Sewing Challenged

I did it! I finished my pages for the upcoming book swap themed "Sewing". Not such a big deal, right? Considering that sewing is one of those things I just never quite mastered, it is a huge deal. Well, at least it is to me. I sent the pages off on the 18th and will get the return group sometime after the 1st of April. Here's my page-




I actually enjoyed the process and did very little sewing. The background is a patterned yellow cotton that I overstamped with a flourish design with Black Staz On ink. I made a little template for the pattern piece on the left, used a collage sheet for the pattern envelope and stuck some ruled quilting tape on the bottom. Is that tape the coolest thing? I was going to buy enough tape measures to do all 20 cards, but was very stoked when I found this roll of adhesive. I actually DID sew a bit when I attached the vintage buttons (from my Grandma's button jar) and the little silver charm. Each page had a different sewing-related charm and each page was slightly different. I decided I wanted to do some fabric painting, so I bought some muslin and painted up a large batch of it to use on the back of the pages. I used thinned down acrylic paint as the first layer. Then added stampings of a double ring and a spiral in 2 other shades of yellow. The last touch was random dots of white applied with the wooden end of my paintbrush. I don't think the picture really shows all the detail, but the process was fun and I will try more of the muslin painting in the next few days. I used the fusible web to put the 2 sides together and they were done. I need to add to this that I fully intended to use my sewing machine to add a little bit of stitching, but life being life and all, my machine needs a tune up and just would not work well enough to do what I needed to do. So...or is it SEW, it's now in the shop awaiting a proper tune up. I guess I can't be too upset, as this machine was purchased in 1976 and I have never had to do a thing to it. It is a very basic model and weighs approximately 342 lbs., but it would take alot to destroy it, so I will appreciate it for the fine piece of machinery it is. When I get it back.

Paying It Forward

I was perusing some of my favorite blogs the other day and wandered across this wonderfully fun idea. This is the scoop- If you are one of the first three people to leave a comment on this post, sometime in the next few months you will receive, via snail mail, something cool that I handmade JUST FOR YOU! There is no obligation, no worries. The only request is that you include this logo on your own blog and do the same for three people. And on and on it goes. Sound like fun? Then leave your comment below and start watching the mail! Be sure to leave your email addy so that I can contact you for mailing information.

In Order To Create, One Must First SHOP!!!!

I had a wonderful day last Friday when my sweet Daughter-In-Law and I took a morning and hit area yard sales. As I have mentioned before, this is pretty new to me and I have to be in the right mood, but this activity was initiated by Steph, who decided we should do it once a month from here on since it was such fun. Here is a look at the day's purchases:

Can you just picture the fun I will have altering this cool house? I found this at a yard sale with many other cool things. The sale was at the home of a local artist, whom I had never met, named Hilary Gonzales. Turns out Miss Hilary teaches classes in our area in Altered Art! I have lamented so many times at the lack of artsy types where I live. While I am quite sure they exist, I have met so few. I hit it off with this particular artist and I am sure I will see her in one of her future classes. She admitted that this house was one of those "gotta have it" items that just she just never got to. I feel I must do it justice...one of these days.

This same stop produced these little bags of goodness. They were a mere 50 cents each and have bunches of "junque" that will work so well in my altered art. The headers say "Art To Share". What a great idea for all that little stuff you have at a garage sale. I'm not sure this would appeal to just anyone, but not everyone recognizes treasure when they see it-don't you agree? It also started a thought process within me about how many hundreds (thousands) of little bags I could fill with treasure if I ever have that elusive garage sale.

Another stop on our journey led to this little gem. A few months back I took a class at Frenzy Stamper given by a super-fun chick named Rosie. She brings an industrial Badge/Button maker and you spend a couple of hours making mini-collages and whatever you are inclined to make with the end result being a nice pile of fun, fun, fun button pins. I know I wasn't the only one who left that class sincerely coveting the machine to make buttons. But they run a few hundred dollars, so I decided I could just attend Rosie's classes. This is the where you find out just how CHEAP I can be, as I ran onto this little Badge maker marked at $5.00 and almost didn't buy it! It is not on par with the big, industrial machines, but the gal who sold it swears that she used it in her business for years and that it works just swell. I haven't tried it yet, but the box had everything-including all the directions and purchase orders from the company that makes the parts. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out, but for a five spot I think I made the right corporate decision.

Steph found several frames, old and new, which she intends to use in her home decor projects, If I can twist her arm, I'll show you what she comes up with. She has developed a new passion for refinishing (altering???) and I am so looking forward to seeing what she does. She is an artist in the making and she will be awesome once she lets go and gets it going. After our outdoor adventures, I turned her on to a wonderful antique store in none other than Camp Verde, AZ.. Sweet Peas Antiques is one of those places I had passed by a hundred times and never stopped. Once I did I was completely hooked and I have found some cool things here. Some of the lovelies I found for my Valentine's Day swap came from this venue. It's one of those places where various vendors rent space and all the spaces create a HUGE store. There is also a space set up with stamping and scrapbooking items, which makes it a double whammy. This trip's haul started with these 2 magazines from 1931-

Woman's World & The American Home. The ads are to-die-for in both magazines. I originally intended to buy just the Woman's World and then I saw this beautiful ad on the back of the Home mag-

Though I would much prefer it be an ad for lipstick or face powder, its beauty cannot be denied. And after all, this was from an era when a woman only showed more sophistication and worldliness if she had a cigarette delicately perched between her fingers. Fortunately times have changed, eh girls?

One more delightful find from Sweet Pea-this delicate baby bib from France. It is 2 layers with the first being a soft blue cotton and the overlay a cream tulle-type lace with white embroidery. As much as I appreciate the bib, the tag was the extra bonus. Can you believe that when I was going through the checkout process, the cashier came thisclose to cutting the gorgeous tag off? I nearly shrieked...but I caught her just in time! HA! I'm not sure what I will do with this, as I could never imagine it actually being worn by a baby. Maybe babies don't spit up in France?!? I do think it might look great on just the right vintage teddy bear. Hmmmm....a project for a future Grandchild perhaps? Sorry, kids!

I agree with Steph and think we should do this once a month. Not only did we score some major finds, but I always have fun when I get to spend time with her. We laughed, shopped and ate. What more could a girl want?

Weeeee're OFF To See the Wizard.....

...and all I can say is WOW!!! I am posting pictures from the book swap I just participated in with the theme "The Wizard Of Oz". This group is by invitation only and is run by a couple of extremely wonderful and talented ladies Jane and Penney. The book was greatly anticipated by those of us involved in it and it did not disappoint. I can truly say that there was not one page in this book that wasn't just exceptional. I have looked at it many, many times over the past week and I am just tickled every time I do. Here are some of the pages:

This is the front cover, by Penney. One of her

elementary students drew the characters and

Penney made the transparency from her

drawing.



The cool execution of this page by April is

one of the greatest things about these swaps.

Her character was Dorothy.

If you look closely at these two pictures, you will see that they are different only slightly-when you turn the wheel hidden behind the horse, he changes colors. Hence, "A horse of a different color" How creative!!! This page was done by Sherry.

Is there a girl out there who didn't dream of wearing the costume of Glinda, the Good Witch? I still get shivers when I see her in all her glittery glory. I think Miss Stephanie Wright did an amazing job of showing her off.

"Follow the Yellow Brick Road" by Marissa. All in one dimension, she managed to make it look as though you could actually get on the road and head to Oz.

Jane, one of the group leaders, did this adorable page using a photograph of her sweet Granddaughter in her ruby slippers. Clever!

I love anything Dawn does and she succeeded again with her "Lollipop Guild" page. These are the pages she worked on the day I crafted at her home. Worth the wait, no?

I actually did 2 pages this time around. My first is "Wicked Witch of the West". It fits me, what can I say? She holds a "To Do" list which reads: TO DO: Buy Monkey Chow, Order Foundation-L'Ancome Gully Green, Get Broom Tuned Up, Get that Kid and her Dog!

Our group requires that you do something with the back of the page-no glaring white pages here. This is the back of the Witch page, just to give you an idea of what you can do.

My second page was "Somewhere over the rainbow". I did a foldover page that went from a bleak-looking sepia page to a brightly colored rainbow to Oz. It's hard to photograph, but you get the idea.

And the back of the page. This fabric looked enough like Poppies, in my mind, to pass for them on the back of my page.This last page was done by a very talented lady in our group whose name I cannot find. If by chance you see this, please let me know and I will give you due credit.

What a book! I am on to my next project-a swap book with the theme of "Sewing". I am so NOT a seamstress, so wish me luck!

The Middle Child

I have written on this blog about the Birthdays of my oldest son Jeremy and most recently, my youngest son Robert. I must have been having great times around May and June every year in the 80s, as all of my boys were born within a 5 week period. While we were in Vegas celebrating Robert's 21st, my middle son Ryan was gearing up for turning 26 just 2 days later. The title of this post is 'The Middle Child' because I was thinking about one time when he was 7 or 8 years old and he was getting into a little trouble-can you imagine that? After a couple of particularly trying days with him, I sat him down to have "the talk" with him. After going through the list of things he had been doing, I asked him if there was something going on that was upsetting him and causing these problems. He thought about it for a minute and then looked at me very seriously and said "Maybe it's 'cause I'm the middle child". Believe me, this was a sign of things to come. He has always been so precocious and nothing ever got past this kid. He started keeping all of us in line the day he uttered his first words. As I mentioned in my earlier post, he attained his degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering and minored in Business in only 5 years. He is amazing and I am so proud of him. He is a very non-stereotypical engineer in that he is always the life of the party and brings fun with him wherever he goes. He is living in Dallas/Ft. Worth and I miss him every day of my life. Happy Birthday, my Sweet Son. You are more than I ever hoped for and who you are is absolute perfection.

Ryan with my Grandcat, Nikha.

Good Art, Good Friends....

So it is that I have had so little time to post of late, that I am feeling particularly loquacious (Or whatever the word is for wanting to do lots o' typing) today. I want to tell a little about my adventures in Artland. I belonged to a group that met once monthly to exchange ATCs (artist trading cards) up until December, when life decided I needed to do some other things. I am currently getting my need to create fulfilled by participating in a few swaps through an online group. It is my true belief that the reason I joined the ATC group to start with was that I was introduced Dawn, who has become a great friend and a wonderful source of artsy inspiration for me. She and I have done a couple of lunches when I was in Phoenix, but she invited me to her home for a whole day of crafting fun a couple of weeks ago. We are both participating in a chunky book swap with the theme "The Wizard of Oz". How fun is that? I chose to do 2 pages, which adds up to 40 since you do 20 of each page. My pages were 'The Wicked Witch of the West' and 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'. Dawn had 'The Lollipop Guild'. We decided that, since we had only a few days to finish and we were both a bit behind, our pages would be our project of the day and we spent the largest part of the day working on our pages and bouncing ideas off each other. I had kind of hit the wall in regards to inspiration with it all, and Dawn was a great help in seeing things from a different perspective. Part of the fun of doing this whole thing was that I got to see Dawn's lovely home. It is decorated to perfection, as I knew it would be, and you can see all of Dawn's artistic ability and flair throughout. Dawn prepared a lovely salad for our lunch. It was so pretty I needed to take a picture. It had all the best components-aesthetics, nutrition and yumminess!!! I also met her doggie, Pumpkin, who is every bit as sweet as she is cute. And the coup de gras was meeting her Hubby, whom I have heard about for months. I always love to hear someone speak in loving words about their spouse, and Dawn really loves her guy. As it turns out, he is really such a nice man and I am happy that I finally got the chance to meet him. Our next feat will be getting all of us together as couples to have dinner. We are all limited by schedules, but I think we will get it together one of these days. Here is a peek at my pages in progress. I have some of Dawn's as well, but don't want to spill the beans for her until the books are in the hands of the recipients.

The pages on the right are the Rainbow, but these are the back sides, which we are required to decorate at least a little so that the page is not stark white. When I receive the book all together, I will post some photos of my pages as they ended up. As with most projects of this magnitude, I was still adding to them an hour before I put them in the mail. It seems we are never completely satisfied with our own work, but I was very happy to get them on their trip to Phoenix. Cannot wait to see the finished product.

To be 21 again!

Well, I am finally posting again after 13 days! I get so impatient waiting for others to post when I am following their blogs, so I guess I'm lucky that I have so few followers. HAAA! That's for you, Ryan! Lots going on since my last post. This past weekend was the 21st birthday of my youngest son, Robert. He decided several months ago that this auspicious occasion would be marked by road-tripping with some of his friends to Las Vegas. Is this not the dream of every person leading up to that important birthday? Well, he actually DID it! I have to say that I was quite impressed at his ability to save money for the past few months in anticipation of his trip. He received mostly money for birthday gifts, but saved enough to cover the entire venture. He went with 4 of his friends from the University and had the extra special bonus of his BF from elementary school, Josh Bruner, flying in from his new home in Arkansas to join the festivities. While we were happy and excited for him getting the opportunity to live the "turning 21 dream", we also felt a bit blue at missing out on such a special day. Never let it be said that we don't make our presence known to our kids, possibly to their dismay at times. We told Robert that we wanted to pay for a dinner on his actual birthday and made reservations at a restaurant of his choosing (Planet Hollywood). What he didn't know was that his brother Ryan flew in from Dallas, his step-dad Mike flew in from Albuquerque and his brother Jeremy and sister-in-law Stephanie drove in with me from the Wood. It was enough to make me jump out of my skin as we waited for his arrival at the restaurant on the big night. When he and his friends were being seated, we all rushed in to surprise him. He was totally blown away and we could watch as it dawned on him that we were ALL there. He is such a sweet young man and went out of his way to tell us over and over that this little surprise made his birthday. As the mom of this group, I was so touched and humbled at the way my kids were so willing and excited to do what had to be done to make their brother's birthday so memorable. To say we had fun together would be to sell it very short of the reality-we had a ball! My middle son, Ryan (he hates it when I add "the aerospace/mechanical engineer") became fast friends with all of Rob's posse. As he puts it , he "is the party" anywhere he goes. While Robert was actually in Vegas for 3 nights, the trip was a quick one for the rest of our family, with all of us leaving Vegas the next afternoon. My camera did its normal act and I don't have photos yet. My sweet Daughter-In-Law took bunches and I will post them as soon as I get them.