Our Week with Wally
April 8th, 2013
Last week was an adventure in the Sibley household. It started out to be a challenging week as I was just feeling better after two full weeks of being down with a nasty virus and nowhere near 100% yet, and the Rocket Scientist woke up Monday morning with a seeminlgy different, but equally wicked nasty virus. It was Release Week at TE which is always particularly busy for me in combination with my job in the church office.
Then Tuesday morning, as I headed out the door to work while hubby was sick in bed, as I got to my car in the driveway I thought I saw a dog’s tail under our 5th wheel trailer. I walked around and around the trailer until I finally saw this dirty white dog hiding under there. Oh my! If you know me at all, you know I try to resscue every stray dog I ever see. You know this is how we ended up with both Tessa and then Roger.
This is not the first stray dog I’ve found in my front yard as we live on a fairly major street. I went in the house to get some food and water, knowing that there would be a good chance he would be gone by the time I got back which is what usually happens. Only he wasn’t. He was right there under the trailer looking so pitiful. I put the bowls down, spoke softly and stepped back. He did come out tentativley and the wolf down the food and gulp down some water. Now what?
I picked up the dishes and told him to follow me, that I would get him some more. I spoke sweetly and coaxingly and he did…he followed me into the backyard. I got him some more food and a towel to lay on. I went in and told the Rocket Scientist that we had a stray dog in our backyard, so not to let our dogs out and that I would figure something out when I came home for lunch. I’d have a plan. And I left for work.
I came home for lunch…still no plan. The pup was a sweetie pie, but very lethargic and oh so filthy dirty. I changed my clothes – into some old jeans and t-shirt – and ran him down to the vet on the corner to check for a chip (he had no collar)…but no chip. Brought him home and decided he really had to have a bath immediately. Curt helped me. He’s much bigger than our dogs at 20 pounds and stands so tall! Here he is after the bath – still quite dirty.
We were guessing he was a cockapoo or something similar. His curly coat had been very badly/unevenly cut off with scissors/shears and his skin had been nicked in a couple of places. His ears and tail were matted. And…well…let’s just say, he was a mess!
We brought him in to stay in our laundry room with a blanket and plenty of food and water. We introduced him to Tessa and Roger. Suffice it to say, they were less than thrilled. We put signs up at Petco and some groomers and some vet offices. I was planning to do a lot more when I got off work at 1:00 on Thursday. We also registered him on some on-line lost dog websites. We spent as much time with him as we could. He was a love sponge! He wanted to cuddle like crazy! And by the second day, he started to be very playful as well. Yep, Tessa and Roger were NOT thrilled.
At some point, we began calling him Wally. We had to call him something. Wally is a name that goes back many years among Curt’s buddies and I think that Curt just called him that and it immediately stuck. He learned his name in a couple of days.
On Wednesday I called around to find a groomer I could take him to and I got him a Thursday afternoon appointment at Your Elegant Pet in Lakewood. I had not been there before, but they had excellent Yelp reviews and had an open appointment time. Oh my goodness! Christy, the groomer, did such a wonderful job on him. He was like a comepletely different dog!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Is he a cutie or what? By this time we decided that he had NOT been well-cared-for and there wasn’t much point in putting a huge effort forth to find his owners. Rather, we felt that we should find him a new forever family ASAP.
At this point, I want to say that I felt very strongly that the Lord brought Wally to us for a reason. I didn’t find him somewhere on the street and coax him into my car. He was in our front yard, under our RV. {And in fact, Curt had seen him on Monday afternoon when he came home from work sick in the middle of the day. He though he saw a dog when he pulled into the driveway, but couldn’t find him when he got out of his truck and looked. We now realize Wally was hiding behind our old motorhome at that point.} I knew with all my heart that the Lord had a family waiting for Wally. I prayed that the Lord would guide us to them and that He would please do it quickly. While Curt and I never once considered keeping Wally, I knew that the longer we had him the harder it would be to let him go. Also, did I mention that Tessa and Roger were NOT thrilled with this situation? There was tension in the house. So, as blessed and privileged as I felt to be caring for Wally, I knew finding his family sooner rather than later would be for the best.
I’m really not sure why the Lord brings stray dogs to us, but it is a blessing. {One of our friends at church yesterday was joking that we must have a secret mark on our house like the old underground railroad houses had, but in this case only the dogs know about it!} It was so wonderful to see this guy transform. It breaks my heart to think of what he might have gone through, but just look at him now! He’s going to bring so much joy to someone!
On Friday morning, I sent an e-mail blast to practically everyone I know and I posted on Facebook as well. I included photos and gave all the details I could. I asked people to forward Wally’s info to everyone they could think of. I knew, without doubt, that there was a family waiting for him. I said a prayer as I hit the send key. Less than 10 minutes later, I got a response from my Mom that said “you have a taker”. She followed that up by forwarding me the response she had gotten from a co-worker that said “YES! When can we go get him?” Happy Dance! Praise God for answered prayer! Amazing answered prayer!
I called Debi, Wally’s new Mom. immediately and set up a time for her to come on Saturday to get Wally. Just a few minutes after we hung up, my Mom e-mailed again to say that they had already set up a vet appointment for shots on Sunday. Yep – this was Wally’s family for sure!
I asked my Mom – is this the same lady that wanted Roger? Yes, it is. Oh my! You may recall that we found Roger on a Saturday. I think on Monday or Tuesday we began trying to find a home for him. Debi wanted him, but couldn’t come until the following Saturday. We had a time set up. On Friday night, we decided we couldn’t part with Roger, that he must stay with us, and I called Debi and canceled the appointment. We felt so bad, but she was very understanding. And now, a year and a half later, she was coming to get her pup from us. WOW!
I made a grooming appointment for Roger and Tessa, so they wouldn’t be here when Wally met his new family. Debi came and brought her daughter Arianna. As soon as they came in the front door, Wally went right to them. They stayed for a little while and Wally was happy as could be.
They are dog-people. They thought Wally was the perfect size! They were so happy! My heart swelled with joy!
I got a text from Debi yesterday that the vet agreed that Wally is probably a cockapoo and that she estimated his age to be between 1 and 1-1/2 which is kind of what I had been guessing. They are enjoying him so much!
So, yes our week was an adventure. It was a challenge in many ways. It was a joy. It was stressful, but I had the constant sense that the Lord had a purpose in it (as He always does) even if I wasn’t sure what the purpose was. Saturday afternoon our little family was exhausted and all crashed out…but oh so content and happy.
I know this was a long post. If you got through the whole thing, thanks for sticking with it and going on the adventure with me. And now it’s Monday and a there’s a whole new week ahead!
Taylored Expressions Release Day: More Shade Trees
April 4th, 2013
Today is Release Day at Taylored Expressions and I get to play along again today with the Baker’s Dozen. We have lots more inspiration to share with all of the new products. As I mentioned the other day, I just couldn’t stop playing with the new Shade Tree Cutting Plate. I already showed you two of the cards above, and now I have three more.
First up is a very simple sympathy card with a sentiment from Embrace Beauty.
I sponged the sunset sky with several colors of SU ink on shimmery white cardstock. I added the Grass Border die to the Shade Tree and embellished the card simply with yellow liquid pearls. I have lots more ideas for this tree in black. I just need more time to play.
My next two cards feature the Shade Tree’s coordinating stamp set Made in the Shade. This is such a fun set and can make some pretty impressive cards without much effort. I wanted to try out some ideas I had for coloring the tree {’cause let’s be honest, I am way too lazy to cut off all those leaves and glue them on individually!} so I have a couple of different methods to show you.
For this card I die cut the Shade Tree Cutting Plate using TE Choice Watercolor CS. I then watercolored using SU inks and an aquapainter. Of course I colored the leaves green and the trunk/branches brown and the frame was watercolored red. I then covered the trunk/branches with Crackle Accents and the leaves with Glossy Accents. This gives even more dimension.
The background panel was stamped on the same watercolor paper and heat embossed (black pigment ink with clear powder) and watercolored. The sky was created with a template made with the TE Cloud border die and sponged ink. I thought this scene would make a great Father’s Day card, so I created the little sign to hang on the tree with a sentiment from Many Minis Holidays and attached it with a small brad.
For my final card, I tried another coloring method. I die cut the Shade Tree from kraft cardstock. I then sponged olive ink onto all the leaves with a little sponge dauber. I didn’t worry too much about getting green ink on the branches, because I planned to go over all the branches and trunk with a brown copic marker. Sponging the leaves was a little quicker and eaiser than using a copic on them and I like the final result of combining the two coloring mediums.
The birdhouses, from Made in the Shade, were stamped on TE Choice Snow White cardstock and fussy cut and colored with copics. The sky was again created with that same cloud template used on the previous card, but this time I tried glossy cardstock and two shades of blue ink which turned out great. The sun is from the Sunny Days stamp/die combo set. I added two layers of the Grass Border die to anchor the scene and the sentiment is from Made in the Shade.
Oh my word! I have not had this much fun in a long time! Is the Shade Tree Cutting Plate in your shopping cart yet? You can’t seriously still be on the fence about it, can you? Girly cards, masculine cards, simple cards, scenery cards, birthday, sympathy, friendship, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day…really…what more could you want?? *GRIN*
Let’s see what the Baker’s Dozen has cooked up with the rest of the new release. There’s so much to see!
Thanks for stopping by and happy shopping!
Taylored Expressions April Sneak Peek: Shade Tree Cutting Plate
April 2nd, 2013
It’s time to start the sneak peeks for the Taylored Expressions April Release. All of the new products will be available in the TE Store on Thursday morning, April 4th at 8:00 a.m. PST. And don’t forget the Facebook Preview Party tomorrow/Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. PST!
There are lots of things I’m excited about for this release, but I started playing with one thing and simply could not stop! Don’t you love it when you get a new stamp set or die or package of patterned paper and you just can’t put it down? It really makes me happy and always makes me feel like I got my “money’s worth”!
One of the new products we are introducing today is the Shade Tree Cutting Plate. 
I have been dying to get this thing in my hot little hands ever since Taylor and I first discussed it on the concept list and as soon as I started playing with it, I could not put it down. In fact each time I would start a card, another idea would pop into my head. I actually created 5 cards with this die over the weekend and would have done more had I not run out of time. I’m going to share two of them with you today and the rest later in the week.
It was so hard to choose which ones to share first, but I decided to go with the ones I thought of first – the two SPARKLY ones! Yep, I broke out the old school loose glitter for both of these cards and of course the photos do not do them justice. You’ll have to imagine lots more sparkle and shine than you see here!
Here is the first card I created:
I die cut the Shade Tree Cutting Plate from TE Choice Snow White Cardstock. The hills were hand cut and sponged. The sentiment comes from the adorable companion stamp set, Made in the Shade, and it was embossed with white pigment ink and white embossing powder. The flowers on the tree were created with another die set being introduced today – the Flowerbox Flowers & Sprigs die set. 
The super sparkly part is the sky. I used a sheet of doublestick adhesive over a piece of Pool Party cardstock. I adhered the hills first and then the tree frame. Then I poured on a light blue loose glitter, before adding the flowers and their liquid pearl centers. There’s just no way to capture all that glittery goodness in a photo, but hopefully you get the idea!
After I created this card, I thought…hmmm.what if the tree itself were covered in glitter? So I die cut the Shade Tree from very thin white chipboard (the stuff that comes in some packs of designer paper.) The reason I wanted to use the thin chipboard was that I planned to use a liquid adhesive for the glitter and I was afraid cardstock would warp when covered with it. I painted on the adhesive and then covered the tree and frame with Starfire Glitter and set it aside to dry.
Then I got to work on the background.
I really wanted the sparkly white tree to stand out from the background and I wanted the whole thing to have kind of a dreamy effect. I decided to go waaaaaaay back and pull out some glossy cardstock, a brayer, and a Kaleidacolor pad. Oh yes, I did! I brayered the background and added a sentiment from Embrace Beauty – pretty much all of the sentiments in that set will work well with this die.
So there you have two cards, both with white trees and both with lots of sparkle and yet the two have a very different look and feel to them. Just wait till you see some of the samples that include scenes from the companion stamp yet. OH.MY.WORD! It’s a match made in heaven. I have two of those myself to show you and I know the team has several. On Thursday, I’m going to show you two different ways to color this tree for a more realistic look.
I had so much fun playing with this cutting plate {obviously!}, but I do have one regret…just that I did not get a sample created featuring the new Picture Window die and companion stamp set A Glimpse Inside. Nancy McKinney did a phenomenal on the entire window collection and it’s something else I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. I guess I’ll just have to play with that next week! Only so much time in a day!
Now let’s see what the Baker’s Dozen has cooked up for us today.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
