On Wednesday evening Barbara and I went to a pine cone wreath class sponsored by The Ocean County Parks Department. We did it last year and enjoyed it so we paid our $18.00 and went again this year. They supply all the material, the hot glue guns and the hot glue (we used allot of glue sticks).

You start with a ring cut out of plywood.

First you glue pine cones to the outside edge and then the inside edge. As you can see when that is done you will have a space left behind which you fill in with pine cones and other natural elements.

Here is my wreath almost done.

When you have finished filling in all the spaces with pine cones you can add a bit of color with some colored beads and bit of ribbon and an artificial flower.
And here are the finished wreaths.

Barbara's wreath My wreath

Painting Class

Well last Monday was the last of my acrylic painting classes. That's right I have been painting art, not very well but good enough. You be the judge. The first picture I did was a copy of one of my pictures from last spring at Longwood Gardens. Here is what I was painting.





And here is what I painted.



Included below are some of the pictures some of the other artists are working on.




Vince did the face on a piece of cardboard in about an hour (during the class).



And here is my second picture (it is not done yet)

Halloween Party 2008

Barbara and I hosted our Halloween party last night and everyone had a great time. First let me show you some of our decorations. Our victims, I mean guests where greeted with.

The front parlor was cleaned and ready for our victims, I mean guests (did I do that again?).

A interesting saying is posted as you come into the kitchen/dinning room.

There where some warnings around the house to keep our guests safe ( I got it right that time).

For those who choose not to heed the warning where met with...

The host and the hostess are Ray and Barbara dressed in their Halloween best.

Enough of the decorations it is time to meet our guests, I mean victims, no I mean guests.

First to arrive was Joan.

Next was Doug (aka Easy Lay, I think I'm in lust) and Stephanie (our roof neighbors)

Next the condiments arrived as Jack and Louise

Last but not least to arrive where Betty and Harold.

After everyone arrived we played a guessing game. Barbara placed a sticker on our guests backs and by asking yes and no questions they had to figure out who or what they where. After a few minutes it was apparent that was not working so we started giving hints and everyone was successful in guessing what was on their sticker. Then before dinner was served we passed around a jar filled with candy and everyone had to guess how many where in the jar. It was just a pint jelly jar and most people guessed why too high. After all guesses where written down the closest was 30 guessed by Betty, the number of candies in the jar was 38. Next it was time for dinner which Barbara had been stirring:

Between dinner and desert we had a spooky story about John Bones who left his body parts for us to feel. First where his guts (cold pasta), then his ear (dried apricot), etc... You get the idea. Then came desert with coffee and home made cookies and brownies. After desert we had goody bags passed out with some tricks and some treats. Then there where the Halloween Crackers, like Christmas Crackers but for Halloween, we got some really good ones this year, the toys went all over the place, as usual, but everyone put their hats on and read thier jokes. Then we went back into the parlor to digest all we had eaten and to talk some more. I asked the question "how many dirty crooks where in the room, and after reciting the peom:

Made you look

You dirty Crook

Stole your Mother's pocketbook

Some hands went up, mostly from the females in the group, hahahaha.

Today I printed out the pictures I had taken and Barbara delivered some and I delivered some and everyone told us how much they enjoyed themselves at the party.

Getting Ready for Party

Well Barbara and I have been getting ready for our Halloween party this Saturday and having a lot of fun doing it. The stew for Saturday’s dinner is cooling in the refrigerator. Cookies are all baked and decorated. The house is decorated, may do a little more tomorrow but it is mostly done. Tomorrow and Saturday afternoon I will take some pictures of what we have done and post them. After the party I will post here and tell you all about it.

My Weekend

Last week I noticed that the casement (the trim) around the bathroom window looked like it was starting to rot. Well it was rotting so it needed to be replaced. I took the rotting casement off and found the wood underneath also was rotting and the Sheetrock was all wet. I cut out the wet Sheetrock and chiseled out the rotten wood back to good wood. Next I cut pieces of wood to replace the Sheetrock and what I had chiseled out and filled in with wood putty. I had bought new casement but what I bought was thicker then what was already there so I went back to Lowe's to see if I could find one that matched. I bought something better, composite baseboard trim. I cut the new trim to match the size of the window and after installing it filled in the nail holes and any gaps with wood putty. After giving it two coats of paint and running some silicon around the inside edge it turned out perfect. In using the composite instead of wood it should never rot.

While I watched the NY Giants beat up the Seattle Seahawks, Barbara and I decorated the Halloween house we had bought to use as a decoration for our Halloween party in 2 weeks. We think it turned out really nice. Take a look.

Moving

I am going to be moving my blog from http://raygo75.spaces.live.com to here (no ads here). Please come back often as all new posts will be here.