Making Progress.....

"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful."

~Mark Victor Hansen~

I think...

that I am making progress on my studio space. But, I cannot decide if I feel like this...

"I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date! I'm over due! I'm in a rabbit stew! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" Or this..."Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming!" Everyone needs a Dori in their life to encourage them to keep on going even when the clock is ticking and the odds seem against us. Thank you all for being my Dori, you are such great encouragers!

I undertook my most ambitious project for the room yesterday and hope to have it complete today. I gathered pieces and parts from my architectural salvage stash to build a shabby chic shelving unit. After a little alteration and cleaning all the pieces got a fresh coat of white paint. I wish I had take before photos but I am under time constraints here so I just jumped right into the project without thinking about it.Handy Hubby helped me to assemble it all last night and today I just have the shelving to work on. Tomorrow it is on to pretty fluff and stuff and hopefully to photograph. Everything will not be "just right" or as perfect as I had hoped it would be before I shared the space with you but I will continue to step past the challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions with a "So what" attitude. This space will more than likely never be complete. It will change, grow, and expand in whatever direction creativity takes it. Anyway, I'll just keep swimming until I get this shelving unit done. I'll see you all on Friday!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

A Bit of Randomness.....

"How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it."

~George Elliston~

ARTFUL JUNK PHOTO COLLECTION

Thank you so very much sweet friends for all your well wishes and prayers. I am on the mend. I am so glad to be almost back in the swing of things. My days have indeed been made beautiful through your kind comments.

I am looking forward to the Where Bloggers Create blog party on Friday! Click here for details. I plan to spend the week sprucing up my studio space and putting in a few new touches. I can't say I will finish it because it seems to change and evolve constantly. It will be fun to share it with you as well as visit all the other inspiring spaces.I wanted to let you know that for the next two weeks my posting will be spotty at best. OK, so my posting is always spotty at best. I try, I really really really do try to post more often but other responsibilities often take precedence over blogging. I would love nothing better than to blog away my day but reality is that I can't. Well, that and the fact that I am about as dull as dishwater and often grasp at what to post on or I just don't feel inspired. That's really what it is, I am more of an inspired blogger, yeah, really, it is. Who am I trying to convince, me or you? Definitely me.Anyway, this week I want to really focus in on my art studio as well as a special project I have in the works with a deadline looming very near. I'll give you some sneak peeks in a later post. Next week Handy Hubby will be off work and I will be his assistant in getting our little cottage ready for a face lift!I am beyond excited to work my fingers to the nub in order to get the final prep work done so we can get a new exterior on our home. Right now we have to paint our house every other year, yuck! Never again. I can't wait to share before and after photos. Right now I am down to the wire on choosing a color, a permanent color people! We are having dutch lap siding put on the main part of the house and the block foundation will get covered with a stacked stone.In the meantime, you might be wondering what all these random photos have to do with this post. Well, they have nothing to do with this post, I just thought you might like to see what happens when my camera takes a walk with darling daughter. These are from her Artful Junk Collection. I happen to like the color ones but she prefers them in black and white. Posts are always better with photos don't ya think? Even if they are not photos that go with the post?I can't wait to get my copy of Tara Frey's new book, Blogging For Bliss Creating Your Own Online Journal: A Guide for Crafters, Artists, and Creatives of all Kinds. I think after this post I really really need it! Tara's was one of the very fist blogs I ever visited after finding her blog address in a magazine article. An article she wrote on her blog about blogging really helped me to launch my own.Well, it seems this post is not so random after all, I have detected a running theme, Things I Can't Wait For, should have been the title. Anyway, I hope you all have a blissfully blessed week!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

Green Paper.....

"Plan your life out on paper but live your life with your heart."

~Warren DeMike~

I wanted to pop in and let you know that I am a bit under the weather so posting may be even more sparce than usual. I woke up yesterday not feeling well, not well enough to warrant a Doctor visit. I will be resting a bit the next couple of days. I promise to respond to all your comments very soon.

In the meantime you might want to visit Mary of Green Paper. Mary makes the most fantastic ephemera books and she just posted a video that shows the unique pages of her books. Green Paper also features a special Free Image section to be found here. You know we all love to find unique images to use in our art! Mary also sponsors a monthly give away AND if all that goodness is not enough she also has a free monthly newsletter too!

The newsletter is emailed to you and includes an interesting article, special free image down load, and a how-to. The one for July also included a special discount for use in purchasing images from her store. There is more, Mary also has a fabulous Etsy shop, Green Paper Package, where you will find unique items for you paper crafting needs. Mary also features Your art using her images in a special section. She has lots of links to explore and plenty of pretty to look at. Enjoy!

(All images in this post are from Mary's free image down load)

Blessings,

Miss Sandy

Friendship, Awards, Etsy, and A Few Free Images...

"A good memory is one that can remember the day's blessings and forget about the day's troubles."(Friendship Collage)

Thank you all for your friendship and outpouring of care, concern, and prayers in regards to my last post. I have no doubt that things will right themselves as things have a habit of doing. It is that waiting period in between that is often the hardest to bear. Waiting for me is prayerful hope, the substance of things hoped for but not yet seen. I assure you I am waiting peacefully for this painful process to pass and looking for the lessons to be learned thorough this situation. Anyway, let's move on to lighter things...

It seems I have been triple blessed this past week with blog awards. I have said it before and I will say it again it is reward enough for me to have you visit. I feel very honored that you would take the time to do so. I sort of adopted an award policy after agonizing over who to pass them on to because I think you are all so deserving, I choose not to select specific bloggers to receive them hoping that the givers will not think I am rude or unsportsmanlike.

It is with deep appreciation that I thank the very sweet Terry of Lady Liberty and Queenmother Mamaw for the Premios Dardo Award, as well as Tina of Tiny Bear for the Bella Sinclare Award. Each of you ladies are so precious for thinking of me and I thank you.All that said to say that I am now adopting a new policy of borrowing a button from Vee and declaring this an award free blog. Please do not think me rude but if feels funny to accept an award and not pass it on as it was intended. I think every blog has its own reason for being award worthy. This little birdie will now perch on my sidebar and hopefully not hurt any feelings.Heavens this post is giving me anxiety! It think you think I am rude and being brought up with strict Southern manners and worrin' about what the neighbors think and all I am about to have the vapors! Somebody quick, toss me a fan and position me in front of the faintin' couch so I can go down delicately! Anyway, let's move on again...

I ordered some stuff from Beth of Gathering Dust, I think she has become my new enabler of all things paper. She likes the same kind of stuff I like and she finds so many unique things that her Etsy shop just draws me like a magnet. I ordered a couple of old books, a personal weakness, and a set of wonderful old postcards. You know you can look forward to receiving your order form Beth because she will have some sort of super clever packaging like this...I really did not even care what the contents of the first book, The Wilstach Collection Philadelphia 1893 Memorial Hall Fairmount Park, which is an art catalog of a private collection that was donated to the city. I ordered it because I was just drawn by the cover, although I will say I was quite drawn to many of the black and white depictions of famous art pieces. Love this one, please feel free to snag for personal use... The second book I ordered was an old song book, The One Hundred and One Best Songs. I am a sucker for old sheet music. The pages of this book have a perfect aged patina to them and I love the way the the paper has darkened. Each page not only has a song but a quote at the bottom of each page. Miss Jessie Page of Slater, Missouri was the owner Long, Long Ago, please feel free to snag for personal use...I love these sweet birthday wishes on the post cards.This one is my favorite, please feel free to snag for personal use...
Beth is always so sweet to tuck in a little extra treat and there was a old advertising card for a book on one side and a skyline view of NYC on the other side, sweet buttons, and cool shoe store tags! Thanks Beth for such a great place to shop! I am hoping tomorrow to meet up with a friend for a fun day of flea marketing and lots of laughter. I hope to find a few more things to use to organize and display with in my studio space. I hope each of you have a delightful week!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

Serendipity Sunday: You Are Not Alone.....

Serendipity: Making a delightful or unexpected discovery

"...He will quite you with His love..."

~Zephaniah 3:17~

This week there has been a great need for comfort here at the Quill. Situations have cropped up that have stirred up emotions. Fear and worry have tried to take up residence. Disquiet of the soul has taken place. The Lord often chooses many ways to minister to us in these tough times. This weeks delightful discovery was a highlighted verse in my Bible:

"The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quite you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."

~Zephaniah 3:17~

All week long, every single time my soul became disquieted I heard the same phrase of a song being sung, "You are not alone, You belong to Me..." For the life of me I have not been able to figure out where I have heard this phrase or the voice of my mind that sings it. After reading the above verse I felt very overcome with emotion that perhaps it was simply the Lord reassuring me and rejoicing over me with singing, quieting me with His love, letting me know that I am His. The things of this world may touch me but they will not overtake me because I belong to Him and He has overcome the world.

I pray that no matter what might touch your life that you will know without a shadow of a doubt that you are not alone, He is with you. He is mighty to save. He takes great delight in you. He can and will quiet you with His love. Listen for His song for He will rejoice over you with singing too.

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

Paper Flower Memories (Paper Daisy Tutorial Included).....

"The poets darling."

~William Wordsworth, "To The Daisy"~

I will never forget the magical moment when I crafted my first paper flower. I was six years old. My teacher, Mrs. Butts, gave each student two facial tissues, a piece of string, green construction paper, and a pipe cleaner at craft time. We were instructed to get our safety scissors and paste from our cigar box of school supplies from the cubby under our desks and the magic began.We were shown how to cut the tissues in half, separate the tissue layers, and to stack the layers one on top of the other. It was a good thing we were making carnations because our cutting skills were pretty sad and many a jagged edge or small tear attested to the fact. Once the layers were stacked we learned to fan fold, flipping the tissue stack back and forth until it looked like an accordion.
This accomplished, we were to sit holding our little fan folded tissue pinched between our thumb and fore finger until the teacher could come around and tie the string tightly around the middle. We girls in banana curls and barrettes batted our eyes and fanned ourselves like little Southern Belles having the vapors as the boys made airplane noises and flying motions with their winged tissue creations. Once the string had been tied, the pipe cleaner was twisted over the string to create a stem.The teacher then instructed us to fan out each side and gently separate each layer pulling towards the center. Like magic a flower began to form. Once we had all the layers fluffed together she helped us to trim and shape the flower into a frilly carnation. We cut out construction paper leaves and pasted them to the stem then planted our flower in a Dixie cup that had a little bit of clay in the bottom to stick the flower stem in. We carefully printed off a flower poem onto a piece of paper from our Big Chief writing tablet in our neatest first grade scribbles and erases. These creations proudly sat on our desks at open house when our parents came to meet our teacher.I went home that very day with my head filled with the wonder of being able to make a paper flower, fingers itching to try again. I always arrived home from school before my mother got home from work so I thought I might surprise her with a paper carnation bouquet. It was I who was in for a surprise.

Looking around I found some thread in mothers sewing box and pipe cleaners, scissors, and paste in my craft box but, we had no facial tissue. I wondered if I could use toilet tissue instead. Much to my delight I found a pretty pink roll under the sink and thought how much better it would be to make pink flowers rather than plain white. They took more layers and came out much smaller than the facial tissue ones so I decided to make more. I used the whole roll of tissue!Then I thought white mixed with pink would look even prettier so I set in on the white roll on the tissue holder until my fingers got tired of folding, tying, twisting, and gluing. I gathered up my abundant bouquet and carried it to the kitchen table. I thought a vase would look much prettier than a Dixie cup so I dug one out from under the cabinet and surely water would look prettier than clay so I pushed a chair over to the sink and filled the vase.

I bunched up my bouquet and plopped to on top of the wide mouthed vase and scooted it to the center of the kitchen table where my mom was sure to see it when she got home. Satisfied that she would be surprised I went off to play in my room. She saw it all right, the whole gloppy soggy mess dripping down the vase, tissue pieces, thread, and pipe stems sinking to the bottom.At first, after a long tiring day at work, she did not see my effort to create a surprise for her, she only saw a mess to clean up. When I bounced into the room yelling, "Surprise!", my face fell and crocodile tears began to roll as my eyes landed on my carefully crafted carnations turned to mush. Through sniffles and tears I explained what happened and she explained to me that paper flowers must be kept dry.

I graduated from toilet and facial tissue up to crepe paper and wrapping tissue in my tween years when making giant colorful Mexican flowers and displaying them in your bedroom was a hot trend. I revived the carnations recently using crepe paper streamers to make tiny carnations to decorate some nut cups for a baby shower and then once again tucked the idea away. That is until I saw a paper flower crafting book from the 1960's for sale on Etsy.
I am hooked again and my experimental nature has taken over as my fingers itch to test out various supplies, techniques, embellishments, and uses for paper flowers, minus the water of course. I thought you might enjoy seeing my first try at making a simple daisy and variations of the same pattern, as well as learn the technique yourself.

MATERIALS:*Any color crepe paper for flower petals

*Brown or Yellow crepe paper for flower centers

*Green crepe paper for leaves
*Covered wire ~ 30 gauge
*Stem wire ~ 18 gauge
*Floral tape
*Cotton Ball, approx 1 1/2 inches in diameter, 1 per flower

*Fine roll wire

*Wire cutters
*Scissor
*Hot glue & glue gun
*Spray glue

NOTE: You do not want to use a liquid glue when working with crepe paper, it can dissolve the paper or cause the color of the paper to bleed or run.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. To make the flower center, place cotton ball in the center of a 6 inch square of brown or yellow crepe paper.2. Gather the edges of the paper together and twist making a crepe paper covered ball with a tail or stem.3. Place stem wire up inside the tail, (I added a dab of hot glue to the cotton ball and stuck the wire end in it to keep the wire from slipping out), and wrap fine wire tightly up close to the base of the ball. Cut away excess paper and wrap stem with floral tape.4. To make petals, cut a strip of paper 18 inches long and 6 inches wide. Fold into fourths as shown below. The grain of the paper runs lengthwise.5. Make slits about 1 1/2 inches deep at both ends dividing it into thirds. This makes the side of the petals. Now round off the corners as shown below.6. Open this so you have an 18 inch strip. Fold in half lengthwise as shown below.7. Run a piece of wire along the folded edge in between the two layers of paper. Gather the paper up on this wire making a circle of petals. Place petals around the daisy center and tighten the wire. Wrap ends of wire around stem of flower. Trim away excess wire with a wire cutter.8. Wrap stem in floral tape. Gently stretch and twist tape around the stem.
9. Cut two 6 inch squares of green crepe paper. Cut in half to make four 6 inch by 3 inch pieces. Cut two 8 inch pieces of wire.11. Spay glue on side of two of the 6 inch by 3 inch pieces. Place wire down the center of the 6 inch length allowing some wire to hang over the edge. Place remaining piece of paper on top of the wire and gently press together, sealing the wire and fusing the paper pieces.
12. Trim into leaf shapes.
13. Using floral tape, tape leaves to stem.I think this traditional daisy would make a lovely package topper for a baby shower or little girls birthday gift. This is why I really ordered the book, with floral package toppers in mind.
Here is a variation using sewing pattern tissue paper and instructions, coffee dyed lace, brown crepe paper, brown candy liner, and brown wire and floral tape.For this one I did not round the petals but left them straight so the pattern markings would not be lost. I slipped the center through a candy liner, gathered a piece of dyed lace into a circle, slipping the center through it also, and then followed the same finishing instructions as above.For the leaves I cut to two large rectangles of the pattern instructions, trimming the top to look like a leaf shape, highlighting them with Walnut Ink, then gathering the straight bottom to form the bottom of the leaf I attached them to the stem with a bit of wire and floral tape. I love the sepia look of this one!

I wanted to try using more layers and get a lush look for a wedding package topper to I experimented with multiple layers of tissue alternated with tulle on this one. Adore it!Following the same basic instructions make three petal patterns using white crepe paper, trimming the petals using a pinking shear. Prepare two more petal patterns using a fine white tulle. Layer in this order: crepe paper, tulle, crepe paper, tulle, crepe paper. Using a needle and thread or a sewing machine, stitch straight down the middle of the layers to hold them all together to make gathering easier. Fold petals in half and gather on wire as in original instructions. You will not get a tight gather due to all the layers, there will be a hole in the center.I used a white candy liner, a white cupcake liner, a white crepe paper streamer ruffle, bits of gathered white tulle, and a button to create my center. Using white covered wire I threaded it through the button and twisting it a couple of times on the back. I went through the middle of the small white candy liner, using a little hot glue on the back of the button to make it stick, through the paper ruffle, gluing as I went, gluing on a few snips of tulle and finally through the cupcake liner. I glued the whole thing around the center of the flower leaving the long ends of the wire free. For leaves I gathered a vintage napkin in the center and twisted the wire around it to secure it. Some brushes of clear glitter around the center edges would also be a nice touch. After a little fussing and fluffing I have a package stopper topper!Next I tried a patterned tissue gift wrap. I crumpled the paper up to give it a texture rather than its new stiff look the followed the original instructions. For the center I used a bit of pink silk fabric rather than paper to cover the cotton ball. I added a couple of silk leaves that I dry brushed over with a bit of gesso and a sprinkle of clear glitter. This one is pretty in pink!Lastly I tried using some coffee dye muslin following the original instructions. The thickness of the fabric was a bit bulky to work with but I am pleased with the finished result. There will be a large opening when the flower is finished off and the petals will be loose. I lifted them up very gently and placed dots of hot glue around them near the gather to secure. I used two round sturdy cardboard circles to glue over both sides of the center openings. I had a wonderful paper flower left over from a kit I had purchased through Five Dollar French General to I glued it to the top of the flower. To the back I glued a pin back.I thought this one would make a great package topper but I intend to use it as a fashion accessory! I tried it on my favorite summer hat, love it! I tired it on the lapel of a denim jacket, love it! I tried it on a vintage scarf tied on the handle of a casual summer bag, love it too!

I have at least two more daisies I want to experiment with before moving on to the next flower. Just think there are eighteen more flower patterns and endless possibilities!

I'd love to see your version of this darling daisy! If you make one send me an email including a photo, I'd love to do a photo collage of them all listing artist and links to your blog. Enjoy!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy