Liquid Paper

a fresh new look for spring

making my own spring

It may be sunny outside but it's only in the high 30s at this very minute. Honestly, we can't take much more of this crazy mixed up definitely not springlike weather. So, I decided to make my own. The florist was out of peonies but they had this beautiful ranunculus. And the shop down the block had the perfect bud vase. It may not be much, but it lifts my mood out of the winter blahs every time I look over at it.

Oh, the horror!

Two days ago it was seventy-seven degrees here and now...

A

Starting at the beginning... in the middle of the week.

let's face it

Every once in a while I disappear off the face of my blog. I promised myself a long time ago that I would never suffer any guilt over erratic blogging. Sure, I miss the conversation, creative outlet and the comments, oh how I love me some comments. But guilt over not posting is something which I give myself permission not to feel. Now, guilt over missing a birthday, that I gotta accept. (I owe two belated gifts already this year!) But I shall not feel it about not blogging -- it is not a good thing I say.

Do you think I doth protest too much? Perhaps. ;)

Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, how about a little face time? These are a couple little wooden dolls that I picked up here or there:

The shy one

The coy one

on a country drive

thank you

Thank you all for the anniversary well wishes! Some of you asked about the photo that Mark took of me... so here you go.

This little wooden couple is part of a set my sister and I found at a thrift store a couple of years ago. At the time I thought that they were pricy at 80 cents apiece. Now, I kind of think they were a pretty good deal. Currently, I have these two up on our mantle. I put them there as a part of my Valentine's Day decor and they stayed to help celebrate our Anniversary. I guess they are still there because I haven't gotten tired of them yet. (Here's a very bad picture of the whole set.)

A QUESTION FOR YOU
I've been thinking about selling some of my photos as prints in my shop. What do you think about this idea? Are there already too many photo print sellers out there or should I go for it? I would really like to know your thoughts. Have you ever bought a print online?

12 by the river

Yesterday Mark and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. This year I wanted to spend the afternoon picnicking by the river. Unfortunately, freezing temperatures trimmed our picnic to a brief photographic adventure. My eyes were watering so much from the icy wind that I couldn't be sure my shots were in focus. Of course, after twelve years Mark has gotten used to my initial optimism, "Let's go to the river for the afternoon!" Which inevitably turns to realism, "Help, the wind has frozen my eyeballs. I can't see. Please return me to the car so that I can thaw out." He did this, but not before he kept me standing on the arctic bridge for FIVE MINUTES while he tried to take a picture of my pathetic, frozen, half-blind watering eyes because it-was-just-so-cute!

Yep, that's what I love about this man. He gets me.

heaven sent

Elvera told me that she started sewing when she was five. She grew up in the Ukraine and says her mother made her learn to sew because she hated doing it herself. When I asked her if she collected fabric (like I do) her eyes lit up. When she was little her aunt, who was a seamstress, would give Elvera's mother little scraps of fabric. Her mother saved up those scraps and each month she presented Elvera with a little pile of of them to play with. She told me that the scraps were beautiful, far too tiny to make anything from, and she could play with them for hours. I get that because I feel the same way about tiny but beautiful scraps of fabric.

Elvera spent many years teaching sewing in the Ukraine. Today she runs her own business. Her shop is located on the floor below my studio and she is teaching me how to sew. I don't know how this happened. I brought her some pants and a dress to have altered and somehow she decided I would sew things for myself. I say she decided because, well, it seemed that I had very little to do with it.

The first thing she told me to do was to remove the pockets from a dress. So, I dutifully attempted to remove them. A couple of days later I brought her the dress to show her my work. She examined the slightly bulky sides of the dress where the pockets used to be, shook her head and gently ignored my excuses. She laughed and told me in her thick accent, "Vell, it eez a veery straight seam." I grinned, shook my head too and followed her back to her office where she proceeded to take out all of my very straight stitches. While she removed the thread and extra material from the pocket, she told me how when she first came to America, she could buy yards of good material at Good Will for 25 cents each. Not like now. I get that too.

Today, I am following her instructions again and am going to make a dress for myself. When I brought her the pattern I chose she was so pleased. Before I knew it, she'd produced a tape measure and wrapped it around me, showing me how to choose the correct size. She also flipped the tape measure over and measured me in her country's size. Apparently, I am the "perfect size" on top and one size bigger in the hips. Umm, thanks but I already knew that. Ha!

So over the next how-ever-long I'm going to make a dress and I'll tell you how it goes. Well, that's not exactly true. I'm not making "a" dress, I'm making two dresses, because I got a great deal on the fabrics. Oh, and if you don't mind too much, I'll probably share scraps of Elvera with you now and again. They may be too small to make much sense of, but I hope you'll get it because she seems to be a part of my life now.

This little piece of machinery is a mini serger that I got at a thrift store for $15.00. The tag read "works" but I had no idea how to use it. Elvera was intrigued when I told her that such a thing existed and so I brought it to her. She helped me figure out out to thread and use it. :)

February Photo Exchange

It should be safe to post these now. These are the photos that I took and sent to my swap partner as a part of the the Nectar & Light Photo Exchange. I love the idea behind this swap and have signed up to participate again in March. Plus, I started my own flickr photo set for the images that I both send and receive as a part of the exchange. The theme for February was Morning Ritual.