Wrapping Up Year Four

I'm diligent about doing some things, but uploading the photos from my phone is not one of them. Mercy, I finally got that done with hopes that my phone will now function a little better since it's not so heavily laden with my stellar photos -- 90% of which are of the cats. :)

The other 10% are Bailey pictures. Now that sounds like I'm a neglectful mama! Trust me: If I saw her more frequently, there would be a lot more photos! So now that I've rounded up all of those phone pictures, here's a sampling from our visit to IU last month to pack up Bailey's apartment and take her home for a few short weeks.

Before we left town, I managed to grab a couple of photos in front of the iconic Sample Gates. These limestone gates make a beautiful entrance to the campus. We had to work quickly as it was graduation weekend and many families were taking pics at the gates. Next year, it will be our turn!

Here we are making one last stop at the music building, with both vehicles loaded up and ready for the trip home. I was so excited to steal her away for a few weeks!

 

 I managed to grab a couple of photos in the nearly empty apartment.

She was not thrilled!

Awww, these bears have been everywhere with Bailey! They are now college educated!

Of course I had to get an end of the school year picture with The Boy. Too bad we had to do this in a dark parking lot! It was just that kind of weekend!

We also grabbed a parking lot photo of the three of us. Maybe we look better in dim light. :)

While Bailey took care of some last minute stuff, Spouse and I did some things around campus. We stopped at Nick's for a quick lunch one day. This is water. One usually drinks something other than water at Nick's. :)

Here's the view of Kirkwood Avenue from the other side of the Sample Gates. For once, the weather was perfect during our visit, making for very pleasant walks through the campus.

We wandered around Dunn Woods which runs through campus and saw a number of trees planted in the early 1900's. It made me think about how quickly Bailey's time at IU has passed, in the grand scheme of things.

Such a lovely campus...

 Incoming students traditionally shake the hand of the Herman B. Wells statue (above) for good luck. We saw a number of graduating students doing the same thing.

 We had never looked inside the Rose Well House, another iconic spot for photos.

 

 

I'm sure going to miss this place!

We are so proud of the work Bailey has done at IU. Just one more semester on campus followed by her student teaching assignment in a nearby town, then she's off to do big things in the world of music education! We're very excited to see what the future holds for our girl!

jp

Feline Friday: Waking Up with Lily!

Every morning -- and often in the middle of the night -- Lily wakes me up asking for food. I know that I've enabled this naughty behavior by responding to her various tactics. In that sense, I'm very well trained. We won't go into that in this post! Today I want to share with you her current -- and impossible to ignore - strategy for waking me up. Mind you, I'm the only one in the house who gets this very special treatment.

Oh, please forgive the poor quality of these photos! It was around 5:30 am when she woke me up on this particular day. I grabbed my phone and tried to document the action while my eyes were still pretty much closed!

#1 -- The Approach: 

Lily jumps up on my nightstand and walks onto my pillow. Yep, that's my pillow in the corner of the photo.

 #2 - The Stare: 

My eyes barely open to see THIS staring down at me, purring full-throttle. :) If The Stare doesn't yield the desired response, Lily moves on to her final -- and always effective -- tactic....

 #3 - The LICK: 

She LICKS my hair! It can't possibly taste good and believe me, it doesn't feel great to have your hair licked at 5:30 in the morning! But to Lily's credit, this strategy ALWAYS works. I haul myself out of bed and put her in the basement with a tiny bit of food (yeah, I know, I know!), then stumble back to bed for a little while.

Of course, I can sleep a little later because my hair is already styled for the day! HA!
jp

New Classes and a New Toy!

We've started planning out our next couple of months of classes at Memory Bound, taking us through September. Hard to believe we're already thinking about fall! Soon we will be planning Christmas card classes. In fact, my friend Katie and I will be teaching a Christmas card class NEXT MONTH!

Earlier this week I took the plunge and bought a new tool which I think will be a huge help as I create class projects and kits: The Silhouette Cameo. I've always been (and always will be!) a huge Big Shot fan and have never had a desire to purchase a cartridge-based die-cutting machine like the Cricut. I've been holding out for a machine that would work with the fonts and images I already have on my computer, and when Memory Bound announced that we would be carrying the Cameo, I knew the time was right!

So in addition to my Big Shot, I will be using this new machine to download and cut a few shapes for classes. Because I can set it to cut several of the same shape, it should save me a bit of time over cranking all of those shapes through the Big Shot. And of course the design options are endless!

I still love you, Big Shot! I will always, always prefer the slightly rolled or rounded edges of a hand-cut versus a digitally-cut die. Nope, I will never give up my Big Shot!

Before I bought the Cameo, I had just finished putting together a recipe album class. I've done several albums over the years and have found a few tricks that work well for a class like this. Of course, if you were making the album for yourself, you might do a few things differently than you would for a class. But when you're planning a class, you have to be concerned with cost and efficient utilization of materials. In order to use my materials as completely as possible, I always plan out the entire album before I get started. That way I know that every piece of paper -- and almost every scrap! -- will be used in the project.

This particular project has 20 8x8 pages. I chose 5 colors of cardstock and placed them in a repeating order throughout the album. (I know, I know..but I cannot help myself when it comes to order and pattern!) Once I figured out the order and 2-page spreads, I cut some scrap patterned paper to represent the patterns I had chosen for my project. Using scraps allows me to be sure I like the result before I cut my real paper.

Then I started substituting the real paper and cardstock for my scrap pieces, and the album quickly came together.

Finally I added the various embellishments I planned to use for the album.

We will be using an American Crafts binder for this project. I love the album! It's very roomy so students will be able to purchase additional sleeves to add more pages. When finished, the cover will have a wide checkered ribbon tied around the left side.

This type of project makes a great gift, especially when filled with special family recipes, photos, and stories.

Now, back to crafting...and trying out that new Cameo!

jp

Old Project Made New

As I was sorting through stuff in our house recently (seems like that's all I've been doing lately!), I ran across this piece of embroidery made by Bailey many years ago. It was folded and quite wrinkled after many years.

Apparently she didn't quite finish whatever she intended to do with it at the time. But it looked finished enough to me, and I thought it might be fun to frame it to hang in her future apartment. 

Bailey had an even better, simpler idea: Put it back into an embroidery hoop and hang it. So that's what we did! We positioned it in an old plastic hoop which belonged to my grandma. She cut around it with pinking sheers, then we strung a ribbon for hanging through the top.

She took this little piece to camp to hang in her cabin this summer. This was a new good use for an old project. You just never know what you'll find when you're cleaning out closets!

jp

Summer's Already Over!

 

 On May 7, we packed up the SUV (actually TWO SUV's) and moved Bailey home from Indiana University for a short stay. I'd say we packed a lot into that fleeting time, which even included a trip to Michigan for her. Now she's back in Michigan until the end of August to work as a Unit Director for Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Of course, her summer is just beginning, but now that she is gone, I feel like my summer is already over! :( Of course, summer is NOT over, but it's not nearly as fun around here with her gone!

Her boyfriend visited for the last week she was home. We had a great time with him, and it was nice to have him along on the trip back east. I get very nervous when she has to drive alone. It's a MOM THING!

In addition to my classes, I do have lots of things going on to occupy my time this summer. First is the re-design of my flower beds. Awhile back I met with a landscape designer who is re-drawing my backyard flower gardens. I'm anxiously awaiting the new designs so I can get to work! In the meantime, I've been enjoying the current crop of blooms. If you're a flower in my garden, prepare to be picked! There are few things I enjoy more than a bouquet of just-picked flowers.

 

  Second, I've decided to explore genealogy. Over this past weekend, I attended a beginning genealogy class. I learned a lot in a few short hours but holy cow...there is a lot to learn. I'm not even sure if I want to learn it all, but I'll admit that I am intrigued. The great thing is that I'm the keeper of my grandma's genealogy books, which gives me a big head start on two sides of my family tree, as she has researched her own family and that of my grandpa.  I spent some time with the instructor after class taking a look at her work and it appears that Grandma's documentation is formatted correctly, but her binders need to be re-organized and tabbed with archival materials. As they are now, I have trouble navigating through them.

This is a Pedigree Chart. You put yourself in position #1 and work your way backwards, with your parents in positions 2 and 3, your grandparents in the next 4 positions, and so on.

 

 

Grandma has a pedigree chart in her binder which traces my grandpa's family back to the early 1600's in Alsace, France! This is super interesting to me, as I was a French major in college. While living in France, I visited the cemetery where some of my relatives are buried. So you can see that I've had an interest in genealogy for a long time!

 Third, I opened a diplay case at the Brass Armadillo on June 1. I've added lots more to the case so hopefully some things will start selling! I counted over 200 more beer cans we need to sell, in addition to those in the case right now! YIKES. That number is sobering. (Sorry, could not help myself!)

 

  Here are just a few of the fine wares I added to the case over the weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to cover my rental fee each month! :)

Even though it seems like summer is already over, I know it's not. I will be busy with all kinds of things for the next few weeks...and anxiously looking forward to visiting Bailey in Michigan in July!

jp

Feline Friday: Fun with Book Covers

 Happy Feline Friday, friends! 

I'm starting today's Feline Friday post with a mega-collage of sheep in spandex, one of my favorite blog topics. Why sheep? Well, sheep in spandex were the inspiration for a project Bailey and I tried back in 2008, in which we fashioned a stretchy book cover into a figure-hugging cat suit.

Bailey recently ran across a pile of old book covers and decided to make a new suit for Lily. With just a few snips for the head, tail, and legs, she fashioned a modern, form-fitting cat suit. This is upcycling at its finest, friends.

You can see that Lily was very pleased with her new look. :)

The slit in the center of the book cover provides a handy (and oh, so comfortable) opening for Lily's ample belly. 

Close-up of rear stylings...

 

I have to admit she looks a little like a sausage in this photo. A cute sausage.

  

 For some reason, this particular fabric and the pointy shoulders...

 

 ...make me think of the Jetsons.:)

  Of course, Bailey had to see how Tinsel looked in the book cover cat suit. After it became clear that the back legs were absolutely NOT going in, Tinsel wore it as a tunic. This demonstrates that you can get two distinct looks from one book cover.

 Well, THREE...if you count the scowl. :)

 

Sometime during the long, hot days of summer, I hope you'll be inspired to make a book cover cat suit! It's "fun on a budget", as my mom used to say.

Enjoy!

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday

 A number of craft bloggers have been posting photos of their current craft projects under the heading of "What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday". There is usually something happening on my work tables...but I usually forget to share on Wednesdays! Technically you're supposed to link to other blogs but I'm skipping that step today. Click here to visit the blog of the crafter who started this fun weekly challenge!

This week I've been working on kits for two upcoming card classes. This particular card set necessitated a crazy amount of die cutting. And I do mean crazy. Here are just a few of the pieces for three of the six cards. Merciful me.

I cut these window cards just by eyeballing them. The good (but kind of scary!) thing was that when I stacked them, they all lined up perfectly. Whew!

With my kits assembled, I cleaned off my tables and now they're ready for the next set of projects! 
jp

Sort of Obsessed: Embroidered Dishtowels

For some reason, I've found myself becoming sort of obsessed with embroidered dishtowels. I know, I could have worse vices. But still...how many embroidered dishtowels does one need?

Most of my towels were made by my mom or one of my grandmas, so naturally I'm a little bit sentimental about them. For many years, I've kept some in the kitchen. I've used a few until they were ragged. 

Until last week, that is, when I came to my senses and realized that if I kept up this madness, I'd eventually have no dishtowels left. So I gathered them all up and amassed them in a dresser drawer. After I sort and count them all, I may decide to part with a few, although that remains to be seen. Dishtowel hoarding? Possibly.

As I've been thinking about embroidered dishtowels, I remembered this embroidery suitcase from my childhood. I brought it home from my parents' house but hadn't looked inside it until just a few days ago. When I was a little girl, my dear grandma decided I needed a place to stash my embroidery supplies, so she found an old suitcase, painted it brown, and lined it with Disney paper.

The suitcase held everything I needed for my (brief) childhood career in dishtowel embroidery. It appears that I made towels for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before hanging it up.

The paper has pulled away from the sides of the suitcase, but you can see how Grandma used elastic and thumbtacks to make little loops for each spool of thread.

I even found a teeny tiny pair of scissors, a plastic tube of needles, and the world's smallest pin cushion, complete with an elastic band to wear around my wrist. Priceless.

So maybe my obsession with embroidery is coming a little later in life. I may even pick up a needle and try my hand at it again. Grandma would be pleased.

jp