stuffed...

been busy...making this custom journal for an etsy customer. it's very similar to a book i made earlier this year and that one sold the same day i listed it. i love these books. they are stuffed full of all different kinds of paper and fun things like tags, envelopes, postcards, quotes and pieces of lace and string and ribbons that peek out. i like to tuck a few surprising things in there, just to keep things interesting. i use vintage book covers and i have a few favorite places to find them. yesterday i went out and bought a stack of old books, mostly just for the covers, although i will find a use for the rest of the book too. and since my studio is already a mess, i guess i will make a few more...

a hopeful little surprise...

in keeping with my newfound obsession with origami, i've been working on these little crane ornaments and folded boxes for my shop. kind of for christmas, but really for anytime. i like to give them to the special people in my life. i think of them as hopeful little surprises. don't we all need a hopeful little surprise now and then?

journal no. 101...

after tuesday's rattling and wednesday's aftershocks, things have settled down a bit. working in this little journal lately. it's actually a journal i messed up on and i didn't want to waste the paper, so i removed the cover and decided to use it for experimenting with gesso and oil paint sticks. it's a nice thick watercolor paper and i love the texture the gesso makes and how the paint settles into the crevices. i don't paint often, i still have lots to learn and usually i'm not this colorful, but it's a nice change of pace. also, it's nice to just noodle around sometimes. i'm not going to sell these, so it takes all the pressure off for it to be wonderful. it's just for plain old fun. and that is a really good thing sometimes. for those of you who also experienced the earthquake, i hope all is well with you.

feeling a bit rattled...

literally. a little while ago there was an earthquake here. not a big one. but big enough to scare me. i was here in my little studio working when all of the sudden I heard a loud rumbling and the whole house started shaking. my first impulse was to run outside, but the dog ran straight for the cellar so decided to follow him. animals are really smart about these things. it only lasted a moment or two, but still very scary. i feel a bit calmer now that i've spoken to my husband and all of the schools have called to say the kids are ok. amazingly, nothing fell off my shelves, but then i remembered...it's because of my Quake Hold! which i purchased years ago. not because of earthquakes. because i've never actually experienced one before today. i purchased it to safeguard against my own little earthquakes (otherwise known as toddlers). and it never really got tested until today. it works.

what can i say...

...last week was a non-stop flurry of shopping for school supplies, clothes, shoes, doctors, dentists, haircuts... but this morning, they all got on the bus and here i am, all alone. but don't be sad for me. a new year has begun - time to dust off some goals and get working. only 124 days until christmas...

you hold the key...

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.


-Jiddu Krishnamurti-

i've got rocks on my brain...

i woke up thinking about rocks today. strange, i know. so, the only thing to do was to go to my studio and pull out my bag of rocks. and yes, i really do have a bag of rocks. rocks collected from the shores of Lake Ontario. when my kids were young and we still lived in NY, we went there every year. now we are seasoned travelers. we have been to all sorts of beaches and oceans. nice sandy beaches with warm water. but still, there is a place in my heart that misses the rocky shores and the ice cold water of Lake Ontario. i'm not sure if i really miss that beach. more likely, i am missing that time in my life when my kids were so tiny. when they couldn't wipe out a couple hundred dollars worth of groceries in three days. so anyway, i saw the idea for this little picture holder in my most recent issue of Country Living magazine and i whipped one up to hold my favorite postcard. kind of cute huh?

sweet sixteen...

hard to believe it's been sixteen years...it went by in a blink.

spiderbox...

what is a spiderbox you ask? why, it's a sweet pink box filled with precious, pearly spiders, of course...

paper play...

i'm really loving all kinds of paper lately...experimenting with new ways to use old books, making mysterious envelopes with wrinkly brown paper, still folding lots of cranes - the ones pictured here are teeny tiny, getting some collages ready to list in my shop and finally, cutting a couple dozen masks for my "fun friday" project this week...

unbearable boredom...

they're home all day. they're bored with the same old, same old, one sunny day after another... some of them would rather die than do crafts with mom, but a couple of them have been bored enough to join me in making these cool felted rocks and tissue paper bowls. of course, some mad science is always fun. we got a chunk of dry ice with a delivery and that provided entertainment for an entire day. Jacob was quite heartbroken when he awoke to a melted puddle, i think he was hoping it would last forever. and of course, where there are boys, there always has to be fire and explosions right? just a few more weeks of trying to quell the unbearable boredom. i keep telling them - embrace it - pencils and books will be here all too soon.