The Art of Complification

It's a good thing I don't bet! I would have lost this one - except if I had bet against myself... The day after my last post I came down with a rotten cold. I thought it might be allergies because it made me SO SLEEPY! But a couple days later one of the kids caught my "allergy."

So I'm going to have to figure out something else for teacher gifts because there AIN'T NO WAY I can make 7 bookmarks before school is out, especially after I waved my complification (I'm pretty sure Mr. Webster meant to include this word in the dictionary, but just forgot) wand over the project. Many people are into simplification, but not me in crafting matters anyway. I had planned on making a very pretty, but much simpler bookmark. I found my backstitch to be a little rusty though and thought the spiral roses were too pointy. My inner Monk would not allow this deficiency, so I went back to the drawing board.

I found a couple vintage embroidery patterns (Superior #125) on doe-c-doe which I like a lot. I love the daisy stitch and french knots and these patterns have plenty of both. So I printed them out and put them on the light box and came up with a bookmark pattern. I am enjoying stitching it up. It has been YEARS since I did any embroidery. I guess when it comes down to it, I just love having a project going, be it quilting, sewing, tatting, embroidery etc... Color and texture are common to them all and I guess that is all I need to be a happy crafter.

I May Need an Intervention

I have about a baJILLION things planned and in progress, so it seems only natural I would start ONE MORE PROJECT. I saw this very pretty bookmark by Jennifer Reynolds at Elefantz. I printed it out thinking some day I would get to it. But in the back of my mind I had already started to hatch a plan to make bookmarks for the kids' teachers. School is out in TWO WEEKS, there are all kinds of end of year activities, my hubby is working more lately, I have FOUR kids and I need to make SEVEN... If I were a betting man, I would have to say the odds are against me. Well, I'll give it a shot anyway because I'm not a man and I don't bet.

Besides, I'm in thinking mode on the curtains for the bedroom. I do that sometimes - OK a lot. I will stop mid-project and think... In this case I am trying to decide how I want to do the heading. I THINK I have any easy way to finish it which will look nice... but I'll have to think about it some more.

The Giving Cake

My birthday cake has kept the kids in snacks the entire week. When the cake ran out there was still oodles of icing so I made sandwiches with graham crackers. We ALL thought they were yummy!

Baby Doll made a grab for one, but she hasn't had anything that sweet yet and I'd like to keep it that way a little longer, so she got a plain old graham cracker and was tickled.

I have started cutting into the drape fabric for our bedroom. Yeah me! I hope to get the black out lining cut tomorrow. I found a tutorial for lined tab curtains by Shelly Detten at 7 Layer Studio. They are so pretty! I'm thinking of trying it. I'll have to play around with the fabric to see if my drapes are wide enough to look nice worked up that way. I sure hope so because I think it would simplify things and I like the style. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on one hand - I am under the impression crossing more fingers than that negates the whole deal. FYI

Good Times - Then and Now

This is a picture of me and my mom ... somewhere ... splashing in a stream. I kind of remember being afraid of the water and rocks (Mom probably didn't originally plan to be sitting there in a dress is my guess), and the water being REALLY cold. Good times then...

Good times now is playing around in Adobe to make this frame from the following picture:

I would love to get a pretty picture of a spiderweb some time - this isn't it, but I thought it would give me some practice. The web had been beaten up by the wind and the angle I had to take the picture at shows our back door in the background. Not exactly a dewey web in a bucolic meadow... but good for playing with because of the web's pattern.

When I get a new program, I like to just play with it. See what each tool does and really mess around with it while I have the time because once you have a project that you need it for, you usually end up too short on time to figure out something new. If you don't like what you see, then you simply don't save it - no loss. The trick with Adobe is learning to use the layers. You can do really cool stuff then. My frame has about 7 layers which I rotated. I also changed the hue and saturation as well as lighting to change the look of the web. It needs a little more fine tuning, but hey I'm just goofing here and I think it actually turned out pretty well. To me goofing is a fun way to learn and you never know what you might end up with!

When Your Birthday Falls on Mother's Day...

you get lots of cards and a REALLY BIG CAKE ...

with so much frosting it takes HOURS for your family to come down off their sugar high!!!

I'm Going to Enjoy Playing With This

No, not the balloon. That pretty pink helium filled bag of latex floated into oblivion four years ago at Litgirl's Brownie bridging ceremony. Not very green of those brownies...

I can't wait to play more with Adobe Photoshop Elements 6. I haven't updated since version 2, so I figure I am in for some real treats. So far I have only checked out the lasso tool. It did not disappoint - much easier than the old one. Oh, and that pretty pink balloon was really red four years ago.

Litgirl has to do a report on a famous Texan, so she played around with an old photo of Ima Hogg last night. I always thought that name was just a joke, but she was a real person with either really twisted or short-sighted parents! Poor girl. She had the last laugh though, 'cause Ima Hogg was a brick house.

Today is Mom's Birthday and I Miss Her

I keep thinking of the time I woke up in the middle of the night when I was around nine years old. I could hear the TV in the family room, so I crept down the hall and turned the corner to find Mom sitting in the dark watching the end of Darling Lili. She let me sit down with her as Julie Andrews sang:

WHISTLING AWAY THE DARK

Music by Henry Mancini
Lyrics by Johnny Mercer

Often I think this sad old world is whistling in the dark.
Just like a child, who, late from school walks bravely
home through the park.

To keep their spirits soaring and keep the night at bay.
Neither quite knowing which way they are going,
they sing the shadows away,

Often I think my poor old heart has given up for good.
and then I see a brand new face,
I glimpse some new neighborhood.

So walk me back home, my darling,
tell me dreams really come true.
Whistling whistling here in the dark with you.

Often I think my poor old heart has given up for good.
and then I see a brand new face,
I glimpse some new neighborhood.

So walk me back home, my darling,
tell me dreams really come true.
Whistling whistling here in the dark with you.

I'm so glad she let me stay up.

Dotty and Edgy

I love the colors of the dots on this fabric. I got it with Groovy Girl in mind, but I'm starting to think I might like it for myself. It just makes me smile. So does the edging I'm tatting for a dress for Baby Doll. It is my #3. (edging 1, Tatting for Beginners 1, by Nettie Lou Stafford Shipp) I can't wait to add my own touches to the little dress I have planned for her!

I have always liked dots. In fifth grade my mom made me a red dotted blouse to go with a blue striped jumper. I LOVED that outfit! When I was in high school, she made me my favorite robe EVER. It was a powder blue with narrow white stripes and the cuffs and trim were the same blue with dots. Mom got her first Grand Champion at the county fair with that robe! I believe my red and blue ensemble won a blue ribbon! Yes, I wore many award winning clothes. But they didn't need an award to make them special, that was just the way Mom made them.

Workbasket Bag

I was just thinking last night about a different bag - can't really explain WHY I keep thinking BAG, BAG, BAG - probably stems from me needing to keep my hands busy. That's a life-long thing, I always need a book or a project with me or I feel... odd.

Anyway, I think this would be a good bag for hand sewing as well as tatting. It is probably redundant to explain the bag, because the quality sketches I have provided say it all... but here's the deal, the sides and bottom would have a soft reinforcement such as fusible fleece to hold their shape, the bag would be fully lined and the gathered top would open far enough to hang down the outside when in use (pic 2 below) so the bag would seem like a workbasket. And I don't even want to know that you can probably buy this very bag, today, at JoAnn's or Walmart or from a little kid on the corner with a bag stand. Don't rain on my parade! Because at this moment I am a brilliant, creative, designer, with poor sketching skills, but possessing a laser-like vision that will some day see this bag take shape in three dimensions.

Oh, and I WON'T make the bag in white, because I have my finger on the pulse of the people and the people want COLOR, lots of it! So do I, so I will have to post again soon because this entry is low in pretty and zero on color.