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To make it easier to read about our trip to Ireland, I have made a page that is just for that. There is a tab above for Ireland Trip 2014 or click on the Home tab to read my other posts. I have also created a new page for My Weight Loss Journey if you are interested in that, click on the tab above.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Ireland #22 Teach Eamainn

We arrived at our next B&B right around dinner time.
The name of it was Teach Eamainn.
This B&B was very different than any of the others,
more about that later.
We had a little lesson in Gaelic  at this B&B
Teach is not said the way we say it, it is pronounced
"Chalk"
This B&B was run by a lovely older woman.
She was very sweet and had a very difficult time getting around.
Her decor was very old fashioned with lots of antiques.
The house was furnished just as if it were her home and not
a B&B.  Lots of knick knacks and china.
(More about that with some pictures below)
We were all getting hungry and Henry's was recommended and
they had a free shuttle to and from the restaurant.
The owner, sorry I don't remember he name, called for a pick
up and a reservation for us.
We found this to be a really wonderful restaurant.
With a great variety of food choices.
Stew
Shrimp
Bangers and Mash
Fish
And, of course, the every popular Fish and Chips!
Everyone loved their dinner.
And the waitress was kind enough 
to get a picture of the group for us.
And the desserts were wonderful too.
Cheese cake
and meringues with strawberries and cream
to name a couple.
The ride back on the shuttle was a hoot,
the driver gave us the microphone and told us to sing.
Michael made up a couple songs that gave us a good laugh.
We all sang a couple songs and then we were back to 
Teach Eamainn.
There is a nice sitting room where we gathered 
for a little evening drink and snack and talk.
Had a very nice evening.
Here are some pictures from our room.
Beautiful antique dresser.
Lovely table.
Wanted to show the wallpaper in our room,
big, bold pattern.  I took some extra close up
pictures that I'm going to use to print some 
scrapbook paper.
This was the wardrobe in our room.
And the view out the front window.
The view including some of their flowers.
The next morning we were served a beautiful breakfast
by the owner and her son, who came with his little 
daughter to help.


It was a very dreary, rainy day, but the owners son
gave us some advise on where to go and what to do.
Then we were off for another day of adventure.
More about that next time.

Thanks for stopping by,
see you next time when I'll tell you how to say
Eiobhan
and what bird poop was used for years ago.


Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Rice

Here's a simple project I did with my Silhouette.
I needed a container to put my rice in, so I picked one up
and of course I had to vinyl it.
I created the word rice to look like pieces of rice
joined together into the word.
On the other side I put the measurements I needed 
to make the rice.
See, simple project today.
Thanks for stopping by to see what I'm up to.

Hope you'll stop in again soon.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Gifts for Zoey

I wrote this post up a while ago and didn't post it.
I don't know what happened, but it never got posted.
Our sweet little Zoey was born
November 25, 2014
which was my Mom's
90th birthday.
Great Grandma said it was the best 
birthday gift she's ever received.
Here is the post I planned to post and didn't.
I'm so excited!
My niece, Nikki, is due to have her first baby
in December.
She is having a girl and her name is Zoey Ann.
Nikki lives in Tampa, Florida.
I live in Tonawanda, New York.
There was a shower a couple weeks ago and I wanted 
to make something for little Zoey.
I used my Silhouette Cameo to design and cut all the pieces 
from vinyl.
I sprayed the glass block with
Frosted Glass spray from
Rust-oleum and put a small string of 
white Christmas lights inside.
I got the owl with the book file from the Silhouette store
and the other owl is one I traced.
I used to work at a paint your own pottery studio 
and when I painted pieces for loved ones, I always 
painted my lips and kissed the back of whatever I painted.
So with Zoey's night light, I had to "kiss" the back too.
My nephew, Dave, is a real fan of comic books and super heroes
so when I saw this bib, I had to get it for Zoey.



Friday, December 26, 2014

Crown of Thrones ornaments

My son and his girlfriend were making most of their
Christmas gifts and needed a little help.
I showed them how to make glittered ornaments.
So they glittered them and then asked for some help
vinyling them.
Their friends are into the Game of Thrones series, 
as they are.
I know nothing about the series so they told me what they
needed on the ornaments and that's what I did for them.



They were very happy with the ornaments as I hope
their friends will be.
Here's what happens when you do crafting with
your 22 yr old son.
After "weeding" the vinyl the leftovers had to
go somewhere, so why not on Mom's face?

Thanks for stopping by.
Hope you're creating something wonderful.
Happy Crafting!

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Art Swap Charger

Our Art Swap Group
had a Christmas exchange.
We were to make a card and something for a gift.
I decided on a decorated charger.
I first made this red one and for whatever reason
decided I wanted to make a different one.
This gold one with the ornaments was the one I sent 
to Liz.  She loved it.
This is the card I sent her with the gift.
Now I just have to decide who I will give that
red one to, or if I should keep it for myself.
Which one do you like better?

Thanks for stopping by,
see you again soon and until then,
Happy Crafting!



Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Mashed Potatoes and Crafts Tutorial

Believe it or not,
it's already December.
That means it's a new month and it's time
for a new crafts tutorial on 

Here's a sneak peek of what I'm going to show you


Now pop on over and see what it's all about.
Thanks for stopping by, hope you'll check out
my latest tutorial on 
Stop by again soon!

Monday, December 1, 2014

Mom's birthday

My sweet Mom turned 90 on November 25th!
She is doing amazing and is the sweetest woman
you could ever meet.
We invited a few family and friends to celebrate
with her.
This is the card I made for her.
The Happy Birthday is from
and the poppy stamp is one of my favorites from
I colored the poppy image with colored pencils
and Gamsol.
I love how this card turned out.
Poppies are one of my favorite flowers.

Here are some pictures from Mom's party.
She'd probably be mad that I'm posting them, 
because there had just been a huge snow storm in
our area (several feet, up to 7 feet in some areas)
and the hair dresser couldn't get in, 
so she thought she looked a mess.
None of us cared what he hair looked like.
I think she looks beautiful no matter what.
This is Mom with "Uncle" Jack a friend of over 70 years.
My #2 brother with his grand kids.
With my daughter and her boyfriend.
With my brother again and his wife.
With my son and his girlfriend.
With my #1 brother's wife.  He was sick and couldn't come.
Never want to spread illness to a 90 yr old!
Getting ready to blow out the candles.
Missed the actual "blow out"
Good thing we didn't have a candle for every year!
We couldn't have fit that many on the cake.
The party was a great success,
we all had a lot of fun, but I wish I 
would have gotten more pictures with the
other guests.
Maybe my sis in law has more.
Thanks for stopping by today.
Come again soon, you never know what I'll be posting about.


Saturday, November 29, 2014

Ireland #21 PJ answers a couple questions, a couple places that were a bust and then something great.

Dave and I have never been shy about asking people
 questions or for help when we are traveling.
There were a couple things we saw that we 
wondered about, so I took pictures and planned to ask
at the B&B,
PJ was more than happy to help out.
In this picture above there are buoys and lines in the water.
They actually looked like racing lanes for swimmers,
but we knew that wasn't what they were.
Turns out they are farms. 
Some kind of fish or shellfish.
PJ said there is a lot of shellfish sold to Europe from
their area and this may be one of the farms.
Interesting.
Off in the distance, right in the middle of this picture,
there are a couple tall tower like structures.
They reminded me of the big "robot walkers"
from Star Wars. 
We were guessing at what these might be,
and we were right.
They are water towers.
PJ said most water towers don't look as
"futuristic" as these do, so he 
figures they must be fairly new ones.
This is a picture I took just because I loved the 
name of the place.
O'Gradys Victuallers
Quality Meats
The Oxford Dictionary defines a vicutaller as
"A person providing or selling food or other provisions."
Not a word we are probably going to come across too
often in the US.
Now that we've gotten our trivia out of the way,
let's move on to what we did for the day.
We left Dun Mhurie with a sad farewell
to PJ and Marion.
We really enjoyed this B&B.
We were off to see some sights, among them
a beautiful light house.  Jane looked up 
pictures online and it was gorgeous.
But first we wanted to see the very cool castle that
we'd heard about.
We could see it in the distance at the top of a hill.
When we got closer we found that it was now a private
residence and we couldn't really see much of it
except from a great distance.
That was a bust! 
On to the lighthouse!
We drove some pretty awful roads to get there.
The road into the lighthouse area was pretty much
a couple ruts.

There were some very pretty coastal areas.
With a little rock climbing and stair climbing
we could see some lovely ocean views.
But the lighthouse?  Not what was in the pictures.
Up close it was pretty dismal.
It was no longer painted the way it showed in the pictures
and a lot of the area around it was pretty run down.
Another bust!
And there were no restrooms anywhere around, 
so you know what that means!
Let me just say that I will be very careful
if I ever have to "use the facilities" on the side
of a cliff again.  The wind is not helpful!
That being said, next we were off to find
a very old Celtic cross.
Guess what?
Another bust!
We drove some pretty difficult roads 
and never did find the cross.
And to make matters even worse,
I was starting to get hives.
My arms were a mess and the itching was awful.
Luckily Ed had some melt on your tongue 
Claritin with him and gave me one.
Our luck changed when we stopped for lunch.
We saw this sign and decided to check it out.
And we were so glad we did.
One of the things I love that I hadn't had to eat
this trip are "jacket potatoes"
It's simply a baked potato
split open and smothered in topping.
I'm not talking butter and/or sour cream,
I'm talking things that make it a whole meal.
I had a huge baked potato
covered with tuna, onions and corn.
It was amazing!
I really should think of making this for our dinner
sometimes here at home.  So simple and so tasty!
And even better, that Claritin really kicked in and
by the time we were back on the road
the hives were getting to be under control.

We did see some pretty cute sheep along the drive.
See that blue, it's their way of "branding" the sheep,
they are sprayed after they are sheered and then 
they can be identified by their color and marking.
Jane and Roxie were on a quest to get some good 
sheep pictures and I think they did this day.
We did more driving and finally came to Slieve League
and some beautiful vistas and beaches.
The parking was way above the beach.
There was a stairway down to the beach,
but it was incredibly long and none of us
were up for climbing down and then up again.
In the picture above, you can see the stairs,
the people going up and down are so small you can't 
hardly see them.  
There were literally hundreds of steps!
But the views from the top of the cliffs was just gorgeous!
It was pretty cold out there on those cliffs 
and a couple of us were ready to go sit in the car
while Dave wandered around.
Then he motioned for us to come over where 
he was, so off we went!
We were glad we did as the views were incredible!
Here's another one of the panoramic shots that didn't
quite turn out.  It was so hard to hold the camera steady
long enough in all that wind, but it gives you an idea of the 
vastness and beauty.  Those are a couple of the
Celtic Adventurers over at the far right.
We walked along a path around to the other side of some 
fields and there were sheep grazing right at the 
top of the cliffs.  
One wrong step and off the cliff they could go,
but the sheep were smart enough that they didn't
get too close to the edge.
I can never get over how high the cliffs in Ireland are!
The cliffs at Slieve League are some of the highest 
in Ireland.  The Cliffs of Moher are not as high,
but they are a bigger tourist spot.
After a good long time and taking a lot of 
pictures, we were off to see more sights.
If you go here, you can see one of the shots
that Dave brought out from this spot.
There were more cliffs, more ocean views 
and more sheep.
We were on another adventure.
We had no idea where we were headed, except 
in the general direction of our next B&B.
As we drove the shoreline changed.
We were traveling down at sea level rather 
than up on the cliffs.
We found a little harbor,
with some small boats, tide pools and lots of rocks.
Then we were off to find our way to our next B&B
"Teach Eamainn"

Thanks for visiting Ireland with me again.
Next post a very different B&B and Parke Castle.