Revamping the Studio!

Spontaneous Combustion Batt 5.6 ounces! This is the one batt I didn't sell at the Festival

So I spun it up myself and will share some pics of it in tomorrow's post.

I realize I haven't blogged in a while and I promise to rectify that shortly. When I first started my blog I had envisioned writing daily posts and then it dwindled down to weekly posts, and now sadly I am lucky to post once a month.

Well, I am making a commitment that I will blog everyday from here on out. You are my witnesses, and I expect you to hold me to it and call me out if I fail to follow thru! It is a wonderful thing to be able to share the projects and accomplishments of the day, as well as brainstorming sessions, new projects and patterns, dreams and goals for future endeavors with all of you. Currently I am reorganizing my Studio to fit all of my new Vintage Fabrics and supplies as well as to set up a fiber prep station for carding my batts and storing my raw and dyed fibers. I will share some pics of the new set-up tomorrow.

I am extremely excited to be starting 2 new business ventures this month. My Michigan Spinning store is up and running on Etsy and soon will also be accessible at www.michiganspinning.com and I just opened a vintage inspired shop on Etsy called Sew Simply Vintage where I will be selling handmade aprons, household linens, baby linens and various other vintage and vintage inspired items.

My Star Box Shop is still going strong and will now be devoted to handcarved stamps and paper crafts only. I will be submitting some new stamp designs to The Spotted Box sampler box for July so be sure to check it out!

On the fiber front, I will be a contributor to July's Phat Fiber Sampler box as well. I am ecstatic over that and hope to send in enough samples to get a sampler box of my very own! We'll see if I can manage 50 samples this month. Expect to see samples from Michigan Spinning frequently in the Phat Fiber Sampler Box as I am determined to join in every month.

My first Fiber Festival event was on Saturday June 12th and went over pretty well. My cousin joined me, and I am thankful she did because I was not 100% ready for the event and my booth would have been a pitiful display without her. I did sell what I had, but I wish I was able to accomplish more in time for the show. The small success has encouraged me though, and my next show will be very well stocked. I spun up 4 skeins of yarn from Saturday to Monday and I am currently knitting with one, and the other 3 are going up for sale on the Michigan Spinning Etsy shop, so check them out.

On the home front, the family and I went out to pick strawberries at a local farm yesterday and so now I have 9 quarts of strawberries in my kitchen just waiting to become freezer jam, strawberry syrup, shortcake topping and maybe even a pie! It is way too hot, 90 degrees, to stoke up the stove today, so I am going to process all my strawberries bright and early tomorrow morning! I will definitely share some pics at the end of the day :)

Next post: Strawberries, New Studio Space, Carded Batts, Current Knitting projects, new yarns...............just for starters!

Organizing my Art Space the Martha Stewart Way!

In perusing my April 2008 Issue of Martha Stewart Living I found a beautiful solution to organizing my art space while reducing the clutter in my room. Believe it or not this is made from 2 bookcases connected with a piano hinge with one side on casters so it can swing open easily. WOW!

Since I don't want to buy any new bookcases, or even garage sale for some, I have decided to take the measurements of this piece and buy the lumber to make the bookcases myself (when I say myself, I really mean my dad will build it and I will assist). I figure this way, I can customize the placement of the shelves and make it to fit my particular items and needs.

I was really drawn to this project because of it's compact style and the pink on the inside. Pink is my favorite color, and I just could not stop looking at this photo spread. This is just gorgeous and I can't wait to make my own.

I told my mother that in order to make one for her office, we would have to build it twice as wide with bookcase doors that swing open from the center out to each side. My mother has has some serious craft supplies.

Right now this project is just in the dreaming phase. I hope to purchase the materials and make this piece before the summer is over. I will certainly post some pics of my completed Hidden Art Space once I am done.

If you are interested in making this yourself you can find a complete list of materials and directions here Martha Stewart Bookcase Office.

The Big Deck Project

A few weeks ago my dad tore down the old roof to his backyard deck with a plan to cut new rafters and redo everything. Well, my parents are very interested in the Caribbean since they took a trip to the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic many years ago, and they thought an ocean theme would be great in the backyard. I made the mistake of mentioning how great it would be to paint the rafters in an under the sea theme with all kinds of tropical and ocean fish and sea shells etc. My mother's exact response to my suggestion was "that's a great idea, why don't you do that". So it was decided that I would paint the rafters and I was told that I had 1 week to paint them all so that my dad could put the roof back up over the next weekend. Suffice it to say I spent the next 5 days painting morning til night. I couldn't wait to see the end of painting all those fish, imagine my chagrin on day 3 when I realized that I had to paint both sides.
Luckily, my parents decided that 3 of the rafters could be painted to look like sand and we could put dried starfish and sand dollars on it along with some sea shells to break up the monotony of all the fish and add some interesting 3 dimensional elements. I was quite relieved because until that moment I hadn't been sure that I could complete this project in just 5 days. With this change I was able to finish by the weekend, but..........
......... let's fast forward about 3 weeks and the roof is finally going up today. We still have to order the starfish and sand dollars that will go on all the sand painted boards, but the rest of them are complete and have been put back in place above the deck.

I will post some pics when it is all done so you can see the finished project. They are going to totally repaint the deck and add a Palm Beach Ceiling fan in the center over the table and chairs.

I couldn't help but mention how nice it would be if they had a painted Mural on the side of the house so that it looked like they were on the land end of a long dock stretching out over the blue greens of the ocean with a sunset on the horizon...................I need to be careful what I say or I could spend my whole summer painting the house:)