Summer Wardrobe Time

Planning the summer wardrobe and adding a few peices. Last year the theme colors were turquoise, light blues, and chartreuse. This year I'm really liking red.

LAST SUMMER

This year I am certainly not buying nearly so much and of course wearing almost all of the above again. 

THIS SUMMER

Then I like to plan what I'm wearing by the day of the week. It makes it sooooo much easier to get ready in the morning when I'm not awake yet. Bummer though I just got my thredup.com order and 2 items were "unavailable". I have no idea what that means. My first order ever with them a year ago they lost then it started showing up again a week or so later and I had to keep searching for the items and keep them in my cart until I found them all and could order them AGAIN. So I wrote them this time to see if those two items really are "unavailable" or could show up again any time. I suspect it means they lost them but they'll show up some day who knows when again. Because I really liked the DKNY sweater and I have had the track jacket from BCBG in my wish list for 6 months or more. 

I'm really bummed that this sweater didn't materialize because it tied my colors from last summer the blue and green with this summer's red and I LOVE HOODIES!!!!

OH well. Here's my revised June wardrobe plan BY TH WEEK.

june 1

june 8 

june 15 

june 22 

weekends

I don't own these wigs or these white platform boots but hey you never know!!! hahahaha

Sewing and Craft Room Update and Tips for Assembling

More work is happening across the street. I've been pretty lazy until recently. Finally went for a very short run and worked in yard a lot and put together these bookshelves this week.

This unit from Home Depot (see link below) is 9 cubes each one.  But only 5 of the cubes have this white cardboard backing and the other 4 were left open. I read one of the customer reviews that she backed the open cubes with her own fabric covered cardboard. Awesome! That's exactly what I will do.  

But putting the first unit together went very poorly that day.  Several mistakes... attempted to do when I had only 2 hours to do it, didn't take my Vyvanse that day and couldn't stop thinking about my husband's earlier argument about these units. He said they would be "junk" but they're Martha Steward from Home Depot! OK I didn't say that last part out loud. If you consider particle board junk like him then he was right,  but honestly they'll do for now. When he finishes putting up all of our walls, building our kitchen cabinets, putting a deck on the house and finishing the fencing.... THEN he can make me some solidly built version of this. Until then these will work for $50 each on sale. 

Martha-Stewart-Living-36-in-x-36-in-White-Stackable-9-Cube-Organizer

To do a better job than I did putting it together I have a few pointers:

1. Carefully look at all the long boards and label them with a dry erase marker or pencil.

2. Either use a rubber mallet or only pound with your hammer through a rolled up towel when putting the peices together with the dowel rods. 

3. If you screw up and have to pull out a dowel and it's no good anymore? Nena's Hardware (Ace is the place) sells them individually for cheap. Menards and the big box stores you have to buy like 20 in a package. 

4. I also nailed my fabric covered cardboard backs on in addition to the backs they supplied. In fact, I made mine from the box the whole thing came in. But it was hard to always see where to nail after getting several on so you might want to nail all the backs that came with the kit on first as they were designed. Then add your fabric covered peices afterwards and try to have the nails line up with the ones you already pounded in for the others. (Sorry I should have taken pictures).

Thanks to "Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man." Since I had so much trouble with the first one and wrecked a bunch of the little dowels. Luckily they were $0.23 at Nena's for the 2 inch and $0.15 for the 1 inch. 

Here's how my room looks in Roomstyler!

This is after I paint it in the future. 

Maybe he can at least make me a craft table this year?

So I finished the 2 units and unpacked all my "craft bags." A bag of knitting stuff, boxes of patterns, bag of watercolor stuff, bag of washi tape... you get the picture.

Pat looked at this and said it looks like your lab. 

Moved over my Ott light with the magnification lens and clip. 

Ta Dah!

I should also mention that the units are stackable and there are holes to attach them to each other with dowels as well. Then you can also use an enclosed bracket to attach it to the wall to keep it from tipping. Since I'm not all too confident in my finished product's sturdiness I did just that.

My husband is just a music-woodworking-running snob! He'll tell you that himself.

Oh and the bins came from Home Depot as well.

Mixed Media or Paper Art... Collage... Whatever you want to call it!

It's fun and a great way to recycle some of the many magazines and garden catalogs I have laying around. In fact the garden catalogs made these amazing strips, especially Annie's Annuals catalog. So much so I feel like I should send her this canvas. But I also used Money magazine and Backpager magazine so any magazine would do. I started to make these "coils" by rolling thin strips of magazine pages. Not really easy to do and didn't look like anything from the side view. I did keep a few of those and use them as eyes and such. Then I looked up how other people did it and found a youtube video where they made first a straw and then she mentioned rolling it through a pasta maker. That was how I made the next 20 or so. Then I thought wouldn't they look even cooler if they were crimped and went and got a hand held one from Michael's for $20 regular price and used my 40% off coupon! DEAL!

Not crimped but made from straws.

Pasta machine for rolling flatter.

Bunch of straws these all came from magazines.

After buying the crimper. Ones on left are crimped and ones on right not.

First put on with rubber cement.

Rolling, rolling, rolling...

So you get the idea. I made a video but it was terrible so I'd have to redo it if anyone wants to see an action shot of making the straws. Several people bought fancy dowel rods and such I used either a pencil or longer paint brush handle (an art one of course) worked great. I used Elmer's glue, craft tacky glue and glue stick. I'd say Elmer's was best. The glue stick surprised me as to how thick it made the straws and hard to crimp. The Tacky glue took longer to dry and was messier. BUT nothing was as messy as the rubber cement. I was using that just for attaching to the canvas in case I didn't like them but I switched halfway through to Elmer's and that worked better. Rylie and I actually did that part together so this was a team effort. Later I found I could peel them off regardless of what I used and abandoned the rubber cement that may have been killing our brain cells. I "modge-podged" over it when I had half of them on, all of them on, and again some areas 3 or 4 times and again after painting some swirlies. I'm sure it may still need more Modge Podge. I'll take it to Jeanna Fearon, my Art Yoda, and see what she thinks.

So here's the finished (maybe finished) result:

Ok you want to see how it's really done. This woman is a professional and she's not recycling but buying this fancy paper from Thailand. She rolls it multiple laters and cuts with gardening shears. BUT WOWZA is the results worth it or what!

Amy Eisenfeld Genser's Version

Isn't that awesome!!!! Holy crap. I am not sure I have that kind of patience as if....I saw one of hers before making mine that made me think underwater but it was titled 'Tidal'. But this one I saw after I started and it is indeed titled 'Reef' so clearly this method just screams underwater reef. Then she has some more that are more like trees. You know how I feel about trees.

And then purple and green too? If anyone wanted to buy me some art this would be top of my list for sure. It's breathtaking to me. 

Block Party

I've never blocked anything before that I knit. I take that back I think I blocked a scarf I made for my husband. But you wouldn't be able to tell that now. It's made with alpaca and doesn't hold it's form at all. But this washable wool I hope will block nicely. After it dries I add the button band, buttonhole band and neck band.

Towel is over 1" foam from fabric store. 

I could be wearing this next week!!!! So exciting!

Trillim in Thistle

Trillium (There's is in plume a deeper, cool purple)

I am so close to done with this sweater I started November 26, 2015 and I need to focus on gardening but wow these last rows seem to be taking forever! It took me 3 times to get how to do the ribbing on the body and two times on first sleeve. WOW! My new glasses have helped a lot.

This was when I finally got the broken twisted rib.

Here it is now!!!! 

Yes it is the same color as my bedspread in Peoria. I really love that color!

It's going to match my cat shoes.

Sky scarf is severely  neglected. That's January and I don't remember if I added any rows in February. But I've been recording the sky color in my art journal for later.

Brooklyn Tweed's newest lookbook: Lookbook for Winter 2015

Jamaica!!!! First Family Vacation!

Friday, February 27th we left Peoria for Chicago. We stopped at McDonald's on our way out and I was thrilled to see this cutout of a local basketball player (maybe local not sure). Anyway he's 6'8" and this was life-size so we thought we'd see how we measure up. I'm not even close to his height but don't look as short as I should because the cutout was leaning away from the camera. 

 That was fun. Here's how Peoria sky looked the day we left (noting for my sky scarf).

February 28th: The next morning it was -4 degrees fahrenheit when we drove to the airport. 

Brrrrr......

Joe 

The Fearon family we went with. Meriah, 12 by the window and Peter and Jeanna.

Behind Joe, is Brea Fearon, 18 or 19 yo, I think 18 but not sure. See the monkeys in the back row!

Rylie so happy when we landed in Montego Bay.

Rylie just wanted to be in ocean all the time. So she went in when it was dark! I don't think I would be that brave at her age.

March 1st

First full day, kinda cloudy and windy.

And only 84 degrees! LOL. So I drew with my markers a picture of a building in Jamaica.

Took Rylie's little braids out as the wind was whipping them all over and they all were coming out anyway and went with two big braids. 

Big mistake had a cup of REGULAR coffee with dinner that night and didn't sleep a wink. But at least here I could then walk the beach at sunrise.

March 2nd

I even recorded it some so you could hear the wind and waves.

March 3rd

So beautiful and so is the flower.

Much more beautiful day, this one may get painted.

Planning my new vegetable garden layout.

Sunset and the closest we got to the dive boat.

Enjoying the relaxation. Braided my hair as well.

March 4th

Full moon coming and tide is high!

Weather was overcast again 

But at least I had company

March 5th

Beautiful day again

Rylie in the water as always, even as sun sets.

On the way to dinner and the full moon.

March 6th

I had a friend, an Egret we named Bill. Rylie had a friend, named Ella from Canada.

Watching people kayak that probably shouldn't have drivers license.

Before they capsized. Also parasailer in the distance. Think I'm ready to try that next time.

Oh I love the deep blue!!!!!

March 7th time to go home, waahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Never hooked up with the driver for Couples that I hoped would deliver this to Aubin so mailing from home.

Worked out a schedule that Jeanna and I could work in two offices, one in Chicago and one here, in 5 to 7 years that includes 8 weeks of vacation!!!! I can't wait for retirement, I have to work until I'm 75 and then I'll be too old to enjoy it.

At least when we returned to Chicago it was 45 degrees supposedly although by the time we landed and got off the plane and home to condo it was 37. 

Last time when it was just Pat and I we took a cab and I would go back to that method. It was actually cheaper when you factor in gas, long term parking, and tipping the bus shuttle driver that took us to the red lot even though we got on the wrong shuttle. Sigh....

Then Monday we drove back to Peoria and the sun was out and it got up to 52 degrees!!! 

So I did a lot of drawing and garden planning and here's some pictures of it:

We decided to draw animal we had seen or heard. Rylie drew this Octopus all by herself and decided to add socks. Which then reminded us of her dad always complaining about the difficulty in finding a pair of socks..... I did the lettering for her and she colored it.

The "church" or some type of building that was in a Jamaican Guide.

The eel we saw and named after Joe. 

The ouchy sea urchins. She named phil. We traced her foot and then shortened the heel by an inch or so to fit on the page.

We thought it was a crane but later were told by Joe it was an Egret. Either way we named him Bill after Bill Barr. 

The tree frogs we hear all the time but can't see nor catch for Jeanna.

Missing Runway Allstars so working on my own designs. 

Didn't like this one as much.

Art Journal page of beneficial insects.

Bob Marley

My drawings of the same animals in my art journal. 

And my garden journal work...

Backyard layout

Apple tree guild

Pea plans

Germination requirements

Possible new veggie garden beds, this time stone walls!

Plant pages, this one is Blue Fescue

The cover

Verbena Plant page

Sempervivum that had a lovely watercolor pencil drawing that got ruined accidentally so covered with magazine clipping.

Oh and my "Garden Book" Calendar I used for birthday tracking since 1983. Yes and records my first car date as well. I decided to add drawings to it too. 

Overall it was a great first family vacation hopefully of many to our island home!