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I bought a book at the Goodwill several weeks ago that was filled with the greatest black and white images along with a history or musical theatre. The images were the perfect size for dominos. I love how the black and white looks with the color scrapbook paper behind them. This time I also tried placing one large bead at the top of the pendant instead of the dangles I had been using. The wire fed easily through these as the hole was large enough.
I really like how they came out and plan to make more using the images in this book along with the single bead technique.
Since they are performing in the pictures they are a lot more expressive and grander in their gestures. I really like these images.
I hope your week started well and is off to a great start.
He has the most awesome and pure voice I have ever heard.
Enjoy!
Warning in advance, she says a bad word a few times, but her facial expressions are what makes me laugh out loud about this video.
Be careful what you ask a 3 year old. She might just be honest!
I hope most of you remember Flip Wilson and his character, Geraldine. Her catch phrase was “the Devil made me do it!” Whenever she did something bad she always blamed the Devil for it.
This is not the Geraldine I want to share with you. My Geraldine was a Holstein cow that we purchased when she was a calf and raised to adulthood on our farm when I was a little girl. I think she might have been named after Flip’s character as we loved his show and watched it as a family.
We had a lot of calamity when we first brought her home as a calf. She had a funny kind of moo that sounded a bit like Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…Moooooo… At first, since we were a bit little and Geraldine a bit rambunctious, Mom used to feed her in the morning from her bottle. Her bottle looked like a half gallon milk bottle with a very large nipple on it. She would suck and pull so hard on it that it would throw you back a few steps each time she thrust.
Mom would head out to the barn in her blue parka with the furry hood and when Geraldine spotted her she would start with her Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…Moooooo… until Mom placed the bottle in her mouth to shut her up feed her. We christened Mom from that point forward, The Big MaaMoo!
Geraldine got out of the barn from time to time and was known to chew things. She chewed the clothes on our clothesline and then went once across the street to chew the neighbors, too. That was a case of not making good neighbors as we had to replace some undershirts she turned into Swiss cheese. Undershirts were her particularly favorite snack of choice.
Our neighbors had a party once and they purchased a keg of beer. Mom thought that after it went flat it might be good to give the remainder, a bucket’s worth, to Geraldine. Well, I guess even flat beer has some alcohol in it as Geraldine got plowed! She staggered around the yard for quite a while before passing out in her stall later that day. I never heard a cow snore, but snore she did and mightily, too!
As Josephine grew she developed a set of horns. I cannot recall the exact point I got scared of Geraldine, but I did. Geraldine seemed to sense this and thought she would have a bit of fun with me. She would wait until I was in her stall and then pin me in the corner. She was actually about 4-5 feet from me, but when you are a little girl and she is a full sized cow taller than you, you respect that she can cause you great bodily destruction. My brothers thought this was quite funny and when my parents were not home would create reasons for me to go into her pen and then leave me as I cried and screamed for them or anyone to save me from her. Sometimes this went on for quite a while.
She never hurt me, ever, but I was not taking any chances. Geraldine did have one calf, Bernard. He was a lovely little guy with the longest and thickest eyelashes I ever saw. He had the sweetest big brown eyes, too. Mom decided that Bernard would be raised as a veal calf. If you know anything about veal, they never get to grow up. You feed them a very thick and high fat milk mixture to fatten them quickly and 6-8 weeks later they are white packages in the freezer.
They say that when you live on a farm that you should never name the animals that you plan to eat. That way you never think of them as pets. Well, since I was the one responsible for feeding Bernard each morning, I had to give him a name. I couldn’t just call him nothing. So I christened him Bernard. Imagine my horror as I came home from school to learn that I no longer had to feed him in the morning! I was crushed he was gone, but happy that that morning chore was complete. Now Bernard was clean, white packages in the freezer.
I can honestly tell you that I never ate one bite. How could I possibly after staring into those big brown eyes every morning. I would scratch him between the ears after feeding him, he would follow me around and he was like my pet. I named him and I had to pay that price. So it was lots of meals with vegetables only for me.
Bernard, I am so sorry!
One of my favorite consignment shops to visit is The Butterfly at the corner of Libbie and Patterson in Richmond. My other favorite thing is Lotta Jansdotter. I love her minimal designs, the simplicity and how she translates these items into textiles and papers.
I like to buy her stationery from Anthropologie and her birdie post-its are a real fav of mine.
The only other tote I found of Lotta’s that I own was purchased from The Butterfly also. I decided I needed to Spring this one up a bit more and created the springy brooch that I placed on it. I cut strips of fabric about 6-8″ long at varying widths and then folded them in half and sewed and then gathered them. There are 3 layers in this one. I topped that with a vintage blue button and then placed a pin on the back to complete it. It is the right pop of spring for the tote.
First Crocus
by Christine Klocek-Lim
This morning, flowers cracked open
the earth’s brown shell. Spring
leaves spilled everywhere
though winter’s stern hand
could come down again at any moment
to break the delicate yolk
of a new bloom.
The crocus don’t see this as they chatter
beneath a cheerful petal of spring sky.
They ignore the air’s brisk arm
as they peer at their fresh stems, step
on the leftover fragments
of old leaves.
When the night wind twists them to pieces,
they will die like this: laughing,
tossing their brilliant heads
in the bitter air.
©2007, Christine Klocek-Lim
Can’t you see spring coming up all around us?
I knelt down and I thought I spied something among the flowers at the garden center. I had to move really fast as she was quick and was fast on her wings. She had a bit of an attitude about my finding her and then taking her picture. She was quite perturbed and told me she would be the laughingstock of the fairies in her neighborhood. Did I care? Was I concerned for her plight? No, I wanted proof for all of you that I saw her and caught her!
I created the flower using a small wooden spool, a vintage green pipe cleaner for the stem and leaves, 2 different sized yo-yos and a crochet scrumble with a vintage covered button in the middle.
The fairy is a picture of Jodie Foster I found in a magazine for the face, another image’s arms for hers. Her ensemble was made from scrapbook paper and the wings using vintage sheet music papers that were layered and the edge finished with ink. Her smart beret is a leftover yo-yo from this bird brooch project.
She stands 5.25″ high from spool to top of flower. Jodie is 2.5″ high. The spool at the base is 1.5″ high. I am contemplating what to make with her. I am leaning toward a captured fairy, but we shall see what happens as I often change my mind mid-stream.
I consulted my trusty English French on-line translator and it indicated the above title translates to thrift shop. Since I neither speak or read in French I must trust it. I often am concerned as I am thrifting and buy a piece of jewelry with another language on it. I want to research what it says. The person selling it tells me it is the Chinese symbol for happiness, but how can I be sure? Maybe it is the Chinese symbol for pig or a more vile word? I have no way to know.
I found this awesome Audubon book over the weekend with the greatest bird pictures in it. I was so thrilled to find a book with great bird images in it, that I didn’t realize until I got home it is a French book. How neat is that! It is full of the greatest images and French text.
This has to be among my greatest finds in thrift shopping. I have been searching for a great bird image book for almost a year and this is quite the score. There are photographic images and drawings of the birds, too.
It includes pictures of their nests and eggs also. As I was paying for it at the Goodwill the cashier made the comment, “wow, someone missed this one!” I asked her what she meant and she said, “we have a lot of people in here looking for bird books and they missed this one!” I am thrilled that they missed it and that I was lucky enough to persevere to find it. I have been on such a bird kick lately and this certainly feeds into that passion. I can hardly wait to start {gasp} cutting into it. I can hear the book purists sobbing, but it is not an old or vintage book, no chance it is worth some real money. Just a great find filled with great images.
I also found this 1982 Art Calendar at the same Goodwill. It is artworks created by mouth painters. It, too has some great images by some very talented artists.
So it was a great weekend at the Magasin de Seconde Main. It is times like this that I get really excited and thank my Mom for my great eye and nose for sniffing out the treasures. I also think it involves my tenacity in that I might make 3-4 laps of the books before I give up.
Here’s hoping you find a treasure, too!
Have a great rest of your week!
How else can you explain the colors of the holiday, the treats, the chocolate, craftiness (egg dyeing), and the association to flowers? I have been led to believe that the bunny is a boy, but I am now leaning toward the girl bunny thought. No, not the Playboy type, as scantily clad and Easter doesn’t fit at all.
I can see Mrs. E. Bunny doing all the preparation, coloring the eggs, decorating the candies, preparing the baskets, and the like. Then she passes it along to Mr. E. Bunny to make the deliveries and handle the manual labor. He is just the muscle, the brawn, the method to make the deliveries. That is the E. Bunny vision that I can live with.
My E. Bunny came in the person of Karen. She was my second partner for the Easter Bunny’s Chicks Swap. Look at the goodness she put together for me. I received some handmade cards, wallpaper pieces, candy, flower seeds, millinery flowers, stickers, a frame, and a fabric quotation for collage making, a pink bunny, and a vintage green container to hold it all. She had it wrapped very prettily in some white tulle and tied with some pink ball fringe and a pink satin bow.
Thanks, Karen, I love it! Now off to eat my candies that Mrs. E. Bunny surely created.
I have signed up for another swap, Roxi’s Not Too Shabby Summer Swap. 
Here are the details:
1. Create a ‘Summer Themed’ item for the swap valued at $10.00. (All styles are welcome—vintage-inspired, shabby chic, primative, etc. All items also welcome—soap, jewelry, accessories, paper products, etc.)
2. Gift wrap the item as pretty as you like! (we all love to open pretty presents),
3. We will accept entries until May 15th, 2008,
4. Names will be assigned to participants by May 20th, 2008 (shh, don’t tell who you got!),
5. Packages should be mailed by you no later than May 26th, 2008 (in order for packages to arrive to each participant by June 1st.)
Here he is shakin’ what his candy gave him! Enjoy and Happy Easter!
Enjoy!
Cindy Is Crafty...and she makes things, too! 