Saturday, June 28, 2008

Oahu Awaits

Do you see that ------>
I still can't believe that in 4 days that's where I'll be. Paradise....
The only coast I have ever know is the Oregon Coast, while it is absolutely breath taking it is not white sand beaches with water I can actually swim in.
I actually bought snorkel gear today. I'm going to have my head in the ocean and it freaks me out.
Maiko of Flurrsprite has been incredibly helpful in things to do and eat while I'm there and one of my clients from work lives in Maui- but her daughter lives on Oahu and she told me to call when I landed and she would have her daughter show us around, and to her fav shaved ice place. Which from the sounds of it might also be Maiko's favorite!

In crafty related news I've got panels cut for 7 new bags, two sets of bike covers screened for Celtic Weave books and two more sets of bike covers for little accordion books too. I made my first chopstick book this week and it was a lot of fun. Thanks again to Rhonda for the inspiration!
I have sent my first proposal in for teaching. Hopefully I will hear back soon as I am very anxious for feedback- and to start teaching. I submitted an outline for an introduction class this week and have a few ideas stewing for intermediate classes. I was in at MECCA today as they were having a large sale and over heard someone asking for large pieces of leather and the coordinator telling the woman they had set them aside for bookbinding classes so I guess I need to get started on a proposal for a long stitch class- which also means I need to learn the long stitch!

To end this I won't be back at my computer until the 12th, and will probably be too tired to post anything at all until the 13th. I promise to share some photo's and funny stories about our belated honeymoon (only a year late- and I am very exicted about having our first/sixth anniversary in Hawaii) when we return!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Treasury Love!

That's me smack in the middle of second row!
I am so glad that Etsy listed the rule that you couldn't convo people about treasury listings as I would have never seen this as I would have been packing for Minnesota and had no Etsy adventuring planned for the evening.

So stop by and give the other great items in the treasury a click or leave a comment with green love!

I'll be back on Monday from Minnesota, have a great weekend!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Summer Vacation!

I forgot how relaxing free time can be. This weekend all I did was things I wanted to do. My house is still totally trashed, my laundry still needs to be done, etc- but I did expose my first screen at home this weekend!
It took a few tries as I was using our newly found sunshine to develop the screen, but I had the time so I enjoyed the learning process. Eventually I will have to set up an indoor exposure for the 9 months of rain we get a year but for now I can use the energy mother nature provides. The lovely boards to the right are my first hybrid binding/screening project. I think I'm gonna have to screen two more because I wasn't thinking and if I bind these two together the bike on one of the covers will be along the spine, and I just don't think I like that. I also think I might screen a few of the pages that are going into the book too- because I can :D

I officially have started the ball rolling towards teaching classes in August. I need to write up the proposals for the classes and submit them for review. I think I want to teach one simple class with things like a pamphlet stitch with some variations like the dos a dos, the accordion fold, and maybe one other thing. I need to start looking into my books and see what I can find. I also want to teach a more advanced class with something like a case bound book but we'll see what they say about that as the resources are more complex.

I'll be working on that idea while I am in Minnesota this week. I've never been to Minnesota and it's where a large chunk of my husbands family lives, and where his parents summer. It's his dad's birthday this weekend so it seemed like the perfect weekend to take a trip- and the perfect time to write proposals about book binding!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

¡slɐuıɟ ɥɥɥɐɐɐ


I've got the first and the worst of my finals tomorrow. It's a double whammy of ochem and nuclear chemistry. Next week I have a whirlwind weekend in Northern Minnesota, home for a week then off for 11 days in Honolulu for a late honeymoon.

I've got a show scheduled for July 18th with my local street team. Trying to decide what I want to make and take, it's always hard to predict what people will be looking for on any given day. Which is what I love about Etsy, people get on there looking for a blue notebook- and if you can fill that need then they will purchase it. Craft shows don't have that same thing, people show up and browse not knowing what to expect,but probably not looking for that blue notebook.

I've been having a huge crafty urge but it might be a natural response to spending the last week looking at flying spaghetti monsters, counting lines, and working on the design of a nuclear reactor. Hopefully I'll retain that urge over the weekend and get some serious crafting done!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Crafty Overload




This week has been good for nourishing my crafty side. It was the last week of classes here and while I'm totally stressed out for my finals next week I've managed to get a lot done that isn't related to school.

Ok so the first project is kind of related to school- The fabric pieces are a tote bag, and a tote bag in progress! I finally ahead of the game in silk screening for once and I got to play around with fabric for the first time. The bag with the cassettes is finished while the bag with the reels still needs to be sewn together. I screened the fabric during our last class on Thursday and everyone was really envious, I think mostly because I was done and could play around, might also be because I bought shiny purple ink to play with.

As you can see in the second picture I have lots and lots of ink to start playing with. I also bought myself a photo emulsion kit, but that will have to wait until I get a scooper and a bigger squeegee.

In other exciting news this week our local crafty materials exchange MECCA sent out a news letter this week saying they had gotten in some upholstery leather scraps so I ran in as soon as they opened the next day and took a large pile to start playing with leather again.
The topic came up of why I want large scraps of leather and I told Mija I was a book binder. She got really excited and we started talking about me teaching classes there over the summer! I think I'll be teaching in late July/early August, I'll keep you posted as I come up with more of the details! I'm really excited to have the opportunity I just need to come up with what classes I want to teach and how I want to structure them....