The Big Desk Project - part 2

I've been working and re-working to sort, organize and fill 'er up. Funny how nothing ever goes back into the space it came out of! With all this new storage I moved stuff around in an attempt to locate the things I use frequently so I can reach them without the stepping stool. For the moment I am done. SO DONE and ready to spend some time making things again.
The mouldings on the top and bottom, as well as the keyboard tray are still to come. Tomorrow night we go shopping for the new lights. New lights with 'daylight' bulbs - yea!

The NEW DESK is installed - WooHoo!

We arrived home from our trip to the coast Saturday afternoon and Andy arrived a couple of hours later with the bottom portion of my new desk. He made a "trial fit" and said he would be back Sunday to work on the electricity. Much to my DELIGHT he surprised me by bringing over the upper sections and spent the day installing it. It is so tall I couldn't even get the whole thing in the picture. I should have turned on the flash and held the camera with a steadier hand but I WAS JUST TOO DARNED EXCITED! It turned out even better than I imagined. I am so thrilled!
And when I plugged in the camera to load these pictures I didn't have to crawl under the desk on my hands and knees. Love it, love it, love it!!!

Tonight I am unpacking and re-hanging pictures and figuring out where things go. There is still a little trim work to do and the keyboard tray and the final lighting isn't installed yet so I will take another picture when it's a "done deal". For the moment I'm so happy I almost don't mind that I have to go back to work tomorrow. Almost.

Spring is in the air!

Oh YES - and I'm lovin' it! I am on vacation this week and Mother Nature is cutting me a break in spite of the fact that it is Spring Break week here. This Bleeding Heart has never bloomed so early before. The mild winter must have agreed with it because it is sure showing off what it can do. I have to pinch myself and remember it's only March after all. Daffodils and Bleeding Heart and the Rhodys and Azaleas and Magnolias all starting to show their colors.

** Spring arrives and the grass just knows to grow. **

Coming soon to an art room near ME!

So I think I have revealed my art room before, in all it's messy glory. Yes, this is the way my desk usually looks. When I finish a project I clean it up and temporarily feel like I can breath again. It lasts a matter of minutes then whoosh - I'm on to the next storm in my brain.
You can see that the desk sits in a corner and isn't very tall. Being the hoarder that I am (yikes, did I say that out loud!) all that wasted space above the desk is a constant frustration to me. Imagine all the goodies I could store there!
My son, Andy, recently bought a house and was able to set up his longed-for workshop in his garage. He very generously offered to build a custom desk for me. BUILD A CUSTOM DESK FOR ME! How cool is THAT. He has been over many times taking measurements, getting my approval on stain colors, discussing options. Not too long ago he sent me this picture of the desk "in progress". Look how tall it is! There will be shelves, of course, and also a center section where my computer tower will sit. No more crawling under the desk to plug in the camera. WooHoo! My art room has 9' ceilings and the desk will be about a foot from the top. He is building it stout so I can climb up with my little stepping stool and stand on it to reach the top shelves.

He was here last night and told me it is almost done. Perfect! I am on vacation next week so time to start packing things up and make room so he can install it. That means I might be making things at the kitchen table for awhile. I can't stop making things - well duh! I will try to take some pictures as the magic unfolds.

So what am I working on?? More inspiration kits for the Etsy store. Peaches and Cream, Doll Makers Delight No.2 and more bias tape weaving. All coming soon.

DRUM ROLL Please!

TaDa! Look whose blog is one year old!

I started off with a few goals and some were achived and some are just part way there. I was hoping to have 100 posts and I made it to 83 so not so bad considering I didn't have a clue where to begin. I am looking forward to the next year and where my artful journey will take me.

Sparkly Things

I have been pretty focused lately on pulling things out of my stash to create Inspiration Kits for my Etsy store. The beautiful blogs I have been looking at reminded me to give some of my "keepers" equal time. This is my stash of glass and rhinestone buttons. So fun to keep them jumbled up in this vintage dresser box. Every time I sort through them it's like discovering them all over again. It was like treasure hunting in my own art room - how fun!

Lacey Goodness

I wandered into Andrea Singarella's blog , Everyday Beauty, today and I was blown away with her treasure hunting and her beautifully arranged lace "treasures". I added a link over on the left. She was featured in the last "Where Women Create" and her blog is definitely worth checking out. Eye candy!
Her lace made me feel guilty about the way mine is all snuggled up in tangled loops in a dresser drawer. I really should learn to stop pawing through the drawer and respect the lace.

A loopy mess of lacy goodness!

Like a treasure hunt every time I open the drawer. Maybe I'll just leave it.....

Congratulations Kelly Rae!

In honor of Kelly Rae Roberts big announcement today I thought it would be fun to scan a few vintage baby shower gift cards. How cute! A life-long adventure begins.

Bias Tape Weaving

I was Googling around - because I do that - and I discovered bias tape weaving. Weaving bias tape, who knew and what a cool idea. I can SO picture apron pockets! I got right to work juxtaposing some pretty colors to offer up in my Etsy store and then thought maybe I'd do a quick scan so you can see what I've been up to. The scanner doesn't capture the reds and oranges quite like the camera but you can see what I see - I hope!

It's Only Words

I like to clip the words I like out of my magazines before I toss them in the recycle bin. I have a little drawer full - weird but true! I reach in and give them a stir and get a little storm in my brain. It's only words and words are all I have.... Where does YOUR inspiration come from?

The Title Wave

Our county library has a used book store called The Title Wave. This Saturday they had a BAG sale - fill a brown paper grocery bag with books for $10. Sure got Alayna and I up and out early on a Saturday morning! We got books for reading, books for picture looking, books for gardening, books for building things, books for collecting and books for making art. You can never have too many books - right? Well maybe... We each spent $20 and came away with over 80 books between us.
This was my big SCORE for the day. A two volume set called Le Filet Ancien from 1912 and 1913. They are from Paris and what little text they have is in French. They appear to be sample books of French needle lace. They are oversized measuring 12" X 16" and each has about 45 pages of lace patterns. Don't you have to wonder how these ever landed in the Multnomah County Library in Portland Oregon??

The sale itself was a chaotic feeding-frenzy of book buying. Grocery sacks exploding their contents in loud thunks as the store personnel shouted "another one down". People scrambling accross the floor to gather the spilled contents before they were stepped on or snatched up and deposited in another shoppers sack. Squatting on the floor to check out the bottom shelves and dodging books falling from the upper shelves where people were shopping above you. It was every man for himself!

Three hours and a couple trips to the car. I think this may be the closest I ever came to literally shopping until I dropped. Those bags of books are HEAVY. On my very last effort to hoist myself and bag off the floor, Alayna told me to just grab onto her. She looked as exhausted as I felt. I told her "Oh sure, I'll just pull you down with me and then both of us will be stuck here on the floor and we'll have to crawl to the car!".

Yes, it was like a Title Wave!

All Kinds of Artists

Are ya watching the Olympics? I'm sitting here thinking about how there are all kinds of artists. I'm thinking about Shaun White. Mostly Olympic sports are very structured. You have to do this THING and you have to do it this WAY and you have to try and do it faster or longer or more perfectly than the other person. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE to watch figure skating and I so admire the grace and the athletic ability. And then along comes somebody like Shaun White. And he just innovates and tears it up and you can hear the shear bliss in his voice that he did THIS THING that he does. And don't you think that's an artist? An athlete with an artist's heart. That is what I just watched.