On the Road

We're out and about again...but this time for a different reason.  Instead of being the teacher, we're the students.  That's a change!
Deb and I flew out of our repsective airports early yesterday morning to meet up at Ranger U in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.  We are here, along with 22 other women for 3 days of classes with Tim Holtz, Claudine Helmuth, and Suze Weinberg. Were going to be learning/testing all the products Ranger makes.
Last night we met up with Ellen Hutson from Ellen Hutson LLC, an online retail store out of Seattle and Megan Darrow from 10 Second Studios for the van pool ride from the airport and  dinner.  What a great time we had.

We will keep you posted!

Collections

I think I have always been a collector, a gatherer.
Something about the look of a group together is always more enticing to me than just one.
Over the years the collecting has scaled back...maybe I should say I have become more focused as I have aged.  I have a few collections I still add to these days, but they each have very specific criteria:

1.  Red tomato pin cushions
Small or large, it doesn't matter.  The only thing that does?  they have to be used and loved by someone (translation: must have the pins still in them).  Here are 3 of about 25 I have collected.

 my mom's pin cushion, the one that started the collection is on the left.

I love this spot where where she stitched up a hole so the sand wouldn't come out.

  

2.  Globes
This one started for my husband who is a History teacher (although I am not sure who likes them more?).  The globes have to have great color and be made before 1948 (my husbands rule).  You might think this is enough globes...but trust me, there are more.  I just ran out of room on top of the entertainment center.

3. Beach sand
Okay, this one may seem strange but we have a tradition to gather a small amount before we leave any vacation near the beach.  This is just a few of the jars in my kitchen window (man, I need to clean the window!).   I love this ongoing collection because it brings back good memories of each trip.

Recently, my friend Carol, who travels to Europe frequently brought me home a little gift...and then recently another.  Maybe it's the start of a new collection...

and this one shaped like a little acorn

 

what kind of collection do you have?

send us a picture, we want to see what you are collecting and if there is a reason behind it.  We hope to post some later in the month.

Lucky Day No 125

So we loaded her into Debbie's car and drove her back to Deb's house where we boxed her up and sent her to her new home in California.

 

now she becomes part of the new work space

You would have bought her too, wouldn't you?  

I guess I was channeling my inner Sande Krieger who would have never passed her up at that price.  It really was my lucky day.

52 Weeks of Sarcasm

Since my workspace is yet to be found I thought I might show you a project I made last fall for my good friend's birthday.  This is the same basic pattern as the Christmas Countdown Calendar but instead of having pre-printed pages, these were solid cardstock cut 6 x 7" ( 1/2" bigger than the CCC).  I used these as a foundation for each page and added the patterned paper and a quote on both sides of each page.  By adding the paper on each side it makes the page thick and sturdy which is good since it's a flip book that could possibly be up all year, not just for one month at Christmas. If you made the Christmas Countdown Calendar and bought the 7gypsies stand you could always slip it off the stand once Christmas was over and put a new book on it for the rest of the year.  Why pack it away?
The numbers are old house numbers I got at a store in Phoenix, AZ called Sage.  The letters are an old Heidi Swapp product. The paper tape is 7Gypsies with the exception of the small blue stripe which is from Happy Tape (where I spent every penny of the Christmas money I got this past year!)

This flip book has 26 pages so she could have a new saying every week for the entire year (once you get to the end of the 26 pages you have to slide the book off the stand and turn it around to read the 2nd half).  You might ask where did you get so many sayings?  I signed up for an automatic daily feed from Story People which are little quotes or snippets of thoughts from Brian Andreas.  Everyday I get an email with the quote, if I can use it in my work I drag it to a file.  If it's not something I think will work for me or it doesn't really "speak to me" I delete it.  Story People is quirky and funny...right up my alley, but you could sign up for any number of services from spiritual quotes to positive messages and do this same thing.  I had been saving (and using) the quotes long before I thought up this gift.  Since I made this stand for an entire year so I needed 52 quotes to complete it!  That's a lot!

 

Some of the smaller quotes looked too small for the 6 x 7" pages so I cut smaller pieces of colored cardstock and added them in over the larger pages as you can see here...I just made sure the cardstock could still be punched in the Binderie Punch (5 x 6").

Supplies:
12 x 12 creme cardstock- you can get 2 pages 6 x 7" from each sheet
Colored cardstock for smaller pages (I ended up using these about every other page)
UHU glue stick
7gypsies Binderie punch (I would have done this project without it!)
Rubbings are from a few different sets in my stash
I used paper from 2 of my favorite collections...love that you can cut up the stripes so that it looks like bands of ribbon.  Rolling Pins and Cookbook were the 2 main papers I used with the other as backup.

Nook and Pantry by Basic Grey 

Cookbook

 Lemon Meringue Pie

Rolling Pin

Flour Sack

Girl Friday by Cosmo Cricket

Thursday

 

Saturday

Spring Cleaning

Still haven't made my way to the surface of my work table.  I was talking with Deb this morning (as we do almost every morning) and I told her I can't do any work till I clean up the huge mess I have made of my work space.  I shouldn't complain since I know I am lucky I have a dedicated space for creating.  For many years I lived in a very small condo where I had to clean projects off the kitchen table before dinner.  Now I have a small bedroom to work in.
A few weeks ago I decided to make some changes to streamline and organize my work space.  It all started when I asked my husband to take the closet doors off and build some sheving for me.  That led me to Ikea for more wire baskets and a new desk top.   I am changing the colors to green and blue, totally different from every other room in my house.  It is still a work in progress but I thought you might like to follow along.  Debbie will come to visit the 3rd week of March so I am hoping to be done by then (keeping my fingers crossed) so I can move on to something else less stressfull.

 the new color scheme...these may not all appear in the room but they are the inspiration for what will

the new paint color-moving from butter yellow to a cream 

here's the dh rolling on the new paint

he also put up crown molding

the new drawers

  okay, so the desk top is still a mess.  Sorting all the ephemera took longer than expected.  The new desktop is 96 inches long...that was a challenge getting it home from Ikea (but only $100).  In fact I had to ride in the back seat on the way home because the counter was so long it went all the way to the dashboard. Every so often the dh would say, "are you okay back there?" Oh, and did I mention the closest Ikea to my house is 3 hours away?

Where in the world is Paula and Deb?

Did you think we had abandoned this blog?  Well, no worries we haven't!  I flew to Deb last Tuesday to work on new classes for the year, meet some deadlines for the Australia trip in April and teach 2 classes in Tucson at Making Memories Unforgettable-one of our favorite places to teach.  

Just to prove we we really did teach some classes this past weekend here's the pictures to prove it!

Making Memories Unforgettable

3837 E. Broadway

Tucson, AZ

We loved these big hanging flowers/poofs

We also loved this little lamp with the button shade.  If you are in Tucson area you can take a class to make one on March 15th.  Do you notice the table it is sitting on?

.....and how they changed the walls on one of their fixtures.  Does it look familiar?

This is such a fun group of ladies.  Since we taught her last year, we are now seeing familiar faces and getting caught up with friends.

learning to use the Binderie Punch

Our Tucson visit wouldn't be complete without catching up with this wonderful group of ladies better known as our "stalker friends"

We love visiting Tucson!  Thank you Darcy and Katie for a wonderful time.

A fellow blogger left a comment about the Love Book binding...

Domenico said...

I'm so dense. How did you bind the book? I see the holes on the spine, and I see the holes on the file folders, I'm confused how to thread the ribbon. You've been so kind already I hate to bother you but I want my book to look as good as yours. Hopeless in California.

February 14, 2010 10:37 PM

Domenico, I think I just left out the picture you needed to see!  Sorry about that.

I punched holes in the portfolio for the ribbon like this.

 Then I laid the file folder on top of the holes on the right side, made a pencil mark so my holes would line up and then punched the file folder. Once the portfolio was complete I laid all three file folders into the portfolio and threaded ribbon through the holes, tying on the outside. 

Hope that helps!

paula