time doing it. I went over to my friend Kathy's and got some great vintage buttons that she got from her father after they closed an old woolen mill. Her father worked in the mill. As you can see in the picture below, I have plenty of felts to use and many garments to consider, though not all of these will be recycled.

Vest that needs buttons

Prefelts on vest

Garments for consideration

Bucket of prefelts

DRAWING FOR A HAT

On another topic, I want to have a drawing for a hat, but you will have to spread the word to have the drawing. I have been having fun making "Free Form Felted Hats," and I would like to share one, one with a flower. To have the drawing, I want to have at least 5 entries. I think that we can do that. I have changed my header so that there are 2 hats at the top of my blog and those are the hats I am talking about. To enter, just comment and say you are interested. Make sure that I have a way of getting back in touch with you if your name is drawn, email, blog, etc. Also, talk it up with your friends and blogger buddies.

Hope to hear, hugs, Cameron

Button, Button Who Has the Button

Charter Oak

Little Red Riding Hood

 I have started a new hobby, the collection of sewing buttons. The problem is that the collection of these is very addicting and there are so many of them. This little hobby began when I bid on 2 pages of buttons that were being auctioned in an on line auction that I watched. I just happened to bid on and get them. I didn't know anything about old buttons and still don't know much, but I love the look of them, especially the old metal ones like these. Ever since then I have kept an eye out for buttons that I find to be of interest.

Mary Tudor

This can also be an expensive little hobby as I seem to go over my "button budget" very easily. And my budget does not have much room to spare these days. If you have any info on old buttons love to hear. For now,
Love and Hugs, Cameron

Ivoroid

Trying New Things

Forces

 I saw an advertisement for a juried show called "Radius 25" and I decided to look into it. The theme was "Face to Face," and I knew just what I would do. I had been working on making faces for some time and had just been putting them away in a drawer. This allowed me a way to incorporate them into my felting and do a mixed media piece. I called it "Forces." I know why I called it that, but I don't want to have to explain myself to anyone else. It didn't make it into the Radius show, but they established a new show called "Interface" which it fit right into. I was very happy to get into any part of the show.

My own gallery, The Red Raven Gallery,http://redravengallery.com/, which I still haven't made my artist page for, also had a juried show on a much smaller scale. The theme was "Full Moon Rising" and we were to celebrate round. I made two felted wall hangings for this show and took the one on the left. (These aren't the greatest pictures as I took them while they lay over the back of my sofa.)

Dancing By the Light of the Moon

I was asked by a friend in another gallery to make some wall hangings with a summer theme, with leaves and flowers. I like simple and symbolic, so I came up with a few very colorful little pictures that I had fun with. The first was a girl running across a field with a bunch of balloons. Again I took the picture on the back of my sofa so it's a bit slanted.

Frolic

The next wall hanging that I did is of a tree with leaves falling. It isn't quite finished, as I have to stitch around a few of the leaves yet. There is a small boy under the tree who is very sad and forgotten. He has a hoody pulled over him. This is called, "Forgotten." Again, the slanted sofa picture.Some day maybe I will come up with a way to take a decent picture.

Forgotten

I have one more picture that is almost finished, but each time that I think that it is ready, I do something else to it. It is already so thick that it may turn out to be a pillow instead of a wall hanging.

I bought a felting machine about a month ago and have had a great time playing with it. This is a piece that I made with it. It may or may not be finished. I love the colors. These machines are great, but as those of you know who have one, they can be very expensive it you try to hurry them or are not very careful when using them.

 Hey everyone, have a great day, week, etc. So good to hear from my good friends, and thanks for the good wishes for my Mom. She gets better each day, makes new friends, has new adventures. I just hope that if I get to be 90, I have half the spirit that she has. I am so blessed to have such a person to look up to.
Hugs, Cameron

It Has Been A Long Time

The last time that I wrote was shortly after my father died. That was in October, and so much has happened since then. As many of you know losing a parent or a close loved one is very hard and takes a long time to process. This Father's Day will be difficult as it is our first without Dad. Losing my father left a huge hole in my mother's life, and left her in a big old house that was too much for her to take care of on her own. After several months of deep depression and determination to stay in her big house, she finally moved into an apartment in a great retirement community. Needless to say her children were happy, we didn't have to be continually worried about her safety, and now she has a view from her 15th floor apartment. I took this picture from her terrace one foggy evening.
.

My 90 year old mother is now starting her life over in a new living situation without her lifelong friend of over 68 years. She is making some new friends and is learning how to play card games such as "Hand and Foot." If you have ever played this game you know how many steps it takes and all the score keeping involved. She is taking exercise classes, goes on walks with friends, attends plays and goes on field trips. She still has a lot of contact with family and constant calls. I call her "Miss Popularity."

She can afford to live in a nice community because she and my father lived very frugally. I came to realize just how frugally after my father died and we had to clean out the house.

Dad made his own tools and had one for every job. These are some examples that we found in the car port. The major repairs that the house needed got attended to, but loose sockets were duct taped and the plug got supported like this. There were so many examples like this.  Mom would get many new things as presents, but she would use old ones until they were completely worn out. They were "children of the Depression." They knew the value of a dollar and they saved their money.

Please don't think for a minute that I am making fun of my parents, I love them dearly, and I marvel at their strength.

I have continued to work on my felting, making some vintage style hats and flowers to go on them. I am a co-op member in a gallery now, but I still have to get my artist page written up. I am the second newest member. This is new and exciting for me. I hope to do a better job of posting now, and I hope to hear form some of my dear friends out there. Love and hugs to you, Cameron