four out of five books

four out of the five books are in the shoppe now.

jotjoy

showed some blue

a couple of weeks ago, a winter wind blew a wooden sign over in an alley. the typography had been turned toward the wall, so i am very thankful for that cold gust that showed some blue. i asked the tailor's shop if it was trash. it was trash and ready for the hauling.

the sewing machine and spool of thread are stenciled and the script is handpainted typography. *swoon*

after admiring the yesteryear script painting, i decided where i would hang it. it was the reward for cleaning off the work table.

a cup of holiday cheer

free shipping and $5 off each of my products in my society6 shop.

the promotion is NOT automatically available in my store and only available through this link to my society6 shop.

promotion expires december 8, 2013 at midnight pacific time. *offer excludes framed art prints, stretched canvases and throw pillows with insert.


stay warm and cozy.

outside the window

shadowboxer sees a sale in my etsy shop outside the window.





*10 percent off total with a mininum of $25 purchase through dec. 31, 2013. code :: 10PERCENTOFF
(please take note that it can only be used during checkout.)

'flies dried

this afternoon, i spent time in the studio making tiny collages on tags. i feel that i am really in the artistic process when i don't have an agenda, but i am creating for the sake of creating. after these butterflies dried, these tiny collages morphed into sets of gift tags which are now in the shoppe.

utilitarian femininity

well, i finished the studio two nights ago. the only thing left to do is customfit a strip of polygal on the side of the toolshed and hang the business hammock.

once i hung up the antique horseshoe, i noticed the old signature on the doorframe. so love this bit of past.

the great thing about this rehab was that i had recycled and upcycled all of the materials that i had been saving. the old roof became interior cladding. the wood from the exterior back wall became the interior wall. the old garage door became the toolshed enclosure and the one of the old walls became my new worktable.




for years, i have been terrified of circular saws. fingers are not overrated and i kept it as such. when i set out to enclose the toolshed area, i knew that my trusty little jigsaw would not cut it and so i pulled on my handygirl pants and bought a saw. can i tell you that building the enclosed toolshed myself was the highlight of my summer? after framing it out, i recycled the old garage door to enclose it. making a curtain out of an old dropcloth that i had gives it just enough utilitarian femininity.

reuse

one of the goals was to reuse everything. that old fridge door was under the floor and it makes the perfect memo board for the desk area. usually everything is thrifted around here, but i had to break down and buy something matchymatch. these lights were under $15 at ikea. i just love them.

the floor was painted with minwax polyshades. the first coat was bombay mahogany and the second coat was their classic black. the bottom boards on the wall were missing so yesterday i cut a scrap of polygal down and made it a sliver of lightwall.

i ran out of time this weekend to tackle the toolshed area. i need to pull everything out, insulate and the clad its walls. i think that i have enough leftover materials to do that.

during this process, my cordless drill lost its battery juice. i had no idea that they had such a short life. did you? i bought that drill only six years ago and didn't use it all of the time. opting for a corded drill this time, i think my handygirl self grew by six inches.

progress

another step is done!

the only purchased supplies were the new 2x4s and the window. i had the polygal left over from my old house and this wall is clad with old shelving and the old back wall.



i freaking love my new worktable. it was an interior wall and i had rescued an old rusted metro shelving unit from the curb. i cut it in half with my trusty dremel.

the weekend list::

1) hang lighting
2) stain floor
3) enclose workshop
4) move in another worktable

once everything is done, i can't wait to compare before and after photos.

morning light

summer officially started for us on friday.

saturday came and we watched my daughter (and their baby sister) graduate from high school.

another proud chapter finished and another exciting chapter started. whoot, whoot.

a dry moment

before

when i bought this little house five years ago, the garage was in bad shape with a leaking roof. for five years, i have had a little dream of fixing it up and having a place to explore printing and printmaking.

this bungalow was built in 1944 and the garage was built directly on the property line against the rock wall which lines the perimeter. to rebuild it, i would lose five feet of space due to modern day easements. to restructure it from within was the best solution.

using the material that i have is important. i don't want to contribute to the landfill. last month, i finally had the leaking roof redone. (the old metal is waiting to be used for a carport which will be my last phase on this project.)


after

this week, the crew reframed the back wall and used the polygal polycarbonate that i had left over from my old house. the wideplank wood will be used on the walls inside the garage.


before


after

when i came home from work on friday during the flash flooding in central texas, i sat under my nonleaking roof and had a dry moment.

the ceiling can't hold us

this past weekend was a live-in fuzzy houseshoes and clean up the studio weekend. the fuzzy shoes were the easy part. this sunday, i need to finish up, but you can now take off your seatbelt and move about the cabin freely.

macklemore is right. the ceiling can't hold us, but it can be donned with necklaces. okay, maybe they are a tad bit visual clutter, but they make me happy every time i walk in.



i had been using the wall behind the computer and worktable as a ginormous inspiration board, but with every other wall used for storage or graphics, i needed some visual quiet.

opening up the large wall allowed me to repurpose two vintage birdcages as lights, i now have light over the old worktable.

big plans, man, big plans

i needed a road map for the next twelve months. no big promises, but small baby steps towards each one. having a pocketjournal in my purse is creative ammunition to the workday. if you don't have one, you can get one here.

serifa, frutiger and some panky pank

this year, i decided to make a little book for our holiday card. maybe, it was too much sugar or the book design class that i taught this semester, but i forged ahead with the idea.

this little card/book has made me selfish, though. you ain't getting one unless you sent me a card last year. if you didn't mind not sending me one last year, you don't mind not getting one from me this year. haha. (not really) (not really on the haha and really on not getting a card.)

the book is set in serifa and consists of three pink paper folios with a total of eight pages. i took a positive descriptor (which most holiday letters are chocked full of) from each of our four little update pages and i mashed it with other words set in frutiger. the first page is the mashup greeting with a blank page on the back. the next four are our updates and the inside back page is blank for a handwritten greeting. the back page follows with the year and my website url.

to get the registration correct for back and front printing on a copy machine is usually impossible, so i decided to do a french-folded construction to alleviate that and pull a little fakey on the back & front action. the outside folio encases the two french-folded folios.

since i was wanted to print this as cheaply as possible, i designed four folios to a page and cut each book out with an xacto blade. so, it was cheap, but it was a bitch on the time.

the cover is sewn and then washified with a collaged word of positivity cut from a vintage book on top. each book has a different word.

i still need to finish the other half of them, but they are all glittery and girly and a nice hit of happy in celebration of Christmas and a reachout to our faraway friends and family.

press play project

society6

shipping is free through october 14 and only through this link.

focus

she does have ink, but doesn't have the annoying watermarks (or the site) on her in real life.

washi pyrex

target has its own version of washi tape now. have you seen it?

there are four color sets–red, green, blue and yellow. each set has a solid, a stripe and two dotted rolls. the large dots immediately reminded me of my twenty-year old hankering for the vintage dot pyrex bowl sets.

the paper tape performs like any other washi tape that i have used and it is only $4.09 for the set of the four rolls. what? that is insane in the membrane savings.

look for the tape in the office supply department. it is usually under all of the colorcoded tacks, clips and magnets in the target up line.


love.

a pair of buttons

1) i haven't pushed fabric under the needle in a while. everything else, yes. fabric, no. after work yesterday, i made myself a work apron for a book class that i will be teaching in the fall.
2) oh, and her fraternal twinkie is in the shoppe.
3) this week, i watched julie delpy's 2 days in new york which followed up her 2 days in paris. i still think that she just might trump woody allen in her directing and writing. adorable.
4) if you are wanting to grow your hair out, a full moon cut in the sign of leo is the date to circle. yes, that is august 1st. august will have two full moons with a blue moon at the end of the month.
5) it is hard to believe that we are kissing friday again.what are you doing this last weekend of july?

on a happy note

get your nose out of the depressing news and stick it into a sketchbook.

my on a happy note pocket journals are now in the shoppe. they are perfect for the everyday and to garner the everysmile.

get one (or two!) while the gettin' is good.