Down the Rabbit Hole

This is another tip of the hat to the last day of "Finish what you have" month..
I started this before Easter this year, and finished it this morning.
I love finally finishing things and I love these german cardboard eggs.
I have some I painted like Humpty Dumpty for my sister's baby shower 5 years ago...
They sported felt jackets and silk ribbon ties.

I wanted a new Alice. I found this photo on Flickr Collage Images and painted and cut it out, along with some other goodies I had at my finger tips..
or perhaps I should say I had them "underfoot" as I tend to be creative in a most exuberant and abundant way.. with piles and places swimming in what ever flotsam and jetsom has caught my magpie eye that day.

I found myself in awe of the space and obvious conviction of craft stash organization that was apparent in Stephanie's Ruby Crowned Kinglet WIP post.Not to make excuses ( but, yes... to make excuses...) I am making the most of a walk in closet...A not quite contained floor to ceiling stash.

And, I am a fickle and far flung crafter..

One day,I fall in love with fabrics and I see bags and pillows, skirts and shirts and aprons and dolls.

The nest day, I adore paper and paint.. boxes, pictures, post cards and tiny jewels that are pictures under glass.
Books and letters, gifts wrapped in papers, and all sealed in fancy envelopes or recorded in thick and warping journals.

Jewelry brings wishes on chains and semi-precious, old, loved jewels.. loose gems and tidy earrings. glittering necklaces, rescued old glass, bracelets charms and amulets.

Wood, concrete, wire and plants.. Inspiration is everywhere. Indoors and out.

Like Alice down the rabbit hole, I never know what I will find.
And never, never know when i will finally get it finished.

Boxer

More of my decoupaged boxes with big dreams that they will be put on Etsy this Friday.
Etsy isn't hard to use, but boy, do I have a hard time making a few minutes available for the resizing and the posting and the composing of the (hopefully) clever and enticing descriptions, etc.
Perhaps a skilled and insightful therapist would tell me I am using avoidance because I fear success, or failure, or something.
I don't think it is all that mysterious.
I just have a very low tolerance for technical frustration.
I have abandoned Ebay entirely, for this very reason.
I lost more of my life trying to get my hands on other peoples refuse than I care to admit..
and I found myself far too eager to give a home to stuff that wasn't even worth the time,
let alone the shipping charges!
I got off my butt and went to thrift stores and have not looked back, except in triumph.
I'm actually able to see what stuff looks like, it's cheap. And no hidden shipping charges.

Pfft to Ebay!
Stealer of craft time..
Partner of the the PayPal. (And Pal, you just Pay and Pay.)

Right now I find myself locked in a virtual retail conudrum with a couple other ether vendors..
Am I waiting for a shipment? Are they going to ever actually process my order? I can see it in the order history but nothing is charged and nothing is shipped..
Did it actually go through?
How can I know, until I don't get what I need when I need it?
Then do I have time to find it in actual reality?
How did the pioneers get obscure craft materials?

I need to saddle up the pony and head east for microscope slides and some scalloped pinking shears..
Maybe I can find a real live store if I Google it ?

Put a little Birdhouse in your soul

This is in my dining room..In the middle of my house. It is my own indoor window where I can put together whatever my little heart desires. ( Unlike the corporately directed displays at "my place of employment".)
I got the cupboard in Petaluma at a flea market.. a whooping 10 bucks.
It is resting on a table salvaged from the house of the grandmother of a friend of mine, when I went to help her clean it out to make it ready for a new family to move in.

It is a great little cupboard because almost anything you put in there looks better.
I change it out for holidays (the Chinese New Year displays are a fave)..
and sometimes for seasons, (this is a summer display)
or if I have a wish to make, ( I put a model of my dream house in there when I wanted to move out of LA.. )
or to show off new treasures I find (like the big bird nest, which I found on the ground while walking with my son..)

This nesting bird, surrounded by leaves of a book, looks just like what I want to be doing this summer. Feathering my nest, surrounded by stories. I am reading Orlando by Virginia Woolf right now, soon to be followed by Confederacy of Dunces and Middlesex. I want to be done with all 3 by Labor day. My own summer reading program...
Did anyone else do that when they were a kid? Summer Reading at the Public Library? I loved summer at the library.. The air conditioning, and the papery smell of the books... At my library when you signed up they posted a construction paper thing on the wall, one per kid, and we filled in the books we read and if you hit the goal there was a watermelon party at the public pool.

If you read all you mean to this summer.. There will be watermelon at my house on Labor day. No pool though.. But we can play in the sprinkler, if you want.

Shriner

What do you do with a very small unfinished shed, a few porcelain figurines, and some recycled tin flashing?
Build a shrine to Buddah in the flower bed, of course.
I am filing this one under "Finish What You Have". We had an unfinished pet house in the yard for ....
hmmm...
2 years now. ( If you finish it in a different way than you originally intended, does that count?)
The rest of the stuff was arround because I wanted a garden shrine (or had old tin to recycle.. "too good to throw out").. I just never pushed for the finish.
We put most of it together last weekend but I added the "prayer flags" this weekend. If I am quite honest with myself I must admit, I think they look more the calico version of the penant garland from a used car lot. If you look closely though, it appears that Foo dogs and the Buddah are very amused.

Getting back in the saddle

This photo goes out to the lovely and talented Laura Capello per her "Ack.. where is the bag?" comment. This is the messenger bag I made. Amy Butler pattern, but not her fabric, because I have a slight preference toward the unexpected. The button is from Craftster.. Because I love an skull craft reference.

I haven't blogged for a bit because I have been really busy actually making stuff .. and also with work, elementary school graduation, Father's Day, impending summer camp, succumbing to mild anxiety attacks about having time for all I want to do, dandelion warfare, birthday parties, clearance sales and occasional half hearted housekeeping.

I have to keep this a quick howdy because I need to finish an overdue swap package.. and for some reason, I ripped all the t-shirts out of my shirt drawer to "organize" them.. They were better organized before I pulled that stunt, because now they are a big pile on the floor instead of a big mess in the drawer.
If I put off either project it will increase the Monday Stress Quotient to "Borderline irritibility.." and that is no good for anyone.

Hopefully I will post more happy craftiness tomorrow.
And hopefully my shirts will be back inside the dresser.

The Much Anticipated Class

So, here are the pieces of jewelry I made in the class taught by Ulla at Castle in the Air in Berkeley. I took the class, one of eight lucky students, who were all very fun and charming ladies.
If you don't subscribe to Ulla's blog, I highly recommend it. It is a visual feast .She posts new treasures, at least daily, if not more.



The class was two days long and she showed us so much more than the basics. She showed the wire work hinge on this piece, on top of the soldering and layering techniques. Of course, creative and impulsive, I rushed out and got the equipment, as though I had both time and room to spare.



This is the other side of the same piece..
There will be nights of beadwork to finish these up and I envision endless days of floors covered with tiny scraps of paper.

Making these tiny windows could become an addiction.