The Perfect Solution

I didn't realize that I had another turbo shaker, filled in this case with pepper. The holes are really too small to get any pepper out of it, so I used that other container, which is like for parmesan cheese. It got empty and I was about to refill it with pepper when I noticed my still full turbo shaker. Why not dispense with the pepper in there and replace it with salt, thus giving me a new turbo?

Duh.

I washed it out very carefully of course and now await the perfect dryness so I can load salt into it. The old pepper container, well, I just added the old pepper to it and feel that was good enough.

Dave's Sable

This is to show that it is blue not gray, which I thought from the online pictures.


Both doors open with a click! Including the back lift gate.
It has a feature which tells you how many miles per gallon you are currently getting. My best read was 20.8. That's not too bad, but I think it will improve with out the seats in. They all come out.

Upload your pics....PLEASE.

The Pre-reveal

This is the finished room, at least as finished as it can be with the energy that I had left today. We put up a rolling curtain on the outside of the window, rather than inside, and it was leftover from when we moved in. This will keep the hot afternoon sun from heating up the room too much. Very easy to roll up in the cool morning.
This will also be the end where you will sleep, and of course we will move the stuff out of that corner, so there is room to walk around the bed.

There is still painter's tape around the fixtures that touch the ceiling. We ran out of ceiling paint and there are still a few spots which need a second coat. I'll be going to Chatt on Tues. and will stop at Lowe's for more. I have removed the pendant lights until later when I can figure out where they go. I just want it to stay clean and open for a few days.

As you enter the room the Alex and printer are right there, plugged into my new wall socket, and then the sewing table and sewing machine are also plugged into it too. Behind that is the drawing table or work table, depending on what I am doing at the moment.

On the other side of the back door is the rolling cabinet and taboret which will move to wherever I need them to be at the moment. My easel is still on the porch, but I will bring it in and find a place for it too. The stereo sits on the bookshelf where the reception is iffy, but where I can plug it into my computer for FM stations or whatever.

The white walls will get artwork soon. I have the hooks and the ladder so all I need is time and energy.

The tv will probably be hooked up to its new wall mounting unit on Weds when both Dave and I will both be home. Then I can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to creating.

The Latest Obsession

So, this is the pair of earrings I made to wear to the choir thing. I'm calling this design the Icicle - I've left the t-pin long so that the beads dangle at the bottom of it, and the wire is visible above the beads. Not sure if I've ripped this design off or if I thought of it myself - sometimes I'm unclear about my sources of inspiration. But that is a Czech glass bead with a small silver plastic bead beneath it and a swarovski crystal above.




These are the others I made that day. They are pretty difficult to photograph when they are packaged. The white card is actually my business card, so they have my contact details. The last one on the bottom right isn't conforming to the Icicle design, but it sold anyway. And I've used a combination of beads, atho most of them have at least one swarovski crystal in there.

You can tell that this is not labor intensive. All I have to do is choose a nice combination of beads, feed them onto the wire, and make the loop. Making the loop is actually the hardest part, but I am getting pretty good at it.



Here's the second batch. Did I mention they are hard to photograph? But almost half of these sold yesterday. I expect to sell more today. And then I think I will quit, altho I am dreaming in swarovski crystals. But this is all hobby stuff. As soon as we are settled in our new place, I intend to get back to quilting. And I think I will set an assignment for myself - like one a week or something, depending on how much of my time is spent out of the house. Boohoo. The thing I keep thinking is: you can't sell your artwork if you don't have artwork to sell.

The End of an Era

I did it. I finally finished hanging all my previously stored quilts on hangers. All that could fit in this garment moving box and in the closet. Not one more piece could go in either place. The bag is semi-full of old unfinished work, work from other artists,like Brooke, and strange bits of stuff that I really should throw away. The storage box holds almost double what is you see on hangers since they are smaller and therefore two could be squeezed into one hanger. There are more small quilts in Rubbermaids, and on shelves, walls and on couches and chairs about the house. I estimate the total to be near 200 pieces.

This is my moratorium. I am not making any more quilts. I’ve done what I wanted to do and now I feel the need to move on to other artistic pursuits. Painting probably.

New Stuff

The last time Dave went to Atlanta to play ball I made him come home with the last Billy. I put it together today and it wore me out. I guess I am not so recovered as I thought. But I had a good long soak in the bubble tub (and later Dave joined me) and that made me feel better.

I decided yesterday to get myself a nice tv for my studio. I like to have it on while I am fussing with fabric or getting stuff ready to paint, or just while I am sketching, so I justified it by remembering that I still have $1000 in my paypal from painting last year.

This is our old old old microwave cart that used to hold our computer and now it will be my taboret for painting. The turps and brush cleaner and gesso go in the cabinet part and the paint and palette go on the slider and the top holds whatever. I am glad we didn't get rid of it.

I will be moving the wire shelves from this spot because I also ordered a wall mount that comes out from the wall and can be angled to view from all sides. It won't be staying on the fireplace, in other words.

Birdy pictures

So yesterday I devised this background for the birds (to use for the Etsy site) and Terry spent hours taking pictures and putting them through editing software and I just wasn't liking anything. Then we looked at some other Etsy sellers' pictures, and it seems like everybody is either using a white background or some other setting that looks very unprofessional. I realized that what I wanted was natural lighting, so this morning I got up and shot these pix on my camera.



First of all, this picture is just to show you the stage. The base is a green door mat and the background is a piece of cardboard that I cut like a display board, and I taped that cloud fabric to it.

But I wanted a tighter shot, so I started taking the picture this way:






Now, the funny thing about it is that I had just gotten through taking all 15 birds' pictures when Terry stepped in and took the picture of the last bird on his camera - which was lucky because the picture I took wound up being blurry, so he saved the day on that one. We had to rush because the light was going to change and become not good. And also it's funny because I used my vastly inferior camera to take these shots, but I'm finally liking them. I think the soft morning light is really nice and having them sitting on the white doll chair is really cute.

But we are going to shoot some other pix in different settings, too. I may just use some of the white background group shots, because they work really well, too. For instance:



I know it's really hard to get my camera to focus in such a tight shot, even in the macro setting. But I'm not sure it matters, if the bird I'm featuring is in focus.

We also talked about taking pictures of the birds in a bonsai garden. That could work, but we'll have to be very careful about keeping them clean. And we need to do it in the next couple of days, too, since I am motivated to get this site up by next weekend.

But you can see how the time just flies and there's things you want to get just right before posting.