Clockwise from top left, Rug on Overstock, Vintage Chevron Necklace by seahagandwalrus, Chevron flat notecards by mrYen, Chevron button or magnet set by yours truly
Archive for August, 2011
This weekend my sister came over to assist me in unpacking my studio. We got all the furniture in place and started unpacking. But then it was my brother’s birthday and then I got sick so it sits partially packed. I keep getting inspiration and wanting to work on projects, but when I get into my studio and see all the boxes covering my drawing table I kind of lose my drive. Funny how I rarely get inspiration to unpack boxes which is what I REALLY need.
This morning it dawned on me that I carry my sketchbook with me everywhere I go, and I don’t need a studio to draw in it, so the above was a quick piece I made using my limited supplies of a pencil and highlighter.
I often use my sketchbook to write out concept ideas, quick sketches for future projects and to-d0 lists. The to-do lists will often get lost amongst other things, so a while ago at the old house I started this list to hang on the wall. This is a much quicker and long running reference where I can add short as well as long term goals. Since I kept having project ideas, but am not fully in my studio yet, I decided the list had to go up again. It’s MY HOUSE now, so if I want to tape it to my door with masking tape, so be it! Once again, just for my own comfort, and your information, the looney tunes wallpaper will be coming down. I wouldn’t want someone, for one second, thinking that it was something I chose.
So far in the move there have only been two casualties. I dropped an empty Ikea frame and the glass shattered and the second Oops was a can of chalkboard paint that opened up into a box of my desktop tools (pencils, pens, scissors, etc.). The funny thing is we made sure to hammer the lid on tightly before packing the can and it still opened somehow. Fortunately I discovered that chalkboard paint peels off easily, especially when spilled thickly all over like it did.
Pictures are brought to you via Instagram, since that is the camera I have most available while moving. If you are on instagram, let’s be friends, I’m robayre, naturally :)
Here’s Matt and Bishop the night we moved in.
This past weekend was crazy. Thursday and Friday Matt and I were packing fools. Saturday, we were moving fools, and all of Sunday we were cleaning fools. When we finally finished wrapping up the duplex last night and I had a moment to sit down my whole body wanted to fall apart. Every inch of me, even my fingernails were in pain. They still are. But we are finally done, and in the new house. None of this would have been possible without the help of family (my sister, my parents and Matt’s parents) as well as friends (Henry, JT, Tom and Charles).
The whole house buying experience has been one thing that worried me, after another. I’m worried something will happen that will keep us from buying the house, I’m worried about the loan, I’m worried about going to the closing, I’m worried about painting, I’m worried about packing, I’m worried about the truck rental, I’m worried about moving, I’m worried about leaving the rental. BUT, I think I’m finally through it all. Now I am at the stage where I can just settle in, soak it up and be a merry home owner.
We’re far from being unpacked. This is my new studio. There’s a looney tunes wallpaper border that has to go. But as you can see from the picture, that might not be for a while because my studio is currently in boxes filling the room. The space is slightly smaller than my previous studio, but we have a HUGE basement with several rooms for storage so I might spill into them a tiny bit.
Lastly, before dropping off the keys to the old place I remembered the time capsule tutorial I found via pinterest. I left the above time capsule in our rental. I have always loved the idea of leaving time capsules and have, at the least, hidden my name and date on the inside of closets before moving. I imagine how much fun it would be to discover this, sadly, since it’s a rental, it will probably just be our old landlord and that’s not so much fun imagining.
Time to go mow… MY VERY OWN LAWN!
The other day I mentioned that I’ve been up to something big and would be back to share. In short – We bought a house!
In depth, well, I don’t even know where to begin.
Should I start with how I never even allowed myself to hope that I could be a home owner? Even though owning my own house was a dream I’ve had since I was a child.
I could explain how I shared our house hunting with very few people because I was so afraid to jinx any of it.
And I could easily go on and on about how much I’ve hated renting from someone else, and how I could never fully feel comfortable, especially when I come home to find strangers in my house (like we did earlier this year).
Or how about once we began looking I was shocked to find out that I have great credit, even though for years I had imagined being laughed out the bank doors.
What about the countless houses we previously viewed in the year and half prior, and the 3 other houses we put offers on, got our hearts wrapped up in, only to lose for various reasons.
I think I’ll start with a simple explanation that on Friday, August 5th, 2011, Matt and I closed on our very first home. Driving home with keys in our hands, we were equally shocked that we made it through and that the house is ours (well, the bank’s technically until we pay it off). All the same, I don’t think it will all sink in until after we are fully moved in.
Okay, I’m off again. We have loads of packing and someone is doing his best to make this chore even more difficult for us.
Today is a HUGE day for me. Something that has been in the works for over a year and a half, and I’m so excited. I will be dealing with that immediately after posting this, but first I just wanted to share my most recent mailart pieces for the 365 project. I will be back as soon as I can to share more about my exciting news.
A couple weeks ago I saw this tutorial post on Oh So Beautiful Paper about embossed stationery. It brought me back to high school graphic arts, first semester. We were learning about business cards and just to show how far things have come since then, the teacher told us if a business card wasn’t embossed (quickly checking by running fingers across the card), most people in business would just throw them away. Flash forward to today, embossed cards are definitely in the minority. I work for a printing company and we don’t even have embossing capabilities in house, so any embossed business card orders we receive get farmed out and it is a very rare occurrence. At any rate, back in high school we got to play around with embossing so I knew how to do it, but haven’t done any since then. Immediately after reading this post, past 8 pm, I HAD to run to Michael’s to see if they had any embossing powders and fluid and I was thrilled to find a selection. I found a stamp pad that also came with a small bottle of fluid, which was perfect for me.
If you are not familiar familiar with embossing, it’s a method in which you get a raised type. Above are some thumbnails at an angle so you can see how it looks. I also encourage you to click on the link at the top and see a picture tutorial. But basically an image is printed with embossing fluid on paper and then the embossing powder sprinkled over it. The powder adheres to where the fluid was and the excess is removed. Then the powder is heated and the powder melts and sticks together and looks more like a raised liquid on the paper.
I started out by carving a few small little triangle stamps to make some banners and test out the embossing process.
When I think of banner messages, I think of sayings like “SURPRISE” or “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” so I though it would be funny to make some banners that were a little less exciting, like “it’s your birthday… or not!” and “I don’t want to go to work!” Wouldn’t that be funny to walk into a party and that was the banner hanging there?
At first I only bought black and green, so the next day I went back to see if there were any other colors I’d like. I decided to play with some other carved stamps I made.
This is when I started experimenting with painting with the embossing fluid in the bottle.
This is when I got the idea to thin out the fluid and put it in my Kempar Drawing Pen that Rosa gave me eons ago. That pen comes in handy so often!
I was able to get multiple colors by drawing out one part, sprinkling the powder and then drawing another and repeating. I learned if I heated each color between each color by the end the original colors would start to flatten out and get absorbed into the paper.
Lastly, I went over many of the finished cards with light, wet layers of watercolor. I had a lot of fun making these, and I know this will not be the last time I have embossed things to share… I’m thinking maybe some paper products for the etsy shop!
