In which I bear precious little resemblance to Charles Dickens

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.


~Charles Dickens

Well, we can add those to the list of ways old Chuck and I differ.  Wish he was here to organize the studio, post these listings, and make beads today...

Craft Show III, ADD, and Me.

It's been a busy week.  Sunday, I did my third show, which I helped to coordinate.  Had some new tricks up my sleeve, including the nifty stamps I used on my once-plain brown paper bags.  The setup is essentially the same as it was last time...

...but there are a bunch of things I'm looking to change up.  My bunting is starting to look kind of rumpled, which is not quite the image I'm shooting for.  Also, I'm feeling like all the green is a bit much, so I'm on the prowl for ideas about what to cover the table with.  I forgot a bunch of my signs, and had to fudge a couple and do without one entirely.  And see that solitary burlap display in the back?  Must. be. revamped.

Luckily, I had a slew of helpers this go round.

I'm pretty sure this one ate most of my profits.

And this one wasn't too happy to leave once the festivities had ended.

The studio has taken a hit during this succession of shows, so I'm hoping to put it to rights this week.  My workbench is hidden under all manner of findings and tools.

And my Power Tool Station (okay, the counter next to the sink) is the very picture of disarray (and headless silverware).

Naturally, I'm coping with the urgent need for organization in the way I know best: ignoring it and doing something altogether different. Here's a dark, amateurish photo of the business card holder I put together this afternoon while the Huz took the kidlets to a movie.  It's made of balsa wood, buttons, and the ever present paper bags.  Amazing what lurks inside these cupboards of mine.

On a final note, my new bracelets were the hottest seller at this event.  (Which was cool, since I've been sweating blood over them.)  Any clever ideas for quotes or phrases to stamp on them---with no more than 30 characters?  Yeah, that's been keeping me busy, too...

Off to light candles with the family...hope your week is filled with light!

Happy Blog-day to Me and a Goody Bag Giveaway

I almost missed it.  And then, this afternoon, I remembered that my wedding anniversary (17 years today!) is also my blogiversary, and I figured it would be sporting of me to post something.  So here I am, looking at the big oh-two.  Two years of throwing it all out there, and being amazed and delighted at what's come back.


To celebrate, I've decided to have a little give-away, but I haven't gotten around to deciding what I'm giving away.  Let's call it a goody bag, and assume that there will be some kind of jewelry and an assortment of goodies thrown in, because I'm cool like that.  We'll open it up to everybody---location notwithstanding--- and you can enter by leaving me a comment on  this post.  You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook for an extra entry, blah, blah, blah.  I'll choose a winner in a week---on the evening of the 26th.

Oh, and on an Always Greener note?  My Not Your Mother's Upcycled Giftbox was featured over at Chopstick Lady and Love2Upcycle.  Virtual high five!

Not enough paint in the world.

I've been playing around with my booth setup all week, getting ready for my show on Sunday.  This is what it looked like this morning, before I decided to ditch the little corner shelf on the right and go with my original idea---reusing some windows I picked up at ReStore (my favorite place in the world) a few weeks back.

They look like this.

Well, they did before I knocked out all the glass.  Despite hubby's instructions to carefully cut out the caulk, then remove the glass panes in one piece, I headed to the trashcans after roughly four minutes of painstaking progress-less-ness and resorted to this.

Which was messy and nerve-wracking and not a little bit stupid, but yielded the quick results you know I crave.  I did a bit of tidying up afterward with a razor blade and some pliers and the orbital sander, but all in all it was relatively painless. (Look, Ma!  No band-aids!)

After being sanded and patched and primed, they looked like this.  And then, of course, I ran out of spray paint.  (Again.  The guy at Home Depot is certain I'm a graffiti artist, despite my fervent assertions to the contrary.) So now I'm off in search of some more Dark Walnut.  And then I'll be back, to show you the finished product, I hope.

But before I go, here's the original hardware, all primed and waiting to be painted up shiny.  You like?

My Creative Space: Sniff.

The germies have won this war.  Whatever little virus my kidlets have been passing around has hit the mama, and she's fallen, hard.  My throat is raw, my ears are itchy, and I have a hacking cough that makes me sound like an 80 year old man.  Jealous?  And in spite of it all, I'm plugging away, trying to get the shop back on track.  "All very nice," you say?  "Show us the craft," you implore?

So here it is.

I'm planning to do my first craft show next Sunday, and I needed to come up with a quick and cheap way to display my jewelry.   So I raided the garage and came up with a trio of collage frames that lost their glass in the move, and sprayed them with my old standby, Dark Walnut.  Then I cut foamcore to fit the frames and covered it with a piece of coffee sack I had left over from another project.  I stapled the burlapped  boards in place, and started playing around with display setups.    (Don't worry---this is just a portion of what I've got to sell.  There will be a rash of impromptu display-making throughout the week, I'm sure. 

See?  I just used some shiny little sewing pins to hold them in place---nice and flexible for ADD Girl's constantly changing idea-go-round.

More spaces here.