My new pad

This is the new neighborhood. Lovely.


This window is in the studio and immediately became a favorite. The windowsills are nice and wide - perfect for kittens (or big giant cats who think they are kittens).


Love how the living room turned out - bright and fun.


The bedroom is quilty and cottagey and huge - this is just one corner.


Of course, now that I've pretty much got things the way I want them, I have to go get the rest of my junk from the house and mess it all up again.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yeah, I know my birthday was 2 months ago. What's your point? I subscribe to Oprah's philosophy on this point: "The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate."

So, I spread the celebration out and spent some birthday money on these two wonderful pieces by Debra Greenleaf Campbell.



These just make my heart sing. I purchased them on etsy and I'm just thrilled with how vibrant and wonderful they are in person.

I also spent some birthday money on a modest spree at Haberdashery, my favorite local needlework shop:



Yummy. I'm infatuated with the Caron Watercolors and Wildflowers threads and Haberdashery has a whole wall. The gals at the store know me as "the bright-color girl." ;-)

I'm busy getting settled into the new place and figuring out a new routine. The studio is about 80% unpacked, which turned out to be the perfect amount for me to quit unpacking and start playing.

The best part of moving is...

The boxes! And all the empty drawers and bookcases and other vaguely box-like shapes. So many places for a kitten to jump into!

Moved!

I'm not really a bad blogger, I'm just a girl in the middle of moving house. Pistol and I are finally here with most of our stuff in our new place. I decided to rent for a year and take my time looking for the bright, funky cottage.

So here's a partial list of what I did yesterday, my first full day in the new place:

Went grocery shopping for the essentials (milk, juice, butter, ice cream, hmm, sensing a dairy theme here...I bought cheese too...)

Arranged the living room furniture

Went to the farmers market (corn, lettuce, blueberries, huckleberries, peaches, etc.)

Unpacked some books

Had Amir the cable guy in to set up the tv and explain how to set up the internet ($30 if they just give you the stuff and explain it vs. $100 if they actually set it up)

Scrounged through the kitchen boxes to find what I needed to make a yummy salad (romaine, huckleberries, gorgonzola, fresh garlic, balsamic and olive oil)

Took a nap

Drove to Cheney to get essentials that didn't make it on the first trip (computer keyboard, mouse and cords, grandma's antique bowl, the new Harry Potter, jeans and tank tops, adorable Steve Madden shoes, etc.)

Set up the computer and internet.

Took a walk, met several local squirrels. The new surroundings are really beautiful. I just wanted to amble along and absorb things yesterday, so I left the camera at home, but I'll take pictures soon.

So here's what I'm considering doing today:

Unpack more stuff

or

Read, sew, catch up on blogs.

Hmm, wonder which will happen?

creative abandon

I had so much fun making this mess! I also learned something really important - I need to buy a timer for the studio so I don't have to carry the kitchen timer back and forth all the time. I did Julianna Cole's mail art exercise from Kaleidoscope by Suzanne Siminaitis. I really like this book - it's packed with great ideas and exercises and best of all, lots of advice on getting over perfectionism and just getting down to making stuff.

My hands turned out very pretty after my play session.

My postcards turned out very pretty too. This exercise involves gathering a bunch of supplies and then doing each step in a very quick, intuitive way. You have either 5 or 10 minutes for each step and you set the timer and stop when time is up. Ohmigosh is this liberating!

You actually aren't supposed to make anything pretty with this exercise, but I found that when I didn't have time to think, things just effortlessly fell into themes and pretty compositions. It actually would have been harder for me to make things unpretty. Hmm, wonder what that says about me?


I love how fresh these postcards feel. They seem so much better to me than something I spent a long time agonizing over, trying to be perfect.

I also learned that it's much easier to give yourself a short amount of time to do just one step rather than saying "I have one hour to make something." No pressure to make a whole piece, all I have to do for the next 5 minutes is slap some paint down. All in all, a great exercise and a really fun play session.

Hmm, blogger doesn't like titles these days. This little square is 5"x5". I've always been intrigued by the projects where artists make a small piece every day or every week. I've reached a point in my creative journey where I'm feeling the need to instill a bit of discipline in my working habits. I need to just do the work, do lots of it and quit being so precious about it. I tend to procrastinate because I want everything I make to be perfect. This is a really good way to not make anything and I need to get over it. So the idea is to make a little square every week or so, something small and simple that I can carry around and work on whenever I have a minute or two. And just go with the idea, make quick decisions and live with them, don't fuss and fret over it. So when something doesn't turn out like I want it to, like the beads in the center of the flower, just leave them and remember to not do it that way the next time. It was really hard to leave those beads there.

Yes I did have corn and raspberries for dinner. OK, I had some bruschetta too. With fresh garlic and gorgonzola. And I'm having raspberries for breakfast. Oh how I love summer!

The shoveling out of the house means access to lots of places that are usually closed off to the little cat. Here he is luxuriating on top of my shorts and t-shirts on a shelf in the walk-in closet. Wednesday he pulled everything on the first three shelves of the linen closet out onto the floor. And Thursday, when I organized the far-flung bead collection into those little compartmentalized boxes? A pile of bead tubes is one form of little cat heaven!

painting for sanity

I had to take a break from the endless shoveling out of the house. I was mentally exhausted. I needed to make something. I longed for the feeling of being in the creative groove. So I gave myself a few days off and started slapping paint around. For inspiration, I loosely followed the 2-for-1 backgrounds technique in the article by Chrysti Hydeck in the new issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. Except I painted one piece of fabric and one piece of paper instead of 2 papers. The fabric is the top photo. It was a good exploration of how different mediums behave on different surfaces. OK, mostly it was just a lot of fun. I think these 2 are done for now. Ready to line up some more fresh white and start again.