Studio Tour: Up close, personal, and un-edited.

I'm a lucky girl: I finally have a room of my own, and it's even heated.  The house we bought in Milwaukee is a duplex that we use as a single family home.  My studio is the upstairs kitchen, which means it's got oodles of cabinets, a double sink, and lots of space.

 My workbench is nestled in the nook where the stove should go.  Love the task lighting!

 Lots of Dictionary Sacrifice earrings on the bench block today.  (I finally got wise and schlepped a concrete block upstairs to use under the bench block.  Before that, I was doing all my metal stamping on the concrete floor of the basement.)

Beads hang out on the bench with me-made findings.

A repurposed  rake provides storage for strands of beads and wire spools.

 This is pretty much the way it always looks.  There's never just one project going at a time...


Between craft fairs, I keep everything set up in my "showroom."  Makes it easier to find items when they sell, and also gives me the opportunity to switch things up if need be.

 This is where the heavy drilling and cutting happens.  Right now, I'm trying to put together some storage for my metal stamps.  Naturally, I can't find the right size drill bit...which means it's time to hit my neighborhood hardware store.  The blow dryer is handy for drying off findings after they've been tumbled.

 Here's my trusty $3 paper cutter.  Bought it from friends at a yard sale years ago, and have probably used it more than any other piece of equipment I own.  More than my money's worth...

 I have a (ridiculous) collection of tool boxes and jewelry boxes, which hold everything I need until I need it.  Or until I forget about it...

 The south wall is where all of the cabinets live.  Original to the house. Awesome, no?

 The kids like to hang out with me, so they have their own work table smack in the middle of the room.

 Reclaimed heat register---sprayed silver, and used for storage.

There you have it---my little haven o'craft, Milwaukee-style.  Where do you get crafty?

Epic fail

Subway art.  It's everywhere, and I've been hankering for a little bit of subway in our new house. (Hah!  You didn't even know we'd moved again, didja?  I figured I'd bored you enough with my previous tales of packing and unpacking ---sorry for the WKRP reference; I'm a child of the '70s---and this time my sainted husband did the hard part while the kiddos and I were at camp.  Thanks, Jess!)
  Right, so I read the tutorial, I drooled over the pins on Pinterest, and I purchased my spray paint and vinyl sticker-letters.  I trakced down some old shelves to upcycle, and I listed all of the places we've lived since Jess and I got married back in 1994.  Four rentals, four of our own homes, from Miami to Rochester, to Des Moines, and now to Milwaukee.  I primed, I measured, I stuck-on, I sprayed, and I peeled.  And I realized I'd forgotten to include a residence.  And that one of the addresses I'd listed was---well, not someplace we'd lived.  There were fuzzy spots where the stickers hadn't adhered entirely.  (Did I mention that I was doing this whole shindig after hours, whilst the wee folk slumbered?  That's my excuse du jour, and I'm stickin' to it.)  I attempted to repair my strokes of idiocy, and blundered once more---the spray paints I'd chosen were flat, and the acrylic "repair-paints" glossy.  So I scrapped it, and started from scratch.

Those of you who know me well realize that I must have really wanted this subway art.  Because I am not a "try, try, again" kind of girl; I'm more of a "what-ever---let's go have some chocolate," kind of girl.  This time, though, I re-primed, re-measured, re-cut,  re-stuck, and re-painted.  (There was a little re-swearing in there, too, but as I said, the wee ones slumbered.)  My diligence was rewarded.

You think I'm going to make this into some kind of cheesy story about how you can always achieve what you put your mind to, don't you?  Or, perhaps, a cautionary tale about the evils of mixing concentrated spray paint fumes with Excedrin and late nights?  Nah, it's just me again, too cheap to shell out cash for something I really, really wanted.  And it's going on the mantel before I unpack my first suitcase.  So there.

Brr.

I'm a Miami girl at heart.  I spent 23 years alternately complaining about and basking in the Florida sunshine, and then we moved to Rochester, New York.  Where they have "9 months of winter and 3 months of bad sledding."  Where I learned the value of long johns, mastered the fine art of window de-icing, and---I thought---thickened up that wimpy South-of-the Border blood of mine.  By the time we hit Des Moines three years later, the winter coat didn't come out till the mercury dipped into the 40's, and I would occasionally emerge from the cozy confines of my heated home onto the front porch with only one extra layer of clothing on.  Tough as nails, I tell you.

And then, boys and girls, we moved to Milwaukee.  I haven't been warm since.  I slumber---frigid, thickly-socked feet and all--- under a trio of hefty comforters.  I dash in from carpool and refuse to doff my coat---or the two sweatshirts layered under it---for hours.  I mainline soup for breakfast, and wash it down with hot chocolate.  I dread venturing into the basement or the attic, where the temperatures are a good 20 degrees cooler than our living space.  Arriving home from lunch today, I was confronted with a troubling dilemma:  how in blazes was I to open the front door with fingers that were equal parts frozen and gloved?

Busy much?

It's been pretty quiet lately in my neck of the blogosphere, and I'm sure my faithful readers are wondering why.  So here's a brief overview of life chez littlegreenbums this past week---from our journey to The Cream City last week, up to and including my thwarted attempt at retail therapy this very evening.

See that big yellow truck?  It took two trips in that bad boy to ferry all of our worldly goods from Des Moines to Milwaukee...and I can assure you, we are buried---buried!--- in boxes at the mo'. (Matter of fact, we'll probably remain buried in boxes for quite some time.  My spin bike is at the base of a mountain of empties as we speak---guess who didn't get to ride today, despite her intentions to the contrary?)  Anyway, the kitchen is mostly unpacked, the children are all accounted for, and the rest of it is a disaster of absolutely epic proportions.  (I'm exaggerating.  I sometimes exaggerate when I'm so far beyond exhausted that my hair hurts...)  And did I tell you about the Haven o' Craft?  No?  That's probably because I've only entered it in the past 5 days to add boxes labeled "Art Room" to the teetering piles already contained in its very small walls.  And the dining room table?  Have you seen it?  Me neither...buried. But tomorrow we'll fetch the bookshelves from storage, and then I can put away the forty-some-odd boxes of kids' books, which should improve the obstacle course-like nature of the dining room.  (And the living room.  And a couple of bedrooms, now that you mention it...)

Whenever we pick up and plant ourselves in a new location, the kidlets and I find it helpful to get out of the house and see the sights a bit.  Get our bearings, determine the lay of the proverbial land.  Check out the libraries, the grocery store, the emergency room... (No worries...she's fine.  Just a little bout of nursemaid's elbow.  Can you think of a more amusing way to spend a Sunday evening?  I thought not!)

Right.  So, as a little sanity-boosting measure ---and to replenish the perpetually diminishing supply of lunchbox fare, again---I took my new produce bags out for a spin at the fancy Pick and Save a few miles from the house.  I was over the moon to discover that the store has a nice bulk section, and that my beloved  (and elusive) red lentils were one of the items on offer.  Feeling ever-so-virtuous, I whipped out a produce bag and proceeded to fill 'er up.  After a good meander around the store, I headed for the checkout.  Where I demonstrated, as lentils rained out of my bag, through the wire frame of my shopping cart, and speckled the floor of the checkout aisle, that the mighty drawstring is a fabulous closure for a produce bag---so long as the produce in question is sufficiently bulky to remain in said bag when gravity-provoked.  (This minor glitch was rectified posthaste with a spare (new) hair elastic I just happened to have in my coat pocket, and I'm pleased to report that the lentils and I arrived home without further mishap.  Whew!)

At My House: Flurries!

As I was spinning away in the basement this morning, the increasingly agitated cries of my spawn nearly pulled me off the bike.  Loud as blazes but frustratingly indecipherable, I thought I was hearing shouts of "It's going!"  "What's going?" I wondered to myself, knowing full well that someone would eventually descend to the laundry room to enlighten me.  A moment or two later, Rachmy hurtled down the steps, stopping for a long moment to snicker at the sight of Mommy exerting herself.  "It's snowing!" he chortled, "and Winter has come early!"

By the time I'd dragged my bike-weary body to the living room window, the alleged snow had stopped.  My brood was outside craning their necks to the heavens, but alas!  There was no further precipitation to be seen.

I finally finished up the girls' pillows today---a flurry of excitement on that count!

There's been a flurry of anticipation, a flurry of activity, and a flurry of packing in these parts, as well.  Things are coming along in the moving department, and we're hoping, G-d willing,  to head out of here next weekend.  Greener pastures, here we come!

My Creative Space: Accessorizing

This week, though bereft of potential house-buyers, has yielded all manner of exciting table linens.  First, a stained tablecloth was painstakingly upcycled into a set of "new" damask napkins.

Then, since I'd been well and truly sucked into "turn and topstitch" mode, I  paired a couple of yards of cotton that's been hanging around my stash with a thrifted pink sheet to make some cheery, striped placemats.

Why the sudden urge to make table linens? Well, the vast majority of our existing linens are in boxes.  In Milwaukee.  And we still have to eat...

Check out Kirsty's place for more creative spaces...

My Creative Space: A Little Humble Pie

When I went to Judy Seidman's slumber party, I stuck to the chairs.  And the sofa.  And had I sat on the floor in the hallway, I'd have stuck to that, too.  Judy's house was swathed in a layer of vinyl, and I, omniscient at age twelve, was horrified.  "What kind of family," I wondered, "wraps their furniture in Saran Wrap?"  I never went to Judy's again.

Fast forward more years than I'd like to discuss.  And imagine my turmoil as I shambled shamefacedly into the fabric store to purchase enough vinyl to defend my dining room chairs against the daily onslaught of grubby fingers, spilled spaghetti, and banana "fingerpaint" that fill our days.  I studied my Crocs as Millie---who was clearly having a stinker of a day to begin with--- manhandled the unwieldy bolt onto the cutting table, lopped of my three yards, and rang up the sale. 

In my own defense, we use these chairs seven days a week, (at least) three meals a day.  And we've had them for a good seven years.  But still, when I plunked my roll of vinyl on the dining room table, I was faced with a tableful of chairs that looked  like this.  (And, no---this is not "the bad one."  I assure you, each was more dreadful than the last.)

So, armed with a pair of school scissors, my trusty staple gun,  and a set of curtains I'd rescued from the attic, I began the revamp.  And after the first one, I gotta tell you, I started to get a little pumped.  (Which, I'm sure, had nothing to do with the how my short assistant was entertaining herself while I worked.)

Yeah, let's go ahead and cover those suckers while we've got the vinyl, hey?  And don't talk to me about off-gassing.  I'm not listening...

Pretty sharp, no?  Here, look closer.

See what I found inside the first chair?  Can you explain how that got in there?  Me, neither.

So far, I've got 5 of the 8 done.  The remaining three are going to require a little more finesse than I can manage just now...they're from a different set (see Shani's chair above?) and have piping and lots of tricky curves to contend with.  Of course, I discovered all this after I hacked the existing fabric off of them, but I'll figure it out...

And forgive my miserable shot-in-the dark photos...I was too excited to wait till morning to share these.  See what the rest of the world is up to over at Kirsty's.

A little procrastination is good for the soul.

Isn't it?  This is what I did yesterday in an effort to avoid cooking for Sukkos.  (Don't ask how Shani occupied herself  while I abandoned the fabric paints to answer the phone...)

Of course, I managed to get in a fair bit of sukkah decorating, as well...

...and hung up last year's Very Green Decorations (which make me giggle every time I see them).  More to come, folks...more to come.

Inside the mysterious bungalow...

...there is a makeshift kitchen, where I whip up all manner of vegetarian goodies to keep myself from gorging on camp fare.  Sometimes, though, I end up gorging on camp fare in addition to the aforementioned  vegetarian goodies, which leaves considerably less room for smug self-righteousness.  Regardless, with a little ingenuity and a rice-cooker, it's amazing what you can get on the table. 

Birthday Cake Makes Everything Better

Yes, the cake matches the shirt.  And the headband.  Get over it. 

It was really, really good.

Yes, the bunting reads "Happy Birthda". 

The kid is 2 years old.  She can't read.  Besides, we drag it out for all of our birthdays...I made it a couple of  years ago from the tutorial on maya made.  Let's just say we're embracing the imperfection.

Hope your day has been full of things to celebrate...

It's sprung!

And it's a darned good thing, because we're in high-frenzy Pesach mode. That means that all chametz-eating is taking place outside, as I'm flipping the kitchen tonight. Here's the Chez Littlegreenbums dining experience in pictures:

Keeping it under control

In the middle of the night, when one of my brood comes in to my room to share a bad dream or a bellyache, I can identify them by feeling their heads.  Without my glasses, I make Stevie Wonder look like a top candidate for flight school.  And somehow, I always manage to misplace my specs...while I sleep.  Which results in an early-morning game of  "Let's find Mommy's glasses so she can get out of bed without injuring herself or someone to whom she fairly recently gave birth." 

Yeah.  So when this brainstorm hit, I was a very happy camper indeed.  This folding wire crate (trashpicked, thank you very much,) holds my book and a few other bedside essentials:  my MP3, pen, journal, and , of course, my glasses. I've been using it for a couple of weeks, and we've had nary a scavenger hunt since.  In my book, that's a Very Good Thing.