Under The Red Roof

The Perfect Red!

I think this is pretty much the perfect red. I'm calling it Crimson. Candy Apple Red or Cranberry might also be appropriate names, but I'll stick with Crimson. I think I'm going to try coming up with a lime green tonight. I haven't done any dying in a few days. I'm in the mood. If you can think of any colors you'd like to see, please let me know. I probably should do some brown/rust/gold type colors and some other shades of green. Please tell me if you have any ideas. It's hard to describe how much I love this ribbon. Why, oh why can't they make ribbon like this anymore??? I love the way it flows. I love watching it get more and more beautiful each time I pull it under the iron. Oh, the lusciousness of vintage silk.

I also did one more glitter frame. I'll list it and this ribbon in my etsy shop. Hopefully, I'll have more ribbon colors to show in the next few days.

The Hand Dyed Vintage Silk Ribbon

I didn't expect to get this done so quickly. I've got lots more colors to experiment with, but I'm currently adding what I've already done to my etsy shop. I think I've got 8 or 9 colors. Lots of different shades of pink. I'll be doing a bit more dying in the next several days. See if I can come out with a really good red!

A Little Valentine Love

Well, I felt like making those little 4x6 signs I made for Halloween and was planning to make for Christmas. Didn't feel as much like making them around Christmas and got so bogged down with other things. So, here are four different 4x6 Valentine signs I will put in my etsy shop. I also have one more glittered frame but I've apparently forgotten to photograph it so I will try to do that later today.

I had lots of fun with the ribbon hangers for these signs. It's the most fabulous vintage silk ribbon that I have in hanks with the sizing still in it. I rinsed out the sizing which gave me gorgeous, vintage cream, pure silk ribbon. Then I started dying it. Then I started stamping it. FUN. You will see some dyed ribbon on the aqua Valentine sign. It's a very pretty deep turquoise. I've also dyed some ribbon in other shades. I think I will put some of it in my etsy shop as well. I've never seen anything like it. I'd say the ribbon is 40 to 50 years old, but it's untouched. Just hanging in a factory for all those years. It couldn't be dyed by the American factory because it was purchased from Europe in 100 yard hanks. The machinery in this factory required much longer yardage in order to run it through the machine that dyed their ribbon. So this was not usable for them. Unlike the modern silk ribbon I'm familiar with, this ribbon has a woven edge. It is so luxurious and totally one of a kind. They simply do not make ribbon like this anymore. I'm trying to figure out how to price it. There is absolutely nothing out there to compare it to. I'll figure it out and I promise to make it affordable. I might sell bits of the hand painted & stamped ribbon as well. We'll see. It's very time-consuming, but the results are stunning. I'll have more news on the ribbon in the next few days.

I've updated my etsy shop

However, this particular frame is already sold. It's the only picture I haven't already shown on my blog. Sorry. There are three more glittered frames and a few collages. Thanks to those of you who have purchased the things I make. I still have a hard time believing it, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it and how good it makes me feel to know that there are actually people who like what I do.

Click & Ship!!

I've never been able to use USPS's Click & Ship service presumably because of dial-up. Well, the other day I thought, "Hey! I need to go see if I can do Click & Ship." Absolutely! Lickity-split. Done deal. Wow, talk about easy. I love technology. I've also been enjoying youtube (now I actually know how to spell it). Particularly, old Carol Burnett Show skits. I've watched some Eunice skits and my all time favorite "Went With The Wind." When Carol comes down those stairs with that curtain rod across her shoulders, I laugh til tears come no matter how many times I've seen it. It's pure genius. Did Bob Mackie know what he was doing or what??

I embellished one more frame today. I think that makes 5 total. I'll list them on etsy tomorrow. I'm showing some snippets of today's frame. No light for a good photo of the entire piece. I'll take one tomorrow. I'm also thinking I might make up more packs of the Vintage Christmas Wallpaper Packs as there is only one left I believe. It's a pack with nice variety and a total of 16 sheets. It's a good pack. I'll let you know if I decide to make more. I'll take "Christmas" out of the name ;). Thanks to all of you who have purchased the all flocked packs. There's something special about that flocked paper.

Probably Better Update

Well, I'm tired. I wish I could have accomplished this earlier in the day. I've had a busy week and I've been pulled by the book I'm reading. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood if you've never read it. Great read. It's based on a couple of murders that took place in, I believe, 1843. Atwood is an excellent writer with a sharp and intelligent wit. When reading a book written in a particular dialect, I always find myself constructing my thoughts in that dialect. It's bazaar. All my thoughts are in the language of the book I'm reading. That is, if it has a specific dialect. If I'm reading Ayn Rand, I have million dollar words in the sentences of all my thoughts. If I'm reading Roots, my thoughts sound like Chicken George. Atwood's book is making me think in the language of Grace Marks, the main character, who speaks in a very proper 19th century vernacular. My penchant for doing this borders on annoying, but it's some sort of obsession. I cannot help it.

I managed to finish one frame today. I have two more to embellish then I will list them in my etsy shop. This one is inspired by the extraordinary Donna O'Brien. I love the way she mixes gold and silver. She is one of my all time favorite artists! Very inspiring and sweet as well.

The little bouquet on the bottom left is made of sterling silver wired vintage mercury glass beads. A couple are quite rare and of interesting shapes. It also has a few vintage velvet millinery flowers and a vintage gold foil flower. Pretty cool though hard to see.

I also finally finished cutting the wallpaper for my new "All Flocked" packs. I will go list them in my etsy shop as soon as I finish this blog post. Some cool papers in this pack. It contains 11 different patterns. Most are around 10x10. One a bit larger and two a bit smaller. The gold one on top is fabric backed and it also contains the oldest flocked paper I've ever run across. I believe it's from the 1940s. It's not vinyl as are most flocked papers. It's all paper with the most beautiful flocking. You will be able to see which one I'm talking about as soon as you go through the papers. Very pretty with a light, slightly pink-tinted, taupe background and creamy flocking.

WiFi Heaven With a Bit of Glitter on the Side

Well, it finally happened. I finally reached the company I wanted to reach in order to enjoy HIGH SPEED INTERNET! I won't go through the whole boring story as to why it took so long, Christmas got in the way too, but it's all done! I can watch u-tube. I can download any digital scrapbooking kit on this wide internet in no time and I'm about to find out how much faster I can upload a photo. For a long time high speed internet, out in the boon docks, just wasn't affordable. I'm not really sure when it became affordable, but I only recently realized it was. What we have is not satellite. It's WiFi. Sorta like a HUGE wireless router let loose in the world. It's faster than DSL, but not faster than fiber optics (cable). I guess the day will come when everything is wireless and the best technology will be available to everyone no matter where they live. Wow. Luke has been on the computer almost 100% of the time since it was installed of course, but I have opened a couple of blogs. I purposefully went to a blog with lots of photos and lots of posts on one page. With dial-up, I had to open the blog and go away for a bit to wait for it to load. Then it would only load to a certain point leaving the majority of photos as red x's. If I really wanted to see the photo I had to right click and choose "show picture" then wait for it to load. See why I've never really been able to blog hop?? Now, I go to a heavily loaded blog and there is no wait time. The entire thing just pops up. Every picture all the way to the bottom of the page. It's unbelievable.

I've finished glittering all my frames and I only need to embellish 3 more to have the entire project complete. I have also been cutting wallpaper for flocked only packs. I am hoping to have them up tomorrow. I can't remember if I've already blogged about this. Anyway, the packs will have 8 or 9 all new patterns in them and about 4 patterns that have been in previous packs. I have one pattern that will forever be in my wallpaper packs because I started off with 5 double rolls! Here is a look at another of the glitter frames. Hopefully, I'll be back tomorrow.

OMG. I had to stick around and tell you how shocked I am at how fast this loaded! I'm talking seconds. Like maybe 5 or 6 seconds!!!! It's not even resized. I'm giddy.

What I've Been Working On & Another VERY Cool Gift

I've been working on a small group of glittered frames to list in my etsy shop. I have no idea when I'll have them all complete, but I'll let you know. I've been moving a bit slow lately because I've come down with a bladder infection. I HATE them. I started with the symptoms last Thursday or so. I began slamming down cranberry juice and popping Uristat in hopes I could stave it off. Sometimes I can flush 'em right out, but not this time. I had to go to the doctor yesterday for an antibiotic. I'm hoping I'll awaken tomorrow feeling considerably better. Anyway, here's a picture of two of the frames I've finished. The photos are just for sample purposes or you could leave them if you like. They are 4x6. I'll be making four more of these frames and each one will be a bit different.

I'm also in the middle of cutting a bunch of vintage flocked wallpaper to put together some all flocked packs containing papers I've never sold before. I'm about half way on that endeavor so I'll keep you posted.

Now, I want to share a most fabulous Christmas gift I received. I've been a member of an MSN group for several years now. We all met on the stamping board at Two Peas in a Bucket. I don't think any of of us post over there any more and probably no longer know anyone who does, but back in the good ole' days everybody knew everybody just like a small town. It was fun and some great, long term friendships were made. Anyway, every year we do a Secret Sister swap at Christmas. This year Carolyn Schinstock sent to me. She sent lots of fun scrapbook supplies. Love those Cosmo Cricket chipboard letters. The box also contains lots of cool shapes. Love it all, but the handmade item she made brought tears to my eyes. It's so fabulous. Beautifully constructed using Basic Grey my all time favorite. I can't wait to add photos of our family Christmas this year. I will treasure it forever. I know you all know how special handmade gifts are. I can look at this piece and see all the labor that went into it and I know it was a labor of love. Each of us labors in what we do out of love. Love for our craft and love for the process of giving. That's why we all sign up to work our butts off on swaps. We push ourselves to be better at our craft and we get the reward of sharing our labors with others. Others who will treasure and appreciate all the love that went into it.

Carolyn I hope I've in some way conveyed to you how much this album means to me. Thank you so very much. I shall always treasure it just as I treasure all the friendships in our little group. It's a great group. Comfortable and familiar where understanding abounds and friendship is the cornerstone.

Happy New Year to everyone out there in blogland!!!