Holiday Projects

I've embarked on extreme Christmas present making. I know I haven't posted in a while but if I'm going to use this in the future it ought to be more up to date.

The one on the left is a large ornament/art piece for Jake. Jake is going to be my brother in law, Cami and Jake are getting married 11-11-11 in Jamaica. I'm the maid of honor. Bridesmaid dresses just need to be red, whatever style and shade I want. Maybe something from modcloth but I think for the wedding it needs to be a breezy light weight dress.

 I love modcloth in the way that it inspires me to think more a long the lines of creative clothing wear. Of making my own clothes, additional accessories that are more old school or just not seen as frequently. Inspires me to think of re-use and etsy products. Of course the Idea store has quite a bit to do with this as well but finished products often interest me more. And I think people can relate to that. I'll put it on my to do list for the store.. add more amazing finished products.

Oh these projects, that's the topic. Well it's related to the above.

Cami and Jake are not big hippie over achievers like me. They're much more happy with life doing what I'm doing. And hey, good. Good for them. So Camille gets annoyed with me when I talk about my interests in re-use. Which is frustraiting because she thinks I'm preaching. I'm not.. it's just what I'm into.

So, this picture to the left.
Is from the link gallery.

He commented several jokes about the store being out of these flags, etc. I sent him several photos of artwork created from flags. But that's not enough to teach the lesson. I took 5 flags from in front of my house. Twisted them together in a oval form, strung a string through the middle, cut the flags into strips and in a wavy manner wove the flags onto the string. That is the first picture.

And the second, well she wanted a rug. So I took different fabrics, tied them together, braided them together, and am now sewing the rope together...

All for less than $5 and countless hours.

But it makes me appreciate the work of others so much more and inspires me to think of methods and things I can keep working on. Like.. growing lily of the valley in my basement for a gallery show in late February?

Breakfast

This morning I sauteed red pepper, green onions, garlic, and basil. Scrambled three eggs with red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and paprika. Added this mixture to what was sauteing in the pan and cooked for a short while. Then added feta and asiago cheese.

Pretty delicious..

A Successful Day

So I work at The I.D.E.A. Store and today was our soft opening and it went pretty well. But doing what I like to do I decided to sort and separate a donation of iPod and Zune covers. Here's my boss, Gail, with a customer. All of the proceeds benefit the CU Schools Foundation, kind of a full circle of good deeds- supporting the schools, recycling items, and creating unique art projects. I bought some supplies as well. I have an idea to create this guirella marketing campaign.

So there are lots of stickers and I have the ipod cases. After a bad test run with hand writing things and using paint pens, I've decided to go with printing out the logo, tracing it on either cardboard or perhaps matt board. The creating a stencil and spray painting onto the iPod/sticker.



Ah so I painted the stickers with Schmitz and reclaimed the basement as the workspace I wanted it to be. Then watched DeLovely while taking apart the cases I had brought home with me to work on. So that might be a little strange but I grew up in a house where my mom worked all day and then crocheted while drinking her black Russians and watching tv. I learned from the best. I took a part cases, watched a netflix movie, and other such things. Might as well be productive at all times right?

And then just to have a little more fun, I fixed a shirt of mine. Big deal right? Well, I bought this shirt senior year of high school and ripped it freshman year of college and today.. I fixed it. Then I cooked dinner.

It was meant to be garlic shrimp but.. we're out of garlic. That's not a dilemma though. I made the rest of the recipe just minus the garlic. So the shrimp cooked in olive oil and with steak seasoning sprinkled on top and at the last lemon juice. I made broccoli as well and poured the rest of the seasoning on top of the broccoli when done. Pretty delicious.

Now off to a comedy show at Class Act- http://www.classactinteractive.com. Then out with the boys. :)

Tomorrow Schmitz and I are going to work on the stickers more, I'm possibly creating a poster/t-shirt design for the store, setting up for the next Indi Go exhibit, and dumpster diving businesses that we could potentially approach for donations for The IDEA store...

Beautiful Champaign

Create your own picture slideshow

Good Morning

Here was my breakfast out on the porch today, three different cheeses in the omelet and honey on the toast.

The flower yard art-age is a new addition. I got it at my new job The I.D.E.A. Store. Pretty awesome program that I'll have to blog about again soon.

I really enjoy this new neighborhood, even with its flaws. At night the love struck teenagers are crying and having dramatic, poetic young love scenarios next to their parked cars. In the morning everyone is rushing by on their way to work or to drop off their kids at Holy Cross school just a couple blocks away. And sometimes the neighbors children and grandchildren are out in the front yard playing basketball or riding their bikes. Growing up on a farm I never had the opportunity to live in a vibrant, busy neighborhood. And sitting outside in the morning having my coffee and breakfast is how I appreciated it today.

Dinner Last Night

So I'm figuring it will be easiest to start with the present and move backwards-

This was our dinner last night, me and the 4 men I live with. And they about three of them helped.. so our little kitchen was cramped.

This recipes is for Chicken, Broccoli, and Cherry Tomatoes Fusilli. Except, we didn't have any fusilli so we used fettucini. Here's the recipe. The tea is Pomegranate sun tea. The cherry tomatoes come from the volunteer plant we have growing over a lot of the porch and under the screen door. And the tablecloth is from The Antique Shoppe in Fairbury, IL but that's another post.

What this blog will be about...

I've started many blogs and never continued them because.. well I post on a lot of other things. But I want to make this blog about creative ideas, projects, and thoughts I'm having. As well as antique stores I visited and the things I find. And recipes I try and craft projects I'm working on. Plus cool photos of things I've been at. To start it off here is a photo of home, the clouds look amazing in this picture.