I'm trying really hard to get up and out and WALK. So far, it's easy, because the weather is so beautiful. Ceili and I walked two and a half miles today, according to my pedometer.
Here are some of the things we saw:
It sure is October!
Well, then. I almost called this post, "Adventures in Overconfidence." What you see in the photo is the result of my attempts to get the little hide-a-bed loveseat we told Mama we'd bring her up the stairs.
See, when the DH was getting ready to leave for her place the other day, I reminded him of that, and we traipsed downstairs to get the loveseat.
DH expressed some irritation that I hadn't cleared it off already. (It had a basket and some platters on it, as well as a cover. Anything I don't want the dog sleeping on has "stuff" on the seats!) It only took a couple of minutes to remove everything and the cushions, and we tilted it up on end.
DH was later getting out of the house than he wanted to be, and was becoming more and more tense as we wrestled with the piece, enough so that I said, "Leave it! Just leave it, and you can take it up next time!"
So he did. And after he left, I says to myself, says I, "I'll do it. I'll take the mattress out, and have the sofa upstairs when he comes home."
I put the sofa back down, took off the strapping that kept the hide-a-bed from coming out, removed the mattress and carried it upstairs, restrapped the hide-a-bed mechanism, and proceeded to stand the sofa upright again.
I couldn't lift it. (That should have been a red light for me, right?) But I can be pretty ingenious; I stuck the platform of the hand truck under it, and s-l-o-w-l-y pulled back on the handle until the hand truck was lying flat on the floor, with the end of the sofa now raised maybe a foot off the ground.
I'm not sure now quite how I got it the rest of the way vertical, but I did. Then I started pushing it to the basement door. Thank goodness we don't have carpet there! Back and forth, angling left then right, left then right, inch by inch, backing it up because it got stuck between the treadle sewing machine cabinet and the curio cabinet, maneuvering the thing some more, and finally I had it at the door!
It would barely fit through there if the angle were just right and I pushed really hard. At this point there's carpet. Dang! They're carpet squares and they aren't glued down! Why didn't I think to take them up? sigh.
At this point, I'm already doing some serious sweating. Sweating? How unladylike! Uhm...I had a rosy glow? There was a lot more glow to come, let me tell you.
Inch by half inch, push, shove, tug, tilt, angle, pull and THERE! Through the door!
And stuck. I mean, really stuck. And I'm on the wrong side of it, meaning I'd squeezed between the door jam and the sofa at some point, and was now on the stairs. Well, it's a for sure fact I ain't gonna pull that behemoth up the stairs.
I decided that was a good time to go do something else, and trudged up the stairs to the kitchen, where a deceptively difficult ATC was waiting to be finished. That was a struggle, too, but at least I stopped glowing after a while.
So I went back down the stairs. The problem was the shelves at the bottom, specifically one box that poked out about an inch. Should've moved that box to begin with. If I could move it now....
Of course, the box wasn't on the top shelf, and all those shelves were on the other side of the loveseat from where I was standing. I needed to get to the other side. It's not a very tall sofa. I would shimmy over the top.
Up I went. Perched on the end, dropped my left leg over, through the door, crooked my right knee to bring my other leg down, and my foot hit the wall. I hung there, looking at my foot against the wall. Now I'M stuck, and my DH is an hour away, and my cell phone is upstairs. Okay. Wait. Don't panic. I am more flexible than a sofa. All I. Have to. Do. Is bend... Jussssst...YES! Got my foot down, dropped, and I'm standing on the other side. Whew.
Now to move that box. On the third shelf down. And the only way to do that was to empty the two shelves above it, removing a foot-wide shelving board as I went, with each removal of each item requiring a mighty shoulder-shove against the sofa to balance it, tilted, just far enough away from the shelf to wedge myself in and lift a box of books (!) or shelving straight up and out.
When I'd emptied the shelves, I managed to shove the sofa just enough into the closet space to let me squeeze through, and there it stayed until this morning, when the DH and I, working together, managed to drag it up the steps.
I wonder if, next time, I'll realize I do have physical limits. Nah. So I'd better start working now to make sure those limits are a bit further out than they are now!
Today I finished my very first ATC (Artist's Trading Card). It was an absorbing activity, and took longer than I'd anticipated, maybe because of my lack of experience. I was surprised, too, by just how small 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" is. I can't even imagine how patient and painstaking a person would have to be to create an Inchy or Twinchy (1 x 1 and 2 x 2, respectively).
This was also the first time I've tried to do anything with rubber stamps, and I fear it could become as addictive for me as it has for so many others.
Well, then, without further ado, my first ATC:
A few notes on the process:
I started with an image I found on the net, and altered it, changing the colors, heightening the contrast, and a couple of other things in that vein. Then I printed it out, and added some black pen outlines, and squiggles to the branch the bird sat on.
After that, I found the heading "Musicians of the Month" in one of my old Etude magazines. I already knew I wanted to add the stamped bird, so the plural was perfect.
Online again, I found some cool, very old, sheet music, which I printed on erasable typing paper, which is somewhat sheer and also has a kind of pebbly texture. I put a strip of it in the larger bird's beak, and cut individual arpeggios to become the calyxes of the flowers. That didn't show much after I added the black feathers, but I'm still glad I did it, just because I know they're there.
I stamped a fanciful bird on the printed image in brown, and then darkened areas of it with black pen, and then I stamped curlicues in the upper left and lower right corners, using two or three other stamps, and both brown and black ink.
Lastly, I added the brown feathers as a crest for the larger bird, and the black tail feathers to the other. The black feathers are ostrich I got at an estate sale some time back; the brown are out of an old feather duster.
Oh, I should say that the black around the ATC isn't part of it, just the chair seat I set it on to photograph it.
My DH studied it when I showed the finished card to him. He didn't say anything for a few seconds, and I really thought he was going to tell me it was kind of a dumb way to spend my time, but as I moved to leave, he said, "It's really cool."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's cool. I like it."
Well, then. That was a nice surprise. It isn't exactly what I thought I was going to make. Pretty pale for starts, but I think I like it, too, and it is my first, so I think I'll decide to be very happy with it!
I have a video to show you! My friend, Christine Claringbold makes cool stuff from old phonograph records--
Clocks
Bowls
Cuff Bracelets
Suncatchers and Window Clings (which aren't from records, but are still cool.)
Spinners for the yard
My daughter calls her six-year-old daughter, "The Accidental Artist". The reason? Meggie seems to have a real eye and bent for art, but most of what Meg creates she is too much the perfectionist to like. Who knew a child who hasn't even entered first grade could even be a perfectionist!
I want to show you some of our Accidental Artist's work. I don't know. Maybe it's because she's my granddaughter, but I think what she's doing is pretty awesome.
Painting and drawing:
Now, I like the first two a lot, but I love the last one, mostly because of the story that goes with it. My daughter, Melody, was enthusiastic in her appreciation of it, and praising it to Megan.
Megan said, "I don't like it. It's not my usual work."
I can almost see Melody's jaw dropping, but knowing her, she tried not to show too much surprise, just saying, "I didn't know you even had a 'usual work'".
Megan looked at her mom and sighed. "I didn't either. Until today."
I'm still shaking my head, and hoping Megan doesn't let that already strong inner critic have to much play in her head.
But now I'd like to show you what happened when this six-year-old was handed a camera for the first time:
Close-up of a pine coneI've been working on a small project that ended up taking WAY more time that I'd expected, but it's a first try at a new thing, so maybe that's to be expected.
You see, I joined a Yahoo! group, Decorative Envies, that's for people who like to send not just real, paper, mail, but real paper mail that's pretty. Hence, the "Envies" part of the name, short for "Envelopes".
Anyway, part of what they do is swap decorative envelopes, and I've just finished up my first set, ready to pop in the mail. That's what I'm showing you!
Okay, so the deal is you send a decorated envelope your swap partner can use inside a decorated envelope. Above is the larger, outside envelope, front and back, and below is the smaller, inside envelope:
That last picture is what you see when you lift the envelope flap.
I'm eagerly watching my mailbox, 'cuz my partner says she's already sent mine. I just hope she likes what I'm sending her way!
So how about you? What are you showing the world this Saturday (or any Saturday)? Leave a comment with a link, so I can come see!
I thought I knew what I was going to show the world today on this second excursion into Show Me Something Saturday land--the art I've been working on since I got home from Hood River on Monday.
I was out in the yard with my camera, setting up a shot, when art from a much more practiced and professional Hand grabbed my attention. Can't compete with the Divine, and ain't gonna try.
And I'm suddenly put in mind of an old, favorite, saying: "Earth laughs in flowers." My garden is fairly burbling with joy right now if that is the case!
The pink and white roses next to the yellow cottage grabbed me first:
And then the honeysuckle against the fence:
And the love-in-a-mist, which I think is also called Devil's claw, at the base of a birdbath:
By then, I was just wandering around, looking at all the beds. There's an enormous buddleia (butterfly bush), which I guess we aren't supposed to grow anymore, now that Oregon has declared them an invasive species. My husband hacks it to the ground every year, and every year it just comes back stronger. It's taller than the peach house now, but smells so deliciously of honey, and is draped so beautifully with purple spires that I can't resist it. Neither could this bee:
Click on this one for sure. The bee's amazing.
Well, I actually posted this last night, but I put the video on YouTube, and something went wrong. All that would come up when you clicked the play button was an error message. So I put it on DropShots this morning, and am reposting now. Just toooooo tired for a second try last night.
This dog loves to climb trees! I got the video of it at the Vancouver Recycled Arts Festival weekend before last.
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