This lovely post comes with a soundtrack: I’m Writing A Letter by the Smoking Popes :)
Write Me Pen Pal collage, To Get A Letter Write A Letter pin, Happy Red Address File, Repurposed Envelope and Stationery Set
Archive for July, 2011
I’ve been doing a lot of sorting, organizing and de-cluttering lately, and so these three things below caught my eye.
A week or two ago I posted about the “Week of Undies” travel project . While reading through the outfits that Jessi picked for the “WOU” project, I came upon a post where she developed new guidelines about the clothes that she keeps at home. She lives in a very tiny studio apartment, with her husband, and has decided that she would go from having over 500 items of clothing, down to only 100 items. You can read the post here.
While I love the idea, I’m not sure if I could whittle down my wardrobe THAT much. I do know that I could definitely get rid of a lot of stuff that I no longer wear, really don’t like or that has been in storage so long that it hasn’t seen daylight in years. I have a flickr contact who regularly posts this image that simply states “Today I am getting rid of 100 things”. That message is very inspiring to me. I’ve been questioning a lot of my possessions and asking myself if they really serve a purpose or deserve a place in my life.
Under Jessi’s self imposed “100 items or less” project, one of the rules was that she would be ironing a label with her name and website into all of the clothes she donates. She said it will turn her project into a bit of a game, where the new owners might find the label, look her up and then contact her.
This reminded me of two other similar ideas that I saw online within the last couple weeks:
These shorts, via MissMoss. I’m not really into short-shorts, but what I love about this brand (The IOU Project) are all the little extras they put into all their clothing items. There is a “conversation” label sewn into all items, as well as a QR code which tells information about the artisan who manufactured the piece.
And then this video, via Andrea of HulaSeventy and Booooooom where Augustina Woodgate poetry bombs at the thrift store, by sewing poetry labels into clothes at second hand stores.
If you remember from the sneak peek a few weeks ago, I purchased a bag of vintage photographs from the flea market and decided to use some of them for the mailart 365 project.
I started out with the idea to create outfits using my paper collection.
Then I had the idea to do more of the environment in paper. This piece is a very “Robayre” piece, obviously, with all the individual pieces of grass. It was time consuming, but I love how it came out.
Here is another detail
Another environment piece
Another wardrobe piece.
While I was working I suddenly thought of the artist Alyn Carlson and her lovely paper hats. I love her hats and immediately I knew some of my vintage folks needed to wear some fancy hats! I love how they came out and it was so much fun to create their hats.
and another close up
Here’s a bathing beauty and her showy hat
and last but not least, a lovely pair and their extraordinary hats.
Clockwise from top left: Whimsy, Bluegrass, Frond Ring, Blades of Grass No. 6.
The other day I came upon the above image and tutorial link on Pinterest and immediately knew I HAD to have one. At first I thought it would be easy enough to just buy a mat and paint it myself, but when I looked up how much it would cost to buy a wooden slatted floor mat, $$$, building one from scratch became more attractive. The instructions seemed pretty simple so this weekend my sister, mom and I started working on making 3.
As I joked to my dad, the tutorial was online, but I must not have read it too closely because I missed the first few steps where it must have read “listen to your mom and sister bicker at Lowe’s” and “Rearrange your brother’s garage to access the table saw.” All the same, the three of us put together a pretty decent assembly line.
We cut down 18 large pieces of 2×2, but only had enough daylight and strength to finish the first mat. Here is a picture of me and my sister proudly standing on our first creation. As much as I love the colors in the first one, I think I’ve decided that what I’m going to do is go with a simple stain, and then when I want to change it up, I can paint it a color and then maybe later, paint it a different way.
Earlier this year Claire of Bicoastally tipped me off to a project by Christina of Down and Out Chic to redesign a foster care room. I offered to donate a piece to decorate the room and was thrilled that Christina was already familiar with my Etsy shop. She selected a yellow framed yoyo quilt mini.
Christina did such a beautiful job. It was a selfless undertaking where she was given $150 to redo the whole room, and fortunately, so many people and companies offered to help. Donations were made from the art, to the paint on the walls, but most valuable was the donation of Christina’s time, vision and talent, because none of it would have come together without her. The room is meant for parents to meet and spend time with their own children that are in the foster care program. You can see the before pictures and it wasn’t a very comforting or warm space.
To Christina’s redecoration below:
and if you know anything about me, I’m gaga over the chalkboard paint wall. Brilliant! So, please check out her final post about the completed space with plenty more before and after pictures.
While our friend Tom has been traveling, we have been watching his dog, Benny, off and on. Benny is a tiny white maltipoo that actually belonged to my friend Nikki, who passed away earlier this year. Actually, if you click on that link to her caringbridges page, the first picture that pops up is a picture of Benny wearing a coat that I made for him.
As long as I knew Nikki she wanted a dog. She was definitely one of those children that stray animals follow home, and she had a huge heart for all animals. I was just recalling on her facebook page about how we’d often drag the guys with us to different pet stores and ooh and aah at all the animals we wanted to take home with us. It wasn’t until just months before she passed that she finally got her dream pet. I think Tom and Nikki showed up one day at our door with this little tiny poof ball (pictured above with Nikki on our front porch). Benny wasn’t even 2 pounds yet and could hardly be taken seriously as a dog. He looked more hamster or even muppet. Even now, I think he weighs under 5 pounds and is still more muppet than canine.
Here’s a little video I recorded of him earlier today.
While Nikki was sick, especially while she was doing treatments, I liked to send her picture or video messages that I hoped would brighten her day. One of those last messages I sent her was a cell phone video I recorded of Benny when he was a tiny puppy and she responded that “he just made her so happy”. She loved him so much and so because of that he is important to me as well.
Today I took Benny outside and while he ran around I noticed the beauty of his fur. He’s a white dog, and while Tom bathed him right before his trip, he is now a pretty dingy dog. That’s okay because it makes for good texture. Maybe it’s just the fiber enthusiast in me, but I had to run in and get my camera. Right there in the lawn I started snapping shots of his hair until I realized that they would make a wonderful collection of mailart pieces. I adjusted the photos, then printed them out from my inkjet printer on cardstock. Since I used the inkjet I was able to create a watermark on each card in the lower righthand corner that had a heart and Nikki’s name. I then spray fixed each card so it would be safe to go through the mail.
I’d like to share one last story about Nikki because I think it shows how compassionate she really was. While she and Tom were away for a period of time (maybe treatment, maybe honeymoon) one of their cats stopped eating. Apparently, stressed and lonely (although they were being fed regularly by a family member) Nikki’s cat Otis went into her closet and just stayed there and stopped eating. When they returned they found Otis completely emaciated and near death from starvation. Now, if there can be anything funny about this situation, you’d have to know Otis and he is the FATTEST cat ever. So, he was just completely hollowed out and was lifeless. This was quite a shock and they took him for medical attention right away. It wasn’t just a matter of feeding him again though, it was a dire situation where his organs might have even been failing and everyone around told Nikki it would probably be the most humane thing to just put him down. She wouldn’t have it. She ended up spending thousands of dollars, which included care and surgery and a feeding tube and for a looong time after she was having to syringe feed him through a tube that went directly into his stomach from his side. Side note-Otis was actually a kitten she rescued. He also had a litter mate named, you guessed it, Milo, but Milo didn’t survive kittenhood.
I came over to visit once shortly after everything that happened with Otis and she told me the whole story. All the while Otis was right between us, on the couch. I understood her love but even I questioned if it was the right thing to do because through it all his eyes seemed vacant and I wondered if he might have even had brain damage. He was completely unresponsive to us for the duration. During that conversation she told me something that I will never forget: She said that even when everyone was telling her to let him go, and even after they weighed the price with the probability of survival, and even if he didn’t make it, she said that she would never be able to forgive herself for not even trying. Money was tight, but down the road anytime she would need to buy something for herself she knew that she would think “I can spend money and buy these new shoes, but I couldn’t afford to save my cat.”And wouldn’t you know, slowly but surely over time Otis came back to health. Not only did she get him back to normal cat size, but he once again returned to fat cat size. He is the same affectionate and friendly cat today as he was before and it was all due to Nikki’s persistence.
I’ve been meaning to post that for over a year. No need to worry about it, if you don’t use Bloglovin, but to claim the blog as my own I have to post it. I’m not even exactly sure I fully understand Bloglovin. I think it might just be another way to subscribe to blogs, like google reader.
Anyway, this post is really to share with you an AWESOME link I found earlier today. Seriously, I’m very excited about this. Thanks to flickr contact Carolyn_Sewell, I found out about Jessi Arington and her Week’s Worth of Undies project. The concept is this, in Jessi’s own words:
“It seemed simple enough… I’ll go on a trip, and the only thing I’ll pack in a tiny suitcase is the underwear I’ll need. All other clothing will be procured at thrift stores once I arrive at my destination. I’ll wear it, photograph it and have a grand ole time with it, but then I’ve got to give it away, returning home with only my original undies.”
You can read the initial post here, and subsequent posts share photographs of the outfits, and to be honest, I haven’t even gotten through them yet. I hope to them savor them after this post. In the meantime, I wanted to share this post because I think it is a perfectly fun idea for a road trip. Only, I’m not so sure about having to give away the new treasures clothing that I just found. I might change my mind after completing the series, but right now I’m thinking “what if I just donate an item from my own closet, for every new item I decide to keep?”
My sister brought to my attention that I am officially one third of the way through this mailart 365 project :) The idea for this week was inspired by the transparent colors of japanese washi tape. Did you see this post via poppytalk handmade, where someone is making large rolls of the tape to put up on your walls, swoon!
card 111/365
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Another Mailart 365 update.
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