My Creative Space: All Work and No Play.

Busy as a little bee getting these goodies into the shop!

Need a name for these.  Anyone?

Sunday was...

...functional.  Lots of laundry, lots of dishes, a little picture-taking, a little jewelry-making. 

In a Pod (coming soon to the shop, unless I decide I have to keep them!)

Some erranding, some baking, and a little work on theEtsy shop.  Some odds and ends got done around the house: hook hanging, shelf-building, and the like, but I was more of a consultant than an actual participant on those jobs.  The little girls spent the better part of their morning listening to Robert Munsch and "cleaning their room" which somehow involved chalk, Chinese jump-rope, and lots of horses.  The guys had school in the morning and assorted play dates in the afternoon, so the home-front was relatively quiet. 

How did you spend your Sunday?  Did you sign up for my goody-bag giveaway yet?

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?

Child Labor

I herded the wee one into the studio this morning and set her to work sorting buttons while I worked on a new bracelet.  She got bored pretty quickly, though, and raided my fabric stash for dress-ups.  (Which is fine, since absolutely none of my sewing machines is functional at the moment. )

Then she helped me take pictures for the shop.  She's a tough taskmaster, that one.  Like my fancy backdrop?  That would be a stack of cardstock, thank you very much.  After all my hard work building a lightbox...

Now we're making supper.   (Mac and cheese, split pea soup, and corn muffins.  Not gourmet, but should please three very specific people.)  Whatever will I do when this one toddles off to school?  Besides weep?

The Comeback Kid?

I had things going for a while, there.  New stuff in the shop bi-weekly, selling all over the place, featured on Handmadeology...and then I went to camp.  And then we moved.  And then the kids went back to school.  And then it was Yom Tov.  Nothing sold, nothing listed.  My biggest accomplishments were of the laundry and dishes variety, and I was starting to feel a little like an ex-jewelry-artist.  But the sukkah came down today, and I managed to squeeze in a chunk of time at the workbench.  The sleepover guests have driven off into the sunset, and the kiddos head back to school in the morning.  So tomorrow, all being well, should be a pretty good day in the shop.  I've got a bunch of new goodies to list, and I'm fairly chuffed about the whole rigamarole.  Want a sneaky-peeky?  Here's what I got before the camera batteries bailed on me.

My Creative Space: Whoa.

Something bizarre happened today.  I made myself a present, something expressly intended NOT to be put in the shop.  Then I blogged about it.  And lots and lots of people asked me to make them one.  Which is surprising.  And flattering.  And,really, kind of wonderful.  Isn't it?

For the Gal Who Has Everything...

I'm impossible to buy for.  I hate cut flowers, have an antipathy for tchotchkes, and don't use drugstore bath and body products.  I get my books from the library, my confections from my Kitchen Aid, and I'm very, very picky.  Once my poor husband ordered me three beautiful skirts that he'd overheard me admire on my (hip-less, 20 year old) neighbor.  Being that I was 10 years older and 60 pounds heavier than she, I didn't get a whole lot of wear out of them.  But I digress...the point here is that Mother's Day is fast approaching, and I want a gift.

So I scrounged up a handful of pennies with my kids' birth years on them,

(which actually necessitated a mad piggy-bank-raid and a trip to the bank, thank you very much...)

and I set about making myself a bracelet.  Except that I have small-ish wrists and six kids, so I ended up with a necklace.

I am wearing it right now.  Which may well be against the rules, but I'm so crazy in love with it that it's just not coming off anytime soon.  

(Insert segue here.  I have to go pick up carpool.   I can't be all writer-ly with time constraints like these.)

I'm participating in an auction to benefit a local 11-year-old boy who lost part of his leg in a train accident last weekend.  His cousin is a fellow Estian and member of Team WIST, and is coordinating the auction to help defray the costs of his medical care.  Pop over and see what goodies are up for grabs...

Also, I have lots of buttons.  Aren't they cool?

If you're going to The Windy City...

...be sure not to leave your camera on the kitchen counter.  Especially if you were planning to blog about your trip.  Because, really, who wants to hear about your trip to The Museum of Science and Industry and your fabulous lunch at Malibu Pizza if they can't see pictures of your kids terrifying museum employees and waitresses alike?  Your readers will want to see visual evidence of The Tuna Melt That Could Feed a Nation, and the damage you did to it in just one sitting.  They'll want to eyeball the whole brood as they bounce, pinball-esque, from exhibit to exhibit, and of that same cast of characters conked out in the car on the trip home.  Sorry, folks.  I dropped the ball.

Luckily, I do have photo documentation of  how I whiled away the ride to and from Chi-town.  

I made enough headpins for 30 sets of Dictionary Sacrifice Earrings.  

(And four camera-shy origami boxes.)

 

I made scads of infinity links.  Which means there's probably another button necklace (or six) in my immediate future.  

And I made oodles of heart bookmarks.  

Note to self:  Just because you like the way steel wire shines up in the tumbler doesn't mean you should put 20-some-odd wire curlicues in there together.  Because you'll end up with something like this:

Which will give you something to do on the way to the doctor's office (I love being a passenger---I accomplish so much when I'm not driving!) while you take ALL SIX KIDS to the pediatrician for their camp physicals. 

Which is how I spent my afternoon, thank you very much.  

All six of them.  The doctor thanked me when we left.  

For leaving, I think.  He was mildly traumatized.

Yeah, me too.

The moment you've all been waiting for?

We reached into the hat and pulled out a winner...

...and her name is...

Denise, let me know what pair of words you'd like on your Dictionary Sacrifice earrings, and I'll get them out to you posthaste. 

Thanks to all of you who commented,  liked always greener on Facebook, followed littlegreenbums,  and joined in the fun...lots of good ideas out there!  

(Lots of obsessive-compulsive word gamers, too, it seems.  My peeps!)

He Rocked the 'Hawk. (Briefly. Very briefly.)

Somebody's hair got crazy long before his harried mother finally dragged him into the bathroom for a date with The Buzzer.  At his sister's behest (oh, how I overuse that word!) he was the proud possessor of a temporary mohawk.

I made my first ring.  I like it.  More repurposed buttons and steel wire.

There is solder in my future.  Just you wait...

A child who shall remain nameless did in my favorite thrift store lamp.

Don't be surprised if you see some amber "faux-sea-glass" pendants popping up in the shop in the next few weeks.  My rock tumbler is running...

Feel like a Winner?

With all of the prep for Pesach, the novelty of running the Etsy shop, and the usual thrills, chills and excitement that are part and parcel of my daily grind, I've decided to chuck another log on the fire and have a little giveaway. The lucky winner will get a pair of uber-cool Dictionary Sacrifice Earrings similar to these:

I say "similar" because I've only got one big dictionary to chop up, and the ones in the photo are headed out to their new home (hi, Katie!) in the morning.   So I'll whip up a custom pair for my giveaway winner (it could be you!) and send them out in one of my fancy-schmancy, handmade, eco-friendly, upcycled, origami boxes.  Here's the deal:  all you have to do to be entered in the drawing is leave a comment on this post with a "________ &__________" combination.  (Twist & Shout, Pickles & Ice Cream, Mutt & Jeff...you get the picture, right?)  For a second entry, you can choose to become a follower of my blog or "like" Always Greener on Facebook.  Easy-peasy, right?  I'll draw the winning name on Thursday, April 21st.  Good luck!

Is it wrong to swoon over something you've made with your own two hands?

I hope not.  Because these make me positively giddy each and every time I look at them.

And these are having a similar effect.

It's a wrap.

Three orders into my Etsy career means that there have been three packages to create this week, and here's what I've come up with:

Upcycled origami box with dictionary "ribbon" and vintage button accent.

Equally upcycled pillowbox with vintage sheet music/vintage button "ribbon."

Variation on the origami box theme with curling dictionary "ribbon."  ( I promise you, it's all the same half-trashed dictionary that I rescued from the thrift shop years ago...I wouldn't just go about randomly---get it? randomly?--- hacking up reference books...)

Instead of cotton inside, I used a piece of felted green wool to cushion the goods.  Which design do you like best?   And does anyone have any idea where I can get pre-loved bubble wrap and small shipping boxes?  It goes against my eco-sensibilities (and my frugal ones, too) to buy new ones when there must be someplace out there that's recycling---or worse: throwing out---just the supplies I need.  

Happy Sunday...

My Creative Space: Etsy!

It's done.  For all of you who've been listening to me whine and moan about the rigors of Etsy-shop-creation, here is the fruit of our labor!  My teeny little shop, always greener, opened its virtual doors very quietly last week, and made its first sale while its keyboard-ravaged proprietress slumbered last night.  (Thanks, Nic!)

I hope your creative space has been as exhilarating as mine has this week...

(And on a more humble note, check out my gap-toothed daughter!)