Oh no, Ohno!

You asked for it, Gretchen. There! That oughta hold you. (You wish.)

Between the Folds

Gretchen turned me on to Between the Folds, a fascinating study of the science of origami. She had Tivoed it but I found it on Netflix. Steve worked late last night so I had a lovely Stefani Evening of watching this video while eating dinner, then stitching.

I've seen a lot of photographs of very intricate origami because I'm fascinated by it. But I guess I never gave much thought to how it was created. It was so beyond what my mind could imagine, I didn't try. I never realized that wet folding is how such soft shapes are made. And I really never imagined that a lot of these shapes are drawn and mapped out before folding.

I highly recommend this video - and I thank you, Gretchen, for telling me about it. It's brilliant!

And here's something similar to what you'll see in the documentary. I love this!

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

Grocery Groove

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I think I've found a way to spice up my grocery shopping trips!

Diane Rivers

I'd like to introduce you to my talented friend, Diane Rivers, who builds creative birdhouses and angels from recycled pieces of lumber and found objects. It's my favorite kind of art - creative and functional. Diane builds the birdhouses to the specs of specific types of birds so these can be mounted outdoors. But I suspect lots of people use them as decoration inside their homes.

The angels are made from chair spindles!

While I have not yet been to her adorable shop in Wallace, NY, I have seen Diane's work in person because her husband used to work with us at my day job. Doug used to sell some of Diane's work to our employees. Before these one-of-a-kind birdhouses and spindle angels, she used to sell flowers. My dad still talks about the black (dark, dark purple) irises he had me buy from Doug for him years ago.

I thought I had written about Diane before so I had to look it up. Check out the look of her shop back in 2007.

She is very talented and has been doing a bang-up job lately getting the word out about her work, like this excellent blog entry by Kay Thomas. Kay is a far better writer than I, so I'll let her tell you Diane's story. (I bookmarked Kay's blog for future reference - she writes about the beautiful Finger Lakes region and some of the interesting people she has met.)

Diane's work can be found online here: 100Birdhouses.com.

CraftEdu.com

My Facebook friend, Donna Kato, invited me to become a fan of CraftEdu, which led me to the website here. Go watch the presentation of work by the teachers - it's breathtaking!

Donna has a blog about how this got started here.

Donna doesn't really know me - she invited all her Facebook friends. She is an internationally known polymer clay artist. I used to watch her on the old Carol Duvall show. She makes very artsy (as opposed to cutesy) clay pieces that sometimes don't even look like clay. Did you know you can polish polymer clay to look like jade or marble, for instance? She's amazing.

Speaking of Carol Duvall, the other day I received an email from Ankara Designs, which is Ann and Karen Mitchell, two more very talented polymer clay artists. They were asking for support for a new web show with Carol Duvall. They said the show has financial backers who are interested in how many people would watch something like this.

The website doesn't seem to be up yet but I did send an email to that yahoo address. I think these web shows are absolutely the wave of the future. I love my Tivo - but these you can watch any time, any where you have an Internet connection - on your lunch hour at work, on your iPod, in your studio while working.

This is why I love the Internet - such a great way to connect with like-minded people!

Scrabble Bulletin Board

I think thisScrabble Bulletin Board I saw at ReadyMade is very cool, but I know it would bug me after it got lots of pin holes in it and started looking kind of grubby. Clever idea though!

Mini LP Gift Tags from Paul Overton on Vimeo.

I spent some time today watch Paul Overton videos - check out his Dudecraft site.

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I also spent some time this weekend rearranging some blog subscriptions. I periodically go through and purge a bunch or subscribe to too many new ones, depending on what time of year it is and how busy I am. Then I thought I got smart and had all my subscription notifications go to a gmail account I set up. But then I found I didn't get over there often enough was getting behind in the blogs of my friends, the people I want to keep up with. So now I have more of them come to my regular email address. I have all kinds of filters and rules set up for each mailbox so hopefully it won't get out of control. Ha! I crack me up.

I tried to go about the above rearranging in an organized fashion but I hope I didn't miss anyone. Oy, there's Feedblitz, Feedburner, ChangeDetection.com. And I use Bloglines to keep track of lots of marginal blogs I think I'll want to find again. What I'd really like is to make a living reading blogs. Anybody know where I can apply for that job??

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I look forward to January 1 so much because it always feels like such a clean slate, fresh start kind of thing. I usually start feeling January 1-ish the day after Christmas. When we put Wilma's shelves up in the pet room (what most people use for a dining room), they displaced some other wooden shelves that belonged to my parents and are possibly older than I am. I ended up putting them in my studio, which required some rearranging. I threw out a bunch of stuff and found more stuff to Freecycle at work.

I still have more paperwork to get through. I should have been doing that but the purging and rearranging was so much more fun! There's always next weekend. Steve and I always say we love New Year's Day because it's like a free day off with no obligations. We usually don't even stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve - then there's that fresh start January 1 thing we love.

FunkyTown

Hey look, everybody - I'm funky!

Little Angel

Hand Stitched Angel Christmas Card, $4.50.

Sorry folks, I had to change the blog comments to require word verification. I've been getting 1-2 spam comments per day lately. Boo-hiss.

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I follow Yoko on Twitter - and was led to this on her Imagine Peace website. Cool!

(I always find ages interesting: Yoko is 76, Olivia is 61 and Barbara is 62 and has been married to Ringo for 28 years.)

Yoko Ono, widow of Beatle John Lennon, Olivia Harrison, widow of Beatle George Harrison and Barbara Starkey, wife of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, introduce designer Stella McCartney, daughter of Beatle Paul McCartney, as one of Glamour magazine’s 2009 Women of the Year at an awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York, Monday, Nov. 9, 2009.

Wearing a purple mini-dress she designed herself, the mother-of-three was honored for her fashion label and her commitment to animal rights.

The 38-year-old was stunned when the widows and wife of her father Sir Paul McCartney’s Beatles bandmates came on stage to present her with the award.

All three of us came together with a deep feeling of love and joy for Stella’s accomplishment. Stella is family. I remember her from when she was a baby. Never thought that this baby would grow into such a magical person. Her creativity shows her free soul. And with that, she is giving a lot to the world. I love her. All three of us do. It was a very sweet day for us. yoko

November 12, 13, 14

Not Your Usual Craft Sale

Brighton Town Park, Carmen Clark Lodge

777 Westfall Road, Rochester, NY 14620

Regretsy

I think Regretsy's tag line says it all:

Handmade? It looks like you made it with your feet.

And just like that hilarious People of Walmart site, the captions and comments make the photos even better. (Just now, I popped over to People of Walmart, skimmed a few entries to see what's new and I'm in tears laughing. At my desk on my lunch hour. Praying no one wanders by to witness this.)

This gorgeous paper clip necklace sold! At $5, it was such a good deal. (Note that sweater above is $198.)

"I'm sorry, I don't think it's funny to ridicule things that take so much time and effort to create. Do you know how long it took her to find just the right paper clip? And THEN she had to put a piece of thread through it!"

I clicked through to the real Etsy shops on some of the items and I'm happy to say that most of the people haven't sold much.

There's been some rumbling from time to time about some items of low quality on Etsy but I've never really seen any. Until now. Whoa.

Now I understand the appeal of 1000 Markets, which juries their sellers.

Common-Law Marriage

Brenda mentioned common-law marriage after yesterday's post where I mentioned forgetting that I'm not married to Steve. I had looked it up a few years ago out of curiosity but I looked it up again yesterday, to see if I was remembering accurately. New York does not recognize common-law marriage for it's citizens but does recognize common-law marriages from other states that do.

It's the criteria that I found so interesting.

1. Ascertain if the state/country you are living in recognizes common-law marriages. Only a few states plus the District of Columbia recognize common-law marriages.

   Currently, common-law marriages are recognized by: Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington, D.C.

2. Generally, there are four requirements for a valid common-law marriage. Just living together isn't enough to validate a common-law marriage.
3. Requirement One:
   You must live together.
4. Requirement Two:
   You must present yourselves to others as a married couple. Some ways of doing this are by using the same last name, referring to one another as husband or wife, and filing a joint tax return.
5. Requirement Three:
   Although the time frame is not defined, you have to be together for a significant period of time.
6. Requirement Four:
   You must intend to be married.

Steve and I have Requirements 1 and 3 knocked out, assuming 16 years is considered significant. Oh wait, we've been together 16 years, only living together for 9. Since Requirement 3 is so vague, not sure about that one.

But my big question is - if you can satisfy all of those requirements, especially #4, why not just get married? (Or does #4 mean both parties have to want the common law marriage so someone isn't in the marriage against their will?)

I told Steve about the company I work for not recognizing significant others - his company does, and it's a major corporation. So I've decided to go all Norma Rae on this and do a little research and depending on what I find, write a suggestion that the company review their policy, citing the research. It's really not about my two bereavement days at all - I honestly feel it's the principle here. This is obviously a hot topic these days with gay couples so I'm sure I'll find lots to read. Interesting stuff, these changing times.

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Steve and I set up my craft show booth last night - just the big stuff. I'll go there early this morning to set up my product. To me, the show looks much bigger than last time. Some vendors are hinky about doing a first-time show. Me, I like getting in the ground floor of something and I had a feeling this was going to be a well-run terrific show. I'm in a different spot which is unusual; most times a vendor is given their same spot again unless they ask to be changed. But I think the layout is totally different - and one could make the argument that changing the location of vendors can add interest to the show. I like my new spot just as well - I think it's going to be a good show. I'm very excited - doing a repeat indoor show feels like I've come home to the mother ship!

I just counted - there are 86 vendors. I'd have to pull my paperwork from last year but I bet there were 50ish last year. There are a good number of out of town vendors too - so you'll see stuff you've never seen before. I love that.

And off I go! Please stop by and say hi if you're in the area.

Saturday, October 17, 10:00-6:00

Sunday, October 18, 10:00-5:00

Junior League of Rochester Holiday Market

The Fair & Expo Center, 2695 East Henrietta Road, Rochester, NY 14467

Yearbook Yourself

Do not click on Yearbook Yourself if you have important things to do, like prepare for a major craft show. And in case you want to waste time wherever you go, there's an app for that.


This is my 1952 lesbian look.


1962 - Homecoming Queen

1964 - Rockin' the teased hair with a half gallon of Aquanet.

1966 - Ohhhh Rob!


1970 - Channeling my inner black activist.

1978 - This is the year I graduated high school with Gretchen.

1982 - Hey Charlie - have you seen the other angels?

1988 - Marian the librarian. Shhhhh!

1992 - In case I ever wondered what I would look like with long nails. I haven't.

1996 - I should be so lucky to have hair this thick!

2000 - Wow, she's hot!

Pimp Your Laptop

Makes me wish I had a Mac. See this (only $14) and more from Vinylville.

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Now that we've finished watching all 7 seasons of 24 courtesy of Netflix, we're watching Season 2 of Dexter. We must have caught Season 1 on some other channel last year because we've never had Showtime. I said to Steve this one of those shows that if you read the premise on paper, you would never imagine how it could work. But it does.

They also have one of the best openings, right up there with Mad Men.

And can I please tell you how happy we are that Sons of Anarchy has started their new season?? I'm so glad that TV seasons are all over the place these days, not strictly Sept - May like they used to be in the old days.

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The NYS auditor is gone for a few days. It's pretty painful in that she's very young and I have the feeling she's going "by the book" in requesting lots of information, rather than just random samples that the seasoned pros request. Yesterday was so incredibly boring I was actually feeling depressed by the end of the day. Auditor overload I guess. And it's only been two days.

But today is Friday, which can't help but be a good day.

And I've been on fire with new designs. I'll have two new cards to post this weekend - going to get them into my Esty shop first. I have to finish setting up one in the Groove - just did the test stitch of a quarter of the design last night. Hope to get that done before work this morning so I can stitch it up on my lunch hour.

Life is good. (Except for the auditor parts.) :-)

Yulia Brodskaya

See more of Yulia Brodskaya's outstanding work here. Blows my mind!

I found her through a new-to-me-blog, Epheriell Designs.

The always lovely and talented Willa sent me the link to the quilling - thank you so much, Willa!!

On the way home from the craft show Saturday, I stopped at DiBella's to pick up subs for dinner. When I came out of the restaurant, there was a red Prius parked right next to my red Prius. I laughed out loud. If the person who parked their car next to mine did that to make me smile, it worked! I almost put a note on their car, "Thanks for the smile!". Wish I had.

I was thinking the other day that next month, Gretchen and I will have had our Priuses 1 year. That seems weird to me because off the top of my head, it feels like it's been 4 months or so. It's still my 'new car'.

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I did something shocking this past weekend. I did not buy Springsteen tickets for his November show in Buffalo (an hour away). I decided it was not meant to be because:

1. Tickets went on sale while I was at the craft show.
2. The show is on a Sunday night.
3. The show is on a night where I will have done a 3-day craft show until 5:00 that day.
4. Expensive tickets are not in my budget right now.

Still. Bummer! I've been listening to Magic in my car a lot lately to make up for it. :-(

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Here's a word you haven't heard me mention in a while: auditor. We start a New York Sales Tax audit this morning. We were audited by the state a few years ago so of course that puts you on their watch list for a while. Last time was fairly painless. The guy came to the office every once in a while to review stuff but so much can be done electronically, it's not the process it once was.

We're still undergoing the Illinois sales tax audit but that guy hasn't been around for a while.

Welcome to one of the least fulfilling parts of my job.

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Let's end on a happy note, though. This is one of the numerous pieces I stitched at the craft show last Saturday.

People of Walmart

I found this site on Dara's Facebook page. This is what our civilization has come to - cell phone surveillance. With really funny captions. Oh man.

Here's what I don't get. This is on the page where you submit photos.

Any picture submitted must have the full consent of the person(s) in the picture and the person(s) must be over the age of 18. This includes both single persons and groups.

Can you say legal disclaimer? I don't believe for a second that any one of those people consented.

It's a lot of pictures of mullets and short-shorts - and here's one wacky product I saw.

Kerry Bogert, Glass Artist

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Watch Me Create is a collaborative blog by 15 diverse artists. I've only been reading it for a few weeks, but today's entry really caught my eye when I read the artist is from my area. Kerry Bogert is a talented glass artist, jewelry designer and teacher.

You knew I'd have to pick the lime green necklace to share! This piece is sold, but you can see more of her work at her shop, KAB's Creative Concepts.

I really love these 5" x 7" mixed media pieces, suitable for framing or displaying however you want.

Kerry's blog is definitely one I'm now following. I left a comment on one of her entries, introducing myself, saying I hope we get to meet in person some day.

I've always said if I didn't work in paper, I could see myself working in glass. I love it in all forms - lampworking, mosaics, fused. I guess the two mediums are pretty similar, really.

Come visit me at the first ever Riesling Festival in Canandaigua. Should be lots of fun!

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Scrap Lights

. From Graypants, these gorgeous lamps are made entirely from strips of repurposed cardboard boxes. Each is handmade and requires a 4-6 week lead time when ordering. Prices run from $219 to $479. They are made in accordance with UL regulations for indoor use and include a 40 watt clear lightbulb.

From their website:

seth and jonathan first crossed paths at kent state university in cleveland, honing abilities to endure long winters and earning degrees in architecture + design. now, eight years of collaboration and spirited adventure has landed them in seattle, where graypants, inc. was forged from a desire to make a difference through design. it’s also here that their great friend jon joined the team, bringing a fresh energetic spark and experience from north carolina and seattle.

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

we strive to come up with designs and ideas that are thoughtful and have an impact, whether it be furniture, lighting, architecture or graphics. each one of our projects has a unique story and we try to explore new ideas to redefine how design can have a greater impact. most importantly, we have fun doing it! we enjoy collaborating with all walks of life – that is where we find true inspiration. we want to let the beauty of what we love be what we do.

New Letterpress Equipment

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I love the look of letterpressed paper. I used to follow a blog of a young woman who was given a free old letterpress machine - she just had to move it to her home. It was the size of a piano!

Now Lifestyle Crafts, a division of QuicKutz, offers a small home version. The website says it will be in stores this fall. I didn't see any pricing. I honestly don't have any desire to buy this, but I think it's really cool. (Never say never, right?) Seems like such a natural extension of the die cut machines, doesn't it?

Yay! YouTube comes through again.

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Before, After & Escape

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I show so many works-in-progress, I decided I need to show some finished products. This is a 3" x 3" Sticky Note pad.

This is what it looked like yesterday, you may recall.

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I highly recommend Pam Slim's Escape from Cubicle Nation always, but if you have some time, read this account of a young man following his dream.

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Baby Hugging 101

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Take a Hike

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I absolutely love my Urban Dictionary daily emails. (Thanks for turning me on to that years ago, Gretchen!)

It's weird though - some are such well-known phrases to me, I'm surprised to see them there. They must be there to school the youngsters. Like this one:

Drop a Dime

To snitch on someone. Often, to save their own ass. Comes from the old cost for a payphone call, ten cents.

"John got popped, so he dropped a dime on his supplier and they let him go."


Others are as timeless as today's headlines:

Hiking in Appalachia

To have an extramarital affair. Stems from the disappearance and subsequent reappearance of South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford(R). Gov Sanford was thought to be hiking in Appalachia. In actuality, he was having an affair in the South American country of Argentina.

"Girl, I just saw Susie's man hiking in Appalachia."

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