Stitched Bit Necklace

Today, I finally had time to work on one of my kits, "Stitched Bit Necklace"  from Lisa Super. I loved it when I first saw her finished project and I was so pleased when she offered the kits for sale (http://www.etsy.com/shop/vintagehandmade). As with most kits I buy, I added some of my personal items to the project (e.g. shrink dinks, stamped paper clay, bling, china doll head etc). I love how it turned out.

Memorial Day Artful Play Date

Today, I spent a wonderful day creating art with my sister Maryl and dear friends Connie & Ruby.  We started our juices flowing by doing a little creative shopping for things to use in our art.  Our first stop was East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse.  Here's what we all purchased.


Connie Stuart's Haul

Maryl's Haul

Ruby's Haul

My Haul. Best purchase was the chair - I'm going to reupholster that one, stay tuned.


Then we did a quick trip to Scrapbook Territory on 4th Street in Berkeley.  I know, I was just there but there's always something to find there.

Okay, back to my house to start creating...did we fill up that table or what?  Piles of goodness!

And here's our finished projects...

Wanna know who did what? Maryl made the bird piece in upper left corner. Ruby made the mini canvas piece with book in upper center. Connie Stuart made two pieces: flip book with flower basket and vintage photo piece on hanger on the right.  I made the necklace and card with dress form.  All great projects, kudos to everyone!

For dinner, our family headed over to Japan Town.  I just wanted to show these cool vintage style wire baskets I picked up at Daiso, the Japanese dollar store. One is rectangular with wooden handles and the other is oval shaped.  There were a bit more than $1, but under $4.  Items in basket not included :-).

Planting My Spring Whites

A few weeks ago I picked up a wire cart, I thought it would be perfect for my deck with some potted flowers.  This afternoon, I decided to go to my local garden store and pick up some plants for my new cart.  I was so excited to bring them home and set them up, it's been years since I've planted anything.  My daughter, Rachel was observing this work of nature, something she rarely sees me do, so she photographed the whole sequence.

I planted all white flowers. I sure hope I have a green thumb and can keep them all alive for awhile. 

I also went to 4th Street in Berkeley to Scrapbook Territory to see what's new. Geez, that Tim Holtz sure is expanding his line of products.  I also love some of the new 7gypsies stamps. I picked up a little bit of this and that and some products we used in the 7gypsies class last weekend. I also spoke to the owner about having Deb & Paula, from the 7gypsies Design Team, come teach a class there and she's all for it.  Deb & Paula will hopefully be back in 6 months for their next round of classes...I sure hope Scrapbook Territory will be on their list.

Glee Concert - San Jose HP Pavilion

One of my favorite shows on TV is Glee and of course my 13 year old daughter is crazy about it too. Yesterday, when she got home from school I surprised her by taking her to the concert - needless to say, she was very excited! What a great show it was too, we loved every performance. 

 

Love the Warblers!

 

What a fabulous evening, it was so much fun!

Great 7 Gypsies Class

This weekend, my sister Maryl and I attended two amazing classes taught by Debbie Crouse, Head of the 7-Gypsies Design Team from Arizona and Paula Cheney, also a member of the 7-Gypsies Design Team from Southern California. They have a wonderful blog that I follow daily, http://www.2gypsygirls.com/. These are some of the nicest, creative and most generous artists you'll ever find.

The class was held at Art Inspired Studios in Brentwood, CA. The store was fabulous, too.  Lots of merchandise there that I've never seen before in person. The store has only been open for 10 months, you'll have to check it out if you're ever in the area.

The projects were wonderful. The kits included so many great supplies it was like Christmas, opening up the packages. Debbie and Paula were extremely organized in every way. I learned techniques and used products that I had never seen before. The first project was the mini drawer. There was so much to this project that there was no way to finish it in the 3 1/2 hours we had, even though Debbie and Paula pre-cut most of the pieces and had many workstations all set up for us for the special technique portions. So what's pictured here is not finished, I still have many more pieces and embellishments to complete. Luckily, the kits also included step-by-step color instructions, so I have some fun homework to do.

Here's Maryl with her mini drawer project.

The second project was a portfolio - so creative and different. This one I did get to finish - but it took us 4 hours!

If you ever get a chance to take a class from them, I highly recommend it! And if you like these projects, I believe they have a few extras - you might want to email them or at least get on their mailing list for other projects and ideas.

Also, if you're ever in Brentwood and like antiques, there's a wonderful store we went to called Vintage House, the store was adorable!

Debbie and Paula, thank you for a great class! I hope you come back soon, I would love to take more classes from you.

Second Quarter Company Sample Sale

Every quarter, my company (Williams Sonoma Inc.) holds an employee only sample sale that I look forward to sooo much. It's a mad house and I have to get there really, really early, but it's worth the effort. You can find treasures there you won't find in our stores too. Some items our merchandisers use to analyze, other items may be used as props in catalog shoots, and usually you can just find a few vintage treasures. One of my favorite finds are those oversize books - they open up and you can store stuff in them.

The wire wheeled cart will go lovely on my deck with some flowers.

I always wanted to buy the 7 Gypsies receipt holder, but today I found a authentic vintage one.

A box of rusty skelton keys!

Love the silverware box as much as the silverware itself.

Nice tall black mirror.

And a bench for my front porch.

I thought I picked up some good finds.  This ought to hold me over for a few months.

On a previous sample sale I picked up a bunch of these oversize crystal ornaments.  I've seen where people glue items to the back side and let the picture show through.  This week I decided to try my hand at one.

One down, about 20 more to go.