Dreaming of Organization

Dd and I spent some time on Saturday morning redesigning the basement. On paper. Granted, its an unfinished basement and will stay that way for now but I moved my art room down there the beginning of this year. Since then, despite it being pretty organized, I find it gets so messy. Mostly because I'm trying to do so many different things in one space (and we've been dragging down all the homeschool stuff I need to sell off, and dropping it in the studio.) I don't know why I made an art room utilizing only a 1/4th of the basement. There is so much more room I could claim! Since it's a wreck right now, I haven't wanted to work in it for the last month. Now armed with a new plan, I have been down there every night doing a little organizing, moving 'walls' (old doors and shelves), going through boxes of discarded stuff from the dds' rooms and throwing neglected laundry in the washer while I'm at it.

(As the basement is now.)

I think I have a constant need to try something new. To change things. But when you see that things are not working one way, I don't see the reasoning of just leaving it that way and 'making do'. If its not the studio of my liking, why not change it. I want a wet area. A place to use that screenprinting set and Shiva Paintstiks I received for Christmas last year and have yet to use. A place to dye fabrics, get messy, etc... We have an old open shower down there that the previous owner must have used in some way. I want to take it out and buy a double stainless steel sink and have it installed. I've already started looking on Craigslist for a used restaurant one.

(The new plan. DD thought a TV and game system should be included.)

I want a sewing area. I want to see my fabrics out in the open, not on shelves in the storage area. I want to be able to pet them daily. I want a permanent place for my sewing machine with all my little bits, bobbles and bobbins lined up in a row as well as my thread racks accessible. I want to be able to lay out quilt pieces if I feel like being quilty, and have the room to do that!

I want a larger collage and painting area. I'm thinking 2 tables, one for working and the other one for projects in progress, where they can dry. I can also clean them off and have friends over to artify with me, as long as they don't mind an unfinished basement. The workbench will be where I can work standing up, work with tools (heatgun, melting wax, etc...) It's an old table that has the holes/makings for a saw, if I ever want to get more into wood play.

Finally, I want to be able to find my shipping supplies without killing myself climbing through the storage area to find them in the semi-dark. The new storage area will have all my ebay, half.com, etsy and homeschool items ready for sale, in labeled rubbermaid boxes. That way I can just grab a box when I have a minute, list the items and then put it back in storage with a note that I've already listed it.

Organization. I can dream, can't I?!

(pics to be posted when complete, local friends to be invited over for art and food soon after.)

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone has the best Halloween with lots of candy! (pic of my girls above.)

Numbers Altered Journal Pages

Perfect numbers like perfect men, are very rare. ~ Rene Descartes

I'm back in the Altered journal racket again. The ladies from Altered Gypsy are having a swap. You can see the start of my journal here (pardon the bare accessories). I received my first book to work on, a few weeks ago. Yesterday I brought a pile-o-supplies upstairs to play with while the kids worked on homeschool work. This worked out quite well. I'll have to do this again.

Barb's book theme is Numbers. Her book pages were already made of gorgeously designed paper (can't remember the company) and I just enhanced them. I used the quote above on one of the front pages. (The right side folds out to reveal the other spread.)

I'm close to thinking its done. For now. I may set it aside for a few days and then take a final look at it to see if it needs improvement. Any suggestions?

I was contacted by my local Etsy group to see if they could use my Halloween Banner Tutorial to put up on their KCEtsy blog. Of course I was happy about that! You can see it shown on their blog, and in the meantime take advantage of entering their drawing for this week's free prize from a talented Etsy artist. I love buying from other artists. I usually do a big chunk of my Christmas shopping at Etsy. I'm slowly adding to my supplies store and arts store found on Etsy as well. I'm looking forward to a wonderful Christmas season.

Halloween House

This is the final project from last year. It's a spooky Haunted Halloween house. Make one of your own! Let me know if you do, I wanna see!

This week's Halloween project was a fun one. Like I've said before, I'm not much of a Halloween decorator. So I thought, if I'm making things for Terrorific Tuesdays, I'd like items that I'll use over and over and fit my style. I don't like to have stuff around that doesn't have a purpose (DH, stop laughing. I meant stuff I make.) This is a house frame for my dd's Halloween costume picture. I'll just need to print it and slip it in the frame!

I found the cutest paper mache' house shape at Michaels (it's about 8" tall) last week. I could just see it as a haunted house! My friend Barb mailed me the adorable skeleton and my new favorite tool (the glue pen) and I put them to good use here. The circles on the sides and around the diamond paper, I glittered with the pen and a jar of shinies. The pretty purple paper (YES Rhonda, its purple, are you shocked?) is wrapping paper from Borders that you can buy in sheets. My dd frowned at me when I pulled out the white fencing. She said 'that's the fencing you won't let me use outside for my fairy houses!' Yes, I'm that mean a mother. I've been hoarding it. But just to show there were no hard feelings, she made the pumpkin for me to add to my house. I consider it the perfect touch.

What's your favorite part of Halloween?
I love carving the pumpkins, cooking the seeds and eating pumpkin candies too.

Halloween Banner Tutorial

Here is a repeat post of a Halloween Banner I made last year. Let me know if you make one! I wanna see!

My last piece for Terrorific Tuesdays is something I've been working on for weeks, just never finding the time. I did it in pieces. A Halloween banner. Do you get the emails from the Dover company? They send weekly emails about their products, and give you samples to save to your computer and use in art. One week there were vintage Halloween postcards. Yum! I saved a lot of those! But you could use images you find on the internet, copied from books or draw your own! This is a very simple project, one my little dd helped with as well.

This is a great design to use for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines, even July 4th! Have fun creating and remember to let me know if you make something. I wanna see.

Supplies:
3 pieces Orange 8 1/2 x 11" cardstock
9 Vintage Halloween postcards or something similar, cut to 3 1/2 x 5" size
Background stamp (mine is like architecture iron work)
Black stazon ink pad
Embroidery floss (I used orange and dark brown)
Decorative Scissors (I used a 'victorian' style)
5 ft Ribbon (mine has pumpkins on it)
Chipboard letters, stickers or rubons spelling HALLOWEEN
Glitter glue (I used clear)
Poker tool or use a bigger needle
Needle & Scissors
Glue & Exacto Knife


1. Take orange cardstock, fold and rip into 4 even pieces. Cut the 2 long sides with the decorative scissors. I cut off just enough to make the decorative edge but not enough to cut off width.
2. Using the background stamp, stamp with the black ink, onto the orange cardstock pieces. Ink the edges of the stamped pieces as well.
3. Cut out your postcards to a 3 1/2 x 5" size and glue vertically on the stamped cardstock. I put my glue about 1" in on each side of the postcard. Don't glue all the way to the edges. It makes the next step harder.
4. Take your poking tool or bigger needle and evenly spoke holes around the edge of the postcard (mine are almost 1/2" apart.)
5. Thread a larger needle with embroidery thread (I did not split mine, I used all 6 strands.) Stitch around the entire postcard. This is so simple, my 9 yr old dd was able to help me.
6. Using the exacto knife, cut about 1/2" down on the postcard section of your pieces, a 1/2" vertical slit on the left and right side. This will be so you can thread your ribbon through for your hanger.
7. Thread your ribbon through so the middle of the ribbon is behind the postcard. Make sure you have about 5+ inches extra on each end of your banner.
8. Adhere the chipboard (or sticker/rubons) to the bottom left corner of the postcards, spelling out Halloween.
9. Using the glitter glue, choose parts of your postcards to highlight with glitter.
10. Hang up wherever you desire!