Letters and Numbers and Symbols, Oh My...

I know that the economy is bad, but I still wish I had more stores near me to shop in! The year we got a Michael's, a Barnes and Noble, and a Pier One all around the same time, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. But now, a few years later, I wish I had more choices (without having to drive an hour). I have been irritated with Michael's since they no longer let you use their discount coupons on magazines. However, I do still go in there from time to time. Look what is on sale this week.... 40% off on these memo cubes and picture frames. Just had to share, since we all love numbers and letters so much!

(Less than $4)

(8 x 10 frame about $12)

(Tried to get better pictures, but between the glare on the glass and my camera battery dying, this is the best I can do!)

Divide and Conquer

When I started my journal in January, the last thing I was thinking about was making dividers for each month. But now I find myself looking forward to coming up with a new divider each month. I mean, it's not even July yet, and I just couldn't wait to make the July divider! This is so much fun and I highly recommend you challenge yourself to do the same! Here's how I used the mystery items from before...

This Too

I forgot one thing that goes with the other mystery items from the last post. (Notice how it even comes with its own question mark?)

And just because these are so sweet... look at the delicate blooms on my hostas, bent over from the rain shower this morning, with droplets of rain still on their little petals. I like hostas. Mainly because I plant them and that's it. Except that you need to divide them eventually, which is also a plus. Why anyone would buy a hosta plant is beyond me, since they are more than generous with their offspring!

My hostas have a large family tree. I think my sister first got some. She divided hers and gave some to my mom. Then my sister moved. After she got to her new place, my mom divided hers and gave some back to my sister. At some point, my mom also gave me some. I really didn't want to take them at first. You see, I do not have a green thumb. At all. But these pretty much take care of themselves. And they must like it here, because they have the pretty, stalky flowers every year.

In my next life, I'd like to be a better gardener....

In My Opinion...

You know the drill... you order something online or you use your store card somewhere, maybe you ordered a book from Amazon... then all of a sudden you are an expert reviewer. You must be, because they want you to review the "recently purchased item". Your opinion is So important to help others who are shopping for the same item. So, at the end of a long hot day, I check my email, and lo and behold, Staples wants me to review a recently purchased item. What was this special item? Is it something people are researching, pondering their next purchase, comparison shopping, narrowing down their choices? It was... a.. pack of multipurpose copy paper, just plain old paper to use in the printer, fax, and copier. Something I picked up in their local store one day (and tracked by the store card they scan, obviously). I'm thinking, you want me to review a Pack Of Paper? I guess my sarcastic side took over at that point. I did submit a review. It went something like this: "I cannot believe Staples is asking me to rate this product. It's paper. I needed paper. They had paper. It's just fine. Go buy some."

I submitted my review. Unfortunately, I cannot link you to it because it is not posted at their website. Imagine that!! There are, however, over 1000 (yes, one thousand) other reviews for this product. Is it just me, or is this a waste of internet space?? You gotta laugh.

Here's the tease for next time.... What do these







have in common? Stay tuned.....

Extra Sweets

Okay, one more father's day treat, then I am done. I'm posting this one because it is Just Too Cute. And let me add that I am NOT exactly a domestic, cooking type person, although in my heyday, I did make my own pasta, ravioli from scratch, and my own bread (withOUT a bread machine) all the time. I can really get into it when it is like making art!! But doing something like this is truly impressive. Look....

The burgers are brownies, cut with a round cookie cutter. The buns are cupcakes made with white cake mix. The toppings are colored icing. The french fries are sugar cookies, cut in strips before baking. AND, this creative genius who did this has instructions, Plus templates of the tray, paper and french fry bag available for download. You could substitute birthday greetings for the father's day greetings. Just too cool! It would take me a week to do this. I think I am passing out from a sugar high just looking at this!!

Sweets for Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there. I could not help but visit one of my favorite websites, CakeWrecks, and thought I'd share these gems for this special day.

#1

What shows your affection more than a giant cookie with the "D" on "Day" having fallen off, with what may or may not be a green tie (or possibly alien bacteria), with the green icing seeping into the cookie....

#2

Here is my personal favorite, Happy "Farther's" Day!

#3

This proves that it is never a good idea to argue with the person with the icing. If they think a name goes on there, and you insist they write "Father's Day Only"... well, that's what they will do!!

Why am I suddenly craving chocolate???

Take A Bow

All work and no play makes Pat a dull girl.

All work and no play makes Pat a dull girl.

All work and no play makes Pat a dull girl.

(Remember the movie The Shining?)

I know I haven't posted in a few days... work, work, work. No play. However, I have been checking out what Paula and Gaye have been doing. OH, MY... go to Paula's blog to see what they have been doing with mosaic collage and printing it on fabric. Too much fun.

Take a bow, Paula...

(sigh, they grow up so fast...hehehe)

(Canvas I made in 2007)

And I'll state the obvious.... nothing makes creativity explode more than artists getting together, sharing ideas, feeding off each other. It's the best!

This was looking down at me from the tree this morning...eeek... please don't jump on my head!!

Should I be worried that none of these animals seem afraid of me? Are the animals getting ready to take over the world? They don't run away, no matter how close I get. (Or maybe it's my "animal aura", eh, Jan??)

Have a great weekend!!!

Summer Reading

Crazy weather. It has rained a lot, and rained some more. It has technically been a little cooler than normal for June at times, but that is canceled out by the extremely high humidity. You can almost scoop it up with a cup, the air is so sticky and dripping with humidity.

So after work yesterday, I picked up my mail at the post office and was happy to have some reading material. Good excuse to just sit and not move around a lot! I had a new issue of Somerset Studio. I haven't read it yet, but glanced through it... oh, boy, one of dj pettitt's books is featured. I really do want to eat those up, they are so lucious. The article is actually about painting faces, so I can't wait to read that. She was here this time last year, and watching her work on a face and bringing it to life is an amazing experience.

I also got an order from Amazon, with the new book, Re-Bound.

I ordered it, but didn't expect it to have many new ideas for books, but I was wrong. I have never seen a book made from a hot water bottle! (Actually, I've never seen a hot water bottle with a patterned texture like that).

And a book from a bathroom rug?

A book with a cover of woven tickets (what did I do with that roll of tickets? I think I got rid of it....)

And a book from cabinet cards (notice the cabinet card on the spine too)....

Looks like a few summer projects here. Very nice instructions for each project. And a great gallery in the back of other submissions with more ideas.

But it made me wonder... what ever happened to the "recycled" book that I heard about back in January? I know Gaye submitted some things to it... (really, someone should do a book with just her amazing projects!) I did some searching, and the book will be published in November. It is on Amazon for preorder, but no "look inside" pages yet! I'll be watching for it.

Alphabet Photography

Alphabet photography fascinates me. I have seen other people take pictures of objects that look like letters and numbers. I just came across this website that is fun. You can type in a word or your name and see what it looks like. You can even change a letter to another style. Kudos to Jennifer Blakeley, the Canadian photographer who took all these fantastic photos.

This is Gaye's wall of words. She bought a photo word (of the word "words"!) at an art fair. I don't believe it is the same photographer as on the website above, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, these photos really make you look at things in a whole different way!!

Fortunes 8, 9, 10, blah, blah, blah

Greetings, bloggereaderites, this now concludes our Fortune 10 Project.....

I am losing enthusiam for this project and fast. This no longer seems like a challenge. The fortunes are boring. I want to be funny and fresh. This just isn't doing it for me anymore!!!

I'd rather be playing with... Mannequins Gone Mad !!!!!!!

Serendipity

I finally found out who won my little purse book in a recent auction. It was a former secret pal in California, and I was thrilled my book was going to someone I knew. Therefore, I packaged it nicely.......

...and included a little bonus, more Pocket Mod books in a wrapper with a ribbon closure.

It was well over ten years ago that I secretly sent things to Bonnie after being assigned to her. After all these years, she still raves about the goodies she received. A couple of years ago, she performed a random act of kindness and sent me a little handmade book, out of the blue, for no reason. As luck would have it, it arrived around my birthday, so it was a surprise to both of us!

Then last winter, I was talking online about not ever having been to a Trader Joe's store. She sent me a little surprise package with a couple of things from Trader Joe's (I think they were called Yummy Tummies, little fruit filled gummy penguins, and some Candied Walnuts). I sent her a thank you via a message written in snow on my deck....

Those are some of the penguin candies in the snow around the letters (and my plastic and cardboard lettering tool)...

It really is a small world when you get right down to it. So today, celebrate friendships, fun, and serendipity!

Meanwhile, I'll be entertaining myself...

Give me a P...


Give me an A...


Give me a T...


What does that spell?

(TAP backwards????)

Fortune 5, 6, 7

No, I haven't forgotten my Fortune cards, although I am disappointed I'm not finding typos in the fortunes since that first one. Here's number 5:

I get the feeling someone in the marketing department is writing these fortunes! They obviously want me to buy more cookies. And this "serving suggestion" was actually on the box of fortune cookies! I guess there aren't really a lot of different ways to serve fortune cookies, so drizzling them with chocolate is fine with me!

Deja vu! This little project is going to get really boring really fast if they repeat the fortunes. I mean, there are only 12 cookies in the box. They should not have to repeat that soon! At first, I was going to throw away the duplicate, but then I decided that I love a good challenge, so I would make two cards with the same fortune. (And I don't think they know me well enough to make such insinuations about my past either!!)

Wacky Wednesday

Just a little something to get you through the middle day of the week. I saw this video by Jen Gray on another blog. Go see.




And...
if that is not amusing enough.......

here, turkey, turkey... hop on the plate...

Here Comes the Bride

I didn't post all of the goodies we got on our trip Saturday. One thing I got at the yard sale was this roll of, um, "wedding carpet"? I'm not sure what it is actually called. We spotted this roll of something that looked like interfacing, with a white-on-white swirly pattern. They told us it was used in a wedding, rolled out down the aisle for the bride to walk on. I guess when you think about it, how many times can one use something like that? Once everyone has walked on it, it then has footprints and some dirty spots on it. So the solution would be to sell it at a yard sale, to someone who has bottles of spray colors at home!

I could not wait to cut some off and try out some colors. I liked the results.

I liked it even better when I saturated it heavier and heavier, to get the dark color.

And I even liked the scrap paper below, where the colors bled through the carpety stuff onto the scrap paper.

And yes, if the color scheme looks familiar, I was using the same set of spray colors that I used a couple of years ago on this book (fabric cover; sprayed with diluted stamp pad reinkers).

This was a book I made after watching the Traci Bautista DVD. More of this book can be seen here.

Road Trip, Part 2

When we last left our happy travelers, they had arrived in Indianapolis for the annual Coffee Break Design warehouse sale. The rush was on to get some fine, unique items to take home. There are all kinds of things there... old games, old fuses, unique labels, lots of great graphic arts magazines for collage projects, test tubes of all kinds, EKG machine paper (every time I think I have all the varieties offered, he has something different!)

(Is it just me, or do other people wonder if the local hospitals have Mike's picture up in the Security Department???)

They also had some of their regular products at a discount. I needed another two ATC boxes. After all, I'm going to be making 500 Fortune cards, you know. (I crack myself up sometimes)

And check out these little zip lock bags. The one on the right is 1x1 inches. The one on the left is even tinier at 1/2 inch square. It is so tiny, there is nothing to grasp enough to open it. I used the pointed end of a small paintbrush to open it. People always say "What are you going to do with That?" In my head, I am seeing tiny Evidence bags for journaling, or something along those lines. These fall into the category of 'maybe you don't need it right now, but when you Do need it, it will be good to have on hand'!!! And since Mike sells everything in quantities of a bazillion for only $1, it was too good to pass up....(okay, maybe I exaggerate)...

Then there are all things laser cut. I love the new little pennants. You know, if you turn them upside down, you can make a crown.... or a dunce cap for that head there.....

Last year I bought a bunch of test tubes that had no stoppers. I always thought they would make good trades for a convention. Fill them with words and some beads, then put a fabric stopper in the top, and voila!
I also got a couple of the white magnifying glasses. Seemed like they would work well in a book. Later that day, I also picked up a little brass magnifying glass. (I can use those to find the teeny zip lock bags).

After our shopping, we had fun visiting with friends. Ginny and husband John were there from the Cleveland area. It was great seeing them. She carries a lot of Mike's products in her Small Studios online store, plus other very interesting and cool things. We joked that we would both be blogging about this trip! Mike has fascinating things in his warehouse. One is a very large, old perforating machine. I took a picture of it, but I like Ginny's picture better, which is on her blog here.

At one point, I saw a group of ladies standing just outside the warehouse and there seemed to be a lot of commotion. When I checked to see what was going on, it was Gaye's purse that had them so excited. She recently made a new purse using designer labels, buttons, and other art.

One lady offered to hold the purse so everyone could take a picture of it. It was the funniest thing I ever saw.

Until .....I.... saw....this.............

Yes, Gaye brought Mike a gift, the Answer Me Jesus. It is like those old Eight Ball toys, where you ask a yes/no question, turn it over, and the answer is on a floating thing in a little window. It provided some wonderful entertainment.

So, after my one hour drive to Louisville, then our two hour drive to Indianapolis, a couple of hours of shopping and visiting, was our day winding down? Noooo.... because, you see, there was a community-wide yard sale just up the street from where we were. Off we went!

That was where I got the brass magnifying glass. I also got this large safety pin for a nickel.

And this large dictionary for $1. I got it for the embossed cover. And check out that spine. It is large enough to make a book cover all by itself! The book was held together with screw posts, so it should be easy enough to remove the covers.

We eventually got back on the road for the two hour drive south. The drive went pretty fast, and we were back at Gaye's house in no time. We went inside and divided up the goods, then it was time for me to leave. Was the day winding down? Noooo... I still had a work function to go to in Louisville, a going away party for my boss. It was a surprise party, and we had a good turnout and a great meal at a local restaurant. Two or three hours later, I had that one last hour drive ahead of me. I had to stop and get paper for my printer on the way home, but I eventually pulled in the driveway after a very long day. I spread out all my goodies to admire, but by then I could barely hold my eyes open. I slept like a rock, then was up early for work today. Looking forward to the next adventure, and to coming up with ideas for using all these unique items!