Dear Sweet Mabel

So there it is. It is finished. It is gifted and it is soo satisfying. I took this pic a bit wonky to aviod the glare that you'll see on the ones farther down. This is my dear sweet Mabel, my grandma, when she was 17. It is my most favorite family picture of all. This is the culmination of all the daydreaming I had for this shadow box. I am so thrilled to have actually finished it and given the gift! So often I struggle with the finishing.

It was a trully happy Mother's Day.

Gotta love Thursdays!

Thursday is my day to play hookie! And what a day today is shaping up to be! I spent the morning pressing, measuring, primping and finally taking pictures for my new Etsy shop. Yeah, another shop at Etsy. I have learned a few things so far on Etsy and this new shop is hopefully going to be a better or more inclusive reflection of me.

When I first thought about opening a shop there I read in the FAQs and How Tos all the various suggestions and advice they offered. Of course I took their advice and named my shop according to their suggestions. They recommend a name that reflects the type of items you will sell in your shop and therefore I came up with ReduxPapers because I planned on selling reused repurposed paper in various incarnations. Fast forward a few months and I don't want to only list my paper escapades. I love so many arts and crafts that I just can't be held down to just paper!

Enter "HandAnd HeartWorks". All works of my hand straight from my heart! So I might list my hand woven boucle' scarves or maybe a hand knit one now and then. I have a few woven bags and pouches that should finish up nicely too. There will be reused and repurposed vintage linens that will find new lives. I'm actually pretty excited about both shops now. My stash in the work room holds more than just paper and now I can follow whatever creative moment that strikes!

The other creative moment that struck this morning was Banana Bread! My favorite is this whole wheat recipe out of an old Sunset Quick Breads book. So I think it is time for a cup of tea and a slice of heaven.

Do you Librivox?

This time of the year when He heads North to go earn our living we each settle into our own independent ryhthm. Now that the student is away at school I can see that I will have an even different ryhthm on my own. I have already mentally lined up a few after work projects in the work room; I am most excited to finish up my Mother's Day gift. I'll post more pics as soon as it is complete. I have also lined up the next book I am going to listen to in the work room at Librivox. My girl and I are Jane Austen nuts so I have selected "Memior of Jane Austen" by James Edward Austen-Leigh.

If you aren't familiar with Librivox you have to check it out. It is a free site to listen to public domain books. I believe it is all volunteer maintained and recorded. Some readers are more pleasant to listen to than others but there a couple of thousand books available so I always seem to find someone whose voice I enjoy. Their search feature leaves a bit to be desired but if you know titles and authors you can find anything. I really wish you could search by genre. I don't always remember an author's name but I know what type of literature I like to read. Even though I don't know most of the titles when I search through the catalog I am not afraid to listen a bit and move on if I don't like what I am hearing. I'd love suggestions if you know of any good recordings in their catalog!


I love that when I am working away on what ever project whether it be sewing or knitting or doing paperwork at my desk I can also "read" a book. Can't think of a much better way to spend a free afternoon!

Rummage Sale Season

Man, I used to be a serious garage and rummage saler. I swore off of them over 5 years ago when we moved into this house. We lost about 800 square feet from our old place. That's alot of stuff to get rid of and then not replace. Unfortunately I think I'm a "stuff" kind of a gal. With the opening of a shop on Etsy that was my permission slip to go to second hand stores again but I have been resisting garage sales. That is until last weekend. I have been craving old doileys and embroidery and I think the only real place to find them for a good deal is at a garage or rummage sale. Well, like I said I haven't been to a sale in more than 5 years and wow, folks have really raised the bar for garage sale prices! I can't believe that I had to pay like 4 bucks for a pretty beat up, faded and stained doiley because the woman's mother in law spent so many hours crocheting it! Nonetheless I paid more than I had ever expected to for some fairly cute stuff last weekend.

I haven't been to a rummage sale in even longer. Somehow I just never hear about any and I only find them by chance. Well, I saw an ad in my little local paper the other night for a rummage sale at the little Unitarian church up the road from my house. I was earnestly hoping for some great embroidery or sewing supply finds. Alas no. But I did find a couple of pretty cool books. I am going to make another paper bunting from one of these children's poetry books and I think I need to make some new envelopes. It certainly wasn't a huge score but it was a start!

I spent the morning working on my Mother's Day gift. It is an idea I have had for several years but I only recently found the shadow box frames I had purchased with this in mind. Here are a couple of pics in process. I am super excited how it is coming together. I think I'll head to U-Frame It this weekend for a matt, I think with an oval opening for my sweet Grandma Mabel.

It's been a really long hard day of crafting. It must be nap time...

So this is an empty nest?

When is it really an empty nest? When we dropped her off at college and drove away? Or will it be when she moves out of our home permanently into her own private little domicile?

I approached my daughter’s first year away at college with great personal trepidation. I began plotting all sorts of ways to occupy all my “free time” that would be spent oh so lonely with out her. I imagined every nook and cranny of my house clean out and organized. I thought of all the knitting I could do. I could finish up a couple of quilts waiting patiently in a box in the work room. Should I take a couple of classes my self? I could gear up my Ebay store again... Ultimately I settled on opening an Etsy shop as I had just stumbled across Etsy last spring and fell in love with it.

So in August after arriving home from our summer excursion up North I set to crafting up a bunch of handmade envelopes and note cards using vintage maps and atlases and other damaged and discarded books. I have no idea how much time I have in these buggers but I do know that they were good for my soul. Well after crafting nightly after work and most weekends I hmmed and hahed for way too many months trying to decide on a shop name and finally settled on ReduxPapers. And yet a month later took pictures of my inventory and set up shop. It has been fun, and distracting, and a great learning experience. I have unabashedly bought more than I have sold and just love Etsy!

This school year has gone by so fast for our little family and we have all survived and I would even go as far to say that we are all thriving. The student has found her stride, the parents have found they still like each other and all seems right in our world. We sure do miss that girl but she has been home so often this year on this break or that break that just when I really begin to miss her all of a sudden, there she is!

My nest doesn’t feel too empty yet so I think we are really empty nesters when they set up their own housekeeping. That’s good because I am too young to have a truly empty nest.