let's play catch-up

Okay, I realized this morning that I have got so so many odds n ends stored up that I have been meaning to blog.

Let me start by throwing this cute idea out: usually Photojojo makes me do the eyeroll and I don't pay much attention to the weekly emails I get from them. However, their recent idea for displaying photos on the cheap n unique did kinda tug at my likestrings. I think it makes for a cool-looking display...


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I'm thinking, get out the glue, red liner tape or glue gun, and add some lace, beaded or pom-pom trim, whatever your preference or inspiration, to the neck of the jar and then also to the bottom (which is really the top since the jar sits upside down). In other words, cover up the glass that is not where the photo is.

I could totally see a grouping of these, maybe all sitting on a tray to keep it easy to move. Tall, short, fat, skinny -- glass jars come in all kinds of sizes. Take it from a pack rat! winkwink

Also, I would save the lids and screw them back on (after decorating it, of course) as an additional way to keep the dust outa the jars.

Dang dust. Hate being allergic to it. I haveta wet-wipe dust to avoid it flaring up my allergies, so screwing the jar lid on would be a must for dust in my house.

Next up, my mentioning of an electric eraser had a few interested replies, so I thought I'd follow up on that.

While Missy lived in a dorm off at college, her room sat idle yet semi-preserved, a storeroom to all her things that she couldn't or didn't take with her. Once she got her apartment, this all changed. I've talked to her 3 times now about coming to get what she wants, so that I can deal with the rest and clean out the room. The plan is to make it my main craft room now.

She has voiced absolutely no interest in keeping anything she left behind, so I've been slowly wading through it all and trashing what I couldn't otherwise rationalize keeping. There's a lot of *stuff* in her room (packrattery is genetic, apparently) and it's a double-edged sword for me. On one hand, it's all dusty so this always presents a potential threat to me, but I also find some interesting things I want to keep (some of it stuff she took from me and never returned, aka "Oh, that's where that went to" and some of it stuff she's discarded but I can use as hand-me-downs).

I usually try to make a bit of microscopic progress in that room on a daily basis. When I was in there the other day, guess what I found in her desk drawer?

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Hehe, yep, an electric eraser! So, I tried it out. Bleh. It was cool for about the first 5 minutes. Then, not so cool. The eraser nib wears down quickly and then it takes the skills of a jeweler to unscrew and disassemble the thing to replace the nib. Plus, it takes longer to use it than it does to just erase with elbow grease, even using just the nib by itself! {Insert huge eyeroll}. I realize this is a cheap model, but since I am not buying a professional corded model (which can be over a $100 bucks), I'm no longer interested in an electric eraser. In fact, I ended up throwing it out.

Talking about finding stuff in Missy's room, I came upon a couple of really cool-looking journals that I'm keeping:


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Pretty, huh? Now, Missy has journaled her entire life, but she rarely fills a journal up, unless it's a cheap composition book which she completely fills. Usually, there are only a few pages journaled in the nicer books. Don't ask me why, probably the feel of them didn't agree with her. So, I was flipping through the nice small leather one on top to see if there was any writing, and look what I found on one page, from 2007:


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This totally makes me LOL and one day I will scrapbook it. Gotta love the photo cut-outs and her label "artistic depiction", huh? If you are wondering if finding this upsets me, good Lord, no. I'm thinking it's completely healthy and pretty darn natural. What daughter has never felt like this toward her mother? And if this is the worst I find, I'm like, extremely lucky. Frankly, my Mommy pride is reveling in her creativity and levity.

I also realize that she might either be ridiculing me with the "artistic depiction", or she could be unconsciously modelling me. I'll have to ask her, and she will tell me. winkwink

Moving right along, I've mentioned before that I'm darn stubborn about making a calendar this year out of the calendar I bought to make last year. Just wanted to show that I am making progress on this. Here's a snap of the Karen Foster calendar paper I glued onto the monthly bases last month:


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I used wet PVC glue so they needed to dry. I hooked them onto my dresser drawer pulls using some old shower curtain rings I've packratted. The plan is to do a collage on each month that:

1)uses only my scraps and odds n ends, and
2)represents the month's historic activities or events, and
3)is done quickly and without thinking much

Here's January's collage:

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I drew some champagne glasses, a bottle and some little doodlings freehand, then I applied some dimensional glaze over some of it to highlight it. Trying to use up this stuff I'd bought called A Fine Line by Adhesive Tech. It has a bit of a leak in the collar of the tube, so I doubt I'd buy any more, but it does as good a job at dimensioning as Ranger Glossy Accents. A thin coat of it must dry at least 24 hrs, but is rock hard once it dries. Here's a couple of close-ups:




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Until next time,