Saturday afternoon book making

Tuesday night is a big evening for me.  Our local Community College is hosting an event where they are bringing in an author and letting him speak then sign autographs.  West Kentucky Community Technical College has done this before, but this is the first time I have longed to go.  It was almost a year ago that I read about the event and have counted down the days.

Who is coming to the little town of Paducah?  Why Jamie Ford.  You haven't heard of him?  Well, you need to google it right now.  Purchase the Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet first and you will be hooked.  There is a second novel entitled Songs of Willow Frost that I also recommend.

I discovered Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet not long after it was published.  I read it, reread it....well, I keep rereading it.  I have the ebook, but once I found out Jamie was coming to Paducah, I bought a paper copy as well.  I pre-purchased Songs of Willow Frost from BAM! and it was delivered to my house the day the book was released.  If you pre-purchased Songs, Jamie would email you a little "supplement" type/companion book written about one of the characters in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.  I read it when he emailed me, but decided that since I was going to meet him next week I would try to see if he would autograph my ebook too.

I printed the book in full form. It was rather large to bind, so I printed as a booklet.






I took a large sheet of mat board and cut me a couple of covers (8.5x6).  I covered each cover with one 12x12 scrapbook page (Bohemia by My Mind's Eye---the best paper pad EVER!!!).








 In the meantime I put together the booklet, scored the middle, and sewed the binding of the pages.  Once that was finished I inked the pages with Distress Ink by Tim Holtz (old paper and walnut stain).  I hot glued a ribbon to the "spine" of the booklet (gluing the booklet in the exact center of the ribbon).  Once the hot glue set up, I put a strip of hot glue on the inside edge of one of the covers and put the ribbon down on that side.  Once set I repeated the process with the other side of the ribbon and other cover.  The thickness of the book looks nice between the covers.  I mod podged the covers after adding some walnut stain ink to the edges.  I also mod podged the overleafs of the booklet to each cover giving it a finished look.

On the cover, I used Jamie's cover, but I ran out of color ink. I will reprint before Tuesday and mod podge the new photo onto the cover.

Not perfect but it's kind of like me...covered in flaws but handy.

Throw out 50 things part 2

Given all the snow and the fact that we are snowed in....we were able to work on the Throw out 50 things list.

We finished with the number 36 last time.  If you can't remember the post here is a link.


http://michelle-champion.blogspot.com/2013/12/throw-out-50-things.html


37.  Clothes the kids have outgrown

38.  My mother-in-law's comforter.  It is very nice, hardly used but it is a very old lady looking and white.  I hate white.  It is white with pink flowers if someone wants it before I take it to goodwill

39.  Bent rails from Trevor's bed.  Trevor's mattress was constantly falling through the bed because the rails were bent when we got the bed (it was used).  We are selling Grandma's house and we sold all the furniture inside it.  Well, most of the furniture.  For some reason, the auction company did not sell the bed.  I took the rails from that bed and brought them home.  They fit Trevor's bed....no more falling through the frame!!  I am tired of having crappy stuff that is falling apart in my home.  My goal is to get rid of it if it is falling apart.

40.  Old letters from my mother-in-law to my husband.  They are miserable.  Please remember to talk to your children nicely.  I burned these horrible letters!!!

41.  Sunshades from our Sebring that died...all our cars are now tinted.  I passed these on.

42.  Scraps of paper

43.  Pillows from my mother-in-law's house.  For some reason, we brought them home.  Trevor had 8 pillows on his bed, Hannah 6, we had 5.  Too many!!!  I got rid of 4 crappy pillows.  Thrown away.

44.  We only use cloth napkins in our house, but I threw out a bunch of napkins that had seen better days.

45.  An extension cord that had been scrapped and looking pretty unsafe

46.  Screwdrivers that were chipped and really worked to remove no screw

47.  Old school agendas

48.  Paint cans that looked like they were 20 years old (and they may be)

49.  Crappy paintbrushes

50.  Cassette tapes, I have no player why did I keep these?

I am going to keep going.  Streamlining my life. 

Day 3 of snowed in

Being poor on trapped in the house if wearing on me.  Cabin fever has set in.  Holy Moly!!  I have done all the dishes, all the laundry, all the sewing repairs, all the touch up of paint, all the cleaning, all the changing of sheets...good gravy you get the picture. I have made 32 cards, 2 canvas thingys, bunches of die cuts paper piecings, organizing of my drawing materials, the taxes, made a peanut butter pie, bit all my nails to the quick, and even got all the recyclables together.  This stupid ice must melt soon, I am not made to sit home all day!!!!

Here is what I created today:

Snowed in.

Here we are on our one millionth snow day of this winter.  Ok, so I exaggerated the number a bit, but you get the picture.  We have had lots of snow days.  I usually do home improvement projects on these type of days, but I was saving my money for our big vacation this year so no projects.  What I have done is touch up walls/cabinets that had chips or just needed to be refreshed (or where my son poked a hole in the living room wall playing basketball), I have done our taxes, perused the internet for a deal on cars, and today made a painting.

This painting started with die cuts that I made with my Cricut cartridge (thanks DiAnna) Art Nouveau.  I have wanted this one since the day it was released, and my friend bought it for me for Christmas.  I broke it out a few weeks ago and started to see what it could do.  Here are some photos of the die cuts I have made with the cartridge.





Today's project started as a blank 8x11 canvas that I painted an old fashioned mustard color.  I then used wood icing and a stencil that I bought at Ephemera Paducah and went to town.  What  a great stencil!!!!  It fits in great with the vibe I was going for with this canvas.  I then decided to make one of the girls the lady in the moon.  I made some cattails for the ground and a beautiful lady in purple for the foreground.

I am not sure that I am done with the painting, time will tell. I am however finished with it today.



Thanks for stopping by.

A new ride

In 2005 my husband went to Driver Motors in Mayfield while I was at work.  He brought home a 2004 Chrysler Sebring.  I fell in love instantly.  It drove like my Saturn SL2 that was totaled by a woman would did not follow the laws of a stop sign.  It was small like that car and drove wonderfully.  I had the dealer put on a keyless entry system and we signed the papers.  Over the years, she was a good car.  In the last couple of years we began to have computer problems with her.  The computer was telling the car that things were wrong and they were not.  The solution a new computer at $2500.  That wasn't going to happen because the car might be worth $1000.  So we drove on and continued to have issues with the check engine light and the emissions and really there were no problems it was all computer related. Back to the shop we go, the dealer called in a Chrysler expert and it rigged up the computer to stop sending out signals and we were on our way.  Our dreams were to get two more years out of the car.  This was last year.

 A couple of weeks ago, my daughter was driving to the other side of Paducah when my little Sebring decided to die.  I mean DIE!  So dead it had to be replaced.  John and I began a search for a cheap car with low miles.  Why?  We were planning on taking the trip of a lifetime in April, a trip to Hawaii.  This just didn't pan out.  A car with low miles and low price just wasn't to be found so we talked about it and decided 10 days in Hawaii would be great, but we could have this car for 10 years like we had the Sebring.  We upped the budget and cancelled the trip.

We looked high and low for the right fit.  I called a dealership in Madisonville because I wanted to look at a Ford Fusion they had on their lot.  The dude on the phone thought I said Nissan instead of Fusion.  It was fine, and turned out to be fate.  I had not looked at a Nissan.  John had mentioned it, but that's really as far as we got.  We drove the car and fell in love.  I loved the engine, loved the feel and loved the get up and go.  It is bigger than my Sebring, but I still can feel like I'm driving that little car.  Here are some pictures of the new member of the family.

I have not gotten possession yet.  There were a few things I wanted done before I  brought it home.  The car is still in Madisonville going through the Michelle approval process.  I got the call today that the car is ready and the dealer (Greg) will try to deliver tomorrow (barring the roads clear up enough for him to get here).  I am very excited to see her once again.  Wonder what we will name her?



















Here are some photos of the new member of the family. 

Gall Bladderous: a year later

It was a year ago that I was at work eating lunch with Patty and Valerie.  I was having chicken and dumpling soup.  The dumplings were a big soggy and I thought I was getting sick from them.   All of the sudden I felt like I was going to have a seizure and very sick.  The girls knew what was going on and took me to Valerie's office to sit down.  I was feeling no better.  They wanted me to go home.  I hated to leave because I feel guilty because I have to leave work for my mother-in-law a lot.  So I sucked it up. I went home at 4 and it got worse. Now the pain was between my shoulders, I was sure I was in trouble.

John took me to the ER where it was determined I needed my gall bladder out stat, but they sent me home.  I had never had gall bladder issues before and this shocked me.  I didn't know to demand it come out now and I was in such pain I just did what they said.

I went home.  My friends called a doctor and he was going to work me in the next day.  I had the ultrasound the next day then I went to see him.  He said it had to come out it was in terrible shape and I wasn't well.

On the way to surgery

6pm I am wheeled into surgery with a bad gall bladder and a liver infection.  The gall bladder came out a drain went in and while the pain from the gall bladder was gone the pain from the infection set in.

It was a rough week.  Luckily, I have great friends and a mom that cooked for me and brought be goodies and puzzle books.  I made it!!  I went back for my followup and was told how close to death I was.  That is some scary stuff.  I was also told if I had died that first night my husband could have sued because it was evident that the gall bladder was scrapping the liver raw giving me a bad infection.  It took a while for that infection to clear, the stones were so giant it rubbed the liver raw.  I had two big stones a 1 inch and a 1/2 inch.  I had asked for a souvenir since I was paying all that money for the surgery.  It took an extra incision but I got my souvenir.

the 1/2 souvenir

A year later, I am doing well. However, since I never had an symptoms until it went bad I'm not sure how I should feel.  I feel great though and lucky God spared me through the infection. And I would like to thank the lovely staff at Lourdes for treating me so well.  I would like not to thank the ER staff....who tried to kill me. 

After surgery

The chair

A month or so ago, my friend had a chair for sale.  Another friend of mine bought it and gave it to me to paint for her office.  I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do. I made a couple of sketches and  did some internet research but in the end I thought about the personality of my friend.  She likes owls, her school colors are green, she is a child of God, and she's pretty awesome.  She needed a chair to fit her uniqueness. I scrapped all previous ideas and painted it in her school colors first.

I had made a bird and an owl for this friend but wasn't sure how or why to give it to her.  This chair was going to be perfect.  With the way the chair was made I thought I could fashion a tree from it.  A tree with branches to hold the bird and the owl.

Here is the finished product:

The bird and owl are made from plastic grocery bags. I took the bags and fashioned them into the shape I needed but using duct tape.  This was a very long process.  They were flimsy, but I wasn't done.  The next step was to make a paper mache with mod podge.  I used many many many layers of newspaper and glue.  I let dry for a week.  Then I made a texture paste and covered the outside of each animal in a thick layer.  I used my fingers to make bumps along each animal body to make it look more real.  This dried for two weeks because I went on vacation....when I came back to them they were hard as rocks.  Very lightweight but very hard.  PERFECT!!!

The chair was painted first with gesso to give the surface a bit of tooth.  I then painted the whole thing green to match my friend's office and school colors.  After that dried I painted on a background of a tree branch.   Next, I took a stencil and wood icing (both purchased from Ephemera Paducah www.ephemerapaducah.com) and added some tree bark and texture.  Once that dried I started painting on leaves.  I added the bird and viola we have a painted chair. 

Throw Out 50 Things

I recently read a book called "Throw out 50 things" by Gail Blanke.  I liked this book because she told you how to do the purge.  She purges with you and gives you a list of what she depleted from her collection and leaves a space for you to write in what you got out of your home. 

 I have been trying to do this for some time, ever since we had to clean out 40 years of junk from my mother-in-law's house.  I have failed since I had no guide and no one to be competitive with......it just wasn't working for me.  After reading this book, I had a plan to "make it so" (borrowing a line from a great Starfleet Captain).  I started when we got home from vacation.  I proceeded to tackle the project while putting away the items from the trip.  I have been working for 2 days now and I feel I have accomplished a bunch.

I have gotten rid of (either by donating, trashing, gifting to someone in need or recycling):

1. Broken tape dispenser I was never going to fix
2. Broken hole punch
3. Out of date cd roms
4. Magazines
5. Quilts (tiny quilts we have worn out and I won't ever fix)
6. Bath mats (no longer the colors we use)
7. Gooey hair gel
8. Partially used coloring books
9. Toddler sized hats/gloves
10. Unused scarves
11. Picture frames
12. Too young for our kid's games
13. A swivel chair
14. Yucky make-up
15. Broken shells
16. Seen better days Christmas decor
17. Too small or worn clothes
18. See better days toys
19. Out of date coupons
20. Ink cartridges
21. Wire Hangers (this house follows Joan Crawford wire hanger policy)
22. Gently used craft items
23. Cleaned out drawers in the kitchen (I never had a junk drawer but I had junk in each drawer)
24. Books
25. Ink pens
26. Paper pads
27. Some of the 10 rulers I have collected (I kept 2)
28. Address labels featuring my father-in-law's name (for the shred pile)
29. Cross stitch fabric too small to use (why would I keep that???)
30. Mostly burned candles
31. Cardboard boxes that for some reason I feel I need
32. Old papers no longer needed (meant for the shred bin)
33. Broken suitcase that will NOT be good for anything no matter how much I think it will
34. Craft projects attempted but the product is a failure
35. Resumes from John's college days (why have I kept this?) 
36. Old chipped along the edges plates/bowls

That is where I am as of today.  I hope to achieve this 50 things goal by Spring Break 2014 (first week in April) and have added the goal to not bring back the junk.  I still have lots of stuff to go through from my mothers-in-law home and I hope that will be what puts me over the top. I also have a rainbow vacuum in my attic that it is time to get rid of...I have held onto it thinking I could fix it.  I can't!  Never will I just have to face facts?  My other new goal is if you can't fix it right now, you pay someone to do it or get rid of it, RIGHT NOW!!!  Don't bring your junk in my house.