Tuesday Morning Update

I was being so good about updating regularly, and then the weekend came and my record is blown.

Friday night we went to Ikea (with Jake in tow). Looked at furniture options for Scott's studio. No purchases. Bought a chair, 2 shelves, magazine holders, and some jars for my re-organizing project. Then met Mike for ice cream. Jake was cranky, so we didn't stay at ice cream parlor very long. He did, however, manage his first original sentence (one he didn't copy from us, like "where go?" "what's that?" "what's this?" "that one"): "wow, zoom, bye-bye!" This exclaimed while pointing at an airplane overhead. "Zoom" is the word we used when watching the planes take off at the Philly airport. Each take-off, I'd guide his pointing finger to follow the plane and say "zoooom." Though we pointed at the grounded planes and said "airplane" ("uh-pain"), he says "zoom" whenever he sees a plane. Oh well. Wow seems to be a new addition in the last week or so. When he's excited about something, he says "wow, wow, wow!"

Saturday morning, we went to breakfast at Original Pancake House. Then to Target for those cute pink rolling carts. I worked on organizing my space. Purged so much pattern paper. I think about 4 Club Scrap pizza boxes worth, which must have been around 600 sheets or so. Yay me! So, I had 3 carts. One cart got all cardstock - nearly full. Another cart got Self-Addressed, Club Scrap, and "premium" (like Basic Grey, Chatterbox, SEI, Scenic Route) pattern paper, and the last cart got Slabs & Stacks. I have way way too too much Slab/Stack paper. Too much. Really. But I pulled it all out of the accordion folders, and after the purge, I was able to fit it all in one cart except for the Christmas paper. So I still need to find a home for the Christmas paper. I filled up the Ikea jars with silk flowers. Looks really cute. Used the magazine holders for 8.5 x 11 paper, Club Stamp kits (all in those really cool little velcro folders from Target $1 spot), 8x8 paper, and miscellaneous paper (transparencies, tracing paper, vellum, canvas, etc).

Saturday night, we went (with Jake) to Marin's mom's house. Stopped at Target on the way there to get another pink cart and some more jars. Marin was in town for the weekend. Got to meet Marin's grandfather, and her mom's friend Pam's Italian boyfriend Sylvio. Lots of oohs and aahs over Jake's cuteness. Good to catch up with Marin a little, but not quite as satisfying and one-on-one time. So much going on, especially Jake's evening rampages of screaming, running, hitting, jumping, throwing. Makes me tired to just think about it.

Sunday morning, Scott went to his studio to unpack some thing, take measurements and plan a little. I worked on more organizing. Buttons into jars. Self-Addressed 6x6 paper, cards, embellishments, stamps into 6x6 CD boxes from Target $1 spot. Sort & purge stickers. Sort embellishments into categories (metal, paper flowers, 3D & puffy stickers, rub-ons) and put in baggies until another solution can be identified. Organize partially completed projects into craft keepers and bags to store until the reorganization can be completed and I can actually work on them.

In the afternoon, we took Jake to Scott's parents' house. Then we went to afternoon dinner at Olive Garden, then to Borders. I found some new books I'd been wanting:















Also found the latest yummy scrumptious issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. The first page has a big ad for the International Quilt Show in Chicago - April 7-9. I'm kind of interested in attending, but I think Art Walk is around that time, and my mom was planning to come to California for a visit around then as well. The show seems to have an altered/collage art component (with stamping, assemblage, collage) in addition to fiber arts. The quilt in the ad is just beautiful. I didn't see it online, but will try to scan in a picture of it later. Also discovered a new magazine called "How" that seems to be directed to Graphic Designers, but had plenty of ideas and eye candy for paper artsy folks as well. I was completely captivated by an ad for fontshop.com, which allows users to upload self-portraits depicting what font they identify with. It's way cool. It should be an effer dare. You have to see for yourself: http://www.fontshop.com/iam/

Here are some of the newest entries:



Monday, I had jury duty. My first time. Lots of waiting around. But goo time to read some of my new stuff. Flipped through Spilling Open. So inspired by that. Read the main articles of interest from Cloth Paper Scissors. I want to try everything. Bad for my wallet. Need to focus on what I already have and am working on. Especially fascinated by an article about textile artist Angie Hughes. http://www.angiehughes.com/ She makes the most amazing things, incorporating paint, fabric, and poetry. This is one of the pieces in the article:




















That's really tiny, isn't it? Well, you'll just have to go look at her gallery. Or pick up Cloth Paper Scissors. After flipping through CPS, I sketched out some poppet collage ideas.

There were about 500 potential jurors. They chose a group of about 35 first. I was in the 2nd group of 60. Spent about an hour before lunch going through the selection/interview process with 18 of the 60. Then 1.5 hour lunch break. Then the lawyers eliminated the undesirables. Then replacements and more questions and more eliminations. Then one more round of questions/eliminations and the jury was set. We wrapped up around 2:30 pm. Then took another 1/2 an hour to fill out paperwork and sign out. Then I was done. I don't have to go again for 12 more months. Hopefully longer.

The interviewing was fairly interesting. People had things to say. When they were asked questions, they provided more information than was needed to answer the questions. Stories about crimes they'd been victims of. Their feelings about their experiences with prior jury duty, cases, crimes. One girl had seen her brother killed in front of her when she was 13. A man had a younger brother who had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. Several lawyers. One criminal justice professor that had been a cop for 30 years. A really beautiful girl who talked loudly on her cell phone during the breaks about mortgage rates and faxing paperwork here and there - when she sat down, you could see up her skirt and the cottage cheese cellulite on her thighs. I was embarrassed for her. And secretly happy to know that she wasn't perfect.

Last night, I went to the Dollar Tree. Found some cute metal buckets that might make a fun project. And invested in some more clothes pins for organizing ribbons. I bought 100. Wrapped around 60, and still have more than 40 ribbons left to wrap. I see another trip to the dollar store in my near future. I had planned to put the ribbon in the metal buckets, thinking that my pink rolling bin was overkill for the amount of ribbon I have. But I'm re-thinking that. It might be just the solution I need. Because I can't imagine that I'd skip buying new ribbon if something super-cute and new came along. I'll have to see how my ribbon class comes together to try to use some of it up. I also bought 2 little weird barbie-ish dolls at the dollar store, and am going to try to put together a "muse" class. Make her clothes out of paper and ribbon. Stamp her purse. Give her a tattoo.