AJAX BELL

Author of the Queen City Boys books

Tag Archives: baubles


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what if I just stayed asleep for the rest of the week?

Today got off to a rocking start. I had a long, detailed dream that I was held hostage for many days. I managed to escape my captors long enough to call 911 several times but the cops never came. Eventually I was rescued, but still I woke up sobbing. Yes, indeed, my brain, as I’ve said before, is not always subtle. Bleh.

Shook it off, got overwhelmed by everything I need to do today, started reading political blogs (bad me! bad bad bad!) Went to coffee with Miss Sparkle. Then I sat down to make a plan and here I am telling you about how I am not doing as much work as I could be.  Really, I am only telling you all in an effort to shame myself into working.

Living room: still filled with boxes. It’s like my brain shuts down every time I think I am going to go through them.

Jewelry/crafts: need to finish projects, get stuff online and get stuff ready for sale. Need to clean up craft area so can begin sewing. Status: just fucking shoot me. I swear I’ll get on this tomorrow. In the meantime, examples of some of the news stuff is slowly going up over here. I still can’t figure out how to photograph stuff so it looks as good online as it does in real life.

Websites/media empire development: AAAAAUUUUUUUUGH!!! Need to list an prioritize stuff. Really, really, really need to prioritize. Am getting freakily overwhelmed.

Personal life: non-existent, unless you count watching Gossip Girl with Ladybug.


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the news is blues unless the news is new shoes

Saturday I read political blogs all day. ALL DAY. Shockingly I did not suffer an aneurysm. However I do have much much much less faith in the human population than I did before.

Sunday I read sewing blogs all day. Now I want to cut up everything I own and sew it into something else. The only thing that is stopping me is that I need to spend an hour finishing and cleaning up all my other craft projects in order to set up the sewing machine.

Of course I spent much of both days watching seasons 2 – 4 of Scrubs with Ladybug. We really do lead the most interesting lives. Now I am supposed to be coding (I was until I started writing this) and Ladybug is actually cleaning the house and being productive. We did, maybe go shoe shopping yesterday. In honor of that, here are the new shoes I’ve I acquired in recent weeks:

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Ladybug and I both admit that we have shoe problems, we buy many and hoard them. In an attempt to end that, we both cleaned out our closets yesterday of shoes that were worn out, fit poorly or simply weren’t going to be worn again. Here are the shoes we are getting rid of:

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Yes, that is a laundry basket each (and how amusing are the DSW bags in the background?)! No, I don’t know yet what we are going to with them. I wish I knew someone we could give them to to make art out of or something.

I’ve been thinking about ti for a while, but after seeing the shoe madness here, I’ve been much more seriously taking a three month non-consumerism pledge. Which is to say purchasing nothing beyond what I need for survival food etc) for 3 months. If I want new clothes I have to make them, etc… And of course I can make gifts etc, as that is clearly possible from the massive of amounts of craft supplies I have stashed around the house. Still it is a big decision. I’ll probably sit on it for a while.


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look at me!

I got featured on Etsy!  Of course it happened with a piece that I have very few of up on the site right now.  Alas, such is the world.  Mostly I’m pleased that someone saw it as the weird, vaguely creepy Victorian souvenir that I intended it to be. Hurrah! (Um, yes, it’s the Barcelona resin pendant that’s mine.)


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Barcelona, guitars and strawberries

So the weekend wasn't a complete loss.  I did get all my laundry done. I watched several crappy movies on Lifetime.  I cleaned the dining room.  AND, hah hah! I got the new bits of jewelry uploaded over at my Etsy shop.  This time it's Barcelona, guitars, mandolins, strawberries and other fruit.  I'm gleefully excited about these.  I think the next bunch will be in a similar vein, and then I have some other obscurities in mind for the future. Nw if only the actual warm part of spring would arrive, so I could do the toxic resin casting outside.

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charmingly delicious

More pendants up on the Etsy site!  A few more of the scrabble tile book binders and book sellers charms and a handful of my first attempts at resin casting.  I'm pleased with these (especially the one with candy in it).  I can not wait to make more of these.  I've been stock piling tiny things to put in resin.  I made a bunch with tiny pints of beer and shepherd's pies in them for the Family Wash, and I'm happy with those too.  They are kind of time consuming though, just because the resin takes so long to cure.  I hope make a bunch more this weekend.

Pint and pie keychains:

Pint-n-Pie01
Pint-n-Pie01

Pint-n-Pie02
Pint-n-Pie02

Look!  The pies are even in little tins!

—

I am off work two hours early and gleeful at having gotten so much done tonight.  Although I was exhausted and so drank a Coke at the start of work and now I am home and WIDE AWAKE.  Will not sleep well tonight.  What should I do with my time?  Maybe I can think of more crafty things?  For sure I need to go put on jammies and giant fuzzy socks because it's literally freezing here again and my toes are cold.  Hmmm.  Maybe I'll take a bath.  Or read in bed.  Endless possibilities!

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tiny craftiness

Alright, my babies, here they are!!  It took me WAY longer to get these up online than it took me to make them (mostly because I did NOTHING last weekend and everything that needed doing got pushed back a week). But there they are, not much, scrabble tiles with bookbinders' and book sellers' imprints on them.  But I think they are very, very cool and I know you, my nerdy, bookish friends, will think the same.  Go and love on them.  You know you want one.

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sandwiches and shoes

67°F!! In February!  Granted it's grey and raining, but hey!  Not complaining over here.  Wooo!  When I got home last night it was warmer outside than it was in the house (and it was still tolerable in the house).

I started my new jewelry project last night.  It's awesome. Everyone will think so.  Okay, not everyone, but literary nerds will.  And as far as I know, there's a bunch of those.  I also bought new shoes last night to comfort myself after car fiasco. Now, admittedly I have a lot shoes already, but these are new everyday shoes. Which means, for me that they will get worn approximately 27 times more often than all the rest of my shoes put together. I hesitated a little in buying them because there was recently a conversation in a friends blog about mary-janes not being work appropriate, especially for women over 30, but you know, after having given it way too much thought, I think they just aren't the little girl shoes they once were.  I mean sure, in some styles they can be kind of fetishy, but I think we've sort of taken that power away from them by wearing them so much in so many configurations.  Plus, I'm not much of a fan of shoes that lace up and I like my shoes to stay on my feet, so mary-janes are the most practical. Can be worn with a skirt or jeans, blah blah blah, justified.  Also regular readers will remember a few years ago when I was waffling over buying brown shoes.  What would I do with brown shoes? What would I wear with them? Ha!  Things have now shifted so much that my new everyday shoes are brown, as I couldn't get black because they don't really go with much that I wear now!

Wow, holy shoe sidetrack! Anyway, last night I also made chicken salad, so I have some for lunch today.  I make great chicken salad.  And you know, I don't even like chicken salad and mine is awesome.  Or maybe I don't like it because mine so superior? I don't know.  I'm having it for lunch with baby spinach, for the healthiness, but really it deserves nutty whole grain bread, spring lettuces and a side of pickled beets. Man, what I wouldn't give for a close by, Seattle style, hippy dippy, bistro-y sandwich place.  It's all well and good to recreate it in my kitchen, but it just isn't the same.

For the Lenten season I am giving up nothing because I am not Catholic.  Although I like the idea of it (Lent, not Catholicism, well kind of Catholicism, but, oh never mind).

And now for the picture portion of our show.

2-5-08a
2-5-08a

Every day shoes, super cute skirt.  And yes, I do realize that wearing knee-high socks and an above the knee skirt with mary-janes completely negates my "mary-janes aren't little girly" argument.  Such as I am, full of contradictions.

2-5-08book01
2-5-08book01

I'm crafty!  Charms made of old bookbinder's imprints, vintage bookstore logos and publishers imprints decoupaged on to Scrabble tiles.  These will become a series of pendants and bracelets and other incredibly cool things.  There's also going to be a few with old stamps and postmarks on them.  Hopefully these will done and all by this weekend.

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recycling isn’t always good

Hols and I were let down by the Depots today, both the Home and the Office.  I hate nothing more than ineffective errands.  But then we had brunch today with my best girls.  Champagne cocktails and Heath Ledger movies.  Damn good for a Sunday.  Especially since brunch didn't end until almost 7pm.  Then I worked on my new jewelry project.  I'm hopeful about it, but we'll see, it could still fail miserably.  Now we're watching Hope Floats, which is really depressing. Except, who can resist Harry Connick, Jr.?  Where is MINE?

I think I had a bunch of smart interesting things to write about.  I'm sure I was thinking about them earlier. Who knows what they were.  Instead have a random conversation from my day:

friend: "Oh, you are not…"
me: "Yes, I did bring cupcakes for brunch."
friend: "Yes, yay!  But I was going to say, 'You are not wearing a t-shirt that says I recycle boys!'"
other friend: "Oh my god, you are!"
me: "I am!"
friend: "That is so awesome."

Though as I told Hols, the shirt is really only appropriate for teenage girls, and then not even really.  Like How did this shirt even get made?

All in all a good day.  With a teeny tiny dose of family drama, but I'm currently being utterly avoidant about that.  I've had a bunch of people crawling out the woodwork lately and Jami's sure it a sign of good things to come, life changing and otherwise.  If there's good things in the future, dealing with the nutjob jackassery on the fringes of my family life is small price to pay, right?

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fotografía 006: she’s crafty

006-366
006-366

I did, in fact, spend a good portion of the day being crafty.  I'm all out of sorts now though because usually when I do that I have shiny things to show for it and today not so much, as things are still drying and all.

Yes, I did get teeny tiny pie tins and little glasses.  And I baked little bake clay pies and then painted them to look like shepherd's pies, and filled the glasses with little different kinds off beer.  Well they actually are filled with paint and glue, but I hope they look like different kinds of beer.  I guess I learned today if all my other crafts fail, I can take up painting miniatures?

Also I learned that coffee beans float in epoxy resin, which might turn out to be a problem for me, but I have some ideas about how to overcome it.  And if I keep being this crafty I can take pictures of my craftiness and not be at a loss for pic-a-day subjects.  Just so it's on the front of your mind, if you should win the lottery, and decide to buy something for everyone you know, well, I could really, really use a Dremel.

Now I will sleep the sleep of the mostly accomplished.  Hopefully I won't die in the night from all the crazy fumes I inhaled today.

Tiny-pie
Tiny-pie

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teentsy

For lunch I went to a store that sold nothing but doll houses and dollhouse miniatures. TINY TINY TINY things.  It was made of joy. I have no doll house, but I do have need of tiny tiny things.  I will tell you once I've completed the project. But in the meantime, is there anything better than tiny tiny things?

Grabbed from my girl, daft:

Please share something you think I should do or try to do in 2008. Big or small, silly or earth-changing.

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the waiting IS the hardest part

My family's flight is still delayed in St. Louis. Ugh.  My sister was complaining on the phone, my dad says the airport there is so nice he doesn't mind staying, in fact he might just move there.  To the airport.  Yeah, I don't know either.

So everything is ready for their impending arrival, and I'm just puttering around the empty house, waiting.

My cousin Joe called me.  The whole rest of my family is at his parent's house right now drinking and being rowdy.  My aunt got the leg lamp from A Christmas Story in the family gift exchange.  She asked me if I thought she was going to hell for putting it in the Nativity. I love my family. Really a lot.

My sister just texted to tell me they made it on to a plane, but the plane has been sitting on the runway for 30 minutes and they don't know why. Ugh.  At least they are on a plane.  That makes it less likely that they will not be spending the night in St. Louis.

Shrinky-00A
Shrinky-00A

Here are pictures of my Shrinky Dinks from today.  The first is pre-shrinking, though unfortunately that one didn't turn out (I didn't heat it long enough and when I went to seal it the art smudged. Boo.)  The second one didn't smudge but was all warped.  I liked it anyway and I know the recipient will too (Dinos in love!) The second came out better, it's a Victorian pattern drawn on the front, shrunk, and then the back was painted red.  It actually looks really cool in real life.  Neither photographed very well.  I am very happy with my tiny dinosaurs though.  They are cute as can be.

Shrinky-00B
Shrinky-00B

The Shrinky Dink learning curve isn't very big, so I expect to be making some damn groovy stuff out of it soon. I have an awesome idea for charm bracelets, we'll see how it goes.  I'd go to the craft store right now if it was open.  Would definitely be better than just sitting around here.

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because it isn’t a holiday without some disaster

So we got up today to finish cleaning the house for the impeding arrival of my parents and discovered that we had no hot water. One sad call to the landlord later and it looks like we are getting a new hot water heater tomorrow.  But really? On a Sunday is bad enough, the day before Xmas eve is even worse.  So luckily my parents are staying in a hotel and I can shower at Jami's.  But UGH.

The house is clean.  I was crafty all day mostly finished the rest of the presents I had to make. My new crafting venture? Shrinky Dinks!!  Yes, you heard me.  Most awesome necklace pendants ever.  Oh yes there will be pictures!!

Now off to take miss Hols to port of air, make hotel reservations for New Year's and go meet my folks.

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happiness is a warm fuzzy

Is there anything better than someone going to Starbucks and bringing you back something? Especially if it's a hot, tasty coffee drink when your office is cold, cold, cold?

I am sitting at my desk in a giant fuzzy scarf and cable-knit handwarmers. My toes are cold.

Etsy is freaking

crack.

There's so much stuff on there I could browse forever. I was talking to Jed about it last night and she said that problem with it is that you spend forever browsing it, and often in the time you spent browsing, you could have made yourself half the items you were eyeing! So true, but also filled with cool, cool handmade stuff I could never make. I have a growing favorites list over there. What I very most want is this necklace. How are people so clever and creative that they think of things like that? Totally beyond me. So who else is on Etsy? Let's all 'heart' each other over there!

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