Paperclipping.com Live Show June 29. 2010

The show went really well last night.
It was so much fun!
Liz is such a joy to be around.

Here is a link to the show archive.

Special thanks to Noell of Paperclipping.com.

A fantastic site! Go play.

So.... GO!
Fix your self a cup of coffee or a cocktail, grab your knitting and kick back.

I have had about enough of myself for a few days. Going to turn the music up (sorry neighbors) and putter around the studio... it needs cleaned.

xo

Getting ready...are you coming?

http://www.paperclipping.com/live
6:30 pm pdt

You mean I will be on camera?! Paperclipping.com Live Promo

The chance to take part in this wonderful opportunity came up at the last minute, 

which is why I have not mentioned it until now!

Join us tomorrow, Tues. June 29th 6:30 pm pst.

HERE.... (click for link)

This promo was taped after too many cookies and a few hours of us being hyper and silly in Liz's studio. 

You can definitely tell we are squirrelly AND that this is complete improv. No plan or script.

We were just messing around to test the camera, then decided that

we amuse ourselves and would use it to promote tomorrow night.

Liz and I will be discussing art journals, scrapping, where the two connect and who knows what else really, we tend to get somewhat out of hand when we are together. Imagine that.

and blerg, will I EVER get used to seeing myself on video?

OH-- you can chat with us LIVE via ustream (simply create an account-- it's free!) or via twitter, using the #pclive hash tag.

Just type us a question or a message on your twitter and then type #pclive. We will be filtering out those hash-tags so we can read your comments and questions as they arrive!

And if you miss us live, you can view us in the archives, which I will link here once I have it.

Off to make a bit of an outline!

Go Goethe!

I may have shared this before, but it is really really relevant right now.

Love that!

Yard Sailing~

I have to admit, I am a total sucker for a yard sale. Especially an estate sale. Older people hoard the coolest things....
BUT-- I am constantly fighting my hoarder genes. ha.

This past Saturday, Jackie Sparkles and I hit the Eastmoreland neighborhood yard sale.
Last year, Syd and I hit it early, as it was right across the street from Art FiberFest.
(missed you this year, Syd!)

Here I am eating pretzels and checking the yard sale map

... thanks to Jackie for the pic of me stuffing my face! ha.

THIS time I went with a list of things I need, so I was careful to not buy anything that I do NOT need.

My Finds:

An old ceramic flower pot glazed in my favorite turquoise/teal-esque color.

$7.00! I have seen these at the garden center for like $50.

Plastic ornate picture frame $1.00!

I plan to spray paint it.

Two brass lamps. vintage tacky, but work!Very heavy. $15 each. 

They are currently being spray painted a nummy turquoise. I will post more on them later.
 

Card display tree thingy, made me smile, and only 25 cents!

a Garden Wagon!

Which I was thrilled to find.

We are forever dragging crap to and from the garden in multiple trips.

I am just too cheap to pay $50 for a new one.

This one? $10. And it seems indestructible. (that is not a challenge)!

It has hole to put your hand tools and a cup holder! total yuppy garden cart.

After Sailing we met Jackie's friend Amy for lunch at Papa Hadyn's.

We had a great time... girl talk and decadent desserts!

A great day. I was tired. 

Reprograming my Self Motivational Techniques...

Adventure puppy (Stella) in the car.

whew!
super proud of myself. I dragged my chunky butt UP the mountain to the top of the falls. 1.25 miles UP. up a trail, but UP nonetheless. Then I teetered my pitiful knee tendons back down. It was rough. and humiliating.
But I did it! I took some fantastic pics!

We went to Multnomah Falls, in the Columbia Gorge. Only a 30 minute drive from our house, and breathtaking.

Paul and his girls.

I only berated myself most of the way up, even though I was proud of myself for doing it. I think I need to reprogram my self motivation techniques. Cussing and spanking oneself to motivate is perhaps not the healthiest way to go.
I mean I knew I COULD do it, I just really really did not want to. It sucked. I hate that physically-out-of-shape feeling. Even though I do understand the only way past it is to suck it up and continue, which I did.... but I was cranky.

It looked like this tree was going to crawl away.

Once we got to the top, there was a path that went upstream from the falls.

A magical place, without a doubt!

I started to see hearts everywhere!

Big heart rock. I had the girls stand with it for scale.

This rock looked like a sleeping dinosaur-- see it?

This moss (on a bridge) reminded me of a muppet face, with it's tongue sticking out! 

And here was my reward, other than the self-satisfaction of course.... the money shot over the falls!

Here are the falls (looking UP)

from the platform you see on the right (above).

Is this really me?

Alright. It's time for that rant.

The "I turned 40" rant. 

    It really has not bothered me, not like it does some women. I like who I am and where I am and have no regrets about the path I have chosen the past 20 years. Seems like I am finally getting to know myself, and that is not always a seamless, painless process.  So I have been doing some serious soul-searching. What is it that makes me tick?
   While I am a driven and creative person, I am also a self-deprecator. Bigtime.
I set unrealistic goals for myself and go in waves of over-achieving, then bouts of crash and burn followed by self deprecation for not meeting my unrealistic goals.  Add in a healthy sprinkling of "bright and shiny" syndrome ( I don't like to call it ADD... I just gravitate towards the new and exciting, or "bright and shiny") and you have a 40 year old who lives a pretty cushy life yet is overweight and really, really hard on herself.
   So it's time to figure this out. Figure ME out. Have I really had any deep conversations with myself about this? nope. I take the non-confrontational stance (extreme avoidance of drama) with things like this. Better to ignore it than to go through the drama of dealing with it. You know? I would never let someone else treat me the way I treat myself- and that makes no sense whatsoever.
   First lesson I have learned is that getting to know myself and dealing with the poo is not drama (and I hate the perpetuation of drama), is a good thing.  Everyone has things to work through, it is not a shameful thing. So no more ignoring or pretending that everything is peachy keen and no more being ashamed of being human.  Life is about the good and the bad, it's the journey that counts.
    I will be sharing my journey here, because it is good for me to stop putting on my happy face and only showing that part of me, AND, there is a chance that some of you are just like me, or close enough to share my path with me.
    I gathered a pile of some really good books that make me think. I put a list of some of them at the bottom of this post...
I also enrolled in a happy-feel-good online class by Mondo Beyondo. When I read their blog post in Kelly Rae's blog it made me cry.
"There's this white hot panic I have at my back sometimes when it comes to my dreams. If you don't get it together now (or at least soon!) the moment will pass and you will have missed your chance. Hurry, hurry, it whispers. The clock is ticking.

Everyone responds to this pressure differently. Some of us get it together and ramp up. We cover our bases, we try harder. We make sure that whatever is in our power to do, gets finished--and fast. Others of us make our foot long to do lists and immediately sink into overwhelm, declaring ourselves not-like-the-others. We're paralyzed with fear and indecision, and wonder what "the others" have that we're missing.".........
.....If any of this resonates with you, if you're the kind of girl who needs more space to play and rest and a certain kind of permission to be more gentle, with yourself and others, than I hope you'll join me for Dream Lab this summer. Everything you need to know is right here and it's not too late ever to discover that real dreams come true whenever we dare to bet on a little bit of joy and an unexpected dose of kindness and courage.


 Another blog post about it here, in Brene Brown's blog. She mentions a guidepost "Cultivate Rest and Play. Let go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth"  from her upcoming book called "The Gifts of Imperfection".


ouch.  Like a smack in the head. They were talking about ME.
So go over and check it out. So far it is perfect. Nail-on-the-head perfect.

~~~~~

Today I will be kinder to myself.

My Resource List...
"I Thought it was Just Me" by Brene Brown
"The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan
Mondo Beyondo ...Dream Lab

and the "Tell Me a Secret" Giveaway Recipient Is.....

I am pleased to announce the lucky
June 2010 "Tell Me a Secret" recipient~

and the Winner is...


POETIC DREAMS!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

25 

Timestamp: 2010-06-21 15:15:06 UTC

Poetic Dreams said...

I could take my left leg,bend it backwards and hook it on my hip. It made me look like I had only one leg. My friends were quite impressed. Hugs, Poe

Poe, I will be emailing y ou to set up details.

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED....

Stay tuned for more giveaways!

xo

reenie

Garden Fever

 
Today is Father's Day so Paul got to choose the day's activities.

He wanted to visit a few garden centers in Portland that carry native herbs and plants.

So... off we went to Livingscape.

Cute shop, a lot of great plants and supplies!

But they did not have the type of echinacea Eve wanted to get,
so off we went to Garden Fever.

LOVE!

I loved this place, could have spent an entire day bouncing from one shiny object to another.

Here are pics so you can see what I mean...

Paul bought me this cactus/ succulent bowl! The bowl is concrete.

I LOVE it.

I could have spent a kazillion dollars there, plus I got a ton of inspiration for some projects.
Off to sketch them down before they leave the brains!

Tell Me a Secret Giveaway Ends tomorrow... June 20th!

HURRY! 

My Giveaway ends TOMORROW... June 20TH! Have you entered? 

CLICK HERE TO ENTER~!

Please be patient while I play with my blog design...

Things may be a wonky mess for a bit. I am experimenting. Fun!!!

Running Errands~

I am getting ready to hit the road to run errands... but am really excited about one of those stops.
Home Depot!
I am buying paint to put on my new studio hive!
It sits just outside my window so I can see it when I work.
Here are some shots of Paul (aka the Bee Whisperer) adding the bees to the hive...

It's best to add them at night, as they go to bed at sundown. 

Once their queen is in the hive, they will all zip right in with her.

They line up at the opening, put their bee butts in the air, and fan their wings. 

Why? To fan the queen's pheromones (smell) out so any confused bees out of the hive can find home.

All set up!

I am thinking PINK. A pink hive. Why?

Pink makes me happy, plus it has a level of annoyance that makes me smile.
I mean, how many people could stand to look at a pink hive all day?

So... Home Depot... paint, and a few other things I will share LATER (grin).

What are YOU doing today?

I Dare You.

To the women I know and love.... and to those I do not know yet.

Please watch this?

xoxxo

Can you please transfer me?

A few weeks ago, during "Studio Day", Jackie and I were playing with transfer methods.... and inevitably made a huge mess, but had a ton of fun.

Jackie Sparkles in a blur of activity.

Here are some shots of my scruffy results.... I am a fan of the scruffiness. I figure if I want a perfect image I can just collage it on, right? 

I was working in my old altered leather cover scrapbook album.

The rat genetics images are from Vintage Printable.(a rockin' free image blog)

Cat image is my Ezmaralda.

Rat genetics close-up.

The bee image below is from Vintage Printable also... 

MESS! This one came out a mess, I deemed it abstract and will use it as a design element instead. 

Not a bad thing, just a make-it-work-happy-accident.

Here is a link for some awesome transfer methods!

You may be familiar with some of these methods, but I wanted to share my excitement with you!

Any other links you know of please share in the comments???

Links in this post:

Vintage Printable

Transfer Method Links from "Mixed media Artist"

Jackie Sparkles

My Vintage Scrapbook Album post~

Get out of your own way~

Ann's Baby Doll Tunic

Last week I cast on for a variation of the Baby Doll Tunic (here is the Ravelry Link)  

by Rachel of On The Round. 

I am knitting it in Malabgiro Twist in Burgundy. 

This of course changed the gauge as the pattern is written for a bulky/chunky handspun.

The pattern modifications are due to the fact that Ann is 11, not 25.

So I made the neckline smaller and changed the raglan increases 

so they are tighter with no lacey holes showing.

I knit to where I need to put the sleeve stitches on a holder, and tried it on her.

Perfect!

Wait! Except for ONE THING (grrr. grumble. smacking self in forehead)...

See it?

Apparently one of my stitch markers must have fallen off and I replaced it

 in the wrong spot- one stitch over. See how the increases shift?

haha.

So I pulled it out (frogged it) and am reknitting this portion.

Good thing knitting relaxes me, hunh? haha.

AND that I noticed it NOW and not when I was halfway down the body.

Links in this post:

Baby Doll Tunic (Rav Link)

Baby Doll Tunic (pattern link)

On the Round (blog)