Rainy day project

I have been thinking about doing a little advertising locally with a few t-shirts for my kids (I know -- shameless) and maybe a canvas bag for myself. On the canvas bag I wanted to have my Etsy shop info on one side and the Etsy logo on the other. I had a package of T-shirt transfer paper and I designed the logos on my computer -- remembering to flip the image so the text came out readable on the transfer.



I put a piece of flat (with out ridges) cardboard inside the canvas bag to keep it flat and protect the other side of the bag. I placed the transfer right side up and face down on the fabric and with the iron on its hottest setting without steam I ironed for close to 3 minutes. You have to be careful to get the edges to because when you peel off the paper once it cools they might not be adhered properly. I iron on the transfers for both sides before I peel off the paper or I will have problems with the transfer coming off while I iron the other side.



Once all my transfers are ironed on I let the bag cool a bit. When it is still warm to the touch I begin to carefully peel off the paper part.



Looks pretty good but I think I over did it on the ironing and it seems to have yellowed a bit.



Here is the t-shirt I did for my daughter.

May Day

After yesterday's craziness running errands, today will seem so much calmer. My husband started a new job yesterday and it seems to be going well. My youngest has no school today again and will have a friend visit for the day. They play so well together and are so intent on their play too. It is really fun to see them playing so nicely -- unlike siblings which seem to have so much conflict.

I just sold this little pair of pottery chickens and they are off to Australia. I would like to think I could travel around the world in a little box. It would be so much easier. As it is, with 3 kids we don't get much travelling done.

I picked up some relatively inexpensive rolls of 1 inch ribbon yesterday for the May Pole. They were more difficult to find than I expected. The ribbons that we had used for years were so frayed and tangled that I finally got rid of them. I am hoping to set it up for the girls today. We started doing this when my oldest was about 4 and have kept it up every year. Those first years we usually invited a group of kids over for a little May Day party. It was so cute.

Monday

My little bluebird and nest of eggs was included in an Etsy Treasury called "Bye Bye Birdie" by shanasays. I love birds and am quite happy that my little bird was included with such a cute grouping of birds.



I finally took a few pictures of my workspace that I "organized" over the weekend. Of course its not really as neat as it should be but most creative people I know dont tend to be very organized -- so I will use that as my excuse.

These are some of the IKEA shelves we purchased a while ago to organize my art and craft stuff. I really like the simple bare wood and how easy to assemble it was. A few more baskets or plastic bins to sort some of the smaller items are needed.
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This is the cool expanding/folding card table of my grandmothers that we recently moved out of storage. It works perfect so I can stash some of the larger boxes underneath. It may not be sturdy enough to work on but as far as organizing my materials I think it will do fine.

Here you can see the two drafting tables. The smaller one is an antique and the other I have had for some time now. I love the cool standing lamp of my grandmother's.

Town Earth Day

Our town is celebrating Earth Day this weekend and will have a bunch of interesting things at the Town Common. I decided not to do a craft table this year which means I am much less stressed but I will miss it. The girls had fun and enjoyed meeting up with their friends. It was perfect weather and very crowded. With all this rainy cold weather everyone is anxious to get out and enjoy the sun.


Last night my friend organized a crafting night at a town owned building that can be rented out for $45 an evening. The building is called the Reading Room and I believe was donated by Winslow Homer's sister for a local girls seminary school in the later 1800's. We had 7 women come and it was such a wonderful time. It has been so long since I enjoyed an evening out away from children and husband. Everyone brought something of their own to work on and the conversations were fun.


After thinking over the dilemma of a decent work area I decided to move everything back up to the new "attic". The walls are finished nice and painted and the ceilings are high. The floor is just plywood with an old rug over it but its fine. I will just have to share half the room with boxes of stuff stored there. I moved the small drafting table and brought up the expandable card table of my grandmother's and placed these against the wall. Boxes of materials and things went under the table. I am also going to move the larger drafting table from my adjacent bedroom into this room as well. I think this arrangement will go a long way towards getting myself more organized. Then when we finally finish the floors in that room downstairs I can move again. Meanwhile our new kitchen dining area won't be cluttered with my stuff. I feel a whole lot better already!

Later in the day I let the chickens and ducks out of their pen to enjoy the green grass. They made a bit of a mess in my gardens though.

Rainy Friday

Another rainy spring day. Every thing outside is greening up so pretty. Soon the trees and lilacs will be blooming. This is my favorite time of year but it passes so quickly.


I spent my morning working on my needle felt projects while my youngest was off at kindergarten. Right now I set up everything on our little used (for eating that is) dining table. The lighting in that room is so nice and I can look out the window and enjoy the backyard. Eventually I will have everything set up in the room that was our original kitchen. We are waiting to save up some money to remove the old flooring in that room. Once that is done I will set up my art work area in there. That part of the house is over 200 years old and the lighting and ceiling height are not very good. But it really is the best place for my art studio in the house.

I finally finished this little orange bird. My youngest daughter and I dyed the wool with orange Kool-aid. It was a fun project for both of us. She of course wants this little bird but will settle for a hat just like hers. I'm not sure how I will manage that though!

This is also my husband's last day home since he starts a new job on Monday. He was laid off in March and it has been longer than anticipated for finding a new job. It will be nice to have the house to myself again though I will miss him. Under different circumstances it would be fun to have him home. But being unemployed is just too stressful on everyone. My car also died during that time and we survived with one car for several weeks. This created additional stress as well.

Thursday

My little pink bird was featured by meeshmac.etsy.com in a "Pretty in pinkie dinkie" Etsy treasury.



Most of my day was spent sorting through the STUFF on the porch. We are due for rain again tommorrow so I wanted to get some things put away. I finally found all the cute little dresses I sewed for my oldest daughter. My youngest will not get a chance to wear them because they are much too small for her now. I am going to save them though since they bring back so many memories for me. Most of the bags of clothing will end up going to good will after all.

This is the first day in a long time that I haven't done any artwork at all. My house needs some serious attention and I need to get better organized. Otherwise I just feel as if I am drowning. Its crazy that I can't get up to the bathroom at night without stepping on toys and clothes. I guess that this is the price of being creative or at least working at home and raising a family.


Anyway here are a few of my pottery chickens from my Etsy shop. I can't wait to start painting some more.

Midweek

I woke up this morning overwhelmed by the clutter in this house. No one wants to get rid of anything here so every year we just accumulate more stuff. And adding to the problem will be the boxes of STUFF that we have to move out of storage today. Where can they possibly go? We rented the storage a few years ago when we took down an older part of the house and built an addition. That space was our "attic" storage so all that stuff stored there had to go somewhere. Unfortunately that project has lasted a lot longer than we expected so getting the things out of storage wasn't an option. But at this point it doesn't make any sense to spend $40 a month to keep it there. Really that STUFF isn't worth that much.

Well all the boxes, broken antique chairs, old picture frames, rug hooking frames, and grandfather's fishing gear are stacked up on our porch. Along with that are many bags of clothes that are too small for my youngest now. I was saving these for her but could never find them. Somehow we will have to absorb this stuff into an already crowded house. But all this is motivating me to go through the house and get rid of a few things. Since no one else living here wants to cooperate I guess I will have to do this in secret. I see a yard sale in our future.

With all this I did not get much work done on my art projects. But it was quite an accomplishment to empty the storage so I'm happy enough with that.