The Other Room - Part First

Today was my first real 'work' day during my staycation. First item on the list was to work on The Other Room. As is my nature, before I can do anything I need to do six other things first. In this case, I went to The Container Store and bought some more storage boxes for my schtuff.

I also got these cool items:

A tray to hold my Tea Bag holders during my Holiday Craft Shows. I like!

Two pump bottles to house some of the hand sanitizer I bought last year for work in the industrial-size container. These will be MUCH easier to deal with!

Two misters (not missuses, misters - heh heh), one for water and one for alcohol.

Then I began to tackle a corner of The Other Room. Today's targets were a cabinet and a trunk.

This cabinet has held my cross-stitch supplies for about 15 years, now.

The top shelf held all my pattern books and a bunch of mystery stuff in those plastic bags. It was time to dig in!

I made several piles that ended up in four storage boxes. No, I DID NOT PURGE yet. Baby steps. The four piles were Plastic Canvas (makes most counted cross stitch snobs such as myself shudder), partially-complete projects, supplies, and "stuff".

Here is an example of a started-but-not-completed Plastic Canvas project. Sigh.

Here is an example of a started-but-not-completed counted cross stitch piece.

My started-but-not-completed counted cross stitch projects filled an entire box, I kid you not. What part of "easily distracted" is not clear to you? :-)

I sorted, I discovered, I reminisced, I sighed, and I emptied that cabinet. I carried it out to the Living Room, dusted it, took its photo, and it is posted on Craig's List for sale. REALLY!

Here is the big empty where it used to be. Baby steps.

Here are the storage boxes that now house all the crap that was in the cabinet. I am not so sure this takes up less room, but it will look a lot better behind the closed doors of a new IKEA cabinet, fer sure! Please notice the tubes of Aida cloth and linen on top of that table. Those are too big to fit in the storage boxes. Not sure what I'll do with them, yet.

Next I tackled the trunk. It housed mostly kid craft stuff from when my boys were little, plus all the shells we collected in FL that I could not possibly throw away, lest they never speak to me again. 10 years later I still have the stuff. This is in addition to the washed and bleached and sorted bags of shells *I* have. We won't talk about those today.

After I got rid of the trunk contents, I moved the trunk into the Living Room, took its photo, and posted it on Craig's List. I sure hope someone buys them soon, cuz it is tough to move around in here right now. (Oooh, I just got an email about the trunk! Yessssss!)

Once the trunk left The Other Room, the pile of stuff in the middle of the room came tumbling down, but this is the wall that will house my new IKEA cabinets. I am thinking 3 units tall here. The bottom two will undoubtedly hold all the crap I took out of the craft cabinet and trunk, but still, it's a start.

Tomorrow, I'll paint this wall and the one to the left. Then I can put away all the painting supplies and start working on the mess in the middle of the room. I will NOT show you a picture of that (yes, I took one) until the room is pristine and can be called a Craft Room. THEN I will reveal the Before pics.

Okay, I'm off to craft something to celebrate my progress.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Topper for the Tea Bag Holder

Remember this guy? I made a bunch of these the other day, and today I worked a little bit on the packaging. Since I transport my stuff all over, and people handle things before they decide to buy them, I make sure all my stuff is bagged and tagged to protect them.

I have never made these before, so my first thought was "will they fit in one of SU's Cello bags?" And they do! A perfect fit for the Medium, Flat Cellophane bags. If I decide to make them bigger, I'll move up to one of the sleeves I use for my cards, but for now, these work.

Here is my bagged and tagged Tea Bag Holder. Nice fit, huh? Notice that topper? I made that in about 2 minutes. Okay, maybe 3 minutes. Here's how I did it:

Start with a 4" x 12" piece of Kraft card stock. (Yeah, that's sitting on a brayered mess, but since the middle is still clean, I refuse to toss it yet. Deal with it, people.)

I took my trusty ATG and applied tape to the whole back of the piece. Stinkin' easy, especially with a new roll of tape. When these things get near the end, they develop quite an attitude about releasing any stick. Hmph.

I took a piece of tissue paper I have had forEVer and laid it over the sticky card stock.

Then I unceremoniously stuck it down - just gave it a good rub all over, wrinkles and all. I suppose I could have taken the time to make it smooth, but I was just playing.

Then I ran that bad boy through the Big Shot with the Top Note die, and it cut like buttuh.

Once again, the finished product. I am lovin' it!

Okay, back to work - there's organizing to do! When I am done with today's round in The Other Room, I'll treat myself with some more craftiness.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tea Bag/Candy Holders

The other day, Lydia, over at Understand Blue, posted this very cool project. They can hold tea bags or candy. She made hers for Halloween, but I thought I'd try to make some with a Thanksgiving theme. And since I am doing two craft shows in November, I have a shot at maybe even selling one or two of them. Going with the Thanksgiving/Autumn theme, I thought I'd put some spiced tea in the little pockets. But I am getting ahead of myself! Let's start out by making the tea bag holders, shall we?

I am going to cop out and not show the first two steps: making the holder base and the tube of DSP for the inside. This post is all about the making of the stamped piece for the front of my holders. I used Creamy Caramel, Really Rust and Old Olive textured card stock for the holders, so I wanted to make something for the fronts that would work for all of them - I did not want to make any more decisions. I AM ON VACATION, HERE!

I wanted to use one of the leaf stamps from Autumn Splendor, but the thought of coloring and cutting 24 of them made me feel faint. So I went to Plan B:

I took a piece of Creamy Caramel card stock (a color I tend to ignore in favor of Kraft, but not today), then I brayered both Really Rust and Old Olive ink randomly over the card stock. It looked really messy, then I thought it looked 'distressed', which is what I was going for.

I cut the piece into 2 3/4" squares, which turned out to be PERFECT, not only for the front of the holder, but in paper usage efficiency.

This is ALL I had left from cutting 12 squares from one piece of card stock. YAY!

I then stamped the leaf image on each square with Memento Rich Cocoa ink. Each square is a little different color-wise, but they all go with all three colors. This is what they look like stuck to the front of the holder.

Here is a peek at the inside of one of the holders. I ran the ribbon through two slits I cut in the spine of the holder, and it wraps around the outside to tie it shut. The leaf piece above secures the ribbon on the front.

This is what it looks like tied.

Now about that ribbon. It is a 100-yard roll from my stash that I got during my Ribbon Outlet trip a loooong time ago. I will never use it all. I thought it was Cream or Vanilla, but by the time I got to card 20 of 23, I realized it might be pale yellow. Oh, well.

23? Yes, that is a weird number, but we had a few fatalities in the card stock preparation area today.

I actually started with this one Saturday night. I have had this piece of snowman paper for a few years, and I thought I could use it on the front of some Christmas-themed holders. It JUST fits!

This is the inside of one of the snowman ones I made - a piece of paper from The Stash.

I thought about adding a tea poem to the inside on the flaps, but I am not sure it is necessary. I also thought about adding a sentiment on the front, stuck on over the leaf, but I am not sure about that one, either. Still pondering. These are already close to the cost of a card from just the materials standpoint, so I need to be careful of adding too much and making them too expensive to sell. I thought that as they are, they could be used at a Thanksgiving table place setting as a little something extra. Maybe.

So this is how I spent my first full day of vacation, a Sunday. I made 23 of the leaf ones, contemplated going to the store to buy spiced teabags or maybe candy for them, then sat down on the couch and stayed there. What a slug. I think I 'get' this vacation thing. :-)

Monday I WILL go to the store and get a few things that resemble food to sustain me through the next week or so. I have much physical labor to endure. I think I'll begin with painting. Yeah, painting the rest of the wall(s) in The Other Room so I can get started organizing. I'll report back as the day progresses to see if *I* have made any progress. ;-)

Thanks for stopping by!

Get Ill Soon - The Blog Hop

[Amazing blog hop banner by Lydia Fiedler, aka: Understandblue]

Welcome to the GET ILL SOON Blog Hop! What is this all about? Well, let me tell you.

Perhaps you may recall a while ago I mentioned that one of my Tweeple (@AuntiePrincess) says the darnedest things, and (with her permission, of course) I put some of these sayings on cards. So now when she says something funny, people just kinda expect I'll be all over it, and they are usually correct.

Last week she said something card-worthy, but - I WAS AT WORK! I KNOW! Someone ELSE jumped on it instead of me! Then Auntie offered it up as a challenge to ALL of the card makers in our little group, and informed us there would be judging and (more importantly) prizes!

What kind of prizes? This has not yet been revealed, but I hope it will be something from her ribbonwork etsy shop. She makes the neatest Cocarde, some of which are flat and would work well on cards (hint, hint!) She is also into vintage things and sells those in her Vintage shop. AND, she has hand-made lamp shades in her lampshade shop. This is a woman of many talents!

So what did she say that was so card-worthy? She said that sometimes she wished they made Get Ill Soon cards. That's right - wishing someone to get sick and go away. Someone else fired back he'd need a whole box of those. (I'm working on it, Gary!)

But you are not here to hear about OTHER people! You are here to see A CARD, am I right?! Without further ado, I bring you my entry in the Get Ill Soon challenge:

I think it is perfection. Why? Not because it is GOOD (though I am kinda loving it right now), but because (1) I used a just-bought stamp - Da Moose, (2) I got to use my new fancy tag Nestie behind the sentiment, (3) I got to open my pack of checked PTI patterned papers, and (4) I thunk up all of this while chained to my desk at work! Once I got home it all came together in about 10 minutes. Schweet!

ENOUGH with the blathering. I am sure you want to see the other entries in this little challenge, so without further ado, head off to the next stop at Lisa A's blog: papergrace.

And thanks for stopping by!

ETA: The winner of some cool cocardes is Dreena, the third stop on our hop!

Market Update - The Colors Of Autumn

Today was a glorious day at the market! Sunny, cool, just perfect. Plus, it was our annual Pot Luck, but more on that in a sec.

I titled today's post "The Colors of Autumn" because it now feels like Autumn, and the colors are amazing.

Once again we have Farmer Mike's bin of hot peppers. He is quite proud of these babies, and continues to taunt me with them because he knows I am a wimp.

Check out the heat scale on these. Uh-uh. No way.

(I like the Fatali name - same root as 'fatal'? Ya think?)

In keeping with the naming conventions (maters, taters, cukes), these are turn-ups. I do not eat these. Blech.

Sweet peppers. And from last week's lesson, we know these are all the same type of pepper, just at different stages of maturity. I passed that test. I was actually quizzed today on several veggies. Bet you did not know there'd be tests, huh? Not for you, but for moi.

More sweet peppers and bell peppers.

More bell peppers.

Watermelons. I am not sure if it's these, but some of them are yellow on the inside, not red.

Here is a row of maters and squash and taters. Those sweet potatoes are white/yellow on the inside like 'regular' taters, not orange.

Cooking pumpkins. The bakery buys these to cook and make their pumpkin pies.

I thought these eggplants were a pretty color - not the usual deep purple.

Mmmmmm ... apples ....

Moving on from the veggies to the next part of the show, this is Jason, the jeweler next to me from whom I bought my necklace last week. He and his wife make such pretty things. Today Jason was wearing this necklace to show that guys can wear them too. I think it looks good on him.

But then I asked him to wear this one, and he refused me. REFUSED! Too girly. There is apparently a limit to what a guy will wear. ;-)

On to the critter portion of the program. This guy is a weekly visitor, and he is gorgeous, er handsome! His Mom said he was a breeder rescue - the runt of the litter and not good enough to show or stud. She fostered him until she decided to keep him. He is such a good dog, as I believe the runts of litters usually are. And he is so soft! His forehead is like silk! She said he gets fish oil to help with skin conditions. It works!

Here is another sweetie, and also a rescue. Part Shitzhu.

Another part-Shitzhu rescue! Sorry her face is a little blurry, but she was a wiggler!

And ANOTHER! Three part-Shitzhu rescues all in a row.

The brown dog here is part Corgi. He/she is very low to the ground!

Here we have a praying mantis. I drew a red line so you could see it better. Farmer Mike said it is a female, because she is puffy and ready to lay eggs.

Lesson du jour: When the farmers find some mantis nests/egg whatevers on the plants, they take them and keep them in the refrigerator for a few weeks to simulate the winter. Then they put them in the greenhouses and when they hatch, the larvae eat the mites on the plants. Now THAT is all-natural farming!

Here is the same mantis on an arm. She was quite the entertainment for the kids!

In other entertainment news, back to today's Pot Luck. My, my, my but can these people cook! We had crock pots with soup and chili; dumplings (Chinese), Samosas (Indian); Tabouleh; Middle Eastern Rice (with and without meat); Poblano Pepper Poppers (mine); Panzanella salad (with fresh maters from Farmer Mike and fresh Rosemary bread from the bakery); Hummus; bagels & cream cheese & jam; sausage & cheese; and a fruit tart. Can you say STUFF-ED?! OMG, I may never eat again. Until tomorrow.

We had another excitement today, too, and not a good one (the event itself) but it had a good ending. One of the kids came by and asked me the intersecting street names, and I thought nothing of it until someone told me a woman had tripped on the sidewalk, fallen, and had broken a tooth and banged up her lip. They called 911, who told her to not move until they got there, so we were all waiting for the paramedics to arrive. Meanwhile, one of the other market customers happened by, went home and told his wife, who is A DENTIST! She came running out with gloves and all sorts of dentist stuff and took care of the woman. She advised her what to do about her tooth, etc, and it was just amazing and heart-warming to watch. The paramedics got there and made sure she ONLY hurt her tooth - no head trauma, twisted ankle or anything else. All is well, except she needs to go get her tooth re-attached! Phew - what a day!

As a side story, someone asked me to call 911 again to get a status of where the paramedics were (the station is like 2 miles away ...), and um, believe it or not, I had no idea how to use my phone. That's right - my relatively new Crackberry phone. I have only ever used it to call numbers from my address book, and did not know how to just dial a number! I learned, but how embarrassing!

I have been a lazy bum all afternoon and evening, and have not made a card today, OF ALL DAYS, as today is World Card Making Day. Oh, well. I'll try and make up for it tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning I have planned a most rare activity: I am going to the grocery store. That's right - I am on vacation, and I cannot fall back on my plan of eating breakfast and lunch at work every day, so I'll have to have food in the house. I know! I'll probably need a map or something to find anything. And maybe a clue. I'll let you know how that goes.

Thanks for stopping by!

Malamutes and Dragon Flies

I have a rule that I only buy stamping supplies that I like. They have to be something I would use myself on a card to send to someone. Why? A wise person once asked me what I would do if I bought stamps I did not like, then made cards with them, then the cards did not sell. I'd not only have the stamps, but I'd also need to store all the unsold cards. Uh-huh. Good point.

So over the years I have been pretty good about what I buy. Oh, I will definitely buy a snarky sentiment to put with one of the lady stamps I have, but that is because *I* think it's funny. I still hope it sells, but I made it because I liked it.

Last week I broke my own rule of not buying a stamp JUST to use on something to sell. I was asked (ASKED - someone INVITED ME) to do a craft show in Virginia. I (graciously) turned it down because it is across the river, and with that pesky Day Job and all, it sounded like work. Plus I'd need to get a VA tax license which also sounded like work. I have enough work; don't need more. But she was persistent, stopping by week after week to taunt me, and I finally caved and sent in my application. And I was accepted.

A few weeks ago when she stopped by, she strongly suggested I have items with Malamute images, because after all, this was a Malamute rescue group and they'd buy anything with a Malamute on it. I do not own a Malamute stamp, so I called one of my customers who does dog shows, and asked her, and she did not have one either. So I BOUGHT one. Online. Paid the shipping. And the image is a beauty. This is the first thing I made with it:

A pack of note cards. I did not even put sentiments on them - just the dog.

I looked up the colors, and they are pretty much Black & White, or dark grey and white. Either way, this stamp is so detailed, I did not even need to color it. This felt funny - not enough work - so I colored the tongues pink and outlined them with my W2 Copic. I think I can whip out many packs of these before mid-November!

Then I moved on to my next victim: the Dragon Fly die. One of my market customers suggested I make some dragon fly magnets like my turtle and crab magnets, so I obliged.

I am not too crazy about any of these, so I am calling them Mock-Ups 1, 2 and 3.

This is the first one I made. I think I made the string circle a little too wide. The dragon fly wings have little circle punch-outs that I did not want to punch out, so I stuck a mini glue dot under each one and used that to stick them on. Then I colored the punch-outs with my Ziggy gold pen. Eh, not too exciting.

Second try. I made the inner circle a lot bigger, and this time I colored the dots with black. Eh, I still think it is boring.

Last try tonight - copper wings! Okay, better, but I failed with coloring the punch-outs. I need to use a different pen or maybe glitter pen on the brushed copper card stock. Or maybe plain string.

So, yeah, these need work. Maybe blue is the wrong color for the top two circles. I might switch to green. Mmmmm .... green .......

In other news, I AM ON VACATION!!! Okay, it is a staycation, but I am not going to work for TWO WEEKS! YESSSSSSSSSSSS! But I will be terribly busy, doing all those thing one cannot do in 2-hour chunks after work, or crammed into a Sunday, along with laundry and everything else.

I have bigbigbig plans, I do. I hope that I have better luck with this list of tasks than I do on a typical day off when I only get 1/2 way done. I plan to use this staycation as blog fodder, so you'll get to see what I accomplish. One of those items is to finish The Other Room. Yep - it is on the list! Oooh, I have been looking forward to this for ages ... I am sooooo ready!

Tomorrow we are having a pot luck at our market. We usually wait until the last weekend in October, but some of the people will not be here then, so we set it for tomorrow, instead. Well, the people that KNOW about it will participate. Not everyone was there last weekend, and some of them do not read their email. But the rest of us will be ready.

I am bringing: Poblano Poppers (not as hot as Jalapeno Poppers) and Panzanella, which is a veggie + bread salad. I made the salad this week for work and it was a hit. (Sadly I did not win the cook-off, but the salad was all gone, so it was at least loved by the Eating Team.) I need to get bread, so I'll just bring everything with me, buy the bread and a few more veggies there, slice & dice on the spot, and assemble real-time. I spent some time this evening cutting up things like olives, onions, peppers, etc., and made the dressing. All set. Now all I need to do is get up at O'Dark Thirty to make the poppers. Man, is this place gonna smell goooooood. ;-)

That is all for this evening. Thanks for stopping by!