Sunday, May 31, 2015

Blogging and Baubbles!

Best Seasons. . . 

Blogging again so soon. Who would have thought! 

Papercrafting

Here is my cover--I have been working on my Patriotic Book. I am happy with it--how about you?



I added gold leaf to the book title indention on my navy cover. The cover picture has two parts--the background is a design I downloaded from the Internet and the eagle is copied from one of my vintage books about our Presidents. Both are fussy cutouts. The America is from the Tim Holtz Holidays chit-chat booklet. The seam binding is from my stash. Can’t believe the red is so perfect. The seam binding is just tied around the book--it slips on and off easily. 

It was a tough decision, but I am liking it--alot! I will show you more pages soon.

Studio

Still working on my plan for moving my studio. Need to buy shelves for my new area. Have been watching studio tours and wow, there are some really nice studios out there. 

May all the seasons be sweet to you. . .

Mary


Friday, May 8, 2015

Seasons. . .

A Time for A New Season

Well, I am back again. Seems I cannot get into a blogging groove. Life is busy and so good! I am living and loving my life. My two Grand Sweeties have brought me more joy than I can even put into words. Here is what has been happening with us.

Family Stuff

The Hiatt House is finished, well there is a checklist to work through. Coach, It-Girl, Little Miss 1, and Little Miss 2 moved in just before Christmas. We all worked hard to paint, move builder’s tools out, line shelves, clean floors, scour bathrooms, and vacuum bedrooms so that moving could commence. On December 21, the move was complete--well mostly. There was even a Christmas tree up before Christmas so that Jingle Bell the Elf could visit and Santa would have a proper place to put all the gifts. Since then our loves have made Hiatt House their Home. 

Even Dirtman loves the pictures and bric-a-brac on the walls, new furniture, colorful landscaping, and growing vegetable garden. Love their new home and watching them being a family makes my heart swell with pride and joy. Coach is busy with his AD duties--so thankful he loves his job. It Girl is working hard to make their house a home. Little Miss 1 is swimming, tumbling, and being her sweet but sassy self. Little Miss 2 is growing up too fast--teething, crawling, and smiling through it all.

Studio Update

My studio is still packed with treasures--while trying to get better organized I realized that perhaps I should move to the larger part of the downstairs space and make my now studio back into a bedroom. To be really organized, you need a proper space for required tools--typewriter, iron, sewing machine, big shot, paper cutter, score board just to name a few. Yes, I need more room. More to come on the progress.

Papercrafting

Have been working on projects with my soon to be moving to Florida crafty friend. Here are a few pictures of our work. . .

Before Christmas--well a bit after too, we worked on two Christmas projects. Between working on those, I worked on a “Bookadex”.




This book was made from a Tammy Tutterow tutorial. All of the supplies were Tim Holtz goodies. There are about eight pages in this book. We followed some of the tutorial directions, but added several of our own designs on pages. 


Here is my “Bookadex”. It is made from an old book named “Cherokee Blood Mary”, kinda appropriate for me. Index tabs mark sections of the alphabet and tags have important information written on them. I use this almost every day.



Another Christmas project made from a Tim Holtz small folio and following instructions from a Tammy Tutterow tutorial. the pictures don’t do it justice, it is packed with cuteness.

Our last project (at least until we FaceTime for craft day) is a Patriotic Book! We both love all things patriotic and have collected patriotic items for a long time. This project is not finished, but here is my book and some of the items I have added or will be adding.


The book is made from an old book. Love the navy blue cover, the title is under the gold leafing I added. All of the pages were removed and I added five signatures using a hidden spine with sewn in signatures. The pages are tea dyed. Can’t decide on a cover design, but I am loving the progress.


One of my favorite George Washington pages so far. The printed paper is Stampin Up Typeset designer paper and is one of the only scrapbook papers included. It is great looking when dyed.


You can see in the picture above that five signatures each with ten pages filled the book nicely. Hope it will close when I get all of my treasures in it!


We even made our own copy of the Etiquette for Stars and Stripes book. You can see how old the pages look and how some of our treasures fit right in with the old look. I still have a lot of work to do on this one.

Girlfriend Get Together

Two of my lifelong girlfriends and I took a little “Spring Break” of our own. It all happened on a whim and turned out to be a great trip. We had lunch on Tuesday and after we finished eating our yummy Mexican food, we decided that we needed to get away--so off to Kansas City we went! 

Got there late afternoon, shopped Target, shopped Pottery Barn, ate at Bravo, and checked into our inexpensive digs. Wednesday we took on Nell Hill (bought my chargers), shopped IKEA (like shopping a town), lunched in the IKEA dining room (really good vegetable medallions and inexpensive), shopped Hobby Lobby, shopped JoAnn, dined at Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue (the three bones meal is enough food for a family of six). and called it a night. Thursday it was time to hit as many Home Goods stores as possible--we made it to two where we found many good buys including a few cute clothes from Marshall's--the car was full so we decided it was time to eat a Quik Trip hot dog and head home.

Housekeeping

There is always more housekeeping to do than time and desire to do it. One thing I enjoy doing for fun is setting a table for two for the season. Here is my summer table setting, yes I am on to summer.



Yes, it all about red/white/and blue, flags, and my really unhealthy vice--Coca Cola--the real thing!



The runner is a linen pin striped towel from Upscale Country, the charger is from Nell Hill (love the blue gingham check), the plate is Fiesta, the salad plate is Ralph Lauren from Home Goods, and the red covered dish is from Target.  Really me! Love it!

I also am in to making pom pom garlands and paper chains--here’s what is hanging in the dining room bay window. Is it wrong to leave paper chains up year round? Need to trim the ties on the pom pom garlands, but friends say not to. I don’t know?


Cleaning Out

Oh my, my. My mind is motivated to purge, but I can’t seem to get up any steam! Do you ever look at your treasures and think you really need them, all of them. Have a storage area in our basement with holiday decorations--30 totes or so and a building with that many or more totes holding other treasures--things we are saving! I will tell you how the purging is going, but  don’t hold your breath until it is finished because this is a really slow process for me. How can you love so many things you have--they are just things!

Well, that is a little bit about what is going on here. 

May all the seasons be sweet to you,
Mary