Big Ideas ? ? ?

I am an idea person!  I think I get that from my Daddy - he was always coming up with some big new idea and many times they never came to fruition.  (Like Father Like Daughter!)  But I also got a huge dose of resourcefulness from my Mama, so that's cool, too.  Put the two together - Ideas+ Resourcefulness = ???

My artistic side is always coming up with some great idea, which is super cool - right?  But do you know how many of those great ideas are either trashed by now, or are stuck in a drawer somewhere waiting for the inspiration to come and tell me how to finish it???  Yeah - lots - tons maybe!  But that's okay!  I try to learn from these situations and move on.  But still . . .

So when SarahKaye, the team leader over at Unscripted Sketches (I did tell you I made the Design Team, right?  Yeah, I thought so!), encouraged us to make projects based on the sketches OTHER THAN cards, well my mind went to racing!  I mean, cards are my comfort zone, but I also like doing other things, and I came up with the idea of making a fabric wall hanging based on one of the sketches.  Cool, right?  Hmmm, we'll see!

Anyway, we get the sketches a few weeks in advance, in fact we have all the sketches through October, so we can work on them and have them submitted in plenty of time.  In case you haven't seen one, you can see the sketch and all the DT's cards HERE.

So anyway, SarahKaye was encouraging us to do something OTHER THAN cards based on the sketches and I said "Oh yeah, I can make a wall hanging!" and SarahKaye said "Fantastic".  Duh!  So here I am trying to make a wall hanging based on one of the upcoming sketches, searching for ideas. 

Months ago I bought some of the Avery Printable Fabric for ink jet printers, and ever since it came I have TRIED to get something to print on them, to no avail.  Yesterday, just on a whim, I decided to try again, and do you believe it?  It worked!  So I printed out a pretty bird, a lovely butterfly, a pretty background fabric, and a verse of my very own.  And it worked!  Why, after all these months?  Whatever - it worked and I'm so happy!

So now I've got a theme, and a verse and a sketch (I picked the one for 10/16 when we are celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness Month) and no excuses for not making it work!  We shall see how it all comes out!

I'm thinking I will lightly stuff the bird and butterfly, with a stitch here and there for dimension, and then embellish it with buttons and beads and ribbons and such.  Tell me what you think, please!

And then there was the OTHER big idea!  And I didn't have this one alone - oh no!  Hubby and I share the goodness of this idea!  You see, we have had a canoe for about 5 years.  It - we thought - was "our" mid life crisis little red convertible that we bought in our 53'd year.  And we love it - truly we do!  But the logistics of getting it from point A to point B and back to point A again is just such a chore, that we haven't used it as much as we would have liked.

For a couple of years now we have been talking round and round about getting kayaks.  One for each of us so we would be independent, and have equal opportunities for views and taking the lead.  We have looked at hard shell kayaks, and all this time Hubby has been talking about inflatable kayaks, but the only ones I had seen were thin plastic - kind of like a kid's raft, and that didn't work for me.  

Last week while we were on vacation, we made a run up to Murphy, NC so that I could visit a quilting store and a stamping/scrapping store, and while I was in the quilting store, hubby was next door in an outfitters store, talking to the guy who worked there about inflatable kayaks.  They had some on display that I had a chance to look at, and they ARE cool!  And the guy said he preferred the inflatables to the hard shell kayaks.

So, I got online and we found what appeared to be a pretty good deal, and we ordered one of these . . . 

   

 . . . for each of us!  They deflate to fit in the bag you see in the picture, they come with seats, a pump and paddles, and they weigh only 26 pounds!  Very do-able for me to carry mine on my own with no help.  We already have the PFD's (personal flotation device - or life vest) so we are ready to roll, or float!

They are due to arrive TODAY, and if they get here by 2:00 pm, Hubby will leave work early and we are taking them over to Lake Lanier (10 miles from here) and give them a christening ride!    And we are planning on taking them out to two different lakes this weekend - on Saturday after Hubby works for a few hours, and on Sunday after we make our first visit to a church in the area.

If, and that's a big IF, these things turn out to be all we think they are and that we want them to be, there will be no more excuses for not getting out on the water more often!  And I am super excited!  As I told some of my friends on Facebook (who strongly encouraged me to be careful) I may be old, but I'm not dead YET!  When I was younger, I would never have thought of doing this, but now - it's a no brainer!  It's fun, great upper body exercise, and healthy for body and soul!

So, tell me what you think!  About both of my big ideas!  And I will definitely keep you posted on both of them!  Blessings folks, Becky

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