vinyl

This weekend there was an estate sale in my neighborhood. I love estate sales but haven’t been actively seeking them out and I stumbled upon this one as it was closing up Saturday. I know I’ve said this before but estate sales are such an interesting look into a person’s life. I’m sure it’s not the whole story as the most important things usually get taken by family and friends, but interesting non the less. The home I went into on Saturday was one of those stuck in a time warp kind. I would guess last major decorating was done in the 50s or 60s. And this guy (?) loved music. He had a basement full of thousands of records. THOUSANDS. I’m sure by the time I got there most of the valuable ones had been picked over. I grabbed a few kid music 45s for fun (the covers are so awesome!). When I went home I started thinking about if I wanted to try and head over in the morning when it was half price. As I left on Saturday the man running the sale made a point of telling me records were going to be $5 all you could carry from the basement. So I got Tuesday up in the morning and suited up my shopping cart and basket. I bundled her up and put her on my back and walked to the sale.

I wasn’t the first one there, a small line had already formed. I didn’t worry though I only wanted a box of 45s I had spotted the day before full of kids stuff. Well by the time Tuesday and I got down there some had done the pile up, “these are all mine” move. Bummer, but I decided to pick out some fun random stuff anyway.

A man (collector?) heard me talking away to Tuesday about having a dance party and this and that and asked me what I was looking for. I said I really didn’t know but any kid stuff would be great. He came back down and handed me a stack he had paid for my new collection! I must have said thank you a million times, it was just so sweet.

Don’t those look great? Of course I have no record player, but I think I’m going to get one of those Fisher Price ones that plays 33 1/2s and 45s. Do you remember them (here is a page where they are all described)? I could get a regular sized record player, but I’m thinking a more durable toy variety might be better for now (the plan is for this to be her Christmas present).  I did get an armful of regular sized records for my mom’s house. She told me Tuesday was rocking out to a Cindi Lauper record, how cute is that? Because their record player is under the TV she has labeled records as ‘TEEE BEEEE”

Not sure how into the vinyl we’ll get but I did love this present from Amanda to her son a few years ago.

Sure signs of spring!

For a season that used to be my least favorite, I’m really coming to love spring. I love that all our summer things start up in the spring. Maybe I never realized this before because I was always hibernating my spring away (read—crafting). With Tuesday we like to get out and about. Imagine my joy when I realized this last Saturday was the first Farmer’s Market of the season! Tuesday squealed with glee when we pulled up to the parking lot.
“mama doggie? doggie!!!”
“eat, mama, eat? papa eat?”
And lots of signing of flowers. She totally remembered it I was impressed. Of course it started raining as soon as we got there, as this weekends guaranteed sun turned into ominous grey skies and on again off again showers (as always). That didn’t stop us from enjoying the few booths that were hardy enough to come out for the first market day (probably half or less of the usual bunch).

Canby burritos (I think that’s what they are called) are the best! So many yummy veggies, even broccoli, in their burritos.

It had been so long since a market day I had a hard time deciding between the grilled cheese sandwich place, chinese food, dessert for lunch, or Peruvian food, but settled on this. Tuesday had no problem deciding on lunch:

“Pop!” Kettle corn. Hey a one dollar lunch, she’s a cheap date!
We stopped by our CSA’s booth and picked out some pea starts.

For three dollars I love that I don’t have to plant the seeds, these are good to go. I got two each of three varieties. Do I remember what those are? No, but I’m sure they’ll be yummy!
After the market it was totally nap time but I had read about Chick Day at a local feed store so we decided to go see the itty bitty fuzzy wuzzy things.

And the rest of the photos will be in black and white because those lights were funky.


I might have been more excited than Tuesday. Our city council finally passed a law so that we can keep chickens in the city (three max). Bj is super excited about getting them, but I think this is going to be a planning year. I want to know what we are getting into a little more so that we have a nice (raccoon proof) coop, a run and everything ready to go. I’m hoping that building up to getting the chickens will help Tuesday better understand the process and get excited about them.

And just had to post this because it’s always the look Lachlan (her buddy born two days before her) gives Tuesday. Caption anyone?
 

Sewing on layouts

I know, it’s all about scrapbooking this week. Since I had all my supplies out from being toted to Portland I just kept on scrapping. I won’t be scrapping tonight though because it’s my 4th anniversary! Can’t believe how time flies. Just look at this munchkin.

This one wasn’t coming together as a 12×12 so I chopped it down. I love how Lisa Truesdell uses paper along the edges of her layouts so I thought I’d give it a try. She makes it look easy, I kept messing around with placement and papers. It was fun to try though and I like the result.

I hadn’t planned to stitch on this one, but a mini scrapper I know was pretty insistent, so I went with it. I save blunt needles in an old machine needle case so I have them for paper projects when ever I need them. Try not to use the same needle for fabric and paper, it will dull them very quickly.

I copied this pattern paper strip idea from Sarah (and she said she copied it from someone else).I need to go back and re stamp the date on that tab sticker, I didn’t use a permanent ink and it came right off. Tuesday sewed the lines on the top and bottom of the page, with a little help of course.
 
The funny thing is the reason I was sold on that feature of the machine (using buttons to start/stop vs. the presser foot) was because the saleslady told me it would be a good way to sew with out little kids interfering. Hahahah!!!

Now I guess none of my supplies are safe from tiny hands!

The scrappy result

I’m actually surprised how much scrapbooking Sarah and I got done on our little adventure. I think not having a lot of supplies to dig through makes things go quicker, at least it does for me. If only I could remember this when I’m staring at a cute new patterned paper. You saw my “warm up layout” yesterday, so here are a few more.

As I mentioned my mom made us little packs of ribbon and that was great inspiration for me.

This is actually trim and I love using trim. The edges are always so neat and I think it lends itself to scrapbook pages.

I’m down with using these calendar pages for whatever. The shape and stitching is great.

Once again I was enticed by some of the new ribbon (I’m pretty sure this is exclusive to next month’s jar so make sure you’re signed up for the Ribbon Jar newsletter to get a heads up about it). And those metal brads that Sarah got me, I love them! I have a whole post coming up on brads (per request)!

This page was made on a base that Sarah and I did a while ago. We pre-made a bunch of these sewn scalloped pages. I love using them now because it makes a really easy layout look like lots of work!

And more ribbon (and brads and flowers). One thing I love about non-sequential scrapping is that if you are on a certain kick those layouts will be spread among several albums (from the top these will go in Things We Do, People We Love: Friends, People We Love: Family). I could do the layouts all the same if I wanted to, but I like designing and playing with all of the fun supplies. So does Tuesday. I did get a video of her helping me sew on a page and I’ll try to post it tomorrow.

Scrappy Portland Weekend

As mentioned yesterday Sarah and I spent Friday and Saturday with nothing but scrapbooking on the brain! Ok and maybe a little food too. While I was getting Tuesday down for her nap Friday Sarah loaded up her car and as soon as Tuesday was down we took off. We got to stay at the Nines which is so fabulous. I don’t know how we managed the top floor but the view was great:

Here you can get a better idea of why it was difficult to take pictures from our room:

And what a pretty room it was:

I love all the turquoise and silver. All it really needed was scrapbooking supplies strewn all over the place, right?

This is pre-maddness so if you want to see the real mess check out Sarah’s blog. Yes we brought a Silhouette (I’m addicted to that thing!). I felt like we did a pretty good job packing, considering we brought a table and two chairs (we got the idea to scrap in the hotel room from Emily and Barb’s adventure). I’ll save most of the layouts I made for tomorrow, but I have to share this one:

My mom made up little packs of ribbon for us to take and I wanted to mist the paper so it had a similar shimmer to this beautiful silk ribbon. Sarah figured we should rinse out the tub after each misting, which was a good idea. But I got a bit lazy and didn’t after this one… I’m sure you can guess what happened. The mist made a nearly permanent spray in the bathtub, much to my horror. Bj had to bring Comet and a sponge for me the next day so I could scrub it out. And it did come out eventually, phew!

I think it was worth it, that is some pretty ribbon after all!
Of course when we weren’t scrapping we were eating.

We made it down to the food carts before they were all closed up and got a few different things to try.

Trying to get myself in more photos (and Sarah!).
The next morning it was class time. We took two from Studio Calico, Misting and More:

I changed this up a bit from the class. I think it was an “I love your smile” title originally. And I misted the background, I figured we were going all in with the mist, why not! The teacher on this one was kinda funny, she admitted she didn’t like mist that much, um, ok. I think I like it more after the class though and will definitely do more masking with the letter stickers, that was cool (the “you glow” card is an example of it).

The next class was taught by Kelly Purkey and was Fabulous Fabrips. We made this little mini book. Again I change this up a bit. I added some sewing because Tuesday is obsessed with helping me sew on my pages, I have to get a video of it. Fun to try new things, and of course shop the vendor fair…
After spending the morning in classes at the convention we were starving and walked to the closest Burgerville. Pretty much everyone in a mile radius must have had the same idea because it was packed. Worth the super long line though (we don’t have one of these in Salem, it’s like the Burgerville black hole, which is probably a good thing for me).

Yummy Yummy!

I had just met Kelly Purkey so I decided to take a food+me photo. This is getting too picture heavy though, so I’ll share the rest of the layouts tomorrow.

Time to rest

After being here and there all week last week I’m spending today with my girl. Last week I accompanied my mom to a trade show in Las Vegas. So much pretty ribbon was ordered, a few shows taken in, and lots of yummy food ate. It was only two nights but it seemed like I was gone really long and far from Tuesday. Of course she had a wonderful time with Bj (he got to take a day off of work) and his mom, who drove down to hang out with them. Then on Friday Sarah and I drove up to Portland to spend the day scrapbooking. We went to the Creating Keepsakes convention on Saturday, and then that night Bj and Tuesday joined me so we could go to a dear friends wedding (scrappy side note: they used Project Life cards for the guests to write notes on so it will be an instant scrapbook when they get their wedding pictures back, such a cool idea!). So a pretty busy crazy week for us. I’m happy to be home, and I think Tuesday is happy to have me here.
Of course she’s playing it all cool, like she doesn’t really want to be with me. You know, throwing fits and stuff. I took her to the Capitol mall last night to check out the light for an upcoming shoot and she was all, ohhh no I’m too cool for this:

 
Luckily the Capitol was not so moody.

I guess it was, just in a different way.

I attempted some self portraits. These took a bit of photoshop magic, as Tuesday would move so quick I couldn’t get the focus (or anything!) right.

(the before) I love my camera but I admit the new timer/self portrait functions on newer cameras are quite enticing…
 

Basement – our painting area

The posts of the basement (play side here, and work side here) don’t show the whole story. We also have an uncarpeted area that is home to storage, a giant bookshelf, laundry area, and now a painting area.

I have had the big easel for a while, and the bigger canvas (a gift from Carmen), but besides small watercolors the lack of painting going on this house was appalling! I so miss getting messy with paint. For this area the main thing I had to do was come up with something to keep the floor warm while we painted.

I decided on a non slip pad (from Ikea), two layers of wool batting for warmth (serged together) and duck cloth canvas, also serged.

Against the other wall I’ve repurposed one of my jar cabinets to hold painting supplies (and dishes and matches and…). In addition to the paint we have lots of brushes, old Styrofoam meat trays to squirt the paint in (I use these over and over), and a set of painting clothes for each of us.

I’m storing the paint (super cheap acrylics I buy on sale, or have had in my stash) like this by color family. I found this idea on Lil Blue Boo, who has great ideas on painting with children.

Originally I thought I could use one of the shelves in the bookcase to hold my own paint (I love Golden acrylics), but I quickly realized that all of the paintings are going to be collaborations, whether I wanted them to be or not. Tuesday wants to paint on what I am painting on so for now we’re just rotating around canvases and having fun sharing the space.

The painting on the right is the same as above after a “green” night tonight. I have been gone a couple of days (but my pre-blogging probably made it so you didn’t notice!), and it was fun to just sit and chat with Tuesday while we painted.

I was a total paint snob in college, I loved the best paints, with wonderful rich colors and a heavy body. These paints are so different! And I’m sure not as colorfast. But for what we’re doing I don’t mind it. The one thing bugging me are the cheap brushes, which leave a trail of bristles everywhere we paint with them. I’m trying to let it go though (and I’m going to pre-wash them from now on to pull out any loose hairs). And my new screensaver:

Pretty much at the end of every painting session I get out a dish of water so she can do some dripping. I also have a spray bottle that we use. I don’t think there is any wrong way to paint with kids, just try it! You can download a coupon for Michael’s for 40% off paint until Saturday, I’m just saying… 🙂

Mist making

Oh I feel so smart. I figured out how to make my own mist, which is just ink after all.

Obviously I’m not the first one to figure this out, since Ranger makes these great little mister things (they come empty), but still I felt quite smart. And less guilty because I have all this random ink from a failed attempt at calligraphy. And it was at least ten years old, so if you come across old ink at a sale, pick it up, shake it up and try this out!

This mist is the richest of any I’ve tried. It’s a shimmery ink so it has that going for it too.

No mist on this one, but I did experiment with something else. I stamped and embossed on vellum. I wanted to see if you could overlap with different colors and it worked pretty well. I ended up cutting them out with scissors because the whole sheet was a little much.
I love these two layouts, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what is going to happen to my scrapbooks down the road. I mean these two layouts take up a lot more room than the two pictures alone. I love the stories so I hope that Tuesday will too. And if not I have lots of fun making them. I guess I’ll worry about it when my bookshelf I have them on is filled up!