Sunday, May 1, 2011

Road Trip

i am trying out a new trick for me. for unknown reasons, my daughter has finished up her first year of college seemingly earlier in the year than most college students are able to do. we are traveling to pick her and her year's accumulation of crap, i mean academic aids and clothing. it is an hour and a few minutes travel time, yet for my computer driven life at this time, it is possibly a real waste of time if i don't find something to do while going from point A to point B. 
so the new trick is sitting in rush hour traffic around Boston and working on this posting. it seems sort of surreal as i am close enough to the next car or semi to reach out of the window and touch them. also, the musical selections are at best a little fractured and float along near me as if i could perhaps stitch them together into a very wild sounding crazy quilt of sounds. 
as always, it is something that i might like to create cohesion from disparate things. just who i am. 

I am addicted to
there, i said it.
perhaps i need a many stepped program to lessen my overwhelming attachment to what she has to offer. 
 it is all about painted home furnishings, slipcover applications, how to create the looks of distressed, comfy usable furnishings.  i know i am in good company, since her followers are not just a few, but a few thousand and more hop on the miss mustard see train every day.  
 i have watched my blogging statistics go from 3 visitors to a whopping 32 followers. in this time, i have promised myself to improve  my frequency of posting and hopefully not bore you to tears content-wise. i am realistic about how much further i have to go to be a bigger & better force than i am in my own mind. this blogging phenom is just too fantastic to ignore. she really speaks to a lot of issues and makes it all seem like it is possible. i like that kind of encouraging spokesperson. 

also, i really love all of you guys that are visiting. more than you might know. sincerely and thoroughly. i have two teenagers (AND SOON TO BE 3 in a few minutes) that i live with. it is unusual that they solicit any information i have other than to shorten some homework issue. in the light of the larger picture and much more self absorbed issues, rarely do i feel like they listen to me or pay any heed to my ideas, suggestions, or demands. it is a natural condition, where the parents are totally insignificant. the adolescent mind falls prey to believing that they know it all, except for what they don't know. what i want to say, is that if i can' t be a significant leader, i want to be an invisible admirer of a kick-bottom blogger . one who soaks in all the intelligent juices the others have to offer up. so i am a groupie. and at the same time, i am trying to grow too. this is a wild frontier and offers a lot of very interesting possibilities. i may even be working on some of them right now...

anyways, i thought you all should know that you are rocking my world. i appreciate that you visit. 
as for miss mustard seed...
 i also can now see the immense  need for a swell camera. not just a point and click idiot-proof model... i see the beauty of a digital single lens reflex kind which has nice additional lenses to help with glare, poor lighting, and fuzziness. after all, my goal is to do a good job with every thing i try to do. 
my eyes have been opened to how to do create some  nice furnishings or  to finish up ridiculously unfinished things in my house.  my kitchen falls into this category. that is a loooong story. i dare not tap for now, but it will have more value in a few weeks. i have been percolating and finally have a plan!

i am crediting miss mustard seed. she is a genius. she has a ton of things she does. and she does things without being all kinds of nervewracked. when she does a slipcover, she just measures the places she wants to add cording, then pins her fabric to the chairs, no fussy patterns or freaking out for her. she pins, cuts sometimes, sews and within hours, voila! a fresh slipcover is made. no fussy measuring of skirt pleats, just finger-measuring of the finishing touches is done. what i like more than her style, is the ability not go nuts trying to make everything just perfect. who in life can handle perfection? i want to know why i can't take a lifetime of making, creating, blending, mixing, contrasting, etc. into perspective and just jump in without all the anxiety ?  it is not hard to make things happen creatively. i am pretty sure most of us get dressed each day. this is a way to display your taste and creatively configure some things to get an outcome. so i am on a mission for things at this bungalow. i want to change! i want to be less messy, live with easier solutions to  my own nearly critical mass of clutter and be more like miss mustard seed. 
she is one of several goddesses of change and influence. i shall ramble on about some of the others in upcoming days. 

meanwhile back at this ranch, i have been looking at stuff for about a year. i had a plan, but was not able to formulate a solution yet. i see in so many artistic rooms, studios, homes etc., that folks have bulletin or inspiration boards to hang things on. 
i never felt like i needed one particularly before. as i draw closer to cleaning and organizing space to work in for myself, i am feeling a little more inspired about having one. 
my love of vintage items, continues to pervade my daily experiences. i seemingly start more collections than a reasonable person might. about a year ago or maybe longer, when i started to move into my studio space, i inherited a hunk of homosote. i also found several picture frames in local trash. one such frame had a beautiful detailed surface that was halfway knocked off. it was made of cast plaster and was lovely, in a vestigial kind of way. i also was in spray painting any and everything in the back yard mode. so i painted the frame.  now with yucky looking homosote, a fragile frame painted in turquoise, and a recently unsorted collection of fabrics... i saw my board coming into focus. YAHOO. AND FINALLY!
a random collection of curtain tacks made a debut. i had been collecting these for a long while and had not sorted or applied them yet. (ok, i used one on a necklace after i removed the sharp end,grinding its stub into smoothness).


baby bee, the necklace. 

i hope you like the board that i made. i am pretty excited about it. 
and it is just one more thing getting me closer to hanging in my studio more often. 
who knows, i may even start making things there soon. i have a lot of plans to put into play. 

 my board and curtain tack pin collection


...now it just needs some pics. 



&&&&&&&

MY  TO-DO LIST... sorta
  • a space dedicated to wrapping and shipping... i am desperately looking for a red wax paper dispenser somewhere in this house, that i wanted to mount and add architectural trace rolls in. do you know where i left it? it is here somewhere....groan. 
  • refurbishing my sewing table ala miss mustard seed. i am considering robin's egg blue, pink, pale yellow or even white! 
  • perhaps refurbishing my card catalog with a whole lotta fancy tissue and modge podge
  • sewing some cute dresses for summer
  • starting as advised against, by making a slipcover for my couch as a first project as this kind. 
  • reworking some lamp shades from vintage fabrics
  • finishing my kitchen about 16 yrs after it had a renovation. my son was a little over a year, and now is heading off to college in the fall. (warning... this is what happens when you marry a carpenter. your house is never done!)
  • finally getting back to making my jewelry as it is my choice of generating  income .


  • ok, as always, it is rather late, my spelling and grammar could use a good buff and polishing,

  • instead, i wish you adieu for now. 
xoxo.

W.


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