Organizational behavior

Tonight Brian surprised me with a present - he'd put together a paper storage unit I bought at Costco earlier this week! It has 15 drawers for all my paper. I have an embarrassment of paper - it doesn't all fit in the drawers. Eek. My work area (I stole the dining room in our little apartment) now looks a bit neater and I feel better.

When I get my camera back from work on Monday, I can take a pic or two...

Hearts!

Just a bit more tweaking and I'll have this down. I'm pleased with how this prototype turned out! I just need to be neater with the cutting on the bottom of the heart so that it is pointier instead of round.

A monochromatic rainbow!

I've been waiting what seems like forever for a new order of supplies to come in. It was weird, because the item that was *backordered* came yesterday and my regular order appeared today. I was down to my last bits of some materials and was getting a bit nervous. Still, the picture doesn't do my excitement justice. My supplies are monochromatic, but my heart is multi-colored. So there.

My Life, The Universe and Everything

On Monday night, we had a little family party for my son's 2nd birthday. After the party, I worked on the pile o' paperbacks I'd bought from the Friends of the Library. Books take up mucho room. Covers, not so much. Hee hee, look at those beauties!

For the past couple of days I've been working on two large orders of beads. I'd show pictures of them drying, but you might as well look at a previous post. Little rows of beads all lined up to dry looks the same no matter what's written on them.

Tonight I let myself have a half hour to make this. Fun!

Minor Success!

We had sickness in the house today so we stayed home from church. I used my time to work on the 3D heart ornament. After six prototypes, this is what I ended up with. It's easy to make and assemble and looks a *bit* like a heart.

Experiment of/with a Heart

I've been mulling over in my mind how to make a 3D heart ornament. After a couple of failed attempts (they look like the ball ornaments with goiter), I came up with this. Not bad. Now I just have to keep working with it until I can do it without globs of hot glue everywhere.

I love hot glue. It is my friend.

Math and Lavender

Math and lavender are an unlikely combination. But that's the combo of balls I made today. Today was my son's 2-year physical, so I got off work a bit early (it's been a great week for not working!) and my extra time was spent organizing my beads and making up a couple of ornaments. What the heck am I going to do with all of these?

Home Sick so I Make...

Balls. Five of them. Count them. This one is the most elegant of them.


Comic books make fun ones, too. This says "Crypt of Shadows."


This is made of an foreign-language invoice sheet that came in a book. It reminds me of an apple.


This reminds me of the apple Eve ate.

This reminds me of the eighties. Which ripped off the fifties.

Good night. I'm going to bed.

A Good Night to Read...

How About Orange's blog yesterday talked about the new movie Coraline coming out. I read that book several years ago and it hooked me so well that I STILL tell kids to check it out when they need a good book to read. I found it on our shelves yesterday and took it home along with the graphic novel version. That's the picture above. Graphic novels are good to read for those with limited time. It's kind of like Cliffs Notes for me...

Holiday earrings!

For several months now I've been trying to figure out how to do holiday earrings. I wanted to make some kind of set that could change for each holiday. I thought about making toggles on the earrings to change the holiday. The earrings were much too long. I then tried a necklace of the same. Eew.


Anyway, I then thought about simplifying it - a solution to most of the problems in my life. So, I made up a variety of earrings for the "happy" or "let's celebrate" or "remember" part of the holiday and then the names of the holidays themselves. That way, you can switch them around as you see fit. I think they turned out well. This batch is for my Mom for Christmas. Yep, I am late. I just like to draw out the suspense...

And a made another ball yesterday with a music theme. Can you guess who?

Star Trek - the ornament generation!

After Brian's kids went home to their Mom's house, I had a few minutes to make a couple balls up. I tried the one on the left with making up the whole cover sideways. I don't know about it. The one on the right I used both the front and back covers. I think the idea has merit as long as there is continuity of color between the covers...

Alas! NoTime for Crafting!

It was going to be *such* a good weekend for crafting.

Nope. Nothing makes God laugh as hard as when we make plans, eh? Still, I did get the living room rearranged, the Christmas decorations put away (I really ought to warn Brian about opening the storage unit door too quickly!), a little computer desk bought for the kids' room, and six loads of laundry washed, dried, folded and put away. Except for the socks. I'm too tired!

Perhaps tomorrow there will be time to play. I really do need a day of rest!

Romancing the Book Cover

The picture doesn't do it justice. It's much pinker and romantic in real life. Oh well. There wasn't much time for crafting tonight, so this will have to do. I have a whole tray full of books that I can't wait to get working on and make balls out of. I'm having a ... (I'm going to say it!) BALL!

Work Late Wednesday

Wednesdays are my days to work late. As a consequence, I'm too tired when I come home to do much of anything and tonight, I really wanted to catch up with my hubby (whom I feel I have to introduce myself to every so often because our schedules are so different!). Anyway, during my lunchtime at work, I was able to cut out this for a romance book ornament. It's my first time juxtaposing a cover with a picture. Hmm... Paperback books aren't wide enough for one half of an ornament, so I also cut out some of the last page if it needs more stuff. Ugh. We'll see...

A Tree Grows in Bakersfield, Jackpot and a legion of beads...

I put up my Christmas tree in my office and hung my ornaments on it. All the little old ladies from the Friends of the Library oohed and aahed over them. They're so nice. And they give me money for my library. Love and money - what more could I want from a job?

We got another huge donation of great paperbacks today. I love the old-fashioned romance books - the chaste and not-so-chaste ones. I call them "Lust in the Dust" books, but my co-worker calls them "Heaving Bosom, Throbbing Member" books. Oh my. Anyway, they should make some nice ornaments, too. It's just such a shame that I only have a little bit of time at night to do them. (I've recently started a goal of exercising five days/week and it really cuts into crafting time!)












But I was able to finish much of my special order beads. Hurray! It always feels good to finish big projects. I will be glad to start work on some other bead phrases I want to do. Many pirate things and book-related phrases, too. Tee hee.

Sneak Peek at a Work in Progress

Here's a peek at what I've been up to tonight. I've only had an hour and a half or so to work, but I wanted to get started on this custom order I got before Christmas. They are turning out nicely. For a while I was having trouble with the beads smudging during the dipping and drying phase. I was losing almost half of the beads I made. Very depressing. I've started doing the dip a different way - a bit more time-consuming, but nearly 100% success-rate with the beads. Hurrah!

In other news, we got a great load of donated paperbacks at the library this afternoon. I found lots of books with good covers to turn into ornaments! Now I have to get permission to buy them from the Friends of the Library! Fortunately, they smile kindly at my requests for bizarre books (ones that they usually put in the recycling bin) and don't think too badly of me. I also asked them to start saving Readers Digest Condensed books again because I have a few ideas for some big projects that will require possibly hundreds of books. Hee hee. The Book Butcher will strike again!

Something secret and mysterious happened on Etsy tonight with my shop. I am not sure if I was on the front page or in a popular treasury, but I got six orders within 3 hours! OH MY GOSH!!! And a ton of people hearted me, too. I need to get up the courage to ask one of them how they found me, because someone needs a great big thank-you!

Green Paper Ornaments

The past couple of days have had me still playing around with Christmas ornaments. I have had these stashes of paper for YEARS that I'm finally getting to use! It's FABULOUS! I'm especially fond of these green ones. I love the beads on the bottoms. I never knew what I was going to do with them...


I have this outrageously bright marbled paper that I hate, but it was so expensive that I can't throw it away. (My things own me as much as I own them.) I like the use it's been put to with this ornament. I tried another one with different color stripes.


See how different it looks? I think I like this one better. It's perfect for my sister who likes orange. Act surprised when you open the package, Allyson, if you read this.



In addition to paper, I've been buying these old children's books for a while now. The illustrations are great, but I couldn't figure out how to use them. I like it better when I use pictures unaltered with strips of colored paper. The spread-out look was too creepy.

This one is from the front cover of a mother goose book. Now that you know what it says, you might be able to recognize the words...

Look what happens...

Look what happens when you use two different lengths of paper. Not too bad! I like how it looks like two separate balls.

Post-Christmas energy

I am in the mood to make Christmas decorations. It only happens after the REAL Christmas is over - all the stress and rush to go and do is over and I finally have time...

I found this wonderful idea over at Paper Forest that I couldn't wait to try. I love working with paper!



The first one I tried turned out like this. I followed the directions explicitly and found that I really needed a circle cutter.




My next ones were of book covers that I've been saving for a rainy day. Although the spread-out look is a little creepy, I think the idea has merit.




Look what happens when you don't put in any alternate color and just use a book cover!




I've bought a couple of old atlases at Friends of the Library booksales. I realized that I could make ornaments for all my family of the places they live. My brother and his wife live in Rexburg, ID.

Can't wait to do some more!!!