I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.
Eat good food, enjoy the company of good friends and family.
I’ll be back in a few days.
I just found myself browsing calendars on Etsy. I know a lot of blogs have covered calendars, so why not mine? I’ll just share a small handful that have caught my eye.
Alica Bock’s Polaroid Calendar
MaryBluesArt’s Fun Size ConVivere Calendar
RosaMurillo’s 2010 desk calendar
yesterdaysclothes’s Bookman Public Library Employee Calendar
LilyJaneStationery’s 2010 desk calendar
BeHappyNow’s 2010 Wall Calendar
CoreyMarie’s 2010 desktop Calendar
My studio is still in a flurry of paper. The piles of paper are mounds of randomosity AND awesomosity. This summer I acquired a cigar box of old stamps and was organizing them a bit to add some to each paper kit. I had to capture this picture, well, because you can see, pretty-pretty.
I was excited to see today that my grass journal made it to Etsy’s front page early this morning. I think Cal Patch put it perfectly when she said “In the world of Etsy, being featured on the front page is one of the highest honors” and when it turns out that it was an Etsy curated front page, well, that is enough to gush over.
Today was a very productive day. I barely sat down for five minutes. It was nothing creative, just busywork, like cleaning and errands, but it felt good all the same.
This evening I finally had some time in the studio. Earlier this month I sold my last Paper Kit of Randomosity and have been wanting to put together some new paper packs. The picture above is actually an old shot from a swap I did years back. Assembling the paper packs can look sort of similar, only all the papers are piled up and there are 8 identical piles. The floor of my studio is currently a paper stacking warehouse. This product is pretty fun to assemble as I am a paper fiend. Paper, paper everywhere!
This time around I’d like to get a bit more creative. I am going to get my Randomosity-ization on. I want to include papers with my own patterns I’ve created, and maybe some stickers I’ll make.
Here’s some eye candy from the last collection. I’ll be sure to post again once I start adding them to my shop.
It’s supposed to be a cat free studio. Every time I’m in there though, there are little paws under the door like this.
When we got Bishop I still had my rabbit Theo, and to keep the rabbit safe we gave Bishop a bell collar. Once the rabbit passed, we realized how much WE used the bell to find the cat, so he still wears it. It really has become part of his personality. When we mock him it’s always in a high pitched “tee tee tee” sound that his bell makes. And although that “tee tee tee” might give the impression of light elegant cat, he’s not a graceful cat at all. The term lithe could be used to describe most cats, but Bishop always evokes more of a Chuck Wagon commercial, stampeding through the house. You can say the bell is ironic.
The picture above reminds me how Matt and I were talking yesterday about something that has happened to both of us before. We have a half bathroom right off the kitchen where we often get ready in the morning. We will hear Bishop’s bell and look out into the kitchen, the living room, the breakfast nook, and no Bishop. We call his name, nothing. We’ll proceed with getting ready, and hear his little tink again. Look out and still no cat. This will continue over and over until something in our peripheral vision makes us look up and realize that Bishop is standing on top of the refrigerator, with a perfect view into the bathroom. He’s found a perfect place to hide in plain sight.
I have no words tonight, so instead I leave you with Etsy Pretties. Enjoy.
Working with clay in my pottery class got me thinking about the polymer clays I have but never really use. While at work one day the idea popped into my head to use the polymer clay to create a miniature gingerbread house. I figured other people probably have already done this, so I did a search and found this adorable example below by PetitPlatbySk_.
As I said, I have polymer clays, but I really don’t have a good grasp on manipulation, so I turned to youtube. I love how you can find multiple tutorials on how to do just about everything there. This is extremely helpful for visual learners like myself.
Looking around youtube I did find several helpful videos on how to work with polymer clay in making miniatures. If you’ve spent anytime on Etsy, you’re bound to have come across all the wonderful miniatures that people create. Here is a video I came across that shows an amazing selection of miniature food items. Seriously, you have to watch it, you will not believe that most of these foods are fake and could actually sit cozily on the pad of your finger.
Watching these videos I’m very inspired to make some miniature items myself. Unfortunately it seems my clay might be too old. I understand that you sometimes have to work with polymers to warm them up, but they shouldn’t be so hard and crumbly that they hurt your hands. I just read if this happens, it might be that your clay has partially prepared itself by getting too hot or even being in direct sunlight for too long.
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If you are interested in miniatures at all let me recommend going to a miniatures expo. I’ve been to the Tom Bishop Miniature’s show a few times and it is so inspiring. I remember carrying around my sketchbook, filling it with notes the whole time.
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Cassie Marie is a local artist who is working on redoing her doll house as part of her MFA studies. I’ve been intrigued following along as she works on the remodel. The photography could often be mistaken for a real home remodel.
This weekend I crossed one more item off my list for the year. Matt and I ate at the Signature Room, on the 95th floor of the Hancock Tower in Chicago.
A lot of people I know have been before and I’ve heard the stories and reviews of what it’s like. I thought it would be a fun experience to add to my list. See, in all honesty, I’m more the type of person who would get excited to gather friends and drive to a small town diner. But, when compiling my list of things to do for the year I wanted to add a few things that would stretch me.
I didn’t bring a camera, not knowing if it would be acceptable. Unfortunately, once there, there were constant flashes going off around us while waiters were snapping guests with the amazing view behind them. Sadly, I don’t have a picture of Matt and I all gussied up to remember the occasion. He did capture the above picture from his camera phone though.
We debated making dinner reservations or just waiting in line for drinks and dessert in the “lounge”. Once we got there we saw the loooooong first-come-first-serve line for the lounge, I immediately doubted myself and we considered just going elsewhere entirely. I’m so glad that we didn’t and I ended up calling and making reservations for dinner. We enjoyed ourselves walking around the magnificent mile, killing time until our reservation.
I’ve been up to the observation deck in the Hancock tower before, but I forgot how fast and high the elevator goes. Your ears pop while you go up. When we exited the elevator I was just thrust into the unexpected, in a very good way. The ceiling is super high, with windows all the way around. It was just beginning to be dark out and you could see the beginnings of clouds in the air right outside the windows. The restaurant is HUGE and completely dark with basically a single tea light on each table for lighting the entire place. Once it was completely dark out the lights from the city just popped and you realize why the restaurant is kept dark. It all adds to the romantic atmosphere.
We had an excellent evening and I highly recommend others to experience it at least once in their lifetime. You can request window seats, but make sure you ask for the city view. A coworker of mine asked for window seats, but were seated near the water and there isn’t much to see there. Oh, and dinner, it was delicious and filling, but the price you pay is really made up in ambiance, rather than what appears on your plate.
Today I assembled these little matchbook styled scrap-pads to add to my purchase packs that go out with every order. I used to have these quarter sized recycled scratch pads, but when I ran out I got the idea to revamp the plan and make matchbook styled scrap pads. And you know me, whenever there is an option, always go miniature!
While I was making them I thought it would be pretty easy to take a few snapshots and put together a little tutorial on making these easy-peasy pads. They are still made from recycled, hence the “scrap-pads”.
The materials are basic things everyone has in their home. Scrap paper, scissors or paper cutter, and stapler. If you’re feeling like getting tricked out, grab a ruler, glue stick and bone folder.
The paper size is 1/16th of an 8.5×11, meaning I halved, halved, halved and halved again, if you can keep that straight. Otherwise it’s 1.0625″ x 1.375″. That’s not based on real matchbooks, but just in the ease in halving over and over again. For the cover I just grabbed some 12×12 scrapbook paper, but you could also use any pretty paper you have lying around. I think I’ll use paper from old books for my next batch, then they will be truly recycled (aside from the new staple). I cut the scrapaper down to strips roughly the same width as the halved paper (1.0625″).
1. I used the halved paper in stacks of 10 since that seemed to be how much my stapler could handle. Placed my stack of paper face up with the decorative paper face down and stapled them together like shown in picture 1.
2. Slightly above the staple, I fold the paper back down. You should be able to see the decorative side of the paper now, like in picture 2. This way you can hide the staple.
3. Continue wrapping the paper around the back, creasing the folds, like in picture 3.
4. Now fold over the top, from behind to front, like in picture 4.
5. Carefully trim the decorative paper so that once trimmed the edge fits under the flap from the bottom as seen in picture 5.
6. Voila! You have a handy-dandy snazzy easy-peasy pretty scrap pad.
Use the bone folder to crease and fold and the glue stick to glue the back page to the back cover, if you like.
Throw a couple in your purse so that when your frantically riffling through your purse looking for a piece of paper to write down a phone number on, or to throw away the gum you’ve been chewing on for eternity, you are golden. I took mine a tiny step further and put my personal stamp on the inside cover, as seen in the first image. You could go to whatever lengths you want to gussy them up. They are fun to make, quick, cute AND functional.
Making these I was reminded that the Artomat machine at KCH has a “matchbook” slot, where a book would have dropped with every pack of cigarettes. I wonder if books like these would work in that machine. It would be a cool project for the students there to make their own “art matchbooks” that would drop with each Artomat sale.
lines, originally uploaded by robayre.
What does this image make you think of?
Today was my last pottery class :( I will be returning to pick up my pieces and I’m very excited to see how they will turn out. I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped. The first class went so well, and then, as I feared, the next two classes I flopped piece after piece. When the class is only 5 sessions long that can really put a kink in production. BUT, I do have a couple thrown pieces and a bunch of hand constructed pieces that I will share here as soon as I can. Everyone in the class is very excited to take the next class again. Bad news is… it’s not being offered again until next February. Well, it will give me plenty of time to come up with a plan for pieces I want to make.
Did I mention it is National Blog Posting Month and I’m participating? Well, I’m taking the weekends off, so I’m not posting truly every day. Here is the blogroll of all other participants for this month. Check ‘em out if you like.
