So Far

Today... so far (as of dawn)

No signs yet of snow clowns or deck writing.

Go Away

Move along.  There's nothing to see here.  Nothing at all.

This is Dave.  Dave the Dog. 

I've had Dave the rubber stamp since, oh, probably the late 1980s or early 1990s.  And I have "Z".  Z is a friend/pen pal from many, many years ago.  She lives in California.  She loves Dave the Dog.  Every year around January, she will start sucking up reminding me that her birthday is coming up (in February) and that it's time for her annual Dave card.  So, no matter how many times I go through my stamps and get rid of boxes of stamps at a time, I have to keep Dave.  Dave is special.  Dave does tricks.  Dave does all kinds of things.  But I can't show you.  Z might be reading this.  So, move along.  Nothing to see here.

I received a mail order today that I've been waiting for.  I've been very excited to receive this.  The package was in my post office box today.  Oh, boy.. I could not wait to open it, and I opened it while I was talking to my postmaster, who is also a good friend.  The order was a two-parter.  One part was awesome.  The other part was all wrong.  It was baffling, humorous, and also all wrong.  And it might be part of another birthday gift for another person, so I can't show you that either.  So, move along.  Nothing to see here.

I can show you the postage stamps for Year of the Tiger.  I love the Chinese New Year Stamps.  I especially like this one because it has daffodils on it.  Nothing says spring to me like daffodils, growing mysteriously along the roadside or in a field far away from any house.  It will be another month or two before I see anything like that, but it will make me all giddy when I do.

Move along, winter.  There's nothing to see here.

Happy 50th!

Yes, bubble wrap is 50 years old today.  Seems like only yesterday it was 49.  Go here for all you wanted to know about bubble wrap. 

And be sure and go crazy popping some bubble wrap today, either online or the home game version.

P.S - My sister sent me this after my last post with clowns in it....

Too funny!!

Discoveries

Here are my recent discoveries to amuse and entertain you.

Remember the whiskey corks Gaye and I got at a yard sale last summer?  Turns out they are corkscrews!  I saw some on eBay, and that's the way they were described.  I would never have known that, although now it does seem kind of obvious when I think about it!

Tater tots -  I found the initials R.S. on a tater tot.  That's all, no other interesting story to go with it.  If it had been a Madonna, I'd be rich today!  I dropped it on the floor, then threw it away... But I'll be watching for the meaning of R.S. in my life from now on!!

Security Envelopes - Okay, this is the big one... This is the best security envelope ev-aah!  It was from House Beautiful, wanting me to subscribe to their magazine.  I have a deal for them.  How about I send in the cost of a subscription and you just send me a box of these!!! 

On to more discoveries....

A Break from Cold and Dreary

It is so cold and gray and foggy outside.  So this is for Gaye... only about seven more months until hot August days and... well, You Know!!!  Travel down these roads in Tennessee and Kentucky!  She will be chomping at the bit. (And don't worry, I'm okay with the fact that it's Mr. Gaye's turn to go this year..hee hee.)

And because I haven't shown any cool stuff of Gaye's lately (and she doesn't have a blog), this is one of my favorite things of hers.  She got this at a flea market several years ago.  Note to Pam and others who use cigar boxes for book covers.  Here's something to do with those short ends of the boxes that you don't use!!

Okay, that was a nice break.  Now back to cold and dreary.

A Page Here, A Page There

Still working on pages for Remains of the Day journal, but they are not ready to sew into the cover yet.  Here are a few.

For this page, I made a pocket using an acetate lettering guide.  And, of course, pictures of my lettering will go in the pocket.

Old stuff, new stuff, paper stuff, fabric stuff.

Security envelope pockets, and a pocket using an old wrapper from an ice cream bar.

Way fun.

Security Patrol

Remember the sketchbook I was talking about last week... with the assigned theme of "You Are Me"?  I did finish it and it is long gone.  I had planned to post a little video so that you could see all the pages.  And I did in fact shoot a video of me turning the pages.  And I have watched the video on my computer.  However there is some kind of annoying, frustrating glitch that is driving me batty technical error that won't let me transfer it for public view.  I do have some still shots, but a lot of them were taken before I sewed the book back together, and also before I put final touches to the pages to fill in blank pages or to cover up sewing.

Nevertheless, here are a few more of the pages.  As I said, the class for Remains of the Day was really weighing on my mind, so I was grabbing lots of ledger pages and security envelopes at times.  Here is the Security Patrol, made from security envelopes.

And here is a section of "Your Are Me" pages.  I cut two pages shorter and shorter, then put adhesive letter tabs on them.  On the pages themselves, there are dictionary pages with "you" and "me" circled.  The pages are from American, Chinese, and French dictionaries.  There are also some German word cards on one page.

Numbers (lots of folds and flaps)

Oh, and did I mention that some of the pages in the Moleskine sketchbook are perforated??  As I was taking the final pictures and flipping pages, I noticed that some of the pages with a lot of stuff attached were starting to rip out!  Good thing I was going for a scrappy look, cause I just put clear packing tape over the perforations.  After all, I had used packing tape and masking tape on other pages, so that worked out.

If I get the video glitch figured out, you'll be the first to know!  (And P.S., for the record ... I hope I never hear the phrase 'You Are Me' again for the rest... of... my... life.)

Blue Monday

I'm still here... had to work all weekend, and I get grumpy when I have no play time.  So there's nothing new to show.  Except my driveway.

 I do love that I get to work from home, so when there is snow and frigid temperature, I don't have to shovel the driveway to get out.  I did shovel a path to go get the newspaper.  I also do that because my driveway is (1) concrete, and (2) downhill into the garage.  Sometimes my biggest challenge is just getting out of the driveway to the road. So, if I expose some of the concrete, it will melt faster when the temperature warms up (and, yippee, we are supposed to have a heat wave in the 40s this week!)  It's called the Solar Snow Removal System.  Works for me.

I have not posted any of my new journal yet for 2010.  There is a really good reason for that.  I don't have one.  It's still in my head.  You know how that goes.  And I'm dying to get back to making pages for my online journal class.  It's like I've waited my whole life for this class, because I can utilize every last scrap that was too interesting to throw away, yet didn't really "go" anywhere else.  The more I dig around for stuff to use, the more I find.  It's like Christmas, and a whole lot of fun!  Sometimes it pays to be a packrat.

My initial plan for this new journal from the class was to make it like a travel journal, but for all the local attractions near me that I never go to.  I think that would be fun.  I could easily zip around town and take pictures, grab postcards and brochures, etc.  There is a car museum, the Patton Museum at Ft. Knox, local cemetaries, Civil War markers, Lincoln's birthplace, the Coke museum with a giant hand sticking out of the building... lots of places to explore.  Years ago, you could drive right up to the gold depository at Ft. Knox.  Those days ended in September 2001, though, and they even took down the exit sign on the interstate to indicate where Ft. Knox is.

There have always been a lot of rumors about the gold depository too.  There are supposed to be other things there besides gold.  Like jewels, documents, and also enough pure drugs to make narcotic pain killers in case we needed them in war time.  There is rumored to be an underground tunnel that goes over to the Ohio River and that the gold was taken out that way a long time ago, but I don't believe that (well, I believe there might be a tunnel, but not that they took the gold somewhere else).  Way back when, they used to hire local high school football players to help move the gold when they did inventory and counted the gold bars.  They don't do that anymore. 

Okay, I know I'm just rambling now.  I was trying to fill up some of the white space around my blue Monday  pictures!  Okay, one more picture.  This building is in Louisville.

While I Was Sleeping...

...it snowed.

[P.S. - Why, yes, I do suffer from OCD (obsessive clown disorder).  And what luck--one of my favorite places to go for a laugh (Cake Wrecks) features clowns today.]

Avert Your Eyes

Good news!  I found my pincushion.  I know--you didn't even know I lost it.  I didn't either until just recently when I needed it.  I mean, who loses a pincushion?  Well, I do.  If I own something, at some point I will lose it.  Or rather, misplace it would be a better phrase because nothing is ever "lost", just in hiding.  I had been working on a fabric book cover a few months ago, but halfway through didn't like the way it was going with my hand-sewing on it.  I put it back in its project box, evidently on top of my pincushion.  And thus the pincushion was protected there all this time.  But now it's back. Ta-Dah!  (I made this pincushion last year using instructions in Sew Somerset.  I just love, love, love it.)

Okay, I warned you to avert your eyes... in fact, this picture may disappear within a week because it's too creepy.  First... I cannot explain how my mind works.  Sometimes it is like a roll top desk... lots of little cubbies, each with something different, waiting to be explored.  Other times, my mind is like a slot machine, with those little windows in the front.  I'll be going about my day, minding my own business, then all of a sudden, something in my brain will pause, pull the handle, and go through some kind of weird, unauthorized inventory.  That happened yesterday..  whirr, whirr, whirrr... ding, ding, ding... The first window said "little vintage clown heads from Gaye".... the second window said "bag of headless barbies from the yard sale".  And like a zombie in a trance, I nodded my head and said, "yes", and I went to get the clown heads and the bag of barbies--which I discovered also had some legless, headless Kens.  It just seemed so logical to put them together.  I started to call this post "Legless Kens with Clown Heads" but that was too creepy for even me.  So, as I warned you... either avert your eyes,... or enjoy and laugh! 

Whew... glad that is out of my system now.  I hope that doesn't happen again!  I prefer the clutterd roll top desk brain.

I have to do my least favorite thing now - go to the grocery store.  I don't mind sometimes, but we are supposed to get snow tonight, and I know every resident of the county will also be at the grocery store.  But I would hate to be stranded with no food or toilet paper... and I have not been to the grocery store since before Christmas.  Wish me luck...

Arting on...

Still working on the final touches of my sketchbook and have the front cover attached.  I have to say, I did not notice the oozing of yellow paint around the stenciled letters until I looked at the photo.  In fact, the actual color I used at first blended into the brown cover and was hardly visible (and was not yellow), so I put a darker color over it.  So now it's visible, oozing out from there.  I'll pretend I did it that way on purpose.  Here's a couple of pictures.

Here is a CNN clip of a past sketchbook project from April 2009 (not the one I'm doing).  Apparently they sold those sketchbooks, from what the reporter says.  With this one, they will be in a "library", and not for sale.

First Project of the Year

Okay, this is really a left over project I am trying desperately to finish.  I signed up for a sketchbook for an exhibit in Atlanta.  There is an assigned theme, which I thought would be a good idea because it would be easier to work around a theme.  My theme is "You Are Me".  I am having a really, really, really hard time with the theme.  However, I went to see some of the other books and some from past exhibits, and some don't strictly follow their theme.  So I think I'm okay with what I've been doing.  At one point though, I realized with horror that I... um... (come closer, I have to whisper)...  I don't really sketch.  But some of the other books don't have sketching either.  And it Did say any media.  In the back of my mind, I am wanting to get back to my other journal, sewing paper and security envelopes, so that has kind of merged with my sketchbook, with me sewing a lot of stuff on the pages.  Anyway, below are a couple of page spreads. 

These pages use mirror cardstock. It's pretty cool to hold it in person and see "you".  Not so great in a photo though.

Finally, a use for those rolls of chart paper!  I sewed fake chart readings onto them!

This may all be moot at this point, however, because it is obvious I am going to miss the deadline, so I will have to throw myself on their mercy to see if they will still take it!