Monthly Archives: August 2011

OK Corral for Markers

craft, ,

Marker holder
From electronics charger to marker holder

I’m still up to my ears in markers. It turns out that there are all different kinds and I want to try them all. These are permanent markers and I use them a lot with colored pencils. I like to lay down the broad areas with the markers and shade with the pencils.

I was having a hard time finding a suitable place to put them while I was working. The rose bowl vase and BBs work with the longer watercolor markers but the shorter markers are swallowed whole by the vase. Not to mention that I would have to go buy more BBs and that doesn’t fit in with my ‘make do’ doctrine.

I found this charging dock at that great garage sale Cheri and I went to last week. I’ve always wanted one of these for my electronics, but it turns out that nothing I have now really fits very well. I think things are slimmer now, but larger overall.

Since I wasn’t using it for charging, the dock was sitting on my table until I could decide what to do with it. I needed to shift the markers from the side table next to my recliner to the large table in my studio and I shoved them in the dock for temporary transportation. And voila, marker holder extraordinaire! I am able to see the color of the markers and it is easy to take them out and put them back in. The cord port in the back holds the pens I am using the most at the moment and there is still room left to park my phone while I am listening to an audio book.

Back view of the dock charger
The cord corral corrals my most used pens.

I always love those ‘aha moments.’ It’s great how things work some time and it’s even more fun to never know when an idea will come along.

-Lynne

If You Live With Glass Cases,You Shouldn’t Throw Stones

Interiors
Display case
From antique store to my bathroom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We picked this commercial display case up at a garage sale years ago for the outrageous price of $5. It hadn’t found a home in the new house until I thought of it when I needed cat-hair-free storage in my new bathroom.

One surprise benefit of using it is that it takes up almost no visual space. Even though it holds a lot, it doesn’t look like an enormous piece of furniture.

Display case

I will admit that to look good, it needs to be neatly organized. I like the look of all white storage. The tall plastic containers are from MUJI.com. I love their storage, and they ship!

— Loryn

Crochet Touché

craft

So I got bit by the crochet bug about a few months ago. I have always done some crochet for years (one day soon I will blog about the best hotpads in creation), but this was something more. In the last few months I have made a couple of shrugs, have two in the making and have just started another project, the winter sweater. The winter sweater is a singular and wonderful item. If you can manage to find one in a store to buy, cherish it. I have not been so lucky.

I was inspired yesterday by this absolutely gorgeous Cascade wool yarn I found in this great yarn store, In a Yarn Basket, here in Bloomington, Indiana. It is Ecological Wool which is 100% Peruvian Highland Wool and I picked up four undyed skeins. As anyone who crochets know, you have to have quite a bit more yarn for your projects than knitters do, which can really hurt your pocketbook (I will show off my $100 Noro wool shrug one of these days too).This yarn is gorgeous and comes in 478 yard skeins. I hadn’t really thought about it, but that is a lot of yarn and I bought 4 of these skeins. I started laughing hysterically when the store owner brought them out after balling them up for me because man, those balls were huge!

Left - Cascade Pure Alpaca, Right - Cascade Ecological Wool

The other yarn in the photo is some glorious 100% baby alpaca also made by Cascade called Pure Alpaca and will make a wonderful lace shrug. It is a smaller weight yarn and comes in 220 yard skeins which is a more average amount of yarn per skein. The difference in the two cracks me up though. Here is a link to the sweater I am making, it is a Caron pattern I found from the Crochet Pattern Central which if you haven’t been to yet is a wonderful site (they also have a Knitting Pattern Central too) that has links to thousands of patterns across the web (only the free ones) all at your fingertips.

Caron Asymmetrical Jacket Pattern

Crochet Pattern Central 

I also have to showcase a YouTube video I found on a crochet stitch that I have just found out about. It is called foundation single chain and I really wish I had heard about this one sooner, but hey, sooner is always preferable to never.

Crochet Foundation Single Chain

The video is a good tutorial. I will have to post pictures of the sweater as I go. I am currently working on the collar and have a long way to go. Good thing it is still summer.

– Kristin

What is your most amazing garage sale find?

garage sale finds

Greetings to my fellow family blogettes. I would like to ask all of you, “What is the bestest or favoritest item (you feel) that you have picked up at a garage sale, auction, rummage or even an antique store.

I know what mine is, but I am really not so sure what yours are. So, get your thinking caps on and start perusing your favorite finds. This challenge should be a lot of fun.

–Cheri

Confessions of a Rock Collector

collections, craft, ,
Rock collection
Rock collection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am a collector, and when I say collector, I mean collector. I love to collect things, such as rulers, hand mirrors, pins, old rusty latches, skeleton keys and rocks. You might laugh at the rock part, but that is truly the one item I have collected my whole life. I don’t know what clicks in a person to make them look at a rock and say “I really love that rock, that is one of the coolest, prettiest, loveliest, most interesting rock I have ever seen”. Since my very first rock I was hooked. I can look into a pile of rocks and find the one I really want, it is almost like it speaks to me.

In my elementary science class I had to do a rock collection, and I thought to myself, I have this one in the bag, or so I thought. It turns out that my teacher did not want to see my pretty rocks, he wanted to know the geological names of them. Talk about disappointment, I really thought I had found a kindred spirit with my rock mania. And really, I don’t care which part of the earth they came from.

I have since found a few people that share my rock fondness, but I do believe that we really are a rare breed. I thought maybe I would take a photo to show how I have displayed some of my prized possessions. So, feast your eyes, my fellow rock hounds.

–Cheri

Rose Bowl Vase and BBs

craft, ,
Rose vase and bbs
Rose bowl vase and BBs

I have been working a lot with markers lately and have had them turn up everywhere. I’ve found them embedded in my recliner, strewn across my studio table and in hiding in my pockets. I knew I wanted something that would let me flare the markers outwards so I could see the colors and get to them easily.

After a trip to my china cabinet, I came back with this rose bowl vase. It worked somewhat but I needed something in the bottom to raise the markers higher in the vase. I remembered the BBs I used once for stuffing in a bookmark and poured them very carefully into the glass vase. I did it carefully because glass is one of those things that will surprise you with its strength and with its weaknesses and BBs are heavy for their size.The BBs weight turned out to be serendipitous as that weight keeps the vase from tipping and sliding.

Anything that has the relative weight of the BBs can be used instead of the BBs. Aquarium gravel would look good and you could match colors if you wished.

I am pleased too that the markers are really pretty and look as if they were a bouquet of flowers in the center of my table.

-Lynne

What A Cat

Creativity, What a Cat!, ,

I lay in bed and struggle to wake up. I have to untwine myself from a few cats and often a dog sleeping by my feet. I try to be gentle, but I do know their reaction time is a lot faster than mine. I am always thankful that I don’t feed them the canned food in the morning, otherwise they would wake me at the crack of dawn. As I fill the cats and dog dishes with “dry food” I start the computer and get ready to post my daily cat picture on Facebook.

About 4 months ago I purchased a book from Amazon called “A Daily Creativity Journal”. This book was written by Noah Scalin, he is the artist that did a skull a day for a year. My daily project evolved into drawing a picture of our cat Link, doing an activity each day. When I started posting these on Facebook, I wrote a back story explaining that I had found a photo album that Link had kept hidden and I was posting some of his pictures. Link has had some awesome adventures so far and still has many, many more to go.

This project has added another dimension to my life. As I drive to work I start thinking about what I want to draw him doing. He has been an astronaut, a race car driver, he has been an actor and appeared in several movies, he has been a monster and occasionally, but rarely, he has been a girl. People have even given me suggestions and sometimes I am able to use them. Each day is a challenge coming up with something new, but it is a happy challenge. In 4 months, I have not missed a picture yet. Even when I come home dead tired and I can’t do anything, I draw a picture of Link. It really is a massive undertaking, but it seems like it is the right direction for me at this time. I hope you enjoy seeing them half as much as I enjoy drawing them.

-Cheri

Oh, Rio Rio, Dance Across the Rio Grande

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I did the first steps of my dance after placing the order. Each time I checked the tracking and saw the package was one day closer, I danced some more. I even left work a little early so that I could get home first to see the box waiting for me.

There is a new pair of flat-nosed Swanstrom pliers (hurrah!) that I absolutely love. I have needed some good flat-nose pliers as mine no longer close evenly if they ever did. I got a set of 6 diamond core Dremel drill bits in different sizes. Everything else I got was sterling silver. There are two sizes of wire, both round, half-hard. After that, the rest are different types of jumprings.

sterling silver jumprings, ss wire and pliers
Hurrah for Swanstrom!

I was very excited to put the pliers to use. I make my own clasps (mostly simple s-hooks) which explains the need for the 18 gauge ss wire in the photo. I will have to post some photos of some of my stash as that might be more exciting. I have found that my stash seems to grow exponentially and with no real rhyme or reason behind the purchases.

– Kristin