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My inspiration nook

I only had one sure idea when we had the new studio built, and that was this back wall.

The four closet doors (two sets of two) slide all the way from one side of the room to the other. The amount of crap supplies those two closets house is amazing! I keep trying to whittle it down. Anyway, I also wanted the doors to serve as a design wall when quilting and that worked out pretty well, too.

 

(non-quilters: a design wall is covered in flannel so you can just toss your cotton quilt squares up on it when planning out the design of your quilt). I just put velcro on the sides of two outer doors (they're on the same track) and velcro on two ends of a piece of flannel and put it up when needed. Maybe it'd make more sense if I threw some quilt blocks up there...next time I'm using it I'll take a pic.

My really really favorite part of this back wall, the whole room, really; is my little homage to artsy craftsy people I have come across.

I at first wanted it to be like Monica's fantabulous 'ironing station' and clearly I fell way short. First of all, what was I thinking when I only made it three feet wide? Oh, I know. I was thinking I needed closets to hide crap supplies, so I guess even this 36" section is a sacrifice. I did buy a little 30" table top ironing board to squeeze in there I also set it up to be a little shipping station for etsy sales. Looks cute enough, but still; not big enough to be practical.

Really what it is is a showcase for some wonderful pieces I've bought from etsy sellers and received from friends.

And a couple things I made, too. I won't list all the awesome artists and crafters represented here, but if you have any questions just ask!

My mother's here this week and we're hanging out in the studio sewing (one can only shop so much!) so no more pictures for now. Have a great day!

15 years Meme

I cringe at that word. Meme. Mostly because I don't know how to pronounce it. Surely it's not 'me-me'. Maybe it's 'mehm'? Well, miss Lotta from Mom O Matic tagged me to "Think back on the last 15 years of your life. How would you summarize your life in just 10 bullet points." And miss Lotta's one of the popular girls, so I'll play along. ;-) (And I can't help it that they're not strict bullet points. I'm just a parenthetically speaking kinda gal!)

We begin at age 35. The list is pretty much chronological.

1. I lived for a year with a guy who had a PhD, a porsche in the driveway, a pool out back of the lovely home he bought for me and my girls and lots of money in the bank. I've never been so miserable in my life. Lesson learned; money doesn't buy happiness.

2. I was a Nursing Home Administrator.

3. I bought a home by myself before the age of 40. (I'm still in it today.)

4. I got fired from previously mentioned big$$ job after 4 years for no apparent reason. 

5. Six years later I wrote a thank you letter to the man who fired me. (EVERYTHING happens for a reason. He made the life I live today possible).

6. I married John to everyone's surprise at his 50th birthday party.

7. My artwork got published. Several times.

8. I quit smoking. For good.

9. I lost twenty pounds with the help of Weight Watchers. Then I gained 40 with no help at all.

10. I got a grandchild and learned how much love my heart can actually hold. Then I got two more. And we're still counting.  :-)

Now I'm supposed to tag five people and pass it on. I'll pick my old friend Barbara because as long as I've known her, I think I could learn a thing or two (or three!) there. Kathi D because as much as she shares (boundary issues!) I still think there's more. Sweet & silly Doe because I still feel I know nothing about her. (except that Blythe dolls are her new all-consuming crack). Sharon 'cause she probably needs an additional challenge while orchestrating a cupcake themed swap for 50 strangers. :-) And my old friend Sue, because I already know she is very interesting but I want the rest of you to find out, too.

Some artsy etsy lovin'

I want to share with you an awesome artisan I discovered this week. Her work is so sweet and whimsical, and it just amazes me that these pieces start out as a lump of paper clay. She is Gina Gabriell and you can find her work on etsy, as well as her webstore. (wow! Check out all the fabulous things she makes!) I bought Lolly and Blueberry to give to my two granddaughters next Christmas. They are music boxes, and a lot bigger than her lovely photos might make you think. So I took a little video today to show you (the half gallon of milk is for scale) how cool they really are.     to me. ;-)

Plus I wanted to see if I could upload a video without YouTube. I believe I just did!

It was 80's week up in here

I was sorting through a box of patterns from the early 80's...things I sewed for both my girls and their dolls, and came across a Bright's Creek children's clothing catalog, circa 1985.

Any of you gals in your late 20s/early 30s relate to this? Melissa thinks the littlest gal on the far right is an actress today. Look at the what the lucky boys got to wear

Do you think there's a chance in hell that the little guy on the left is not a gay man today? Yikes. I can't imagine how he'd make it past the front steps of school even then, let alone today.

I've kept my girls' 10 (yes; ten) cabbage patch dolls all these years because, well...what was I supposed to do with them? Kadence, our two year old granddaughter, recently spied them sitting way on top of a cabinet upstairs and said she wanted to put shoes on them. Which prompted me to dig out the ol' doll clothes chest, wash all the clothes, redress all the dolls, etc, etc. I found myself at Target buying them a bench and I reckon now we're starting all over again.

I was looking on the local craigslist earlier this week and saw a listing for "boxes of old fabric". A nine month pregnant gal who lives with her grandmother got a need to clear out their carport at the last minute. It was literally piled 8 feet high to the rafters and about 10 feet deep. Grandma had just been throwing boxes and bags out there since the early 70s. Everything from trash to treasures. I did get a heavy box of fabric, mostly lovely green, pink, and yellow taffeta/satins, plus all these little doo-dads.

That highchair is going to be great once I spray paint it and remake the cushions with some special vinyl I bought online. And I certainly have no room for that little rocking horse from the 50s/60s but I knew how cute little Madison would look in it.

I had all three kids for a bit this morning. How lucky am I? Kadence is the world's biggest mimic...we took 'our babies' for a walk and mine fell asleep on the way, so of course; Kadence's did, too.

Madison is seven months old today. We all went out to dinner tonight because tomorrow Caleb turns 7 years old. Incredible. Anyway, miss Madison was awfully happy to be pulled up to the table like a big girl. Baby time is just about over I think.

I've spent most of the past two days washing and ironing that old (mildewy smell) fabric I got. Left this little bolt of organza?/netting out and this is what I came home to from dinner tonight

I swear to God you could lay out a kleenex and they'd make it a nest.

Okay. I think you're about all caught up with our exciting lives now. :-) Til next time....

Always what you need when you need it

The universe really does provide that, and if you're paying attention you'll find answers every day. This morning while I was on the treadmill (John has The golf tournament on tv so I was left to think while walking) I was thinking how I ought to get back into papercrafting/mixed media/whatever you want to call it. I know I used to be pretty good at it...it's the only kind of stuff I've ever had published, but when I go there in my mind I can't think of what I would make. I stopped buying the idea books a while ago because while yes; they are full of great ideas and inspiration, I find myself either trying to measure up or fearing that what I make next may look like I'm copying someone. Wasn't I surprised when I got off the treadmill and went to the mailbox only to find a new Stampington publication waiting for me. It's call HandCrafted and is comprised of "250 of our favorite crafting projects." Good idea, Stampington! I thought, "Hmm. I didn't order this so maybe I'm one of the projects?" Sure enough, way toward the back, they showed this tin I'd made back in 2006.

The more I flipped the pages the more I wondered what they had used of mine. I have to say; I was kind of surprised it was this! Anyway, I think it was just the nudge I needed to get back into that mode of art and craft. I sure enjoyed it at the time.

Then I came in here to sit at the computer and check my google reader for new blog posts. Augusten Burroughs is probably my favorite writer. He's the only one who's books I will buy at the mall because Costco doesn't have it and before it goes paperback. LOVE him. A couple weeks ago I was reading his latest book, a memoir about growing up with his SOB father, and around page 70 I was like "what the heck? WHO is writing this?!" I got online and started a little google, you know; to see if it was just me or if others were confused by the darkness of the writing. (I did come to understand why it had to be the way it is. It was certainly a dark time he was writing about). One of the links I came across was to Augusten's blog. I can't tell you how happy that makes me now to see a new post from him pop up on my blog reader. It's like reading little Augusten stories on a routine basis. For Free!! Today i really wanted to post a comment and...you guessed it; he keeps his comment section closed. Frustrating!! How're you supposed to communicate with someone when it's just one-way? So, I get what those of you have emailed to tell me--turn the dang comments back on!

Some tips on using old wallpaper

After a good long year of selling packs of vintage wallpaper, I sold my very LAST pack this weekend. NOW I'm thinking I should a)start doing some crafting with what I have left and b)share a couple of tips that some of you paper crafters may not have thought about.

HeatNBond is very close to being my best friend in the studio--both on the paper side and the fabric side. It's a great stabilizer as well as an adhesive.

You just iron it on to the paper

then peel it off. See how the adhesive that transferred to the wallpaper is shiny? Now, as the name would indicate, you Heat it (i.e; iron it). On fabric it works stupendously. For some reason, I've tried more than once to iron it to wood, and results can be unpleasant.

This is a drawer front on the sideboard I recently fixed up. The airbubbles will come out, but it'll require poking with a pin and lots more ironing. Maybe a little steam and a couple curse words, too. I don't know why I keep trying to iron it onto things...When I did the door and armoire in our bedroom I glued the pieces that were backed with HeatNBond and they turned out great. (applied the glue to the wood)

My next tip is also about glue.

The wet looking wallpaper you see above was applied over a year ago. Yep. Pretty heartbreaking

when you see where it was going and I had no extra paper. SO, the tip is, when using glue DON'T TOUCH THE FRONT OF THE PAPER WITH IT! I believe I used Yes! Paste on it...This cabinet was done before I thought to use the iron on stabilizer. It might've helped. Being more careful might've helped, too.

On a smaller scale, here's how I most often stick the old wallpaper to the receiving foundation.

A good ol' xyron. I have these in three sizes and swear by them. You send your cardstock, tag, whatever through the one side and they come out the other side like a sticker.

Then lay the sticky tag on the back of the brittle old wallpaper and voila!

No tearing or wet look or any other issues. If you were to send the wallpaper through the xyron, it would just tear the paper...you wouldn't get a clean separation of the adhesive. Some of these old paper are SO DELICATE...they can crumble just by looking at them. But if you'll carefully iron your piece flat and then stabilize it in one of the ways shown above you'll be good to go.

If you have any tips that I've missed I'd love it if you shared here. Thanks!

OH, and if you're still not done buying vintage wallpaper and you're not already aware of her, Donna has some super groovy awesome packs in her etsy shop. She also makes beautiful and inspiring things with them (concept!) that can be seen on her blog. Hah! This is funny. I go over there to get the link for her blog and she just today wrote about glue and old wallpaper too. eerie!

"LOOK INTO MY EYES....YOU WILL GO IN THE KITCHEN AND OPEN CANS OF TUNA FOR ME!"

Aren't pets funny? Clearly, by the way she's staring at me, I'M the one who's funny!

When I moved into this house (14 years ago) this staircase was just brown wood. Blech. Wasn't sure what to do with it til I saw a classic black and white film and loved the way the staircase looked. I use oil based black paint which takes a couple days to dry but really stands up to the traffic longer.

I do like this new *happy wall*. All my favorite photos, depicting joyous times and relationships. I may be the last to know this, but you can now email your photos to Costco (or Walgreens', or other places probably) and within less than an hour they email you back that the prints are ready to be picked up! How easy is that! I got the bulk of these enlargements for around $11 at Costco. The wall paint in the stairwell is a very light beige, but it looks kind of rosy because of the new paint in the alcove at the top of the stairs bouncing off the wall. Remember how I used to have all my sewing stuff crammed in there? Now it looks like this

Aaahhhh. Serenity NOW! lol. I do love this bed. I bought it last year with no purpose in mind. Just had to have it.

I also bought that bedcover with no purpose in mind. As the lady at the flea market sold it to me for $30 she said, "Don't bother trying to sell it on ebay... I already did with no luck." Probably because pictures don't do it justice. Look at the detail--

All those tight little french knots for her hair. And it's light as a tissue..very delicate. Wouldn't want to have it on an every day bed. Here's a decorating idea that is easy to do but makes a nice difference. I buy a regular dust ruffle, then add my own homemade one as a second layer.

I just gather a length of my own fabric that is double the length of the bed. And Suzy's tip for gathering probably saved me over an hour. THANKS Suzy!! I sew it down to whatever fabric I have around (this was a bedspread with a stain on it) and I only do the one side since only one side will show.

The two quilts I have on the bed were both made by me in the mid 80s. Not much exciting about their appearance, but they're special to me because my grandmother's quilting ladies from her church handquilted them both right before she passed.

When I was a punk 12 year old, wandering the streets and probably looking for trouble with my equally misbehaving cousin one Saturday, I happened upon this table at a yard sale

 

Probably because I couldn't figure out how to steal it, I gave them the only two dollars I had and carted it home. I don't know what blows my mind more--that I, considering who I was at the time, bought it, or that I've managed to hang on to it all these years that involved a couple dozen moves. I do love it. That wallpaper I recently put on it is even more a favorite than the one I put on the dining set, but I have a lot less of it.

Well, You're just about caught up with the sprucing up of the house. I think I'm getting very close to showing the new studio.   take care.

So the whole idea of letting go of one's ego is really mind-blowing when you can hear it in a way that makes sense. I know it's (the Ego) Eckhart Tolle's main premise, but something about the way Wayne Dyer presents it just really makes me say "AHA!". I get it. John and I just may never argue again! lol. Last Thursday on my way out the door to the last quilt guild meeting of the year I decided to *humble myself* and grabbed this quilt for show and tell. I never ever thought I'd show anyone in real life, but in my new frame of mind I thought it'd be a good exercise. So I stood at the end of the line, getting more and more nervous as I approached the microphone. And when it was finally my turn I started, "I've been a member of this guild for two years and have never once stood up here. I most certainly did not think I would be standing here to show you this particular quilt..." Well, already I got a round of applause :-). I went on to tell them how badly I'd mucked it up with the machine quilting I did, but due to my recently enlightened state I wanted to share what I do like about it...specifically the label and the handcut circles border, but mostly how delighted my six month old granddaughter is to lay on it and try with all her might to pick off those dots when she comes to visit. And really, isn't that all that matters? I got pats on the back and "Way to Go!"s all the way back to my seat, and I think I felt better about showing my imperfectness than I ever had about showing my (lucky) *perfect* endeavors. The more I think about how empowering it would be for everyone to lay down their ego and be real...like I said; it just blows my mind.

I'm getting closer and closer to whipping this house into shape so I can then go out in the studio and have some fun. Let me tell you; it feels good! I'm trying to only keep what is of sentimental or other important value. The rest of it is being taken by the truckload to the nearby thrift shops. Here's a shot of the front room that amazingly housed all the paper crafting crapola until we built the studio.

That black desk has been mine since childhood (before bringing it into the front room/new office I spray painted it black and glued scrapbook paper to the drawer fronts). The cabinet in the center was the first piece my parents bought and refinished 50+ years ago. I keep photo albums in it. The black framed piece on top is the first thing I had published. The white chair and black rocker are two of maybe four things John got in his first divorce 25 years ago. And of course on the windows are the remaining four panels from Grandma (LOVE them).  Here's another view of the room, illustrating how it's at the foot of the stairs.

And speaking of the stairs. THAT was a job! Two coats of oil based paint and our bedrooms are upstairs. Yeah. Can you say "campout"? I'll be back with more to share soon. Take care.

PS: I do appreciate the emails since my last post. There were certainly other viewpoints regarding closed comments. Some that I hadn't considered. I'm just rollin' with it for now. thanks. :-)

Issues...

Issues. That's a funny word, but one we use all the time...as in "Man...you've got issues!"  Well, who doesn't? I wanted to share a most phenomenal discovery I made yesterday. I may be the last to know but humor me and listen. Anyone who knows John and I knows that the major threads weaving the cloth of our 14 years together have been therapy and self improvement books. One of our first dates was a marathon three hour tour session with the wife John was attempting to leave and Eureka's notorious Lewis Quinby.  Uh...yeah. You'd have paid to be a fly on that wall. Who needs reality tv? Lewis' 'bible" is Born To Win. John took it to heart, as told by Lewis since John didn't actually read it himself for several years, and casually called people 'loser's as he saw fit. Now, I knew what he meant, but most people kinda took offense to it. John did finally read it cover to cover on our vacation in Hawaii seven years ago, while I read What Do You Say After You Say Hello? by Eric Berne. AWESOME book, by the way. That was thee best vacation we ever had together...we both kept going PING! ZOWEE! DOH! having all these little epiphanies that the books brought up for us. Flash forward a few years and we discover The Secret. John, God love him, was seriously thinking of quitting his day job and setting out into the world to preach The Secret. I've never seen anyone buy in so wholly. I'd walk through the living room and see his two best friends sitting there on his lap; Box of Cheese-Its and Jar of peanut butter, and ask; "I thought you were wanting to lose weight?" and he'd reply, straight faced, "I am! I'm thinking about it right now! Can't you tell?" Not long after that we found Eckhart Tolle and The New World. Kind of a dry read, like BTW, but I quickly followed it with Eckhart's The Power of Now on audiotape (an even drier listen). Which John quickly loaded onto his iPod and set about listening to it over and over til he just about has it memorized. And can regurgitate passages at any given time. Unfortunately, the catch phrase John has gleaned from Eckhart is 'insane' and he never stops and thinks how others might take it when he tells them that their actions are utterly "inSANE!!" A while ago John asked if I'd mind him ordering some new vanity plates for my Explorer. Well, of course I don't care. As long as you keep payin for the gas and it gets me where I need to go, do what you need to do! This is what ended up on the back of my vehicle;

And when people invariably ask "What does that mean?" I say "It means I love my husband very much." (He once heard me say that and was utterly crushed. "You just don't get it!") I'll admit I was cranky about it when I first saw it, because I'm of the school; If The Good Spellngs Are Taken Then Find Another Idea. John's is even worse--something like WIE RR 1. Anyway, it's meant to say We Are One and it IS a very sweet message and I DO love John very much for wanting to put messages like that out in to the world and for putting up with my sarcastic self. Moving on to yesterday's phenomenal discovery (assuming you're still with me)...

Dr Wayne Dyer's audiobook The Power of Intention. I listened to it all day yesterday while painting this pain in the butt black and white staircase and man alive, he just ties it all together in such a sane and peaceful voice. I think now I know how John has felt when he made his discoveries as poked fun of above. Dr Dyer covers how to be a winner in life, the effects of visualization, the importance of being kind and forgiving. How our ridiculous Ego just screws so many things up. It's really huge. For me anyway. Do yourself a favor if you haven't already and start listening to Dr Dyer. The world can become such a better place if more of us change our ways of thinking and being.

Between listening to Dr Dyer talk about the Ego and having just found my favorite author's blog the day before and noticed that he had comments turned off, it struck me that that might be a good thing for me to do. My Ego always checks to see if someone left comments, feels hurt if so and so didn't, ridiculous inconsequential stuff that I know many of you go through as well or I wouldn't be writing it...I want to change yet I want to keep writing on this blog so I'm giving it a try and turning comments off.

Have a great day.