DustyOak Ornaments is 5

I'm celebrating my 5th year at DustyOak Ornaments!

It's been a wonderful adventure so far and I'm so blessed

by all the friendships I've formed and delightful customers

I've had the honor to serve.

Thank YOU!

Please help me celebrate! Visit my Anniversary Page

to get all the details on how you can be the owner of the

ornament of YOUR choice!

My ride with the Northwest Arkansas Miata Club

During the Labor Day weekend, my hubby and I drove to AR to help my Dad celebrate his birthday and to participate in a Miata Club scavenger hunt and ride.

The scavenger hunt was a fast food run. Each clue had three parts; the first part gave the hint to which fast food restaurant. The second part gave hints as to the specific one. (Couldn’t go to just any McDonalds) Then the third part gave the clue for what to buy. Every item was under a dollar. Dad and I had a good time but without an iPhone in an unfamiliar city… we didn’t stand a chance. LOL











On the way home, Dad drove me down the mountain from Fayetteville on hwy 71. Can’t say how fast we were going, but weeeeeeeeeee!!! It was exhilarating!

The members of the club are wonderful, charming folks and I thoroughly enjoyed my day with them.

I created this custom ornament for him for his birthday gift and also made it available to the club members.

ZOOM-ZOOM

Celebratin' da' Who Dat Nation

The New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl was more than just another ball game. With the city, the whole state and even the entire country behind them… this game represented faith and the human spirit to survive against all odds.

Using my facebook page, I started giving hints to my friends of what I was up to. “Look what I found and guess what I’m going to do with it.” They know me pretty well… or they are really good guessers. LOL Because mostly the comments were, “ I want one!!”


I wanted to do something fun for my family and friends and at the same time raise a little money to help my state.

Handmade Quilted Ornaments - Saints fans special!

These ornaments were available only to my family and friends and the profits were donated to the Convoy of Hope. I have worked with the COH in the past and know first-hand the wonderful work they do. You can learn more about them here: Convoy Of Hope

Two very old trees - gone.

It’s one of those sad days...
We had to take down two very old trees. The 75 year old pine was struck by lightning several years ago and the damage was taking its toll. Taking down these trees sure turned into an emotional experience. Yeah, I know that sounds weird, but I love living in the woods and having those big old trees all around me.


The red oak was also in its 70's and growing on the east side of my porch. Please don't worry, this isn't my DustyOak. Yet, I would sit in the shade of that tree every morning and drink my tea. Now, no shade '-( I will miss that tree for a long time. We had the arborist cut it into firewood lengths so we can split it for our wood burning stove. -Pretty sure we will have enough wood for several friends. LOL

The main stump is beautiful, so after it dries out a bit we are going to cut into a couple of tables. I’ll post pictures when I have them finished

Convoy of Hope in Haiti

A word about Haiti and Convoy of Hope

Just as you, my heart is broken at the horror and pain that the people of Haiti are suffering following the devastating earthquake on January 12th. I want to jump on a plane and rush down there to help in any way possible. But I cannot. However, I can help in other ways.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the shores of Louisiana, I had the opportunity to work with the Convoy of Hope to help feed and meet the needs of people, who had also lost everything, in St. Tammany parish. Never have I been so impressed with an organization! They are on the ground, face to face, feeding the hungry and homeless and meeting their needs. I grieved when it was time for me to return to my air conditioned home, hot showers and pantry of food.

The Convoy of Hope was already in Haiti and had just restocked all their supplies, two weeks before the earthquake hit. God had prepared them to be ready in an instant! I can’t go to Haiti, but I can give my time and money in other ways; for the entire month of February, I will be donating 75% of my profits to the Convoy of Hope. Any in stock ornament purchased from my website as well as brand new ornaments are included in this pledge.

Together we can go the extra mile for those in Haiti who desperately need our help.

Mocha on Ice

I dreamed and wished for a white Christmas, but no snow. Instead, we have had temps in the teens for several days, almost breaking (but not quite) a hundred year record low.

This past week is only the third time I have seen our pond frozen solid. Unfortunately, Louisiana folks don’t keep ice skates in their garage. Wouldn’t that have been fun!

I tossed a stick onto the ice just to see what our chocolate lab would do….. yeah, I sorta have a mean streak in me. LOL He couldn’t get his footing on the ice, but kept trying until I called him off. In this pic he is standing on the ice trying to decide how to reach that stick. I really wish I had a video camera, poor baby. Actually, it was pretty hysterical.

"Name the Ornament" contest

Second Annual “Name the Ornament” Contest

Suggest the winning name for this ornament and...

It's YOURS ~ FREE!

Final day to submit your entry is

Friday, November 27, 2009.

The winner will be announced on

Tuesday, December 1, 2009.

This ornament will also be available for sale on

December 1st.

VBS - WHO U

Our VBS theme this year was Whoville University or “WHO U” - Life lessons from Dr. Seuss. Our children’s minister, Pastor Lori put most of the life lessons and Bible verses together with each of the Dr. Seuss books and it was FANTASTIC! She did a wonderful job.

Cindi Lou Who


We built the girls and boys dorms and main university building out of Styrofoam and painted them to look “who-ish” for the stage, coned several of our older girls to be the WHO U cheerleaders, and had the workers wear “who hair”. The leaders of each age group of children wore graduation caps and were called professors for the week and we sold t-shirts for all the “students”.

Boy's and Girl's Dorms


Who U Cheerleaders


Who hair



Each day the entire theme was incorporated into all the activities; music, snacks, art, memory verse and games. I volunteered to organize and run the art room. For example; we talked about resisting the devil using the story Green Eggs and Ham, the snack was green cookies that looked like eggs. The art project was experimenting with wax resist and water color. On the lesson about allowing God to use you, we taught about being molded and shaped by God. On that day the kids all got to make their own salt dough and "mold it into something new". We also talked about being adopted into the family of God using the "Horton Hatches an Egg" story. For art we gave each of the children a bit of the three primary colors, taught them the color wheel and let them mix the colors to paint their dough creations. "Blending into God's family makes us something new and beautiful." The kids loved it.

Learning the cheer for the day




Another art activity we did was to place a large canvas in the room. Each day we set out a different color of paint and let the kids take turns making a mark on the canvas. By the end of the week we had a beautiful piece of contemporary art for the Children’s pastors’ office.

Painting days 1 and 2


An original masterpiece!


It was a super fun and very successful VBS! A huge thank you to all the mom’s and teen helpers…. It would have never happened without you.

Who U graduation

Cookie Cake

Saturday was our baby’s 18th birthday party and we had a crawfish boil out at Cypress Black Bayou. We decided on Tuesday that that’s what we were going to do, so I spent most of the week making all the arrangements. Several of our church family and friends were tent camping at the lake and were already there, so it was a perfect plan.

Friday was crazy as I was shopping for all the food and party supplies and I also baked her a cookie cake for the event. I was so proud of my cookie cake. I am not a cake decorator, but I have lots of fun playing with frosting. I made a little crawfish out of frosting on the cake and also decorated it with pink and yellow flowers. It turned out sooooo cute!

We got up early on Saturday morning to save our favorite spot, unloaded most of the party supplies and the cooking pots and covered the picnic tables with plastic and then drove over to Shreveport to pick up the live crawfish. When we got back we put the crawfish out and the rest of the food, then we left our tables and drove over to the tent campsites to get big sister so she could help us. We were gone for about 15 minutes.

When we returned, this is what the cake looked like……. Wanna take a guess as to who the culprits were!







HINT: They flew up into the trees and sat there taunting and crowing about it for about an hour before they got tired of bragging and left to torment someone else…… YES! A pair of crows!!! -Pecked that poor cake to bits….. Oh, and just for the record, the kids cut off the bad parts and ate it anyway…. Yuck!

A few more pictures of the crawfish boil:

Playin' with their supper -

Holocaust Survivor tells her story

Last night, Mrs. Rose Van Thyn, Holocaust survivor, visited our church and shared with us her life story. Beginning with the day she was born, she told us of her wonderful and carefree life as a young girl in Holland before World War II. Giving us the dates and days of the week, she detailed the stories of losing her family members in the Nazi death camps. With grace and humor she brought tears and also laughter as she unfolded the traumatic events and how God’s loving hand brought her through it all and finally to Shreveport, LA.

She is an amazing and incredible woman and testimony to the truth of the horrors. It did happen and we should be sure it never happens again. Friday, May 2nd is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Six million Jews were murdered during the time of the Holocaust. Take a few moments to remember those who suffered, the families that were completely destroyed, and those who survived.

Famous for one minute each day

A couple of years ago, my youngest daughter and I, and half of the youth in our church, flew to Denver, Colorado for a National Fine Arts Festival. Our sign language group earned a “superior with honors”. All of the kids did really well and we were so proud of them, but that is another story.

One night, a couple of the girls posed for this picture on the address monument of a local building….. Remember the lyrics, “I wear my sunglasses at night”? Anyway, the picture turned out so cute and it fit right in with the 4:10 am time slot on the Human Clock, so we sent it in. You have to be up at 4 in the morning to see it. LOL But, they are famous for one minute everyday – how cool is that!

A Lasting Memorial

This is a picture of a collage shadowbox that my mom made and surprised me with for Christmas.

In fact, she made nine of them….

The picture in the center is of my grandmother who recently passed from this Earth into Glory. She was 98 years old. (I think she is 16 in the picture.) My mom collected pieces of her favorite jewelry, crocheted doilies made by her, all of her gloves and other little what-not’s, from her home, to create these beautiful memorials.

She made one for each of the grandchildren and each one is different. What a unique treasure!

Thank you mom! I love it and will keep it always.

I'm going to be in a movie!

Several weeks ago a friend, “conned” me into working as an extra in the movie “Comeback”, staring Ice Cube.

I don't know who took this picture, a friend sent it to me...... yes, the same one who got me involved in the first place....Yep, Cindy, I'm talkin' about you..... Just for the record. She got me to go, and then she didn't! Anyway, it was taken during down time between scenes. I am on the third row from the bottom, next to the fence, pink shirt, blond hair.

The film is based on a true story about a young girl from Illinois, who is a quarterback on a football team. Ice Cube, plays the part of her uncle and coach. It was a really interesting experience, watching how a single scene is filmed from a dozen different angles. The weather was perfect and I even got a little bit of a tan.

I was an extra as a football fan for the game. It took two days to film the game and I only remember seeing five downs, just filmed from lots of angles. We were all given props; pom-poms, coke cups, popcorn and such and then we jumped up and down like crazy on cue… It was really funny, because we weren’t allowed to make any noise…. Just pretend to be yelling. The scenes had dialog from the actors, so we had to be quiet. They are going to add the yelling in later. Crazy!

The set was fascinating. The Pop Warner game is set in Miami, Florida so, they brought in palm trees and planted them around the stadium and built up the beds with pineapple plants and sand. It really did look like we were in Miami.

I didn’t like the long days, though. I had to get up at 4:30am to drive to Shreveport and we weren’t finished until 6:30pm…. It took me almost a week to catch up with my sleep… But the food was GREAT! We were served buffet style and had snacks and drinks offered to us all through the day. I was very impressed with how organized everything was…… Also, a shout out to my two new friends – June and Sheila. They were tons of fun and I really enjoyed getting to know them. You’ll see us sitting together in the stands.

The movie is set to be released on July 25th, so watch for me in the stands during the "Big Game". I'll be wearing a pink shirt.

Snow on Friday

We almost NEVER get snow in Louisiana.

But last Friday, we certainly did... we had a blizzard! (Louisiana style) The snow came down in billions of thick, fat, flakes, sticking to the ground and trees, turning the landscape into a wonderland.

The kids ran out and made quick work of snowmen, snow angels and of course snowballs. LOL

It was simply beautiful, but very brief. By nightfall, it had all melted away, leaving behind only the memory and soggy mud.

This picture is of the drive that leads down to our house.