DLP Week 20: Modelling Paste...

...or not! This week's Documented Life Project prompt was to use modelling paste and the theme was 'rising to the occasion'. 

I certainly feel that Yoshi, my Lions Foundation of Canada future dog guide puppy has risen to the occasion. She is an incredibly beautiful, gentle puppy and on Monday I returned her to Dog Guides so that she can begin her formal training as a service dog. She will be training to work with a person who has a physical or medical disability, possibly someone in a wheelchair, although not necessarily.

The "or not" comment is because I was so involved in moment, creating this page that I completely forgot to use modelling paste, and I love how it turned out, so I'm leaving it as is!

My friend Marilyn accompanied me for the drop off and took lots of pictures of this milestone event in the life of this fabulous dog guide in the making. Thanks Marilyn!

Ontario Network of Needleworkers (ONN) Conference

Yesterday I participated in the 2015 ONN conference, hosted by the Canadian Embroiderers' Guild, Guelph chapter. It was another well organized and productive meeting. Thank you to all who were involved in organizing the day!

In addition to the meeting itself, each guild attending sets up a display of of members' work to showcase what they have been doing, so I thought I'd share with you our display. There are only nine of us in our Group of Eight Fibre Artists group, but I am always awestruck by the incredible talent and versatility of our members!

For those of you keeping up on my foster puppies, that is 4 month old Wafer, practising her down-stay in the first photo.

The beautiful Miss Yoshi will be going off to puppy university in a couple of weeks to begin her formal training. She has been selected for the SSD program which means she will be working with an individual with a physical disability when she and her client graduate. I couldn't be more proud of her. She is an incredible puppy and will make someone's life so much better!

A Little Bit of Baking...

This week I came across a recipe for pumpkin puppy treats and since I had all the ingredients in my kitchen I decided I'd bake some healthy, all natural 'cookies' for Yoshi and Wafer. I can't believe the price of dog treats, especially the healthier 'natural' varieties, so discovering how easy these were to make was a great bonus and the puppies just love them!



I found the recipe on Facebook. It had been shared from John Hammer's page by a friend. Here it is if you're interested in trying it.

DOG TREATS

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (pure pumpkin...not the sweetened pie filling!)
2 tbsp dry milk
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 1/2 cups brown rice flour*
1 tsp dried parsley (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF
In large bowl, whisk together eggs and pumpkin until smooth. Stir in dry milk, salt and parsley. Add brown rice flour gradually, combining with your hands to form a stiff, dry dough. Turn out onto lightly floured surface (use brown rice flour) and if dough is still rough, briefly knead and press to combine.

Roll dough between 1/4 - 1/2" thick, depending on your preference and use cookie cutter to cut out bone shapes, gathering and re-rolling scraps as you go.

Place cookies on a cookie sheet (no greasing or paper is necessary). If desired, press a fork pattern on biscuits before baking.

The puppies happily sit pretty
to earn a cookie reward!

Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from oven and carefully turn them over. Bake an additional 20 minutes on this side. Allow to cook completely before storing in an airtight container or letting your dog sample them.

*Brown rice flour gives the cookies a nice crunch and promotes better digestion, especially for dogs who do not tolerate wheat well.

Makes about 75 small biscuits or 50 medium biscuits. I ended up with about 120 using the little bone cookie cutter I have and these are a perfect size for training treats (broken in half for Wafer). 

Meet Wafer-Foster Puppy #3

As most of you know, I foster future Dog Guide puppies for the Lion's Foundation of Canada Dog Guides. On February 10th we welcomed home our third foster puppy, Wafer. She is another yellow labrador retriever and she came home on her 7 week 'birthday'. We still have Yoshi, now 9 1/2 months old, and she will likely not be returning to Dog Guide 'University' for her formal training for another month or two. If you'd like to know more about Dog Guides or fostering a future Dog Guide, please click on the above link. Yoshi and Wafer are 2nd cousins.

Getting ready for Wafer's first car ride...she curled up and slept with Yoshi the whole way home!

Yoshi's never far from her new 'little sister'.

Being my first winter baby, I made some sweaters to keep Wafer warm when
I had to take her outside for 'bathroom' chores. This sweater was made using
a free pattern from http://www.mimiandtara.com

Hey Wafer, are you sure you want all of that?
The shirt pictured here is a little 'onesie' that I cut off and hemmed.

Sleeping in her crate with Lampchop.

Wafer's first shopping mall excursion.

Escalators are one of the many things to which future Dog Guides must be exposed.
"Mom, is this the cookie machine Yoshi told me about?" asks Wafer

Sitting pretty!

Napping together.

Yoshi seems to always be close to her new baby 'sister'.

Blowing raspberries on Wafer's belly! Haha

Baby it's cold out here!

More snuggles...Yoshi's sharing her bed with Wafer.

Another shopping mall outing with my Mom, Yoshi and Wafer.

Yoshi tried on her hockey buddies jersey.

Just hanging out...

Thanks Auntie Marilyn for my pretty name tag!

If I try really hard I can jump like a kangaroo!

Getting sleepy...

Yoshi likes to be close, even when Wafer is learning to nap in her crate!

A Rough Drawing Becomes An Incredible Piece...

A while back, in this post, among other things I shared some rough drawings I did for an idea I had for a piece of furniture that would help me get a little more organized.

The idea was to have a "puppy unit" that would hold all of the things I need close at hand for my Dog Guide foster puppies.

My husband, a retired elementary school principal, is a self taught and very talented woodworker. You can see some of his work here and here. Bill likes to have a winter project, so I gave him my drawings and asked if he might be interested in making it for me over the next few months. He asked me to draw some more detailed scale drawings and then he was off and running. But instead of taking his time, he was determined to finish it in time for Christmas!

Yoshi and her sister Yona (visiting for a few weeks) are sitting pretty, showing off the new unit!

Obviously I need to reorganize this drawer, but I just quickly shoved everything in because my whole family was coming over for our traditional Christmas Eve festivities (a German tradition) in about an hour when this was put into place in the kitchen!

It's hard to see in the photo, but the red food bin is on a sliding shelf so that it can be pulled out for easy access. On the shelf above I keep the extra treats, clean, dry dog towels, etc.

And of course all of the toys are contained in the open bin which is easily accessible to the puppies so they can help themselves.

On the side of the unit is a towel bar to hang a wet towel after it's been used to dry off a wet dog or wipe paws.

Free or Inexpensive Online Classes...

As the year draws to a close, I've been reflecting on the wonderfully full and very busy life that I am enjoying! Family life is fabulous, and my volunteer work with my future dog guide foster puppies is always a source of fun and fulfillment.

Before I share some images you may enjoy, I want to bring your attention to a list of inexpensive, or better yet, free online classes that a fellow blogger, Lynette Collis, has on her blog. Some require registration by December 31st, so don't delay in checking it out!

But, before you go, here are a couple of adorable pictures I took recently of Yoshi and some of her future dog guide puppy friends:

(bottom - top) Rondi, 8 wks; Pallas, 9 wks; Kermit, 4.5 mths; and Yoshi 7.5 mths.

Mom, PLLLEEEEAAAAAASSSSSSSSEEEEEE can I keep them?

Graffiti Piece Finished!

In my last post (here) I showed the photograph inspiration for this piece, commemorating my first Future Dog Guide puppy, Dime. Thanks to some very tired puppies, I found more studio time and managed to get this piece in my Graffiti series done!

I free motion stitched the bricks using a cream thread before adding the letters to make up Dime's name.

As with the first in the series, I carried some of the brick and paint elements over the side so they would add interest to the sides of the canvas.  You can see that in the next two images.

And finally...the puppy wall...I can't wait to foster more puppies and keep adding to this commemorative wall!

Dime Graffiti Has Been Started...

Another busy weekend has just passed, but I did manage to fit in a bit of time in the studio to start my Dime piece in my graffiti series. I did the first piece (see post here) with Yoshi, my current Future Dog Guide puppy, as the subject and I liked it so much that I've decided to make a keepsake piece for each of the puppies I foster.  That of course meant I had to go back and do one for Dime, my first foster puppy.

This is one of my favourite pictures of Dime, so I had to incorporate it in the piece.  I imported it into Photoshop and started having fun! 

Once digitally altered, printed and transferred onto fabric, I pulled out some of the new acrylic paints from the DecoArt Media samples that were recently sent to me, and I started adding elements with various found objects, stencils, and a small paint brush to add to the digitally altered image I had created.

Hopefully I'll find time in the next few days to get to the sewing machine to add some stitch.

And for those interested...puppy update...

(L - R) Shamus, Gracie and Yoshi, all Future Dog Guides

This weekend Yoshi and I babysat Gracie for another foster family.  While she was staying with us, we participated in two more Santa Claus parades, one Saturday afternoon, and the other on Sunday evening.  

Fortunately the parade in the afternoon and a long evening walk tired the girls out enough to give me some studio time Saturday night.

Yoshi (7 mths) in back, with Gracie (5 mths)

It sure is fun having a puppy friend for a sleep over! Yoshi and Gracie had some wonderful 'bitey face' sessions and really enjoyed running around the yard together.