Really, Pottery Barn?

First let me say that I love Pottery Barn - all the furniture, all the chi-chi decorating accents and all the lovely linens. Then came these little stacks of old books - aren't they sweet? Now to the crazy part - each stack of 4 books costs $30.00. What?? For a stack of books with the covers riped off and tied with a piece of twine?? So that means that the bowl of books above costs over $200.00, not counting the lovely wooden trough. Here's my version. I looked in our bookcases and found four books that would be headed to the donation pile. I looked for ones with deckle edges or colored pages to add interest. I used a box cutter to get the covers off without tearing the pages.

So here's to you Pottery Barn. I love that you have wonderfully creative designers and that occasionally I can make my own version of your (sometimes) wildly overpriced doo-dads.

Bit by the New Year Reorganizing Bug

All of my online art groups are talking about ways to store all the stuff we accumulate. I like to be able to see as much of my stash as possible, have it reasonably accessible and have storage that is what The Captain claims to be - both decorative and useful. I decided to use my vintage window frame to store and display some of my wood mounted stamps. I love being able to see them and may rotate others through the installation.

The windows in my studio have been bare since I moved in. I'm not a fan of fussy curtains, but even by my standards, these windows looked forlorn. Curtain rods from the thrift store + ribbon = instant window treatments. Again, like having the ribbon out where I can see it and hopefully be inspired to use it.

Boston Daughter found this great shelf unit and I love it. I hung it on the wall and now have a place to show off some great vintage finds.

I found this jewelry organizer at Michael's for 40% off. It has all these pockets on both sides, so lots of storage for all those little doo-dads that I had jammed into another box. No more annoying digging through the box trying to locate on tiny item!

All this organizing made me realize that not only do I love creating something with my stuff, I also just love my stuff. Now that I can see it all, I also realize I am Queen of Quite a Lot. The Queen needs to get busy making things!

Hair- The Continuing Saga

"Why do you think you can control your life when you can't even control your hair"?

I envy people with normal hair - you know, the straight kind that looks good even in the midst of a hurricane. My hair is the kind that's always having a party. Any kind of weather, any movement of air within 20 miles of my hair - it's party time! I've given up trying to get the "normal " kind. I did have it straightened for California Daughter's wedding and loved it until my darling granddaughter came up to me and asked "what's your name"?

Color, now that's a different story. I have spent lots of time and money on the color part. That's me, about seven years old, with very dark and very straight hair. (My family has a weird curly hair gene - straight hair till puberty, then , BAM! - here comes the curly wild stuff! ). I've been light brown, dark brown, red (which seems to be the official hair color if you're over 50) and most recently, blond.

I've decided to try a new color - the one that's hiding underneath the blond - the gray color. I'm pretty sure my blond hair isn't fooling anyone into thinking I'm 20 years younger. I don't want to look older, but looking one's age isn't really a bad thing, either. Look how the fantastic Helen Mirren pulls it off! Of course, she'd look great with green hair, purple hair or no hair and most of us aren't that lucky, but still - she looks smoking hot with GRAY hair!

Graying baby boomers have taken on turning gray with some attitude and of course, support groups, web sites and books. One of my favorite is "Going Gray, Looking Great" with some brave souls posting before, during and after pictures. I figure right now I have at least 4 colors going - some gray, lots very dark , dark blond and light blond highlights. I feel like I should wear a sign: " Not being lazy - growing out gray hair" because, trust me, at this stage, the look is serious shlumpadinka!

As if the whole color thing isn't enough to consider, length is apparently a serious topic - serious enough for the New York Times to weigh in on whether middle-aged women can have long hair. When I told my hairdresser I was going to stop coloring my hair, he thought it was a bad ideal. Of course he did - his driveway is full of man-toys paid for by foils and highlights. Then he told me that if I did go gray, I would have to keep it really short because " you can't have long hair if it's gray". Oh really - is that a Federal law or just a city ordinance? I'll take my chances - not that I plan on having it really long, but I've grown accustomed to my wild curly hair and want it back. Right now I'm in the process of cutting it shorter and shorter so I don't have too much of the Great Divide going on!

There is a serious sisterhood of women who have let their hair go gray. I often compliment a woman with great gray hair, and every one of them has said they were glad they did it and commiserated with me over growing-out process. Best of all, every one of them looked fantastic. Here's to fantastic gray hair - long, short or whatever we want it to be.

Bits and Birds

New sign for my studio door!

The background is the inky layers techniques from Bernie Berlin's book, "Artist Trading card Workshop". It starts by gluing small scraps of paper - some old and some new to vary the way the scraps absorb ink. Then I randomly applied die-based ink for some color and over that, a wash of yellow oxide glaze. Next, dabbed on just a little pigment ink . Bernie then adds some iridescent ink, but I omitted it as I thought it might be too much for the vintage look I wanted. I'm going to try this technique again, but maybe wash some diluted acrylic paint to unify it more. I hate to cover up all those wonderful paper bits, though!

Once that was done, I was stuck! I liked the collage as it was and it seemed busy enough without adding more. Charging on, I stamped on the birdcages and added a couple of birds cut from corrugated cardboard and used fabric leaves for wings. I stamped the words on scraps of the perforations from a journal .

I love the crown hook and now it has found a home and a job!

New Year's Day, Resolutions, and Let's Try Again!

(Or, I Can't Believe It's Another Year Since I Haven't Become A Better Person!)

New Year's Day - the day for thinking anything is possible. How wonderful is that? No matter that we didn't quite meet up to last NYD's expectations; we have another chance.

I think this page made for the family and friends calendar is my resolution. It covers all the bases quite nicely - just be a better you, whatever that means - kinder, more patient, more giving, less critical , a more creative artist - oh, and (of course) thinner, and while we're at it, develop killer arms like Michelle Obama!

Here's a more lofty take on this idea from Martin Luther King:

" If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep the streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well".

Here's to a Happy New Year. May it bring out the best version of us all.