4 X 4 Swap

Back in March I was in a swap hosted by Vintage Dragonfly. It was Spring has sprung as the theme and you had to make a 4X4 collage on thick board and mail to your partner.

My partner was in Germany, so I decided to send a collage about maple syrup, which is a sure sign of spring around here! I put a penny on the back with the maple leaf and a red maple leaf cut out. I hope she likes it!





I got one back from Terry Woelfer from New Jersey. This was the box it came in - isnt that neat? It is covered in vintage pages.




Inside on a bed of black paper was her collage. It was a piece of heavy wood and a photo she took and a quote about spring.




On the back was a cute little envelope with a note to me and the quote wrote out so I could read it.



Really cool. Thanks Terry!

You can see all 32 of the collages at Vintage Dragonfly's flickr account. They are all gorgeous and so different!

Just a quick note...

Quickly, I am on my way shortly down to my moms and as usual I am stopping along the way - big surprise! - to shop at some stores I frequent. Yesterday was shot getting my car fixed and Wed I went to an auction sale. Sarah was like " Did you get MORE stuff?"

Of course!!

The car was full and at the end of the sale at 9:30PM(!!) He was making job lots of whole tables for 5 bucks!! Too bad I didnt have a truck ( how many times do I say that?!!) but I got some good deals. It is spread out all over my living room floor and looks like it exploded in here. On wed I also had time to hit the antique market and the thrift stores and got some good things there too!! I will post pics next week.

Gotta go, have a good weekend!

Cheryl

PS - This pic is a vintage lace collar I have listed on ebay right now.

Artwords - Woman

This is the artwords entry for this week. The word is Woman. I have a collage with a girl with flowers behind her and pink and clear buttons. She has birds flying around her that say Release your inner.... and each bird has a word.

Brilliant
Happy
Confident
Strong
Playful
Talented
Sexy
Cute

Describes Women to a T don't you think?

Book Tuesday and ebay listings

Todays book is Creative Concrete Ornaments for the garden by Sherri Warner Hunter. The first half of the book is about making the forms and the different kinds of concrete and tools needed and the next part is the projects.

A couple of the pics here are of using bottles as an ornament wall, and mosaic butterflies.



A neat read in a medium not used frequently.

I listed a few things on ebay yesterday...




These are vintage thread skeins - from 1894!



2 prints of mother and baby with wood frames - awesome in a nursery!



And another copy of Victoria from my collection.



I think I am listing a couple more interesting finds today too! I will keep you posted.

Spring ATC swap

I am participating in a swap from swapbot. This one was to make 6 ATC's to spell out spring and send to one partner and one person would send back to you.

These are my backgrounds for the cards...







Then I did the finished ones. I made a picture to do with spring on each one starting with that letter.




So, Shower, Pansy, Robins, Iris,Nest and Grow. These are my first attempts at ATC's so I am happy with them.

Tomorrow, these are off to Australia!!

House Pics

I FINALLY uploaded my pictures from my other computer!! And it actually worked. I burnt 665 new pictures! Alot of these are pics from the addition we put on the house last year. I am going to do these in stages and show you from the beginning. First the original house was about 600 square feet! Yes, very small - one bedroom, kitchen, living room and bathroom. I had made a partition in the living room for my daughter but it was very small. So we had a shed out the back that was insulated and had a wood floor, so we were going to join the 2. We thought a long hallway or small room, but it ended up being 11x 18'! Which turned out great.



So this is the picture of the shed before. I had it full of stuff and storage and that had to be all cleaned out too! So there were 3 trees in the way that had to come down. My close friend's do that for a living so they came one day and all 3 were down in 15 minutes!



This is the view from the back of the house. The house is to the left. The big tree in front is still there - thank goodness, I wanted to take down as little as possible.


THis is the back door that was on the house that we used as the opening into the new room.



More views! This was last April so a year ago! I looked at these pics today, and you dont realize how much was done till you see this again. I'm glad I can do a pictorial reminder on here.

Next, we had to fix the roof on the shed and clean it out!

Vintage corset

This is a picture of a vintage corset. It is only 22" around! Can you imagine? It has laces up the front and hook and clips at the back.
It has bone stays and lace across the bottom.
I just listed it today on ebay for seven days so till April 26th.

I've been busy working on some swaps and tomorrow I want to clean out my "shed" AKA workshop/studio. I will post pics of all. Now to go watch Survivor!!

Artwords-Dinner

I took this picture last week and they are from the grocery store of course! But I can't wait till dinner consists of just tomatoes, salt and pepper!! (Maybe some bread). Can't you just taste them?

Book Tuesday

Just getting this under the wire!!
The book this week is Decorating Porches and Decks. I have been leaving this for awhile since the weather has been so crappy, the last thing I want to do is go outside! BUT (cross fingers here) we are supposed to get SUN(what's that?) on Thurs and up to +19 on Sat and sunday!!! YAY I cannot wait.
So in keeping with that, a book about decorating your outdoor spaces. I liked this book and it had some good ideas and pictures.


One was for a stick arbor I'd like to try and also a stenciled and painted floor.



This was for a blind at the end of the porch. Now I just have to clean it off so I can get my furniture out there!!

AS for the previous post on the patterns, I have relisted them all today till next Tuesday.

Ebay patterns

I meant to do this earlier, but I wanted to post here that I put some pattern books on ebay and now they close tomorrow!

There are some neat patterns and from the 60's and 70's and for granny squares, afghans and lots of clothing.

Come take a peek! Just click on the ebay link at the left.

I'm so excited!!

Photo courtesy Webshots

I know... 2 posts in one day, but I wanted to get the one about swap bot by itself and now I want to do some more links!! Yes LINKS. As you may have noticed in previous posts, I could not link to anyone except in my blogroll. This was due to me having Safari on my Mac. Now I like my Mac but Safari was lacking in some major things.... so I downloaded Firefox last night and it is awesome!! I now have color, and size, bold, italics, center, bullets, quotes, eraser and LINKS. None of which I had before. It is also so much better in Ebay and now I can add color and size and format my listings so much better. So I am psyched!!

So to celebrate, I am going to make a bunch of links of some of my favourite places to visit each morning.

First is Pioneer Woman
If you have not visited here let me introduce you to Ree, transformed city dweller to a rancher's wife with 4 kids. She homeschools, "helps" out on the ranch, cleans the house and goes into Starbucks withdrawals. She posts every day which I love - and there is always an interesting story about the kids, or the cows, horses, or a great recipe! And always superb photos - she's a nut for photoshop and that's not the only nut around. ( You'll have to check it out to see what I mean!)Also, she has frequent "Name this photo" contests with awesome prizes. No.... I haven't won.

Artsy Mama

Here's where I go to get inspired. Kari also posts most days and always a bunch of eye candy - either swaps she's in and received or her decorating around the house and her own artwork. I have really noticed a change since the start of her blog and it is great! It seems she is coming into her own - if you know what I mean. She always has great ideas for contests and swaps and I always like participating. She is always very encouraging.

OneWoman's Cottage Life

This is a blog about a woman and her trials and victories with her house! She and her husband are in the middle of renovating and she shows all the steps along with her choices and her all of her flea market and thrift store purchase that match perfectly! I look forward to see more of her house renovations since I am in the middle of it too.

Cherry Hill Cottage

Tina just started her blog in January and I just recently found it, but it is great! Speaking of thrift store finds - she is an expert! I am amazed at what she finds and then how she uses it in her Cherry cottage. Since I love thrifting too, this is a no brainer for me!

Adventures of Elizabeth

This is blog about a store owner - Elizabeth. She has a store in St. Louis and a part of one in Chicago. The products are very cool, she designs her own line of bedding and she also does awesome photography. Understandably she is very busy, so the posts are when she can, but they are worth it. Very knowledgeable and very good ideas and advice for anyone wanting to own a business - which I do - I would love a store like hers and it is in the works!

Another blog that is very informative for retailer is Diva Deb

Deb is a professional designer that sets up retail displays. The information in this blog is great and it's neat to realize how the little things make a difference!

Now I am interested in painting and I love the idea of the Daily Painters

These are a group of daily painters that sell their small painting (8x8) on ebay or through their sites. Another daily painter I like as well is Jelaine Faunce
She shows how the painting evolves which is really interesting.

Kelly Rae is another painter I enjoy although it is a different medium. She sells originals and prints at her etsy shop and to read through her blog is to see an artist come out of her cocoon. So cool to see and now she has a book deal!!

My Marrakesh

This blog is from Morocco. Which makes it cool in itself but then you read Maryam's writing and realize this is a special place. They are building a house there and hope to make guest houses too. I love seeing all things morocco and the progress of the house is very neat!!

No Impact Man

Last but not least for today... This is a blog about Colin and his family in New York City and they are in the midst of a year long project and experiment to see if they can live without a lot of the "modern" conveniences. Like cars, TV, and toilet paper!! They are not allowed to buy anything new either except food and it has to be organic with no packaging. Remember this is in New York- not on a farm in the heartland! I like reading the comments almost as much as the blog, since this raising a lot of questions and debate. He is just hoping to raise awareness about the condition of the Earth and the danger we are in and I think he is succeeding. Very thought provoking p0sts and one I look forward to each day.


Whew! That was a long post. I was so excited about being able to share these places I visit. I visit SO many more, but this is a good cross section. There are also many craft and art blogs, but a lot of them already have a large following and have tons of links to them.

I have been thinking lately of how I can make THIS blog more focused... more of a niche, since so many others are one thing - like painting, crafts, decorating, politics, art, business, and I seem to jump all over willy nilly. But I realized as I was doing this, that is me! I am all over the place a lot of the time in my interests, my books, my travels, my art and to be just centered on one thing would just drive me insane!


So I guess I leave it willy nilly and just hope some people would like to join the ride!

Swap bot!!

Have you guys heard of swap bot? I had got a link the other day but just checked it out last night. I was up till 12:30!! And I kept at it this morning!

Do you like making music Cd's?
Do you like lists?
or magazines?
books?
ATC's?

Do you like getting mail?


Well you would love this then. You only have to sign up - its FREE and make a profile and then go looking for a swap! Some are only for the U.S. due to shipping costs, but lots are International and open to new people too.

Just make sure you are able to commit to it, cause its a bummer for everyone else if someone doesn't do it.

I'm in a bunch now and it is so cool! I am doing a magazine swap, and mail swap, bookmarks, lists and a spring ATC.

Maybe you will see me in your swap travels!!

This is perfect for me cause I LOVE getting mail - seriously - it is the highlight of my day - I know, it's sad..... but up here in the northwoods especially in the SNOW, its a bright spot till spring really shows up.

April 12th - Really??

This is what I woke up to today and what I am still looking at only with more snow coming down. So this really is the 12th of April? I know I live in Canada but C'MON!!

I meant to do this post this morning but guess what? The power went out and just came back on now - at 4PM. Until this past summer our main source of heat was propane with an ELECTRIC fan. Doesn't work when the power is off. So I have had to sit and wait with tons of blankets! Today tho, I got to go into our new room and put the fireplace on that doesnt need hydro and read my book.

Not so bad I guess.

Artwords - Chair

This is my entry for Chair. I have a collection of little chairs actually and I was going to take a picture of the collection. But I like how this one stands out by itself against my red wall. It is about 12" high. There have been no adjustments to the photo either except for cropping.

Book Tuesday

Todays book is called Rubber Stamp Jewelry by Sharilyn Miller. It has many projects for jewelry.




Some of it is dominoes! With stamps on them and sealed.




The ones I like the most are with the solder around pictures and glass and then made into charms. I have to try that! I even have some of the copper foil already that I have been moving with me for the last 20 years!





The other ones I like are with the optical lenses. A really neat idea on how to use old eyeglasses, which I have some of too.

Imagine.

Souvenirs of Mexico

Sarah and I did do some shopping, but not GREAT amounts. We got some presents for people and then we got a couple things for ourselves. (The fact that our luggage was already STUFFED might have had something to do with it!)




She decided she wanted one of these clay containers for her room. There were so many shapes and sizes and colors but we were both drawn to this one.




I got this painting - there were also many sizes and different patterns, but I liked all the different houses and landscape. I hope to have this framed soon.





Then we both got these. Each night around the pool, they had tables set up with different crafts people and items. All really neat stuff. It changed every night, so we were glad to see this man back on the last night. He takes coins from all different countries and saws them! Yes with a little drill and vice and saw - he was doing it right there. It was so cool! Then he puts them on adjustable cords for a necklace or on a keychain. So Sarah got a mexican coin with her initial and I got a Canadian penny.





Wasn't it nice of him to have one that was my birth year? Yeah I know - don't laugh too hard.

Artwords - Yellow and some close ups

This is my entry for Artwords this week. The word was Yellow. At first I was like huh? What am I gonna do for that? Yellow is not one of my favourite colors and so I thought of it and what usually happens..... I thought of ideas. Since this is Easter weekend and everything to do with Easter is yellow - eggs, chicks, flowers. I decided to do an Easter page! So this is my YELLOW page.




Speaking of Easter, Sean came home last night with some Easter lilies! Sarah had just been admiring them on Monday night and I hadnt told him that! So I wanted to take a picture to show you, but it is so crappy here with rain for the last 2 days! I then decided to do some close ups and then played with some of them.



























Hope you like it!
Cheryl

Book Tuesday

This weeks book is called Sticks and Stones. It is a craft book on a bunch of projects to do with wood and stones. It is by Mary Maguire. A lot of neat ideas!





This first project is timely since these will be out soon.... it is an arch made of pussy willows.




Then this doorstop made of different size stones.







And this is my favourite! Painted rocks in different shades of gray. They look like they came like this.

There are many more projects like this. Get it at your local library!



Now that the snow is almost gone (crossing fingers even tho they are calling for snow later this week) I have to get out into the pines ( get it?) behind the house and get some sticks and stones!