Redneck Hillbilly Search

Friday, April 30, 2010

Neat-O!

I just downloaded a 10 day trial program for a watercolor/charcoal sketch type effect that can be used on photographs, and tried it out on a couple pictures I had on my computer tonight to see what it could do with my limited graphic abilities.

I chose two images on my computer that I was not entirely happy with for whatever reason, that I won't ever use on products as the original photo. I wanted to see if this new program could save the numerous snapshots  that don't make the cut in my eyes. You'd be shocked to see some of the rubbish that people will slap on a T-shirt - burying all the good, quality designs from talented folks. 

Hmmm... I sure hope these don't fit into that rubbish category!


Puppy Love - Hold me Close card
Puppy Love - Hold me Close by CountryCorner
Create a custom note card onine with zazzle.com


and one of my dogs, my dear sweet Blue (aka boo, boober, bloober baby... she's a little spoiled!)




I of course like the Australian Shepherd one the best.What a cutie patootie my little Blooobie is.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Vintage Vehicles

Day after day I've driven along the same freeway, by the same farm, with this amazing old antique vehicle parked out front. Halfway between exits, it was neither quick or easy to swing by and snap a photo of it.

The other day was perfect sunshiney weather, and I didn't need to be anywhere in a hurry. I put-putted along country roads with neat old timer houses and split cedar fences, past smelly dairy farms and navigated down narrow lanes with pothole obstacles and deep ditches on either side.

I managed to snap only ONE photo (I know, silly really) but there were two farmers standing in the front yard with amused looks on their faces. No doubt they were  wondering what on earth was wrong with the crazy lady who must have missed the "NO THRU ROAD" sign because noone but locals drives down that road!

A lot of cropping and a little editing and this is what I ended up with:




which I also placed on other items like these:

Antique Truck Father's Day Card card Antique Truck Retirement Party Invite invitationOld Timer Antique Truck Occasion Pin Badge button

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, considering what I had to work with! Next time I'll be sure to snap multiple photos, from multiple angles, farmers watching or not!

Monday, April 26, 2010

Introducing the Honda Hog!

I slapped together a video tonight of the whole project from start to finish. Well, about as much as I could when it had to be clipped and trimmed and masacred to the point where a couple weeks of fabrication fits in under 10 minutes.

Have a look see!

It's a little bit long -  Mr. RedneckHillbillies wanted all the technical mumbo jumbo in there for the wrenchers and motorbike buildin' types. Just over 9 minutes is more than my attention span can handle, but  I did pare it down from 16, thankfully! I'm pretty darned impressed with the finished bike so I endure the jibber jabber about sprockets and swingarms.



There are two similar bikes on youtube that we know about - ours makes #3   :D



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Honda Hog Project Complete!

We've been calling it the Honda Hog lately, rather than the Honda Hippo or the Hondapotamous, although who really knows what it is or what it should be called. Regardless, it's the Mr.'s version of the discontinued Honda Fat Cat which is a motorcycle, but with really wide tires. 

He made ours with parts from two ATC's, some wrecker parts from a couple other dirtbikes, and a whole lotta fabrication.

It's an engineering marvel, really. If you ask me anyways!




Stay tuned for the video! I've compiled all the movie clips already but alot of chopping is required to reduce the length from 16 minutes into something short enough to hold someone's attention span!

It might end up being two - one for the youngins that's just a walk around and a ride, and one for the olduns and technical types who might want to see in detail how it all came together. 

Burnout videos or people getting injured seem to be the most popular, but neither is possible with this bike. For one, it only has a front brake so gassing it would result in an end-o. Two, we are both not fans of pain and suffering, and well aware of our mortality. We also don't think it's fun or amusing to try to BREAK our toys.

Next project is the 63 Pontiac Acadian Beaumont Sport Deluxe convertible. (wow that's a mouthful!)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Duct Tape

Duct tape has been  referred to as "The handyman's secret weapon" by favorites such as Red Green. We used to watch him back in the days when we didn't have cable.

I was out and about the other day and saw this little car. Of course I had my camera with me so I snapped a few pics while following behind it down the main drag. Nevermind that taking photos is probably more distracting than talking or texting on a cellphone is. (both which would warrant a ticket here now)

For the times that duct tape just won't do it, there's always plywood and expanding foam.



When I looked closely I could see that he did indeed try duct tape first, the residue still remained on the sunfaded paint. He even managed some kind of window in the back to make it legal.

How's THAT for redneck?

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Do ya GET it?

I uploaded a new design this morning that *I* thought was fairly easy to "Get". Comprend..ay?

Ok, so here it is.

Read the letters out slowly.


QT Pi Cutie Pie shirt
QT Pi Cutie Pie by CountryCorner
Get t-shirts from zazzle.com



PLEASE tell me you can understand that this says

Easy to see I am a cutie Pie.


Ok if you didn't "GET it" then take another look ..... or two ... or three....

still waiting.....

The last digit is a symbol for Pi.... please tell me you remember something from math class waaaaaay back!and most of the world say Z as ZEE not ZED. (except us crazy canadians!)

Easy to see I ...............am A Cutie....PIE...

... still don't get it? Ok, I bet yer mamma dropped you on your head a few times!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I wish we lived on this street!

Saturday afternoon we went for a nice loooong drive to check the ice conditions up at our favorite fishin' lake. (Which is still frozen flippin solid btw) We spent some time driving through the little community and found this street sign, which accurately reflected the neighbourhood. It would suit our neighbourhood to a T too so I can't talk ;p



We thought it was funny, and I thought it was good enough to snap a quick photo from the truck window and merit a blog post. :D

Sunday, April 18, 2010

My 70th Post

 If you notice the time stamp on this blog post, you'll see that it's the very weeeeeeee hours of the morning.
I *should* be sleeping, but my lovely dog had to go out yet again for her middle of the night tinkle and couldn't let me dream for just  few more hours first. Old lady dogs and their bladders, you know.

While I was up anyways, I decided to pour myself a glass of O.J. and check on how things were going for me so far tonight. Or this morning. No sales on any merch, a couple new facebook fans, and since midnight I've made a whopping 2 cents on adsense.

A yipping coyote outside just let me know what he thinks about THAT!

Nothing going on that needs my attention so I'm gonna shuffle on back to bed and get some more shuteye.

So that was my seventieth post, about nothing, in the blog that noone reads :D

g'night!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Country Corner

Country Corner. 

It's what I've decided to call my new shop on Zazzle.
The point is of course to try to draw traffic from my website Country Corner Crafts which for some unexplainable reason is still going strong after 11 years and kicks @$$ on anything I've tried to do since.
I'm not ditchin' the Redneck Hillbillies store, no worries! I know you are all just linin' up to getcher redneck on, afterall. I sold another T-shirt there this morning, which bumped up my commissions just over the payment threshhold. (Which is only 25$ so I'm not quittin my day job anytime soon!)

My thinking is that there are two types of people out there that matter. Those that think being a Redneck is a good thing. .... and those that don't.

The ones that don't probably aren't gonna buy anything from my store with a name like that, whether it's rednecky or not. If people are turned off by the REDNECK they ain't gonna part with their hardearned doll-ahs on any kind of product even if it's the furthest from being Redneck (Gasp there's that word again)

So today I uploaded a few designs and got a head start on the new shop. It's got the Plain Jane thing goin' on right now since I haven't made a banner or category icons, but it's a start anyhow to get my wares into the marketplace where most of my products that have sold have been found.

A bunch of items with a photo of four birdhouses in a row are IN PROGRESS because I used the quickcreate feature to make them. This one is live, if you want to see an example:

 http://www.zazzle.com/early_birdie_tshirt-235767230797516231

here are some of the other items that I've made so far. Paper items are apparently incredibly good sellers, which is why I'm spending some time working on them for this new store.

Sunset Story Bookmark profilecardHappy Birthday! Birthday Cake and Candle card


Pitbull Dog on a Chain printYou likey? Or No Likey?

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Blue Jeans

There's a song I have on a burned CD in my truck that either makes me smile and sing along, or cry - depending on what kind of mood I'm in: Kieth Urban's Blue Jeans song. I believe it's a remake of some other country singer, but  either way the lyrics are the same. 

"I put my blue jeans on, I put my old blue jeans on... Ch! Ch! "  The first few lines are the culprit - because I swear it sounds like my Dad singing the words.  Dad was a talented drummer in my early childhood, who sung harmony, and was often heard humming or singing the odd bar or two from a favorite 70's song decades later. 

One particular visit he commented on the lyrics - the end of the song is the same thing over and over and over and over again. After about 10 times, the pitch changes and it sounds slightly different, Dad said the guy was really serious now about putting his blue jeans on! I laughed then, and I still laugh every time I hear that section of the song.

Silly really - but since I lost my Dad almost two years ago, I've held on to every  little memory I have of him no matter how small. I sung my heart out today, and drummed along on the steering wheel just for him.

Love you, Dad. xox

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Lunch With Mommy

I'm well past the age of calling my mother "Mommy" and haven't used that term  since my early teens when I was probably asking for something and pulling every stop. ;p  Kids do that - I was a good kid - but I did that.

Mom has past that milestone of 60 now, and has a few troubling medical issues that need attention. The last two months or so have been particularly busy with multiple appointments.   Mom doesn't drive any longer, so I take her to see Dr's and nurses in three different cities. No problem, she lives just a "hop, skip, and a jump" down the road (oh dear, that's an OLD lady expression isn't it?)  nix the old lady lingo - and replace it with   "she's in the 'hood, yo."

Today was one of those such days when I swung by her place and drove her over the hill and far away. It's a great time for us to just sit in my truck together and chit chat. Sometimes about something, most times about nothing.  That's the beauty of 45 minutes in close proximity together each way - added to any time spent in a waiting room. I am awful about keeping in touch with people I care about, and these trips together give us some time to get caught up. I should drive everyone in my family places!

Another perk is that we always go for lunch together somewhere. We have a few favorite places in each town that we hit on rotation, where I either get my favorite greek salad, or whatever beef steak type item is on special. Yum!

Love you Mom xox

That "Other" Site

I made my first website back in 1999 - a crafty type website full of "free primitive country style woodcraft patterns and projects". Type two or three of those similar words in Google and I'll come up somewhere in the first couple pages I'm sure.

I haven't looked at the site for well over 6 yrs, other than a spruce up a few months ago to try to remove dead links. It's terribly outdated, sad even in its current state - but I haven't got the heart to draw or even look at cutesy birdhouses and garden angels these days. A shame really, since that "other" site gets 3-400 visitors a day, while my new pet project, my focus, my life ... the Redneck Hillbillies website ...... gets less than 50.

It's enough to drive a person to drink. And I do. ;p

Anyhooo - Since there's still good traffic there and the site still earns me some money each day, I figured I'd try to promote OTHER people's stuff to crank it up a notch or two. This morning I  linked to half a dozen whimsical birdhouse impulse buy type products to target the first page  most clicked on by hordes of middle aged penny pinching freebie searchers.  Things like:

Change of Address Post Card postcard
Birdhouse Bookmark
Bird House Rock profilecard
Primitive Birdhouse Bag bag



No bites yet, but I hope by the end of the week my efforts have at least earned me the price of a cup of coffee. Even a cheap cup of awful coffee would be nice.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Made With Love

Ok, so I'm deviating even further from Redneck or Hillbilly with my latest creation.... but I thought this one was just too cute.

The photograph was taken by the little kidlet and her friend - I  *loved* the photo and had to immediately try to put it on a T-shirt.

(...Because that's what I do now. Everything I see, hear, and even smell has me  asking myself... "Can that go on a t-shirt?") 

This is what I came up with:




and the original photo on a mousepad:




I'm thinkin' this design might be useful for greeting cards, fridge magnets, buttons..... 

All proceeds from the sales of products containing her photo will go to purchasing the photographer Kidlet a cellphone :D

Another Beautiful Day

 Sunday afternoons are usually spent puttering outside around the house getting caught up on all the little things that need to be done on a hobby farm. Yesterday was a real treat though, since I skipped mowing the lawn or weedeating around the hedges in favor of a nice long walk with my daughter.

 I live in a beautiful small community with tree covered and snow topped mountain peaks all around, clear skies, and little traffic. The two of us walked by homes with tidy yards and flowering cherry trees, and by sprawling rural pastures where horses grazed. We were greeted with a wave and  a friendly hello by a farmer out riding his farm equipment, and three different people walking their dogs. I love small towns.

As is usually the case, I brought my camera with me. I managed to snap a few good photos while we were out which of course I put on a few products for the Zazzle marketplace.

Lemme know whatcha think about these uns!


Saturday, April 10, 2010

Half way there

Update on the BOYS.

By "Boys" I mean our two male calves  that were recently banded. By "Banded" I mean placing a very tiny rubber band around their gajumbos (or whatever you want to call them) so that the blood circulation is restricted and they are eventually castrated. If you read back a couple blog entries you can view a photo image of said process....

They were done later than we'd have liked, but shipping fever stress and our original intentions to leave them be postponed the trip to the cattle chute. Next year we'll just have to do it right away and be done with it!

Anyways, I'm happy to report that both Hank the Holstein, and JimBob the Red Angus are doing just fine. The parts in question have already blackened and are probably more than half way to the point of dropping off. They run around the field like they did the day before the whole ordeal, and there is no sign of infection or stress.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Redneck Evolution

Take that, Darwin!

Whether you believe in evolution or creation, or cosmic seeding from alien races, or that societies live in the center of the earth, chances are you've run across this diagram and it's familiar. So I twisted it a little bit to suit my purpose :D

I don't subscribe to the thought that we crawled out of the sea, sprouted legs, swung from trees, and then stood upright. And even if I did, I'm not silly enough to believe that Rednecks would be placed as the final development stage. The loudest and proudest rednecks probably would, but I'm a closet redneck.

Perhaps there was a little hiccup somewhere in the evolution of man that produced  Rednecks. A throwback or a belch somewhere in the dna strand from generations of interbreeding and cheap beer.

So here's a bunch of monkeys, with  a gun totin' ball cap wearin', duck huntin', beer swillin' Redneck.


Thursday, April 8, 2010

The Banding of the Bulls

Country cattle raisin' folk know what I'm talking about.

We raise our calves from late winter/early spring until late fall of the same year so they are not even a year old when they are taken in to the butcher. We had  intended to leave the boys with all original parts and pieces since the likelihood of them becoming sexually mature or agressive in that short time frame was debatable.

Holstein bulls are apparently the most dangerous of cattle breeds thanks to a territorial nature. Hank the Holstein was getting to be a big boy  already, in stature and ... (ahem...)  size.  Those two heifers out on the field are already HIS, and he's still just a baby.

A trip out to the field to drop the coughing heifer calf to the ground for her antibiotic shot was met with an upset Hank who did his best rodeo performance for us in protest. Any thoughts we had that he'd be a docile little groundskeeper for the rest of the year were gone in that instant, and his date with the elastic bander was set. JimBob, the red angus bull calf was scheduled for the same fate, thanks to Hank so you can bet he wasn't pleased with Hank's behaviour!

OUCH!


Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Now Playing!

Our sleepy little town has a one room theatre that plays the newest releases a week or two behind the rest of the world. This week was supposed to be Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart... at least that's what it said the last time I checked it before the long Easter weekend!

It appears some pranksters had  a little fun with the signboard lettering.

Warning: If you are easily offended
STOP reading now.

I would have posted it on my facebook profile, but... ultra conservative people on my friend list might not approve.

It's not really appropriate for my fanpage either since I don't want to offend someone who just might maybe someday fork out a buck or ten for a  T-shirt.

It was just TOO amusing (to me anyways...) to not do anything with the photo I had to rush home and grab my camera to get.


So into the blog that noone reads!

Perfect!

Ready? Drum Roll please. (da da da da da)


I bet the suspense is killing you!




Thursday, April 1, 2010

April Fools!

April Fools was never a very big deal for me growing up. The pranks the kids tried to pull at school were lame and the same ones year after year, the pranks I tried to pull were either equally lame or got me in trouble.

The most memorable prank was  a front page newspaper article in the local free paper that featured a well edited photo of an unidentified flying object over a farmer's field, complete with interviews. I was young enough and gullible enough to believe that if it was being reported, it MUST be true ;p.

17 years ago today April Fools suddenly became important, when our first daughter was born in the early morning hours. She waited an extra ELEVEN days to make her appearance, that's how determined she was to hold out for just the right moment. The first few phone calls were made from the hospital room where our announcements were met with "yeah right!". If it weren't for the sound of a newborn baby crying in the background  noone would have believed us.

Happy Birthday, my sweet April Fool! xox