CRONE:
Creative Researcher Of New Experiences

Friday, April 16, 2010

Adding to my "Viva La France Giveaway"


Hello everyone,
I was taking a break from all my sewing projects - sitting out here on my front porch, enjoying the sound of the birds singing and feeling the cool air on my face - when out of no where - my mind snapped to attention and started screaming to me. What did it yell, you may ask? Well, I'll tell you, it screamed at me to remember - Remember, the reason you decided to have a French giveaway in the first place. So I sat back and let my mind wander and do its remembering - instead of thinking about what I still had to do. Lo and be hold -I remembered.

At an auction I went to this past winter - I bought a box with many varied items in it. These cups and saucers where in that box and are French made Ironstone.


Now I must say, these cups and saucers are large - larger than any cup we use for coffee or tea. They are very pretty, but large. Maybe they are soup bowls - I don't know. But any way, I figured rather than donate them to the Goodwill, I'd use them for a French giveaway. With that in mind I washed them up, put them away so they would stay safe and clean and proceeded to forget all about them. Till now that is. I also picked up a few scrapbook sheets of Paris and France and also am adding some French vocabulary flash cards, to the pile.


If you enlarge this picture. you will see the made in France markings.

Monday the 19th, is my "Shakespeares, England" class, so ready or not the show will go on and after that I should no longer be MIA from the blog for such long periods of time.

Hugs,
Penny

Friday, April 9, 2010

Buds, blooms and buttons

Hello everyone.
Here in the Midwest, winter seems to last forever; and the time from when spring officially arrives on the calendar till the time you see the real signs in nature certainly has had each and everyone of us in hopeful anticipation for some time.


A close up of my Dwarf Lilac Bush


A view of our storage shed in the back 40


Last week for Easter our grass was still wearing her winter brown and the bud on trees- if any were just teeny tiny promises of what is to come. This week as I worked, being a renaissance seamstress, and the rains fell, I would only catch a glimpse or two - but today, the sun is shinning and I knew I had to head outside and spend a few hours rejoicing in springs return. Sir Knight and I wandered, camera in hand around the yard and it was wonderful.

Yes, spring is here!!

On a different note. I wanted to show you these wonderful old/vintage buttons, in their cute dispenser. I bought a few of these at an auction many many moons ago and have loved using these beauties in my craft project; so I thought you might too. Therefore, I am adding this container to the Crafter's Delight Giveaway.




Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.


Hugs,
Penny

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Adding to my giveaway.


Hi evfurryone,
Genghis here. Hope you have been having a good week. It has been cold and rainy around here so I haven't been able to spend much time outside. What happen to spring? I thought it would be warm now.
Hey I wanted to add this cute little towel set to my giveaway. (If you don't know what giveaway I'm talking about, read post from 4-5-10. It was new with tags on it when one of the grandbeans picked it up at a garage sale for me - but it was dirty from the fact it blew around the yard - a lot of the stuff on the tables not in the garage got dirty when the wind would pick up.
Pellie said she would wash it and see how it came out. As you can see it is clean and the Kitties are pawesome. Pellie figured if you didn't want to use it in the kitchen since it didn't have tags on it any more - you might want to use it as a rag.

Purrs.
Genghis

Monday, April 5, 2010

A time to celebrate!

Hello evfurryone
Genghis here with some great news & mews. Yesterday was one year since we've been blogging and now its time to have a giveaway. Oh man I really wanted to start telling you about it earlier but Pellie told me I had to wait. But I can't wait any longer. and since she walked away to help Sir Knight with something I figured I just jump on in here before her post(teehee)again. I'm bad! The above picture is me -disproving of the girly type background she was using for my picture shoot; I want something more manly like me.

Yep this one is better. Of course I will be sending munchy treats - with my giveaway - but I didn't want to get them to far in advance - fresh is best. I know for sure I'll send some Party Mix cuss I love that stuff and figure you must too.

To enter for my giveaway you need to tell Pellie you want "Can Never Have Too Many Cats Giveaway" when you comment and if you spread the word about my giveaway by putting my picture on your blog. you'll get another chance to win. But you need to tell us you've taken the picture or we won't know.

Oh! I hear Pellie coming up the stairs, got to run. Have a pawsome week evfurryone.

Purrs,
Genghis

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Hello everyone,
Besides it being Easter Sunday - guess what yesterday was???? Is it one of my strange obscure holidays you ask? Well not really - but it may be strange - as I thought about giving up quite a few times - and the fact that I didn’t might be construed by some as strange.
It was my one year blogaversary !!! Yea!!
Yep one year ago - I decided to join the blogosphere after many enjoyable months of reading and ogling so many pretty pictures on so many wonderful blogs.

This journey in blogland hasn’t been all peaches and cream - I am a very shy and private person and I do find it hard to really open up and talk about important things in my life - but I do try to share little snippets of information with you every now and again.

Shortly after it began my journey almost ended - I joined a swap - and my partner couldn’t even manage to mail my swap out on time. I felt hurt and betrayed - because like everyone else I have had to learn to juggle responsibilities and obligations - and I believe not meeting them is just not acceptable - and on the super rare occasion I am unable to meet an obligation I let people know in advance. Some of the other swappers said ohhhhhhhh you just get to look forward to your prize longer, how wonderful - I said rubbish - apparently my partner did not care enough about people (me in particular) to get things done and mailed out on time - it felt like a slap in the face, and I began to question if the wonderful people in the blogosphere really did exist.

Sir Knight came riding up on his white horse and we talked and talked and he cautioned me about judging all the bloggers because of one uncaring person. Oh ,I pish poshed him, and told him I had it with blogging and he said well just think about it a bit longer before you give up. So I gave it a few days and I realized he was right. My partner was just one person - obviously we weren’t destined to be friends - so I needed to just let go and go on.

When Dale died I was devastated - but the pet lovers of the blogosphere - came out in full force and offered Genghis, myself & Sir Knight, warm comforting words of condolence and sympathy. Thank you all so much for the helping hand during those sad times, we were buoyed up by your wonderful caring. It was at this time that the little voice in my soul said - aren’t you glad you didn’t quit - and I was so glad.

Since then I have made a few solid friends and have a few more people stop by my little corner of the net, to visit - I try to participate in little activities like online blog parties and I continue to move out from my wallflower, shy mode and post more. Up to 93 as of today. And I know many of you won’t think that is very much, but for me it is a milestone.

So what’s up for the future? Of course; Genghis and I will continue to blog - we would miss all our friends too much if we didn’t. We hope to try a new look for our blog that is more Us.
We hope to get a little more active with things happening here in the blogosphere, and if we don’t maybe someone will volunteer to give us a swift kick in the bottom to help motivate us ( Just kidding) but a gentle nudge might be in order.

The very bestest thing we planned on doing was having a giveaway - not just any normal kind of giveaway but a Pellie kind of giveaway. What is a Pellie kind of giveaway you ask? Well let me explain.

When I started this blog I knew that I liked so many varied things to read and talk about that it would be impossible for me to set one theme and one theme only. Thus the idea of Palaver/ Idle chatter., and I could let my imagination write about whatever it felt like- whenever it felt like. And it works for me - Oh I don’t have a bulging friends list because of it - some of the crafty types not caring to read about my love of the renaissance or my clowning or Genghis relaying his days accomplishments, but that’s ok I still go and read their blogs and get a dose of inspiration from each of them. But I digress - Back to my Pellie type giveaway.- Since I couldn’t come up with one theme for my giveaway - I am offering a few giveaways. Yes you read that right. A few giveaways, but all offered at one time to celebrate my 1 year of blogging.


So here is the skinny on the types.
#1 is called “Crafters Delight” and is a collection of things the budding crafter/scrapper or whom ever might find interesting. So far I’ve included: a couple file folders to help clean up the studio, some older (maybe not vintage) sheet music, flowers, butterflies, and ceramic baby shoes.



#2 is called “Sweet treats “ and is a collection of whimsical items that reflect the sugary fun world of the cupcake. So far I have included: file folders to help organize all those lose scattered recipes. Some kitchen towels, a little cook book some cupcake magnets, and a faux cupcake box to hide treasures by the sink.


#3 is called Viva La France and is a mixed up collection of things French. So far I have included -yep you guessed it, file folders,( kind of have a French feel to them), a 2008 calendar with wonderful pictures of many of the places in France, sheet music with words in French & English, a fleur De Le stamp, some stickers and a little packing crate with some reproduction French flower seed package decoupage on it.


I will continue to be adding to each of these collections from now till I send them out the door and will try to keep you informed on all the additions. I will pick a winner from each giveaway on midnight Wednesday May 5th. That gives you 1 month to decide what you would like to win and get entered.

1. So all you have to do to win is leave me a comment and tell me which giveaway you want to be entered in, and your name will go in the pot for that particular prize.
2. Now if you want to be entered a second time - just grab my little picture of your favorite giveaway and put it on your blog. (this option helps me spread my celebration near and far across blogland - which is what we all strive for in our own way)

I won’t force you to be my friend, by bribing you with another chance to win - but if your interested we certainly would be more than glad to have you.

Hugs.
Penny

Saturday, April 3, 2010

News from across the miles & Easter Wishes

Hello everyone,
I just wanted to take a few minutes to wish everyone a very Happy and Holy Easter.


Also; Just a short little note to tell you about the wonderful newsy letter I received from Jacqueline over at Once Upon a Fairyland. We share a kindred spirit for laughter, fun, fairies and play and while we met here in the wonderful world of blog - we have moved forward and also became pen pals. Yep you read that right - remember writing things out and sending them by good old snail mail.
While I love all the friends who reside in my computer - how much more real and tangible they become when we can hold bits of them in our hands and savor words written just for us. I love reading and rereading those wonderful letters.
I got one of those letters from Jacqueline today, and it made my lips smile and my heart fly.
She also enclosed a few goodies for me and I wanted to share them with all of you. Notice the cute little tag she made - I participated in her Enchanted Playhouse story - so she sent all of us a little something to remember it by.
Thank you so very much for your thoughtfulness Jacqueline.




Hugs,
Penny & Sir Knight

Purrs,
Genghis