This and That

My husband gets top billing in today's blog post:  He resolved to make better use of his basement workshop, and he has kept to it.  First he customized shoe storage for our back door, then he created wooden jewelry boxes for the girls.  Most recently, he built a fence for outside to hide our trash can and recycle bin at the back of the house!

 It's kind of nice to know that there's a handyman around the house!

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The Mom-Hosted Holiday Bazaar took place on Friday night, organized by my friend Melissa, and including eleven vendors at Ashbridge Manor.

In terms of income, it was fairly similar to last-year's bazaar.  And better than the fiasco of the firehouse flea market!

While I did not sell a lot of any one thing, I did sell a lot of different things:  a stitched collage, some Layered 'n Stitched cards, a binder ring notebook, a set of matchbook notebooks, an airmail envelope notebook, a set of embellished binder clips, some sets of decorative greeting cards, a set of gift tags.  One of just about everything sold, but no popular favorites, which I found interesting. 

I'm still thinking that craft shows may not be the best venue for my things.

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My girls are into Knock-Knock Jokes.  (Yes, Heaven help me, I know.)  If you know any good ones for the three- and four- year set, let me know.  So far, our favorite is:

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Impatient cow.

Impatient cow who? 

(But while they are in the middle of saying

"impatient cow who?" you have to "moo" really loudly.) 

 

Get it?  Huh?  Huh?  :-)

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We went to the library yesterday to look for Knock-Knock Joke books, and I happened across the strangest book in the grown-up section.  It's called Forgotten Bookmarks:  A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages, by Michael Popek. 

It is exactly as its title suggests:  reproductions of all the different kinds of things Popek has run across between the pages of the books he has handled as a bookseller. 

There is a chapter for photographs; letters, cards, and correspondence; notes, poems, lists, and other written ephemera; receipts, invoices, advertising, and other official documents; and objects, like razor blades (!) and four-leaf clovers. 

Popek also has a blog where he shares his findings:  www.forgottenbookmarks.com, but I haven't checked it out yet.  The book is a fun read to pick up from the library and browse through.

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Source

And finally:  I abandoned my jogging for the entire month of October!  I decided yesterday that it was time to get back out on the track and re-establish my running routine.  Prior to my "exercise sabbatical" I was running two or three times a week, and had gotten to the point where I could jog three miles without stopping, under proper conditions (e.g., flat track, cool temperatures).  Well, yesterday, after my month off, I managed to run three miles, but I stopped to walk a lap between each mile.  I have some re-strengthening to do, but I was happy not to have lost my ability to jog completely.  I have to thank you, Blog Readers:  the only reason I managed to run as far as I did was my desire to tell you that I made it three miles!  If I had not wanted public bragging rights so badly, I would definitely have stopped earlier! 

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Wishing you a great start to a new week!

WOYWW: Five Things Edition

Maybe it’s cheating for What’s on Your Worktable Wednesday, but I am going to show you five things that are going on right now instead of a photo of my desk (which looks almost exactly like it did last week!).

1. Soon after my mom bought me my first sewing machine, I bought the book Stitch by Stitch:  Learning to Sew One Project at a Time by Deborah Moebes.  I love the author’s enthusiasm for sharing her love of sewing with her readers, and how she begins with a few small mini-projects for newbies to get their feet wet (so to speak). I completed a stitch sampler to familiarize myself with all of the different stitches my machine can do, as well as to get some experience with changing stitch lengths and widths. I was so excited about the project that it wasn’t until I went to photograph my sampler yesterday morning that I noticed how my thread tension is way too tight, and my fabric is all bunched up! I had fun “playing” with the stitches, though.

2. I finished the four postcards I will be sending out as part of Danielle’s postcard swap over at A Love Affair with Paper.

As I mentioned in last week's post, I used sewn strips paper, and sewed on a round magazine/catalog picture and handwritten word/phrase to each. There are lots of edges with potential to catch in the mail system; I am hoping they will arrive intact! I think that’s all part of the excitement of sending handmade greetings.

3. Another project I used my sewing machine for was my Mother’s Day card for my mom.

I cut a template for the butterfly, then used it to cut many more butterflies from the pages of a discarded book. I sewed these onto a card (three on top of each other, so I could bend their wings up for dimension), using an orange thread to mark the path of their flight I also sewed on some matching seam binding from my grandmother’s stash.

4. I am very excited about Mother’s Day gift, compliments of my husband: a Pogo printer! This little machine connects to my camera or my camera phone, and prints a little adhesive 2x3 photo. So far I’ve only tried a single image, but I think it’s going to be fun to play around with to stick pictures in my art journal, and on letters and envelopes.

5. A little while ago I entered a giveaway over at Mrs. Pao’s Mumblings blog, and won a beautiful necklace handcrafted by Samantha Osborne. She mailed it to me along with a delicious bar of chocolate—BONUS!

I was going to post a photo of myself wearing the necklace, but until I get this hair of mine done, no one gets to see a picture of me!!

You can check out Samantha’s work at http://www.fishingforpearls.com/.

I also received another postcard from Hanna’s swap, this time from Michelle in California. Unfortunately, the front of the card got separated from the back on its way to my house! So, I did not get to enjoy her artwork, but I thank her for participating in the swap anyway. Her blog can be found at giveagirlafig.blogspot.com.

What’s going on in YOUR workspace this Wednesday?

Five Things: Weekend Edition

Sometimes I just don’t have enough to say about a single topic for a nice, coherent blog post. Enter: Five Things. Here are five things I want to share with you about my weekend!

1. My family spent Saturday afternoon in Peddlar’s Village, in Lahaska, Pennsylvania. On any given weekend, it’s a fun place for shopping, eating, and enjoying a little time outside. This weekend, even better, was their 42nd annual Strawberry Festival.

We got a big dose of sunshine and flowers:

The girls got to play pipes, pots, and trash can lids to be part of the band:

They got their first balloon animals (both girls chose giraffes):

I even got to shop at a scrapbook store (Creative Inkling) and walk away with some collage fodder and Tim Holtz tissue tape (another effort to satisfy my longing for washi tape!):

2. On top of Saturday’s beautiful sunny day at the Strawberry Festival, my husband took the girls outside to play this morning while he trimmed branches from a tree hanging low over our garage. I caught a moment on camera that I really treasure: sisters becoming friends.

Their friendship has been developing over the past six months or so, but I never take it for granted. My older daughter had a very hard time adjusting to having a little sister (Bayla came on the scene when Katy was 15 months old), and they didn’t always play together and interact with one another so amicably and easily. These rather rough beginnings ensure that I really treasure these moments when they choose to sit off together by themselves, hug to settle a dispute, make up rules for a new game, or comfort each other when one is crying or upset.

3. Like many other arty and crafty folks, I love a fabulously messy work space that shows the delightfully creative chaos going on in my brain. But there is something to be said for a tidy art space too! Check out this unstaged countertop where I was working on my cook bookmarks this afternoon:

Who knew I could be so neat while working on a craft project? I learned an important lesson, by the way: When you have applied Mod Podge to any surface, do not leave it on a paper towel to dry. Despite your best efforts, some of the Mod Podge DID, in fact, find its way to the other side, which means that the aforementioned paper towel is now indelibly adhered to the back side of your project. Nothing a little sand paper didn’t remedy, but it caused a moment of great concern. Whenever I try something new, I either discover that I have amazing beginner’s luck, or it’s something of a fiasco. Pretty sure this project falls on the fiasco side of things thus far, but I’m soldiering through!

4. I made the commitment last month to work in my art journal every day, and with the exception of Easter Sunday I stuck to it! This morning I signed up at Julie Balzer’s site to participate for the month of May. I love the way that this commitment has led beyond the art journal itself into other creative explorations, and I have also enjoyed looking at the blogs of other art journalers to see their own unique styles, subjects, and creative commitments.

5. I love to cook, but sometimes it gets hard to find the time in the midst of my husband coming home from work, and getting the kids bathed and in bed. I have a little more freedom to work with more complicated recipes on the weekends, when my husband can play with the girls while I prep the food.  I love it when I can stand at the kitchen counter washing, chopping, measuring, pouring--and re-directing the girls to their father:  "See if Daddy can do it," "Ask Daddy about it," "Daddy will tell you!"  I can get "in the zone" and enjoy the Zen of food prep, and then I remember how much I really enjoy cooking (something that sometimes gets lost during the week).

Tonight I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the tomatoes and potatoes I prepared for roasting.

Turns out, it’s a good thing I photographed the tomatoes ahead of time because they ended up looking more like burnt tomato chips when I let them sit on the baking pan too long after they came out of the oven. They didn’t taste entirely bad, either, but they weren’t nearly as picturesque, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t turn out as the recipe intended!

I had a fantastic weekend, enjoying sunshine, crafting, and family time. If I can have these three things on any given day, life is good!