Friday, January 25, 2019

Grandma Morgan's 90th Birthday- Quick Florida Trip

 My grandmother and husband share the same Birthday, Dec. 26th the day after xmas.  This year my Grandma turned 90 and my folks had planned a celebration for her in Florida. So the day after xmas, my folks left our house and headed down to Florida and the day after that we headed down as well. The party was scheduled for the Sat. after xmas, not on her actual birthday which gave us a couple days to make the trip and get settled.



 We do not get to see Grandma very often so it was really nice to be therefor her birthday celebration.  It was held at the park where she lives and there were a ton of people there to celebrate. Although she is 90 she is one of the most active folks at her senior park. She teaches water aerobics and walks at least a mile every day first thing in the morning.



We don't have my pictures of the kids with their grandma, so this one is quite special.


This was a super quick trip we literally drove down for the party, then drove back home a day later but we tried to pan out a few fun things to do while we were there.


We stopped at the Trout Lake Nature Center, which is just down the road from where my grandma lives.  It was small, but nice with a walking trail and indoor exhibits.


On our way home we swung by Dayton beach and spent a couple hours walking the beach, collecting shells and visiting the tourist shops.


 It really wasn't as crowded as i would expect for Daytona, the beach and boardwalk were both fun to walk.


After leaving Daytona, we drove up the coast a bit and made another stop at Flagler beach and then headed toward home. We'd considered driving straight through, but ended up stopping in Orangeburg South Carolina for the night.  i think the whole trip lasted about 3 1/2 days, which is just about perfect for me.  i would probably vacation more often if we could squeeze it into a long weekend. 

The couple days of warm temps and sunshine were a nice respite from cold weather at home, but i worry too much about my animals to be gone much longer than that.  Although i really wasn't thrilled about making the trip, i'm really glad we were able to spend time with my Grandma and parents. As much as i love living where i do, the older i get the more i feel bad about living so far away from family. 

Monday, January 21, 2019

New Year Crafting- Product Review


One of my favorite things about reviewing is getting to try out products i wouldn't normally try. This week i get to play around with a #LeatherWorkDesigns 45 Piece Leather Craft Hand Tools Kit. 


This leather tooling kit is an ideal way to introduce just about anyone to the art of leather crafting. It comes with a wide variety of tools- High detail stamps allow beginners to personalize belts, wallets, saddles, or other leather goods, and grooving tools enable intermediate, expert and professional leather artists to customize their clothes and accessories in high detail.



Leather earrings are really big on my Cameo silhouette group right now, and since i don't wear leather i was looking around for some alternatives. Turns out faux leather works just as good. i made a couple pair just using some scrap i had on hand.   




i already ordered some more faux leather to play around with, i'm not sure if the stamps will work on faux leather, but i watched a tutorial that used them on polymer clay to accessorize the faux leather creations which i thought was a pretty cool idea. 




These are just a few of the faux leather earrings i made using the cricut faux leather.   My next project is going to be a hand sewn pleather dice pouch for my boy. This kit has almost everything you need to get started! Last picture shows everything that's included in the kit, the pliers (first pic) are not included in it, i was using them on the earring wires. 

You can find the full kit here -  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HHD9GN1http://amzn.to/2FBLGv5  #sponsored #productreviewer #DIY #leathercrafts #veganleather #handmade #crafterlife