26 August 2012

Reflections Of You 5 Facts Friday 2 Days Late

5 Facts Friday From Reflections of You





I'm late again! This is my 5 facts Friday posted on Sunday. It's one of those little things can make my week fun - I enjoy matching the 'facts' with the images. Maybe one day my 5 Facts Friday post will be posted on Friday!

Repetition: Kat Sloma's Exploring With A Camera

Kat Sloma offered a photo challenge based on repetitions - and when you look for them they're all around you!  The staircase at work has always fascinated me when the sun and shadows are just so. It looks like so much more than a stairway to and from work. To me it's become more of a metaphor - walking into the sunlight and leaving the cares of work behind.  I'm grateful to have these stairs to walk to walk from - in other words I am grateful to have a job - but oh! how I long to linger in the sunlight filled world of creativity!

21 August 2012

The Most Fun-To-Knit Hat Imaginable!

Pardon the occasional cat hair in this photo! 

This is the Anemone Hat in progress. I'm almost finished knitting the sides and will soon be finishing up with the crown.

This is a Cat Bordhi pattern. It's call the "Anemone Hat" and when I saw it on Ravelry over the weekend and just couldn't resist the urge to try it out ! The pattern has options for multiple sizes as well as the option to begin the hat with either a mobius or a simple circular style (my choice for this first attempt).  It's is SO much fun to knit! The tendrils looked impressive and complicated to me at first glance but in reality they couldn't be easier to make!

Wearing hats is new to me. I used to have very thick hair and never got that cold nor do I like the way I look in hats. With some years gathering on me though my hair has become thinner than it used to be and hats are becoming more of a desirable accessory to have on hand. That being said, I am terribly finicky about what hats I will or won't wear. This one couldn't be any more fun to make or to wear. Someone on your gift list needs to have this hat for a gift!

19 August 2012

The Weekend's Muse

A little mixed media canvas
The Muse was generous with her gifts this weekend. Things  seemed to flow with ease. Maybe that's partially because I got some projects that had been looming over me done and put of the way. It felt good to make things simply because I wanted to and not because I had to!

A Super quick little mixed media piece made using Ampersand's StampBord. I'd had these squares of it in my drawer for a long time and just decided that I wanted to give it a try before I ordered some Ampersand AquaBoard and some Artist Panels for other projects I have in mind. I LIKE this stuff a lot and will be ordering more. It takes anything and everything that you can throw on it and behaves well no matter what. I even painted this square, didn't like it, washed all of the paint off  and began all over again with no ill affects. Have I said that I really like it?!
This "purse-within-a-tote organizer" is a demo piece that I am just mailing out to C&T Publishing tomorrow. They are about to introduce this material as a  new product. Sixteen of us were lucky enough to grab a slot to make projects using it. My bag was made to look like aged faux leather. I stamped with one of own hand cut stamps and then colored it. I'll add more later about this great new product when I have discovered when C&T plans to introduce it to the public. Trust me though - it's a product that has many applications and I think it will be a great seller. Yes! You will want to try some.


17 August 2012

5 Fact Friday

Check Out 5 Facts Friday over at ROF

I love this new bit of Friday fun from Kim and Xanthe. 
Check out the link noted above as "ROF" and join in!

The Climes They Are A Changing



Where I live, near the Canadian border on the west coast, was late to endure a heat wave this year. Unlike the rest of the country that experienced drought conditions and excessive heat early in the summer, those of us who live near the Canadian border (on either coast) have enjoyed relatively cool temperatures for most of the summer – until now.

I have a very unscientific theory that genetics plays a part in how your body can cope with heat. I’m a born and bred New Englander now living near the Canadian border on the opposite coast. My ancestors were all ex-pat Brits who lived in New England for more generations than I can count on two hands and two feet. I think our blood runs thick. When I lived and worked in Texas I was never able to adjust to the heat and I had a hunch that no matter how long I lived there my blood would never thin enough to allow me to adjust. My ‘comfort zone’ is a northern climate. Thick blooded people, I believe, suffer more from heat than do more thin blooded southerners. Therein, however, is the rub. The conundrum is that as I age, and arthritis progresses to dominate my joints, I feel better when it’s warm. I feel soothed despite the ennui that invariable makes the only place that looks inviting to me my ‘lazy boy’ chair– possible covered with a towel that both absorbs perspiration as well as adds its own unique texture to exposed body parts! Why don’t they make Lazy Girl chairs I wonder? Indeed, heat stops me dead in my tracks – but it soothes my bones. Go figure! At least I now have an explanation for why my father “took leave of senses” (as I thought of it at the time) when he moved from New England to Florida. Yes, it was a light bulb moment that I wish I could share with him and watch him gloat!

I digress. Our house is one of the few that I know of that has a small window air conditioning unit. Not a pretty appurtenance, but useful. Here in these genteel hinterlands people scoff at the need for any cooling mechanism other than a fan or two. Our house has a plethora of those as well. The little ‘gem’ of an ac unit was a second hand gift from a friend who saw no need to take up valuable storage space with something she said that she would never use. Needless to say, she called last night to mention how utterly dreadful the heat was. Sheepishly, I asked her if she wanted her ac machine back. Thankfully, she said “no – there’s only one more day of this to endure…”. Let’s hope she’s right. The thermometer on the deck displayed a blazing 102F yesterday afternoon. We had reflective curtains drawn tight against the permeating heat, the fans were blasting (the noise of them makes my head hurt) and the ac unit was making like the little engine that could and it did, in fact, manage to keep the temperature at least 15-20
degrees cooler than the outside temperature. That’s a feat for such a small little thing and it’s a big ‘win’ in my book. DH suffers even more than I do in the heat and the noise of the machinery does not seem to faze him at all whilst I need to bring out the earplugs and Excedrin.

Then again, DH could manage to live in Artic quite comfortably I think. He keeps the temperature in the house so low with these various cooling devises that I sometimes have to have a warm scarf wrapped securely around my neck in the evening! Better to be able to remove something that be uncomfortable and have nothing more to remove!

The one thing that I love about hot days is how the cooler hours of early morning and late evening feel on my skin. I love to step outside on the way to work and stand still for some moments to enjoy the way the cooler air feels as it wraps it’s cool, wispy, threads of air around my uncovered arms and feet. The coolness collects in little eddies making me wish I could ‘freeze frame’ the feeling and hold it for later in the day. The same holds true in the evening when the heat of the day begins to dissipate, allowing stands of ‘cool’ to sooth the ragged, hot air. The plants react quickly to the lowered temperatures perking up noticeably after enduring the wilting heat of the day.

The prognosticators at NOAA promise a return to more ‘normal’ seasonal temperatures for us over the weekend – despite the threat of some significant thunderstorms on Saturday evening. Our neighbors in the eastern part of the state are fighting some very serious, very devastating, wild fires at the moment and my prayers go out to those who have already suffered loss and to the fire fighters who work so tirelessly to contain these monsters. I hope that any thunder storms that cross our way will not cause any more heartache by producing more fires to be combated.

There’s still no rain in the forecast for us which, for our neck of the woods, is quite unusual. Let’s all keep cool thoughts in mind and realize that autumn is just the blink of an eye away – when we all, invariably, say it’s too cold!
Can any of us doubt that Mother Nature is sending us a loud and clear messages that the climes they are a changing?

14 August 2012

Thank You Christine or What To Do When The "Fine Art" Gremlins Bite

Some of you may have seen this on FaceBook already. I added it there this morning as I thought through whether I would offer this little piece for raffle or not.

This is a 9" X 12" canvas that I put together for a raffle that is held at our County Fair to benefit  our local Arts League. It's a real mixed media piece and although it was not quite what I had planned to do - I finished it on time at least and was ready to submit it - or so I thought.  I sabotaged myself though as sat at my desk today looking at it. Despite my co-workers assurances that they all really liked it I was daunted by the idea of offering it for raffle in 'competition' with the work of a group of 'fine' artists. I decided that I would just take it home and pay them for the canvas so they would not be out any money.




Yes, it's a happy piece but I guess for some reason I was/am just not that happy with it. As I walked out of the door from work my friend - and short timer co-worker - told me that she would take it in for me. I was ashamed of myself for allowing the "fine" art gremlin to rear it's thorny head over me but it did. I just began to feel so untalented and so "why would anyone want this over a 'real' watercolor or oil painting"?  I realize that I have some work to do on that issue.....
Thank you Christine - for being a friend, for having faith in me and for going out of your way to get this piece into someone else' hands! May whoever ends up with this painting - take it's "a wonderful day" theme to heart.

05 August 2012

My Favorite New Cure For Dried Up Paint Jars !

Badger Airbrush Mini Mixer
How many of us pick up a jar of paint only to find that it's unusable because it has dried out? I got so tired of that happening that I began to look for something that would help me rejuvenate the paint - saving me money and headaches. Most paint mixers are made for gallon buckets of paint and I was having little luck finding something that would work in my small jars of paint. That is until I discovered this little gem! It's one perfect little gadget that won't break your budget either! It's a bargain that really does it job.
Made by the well know airbrush company Badger, this little mixer is battery operated (AA) and has been worth it's weight in gold - or really, in paint! I just open a jar of dried up paint, add distilled water and mix away - leaving me with 'normal, beautiful, color that's ready to look shine again.  I've taken a jar of paint that was so dried up that I had little hope of resurrection. I added some distilled water and let it sit a bit and then mixed it, adding more water as needed, until the paint was good as new!
This is the 'working end' of this little marvel. Does the job and it's easy to clean !


no affiliation etc etc - just a happy chance purchase

04 August 2012

Hay Bale Season & Blogger Options

Seeing the hay being baled is one of my favorite parts of living in a more rural community. It always seems to signal one of my favorite times of year. The bales are so cool -but hard work for the farmers! !

It's been sunny and beautiful here on our island - we've been some much more lucky than so much of the mainland this years. Our temperatures are far more salubrious than what much of the country has suffered with .Today, however, the Oregon Science gadget "told" me that it was 104F on the porch - and 75 in the house (with a small window ac unit running no less!). It's summer and my aches and pains are happy with the warmer, drier weather.

I've got some projects to get worked on but I've been struggling with how to accomplish a couple of things that I wanted to do with my blogs. I registered my domain name some months ago and tried to build a website using both of their suggested method - a WordPress platform or the Weebly Drag'n'Drop platform. I got nothing but major head aches (quite literally) from those exercises in futility. 

I finally realized that, for my purposes, Blogger has been great. I'm very familiar with it at this point and find it it very easy to use. I decided to simply point my domain name to here. It took some time for me to figure it out - mostly because I am so ignorant about this sort of thing but also because Customer Service at my domain host was not taking the time to listen to me and to slowly respond and give me answers that I needed in order to be able to understand. Using their 'chat' line was nothing but slow burn frustration and I was not impressed by their telephone help either. Finally, I tried email support and came across someone who actually seemed to 'get' what I needed and gave me the information that I needed. That was, unfortunately, after I had said that I was going to have to cancel my account with them unless I got someone to help me. This company has no business relationship with Blogger - which I had never thought might be a consideration - but it seems that some domain hosts learn towards functionality with one platform or another - Word Press, Blogger etc. Phew! Mission Accomplished!
 
My next blogging dilemma was how to import my older blog into my current blog. Zquilts was my first blogger blog and I had it for quite a few years. I had never known until today that I could import that blog into this, my current blog. Eureka! Another wonder of technology.

The only hitch that I can find is that if you are searching for an older post in the current blog the result will come up as "no result" unless you choose "from the web" - if you use that feature it works quite well. I guess it's a work around but it's fine. The older blog still remains as a cyber space entity but I like knowing that all 1000+ posts are here and available.

That's my Saturday and I'm sticking to it. Now back to my more regularly scheduled weekend programming: an ATC about pickles, a project for C&T publishing using one of their new products and a raffle canvas for out local art league.

Have a great Saturday night and Sunday !

Hay Bale Season & Blogger Options

Seeing the hay being baled is one of my favorite parts of living in a more rural community. It always seems to signal one of my favorite times of year. The bales are so cool -but hard work for the farmers! !

It's been sunny and beautiful here on our island - we've been some much more lucky than so much of the mainland this years. Our temperatures are far more salubrious than what much of the country has suffered with .Today, however, the Oregon Science gadget "told" me that it was 104F on the porch - and 75 in the house (with a small window ac unit running no less!). It's summer and my aches and pains are happy with the warmer, drier weather.

I've got some projects to get worked on but I've been struggling with how to accomplish a couple of things that I wanted to do with my blogs. I registered my domain name some months ago and tried to build a website using both of their suggested method - a WordPress platform or the Weebly Drag'n'Drop platform. I got nothing but major head aches (quite literally) from those exercises in futility. 

I finally realized that, for my purposes, Blogger has been great. I'm very familiar with it at this point and find it it very easy to use. I decided to simply point my domain name to here. It took some time for me to figure it out - mostly because I am so ignorant about this sort of thing but also because Customer Service at my domain host was not taking the time to listen to me and to slowly respond and give me answers that I needed in order to be able to understand. Using their 'chat' line was nothing but slow burn frustration and I was not impressed by their telephone help either. Finally, I tried email support and came across someone who actually seemed to 'get' what I needed and gave me the information that I needed. That was, unfortunately, after I had said that I was going to have to cancel my account with them unless I got someone to help me. This company has no business relationship with Blogger - which I had never thought might be a consideration - but it seems that some domain hosts learn towards functionality with one platform or another - Word Press, Blogger etc. Phew! Mission Accomplished!
 
My next blogging dilemma was how to import my older blog into my current blog. Zquilts was my first blogger blog and I had it for quite a few years. I had never known until today that I could import that blog into this, my current blog. Eureka! Another wonder of technology.

The only hitch that I can find is that if you are searching for an older post in the current blog the result will come up as "no result" unless you choose "from the web" - if you use that feature it works quite well. I guess it's a work around but it's fine. The older blog still remains as a cyber space entity but I like knowing that all 1000+ posts are here and available.

That's my Saturday and I'm sticking to it. Now back to my more regularly scheduled weekend programming: an ATC about pickles, a project for C&T publishing using one of their new products and a raffle canvas for out local art league.

Have a great Saturday night and Sunday !