Stayed home today

I'm sure I shocked all my co-workers by staying home today. Last night I started developing an awful sore throat and it just got worse all night. Add in some body aches, a little chill and some sneezes and I knew I was getting sick. I didn't sleep well and I have an incredibly busy schedule over the next couple of weeks so I just can't afford to be sick. So I thought I would stay home today a rest since it was pretty much the only day I could. I just did a quick little bit of work this morning when I was alerting everyone that I wouldn't be in today and quick conference call in the mid-morning. Other than that, I didn't do any work.

But it didn't take long for me to remember why I rarely take a sick day. Daytime TV pretty much sucks. I watched some DVR'd stuff and I took a couple of pretty good naps, but I get bored pretty easily. It's the bad kind of sick too: not so sick that you only want to lay in bed and sleep all day but sick enough that you don't have energy to do much. So when I wasn't napping, I did wander into my craft room. A few minutes here and a few minutes there with naps in between and I managed to finish a canvas for artwork for the guest bedroom.

Since the picture above doesn't really show the berries, I took a closeup:

And here's the pillow sham I took the pattern from:
You see I had this idea of replicating the pattern on the comforter into art and give it a little dimension. I had painted the canvas the other day with the same gray that's on the walls. Then today I drew on the pattern, painted it in and added flock to the paint to give it some dimension. When it was dry, I adhered circles of the really tacky double-sided tape to be the "berries" and coated the tape in diamond dust. It didn't take very long but it turned out pretty good for a novice.

Even more shocking, my manicure from Tuesday night is still chipless. I'm impressed. But now, I'm going to pack my stuff for tomorrow and Saturday's "National Scrapbooking Day" crops and go to bed.

My First Photo Hunters - Art

This is the first time that we've participated in this one. When I saw that DaisyMae Maus had put up a piece of stained glass that Mommy did, I though we should show a couple others that Mommy did. The one below was the very first really big piece that Mommy did. She mounted it on top of a mirror and now it hangs in the new house in the entry way. This picture was taken when Grandpa came over to help her hang it at the old house. Grandpa made the frame for it. I love how his reflection shows in the mirror (isn't he cute?)

This last one is Mommy favorite big piece that she's done so far. This picture was taken before it was framed. Grandpa made the frame for it too. It's currently hanging over the spa tub (where I get my baths) in Mommy and Daddy's bathroom. Mommy says she likes it there because she sees it every day! It's over 400 pieces of glass. Mommy says that's a lot of glass but it only took her a couple of months to do it in the evenings and weekends (that was before she got married though. Apparently husbands suck up a lot of previously free time).

Right now Mommy still working on a large piece with grapes. She hates working on it because she's using glass nuggets for the grapes and says that grinding them is causing her to grind her teeth! She's taken a break from it to make some smaller pieces and is right now waiting for a stepping stone memorial to my brother McKenzie to finish drying. She hopes to be able to post a picture of it soon. She says it will still be awhile before she goes back to glass because she has to work on a crochet project for her friends Lisa and Joel's new baby.