A Visit to Gothic House

A visit to Gothic House with Cindy

I Went Home Last Week . . .

. . . to visit my parents and whatever family I was privileged to see!

This is Dad, Aunt MEA, Mom
Aunt M and Uncle S
Dad and Aunt M were celebrating their birthdays this month...
and I timed my visit perfectly! I got in on the celebration!!


Dad and Mom's Backyard Garden

Dad's side - looking towards Mom's

Mom's side

The trellises on either side of the gardens are Dad's. He loves his climbing roses... which have been affected by this year's rainy Spring weather, I think. They normally are covering the trellises by now... and would be in full bloom!


Visiting my Aunt MEA's garden on the way home!

'Betty Boop'

What is this? I took a "close-up" photo for detail, but it's a grassy plant of some sort.

More to come... :-)

Gabby Garden Gals

Five of us toured SE Iowa today!

First, we visited Tender top Nursery. They maintain lovely gardens both in the shade and in the sun, and three ponds that are very intriguing. They sell plants for any environment. This is where we began our purchases. My little Toyota Camry has a trunk that dares to compete with the storage of most SUVs. ha! :-)

In went our first purchases.
(To be quite honest, I didn't purchase these (not available) ...
but the are definitely on my wish list!)

Next we visited Lowe's - home/garden/lumber store. Of course we were interested in their plants, especially the bargains. We found a few!

Again, in went quite a number of purchases, but they fitted in perfectly with much room to spare.

(I DID purchase this!)

You can see that it's already "in place!" :-)

After lunch at Culver's (yum!), our next stop was Hilltop Gardens, owned by Gerald Hobbs. Mr. Hobbs is a member of Cedar Valley Iris and Day lily Society. He not only grows but develops new varieties of day lilies. A copy of his plant list is here.

Hmmmm. Those look interesting . . .

We're all smiles as we look for the perfect flowers!

Into the trunk went several of his day lilies ... check out the trunk!

Our next stop was Hillcrest Hostas & More, just west of Donnellson.

Yes - we found a few plants to bring home. Most of our purchases were miniature hostas.

There are two spaces left . . . just the right size for Becky's and my hostas. :-) The others had to balance their purchases on their laps, all the way home! ha.

A fun time was had by all. We missed the rest of you! Next time! :-)

Christmas Ornaments 2009

You would like to try these, I think.

A wee bit of origami folding, a bit of gluing and tah-dah!

You'll need to be ready to make a bit of a mess. You'll need paper cut into 3" to 4" squares. (I used drawing paper. It's nice and white and a good weight to work with.) We used 3" squares, making the finished product a little more delicate looking.

You'll need colored cardstock (if you visit a scrapbooking store or craft department, you'll find some nice pieces), narrow ribbon and beads. Colored "pony" beads are nice, but beads used for jewelry (with larger holes in the center) are also very pretty.

Each little book takes three pieces of pre-cut paper.

1) Fold the paper in half, matching top edges and corners as perfectly as possible. Sharply crease the fold.














2) Unfold, turn your paper so your crease runs vertically and fold your paper in half again, matching the top edges and corners and creasing sharply. Unfold. Your paper looks as though it's been divided into quarters.


3) This time fold your paper into a triangle, matching the corner and two edges as perfectly as possible. Crease very well - you can even flip the triangle over and crease the back side as well.












4) Notice in this second photo, I've taken the creases (the mountain-folds) and pushed them down to make "valley folds." Each side section will be pushed behind and between the front (and back) little square sections of paper.

You'll end up with a paper that looks like these below. Do this same procedure to each of the three papers. Each of these will create a page of your book.

5) Your next step will be to decide the shape of your pages.
Below shows the shape I'm making mine.
Your first page will be your pattern for the other two,
as well as the pattern for the front and back covers.

(Perhaps you can discern other shape ideas as you see the finished books further along in this post.)

6) What ribbon will you use? And what paper will you use for your covers?










7) In the first photo below, you will see my three folded pages and two covers. This is important before you glue: Make sure the pages line up, so that the front of each page is facing you. The back of the first page will be glued to the front of the second page. The back of the second page will be glued to the front of the third page. Use the glue very sparingly. Even the tiniest bit of glue sometimes escapes and will stick the pages together, so don't wait too terribly long to open them... just in case you need to separate the parts of each page.










The first photo below shows the glued pages. You have glued them so the center of the pages are all together. I am holding the center below.

8) Next, place a thin line of glue from the center to the outer tip of the top page. This is where you'll glue one of your ribbons.











9) Next you'll glue (again, sparingly) the entire top of the book and set the book cover in place.
repeat with the back of the book. First the ribbon, and then the cover.











10) Open gently to separate any pages (or half pages) that might be stuck with a little glue.










11) Slide a bead on your ribbons. Push it down to keep the book closed for the moment. Tie a good knot in the end of the ribbons . This ribbon will hang the book on your Christmas tree (and the knot will keep the bead on your ribbons!)










At this point, you might decide to decorate the exterior of your little book. Or you might just write something like, "Christmas 2009" on it. :-)

Some of my friends and I had a couple of workshops. The photo below shows three of us (when I finally remembered to take photos) with a finished product.






































Here are some of my neighbors. We worked a bit last night and ended up with some great ornament books!













































Tah-dah!

Here are a few that are on my tree.

Yes, you can write in the them. It was easier for me (!) to finish the book, let it dry, lay it out on the table and open one set of pages at a time for the writing inside. It's fun to find a little saying or inspirational piece.

Believe it or not, I've had a number of little workshops this past week or so. I missed pictures of several of my friends - my wits were not about me! But we each ended up with some great ornament books... and hopefully some good Christmas 2009 memories, to boot! :-)

Last Year's (2008) Ornament were Christmas Angels. Click here to read the post.

In 2007, some of us created wire and bead stars.









Maybe next year you'd like to join us too! :-)