November Recap

Happy Thursday.  Hope your December has been good so far and it is not to cold where you are. It had been really chilly here the beginning of the month but finally warmed up last weekend. A few weeks ago our furnace went out and it was only in the 30's. We spent 2 days without heat. That was terrible but we made it through and have a new furnace now. The one we had was not that old. Turns out the company that put it in did not do it correctly. Thankfully it was still under warranty and they had to replace it. You don't realize how much you appreciate the little things like heat until you don't have it. I am very grateful that we have it back now. I hate to be cold.

November started out pretty well. I was inspired to make this piece from something similar I saw on Pinterest. I used my new watercolor skills that I learned from the IpadWatercolor Wonders course to color it in. I also did this piece from the course as well. It was a lot more challenging than it looks because it had so many layers but I finally got it to a point that I was happy with it. I love how whimsical it came out. Sunflowers are my favorite flower too.

I also made this piece from the course using an Alphabet from Amanda Arneille and more digital watercoloring. I added the little white flowers to finish it off. Hope is one of my favorite words.

I finished another letter in my digital floral watercolor alphabet. This time it was the letter H. This time I did fall colors with mums.

Things with Lily continue to be about the same. We did blood the end of the month and everything looked good except her liver enzymes were a little elevated. We are trying a new supplement to get it down. I was just so grateful that she was here for Thanksgiving and doing well. Praying that will continue and we can get through Christmas and New Years with her too. Still taking things one day at at time though.

Sales in our Etsy shop really picked up with our winter onederland theme which has been keeping us busy. I forgot to share this photo I got from a buyer last year who did a photo shoot with the tutu set, crown and high chair banner. We just loved how it was staged. She is adorable too.

Your Creative Adventure did another Illuminate Lettering live in her Facebook group. This time she choose the bible verse Be Strong and Courageous to letter and talk about. Once again it was very inspiring and helpful with everything I have been going through. After I lettered it I thought it would go perfectly with this floral piece I had been working on from Liz Kohler Browns Skillshare class on How To Paint Modern Gouache Florals on your Ipad Pro. I hope this piece helps to encourage you if you are going through a difficult time right now too.

I love the look of Modern Folkart and was really excited to take Liz Kohler Browns Modern Folk Art illustrations on your iPad class on Skillshare . I love how the original piece came out so decided to take it a step further and see if I could make it into a Pattern design. It didn't work exactly how I wanted to, I was hoping to get more repeats out of it but could not get it to work I still like it though. 

After that I decided to look into doing more pattern designs with my doodles. I found another great class by Liz Kohler Brown on Skillshare again called Create Seemless Patterns on your Ipad and learned how to do it. It was a lot harder then it looks but I finally got it. These are my first pieces. The one of the right with the colored background is a basic repeat. The one of the left is a half drop repeat. Which one do you like better?  It took a long time to learn how to do this but I am really enjoying it and hoping the next one will be easier. Inspiration for the doodles came from Doodles By Sarah she has some great books and videos on youtube if you want to check her out. 

I also learned how to do this piece in Liz Kohler Browns Winter Holiday Illustrations on Skillshare. I really enjoyed doing this one and was another great class from her.

Thanksgiving was different for us this year. Rich decided to go and visit his mom and brother in New Mexico it was the first time in almost 27 years we did not have Thanksgiving together. It was really strange not having him here but we got through it. We had my family over as usual so we were not alone. I made this digital chalkboard piece in honor of Thanksgiving. 

Finally I have been trying to add oats back into my diet a little bit because I was low on some nutrients and found this recipe from The Real Foods Dietitians  for Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies. They are are really yummy.

That's all for now I hope your holidays are good ones and I will be back in the New Year to share more with you then.

October Recap

Happy Tuesday. Hope you are having a good November. I can't believe Thanksgiving is just a few days away. It had been pretty nice here weather wise until last weekend when we got freezing rain and cold.  Thankfully it didn't last long though and is suppose to be nice the rest of the week before more snow and cold arrive this weekend. We are going to enjoy the warmer weather while it lasts though.
Hello October. I made this piece to welcome it in.  I got the idea for it from it from Doodles By Sarah on Youtube. I just love her work.

October didn't start out very well because of the news we got about Lily on the 1st but we are still doing the same protocol to treat her that I talked about in the last post and it must be working because she is doing things she has not done in months. She even wants to walk when we go out now and not sit in the stroller as much so that is very encouraging. We are still taking things one day at time with her though because that is all we can really do but are so thankful for everyday we have with her like this. We have also been making these dog cookies for her that are very low in carbs and she loves them Indie does too. You can get the recipe here. I have the holistic home vet coming to for a recheck next week and am praying that it has not gotten any bigger or spread and we get some good news.

In the meantime I am part of a group on Facebook group called Your Creative Adventure. The women that runs it Shelley Hitz is such an inspiration and has a very strong Christian faith. Even though I am Jewish I have still been able to apply these verses in my life too.  She has started doing something called Illuminate Lettering a few times a month in her Facebook group. She picks a bible verse and then letters it and talks about it. I have found it to be so encouraging to me especially right now especially with everything I am going though with Lily. The first verse she lettered was The battle is not yours but gods and it really spoke to me as I really have no control over what is going to happening right now even though I wish I did. This was what I came up with. I look forward to her doing more of these in the future and come and join us there if you are an artist and need some encouragement too.

I also made this piece to to help remind me to take things one day at a time with Lily too. I was inspired by marijketekent on Pinterest who did something similar. I love her work. 

Things our Etsy shop were pretty good. We got a custom order from a buyer a that wanted to celebrate her foster daughter turning 1. We thought that was a wonderful thing to do and is planning on adopting her too. The theme was cupcakes and the colors were lavender pink and aqua. This is what she ordered. She loved how it came out and we did too.

I also got this great appreciation photo from a return buyer of her dog Theo wearing our party hat and bow tie set. This is her 3rd year buying from us and it is fun to see the different photos of him each year. We think he is adorable. Hope you do too.

I finished a few more lessons from the Ipadwatercolor wonders course. First off this cute little penguin.

I also did this galaxy landscape

I also finished the Letter G in my floral monogram series. It is getting harder to come up with what flowers and colors to use.

Finally I made these paleo pumpkin pie bars from The Real Food Dietitians. They are so good. I would highly recommend them.

That's it for now. I hope the rest of your month and Thanksgiving is a good one for you and your family.  By the way thanks to those of you that take the time to read by blog. I am very thankful for your support. I will be back next month with more to share then.

September Recap

Happy Saturday. I made the piece below after seeing something similar on Pinterest.  It was done on my Ipad pro in Procreate.
After an incredibly hot summer we had a few days of fall but then it seemed like we went right into winter. It had been very cold and cloudy for about a week and then we had a few days in the 60's with sun. Snow arrived last Saturday the14th it is suppose to be back in the 60's now though. Hopefully the 60's will stick around for the rest of the month now.

September started out okay but we got some terrible news about Lily the middle of the month.

Saturday morning Sept 15th, I heard her having a really bad backward sneezing episode so I gave her a Cernia which was the med I talked about last month that we thought was helping.  When I went to feed her and she would not eat her dog food or take her Cernia so I tried to open her mouth and put it in but she cried out in pain. I finally got it down her and got her to eat her food after I crushed it up but it was really hard to get her to eat though and she was not chewing at all.  Later in the day I noticed a thick clear mucous coming out of the right side of her mouth and it had a foul odor. A few hours later she would not take any treats and started shaking. We took her to Alameda East ER later that night. They were not able to look in her mouth without it causing her great pain so they convinced me to let them sedate her and have a look. I was shocked to find out there was a tumor in her mouth. I thought the doctor said it was on her tonsil but couldn't be certain as I was still in shock after hearing that. They sent her home and told me to follow up with my vet on Monday to schedule a CAT SCAN and biopsy. She was really out of it when we got her home from all the drugs but made it through the night and the rest of the weekend. 

I sent an email to my vet Sunday night and heard back from him Monday morning but he said he could only do a biopsy so recommend we go to VRCC instead to have them done at the same time but I didn’t want to go there because it was too far. I Ended up going back to Alameda East to see Dr Santen instead. Lily had seen him years ago when she had a problem with her foot. We were able to get an appointment with him that Wednesday. He had a hard time getting her to open her mouth but said he saw the tumor from the quick look he got he did not get a good look though. He said he could do the biopsy and cat scan but we would have to wait 10 days because he was going out of town. I did not want to wait that long so I asked if someone else could do them sooner. He talked to the oncologist and she said she could do them on the 28^th. We went in to meet her on the 27^th and to do blood and xrays. Those thing came back okay so the procedures were a go on the 28^th. I dropped her off early that morning. The procedures were done a few hours later and she was ready to go home by 2:00. They told me everything went well. When I got there to pick her up she was a mess. Totally out of it and covered in blood. I was not happy about that. The Dr. tried to clean her up with some peroxide but it didn’t help much. She also tired to show me the CAT scan but it was hard for me to understand what I was looking at and she said she was not good at reading them and to wait for the report. I did see a lot of white on one side of her throat but they said they had no trouble intubating her which was good. She did say she saw the mass though.  She decided to start her on Piroxicam to hopefully help shrink the tumor and Gabapentin for pain but they had to be compounded. I also asked her to write me a prescription for more Cerina and specially said 16 mgs. We got the Cernia and left. I didn’t bother to look at it though. I later found out she had written it for the wrong strength. The ride home was not good. She bleed all over me, When we got her home I noticed that she kept going outside a lot and discovered that she was bleeding from her behind too. Bright red blood. I was besides myself. I felt so bad for her. I put a call in to the oncologist but she was busy with another patient so had to wait for a call back. They wanted me to bring her back in but I said no. I didn’t want to take her back there after that. The compounding pharmacy called about the prescriptions but I told them to wait until we figured out why she was bleeding from the other end. I finally got a call back from the oncologist and she said she thought she had given herself stress induced colitis and put her on Metrodanazol so Emilia had to go back and get that. It was a pill though so I had to crush it to get it down her. Thankfully she took it with a little cheese. She would not eat anything else though. It was awful.  She slept okay but was up in the early morning having to go to the bathroom again. The bleeding was not as much. I gave her another pill and went back to bed. She did not want her regular food for breakfast. I got her to eat a little scrambled egg with cheese but not much. She still was not doing well and a big mess. I tried to clean her as best I could without giving her a full bath but it didn’t help much. Later that afternoon my sister came over with some stuff to rub on her gums that was supposed to help her want to eat and thankfully that worked. She ate her dinner that night and was starting to do better. Thankfully we got through the rest of the weekend and the rectal bleeding had stopped. Monday I was told it was okay to stop the Metrodanazole and start the Piroxicam. I thought it was going to take days to get it since it had to be compounded but thankfully the  pharmacy I used Clearsprings got it done quickly and I had it delivered that afternoon. I gave her the first dose that night. A few hours later I noticed that she was more active and wanting our food again. She had not been that alert in a while . I started to have hope again and thought maybe it was lymphoma which I was told would be the easiest of the cancers to treat. Unfortunately my hopes were dashed early the next morning when the oncologist called and said it was Tonsilar squamous cell carcinoma on her right tonsil and it had already spread into a lymph node. Once again I was devastated. She didn’t sound very positive and basically just told me the standard options. I felt like she was just giving up on her. She offered chemo but I was hesitant to do that with all the side effects and she would have to be closely monitored. She said to give the Piroxicam a chance to work and we could talk again in a week. She didn’t just say she would call me she said you can call me or I will call you which I thought was odd. It would have been nice if she said she would call me to follow up We talked about end of life care and she recommended someone so I asked if she could email his name but she never did. I lost it after I hung up. A little while later I ended up calling Caring Pathways to see about hospice care. I had called them when Sophie was diagnosed but never used them. It turned out they wanted a lot of money and it didn’t sound like it would be very helpful since they were not going to do anything to help get her more time. Instead I emailed the holistic vet I had contacted when Sophie got sick but never met because she was going out of town. Her message machine had not been updated since last July though. I thought that was the end of her but emailed her anyways. She finally got back to me a few days later but she was going out of town for 3 weeks so I did not feel comfortable starting with her at that point. She did say that using CBD an THC would be beneficial. That was something that I had been hearing a lot about but the vets I had seen did not know anything about it. She recommended another place to go but it was to far out and I didn’t want to stress Lily out anymore than she already had been. I tried to get in touch with another holistic vet who made housecalls but she would not even talk to me without charging for the call. I tried Googling one more time and came across a home vet I called a few month ago when this first started for another opinion but never used. It said she did holistic too which I had not seen before so I called her again and left a message. She got back to me the next day and said she was out of town but could help us so I made an appointment with her the following week. We met her the following week. She seemed very knowledgeable and came up with a plan to try and get the tumor to at least stop growing which included holistic things including CBD with THC.  She also suggested we do a lower carb diet even though Lily loves the food from the Farmers Dog my sister gave us. I tried to call them to see if they would customize their food to make it lower carb but they would not do it so it that was very disappointing. I also have never heard back from any of the other vets we saw to see how she is doing which is really upsetting especially the one I used for Sophie. She knows what we went through with her and what is going on with Lily and has totally blown us off.  I don't understand how she can do that, she had been our vet for years. The good news is she is doing better than she has been in months so we must be doing something right which gives me some hope. I just pray that we can keep the cancer from spreading at this point and this vet will be able to continue to help us in the meantime.  It is a terrible feeling not to have a vet to depend on. I guess all we can do is keep doing what we are doing, and pray for more time. We will also continue to do things that make her happy like going on walks in her stroller which she is still enjoying. If you have any extra prayers or good thoughts we could definitely use them. 

Also while I was going through all this with Lily one of my sisters dogs was not doing well either. They thought she had autoimmune encephalitis but nothing she tried was helping and she lost the battle the same time we found out about Lily. My heart breaks for her too. It has been a terrible year for our dogs but hoping there is still some light at the end of the tunnel. 

Even with all this going on I still had work to do. I found out Etsy made a lot of changes to their SEO last month so I have been working on that too. I am not changing everything all at once though I want to see if the changes are really going to help or not first. So far I have not noticed much of a difference. Sales in our Etsy shop were pretty good. We had a custom order for a wild one tutu set and matching party hat. That is a new theme for us and we love how it came out. 

I also got a request for matching banners to go with our purple elephant tutu set. 

This one has a different elephant than the one I have done before. These are the banners with the new elephant to match. Zoom in the see them close up.

Right before all this happened with Lily I was really excited for Watercolor Bootcamp to start but my beginning it was bit delayed because of that. I finally got a chance to dive in though which has been a good distraction from everything else. This was my first piece. An abstract floral landscape. 

I also made this piece to help me through this difficult time. My faith has definitely been tested through all of this and when I saw this verse I thought it would be perfect for this lesson. 

I also did these pieces from more Skillshare Classes.  The first one was from Liz Kohler Browns Chalk Hand Lettering On Your Ipad In Procreate

 I did this piece while I was waiting for the Ipad Watercolor Wonders class to start. It was done in Adobe Sketch and the class was called Learn How To Make Wonderful Digital Watercolor Paintings by Mandar Marathe.

Finally I made these Peach Bars. The recipe was from Flora and Vino. They were pretty good. The granola I used had too much Almond Flavor in it for my liking though.

That's all for now. I hope the rest of your month will be a good one and I will be back next month with more to share then.

August Recap

Happy Tuesday. Hope your September is going well. Summer is still hanging on here. It has been in the 90's for weeks with no rain in sight. It is finally suppose to cool off in the next few days with some rain and feel more like fall.
I made this piece on my Ipad Pro. I was inspired by something similar I saw on Pinterest.

August started out pretty well  Rich sent me these flowers for our 24th Wedding anniversary on the 3rd. He said he didn't want to buy me sunflowers again since we had a ton of them outside so he asked the florist for something different and these are what they sent. These are not my usual colors  but it was a nice change.  I especially loved the hot pink gerber daisies and it was nice of him to think of me. 

Speaking of flowers. I planted zinnias again in the back yard this year but they did not do very well Especially the ones on the south side. I think it was because it was too hot. We did end up with a lot of surprise sunflowers though. They just magically appeared. They could have been from the birds dropping seeds however they got there I loved them though.

The new vet we took Lily to agreed with me and did not think her teeth were the problem, He came up with a plan for some different meds to try. The first one an antihistamine did not help but the second one did especially with the backwards sneezing. The med is used for dogs with uncontrolled vomiting but off label is used for dogs with this kind of issue. Unfortunately it has not helped with her eating issues where she turns her head when she starts to eat though. Hopefully we can come up with something that will help both problems.  We also got her a doggy stroller because she was having a hard time going on long walks with Indie. She loves it. Now we just need it to cool off here so we can go on more walks. Here is a video of her in it.

Things in our Etsy shop started out strong but then sales started to dwindle. Thinking it may have had something to do with the end of summer and back to school. I had a return buyer that wanted a bunny themed set for her 3rd child. This is what I came up with. She loved it.

I also got this great photo from a buyer of her son wearing my nautical party hat. Isn't he adorable?

I did some more homework from Ipadbootcamp. This time it was the photo lettering technique. The writing was suppose to be woven into the background. This one was a challenge for me and am still not sure I got it right but am calling it done. I also combined it with a Ladyboss lettering challenge which was to letter your astrological sign. I am an Aries and found this great photo of a ram to signify it. I have a lot of Aries traits especially the stubborn and strong willed part but am also very driven and will get things done. Emilia is also an Aries and Rich is a Leo so we are all fire signs which means there can be a lot of butting heads around here sometimes. 

I took a couple of more Skillshare classes. This one is from Lisa Long Designs 3D Lettering Class

This one is from Jspcreates Handlettering Turning Words Into Art Class. I enjoyed both classes a lot.

My sister's birthday was on the 20th. I decided to do a real watercolor floral monogram this time.  She loved it and I loved how it came out too.

Finally I made these Paleo strawberry cheesecake bites they were super yummy. You can get the recipe here.

That's all for now. I hope the rest of your month is a good one and I will be back with more to share then.

July Recap

Happy Tuesday. Summer was still holding strong here. It had been in the 90's for weeks. It finally cooled down into the 70's the last few days with some much needed rain which has been nice The hot weather was making it really hard to do things outside especially with the dogs. It was just to hot for them. Hopefully the cooler weather will continue so we can be outside more again but looks like the 90's are suppose to return the end of the week.

July started out with this piece. The inspiration came from Erin The Petite Planner again. I just love her work. I used a Micron Pen and Kelly Creates Fine Liners to color it in

Lily has been having health problems. It started the first part of June. She has been having breathing spasms that are like backward sneezes. She had something similar a few years ago but it resolved itself. This time her nose has become really stuffy at times with green mucous on and off though. She has been on 2 different antibiotics and neither helped much. We also treated her mites which did not help either. There are some days when there is no green at all. She has good and bad days. I cannot figure out what is causing this. She has been to 2 different vets and and they are both pushing me to put her under to clean her teeth and look around. I am not in favor of that though. I do not feel that her teeth are the main cause for this and putting her under would be very risky not knowing what is really going on. I am taking her to a third vet this week hoping he will be able to help us. It is just so upsetting to have another dog with health problems after everything we went through with Sophie, I just pray it is nothing serious. In the meantime we had been taking her to the dog park with Indie. She loves to go watch. The day I took this photo she had jumped up on a rock and looked so happy.

Sales in our Etsy shop continued to keep us busy which was great. I had a custom order for rubber ducky themed items to match our tutu set. Here is a collage showing all the pieces.

We had another order for just the outfit with the ribbon skirt and the buyer shared this photo with us. Isn't she a cutie?

I forgot to share this piece last month that I  learned how to do from a Skillshare Class, If you have not taken any classes there you should definitely check it out. They have a lot of great classes. This one was from Liz Kohler Brown called Digital Watercolors on your Ipad Using Procreate.  It was a great class and I love how this piece came out. I think it looks like real watercolors.  She has lots of other great classes that I am going to take from her too so be on the lookout for more projects from her soon.

Rich's 50th Birthday was on the 24th. He was not happy about and did not want to do anything special to celebrate. He told Emilia and I that is done celebrating birthdays which I find very sad. I know it can be hard to get older for some people but I think if you are lucky enough to make it to 50 you should be grateful and celebrate it because a lot of people don’t get that opportunity. I tried to respect his wishes but decided to make him this painting as a gift anyways. He loves birds and hummingbirds are one of his favorites. I actually love them too. I am hoping this painting will help remind him to find his happiness in this new decade of life like the hummingbird has found within the nectar. I learned how to paint the hummingbird from another Skillshare Class  this one was called Watercolor Hummingbird: Easy and Fun Watercolor Project by Irina Trzaskos. I added the all the other elements on my own.

This piece was for a Create, Inspire Positivity challenge. I used Ian Bernard's Grid brushes which are very helpful with layouts.

I also did this piece using another prompt from CIP and combined it with a new technique I learned in Ipad Bootcamp called the streaky chalk technique.

I also learned how to put my digital Ipad work into a flat layout in Ipad Bootcamp too.

I finished 2 more digital letters in my floral monogram alphabet. Both were done on the Ipad in Procreate.

I  drew this sunflower using another great tutorial from Authentic By Frani.

Finally I made these Paleo Thumbprint cookies recipe from Against All Grain. They are very yummy. I especially enjoy them with a coconut banana smoothie before bed

Thanks all for now I hope the rest of your August is a good one and I will be back next month with more to share then.