August 2012 Cards and Projects!

After winning those 3 awards for my 2012 entries, it helped restore some confidence that I lost from losing my vision in my left eye.  As I’ve been going through my pictures, I see I made quite a few cards shortly after that.  It didn’t seem like that many, but I guess it was. All of these ones were made in August 2012.

This is a simple card I did for a birthday which has pearl peach roses, and light pearl green leaves…. 

And this one has a similar layout to one I did before, only it has the embossed corners, which really add to the design.  It was for a special order.

For these birthday cards, I used and onion holder to make all of the petals of the flower in 2 shades of purple.  It gives quite a different look.

The 2nd birthday card is the same technique with the onion holder.  The petals are a light soft yellow & light very light aqua. The fringed center is the same colors rolled together using 1/8” strips as well.  The leaves, wheat-ears, and hummingbird wings are also made with the onion holder.

Now this one, I did for a friend’s 50^th anniversary.  I used English gold edged strips for all of it.  Unfortunately, the shiny gold edges don't show up very well in my picture.

The last project I made in August 2012 was a paper embroidered Winnie the Pooh with him sitting in a bunch of quilled flowers, while a quilled butterfly flies towards his nose.  I made it for my 2^nd great niece’s 1^st birthday.  I was so pleased with how it turned out; I almost didn’t want to part with it!  

Okay that’s mainly what I did that summer, as less than a week after that (August 24th, 2012), there was a fire in the apartment next to us!  We didn’t have any fire damage, but we did have a lot of smoke damage.  Thankfully, all of my paper and supplies, had no lasting damage, and Bill put an air cleaner from his work in there right away. 

I could go on about the whole experience about the fire, but I won’t too much, except that, even though we didn’t have much damage, it was still frightening, and a little traumatizing waiting out in our car while the firefighters put out the fire, wondering if it was spreading to our unit, and if we would still have our home...our belongings.... Then, finding out it was caused by careless smoking on a couch!  Thank goodness our building is all concrete!  You will hear more about what we went through in posts to come…

It's Been So Long I Don't Know Where To Start!

Hi Everyone,

It’s been so long since I’ve posted to my blog, I almost don’t know where to start!  I guess back in 2011 is as good as any time to start to explain, all that’s gone on.  The last time I posted was Aug 31, 2011.  My mom happened to get terribly ill that night, which lead to 1 6 to 8 week recovery.  So, all my creativity was put on hold for the most part.  Then in November 2011, we got accepted into a housing co-op, we had 2 months to prepare before our move in on Jan. 27, 2012.  So again, I didn’t do much quilling, as we were busy with Christmas and packing for our move…

Two weeks before we were to move,. I slipped on ice and fell on my back.  Thankfully my hood cushioned my head!   Then one week before we were to move, I saw my glaucoma eye specialist, who found something wrong with my left eye, which I was already partially blind in.  Monday Jan. 23, 2012 I had to see another specialist.  I found out, I had a non-cancerous tumour (a mass of blood vessels growing in my left eye resulting from an early childhood injury), and a detached retina.  I had to have emergency surgery as soon as possible.    I wanted to wait until after we moved, but my doctor said my eye could end up hemorrhaging. So on January 26, 2012, I went in for vitrectomy surgery.  This was the day before we were moving!  I suddenly had 4 weeks off work, which sounds good when you’re moving, but I couldn’t do anything!!!  I could bend down, I couldn’t lift anything.  My mom had to come and stay with us, because I could even cook.  One would never think an eye surgery would be so serious and disabling, but it can be!  2 weeks into my recovery I developed a blood clot in my eye and had to have another vitrectomy surgery.  This gave me another 2 weeks off work.  Our place was in such disarray, and my mom and I really couldn’t do much.  With Bill working full time, unpacking and organizing was a very slow process. 

This ended up being one of the worst personnel experiences of my life!  I had severe headaches for weeks, I lost almost all of my vision in my left eye,  going from about 15% to about 5%.   I always thought I couldn’t see much so it wouldn’t be a big deal if I went completely blind, but I found out that 15% vision was a lot!  Then to top it all off, the second surgery they put an oil bubble into my eye, which I ended up having to have a 3^rd vitrectomy surgery, in June 2012, giving me another 6 weeks off, and finishing off my eyesight in my left eye.  I can see a little bit of light, but it is mostly dark and gray, and it has shrunken significantly.  All this was to save what sight I had, so I would lose my eye.  I was then told that eventually I will lose my eye and have to have prosthetic glass eye.  I am not looking forward to that at all!  If I had known I was still going to lose it, I would have just refused the surgeries in the first place… 

I could go on about everything I went through, but I
won’t bore anyone any longer!  Let’s get back to my paper quilling and card making!

So needless to say, I did not do much quilling for most of 2012.  I did however make a few cards, and do a couple of entries for The Calgary Stampede.  It was there 100^th anniversary, so I just had to enter!  The first couple are mother’s day cards, and then a father’s day card.  As you can see I still love making my easel cards.  They lend them selves so well to quillinq. 

Cards before in easel position

My 3rd surgery was much better that the first two.  And by that, I mean less pain, and complications to the anesthetic.  The next projects were done just before and after my 3rd eye surgery. They were my Stampede entries, to which I won 1^st in class and 2^nd in Section for my quilled sunflower thank you easel card and embellished envelope. And I also won 1^st place for my quilled framed piece, which is an all-black silhouette of a cowboy on a bucking horse in a black shadow box frame.   I did this especially for their 100th anniversary.  

Plenty more to come........