Under The Red Roof

Quick Update

I tried to post this last night, but my ISP was down. This is what Brian had done by 9:30 last night. We were all about to die (him included), but once he gets going it's hard to stop him. I'm lucky he's a get-ur-dun type, but neither of our bodies have the stamina they once did and we suffer from 15 hour long workfests. My back hurts so bad I feel like I'm going cross-eyed.

However, I really like the way the wood looks with the green paint. I'm in LOVE with this green (if you haven't noticed:) Jackson was making a "wood angel" I guess....not sure what he was thinking, but he was doing the snow angel movement on the floor. He just wanted to be in the picture.

A Pretty Decent Etsy Update & Other News

I spent most of yesterday cutting wallpaper. I've got a new large flocked pack listed along with a number of other things. Here are photos of a few.

I put together a new Swarovski mix so I changed the bag topper just a bit to sort of mark the difference. Here's what's in it.

These little sparklers always make me smile. The large one is about 30mm and you can have all sorts of fun with it. I cut from a vignette on some antique paper then topped it with a watch crystal. I love the way this looks.

I also added moving parts under the watch crystal. There are pictures of that with the etsy listing. You could use fabric, some little felted something, buttons, game pieces, etc. So fun to use things in ways different from the original intension.

Now, lets move onto my house:) After Brian made the shelf for my wallpaper, I had to have more shelving for the flocked paper. Man, that stuff takes up a lot of space. The new shelf sort of takes away the coolness, but at least my paper is up off the floor and not stuffed in every available corner in the studio, mudroom and office. The boxes are a necessary evil. They look bad, but they protect the paper from dust which is not the friend of flocked wallpaper.

I'm using the bottom shelves for mailing supplies. They take up lots of space too. I'm hoping when I get the walls painted and the whole place more "decorated" the paper won't look so bad. We'll see.

The living room walls are painted and they are about to begin installing the floors!!! Here are a couple of photos so you can see the color on a larger scale. The little alcove to the right will be a lighter shade of the same green. It's the entry.

I promise I'll dust the TV and components after we put it back in place:) This is the kind of dust I deal with constantly living out here in the middle of wheat country. It's unbelievable. I can literally see dust falling back onto tables after I finish dusting. You can also see me and Luke in the TV screen. A couple of years ago someone sent me the funniest picture. It was from an ebay listing and the seller had taken their photo in the buff. It you happened to notice, you could see HIS reflection in a mirror hanging on the dining room wall! It was hilarious! At least Luke and I are clothed:)

I'm completely excited about getting on with the finishing touches of decorating. Of course I still have quite a bit ahead of me before that happens. I'll keep you posted:)

By Golly....That's Avocado!

As I may have mentioned a time or two here, I'm painting my living room, kitchen and dining room walls. I had wanted a sort of vintage aqua and another color for the dining room/kitchen that would either contrast nicely or complement. I tried about 3 different aquas in the living room (I always buy a quart to test) and nothing felt right. That's when I realized that vintage aqua wasn't right for the living room. It needed to be warmer. A bit deeper. So, I decided I needed something sort of olive-y. An olive-y chartreuse-y type color. That's the best way I could describe it. So, it's off to Home Depot where I find a color that seems right; I buy it and bring it home. I was in the bedroom the next day and, when I walked out Brian had slathered the paint on all the test spots. IMMEDIATELY I knew I had my color! It is absolutely perfect and I can use the vintage aqua in the dining room/kitchen. It only took me about two minutes to realize that my olive-y chartreuse-y color is AVOCADO! I kid you not, about a year ago, I declared that I could feel the love for avocado creeping up on me. I told someone (probably my SIL) that, before long, I would be loving orange, gold and avocado. Well, it's happened. I'm here. Full circle. Isn't it funny how that works???

In between cleaning out magazines, books, DVDs and video tapes I've been working in a friend's journal. Here's a peek.

I don't know how well you can see the little beads embroidered on the lace. Those are tiny 100+ year old solid steel beads. So very cool. I did this embroidery in the living room so I brought a blob of beads out on a paper plate. When I finished the project and was picking everything up, I reached for the plate and managed to flip it onto the carpet! There is absolutely no way to see these beads on the carpet. No way. They are tiny and don't have much shine. I was cringing at the thought of losing 30 or 40 of those precious beads when it dawned on me that steel is magnetic! I grabbed a magnet, sat down and proceeded to pat the magnet all around the area. If I didn't get them all, I got most of them. I was also quite glad that Welsh Corgi fur is not magnetic:)

This morning I received an etsy convo from a sweet girl who is taking Pam's class in Ashland in August. She wanted to know if I had any bobbles and such she could use in her journal project. It set me to thinking about how much beauty is missed every day because of our fast-paced lives. I try VERY hard to look for the details everywhere I go. I have scanning the ground down to a fine art. I love mixing sparkle with rust and things that are wrinkled and stained are so much more interesting than things that are clean and pressed. It's also a good excuse for not soaking and ironing:) It made me think about the kinds of things my sweet children bring to me. Most kids bring wildflowers to their mothers. Mine do too, but more often they bring "found items." Here is a picture of some of the things my kids have gathered for me. I think it's so sweet that they see something on the ground and think, "Oh...Mom would love that."

I'm working on another kit.It's going to contain all the cards, postcards, business cards, ATCs, etc. that my friends have made for me and sent to me over the years. I've got an easy way to quickly stitch ATC holders that can fit right into the binder! I'm excited all over again. I've got ATCs stashed everywhere and it would be so nice to have them in one place so I can admire them all the time. I'll show you the next kit idea within a few days. I also need to get to the paper cutting table. There just isn't enough time in the day for me. I'll try to get more paper packs up soon.

A Kit Tip

I keep meaning to mention this and always forget. I thought I better create a post about it because some of the kits might be arriving today. When you add items to the rings (or whatever they are called), use your thumb and forefinger to slightly push them together as illustrated.

You would have figured this out yourself, but since I've already traveled down the learning curve you may as well know up front.  It makes adding stuff much easier and eliminates the need for reinforcements. Although, reinforcements certainly look cool:)

Since I'm here I'll tell you about my color palette epiphany. We were in the car the other day and I said to Brian, "Look at that.....my purse is the PERFECT color palette." "It includes a little bit of so many colors and marries them perfectly." He said, "yeah....but they are on a black background." I know, I didn't think it made sense either. I guess he meant one couldn't make those colors work together without black. Whatever.

Well, I didn't do a great job of photographing. Sorry. That unidentifiable color towards the top is a light sage green. You can see it a bit better at the bottom. So, we have coral, light coral, olive, sage green, mustard, red:) and cobalt. Wow, that's a lot of different colors. Both orange and turquoise would work in this mix as well. As I've said, I like to decorate with background colors that allow for accessorizing in any color combination. I'm using an olive shade for my living room walls and a vintage aqua for my dining room and kitchen. These rooms are all open to each other. I'll be able to use pretty much any color against the olive/aqua back drop.

I wasn't thinking about my purse when I made this tag, but I plan to make something soon with my purse being the inspiration. When I made this tag I had forgotten about my purse/color epiphany. I'll not forget it again! With the tag I was thinking about using lots of varying colors together. I wanted to experiment with greens mixed with pink and aqua.

 

I think it might have looked better with a bit of mustard/gold and black! Maybe Brian was onto something after all. Black truly is one of the best neutrals I've ever seen:)

Vine Ripe:)

 

I don't think anything beats the taste of vine ripe tomatoes. We have a nice crop this year but nothing compares to the years we were in eastern Oklahoma and Brian was raising game birds. Eastern Oklahoma is in a great gardening zone and the soil is naturally very good.  Brian wintered birds in our garden so EVERYTHING we grew was completely amazing. It always reminded me of The Absent Minded Professor....remember the effect Flubber had on vegetables? Actually, I think it might have been Son of Flubberthat had the vegetable scene.  Anyway, when we cut into those tomatoes, they actually looked like the tomatoes you see on seed packets. NOT KIDDING. The taste was unmatched. One plant would yield hundreds of tomatoes. It was unbelievable. One of these days I'm going to have chickens out here and I shall be utilizing their *poop* to see if I can revisit those incredible Inola tomatoes.

Well, I've done NOTHING in the kit department besides get them ready to mail. Thank you for your orders! I KNEW you all would love them too:) How great is it to reach out across cyberspace and meet so many people who share your passions?? It's a miracle really. I'm so thankful for all of you and I truly appreciate your support and encouragement. Oh! Wait a minute.....I've done one thing to my case. I added four of those old Dennison labels to one side

The yellow bird and the 3 tulips. I need to do more embellishing and I'm eager to do some pages. Hopefully, I can soon. We are also clearing out the living room in order to paint. I think I've finally decided on the paint colors. I'm making a tag at the moment that marries all the colors I plan to use in the living room, kitchen and dinette. I'm certain the palette can take every color in the world with the exception of certain shades of purple. I can't wait to show you the piano wall. Can't wait to show you the whole thing. We are well on our way!!

I have added more kits and more Swarovski packs to my etsy shop. I promise to get more regular wallpaper mini packs and more of the large flocked packs up soon. I'm seriously behind on email. I'm sorry I'm so bad at email. I need a laptop so I can sit in the recliner and type. I just cannot spend much time in this computer chair. It kills my back.

Over and out for now:)

The Cool Kit is Ready!!

I'm going to show you lots of pictures because this thing is hard to describe. These were used to store and transfer prescriptions back in the olden days. The fact that it was used to hold prescriptions tells you the size. When I saw these, I thought.....MINI-ALBUM!!! These things are so cool and unusual. Very sturdy and you could decorate them however you want. I will have them in my etsy shop just as soon as I get one completely packed up to weigh it for the shipping price. I'm hoping it will weigh in under a pound, but I'm not counting on it.

It will come to you flat (like the last picture) and it will include lots of pre-punched ephemera and a sheet or two of punched high quality, heavy watercolor paper. I will also send a wallpaper/ephemera scrap pack for decorating the outside of the box and the ring binder itself. You can add any number of items to this and you can use lots of dimensional embellishments because the binder is 4 inches thick! The overall size of the box is 8 x 5 3/8 x 4. That's 4" wide at the binder spine, 8" deep and 5 3/8" tall. The only restriction is you need to remember that nothing can hang outside the binder because it needs to be able to slide back in the box. That's why I made the punched pieces all different sizes. That way you can still have the fun of trims, tabs, etc. but stay within the binder. Also, don't put anything dimensional on the outside cover of the binder so it will slide nicely into the box.

As I began working on this, I started realizing all the amazing possibilities. You will do the same thing. It is so much fun. Mine is not finished by any means. I haven't done anything to any of the bound pages, but I plan to add family pictures and ephemera. I will also use one to keep all my small pieces of art, postcards and business cards from friends. In my own book I will use vintage postcards I've received from friends like the rose postcard in one of the pictures below is from Heather K. I will include some of my own postcards in the albums I sell. These photos are a great sampling of what will be included in each kit.

You can stamp on this label and glue stuff to it. All kinds of things! I've not decided what I want to do on mine.

I will continue to work on my album and post ideas about how to add things to my ephemera. Like how you can add to one of the playing cards and make it into a family album page. I should have them in my etsy shop by evening. I hope you like these as much as I do:)

Wallpaper!

Yippee! The thing actually holds all my wallpaper with a little bit of growing room:) That's just the regular wallpaper not the flocked. Actually, all the red paper on the very top is red on red flocked (it's in the current mini-pack). It's been in an enormous box in the middle of my mudroom for about a month. I had no idea where I was going to put it. NONE. This is the perfect solution. The rest of my flocked paper will fit into a couple of corners until I can figure out a better storage solution. The nice thing about flocked wallpaper is much of it comes in a box which holds the roll nicely on end. The downside is a roll of double flocked wallpaper is about 4 times the diameter of a regular double roll of wallpaper so it's a real space hog.

I ran out of key tags pretty early so I started using pin tags. The pin tags worked even better and didn't take nearly as much time to attach.

In the comments of my last post Heather had a good idea for tagging the paper. She suggested punching out a piece of the pattern and sticking it to the tag. In the olden days wallpaper suppliers often used that means of idendifying their inventory. Here's a nice example.

One reason why I didn't use this method is the time involved. Just the time of the attaching the key tags was driving me nuts much less punching and gluing. However, the REAL reason I didn't do it is repeat. Many of my papers would require a piece 2" or larger in order to identify it. That would have required doing something like the above picture and I just don't have it in me.

Next is a look at the weird way I identify things. I find I think of my papers often in terms of who I bought them from so I've put those names on many of the tags. Also, some of my papers remind me of various friends for whatever reason. Here you'll see Lilli, Heather B., and Karin. I also have Holly, Tracy and Heather K. on some of the rolls. Lilli loves purple so the lilac paper always makes me think of her. Heather B. used a couple of my papers and re-inspired me to use them so those papers always make me think of her and a couple of my papers are patterns Karin really liked when I first started collecting so seeing her name on the tag tells me instantly what pattern it is.

Finally, I have a few rolls with the words "hoard 4-ever" on them:)

So, I've taken one more step forward on the road to efficient organization. I have such a long way to go, but I keep movin' on!

I hope you had a nice 4th of July. My kids love that holiday so much. Nothing thrills a boy quite like fire and loud noises. I like the pretty fireworks, but I'm a nervous wreck throughout the entire show. I'm always secretly glad when it's over.

Stay tuned..........VERY cool kits will soon be here!

The Granddaddy of all Storage Solutions

For me anyway:)

As many of you know, I have some wallpaper and I do not have a large studio. After a while this becomes a problem. I have rolls in bushel baskets leaning in every corner of my studio, plus, it's spilling over into the mudroom. Not to mention how it's filling up the wee bit of walking space in the studio. Really, the only way to go was up. So, I explained what I needed to my husband. I told him, "I want it to be crude; not fancy." Within 15 minutes of starting the project he was planning to add "korbals" and other trims the names of which I can't recall. Within an hour I caught him getting ready to leave for Home Depot to pick up more edge banding. I said, "what the hell is edge banding?" I won't bore you with the definition if you don't already know, but suffice it to say I DIDN'T WANT EDGE BANDING! He didn't put up too much of a fight and I had my holder shortly thereafter. I slathered a (very) little spray paint on the sides and on the front and he just now put it in place. As I began putting the rolls in, I got pretty excited! This is really going to work. I had to blog about it.

I know my studio is totally pathetic. Needs to be painted, etc., but I'll get to it eventually. My apologies for the not-so-prettiness. I think I'll put my multiple rolls all the way on top. This won't hold all my wallpaper and it won't hold any of the flocked paper, but it will make a dent and hopefully I'll be able to move around the studio better.

I have a pretty good memory for remembering which pattern is in which corner, but I've had times when I have torn the place apart looking for a particular pattern so I thought it would be smart to identify them in some way. Thus, the key tags. The descriptions will get pretty weird, but I'll know exactly which roll is which. I'm excited. I'll show you another picture when I get it filled.

I'm also thinking Brian will have to add a vertical piece of board in the middle for weight bearing, but he can just slide those in after I fill it up:)

This little side project has put my current project a day behind. I'm REALLY excited about the kit I'll be offering soon. It's turned out better than I imagined. Dang cool.

This, That & What Not

I've been working around the studio for a while now trying to get things organized is a pretty, eye-pleasing way. It's a slow go considering I have so many other things to do. Such as: we have all the things we need to get our redecorating underway, but now we are faced with all the labor involved in preparation. Like removing every book from the bookshelves, moving the piano, moving the TV/components, etc. It's daunting and we still have to do laundry, clean house, fix dinner.....you know....live life. Anyway, back to the small snippets of studio organizaion. I've covered a couple of boxes (still have many to go) and a 50% off vase I bought at Michael's. Michael's also had those varying size suitcase things on half price so I bought a few of them too. Need to cover them and probably re-engineer the INCREDIBLY cheap-o latches. Here is a "before" picture of the vase which isn't half bad if you ask me.

Here it is covered in one of my favorite wallpaper patterns. I used Gel Medium for this project because it was necessary to wrap a smidge of the paper around the vase on all sides. The Gel Medium softens the paper so it wraps easily. Decopage medium will do the same thing, but I like the thickness of Regular Gel Medium. I should also mention that I've never used Modge Podge or the like with the old unpasted wallpaper so I can't comment on whether or not it's a good choice.

Notice I didn't crop out the stuff laying around. I love looking at other people's work areas so I try to let you look at mine now and then. Where you find me, you will also find Carmex within arm's reach:) The smell of carmex will forever remind my kids of their mother.

Here are the boxes I covered.  I've actually found a better way to store my Swarovski so I will cover over this label with something else. I'll show the new Swarovski storage when I get a chance to make it pretty. These boxes are in the Walmart craft area for $1.99. I used Coccoina glue stick which shaves the crafting time by leaps and bounds. These boxes only took about 30 to 45 minutes to make. A no fuss, no muss quick route to pretty storage. I used old labels, old ephemera, old wallpaper and old Dennison labels. I love the Dennison labels because you just have to lick and stick. Even my oldest Dennison labels still have their stickability, however, some of them taste EXACTLY like a nursing home smells so beware!

It appears that I will need to upgrade to a pro account in order to use large size photos. It's a bit annoying considering I don't need any of the other features a pro account offers, but I will probably end up doing it because these medium size photos are making me crazy.

I also made some mini-comp books. Do you ever just feel like making a quick little something?? These are so fun and satisfying to make. I'm sure I'll put these in my etsy shop when I get a chance. I was also thinking I might collage a few big ones. Today I'm working on a big project that I hope turns out to be as cool as my vision. I'm hoping to offer it/them for sale in some form. I'm working out the details and just hope you like them as much as I do. I'll try to pull it all together soon. I will also put together more Swarovski packs soon.

One more thing.....I bought this book not long ago. First of all, it's so cool that we have the technology to make something like this available. For one who was in the advertising/publishing industry for many years, it's fairly mind boggling. A true technological marvel. This book is packed with our kind of stuff. Some of my favorite artists are a part of this collaboration. My love for Pam Garrison is no secret and there is a journal page by her in this book that is TRULY worth double the price of the book. NOT KIDDING. I can't even believe anyone can make something so beautiful. I really can't. Awesome isn't even a good enough word. Okay....enough idol worship for now. Have a lovely and creative day:)

New Flocked Mini Packs!!

I finally managed to get a new flocked mini pack ready. You can see all the patterns here. I decided to indulge myself and put red in the front:)

I've also listed some packs of vintage findings.

Still have things to share but I need to get dinner going now.

Switching Pictures

I never even considered using the smoochie picture as my profile picture. Not only have I lost my youthful good looks, but I seem to have lost my sense of playfulness. Gees, I was so worried about getting a proper, appropriate photo up that the idea of using the smoochie pic in the profile itself never crossed my mind. I'M TAKING CREDIT for at least being playful enough to put it in the post. So, thanks to the ever youthful (of course she actually is youthful) Natasha, I'll put the smoochie pic in my profile and I'll go ahead and put the mug shot here because I certainly don't want Susan (my SIL) to miss it. It will crack her up. I also don't think Will has seen it. Don't want to rob them of the pleasure.

Here's the mugshot which was briefly my profile picture. Recorded in cyberspace for all time. I guess unless the entire internet crashes some day.....can that happen?????

So, I'm spending today cutting flocked mini-packs. I'll also be working on a unique and most cool kit I hope to have in my etsy shop soon. One more thing....thank you Heather for getting the greens corrected on my blog. I had no idea how to do custom colors and she did it in about 3 minutes. Not kidding.

Just Don't Laugh.....Okay

I'm beginning my much needed blog overhaul and I've been wanting to get a photograph of myself in my profile. It's weird not knowing what someone looks like. Well, I put on makeup and decided I would try to take a decent photo of myself instead of making poor Brian endure the grueling task of taking 100+ pictures of me in order to possibly get an acceptable one. I know; I'm vain. It's hard when the camera isn't nearly as kind as it once was. As Heather so kindly noted, my photo looks like a mugshot. I took a bunch of smiling pictures and they ALL looked stupid. I'll try to get a better picture up soon.

I have quite a few things to show you but I've done enough blog dinking for one day so I'll just leave you with this for now.

A Wonderful New Blogger on the scene!

I've been trying to talk my friend Susan into starting a blog for months now. She has so much to offer the artist's blogging world and I am thrilled that her blog is up. Bookmark it and visit it often. It won't take you long to realize why I'm such a big fan. Wait til you see her house. OMG....it's my dream house. The only change I'd make would be roof color:)

Susan has two etsy shops. One is devoted to selling her delicious collection of vintage fabrics and the other offers her elegant handmade items all created with vintage elements. Add her to your favorite sellers on etsy. Her fabric is awesome. Some of it is about to be mine:)

Here are a couple of pictures because I CANNOT post on my blog without a picture or two. The first is the little notebook I made for Luke. It sits by my notebook on the computer table. Now we can make our notes without having post-its and index cards scattered all over the place. When we've filled a page in the notebook with no longer needed info, it gets torn out and thrown in the trash. Wonderful organizational tool. When the entire notebook gets used, we can slap the cover in our journals.

BTW, Luke's initials are LOL. Cool huh? He was born before LOL became the widely known acronym it is today. Also, "hope for the deaf" is fitting because, around our house, we are always saying, "are YOU deaf or something?" I think we've all learned to tune out one another's voices. He also likes swords, video games and all manner of weird stuff. Jackson is just the opposite; a total baseball playin', frog catchin' cowboy. He doesn't do much video game playing and really doesn't care much for TV unless it's Roy Rogers or ANY horse movie. Having more than one child gives new meaning the the word individuality.

I spent the afternoon yesterday baking cookies and packaging them for the fund raiser bake sale at our local little league baseball park. Took a bit of digging to find the Babe Ruth image on my computer. I was starting to think I might not have a single sports related vintage image, but alas, I found one! Isn't it great to be able to quickly crank out a collage on the computer?? So nice for this sort of thing.

I've never before done self-promotion on anything I make for the kids activities and events, but I thought, "what the heck.....I'm better known in Japan than I am my own community." So, I put my info on the back:)

I think I'm still having problems adding the Large size photo, but I don't want to take the time right now to check for sure. If I upload it Large, and the right side gets cut off then I have to go back in delete the photo and upload again. Don't want to bother with it right now. Someone left a comment saying they couldn't upload using Full Size, but had no problem with Large. It's making me crazy. I might have to file a help ticket or whatever it's called. I'm sure if you click on my photos they will be ENORMOUS. I've tried resizing them myself and it doesn't fix the problem. Grrrr.

Oh! Got a lot of glue interest. I loved reading everyone's opinions and I learned some things. I'll talk about that soon and share other people's opinions. Love the sharing of this artsy/craftsy community.

One more thing....I should let you know that I am almost completely out of stock on all my flocked wallpaper packs. I have two more large packs and that's it. I'll be working on new large and mini packs over the next several days. I'm also almost finished packaging my Findings assortment. I should have that up by the end of the day. I'll let you know.

Don't forget to check out Susan. You'll love her I promise!

Don't use cheap glue sticks and other random thoughts

I've been playing around a bit with old paper. Surprise, surprise:) Remember those Ephemera Lunchbox kits I had in my etsy shop last week? With the heavy matboard type index cards they no longer make? Well I've been making little collages out of the ends I cut off of those index cards. It's fun. (I REALLY wanted to use an exclamation point there). While I make things my mind is constantly in motion. Thinking about all sorts of things. My most often used glue is Golden Gel Medium, but for things like these little collages, I usually use a glue stick. It's just easier. No brush rinsing and water changing. I've heard a good many glue stick horror stories so I never really trusted them until I discovered the now well known Coccoina glue stick. I heard of it about four years ago through Sarah Fishburn's website. There was only one place I knew of to buy them back then, but now you can get them from Cerri or Andrea. I trust Coccoina because the company has a long history and I certainly trust Sarah Fishburn:) I'm pretty sure Teresa McFayden uses them also so there's even more evidence of quality. I also have some of Martha's glue sticks. They don't have a history, of course, but who wouldn't trust Martha when it comes to crafting? I don't think she'd let us down.

Oh, and I use E6000 for the Swarovski rhinestones and the little flower finding. For ribbon and trim I usually use Aleene's Tacky glue unless the ribbon is lightweight and delicate, then I use E6000 applied with a toothpick. It won't bleed through to the front of the ribbon.

I've also been fretting over Ebay's new feedback system. I think I've already mentioned it here once and it's still really bothering me. In the old days, my radar would give the alert signal if a seller's feedback was lower than say, 98.5. Well, since the new system has been put into place, I'm setting my radar alarm at least a full point lower. If you bother to look at actual feedback (particularly for the sellers who sell the stuff we buy), you'll see that most often any negative feedback they have is totally unwarranted. Left by ignorant buyers who don't know a thing about what they are buying or who blame the seller for mistakes made by the post office. What you need to remember is that ebay now gives neutral feedback the same weight when calculating feedback score as they do negative feedback.  Insane for sure, but what's REALLY insane is they have gone back in time and counted all neutral feedback given prior to the change the weight of negative feedback. The inequity of it makes me crazy. Anyone who left neutral feedback back when they knew it wouldn't effect a sellers rating clearly chose neutral over negative because their beef over the transaction wasn't bad enough to warrant negative. How incredibly unfair is it for ebay to make this new policy retroactive?? Okay, enough random thought sharing. Now, I'll share a few more photos.

I like to change the contents of this huge jar on occasion. It's had a hodge podge of vintage ribbons in it for a while now it has a bunch of totally cool vintage pin tickets that will poke the livin' crap out of you if you're not careful!

I decided not to crop out my mess so you can have a look around. I always like perusing someone's workspace when it's in active use. It's the nosy neighbor in me. Thought I'd let you do the same. BTW, I've since cleaned up this mess:) Really. See the bare wood right in front of the cutting pad? The surface of my unfinished island. I've decided to make a big collage on the top and seal the crap out of  it. I'll paint the rest and I'm considering using flocked wallpaper on the sides. I'm just afraid I'll be a freak about the cleanliness of the flocked paper. I'll probably lint roller it to death. I seriously think I'm going to get on this island project soon.

Do you like old brass findings?? I do. I've decided to put together some brass findings packs for my etsy shop. They will include vintage Swarovski rhinestones in brass settings because ALL THINGS should have some sparkle. This won't be the exact mix, but I'll have it up soon.

I'm also working on a new Flocked Wallpaper Mini Pack. I have many new flock patterns one of which is a gorgeous red on red. I, of course, can't get a great photo of it, but take it from someone who knows......it's the perfect red. Nice and candy appleish.

Lots and lots of various patterns on this paper. Well, that's all for now. Oh! I have added a few more Swarovski Packs to my etsy shop. Now, I bet a million dollars I'll have to go back, after I publish this post, and change all my photos to "small" because I bet the right side will be cut off of every one of them. Is anyone else having problems using the "large" photo setting? *************Of course, I had to go back in and change the photo sizes. I can use medium and small, but not large. I really miss my big photos.

A New Etsy Shop

I met a sweet girl not long ago who purchased some wallpaper from me. You know how I love seeing what all you amazingly creative souls do with my papers and Erica, who does not yet have a blog, has blown me away with these. Aren't they cool?? Such a unique idea and perfect for those of us who are a bit obsessed with vintage wallpaper:) Be sure to keep checking Erica's etsy shop called Shadow Box Gifts, for more cool creations. I'll let you know when she gets a blog up. These earrings remind me so much of a card my friend Tracy made me a long time ago. I keep it right on my desk. Right in front of me so I can see it all the time. It's full of T's sense of humor and it's so fitting for me.

Can anyone figure how to make me a dress out of wallpaper???

I've got another etsy friend who makes amazing things. She is working on her blog as we speak. I'll tell you all about her next time I post.

Thank you again for all your orders:) All but 5 have shipped. The rest will go out tomorrow. I'm off to watch a little T-ball action!