Decorating With Stink Bug Traps

 EDIT 4/29/16  Did you arrive here from the link that you found in another blog post??
CLICK HERE if you did!!

For those of us who have had to deal with the massive invasion of stink bugs, this post will give you HOPE!
The invasion is extremely bad in our area of Western Pa but I’ve heard it’s just as bad in our neighboring states too.
Because it’s such massive problem and hiring exterminators is a waste of money, there are some people that are coming up with their own solutions to catching/trapping them. 
Our local news station interviewed someone that has devised a trap that is inexpensive and easy to make using an empty Pepsi bottle, a light, some electrical tape and some masking tape. 
(I’ll show the video for how to make it at the bottom of this post)
You can see, it’s not pretty, but after using it last night for the first time, IT WORKS!
Almost right away, hidden stink bugs came out and fell into the trap.
I’m going to make a dozen of these and put them all around our house!
The only problem is … this trap, as you can see, is quite unsightly.
That’s why I’m creating, to go along with this blessed stink bug trap…

The “Apple Blossoms” Penny Rug Stink Bug Mat!

  Look how beautiful those stink bugs look right there in the center of my dining room table!  Much like watching fish swim in a tank, watching stink bugs circle round and round trying to find a way out is a fascinating pastime and now, with the stink bug mat, it can look pretty too.
I think I’m going to paint some apple blossoms onto the plastic so that it will match the mat.  Use some imagination to custom create a beautiful painting on your trap!
Order your pattern to make this Apple Blossoms Penny Rug Stink Bug Mat today!  Just click on the Paypal button over there on the left to purchase!
But that’s not all!
Let’s celebrate the Fourth of July with your captured stink bugs!
Introducing

“American Stars” Penny Rug Stink Bug Mat!

I ask you…What could possibly be a better way than this “American Stars” stink bug mat, to display your captured stink bugs on the Fourth of July ?
I think for this plastic trap, I will paint some red, white and blue stars on it!

But really, there’s MORE!….
Introducing, my favorite Penny Rug Stink Bug Mat……

“Witchy Things!” Penny Rug Stink Bug Mat!

I’m telling you ladies, it just doesn’t get any creepier than this darling Witchy Things mat with a container trap full of live, crawling stink bugs! 
Right before your big Halloween party, smash a few of the stink bugs to create a good stink bug odor and your halloween decor will be the talk around the water cooler the next day!
No need to paint the outside of the trap at all.  Let the stink bugs be the main entertainment of this gloriously creepy display!
And now, for those of you who wish to make this Stink Bug Trap, here is the video that will show you how! 
(it really works so if you have stink bugs make two or fifty of these for your home)

Happy Day everyone!

Apple Blossoms <------New Pattern!

 

My newest design is almost ready for printing.

“Apple Blossoms” Wool Penny Rug Candle Mat

Preorder it to get the special price!

It might not look like it, but this one is really easy to stitch.  The flowers are attached with a simple cross stitch in the center.  The leaves are attached with a backstitch up the center.

I’ll include with the pattern a sheet with all the leaves drawn out. 

This saves that labor intensive and tedious time that is spent tracing those 52 leaves.

The leaf sheet can be placed in your copier, then copied onto a sheet of freezer wrap paper which has been cut to standard paper size.

Then iron that printed freezer paper onto your wool and it’s ready to cut. 

The finished candle mat measures 15” across and I highly recommend using 100% wool for this but wool felt can be used for some or all of the wool requirements to save on expense.

The special preorder price for this pattern is $8.00, which includes shipping. 

(Canada and US only.) I’ll split the shipping cost with all other international customers

To purchase the pattern, just click the Paypal button over on the left sidebar.  If you wish to pay by check instead, just email me

cathspennies@gmail.com and I’ll send you my mailing information.

The pattern should be printed and ready to mail by Wednesday or Thursday.

This special price will be until Friday, May 20, at which time it will go to the regular selling price of $9.50.

 

Kits will also be available for this.  Price is $36 for the kit which includes the pattern, the hand-dyed wools (green for the leaves, the pale yellow background wool and the dark yellow wool for the flower centers), and the natural white wool for the flowers and background.

All wool is washed and felted Woolrich wool.

Shipping cost is also included.  All you will need is the black DMC threads and the backing fabric.  a 15” x 15” backing wool is available for $5 more.

Email me cathspennies@gmail.com to order the kit. 

Kits should be ready for mailing by Friday.

 

Happy Day everyone!

My Daughter, the Ex Quartz Rep

Typically, I don’t write about either of my daughters on here.
Mostly it’s because they read this-like-every single day and would KILL me if I told any of their dirty secrets.
Today though, I feel that I have to write just a bit about Rach  simply because this morning, she made me laugh.
Rachel, upstairs and still in bed sent me this text …
I know you won’t understand what the heck she’s talking about but the only thing you really need to understand is that she was considerate enough to text me while half asleep to let me know that I needn’t worry any longer about her composite toes. 

Ok, I guess you should know more to understand better.

Let’s quickly go over this and please know that this will probably be the last time I will ever write anything ever again because Rach will find a way to kill me for this … and probably in some crafty, stealth way so that she would never be suspected.

Rach, now that she a college grad, was employed full-time by a quartz manufacturer. Yes, she represented quartz.  And a fine one she was too!
She could probably convince a cement contractor to switch to quartz.

But to know Rachel is to know that her bubbly personality was wasted on quartz countertops.  I know she really REALLY wanted to go back to working at the PITTSBURGH ZOO, which for her, was a perfect fit for her personality, but …well, she doesn’t allow me to talk about that or to ever mention the PITTSBURGH ZOO in my blog ever again because of search engines. whoops. :) (hello zoo …she loved her time there with you!)

Anyway, an opportunity came knocking at her door a couple weeks ago .  Even though she enjoyed her quartz job, adored her boss and the people that she worked with, she thought perhaps she should consider a career move.   With great regret she turned in her resignation.

Now, I’m not exactly sure what this new job entails, but it’s higher pay, less traveling, better hours AND it has nothing to do with quartz, which ultimately will save ME money because Rachel was ready to use my credit card to get quartz installed throughout my house, which  might or might not include a quartz covered outdoor patio set and a fluorescent green quartz countertop in the bathroom.

What I do know about this new job is that she needs to wear steel toed shoes.

Rachel, being Rachel, the lover and massive shoe collector, is not into the big heavy steel toed boots that most think of when thinking steel toes. 
She wants something cute for her feet. Finding something “cute” and stylish in a steel toe is virtually impossible.

Rach and I went on the cute stylish steel toe hunt yesterday. 

Naturally, we started at our local Red Wing store, which has been there for probably 100 years and whose owner’s age is somewhere close to that same number.  He was precious but had very little selection for the female foot.  She felt bad when we left him without a sale. 

After doing some internet research at home, we found a shoe store about 30 miles up north which offered some decent looking sneaker type steel toes.

She found a pair that look fashionable enough to pass but they weren’t “Steel” toes.  They were composite plastic toed shoes.

The sales lady told us that composite toes were lighter weight but held up to the same standards as the steel.  And then trying to make the sale said, “your boss would never know by looking at them”, insinuating that it’s ok to lie to the new boss.

Rach, being Rach, the perfect employee, was hesitant because the future boss specifically said “steel”.
She put a call in to her boss, left a message and bought the shoes with the intention of returning them if the boss told her only steel.

So apparently, the boss woke her up this morning to let her know that composite was fine.  Rach, being Rach, the sweet considerate daughter, texted me from her bed to let me know that all is well in Rachel land.

I’d show a picture of the beloved stylish composite toed shoes, but they’re upstairs in her room.  Since she’s enjoying her little vacation time between jobs and still sleeping at 11:30 am, I will resist the temptation to sneak a picture. 
I will show the cute purse she bought from a little stand outside the shoe store …
Going anywhere with Rachel always brings some type of entertainment or funny event.  The purse purchase provided us with some funny moments but I’ve kept you reading long enough so I won’t tell that story. 
I’m so glad that our steel toe shoe shopping is complete. As much fun as Rach is to shop with, I certainly wasn’t looking forward to more shoe shopping. 


Oh, and no Carol, we didn’t buy a new lawn tractor.  Jimmy, being Jimmy who can fix virtually anything, spent all day Saturday getting the tractor back to working condition.

Happy Day everyone!

Helpful Inspirations

 

In my last post, I mentioned how I planned to focus on flowers and butterflies for my next designs.

At the time, I had a really nifty idea in mind for a candle mat which was inspired by all the new flowers popping up outside and also by

this….

This is a set of Mary Engelbrit paper placements that I purchased a few years ago. We don’t use paper placements, ever, but I bought them anyway simply because the design was so festive and pretty.

I’ve always loved Mary Engelbrit’s art and quite often she has provided me with inspirations.

That set of placements inspired me to draw this:

I love all the bright colors in the set of placemats so I drew up the initial design and started coloring it in to get a sense of color placement.

I knew that I wanted some butterflies and dragonflies so I fit them both into the design.

I didn’t really want a black background though.  I’ve used blacks and whites and greens waaaay too many times in my design background.

I wanted something different.

So I dyed up some pretty pale yellow and along with all the rest of the dyed colors, I started stitching ….

    I liked  loved how the white flowers looked against the pale yellow, but I wasn’t happy at all with the reds and yellows of these flowers.

So my choice was to either go back to the dye pots to dye up some paler colors or ….

just make the entire candle mat with white flowers!

Which I did!

I love this look.

But….

I still wanted the dragonflies and butterflies …

I tried, I really did try!

But I just couldn’t get the little guys’ colors right so that it would blend in but yet stand out from the flowers.

So the idea for butterflies and dragonflies was scrapped for now.

I’ll use these guys in some other design but thanks to Mary Engelbrit and my wrong/bad dyeing adventures, I was led into creating this……

 

Which I’m very very happy with!

I hope to have the pattern for this available to purchase by the end of the week!

 

Happy Day everyone!

Butterflies & Flowers and Broken Garden Tractors

Many thanks to those of you who ordered my newest pattern,

“Americana Stars”.  Those of you who ordered, your patterns and kits were mailed out today. 

Those of you who wish to order “Americana Stars” have until Sunday evening to get it at the special $7.50 price.

 

So, in other news, it’s been raining so much around these western Pa parts, that it’s been impossible to get outside to do any kind of yard work.  I know the whole “April showers bring May flowers” thing, but gosh, it’s been raining so much that I can’t even get outside to mow the grass or pull the weeds that grow all around the flowers.

Yesterday was finally a decent day so some grass was cut …. until the tractor died.  I mean it REALLY died.  Never to start again, or at least until hubby pulls the motor to fix whatever it is that he says it is.

The Cub Cadet is 21 years old, which means it’s time to invest in a new garden tractor. The purchase will happen tonight. 

There might be a spousal argument over this.

Ya see, I cut the grass too.  It takes hours to get the job done, so we spend a lot of time sitting.  I will be looking for comfort and an automatic transmission so that I don’t have to shift each time I go up and down the hills.  He just wants CHEAP.  He says that once the Cub Cadet gets fixed …. well, you  have to know my husband to know that he literally never throws anything out that he feels that he can possibly fix.  So I’m thinking that we will have a pair of “His & Her” tractors.  I want my HER tractor to be the cute comfortable NEW one so I should be able to have a say in all of this

Hence, the upcoming spousal argument.  :)

Wish me luck in getting my dream tractor tonight!  Please send some good supportive thoughts my way.  :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So this time of year always get me thinking about flowers and what designs I can make with flowers.  I get my inspirations from things like this out in my yard ….

Those Tulip colors make me want to get out the dye pots and experiment.

 

The Lilacs are starting to bloom!  I love that smell in the air….

My most favorite flower this time of year are the little Violas that sprout up like weeds all through my flower beds….

Those little violas are so delicate and cute and did you ever notice how the same plant can have flowers of different colors? 

So, I will be working on a Flower and butterfly design.  I’ve have many many requests for butterflies so I think it’s about time!

Keep watch for some pretty flower penny rugs coming soon!

 

Happy Day everyone!

“Americana Stars” <----NEW PATTERN!

 

 

Even though I’ve been quiet in Blogland, I’m still busy working on wool things here in Homeland.

My newest pattern will be called “Americana Stars”.

 

 

This one is super easy and quick to stitch.  It’s so easy, I don’t think a step-by-step online tutorial is even necessary.

Keep in mind, these colors can easily be switched up too…or to make it more primitive, use some dusty shades.

The finished mat measures 14” round.  This is shown with 100% wool but if you want to save on expense, wool felt would work nicely with this too.

I’m offering this as a special preorder price of only $7.50, which includes shipping.  That’s a $2.00 savings over the regular price!

(U.S. & Canada only, all other international customers will just pay the small difference in shipping)

This special preorder price will be good until next Sunday evening 5/7/11.  After Sunday, the pattern price will go to the regular pattern price of $9.50.

Patterns should be printed and ready for mailing out either Thursday or Friday. 

Just click on the Paypal button over there on the left to purchase. Or, if you wish to pay by personal check instead, just email me cathspennies@gmail.com and I’ll give you my mailing address.

 

I will also have wool kits to go along with this pattern.  Because only the red wool is hand-dyed, I can offer this at a much lower cost than most of my other wool kits.  The wool kit price is $30 plus $2.50 shipping.  The kit price includes the pattern and all the wool to make this candle mat including the backing wool.

The wool is 100% Woolrich wool which has been washed, felted and ready to go!

If interested in the wool kit for this, just email me and I’ll send you a Paypal invoice.  cathspennies@gmail.com 

 

Happy Day everyone!