SHOW & TELL SATURDAY: OUR CRAFTY WEEK

Our condo. We had the lower level.

Okay. That was a teaser. I'm not really going to tell about the week yet, but I will show a few pictures, just of the condo and the four of us.

Aunt Charlotte, Mama, & my daughter December

Me, Mama, and December

Our crafty vacation ended yesterday at noon. December and I made pretty good time--three and a half hours from Redmond, Oregon to home, chattering like magpies all the way, except for times when she was copying recipes from the awesome cookbook I picked up at one of the thrift stores we'd gone to. I finally told her she could just borrow it; I know she'll bring it back.

I was too exhausted by the time I got home to do much of anything except vegetate, especially since we'd taken time before the drive home for a swim and soak in the hot tub. This morning, I got the DH off to his remodel, which is blessedly near being completed, and then rushed to get ready for a Trillium board meeting, after which I went to Value Village (Oh, my. Can you say SCORE?!) and Joann's. Home for a quick bit of lunch, change of clothes, and then off to our friend Bruce's, where I pounded nails in or pulled them out of lumber he'd thrown in the front yard for the burn pile, and loaded them in to the back of my car. Finished that up in time to get home and fix dinner, and yes, I'm even more tired tonight than I was last night!

Almost forgot: Just before jumping into the car to run load wood, I grabbed my camera and got a few shots of the Grandpa Ott morning glories and crocosmia out in the yard:


Aren't they beautiful?

I'm looking forward to tomorrow: I finally got to my email and found out who my partner is for the Decorative Envies postcard and envelope swaps. Oh, I am Smiling!

A CRAFTY VACATION

About twenty years ago, my parents bought into one of those time share vacation deals, nothing really fancy, but nice. Each year they paid maintenance fees that entitled them to a week-long stay in one of a number of resorts. I’m sure they didn’t realize they were about to create a tradition when they did it, but that’s exactly what they did.

My living room, this past Sunday, tells a part of the story of that tradition:

Each of those piles you see stacked around on the chairs and sofa represents a craft we’ll be doing this week, up at the condo at Eagle Crest in Redmond, Oregon. I’ve been gathering the materials for days, and when it started to feel like one big overwhelming jumble, along about Friday, I finally got smart and pulled out some big note cards, wrote a craft on each one, and organized the items by projects.

Then I put each stack into its own box or bag, and Monday morning, I started packing it all into the car.

Our week at the condo has arrived!

The cast of characters has changed over the years. It started with Mom, Dad, Uncle Walt, Auntie Jewel, my husband and I. Each year, we women would each plan two or three crafts and assemble the materials and instructions for making them, and plan meals for the week, and on the appointed date we would meet at whichever resort Mom and Dad had chosen.

We very quickly established a routine: Breakfast, and then the women would head out to the thrift stores and garage sales, searching out the things for crafts that hadn’t yet been found. The guys would golf or sight-see. We’d all reassemble at the condo for lunch, after which the men would read, nap, or go out again, and then the women would craft until it was time to quit for dinner. After dinner, we might rest for a bit, walk, or ride our bikes. Then it was cards until late.

We’re a close family. It has always been a week of laughter, stories, the sweetness of just being together. Add in a solid week of crafting, and it’s such bliss that I start looking forward to the next one before we ever get home.

Last year was hard. My Dad’s brother, my Uncle Walt had died some years back, but we’d carried on. Mama’s sister, Auntie Charlotte, joined us. Then, two and a half years ago, Dad passed away, and less than six months later, darling Auntie Jewel. We didn’t go to the condo that year, and I wondered if Mom would ever have the heart for it again, but we put the week together for 2009. It wasn’t the same. No Uncle Walt, no Auntie Jewel, and no Dad. We added my daughter and granddaughter, but we didn’t play cards, and Auntie Charlotte had to leave two days early.

Oops. No Auntie Charlotte--she was taking the picture!

It took some doing to talk Mama into giving it another go this year. It’s still Mama, Auntie Charlotte, and me, but my husband is working hard on a remodel and couldn’t come, and the daughter who came last year couldn’t either. My youngest daughter, December, could though, so it’s four women, and a great, big, pile of crafts.

I am writing this on our second night at the condo. We are exhausted. We got up and planned our day this morning, went out and shopped (and boy, did we score some bargains!), came home and ate lunch (at 3:20!) crafted until dinner, and then ate a luscious meal prepared by December—Quiche and French toast made with apple strudel bread topped with real maple syrup or homemade blackberry syrup. And then we played cards.

Scattered through the day were stories, many of them about Dad or Auntie Jewel, or Uncle Walt.

Tomorrow, we will do it all over again. It’s a family tradition.

SUNDAY RERUN: Manners School

It's time for a Sunday Favorites entry, hosted by dear Chari. Click on the button in the lefthand sidebar to go see her and the favorites of other bloggers, and to join us!

Here's an entry I posted, oh, nine years ago. How can the time go by so quickly?

Parker, at about 9

My granddaughter Parker is six and a half. She told her mom this past week that she wanted to go to "Manners School".

Sarah said, "But Parker, you're so polite! You always say 'please' and 'thank you'. Why do you think you need Manners School?"

"Because," said Parker, "it sounds funny when I say, 'Excuse me, Madam'".

So, let's see. Solution to the problem would be....I'm still laughing!

SHOW & TELL SATURDAY: 1ST ATC

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!

FRIDAY FENCE POST #56

I found an interesting, if difficult to photograph, fence over at Harbor Freight the other day. It didn't help that I was trying to take pictures from the vantage point of a busy parking lot. I do let myself get self-conscious, especially when people are looking at me suspiciously, or like they maybe think I'm a freak for taking pictures of something that doesn't look like photo-worthy material.

Both of these photos are, I think, worthy of being clicked on, so as to see more detail. The second one gave me some real filter fun.



I'm looking at the photo as you'll see it if you don't click on it, and it looks almost normal. Just saying....

THE DAILY LIST: MY BEST TOOL

My girlfriend Alice, many years ago, gave me some of the most valuable child-rearing advice I ever received, all in a single eight word sentence: "Begin as you mean to go on."

Many times I've stopped to think, Do I want to start down that path? If I say Yes now, will it lead to problems later? Rarely was it anything earth-shattering that was being considered--letting the girls do, or not do, something "Just this once!" that I didn't want to become a habit and could see how quickly they'd turn that "once" into, "But you let us yesterday!" It really saved a lot of arguing later.

But that really hasn't got anything to do with my entry, except that I looked at my list and realized it was a map for "beginning as I meant to go on".


Each morning, usually right after breakfast, I pull out my notebook and make out my daily list. As you can see, I divide the page into four quadrants, with the headings, "Errands", "Call/Email", "Do", and "Write".

Those quadrants are essential to this ADD woman, and keep me, mostly, from making grasshopper leaps from one thing to another, especially important in the Errands department--I do Not want to go out and come home, only to discover I've missed a place I meant to get to.

If I leave the house, the list goes with me. Otherwise, it sits at my place at the table and is regularly referred to, and Oh! the satisfaction of marking something off! Some days I do pretty well. Other days, I look at the list in the evening and just sigh: Where did the day go, and how could I have accomplished so little?!

It's okay, though. The things I don't get to one day generally get moved to the next day's list. Some things I forget to transfer, which is why keeping the lists in the notebook works so well for me; I frequently go back through and review the pages.

My preference for anything hand-written is graph paper, preferably 5-to-the-inch. I seem to need those little boundaries to keep my penmanship tidy. This notebook has graph paper on only one side of the page, but that's handy, too--the facing page is great for jotting down notes and ideas, which is another reason I review past days.

Anyway, this helps me keep my days somewhat on track. I hope there's a bit of something helpful here for you, too!

Signing off for now,

Anitra

NOT "SHOP BEAUTIFUL" but Oooooh!

There's a fabric store just up the street from our house. It is definitely NOT a candidate for "Shop Beautiful", but it is a treasure trove of the fantastic. I've told a number of people about it, but this morning, as I prepared to run up and look for fabric for wings, the lightbulb came on: Blog this place!

This is the shop, as seen from the Safeway parking lot, at NE Fremont & Sandy Blvd. Definitely not an exterior to make you long to enter, is it?


Unless, like me, you have a nose for a bargain. I wanted to know how true that "FOR LESS" was, the first time I went in. Turns out the sign maker got it right, in spades.

Table full of trims, at mostly $1-$2 a yard, & mostly beaded, sequined, and/or embroidered.

Lots of sheers, many sparkly, at $3 a yard

Cottons, velours, knits, more sheers--$4 to $8 a yard

Richly beaded trims, with top price of maybe $5 a yard

Quite a lot of beaded evening and ethnic wear

This photo does not do these luxurious sequined and embroidered fabrics justice!
Price? Just $10 a yard!!

Need I say it? If you're looking for fabric and trims in the Portland, Oregon area, check out Fabrics for Less. It's true that there isn't much "ordinary" there, but it makes up for it, I think, with a whole lot of Extraordinary!