A New Camera

I have struggled with taking pictures for the last three years. I first had a Elixm then I got a Luminx and now I have a Sony Cyber-Shot 16 pixel, HD Digital Camera. This camera is a movie camera too. You can also crop, rotate and blur the background of your photos right on the camera.
I am not a photographer and it has been hard to get my photos to look good for my Etsy Shop.

My friend got a camera for her birthday and she showed it to me and OMG! it takes photos and the color is actually correct with no problems. I just set it on Auto and I get the best shots ever !

I am a happy camper.

These are a few of the first photos taken with my new camera.

Last night I cooked chicken thighs with carrots, celery, salt, pepper and a little garlic powder and chicken bullion
in the crock pot over night

and then at dinner time tonight I boiled egg noodles and made a home made chicken noodle dish.


I served it with garlic cheese bread.
It has started to get cold here we actually had frost last night so this was a good cold weather dish.

As you can see we ate it all !! Not a morsel left. Look how clear this photo is.


Look at the color on this photo.
My old faithful fruit bowl. My youngest son teases me about this fruit bowl. He says every Grandmother must have one and wants to know what is up with that? !


After dinner we retired into the living room where Sampson, one of our dogs promptly got on my husbands lap. He only weighs 121 lbs ! He doesn't know it though because he thinks he is a lap dog. My husband loves it when he does this :)

Anyway, I wanted to share with you how happy I am to have a camera that is small enough to put in my purse and takes great pictures with no hassle . Some of you may be chuckling with my excitement. Especially if you are experienced with photography and maybe I have been in the dark about what has been out there to make it easier but for now I am pretty happy with what I have...finally!

More Hauntings

This is my latest collage.
Dracula's Women

Braemar Golf Course

Edina, Minnesota

It is said that this golf course is haunted by an apparition named Jim. It is said that when the land was cleared to build the course, a homeless black man was discovered. Soon the man died. Since that time, it has been said that balls go into holes and come back out. It is also said that sometimes balls will roll in a straight line and suddenly veer off suddenly to the right or left.

Glensheen Mansion

Duluth, Minnesota

In this house, an elderly woman and her nurse were brutally murdered by the woman's crazed lover. Now, it is said that the two haunt the house. It is said that eerie black, shadowy figures walking about the basement. Lights turning on and off have also been reported. There has even been one report of a piece of candy rolling back and forth across the dresser.

A wonderful and helpful idea !

My friend Janette and her twin sister Janice from Jantastic Creations created this little card holder complete with cello sleeve to put my ATC's in when I send them out to my swap partners. Very convenient thing to have. I don't have to search for a note card small enough to put the ATC in to mail and I don't have to buy the cello sleeves because the card holder has a cello sleeve attached.

Best part is I don't have to write a note on each one sent out. It is already printed. They can print anything on them that you want.

Go take a look at their unique shop Jantastic Creations by clicking on their link on the top left side oft his page.

This one is a custom order for me. I use this size to put a 10% discount card in each of my Etsy orders. It is so convenient !


You can also put your business card in this cello sleeve, sign you name, fold it up and put it in a small envelope (provided) to mail to your customer.

Love it!!

This would also make a great way to send a photo to someone or a birth announcement with a photo of you new born. The possibilities are endless and I am so happy to be the first to have some.

What a unique idea and they are affordable too !
Thanks Jan and Jan!

Good Things Are Happening

I have been a little discouraged about sales in my Etsy Shop. I decided to make some new tins and post them before the holiday rush. I got one sale last week. It was nice to see that email saying I had a PayPal transaction.

Then I started thinking about how I could market my tins to draw more people in. I prayed about it and the next morning I had a custom order from a lady in United Kingdom.

She wanted a masculine looking tin to send with her boyfriend who is going to Afghanistan next month. She wanted him to have something that would remind him of her while he is over there. She called it her "Super Hero Travel Kit". Cute huh?
He is a Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force so she sent me a photo of the model plane he fly's and ask that I put his name some where on the tin. I put it on the plane! I also added lyrics from a song by Jo Stafford from the 40's. This song was really popular during WWII but fits any soldier who is serving and away from their loved one. The name of the song is You Belong To Me. The lyrics inside the tin say ..

Fly the ocean in a silver plane
See the jungle when it's wet with rain
But remember til you're home again
You belong to me

My Mother played this song a lot when I was a child. I loved it then and I love it now.

To Listen click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmjfhOPuAOM

She wanted the photo to have an antique tint so I took the photo into Photoshop and gave it a Sepia tint and tore the edges to make it look more antique like. I put the metal clock face, gears and chain on the special order deco paper and and sealed all sides.

She loved it and it is on it's way to United Kingdom.

Her idea was so special that I ask her if I could use her special request to make this tin on my shop profile and she graciously gave me permission. This just might be a good tag to use on my masculine looking tins.

I was still wishing that I could sell at least one tin a week. When I look at all the tins I have made I am proud of the quality of my work but I just don't know how to market my work.

Today I met with my Etsy Team as I always do on Thursday, at a new place in the Mall where we have been meeting now for a month. The people there seem to love our team and they are so nice to us.

I took the 6 tins I had made over the weekend with me to show the girls. We meet in the Mall at a place called Cone 9 which is a kitchen accessory store and cafe.

The owner saw my tins displayed on the table and she said to me "Now why don't I have these here in my store?" I said "Well give me a shelf and you will" She said okay !! So my tins will soon be for sale in the Mall. Not only that but she offered to set me up free of charge for the Art Walk in November and December. I will have a table and will be able to display my tins for sale in the Mall!

Is that an answer to my prayers or what? THANK YOU JESUS !

I tins in my shop will be posted as Special Order so that if I sell any in the mall I can make duplicates. Wouldn't that be great?

SPIDERS ARE ARTISTS TOO !

It is that scary time of year when the Halloween Goblins come out and it is also the season for spiders.

Either that or it is the time of year when early morning mist collects on spider webs and makes them more visible but which ever, this is what I saw this morning.

Webs on my arbor vita and apple trees

And the rooster that stands between them

This spider must have worked all night to make this highway of webs

Ending with a perfect place to catch her food.

I hate spiders but it has always amazed me the way they create such a perfect web . They are artists too! If I ever get a chance I will photograph the spider that makes perfect squares in her web. We have them all over our place.

Compliments to my least favorite creature. Now stay out there and not in my house !! Eeeeek!

Jenning's Place Barn

Located amid pasture lands just off Highway 42 at Remote, this well known barn sits on property known as the Jennings Place. It was build in the early 1930's by L.V. Jennings, father of Esther Lancaster who now lives near Bridge. She grew up there and was the Remote postmistress for several years before going back to school to get a teaching degree and eventually teaching at Bridge School with her husband who was the principal there.

This is one of my FAVORITE barns here in my area.

The Greenbrier Ghost

Greenbrier, West Virginia
By Shannon Reinbold-Gee

Usually when people think of ghosts, they imagine a disturbing presence that harasses ad nakjes the lives of the living more diffcult. But, in the case of the Greenbrier Chost of the late 1800's, the ghost helped solve a West Virgina murder - the very murder that created the ghost.

Born in the early 1870s, Elva Zona Heaster married Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue on October 26, 1896. Erasmus (sometimes called Edward) was from out of town, coming to Greenbrier to start a new life as the blacksmith. Zona (as she was called) married the near stranger very quickly in her mother’s opinion, and so the marriage was opposed but not halted.

On January 23, 1897 Erasmus sent Andy Jones (an 11-year-old African American) to the house, supposedly to ask Zona if she needed anything from the store. Jones found her body and ran home to tell his mother. The local doctor, and coroner, arrived within an hour to find the body had been carried upstairs by the apparently grief-stricken husband, Erasmus. Erasmus had already dressed Zona in her “Sunday best”—a dress with a conveniently high and stiff collar tied with a large bow. A veil covered her face and throughout the rudimentary examination Erasmus cradled his wife’s head and upper body and sobbed.

Convinced of the husband’s grief, the coroner announced the death was related to childbirth (as he had been treating Zona for symptoms we can only now presume were related to such a state a few weeks earlier).

At Zona’s wake, people observed Erasmus acting oddly. He was nearly frantic with trying to keep her “comfortable”—wedging her head between a pillow and fabric and maintaining that the large scarf now tied around her neck was her favorite. He kept people back from the body.

Zona’s mother removed the sheet from inside the coffin and tried to return it to Erasmus, but he wanted none of it. Thinking it smelled oddly, Heaster washed it. Oddly, the water turned red then clear. The sheet developed a pink stain. Heaster took it as proof that her daughter had met a foul end. A God-fearing woman, Heaster prayed Zona would return from the grave long enough to tell the truth of what happened to her so that she could find eternal rest.

Zona did cross back over, haunting her mother’s dreams for four nights as she explained the abuse she’d suffered at her husband’s hands and how—in a sudden fit over not having dinner ready for him—Erasmus had broken her neck. In the dream Zona’s ghost turned her head all the way around to illustrate.

Heaster approached the prosecuting attorney and in short order Erasmus was arrested. Her ghostly story was not the only thing to prod him to action, as the rumors had continued to fly about Erasmus’ odd actions.

In jail, Erasmus kept his spirits high, even proclaiming that he would like to have seven wives, and since Zona had been number three and he was only 35, he felt it was still an achievable goal. But then the truth began to come spilling out. Zona’s body had been exhumed and they discovered she had a crushed windpipe and broken neck. The cause of death became “strangulation.” Erasmus’ life before coming to Greenbriar was looked into. His first wife was abused and finally forced into divorcing him. His second wife died under mysterious circumstances.

Erasmus seemed puzzled that he was being charged with murder—hadn’t anyone wondered about young Andy Jones? Was he not suspect?

Although the case against Erasmus was mainly circumstantial, he was convicted and nearly lynched before being moved to the state penitentiary where he died. The ghost story Heaster was prepared to tell in court was ruled inadmissible, but revisited multiple times by the defense in a hope she would be viewed as unstable and a worthless character witness. Zona’s spirit seems to be at peace, never having been spotted since the arrest of her husband.

The house where Zona died still stands and is a private home.