A. Russ Original

A miracle happened over the weekend at my house… no there was no star in the east!! However, my sewing machine came out of hiding and with a little coaxing it WORKED!! I have wanted a camera bag that didn’t look like a camera bag for a while now and just thought I’d never find what I wanted that I could afford, but after a few months on Pintrest I came across a post for this lovely little item … I placed it on my board and it has stuck with me… So I stopped by Hobby Lobby and picked up a 1” thick foam square, and a package of hook and loop tape (the sticky back kind) and off to work I went.   It took several hours over two evenings to complete the project. I do believe that if my limited sewing skills were not so limited I could have done it faster… but hey! In my research for the insert I came across one that described the process as making ‘pillow cases’ for the foam inserts… so I went with that and made ‘pillow cases’ for the 3 pieces of foam to form the body ...

Well, we have had a busy few weeks at the Russ household. I have managed to find a few extra hours and finished a several projects in the craft room. The first project was new sketch books for my card layouts. I have been keeping my layouts for my cards in a dollar store wire bound notebook… while it was functional, it wasn’t very cute and I’d certainly not take it out of the house! In surfing crafty blogs I came across a template for the pages inside at Kristina Werner’s blog . She has a pdf downloadable sheet, so printed off a few copies and made my own covers. Her design has flowers and frill on the cover. I’m a ‘less is more’ person… so my sketch books are a lot more ‘simple’.   I used a transparency to print the cover on and attached it with snaps and my crop-a-dial. The plan to use the large stapler to bind them fell through (the stapler would reach the center!) So, I pulled out my cross stitch tread and made a much more attractive binding...  Glad the stapl...

Yesterday we had a huge lettuce harvest from the garden patch. We had enough to make 2 large salads for dinner last night along with 2 smaller salads for our lunches today PLUS we had some left over for at least one dinner salad tonight! (We go through a lot of lettuce for salads... no we aren't vegetarians!) While out at the patch, we are excited to report that three of the four tomato plants have tiny tomatoes on them! The beans seem to be doing better, now that the seven dust has had time to ward off the bugs that were eating the leaves! More reports later this week... We worked in the yards for a bit over the weekend, applied a good coat of Teak Oil to the rockers on the front porch and potted the geraniums in their hanging baskets for the front porch. The humming birds seem to like them and they seem to do well in the FULL SUN that the front porch gets. I'm hoping to work in some time this week for a sewing project  I found on Pintrest... I know that will sho...

A few days ago we had dinner with a wonderful group of friends. We have been gathering for dinner every two weeks for a few months now and it is turning out to be a lot of fun! The hostess serves the main dish and the rest of us fill in with the sides, drinks, bread... and DESSERT! I am not a 'cook' by any means, really, I have said for years that if we it at home it is because my husband cooks for us... if it was left to me, we would eat grilled cheese sandwiches every night! However, I can bake... So my contribution for dinner is dessert! The most recent dessert was a Pampered Chef recipe... with A. Russ Original twist... Here's the altered recipe... Peanutty Crunch Cake For the cake you'll need: 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour 1/3 cup brown sugar (light) packed 1/2 cup Better'n Peanut Butter  (it's WAY better than peanut butter!) 1/3 dry roasted peanuts (chopped) 1 Package (18.25 oz) butter recipe yellow cake mix (plus ingredients to make cake) th...

With the warm weather we are having it is no surprise that the pollen count is at the 'very high' level. Most everyone I know is sniffling and has red eyes. I have been braving the fresh spring air, toting my Kleenex along, to take pictures of the pretty flowers in the yard. Hope you guys enjoy!  

Our garden has been in the ground two whole weeks and it has been a very busy 14 days! The lettuce is growing so fast, so fast that we have already had salads with the leaves, it was very tasty! The tomatoes are producing lots of blooms, so if we can keep the bugs at bay, we should have tons of of the red orbs. I'm now on the hunt for a solution that will keep the bugs away and not kill us when we eat the veggies. It's harder than I thought. The watermelon seeds are doing quite well, as are the beans and peas. We added some zucchini seeds to a planter box on the front porch, so we have veggies all over the yard! You will notice that we have a few furry critters that have moved into the back yard. One rather large gopher and a small (at the time) family of rabbits... I'd take suggestions on the bugs and the critters!