Fall

Fall has been my favorite season for as long as I can remember.  I love the beautiful colors, the crisp air, apple cider, and pumpkins.  Of course once Fall arrives we all know what that means…snow will be following right behind…..and that I don’t like.  Actually, if we only had snow for the month of December, that wouldn’t be bad because I do love snow for Christmas.

My hubby made a fresh pumpkin pie yesterday (yes, it is great having a baker for a hubby).  It was so delicious. 

Tomorrow we have to keep both boys home from school as they both had dentist appointments.  We go all the way to Batavia (an hour away) because there is a wonderful pediatric dentist there.  We discovered him when we started doing foster care.  I wish we would have had someone like him when our older kids were young.  Megan had a very bad experience when she was 6 and has been very leery of dentists ever since.

I listed a new clutch purse that I designed.  I will tweak the design just a bit when I make another one, but overall I am very pleased with this one.  I like the first one I made, which didn’t have the fleece interface.  I know some women prefer a more relaxed purse…I like the fleece interface to give it a bit of shape and body.   One of my tooth fairy pillows sold last night, so that was encouraging.  I am hoping with the holidays ahead of us that business will start picking up soon.  :o)

Steven’s Visit

Steven (our 26 year old son)flew in from Houston and was in NY for almost a week.  He stayed with a friend in West Seneca but we saw him quite a few times.  Last Thursday, we met and went to lunch at “Red Robin”.  Rachel skipped a class so she could go and Reid drove from Brockport.  The only one missing of our homemade four was Megan.  We were all wishing so much that she could have been there.  It was really nice.  Sunday, Steven took Brad and Nick fishing.  Brad caught 2 fish and Nick caught 10.  On Monday we met at the camper and had a birthday supper for Steven (his birthday was the 10th of Sept.).  My parents and Steve’s brother stopped by for birthday cake and to see Steven.  We had two cakes…one for Steven and one for mu hubby Steve since his birthday was Tues., the 22nd.  Steven chose pistachio pudding cake and my hubby picked banana cake with flour frosting.  They were both quite yummy I must say.  Parting was very hard as we may not see each other for another year.  :o(

I have been working hard trying to get our shops filled.  I had a convo from a lady in Italy this morning wanting to purchase the pink dog booties, but have them shipped to a friend in Chicago. She wondered how to do that and not have Etsy automatically charge her for overseas shipping.  I told her I thought the easiest way was to just purchase and pay the shipping and then I would reimburse her paypal account the $2.75 difference in shipping.  I am waiting to hear from her.  If the booties sell, this will be our first sale from our new shop.  Mindy, our dog groomer has sold some collars at her grooming shop.  My niece,  Elizabeth suggested that I should make little doggie snack bags for dog training classes.  I talked to Mindy (who  also teaches dog training and agility classes) about the pouches.  She said many of her students do use them for agility training and she thought they would definitely sell well.  I need to figure out which clips I am going to use because if someone doesn’t have a belt loop I want them to be able to clip it to their waistband.  I spent the last two days working on two clutch purses for my ARELEL DESIGNS shop. 

Time to go make a pot of coffee and get busy for the day.  :o)

Birthdays

September is our month for lots of birthdays.  Our son Steven just had his on the 10th, Megan had hers on Friday the 18th, my hubby has one tomorrow the 22nd and our son-in-law has one on the 27th.  We are celebrating a couple of birthdays tonight, so I need to get my hubby’s banana cake with flour frosting made today as well as a crab salad.  We also have to take both of our dog’s up to Mindy’s for baths and grooming this morning.  It will be a busy day, but a nice one.

Bradly’s bus is really late this morning…I sure hope they didn’t forget him.  The bus is usually here like 10 minutes ago, so now Brad is nervous and driving me a bit crazy (it is a very short drive however). :o)  I just called the bus garage and yup..he missed the bus.  :o(

I thought I would put up a couple pics of my newest creation, which is a seat belt neck protector.  It seems like once kids move into a booster car seat, the seat belt rubs their neck and irritates the skin.  I have taken fleece and cotton and velcro and made these protectors so they go right into a tube around the seat belt.  I got to thinking about how my seat belt irritates me too, and decided to make a couple of adult sized ones.  Let me know what you think….:o)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our New Shop is Open!!

All of our hard work has paid off…we now have our new Etsy shop, called, “Mutt Mania” up and running.  We have listed quite a few collars, bandannas, “Doggie Travel Bags” as well as my newest creation…Dog Booties.  Steve has found two healthy dog treat recipes that our dogs love, and we have listings for those also.  Each time an order is placed for a bag of treats, they will be baked fresh.  Many of our items will be for sale at our dog groomers.  She called yesterday and said she had sold another collar and needed some more for variety.  She was glad when I told her I had 15 of them finished.  If you would like to take a peek at our new shop, here is the link.

www.MuttMania.etsy.com

F.Y.I……We are running a grand opening promotion until Sept. 30th.  Any purchase of $25.00 or more (before shipping) will receive a free dog bandanna of their choice. :o)

Dog Booties

I made two sets of doggie booties yesterday.  I am really pleased with how they turned out and will definitely be making more.  These are to be listed in our new shop, “Mutt Mania” which will hopefully be opening later this week.  I am going  to work on a set of extra small booties today.  I made a trial bootie and tried it on Karli.  She tried to eat it…LOL…Our older dog Chloe is like a grumpy old lady.  I called her to try it on her, she sniffed it and turned and walked away..no way she was putting that on…LOL  I want to try a pair of “boots”, which I will just make  taller and do a double strap of velcro.  Here are some pics of yesterdays accomplishments…. Large set

 

 

 

 

 

             Sm/Med. set

Steve has been experimenting with different healthy dog snack recipes.  Yesterday he made Banana/peanut butter with oatmeal.  Yup, Chloe and Karli loved them.  Steve does a great job and even adds an egg wash coating before baking so the snacks will have a nice shiny finish and be “pretty”.  :o)

Busy, Busy, Busy

I thought I better update my blog before someone decided I had croaked or given it up..LOL  I have been really busy getting collars and bandanas made so we can open our new dog shop.  Today I am going to start making booties for the shop.  All of my items will also be on display at our dog groomers shop where I have had some collars on display for a few months.  Steve is busy trying out some healthy dog treat recipes.  Our two dogs love being the taste testers…LOL  Our daughter Megan has three dogs and we sent some samples to them and they loved them too. 

Bradly spent the weekend with Megan and Scott at their home in Hamilton, Ont.  We went up near the Canadian border last evening and met Megan so we could retrieve our son.  He had a wonderful time, and we really appreciate how wonderful our older children are with the younger ones.

Bradly is on cloud 9 because while he was gone this weekend, 6 of the Christmas ornaments sold that he had listed in “Bradly’s Corner” of one of my Etsy shops.  He is raring to make more and this was a huge boost to his self esteem.  I know how great I feel when I sell something I have made with my own hands, and now he has experienced this high.  :o)

Our Son is 26 Years Old Today

Hard to believe that 26 years have come and gone since the birth of our oldest son.  Steven lives in Texas, so we won’t be celebrating with him, which makes me sad . :o(

The art smocks that I had orders for are finished and I have begun sewing for our new shop, “Mutt Mania”.  This is going to be a one stop shopping place for buying for your dog(s).   Steve has been experimenting with recipes for healthy dog treats.  Yesterday he made some pumpkin peanut butter treats.m  Our two dogs loved them.  I got 16 collars and 10 bandannas cut out yesterday, so the goal  is to get them all sewed today.  I bought a cute banner and avatar design from a graphic designer on Etsy.  I thought I would share those with you and see what you think. 

  banner

 

 

 

 

 

 

              avatar

I am going to be making doggie booties, but I need to think of a waterproof, non slip fabric to sew to the bottom.  If anyone has any ideas, I would LOVE to hear them.

Bradly has had a great morning every day this week….whoo whoo!!  Nick has had 2 great days in school in a row.  I just hope and pray it continues and isn’t some kind of “Honeymoon” period.  :o)

Labor Day

Well, I have been busy with the kids being off school for three days.  Nick has been having a difficult time controlling his temper, which has made the weekend a bit rough.  We did go to Walmart yesterday in search of a zippered binder that Bradly was required to have for school.  The only zippered binders they had we lavender or pink, which obviously did not work.  I did get  some really cute Winnie the Pooh fabric to make a diaper bag for Chris’ (our 22 year old adopted son) girlfriend.  They are having a baby in November and have decided on a Winnie the Pooh theme.  We ended up coming home and going to Walgreens and they didn’t have the binder either.  Just by chance that Rite Aid might have a few left, Steve ran  in.  They had lots of them and they were 1/2 off,  so he got a really nice black zippered binder for about $9.00.  We drove 45 minutes to  Walmart and it turns out it wasn’t necessary, although it was a gorgeous day for a drive and we really enjoyed the outing.

I have an order for two art smocks I have been working on.  Rachel’s friend ordered them for her two boys for school.  One is skulls and one is dinosaurs.  I have the skull one almost finished.

Steve and I are in the process of opening a third Etsy shop.   You are allowed to have a maximum of three shops.  This shop will carry all kinds of dog items…healthy snacks, collars and leashes, booties and doggie travel bags.  I will share more about this the next time I update.  :o)

Back to School

Brad and Nick started back to school today.  Nick is now in 3rd grade and Brad is in 6th grade.  Bradly was awesome this morning and it seemed so nice.  His bus was late.  Nick did great also, and his bus was 10 minutes early.  Thank goodness he was ready.  I took a couple of pics and had intended to take a better one of Nick outside, but because the bus was early, this one will have to do.  :o)

Bradly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                       Nick

I also finished a cute angel art smock and got it listed yesterday.  I thought I would share a picture of it.  I did not have a little girl to model it for pictures, and I couldn’t convince Nick to model it..LOL  I think it is cute.  I need to make one for a boy today and get it listed.  :o)