Purge Week

I am finishing day four of being in the mood to re-organize, sort and purge shelf after shelf in our home. Tuesday was ribbon day. I love ribbon. I have loved ribbon a whole bunch, for too long. At one time, it all fit nicely on this vintage shoe rack. Then an annex formed, and nothing was as easy to get to anymore.

This shot doesn't convey the magnitude of the disorder. When I am in the middle of a project, I usually figure out a little too late to take pictures.

These shelves in the "annex" are showing big progress.

Here's a lovely site - a now empty space! But obviously, I still have hoarding issues. The progress is I am only hoarding the ribbons I enjoy the most.Here are four garbage bags filled with my discards, waiting for a friend or two to rummage through. Some of this ribbon may end up as supplies for our September Art Party. The rest are headed to a Goodwill near you!

Hostess Gift Bonanza

Raoul and I recently made our tacos for a small dinner party. We all laughed as much as we ate! Wowie – it was a heap-o-fun evening.

And the hostess gifts were supremely fab. I recently developed a thing for meat grinders. (Stay tuned for how we plan to repurpose them.) This is a shot of all my loot.

Three new grinders!

One was wrapped in a man’s bow tie. One arrived in the la dee dah Chanel bag with pretty ribbons, and the third was filled with hydrangeas and Easter lovelies. Lisa didn’t receive the memo that it was meat grinder day. Her tasty gift is a tube of handy tomato paste – just the best thing to have on hand in your fridge.

Lucky and grateful us – for our friends who make us laugh and who bring us good junk. -- Beth

Valentine's Week Continues

Lucky, lucky us – more Valentine’s Day loot! Lisa and I each received our own ideas journal, adorned with a handmade keepsake in these striking colors, from our friends Judy and Colleen. Of course, we can’t unwrap these yet. Our ideas will still have to be written on that standby yellow legal pad. Or pads. I seem to need one in each room where I work. Lots of ideas. So little memory. -- Beth

But wait...there is more!

I made these needle-felted heart pins for the girls.

And then wrapped them up in heart shaped jello-molds in a bed of shredded sheet music with some organza ribbon. Yum! -- Lisa

Recharge with Ribbon

One of my favorite ways to recharge is to stay home and create something just for fun. I made this lampshade this morning. A couple of weeks ago on a Snohomish fun day I was very inspired by a couple of fabulous lampshades Debi Ward Kennedy made for her booth at Faded Elegance. I decided I needed to create one too for my nest.

First of all is finding a semi-empty space to work on. Here is the space available on my studio table. Of course I needed to check my email first and eat a cookie.

This lampshade came off the lamp I wanted to re-shade.

It's a miracle, but I figured out it didn't have the right skeleton for this project before I ripped off the middle cloth part. If I had, I would have been left with a top part like this and a separate bottom ring.

Back to the lampshade holding area to find this lovely one.

I dumped out my bag of blue ribbon scraps. This was easy because of my ribbon organizing system I explained here.

Ribbon pieces were tied around the top and bottom of the lampshade frame.
Once I started, it was hard to tear myself away to get another cup of coffee. And I really like my coffee in the morning.

Done and happy! -- Beth