Old Ideas, New Uses!

Years ago, one of my friends taught me how to make these precious pillow wreaths. Over the years, I have made several, but only for my own front door.
I would like to share these with you now.

First in line is the Valentine's Day Wreath. To my surprise, I found some of these bold prints at Hobby Lobby.. snatched them up and found some coordinating fabric elsewhere. The bold pinks, reds and soothing whites say love at your front door~!

Next is the Springtime/Easter Wreath. I used some left over pink fabric from the Valentine's Wreath because it was so perfect with these other fabulous bright fabrics! I especially love the green and white tie-dye fabric and the zigzag purple, pink and green fabric. Also, there is this totally springtime field of tulips fabric. It's a pure delight and will brighten anyone's front door.

Here is a delightful idea! I love bandannas. I put them around Rommels neck all the time.. We call them his clothes! When I spotted these blue and red bandanna fabrics and then found the blue and red ticking fabric, I knew I had a winning combination!

This black and white number was created because my son, whom I dragged to the fabric store while we were out and about, and I spotted this sheet music fabric. The more we looked the more excited I got about his idea to use this fabric to make a wreath. He thought one of the girls in his high school band might like the idea of hanging this in their room! The fabric is white and black. The dark pillows actually have a medium gray clef all over it. This dark fabric, I feel, grounds the wreath while pulling the whole thing together beautifully!

The new uses for these is a great idea my Realtor cousin had.. to purchase these as leave behinds to new buyers. These buyers in turn would remember the Realtor and recommend them to other prospective buyers! Super idea for some hard times with the housing market!

Then, I had a new facebook friend reminded me that I could do recycled pillow wreaths for Mom's who just can't part with some of her kid's baby clothes!
The idea is fun and new and what a great way to preserve the past.
On top of all that, as always, I, at SooBoo Designs, love to personalize your purchases. If there is a theme, holiday or color theme you would love to have me make up into a wreath for you child's room, I would be more than happy to make that happen. You know where to find me!

Data Entrails - Sick & Wierd: Rainbow Goodness on Art Fire News

Data Entrails - Sick & Wierd: Rainbow Goodness on Art Fire News

Sharing Our Southern Storm w/Y'all~!

Hi Everyone!
I just had to share some of our Southern Winter Storm with you! These were taken around 8am and ti's still comin' down! Dean is even out of school and it's finals week! I doubt he'll be going back this week, seeing that we're getting around 2"! oh brother! By the way, the photos of the backyard barns.. the left one is Jeff's and the one on the right is my hers barn/studio!
The bush to the left here is a holly bush
The photo below is taken from our front porch.
Also, the pictures were taken in color! go figure!

Toward the bottom in this blog are Rommel and Tootsie.. who is sitting in the cool ivy this past summer of 08!

I just had to let everyone know that my son made the cut to be in the All-District Honors Band! Because he got 6th chair, he is also eligible to audition for the All-State Honors Band in March. I hope he makes it! Last year was a memory I will never ever forget.

Football Season

I dont know about your husband, but I am so sick and tired of football being on our television ~ I could just croak. Although, I did have an order for NFL colors tied into two bag tags for two little boys who love the San Diego Chargers and the NC Panthers. I drew little footballs and used the colors of the teams, per the Mom who ordered them. The kids just love love love them and we're all happy.

And in case you haven't seen my superbowl party invites.. take a gander...

Below is a flat card invite.. blank on the back
comes with white or colored envelopes!

Below is the two-sided superbowl party invitation
The front has the cute SooBoo name art integrating the football seams in white.
The green is like the field.

Now below, is the back of the invitation and you just add your party information on the cute
fields provided!

Thanks everyone, and lets hope for a better basketball season.. GO UNC HARHEELS

UNC Tarheels Ram for a great Note Card gift idea~! Think Graduation!

I have been told that signing up and posting on Twitter and Digg is supposed to help business. So these are two things that I am trying to figure out how to do and then try to keep up with posting on them. Constantly, things need to be added, taken away and new focuses come up with the seasons! We're getting closer to spring. Here in NC, it hasn't been the lovliest of winters.. but it's a lot lot warmer and pleasant than my buddies in Michigan and Chicago are experiencing!


Susie

Where has the time gone this year?

Hi People!

I know.. i know.. i don't blog enough for what is good for me.. but I will attempt again to make this sound worthwhile. I must say, this month I was completely taken off guard with the amount of BOOKMARK orders I received! I mean, they just kept coming in.. it was like a bookmark cult.. and they were from all over the country! I wound up calling it by "Bookmark Bonanza Extravaganza!" I think I have done 30 in all. I did several personalized notepads as well. My favorite being the CLEARLY notepad. The husband to whom this notepad is being given says, "Clearly..." all the time. His wife and I just cracked up thinking about how funny it would be when he opens this up. I had given the Queen notepad to his wife. I told her, this is what I want SooBoo to be.. just a lot of fun to come up with your ideas and make them into great, unique gifts! Here is the notepad~


Another fabulous design came from one of the bookmarks. SooBoo Designs has an animal print that is really cute in the typical browns and oranges and blacks.. but this customer has a daughter Liza and her favorite colors are pink, orange, yellow and red. Her request was for me to do Liza's bookmark in animal print in Liza's favorite colors. When i received this order, I thought, "What a super fun idea! Why not those colors?" I wrote the customer back and voiced my excitement over these colors for this style. So here is the final outcome. Is this not the cutest thing?


Another great order for me was a new sorority notepad for my niece who's at Iowa and joined a sorority.. Alpha Delta Pi. Online, I found the sorority mascot and hand drew it and used the computer to add the color for a uniform look. This is the notepad that was so much fun.

I also am trying something new to expose SooBoo Designs. I found this new artist's community called Artfire.com. They have a lot of things planned to make them well known for 2009 and beyond. The owner seems extremely dedicated to the artists and has a great staff, as far as I can tell. I don't have nearly what I have on this site, but here is how you find me.. http://sooboo.artfire.com OR if you want to see all the other cool things on this site, click here.

By the way, here is a cute idea for Valentine's Day!

The weather has been weird. It's been coldish, sunny, cloudy, windy, gorgeous, windy, rainy, really rainy, really cloudy, really windy and really pretty.. no wonder there's sickness all over the place!

I did my annual baking for Christmas. I gave to the one neighbor we like and sent to my family in Chicago. Mom said they arrived in perfect condition.. that's a first. Usually, the Greek cookies, koulourakia which are drenched in powdered sugar, drench all the other cookies in the tin. I finally smarted up and put them in a ziplock.. and then of course, my husband is an expert packer.. where he packed them at work and shipped them. This was Mom's gift from me....and of course Dad's as well and whomever goes to their home will experience a Greek cookie delight. I made another Greek Cookie called Koulourakia which are twisted little snappy cookies.. and another called Melomacarona??? I call them macaroons but they don't resemble any macaroons I have ever eaten. These are made with butter and OIL!!! lots of it.. and some sugar.. but are dipped in a simple syrup of water, honey and sugar.. totally outrageous! I took pictures of some which, when i figure out my new laser printer, I 'll get them posted here.. I can't wait. Oh.. the peanut brittle came out fabulously this year. I wonder if it was the Fisher peanuts or that i decided to stir the ingredients while coming to a boil for the entire 25 minutes! YIKES.. my achin' back. Anyway, it is ALWAYS worth the effort. I love baking, but am happy when it's all cleaned up, especially since I have the worlds smallest kitchen. I don't know how I would handle a big kitchen now! Everything, and I mean everything is at my fingertips.

I made this mid sized notepad for my husband, Jeff. I combined all three UNC logos/mascots in one notepad to show off his love for the school!


New Years Eve was fun with both the boys here. They love staying up late so it was easy. We watched U Party 2009 on Fox ...the cable station and Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly were great as usual. They were freezing, but adorable together. I bought the hats and horns at WalMart, where else?, and these poppers.. Little Tootsie Bella was freaked out and I hid her on the couch next to me under a fleece blanket with her little black nose peeking out. She finally calmed down. Rommel, the standard poodle, by the way, is fantastic to all who know and ask about him.... anyhow, he just got up from his bed and meandered into the computer room.. he said, "Who needs this noise?" He's so smart.

Through an old artist friend, Krista, who has a great business, I found this fantastic drug for Rommel that actually makes the cartilage regenerate! It's a series of shots, directly into his back thigh, twice a week for a month. At the end of the third week, Rommel was bup bup bup..UP those stinkin' 6 outside stairs by HIMSELF! We didnt have to carry all 75 lbs of him any more! His last shot was in September and we've only given him one since... as a booster. Strangly, but not surprisingly, my VET never told me about this miracle drug called Adequan. Krista uses it on her horses. There is an equine recipe and a canine recipe. Well, when I approached my then Vet ( I dumped her!!) regarding this subject and asked what they thought about us giving it to Rommel ourselves, we got a very negative response. We did it anyway and the results have been dramatic and miraculous to say the least. To think, we were seriously toying with putting him down. I look at him with such loving eyes now... thinking how sorry we would have been if we had done such a thing. His time was not up.. he was not ready.. we could see that in him, yet that Vet said that she would put him down today if we thought his quality of life was not good anymore. So, people, don't make hasty decisions regarding your pets. I happened to reconnect with Krista just a week or so before we were up in arms about Rommels future and she told me about Adequan. She was our angel. Truly.. and I thank you for being there, Krista! You Rock!

One more thing I guess before I bore you to death anymore.. My husband decided to bite the bullet and get me a spankin' brand new HP color laser printer! The blacks are black and the colors arent pixely any more and I could go on and on.. I am thrilled with this gift.. the gift of great color and speed! yipee for me!

OK.. thanks for listening..
happy NEW YEAR to ALL! May it bring all better things... constant health, patience, lots of laughter, good feelings and inspiration for a better life; a better you. or me!!

Susie

Boring Excitement

Tri-fold holiday money holder $3.00

Hi People!
It's been a really long long time since I posted here. I'm sorry, although, some of you might be relieved!
I'm remembering when my family and I were traveling through the Iowa plains on one family trip, I recall being in blizzard like conditions and all we could see was snow coming at our windshield at full force in that 3-D sort of feeling. I commented painfully, "This is boring excitement!" That's what my days have felt like in the past month...boring excitement. I seem to have had a lot on my plate. When I'm eating, that's a good thing, but on the things to do life plate, I am always one to get one thing done at a time. I'm not too good at mulit-tasking..or what people call multi-tasking (you can really only do ONE thing, literally, at a time!) Anyhow, here's what's up.

I had some health issues that are all in check now, I'm happy to report. Right after that, my computer took a vacation at Best Buy where we bought the thing in 2005 and it's fortunately under warranty still. The minute after I walked out of the parking lot at BB, a nice lady reported to me, "Did you know your tire is flat?" I just sank my head into the steering and wheel and felt completely sorry for myself. It was bad enough I was sans computer (my livelihood) but another flat tire? We just bought these tires.. to make it worse, the hole was on the rim so I had to get a whole new tire! Let's just say, I had terrible biorhythms that week. To top it off, where I live, the library is open only until 5pm and only on weekdays for me to check my mail. I still can't get over that it's closed on weekends! That's when I would suspect they would have the most customers! Wouldn't you? grrrr ok..

What else? Oh, I, as you can see, got my computer back now. She's hooked up and I get to play again. At least when it was being fixed, I got to clean my house and read all my backlogged magazines that were stacked miles high. Oh yes, the election. Well, I'm sure many of you know that I'm a Republican and backed up the old man and the young woman this year. I even found myself going to the headquarters in our town, donating my time, making calls, handing out flyers, and working outside the polling place in the rain on that fateful Tuesday. It wasn't a total "wash" though. We got our local Representative to keep his job and a new judge in who's only the 2nd republican judge sitting in our county now. It was fun. I felt very strongly about this election and was terribly disappointed in the outcome nationally, yet, I am terribly curious to see how Obama will wiggle his way through of all this stuff he's inherited. In my opinion, he seems to go in the direction the wind blows. So.. one thing I know for sure, he can't blame the Republicans now that they are the majority in the House and Senate. OH!! and the other thing is that I went to grade school and high school with Rahm Emanuel.. the new Chief of Staff for BO! My old girlfriend and I concur; every time we see him televised, we chuckle. I think my husband is sick of hearing me say, "Hey, I went to school with that guy!"

(Above) Rahm in 7th grade.. whodathunkit?

(Below) Rahm in his all his high school senior year afro glory! Go 1977!

Okay now.. is that not the funniest thing ever? I just had to do it. Hopefully, I won't get in trouble by the Obama camp. I'll take that risk. I had forgotten he was a dancer.. but as I look through our old yearbooks, I see that he was in soccer and fencing and I recall him being an actor in a few high school productions as well! (I was a member of Stage Crew my senior year) Something we ought to keep in mind. I must say, though, my recollection of him was nothing but a really nice guy.. although, that's not what his reputation is now in politics! hmm.

I was reminded, as I looked on my webiste, that Halloween is done and gone (we only got about 15 little guests this year) and so I had better do some website clean up. Everyone, please, check it out and see if you need anything. The big holiday is right around the corner.. I still can't believe it! I really do love the tri-fold money holders. It's so easy to give money, and we all know that right now, that is the greatest gift to give. (Thanks, Chinsea for your order!!) At least the gas prices have gone way down...I saw as low as $1.97 per gallon of regular. What? My husband and I would have bet our lives on never seeing anything under $3 again in our remaining lifetime!!

I also traveled to my old summer stomping grounds in Traverse City, Michigan last month. I was welcomed by my cousin, Fran, who's a huge U of Michigan fan.. so I made her a little something I sent to her recently to thank her for taking such great care of me during my stay. Here it is.

I have come to realize that these make the perfect hostess gifts! There are 12 to a clear box and cost $22.00. I added her name in the sooboo black inline style.. and used the good ol' Michigan colors to fill the name in.They're even more adorable in person. With Fran being such a fan, I couldn't see how I could go wrong with these Mascot/Logo note cards!

And the last bit of boring excitement news is that I am going to try my hand at ArtFire.com! It's new launched and I like what it said.. it's a community where artisans can sell their hand-made items online. I got a deal for $7 per month to put up unlimited images to see for as long as I have the account! Although I was having one minor issue with signing up, Jessica at ArtFire helped me out faithfully and with great promise to make this work for me. I've been blogging while she's been fixing my small initial issue. When I'm done here, I'm going to go fill up my literal and then figural plate (is figural a word?) and get going on this exciting, NOT boring, new project!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! There is plenty, in these uncertain times, to be thankful for.. #1, our kids. #2 our health. #3 our family's love.
Enjoy all your boring excitement this holiday season and be careful out there!

Susie