Ginny's Small Studio

Yarn Bombing

Have you heard about "Yarn Bombing"? Rumor has it that it began in Texas when a knitting club decided to take their unfinished pieces and add them to city hardscapes.

It has become a new type of graffiti art in many urban areas. Knit tagging groups go out under the cover of darkness and add their mark.

I haven't seen this in our area, but I am wondering if you have seen it in yours.

Hey, happy Mom's day to all of you out there!

March Comes in Like a...

Buzzard!

We were driving down Route 83 today when we noticed a tree full of huge birds.

They were watching a man planting his vegetable garden below. I would have gone in the house if I were the man. 

After all, there were about 20 of these big guys. We were sure they were buzzards also known as Turkey Vultures. 

There is a town in Ohio, Hinckley, that has been keeping records for over 50 years on the buzzards.  They return every year exactly on March 15! The Metro Parks here have a special buzzard watch on that day and the gathered folks are always rewarded with flocks of buzzards arriving to the park. There are historical papers that mention the buzzards there in Hinckley as far back as 1816. This is the first time we have seen them near our home. 

_{This photo from the Metro Parks collection.}

I am constantly finding Ohio amazing. 

Thank you all who commented and emailed for the good anniversary wishes.  I have always felt anniversaries were just between the two people who were celebrating, but I wanted to share my feelings with everyone.  John and I are so lucky to have found each other.

Back to business...there are stil a couple of spots left in the Cloth Paper class on Saturday morning. 

Check the website for details and supplies needed.

 

Dilemma

(Artist: Lenard Buffet for an Ella Fitzgerald album)

Here is the dilemma...we want to save the post office because we love our post offices and the wonderful people who work there. So we pledge to mail more cards, more letters, more post cards and more packages, but then a new piece of information comes to the front. Read this:

If all US households decided to start paying their bills online, the annual benefits would be:

Saving 16.5 million trees

Saving enough energy to power every house in San Francisco for a year

Decreasing greenhouse gases equivalent to removing 155,000 cars from the road

What is a thoughtful person to do? Save jobs or save trees?

The stencil words I made for our room at the antique mall a few weeks ago and shared with you have sold out. So I made more. This isn't as easy as it seems since each stencil alphabet only has one of each letter. This really limits the number of words that can be made from each set.

"Jingle" in the background is 8" tall! To buy a new 8" stencil alphabet cost hundreds of dollars.

 

Observations

There is so much building and construction going on in our area that it is difficult to imagine that there is an unemployment problem or housing downturn. The county is widening roads and adding another freeway offramp. Cleveland Clinic, the huge and famous medical facility, is building a large new complex near us. The local community college just built a new multistory annex nearby. A new shopping center just opened up and new houses are being built. It must mean something. Unfortuneately, more woods are being decimated.

We attended a large swap meet last month.  It was a beautiful day and the meet had many vendors and many, many shoppers, but we were pretty unlucky in finding anything exciting.  It was a fun day anyway looking at stuff and people watching.

Thanks again for all the well wishes for John.  He came through the 2nd kidney operation on last Thursday just fine and is feeling almost back to normal. He is very mobile, climbing stairs again and being his old sassy self.  

Have you noticed the renewed interest in signs lately?

It seems as though they are everywhere.

And they seem to focus on feelings.

Could it be that when things are globally disheartening, we realize what is really important?

9-11

It was my morning to come in late to the store (Creative Block). I was puttering around the house with some music on when my middle son and business partner, Tim, called and asked me if I had the TV on. I turned it on while on the phone with him, just in time to see the second plane hit the towers. I quickly drove to the store where we gathered with our employees for several hours watching the store TV.  Just like everyone else we could not believe what we were seeing.

The days following were so abnormal all over the country and our days were no different.  No customers came into the store for at least a week. We spent those empty days discussing Art Continuum.  It was coming up in just another week or two. We were expecting a total of 750 students, 33 instructors and 35 vendors. Should we cancel it? We called the hotel where the event was to be held. They first told us that they had received no cancellations for room reservations. Secondly they told us we were responsible for any lost revenue if we cancelled. That meant we would not have the money to reimburse the attendees if we cancelled. Events were being cancelled all over the country. People were afraid to fly and 75% of our attendees came from out of state. We didn't know what to do.

The week before Art Continuum we began to be deluged with phones calls from people wanting assurance that Art Continuum would go on. We said yes. Many people who were going to fly decided to drive. In the end, we only had 3 people cancel.

The event turned out to be the best of all the Art Continuums. We really needed each other.  We needed to take a small break from the sadness and fear we were all feeling. We needed the release, the comfort and the joy that art gives us. We needed something to make us feel normal again. There was more hugging, more kindness, more friendship and camarderie at an event that had always encompassed these things on a large scale. We were allowed to smile again. It was art therapy at its zenith. Art Continuum 2001 stands out in my mind as the best above all the rest of our events.

A few blogs entries ago I dedicated my words to my oldest son Wes on his birthday. That little baby I am holding in the first photo now works at the Pentagon. A couple of years ago, John and I were visiting Wes and his family. Wes organized a special tour of the Pentagon for us. Part of the tour took us to the memorial garden near the location were one of the 9-11 planes crashed. There is an abstract type of bench for each person killed on that day at the Pentagon. It was quite moving to stand there and really grasp how many innocent people died just there that day. 

Today is difficult for all of us, but my heart goes out to those who lost loved ones.

Debt

John and I were talking politics this morning.  Yeah, we do that sometimes.  We were talking about the national debt and the amount of money the wars cost per day.  It is difficult to grasp how much money it actually is when one starts talking about millions, billions and trillions.

I posted this once before, but it is worth repeating, I think.

What's the difference between a million, a billion, a trillion?

A million seconds is 12 days.

A billion seconds is 31 years.

A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

A million minutes ago was – 1 year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes ago.

 

A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ.

A million hours ago was in 1885.

 

A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth.

 

A million dollars ago was five (5) seconds ago at the U.S. Treasury.

 

A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury.

 

A trillion dollars is so large a number that only politicians

can use the term in conversation... probably because they

seldom think about what they are really saying. I've read that 

mathematicians do not even use the term trillion! 

Here is some perspective on TRILLION:

 

Trillion= 1,000,000,000,000. 

 

The country has not existed for a trillion seconds. 

Western civilization has not been around a trillion seconds. 

One trillion seconds ago – 31,688 years – Neanderthals stalked the plains of Europe.

 

Million: 1,000,000

Billion: 1,000,000,000

Trillion: 1,000,000,000,000

Amazing, yes?  Here are two more mental pictures:

A trillion $1000 bills stacked neatly would be 67.9 miles high.

A trillion square miles would be 20 Earths.

John, who is sitting next to me at his computer, just read me an awful prediction from some article on water he is reading.  By the year 2025, 1/3 or over 2 billion people on earth would be without drinking water.  But that would be a really different blog post.

We live in scary times.

 

Observations from the Road

Snow in abundance while driving both directions in late May and early June surprised us.  We also saw swollen rivers over their banks everywhere.  

As we driving the roads between Ohio and CA, we made quite a few detours (love our GPS) to find old towns and antique stores, swap meets and more. We were, as I mentioned, dismayed at so many empty towns with sale signs up everywhere.

We were surprised at how many trucks were on the highways. There were easily 10 trucks on the roads to every car. That must mean something. Goods are being moved from one place to another in high volume. We were wishing that the trucks had a sign on them telling what was inside.  Long, long trains that appeared to be full also dotted the landscape every day. More goods being moved.

We always see odd signs in CA.  Last year it was a 3 minute parking limit sign that caught our eye.

This year we we spotted this sign:

Is that a new verb for making a lot of noise?  If the owner caught the mistake, he made the decision to go with it anyway. How do we know this?  There were 14 more signs just like this in his parking lot.

We watched ths sign below being painted on our way to and from some errand running. It took the painters about an hour to complete. It was for Children's Hospital, I think and painted on the side of a liquor store. The ladder, with all of it's dripped paint was an art piece in itself.

The last sign I have to share with you is one I have never seen before anywhere else.  Besides being puzzling, I have to say I do love the distressed quality of it.

It is a beautiful day.  It has been lovely all week.  I am going outside!

 

Road Trip Three

When driving across this huge country of ours there are big impressions being made.

I am always amazed at how much open land we have. We would drive for hours between towns and they were usually small towns. Why do we all crowd into the cities?  

I was dismayed to see so many empty industrial parks, so many empty main street buildings and so many abandoned farms. We really are in trouble here in this beautiful land of ours.  

I was impressed with the many, many wind farms we saw everywhere that is everywhere but here in Ohio. We have plenty of wind.  Where are our wind turbines? One of the most prosperous towns we overnighted in was Cheyenne WY.  Why? One of the reasons is that they have a few large wind turbine manufacturers there and even a school to train future workers.

We stopped briefly in NV to visit my daughter, Amy and her family.  Amy was busy making a mountain of handmade Thank You cards for her daughter's school.  She had a small assembly line going with my granddaughters Ginny (left) and Amanda (right).

John sat down to help and their other grandfather who was visiting from Holland joined the girls, too. And so was born the international grandfathers' competition.  Look at them go!

We did some antiquing on our trip.  Knowing that the wonderful Mary Ann Moss was beginning another of her fabulous online workshops this month using old Victorian photo albums, we picked up a few.  You can see her class info at the "Dispatch from LA".  You can see the albums we found in my Etsy shop.

We had a good trip and we needed a good trip.  We two have had quite a winter this past year. We are ready for normal again.

 

And She Keeps on Talking

First I want to share this cool art installation using nothing but security envelopes:

Next I wanted to share some new Etsy items with you.  Since I closed my Emporium, I am listing leftovers and personal stash stuff on my Etsy shop.  If you want multiples or want something I used to carry, e-mail me and I will see what I can do for you. I put a few new things up almost every day.

I received a ton of e-mails concerning the imported shrimp a few blog entries ago.  I am happy that I am not the only one concerned about this.  Did you know that on average our food travels 1500 miles from point of origin to our local store? A few years ago Time magazine had an article about a group of people who decided to challenge themselves to eat only food produced within 100 miles of their home. The blog world joined in and it is still going on. John and I like to shop our local farm market stands.  Our farm stands are right in front of the farms indicating, we assumed, that the produce came from that piece of land.  Imagine our disappointment when we noticed stickers on the tomatoes (Mexico) and on the cantaloupes (Honduras) that said otherwise.  Since we live in Ohio, the growing season is shorter than in warmer climates, but still.... The point is one has to really pay attention when shopping. Not only does it cost the universe pollution, oil, local jobs, etc, but it also costs us in lost nutrients.  Really what is the point?

 

Valentine's Day

I went to Costco today to get some shrimp to stir fry for John's Valentine dinner.  A friend recently mentioned that Costco had some huge fresh shrimp. Expensive per pound, but not so much when there is just the two of us.

Costco did have huge shrimp.  It was from Indonesia.  Then they had extra large shrimp from Vietnam.  I couldn't buy it. What did it cost the universe to get this shrimp here? What was the carbon footprint of this shrimp?  Was it worth it to me to purchase it?  No, it was not.  I have no idea how to estimate the carbon footprint, so I tried to Google it.  I didn't find out, but here is a small bit of info that I came across: To farm shrimp in Vietnam and other Asian countries, mangroves are destroyed to make way for the brackish ponds needed for the shrimp. Mangroves protect the coastal areas, provide barriers to storms, habitat for wildlife and all those other environmentally important functions. In Vietnam 90% of the mangroves have been destroyed.  In their place, the shrimp ponds are making the farmers rich due to the huge demand for shrimp from Japan and the US.  Our demand has gone up almost 25% in just a few years partially due to the Gulf oil spill. Unfortunately, the ponds last much less than a decade before the chemicals used in the farming process poison the shrimp and make the ponds useless for any living thing. So the farmers move on to another location. The governments in this area of Asia encourage the shrimp production and in fact the World Bank finances it.  Short term, very short term, the farmers, are making money but at what cost to their environment? Do I want to support this?  No. There used to be a saying " If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem".

I really am not a fanatic, but just concerned about all the things I might be doing unknowingly to hurt the lives of my grandchildren.  Most times I feel helpless to do anything that will really make a change, but there are so many little things that can make a difference if we all try.  Isn't this what love is all about, protecting those we care about? Hug those you love.

By the way, John took me out to dinner.

More new stuff on Etsy today.

The Day So Far

Many of you know my son Tim.  He was my Creative Block/Stampers Anonymous business partner for almost 10 years.  Since we dissolved the company and I married, Tim has gone on to bigger and much better things.  He is now a plastics broker and works in the realm of recycling.  It may not seem too interesting to most, but I find it fascinating.  He invited John and I to see his new office and have lunch today.  Every mom is thrilled with that kind of invitation.  Me too.  

Attached to the offices are the warehouses where all the action takes place.  The first warehouse we were in is absolutely huge with aisle after aisle of giant bins and barrels and boxes of material waiting to be processed and/or shipped.  Plastic car parts, Rubbermaid storage bins, unrecognizable plastic parts from who knows what are stacked ceiling high.

Then there are the aisles of plastic wrappers in huge rolls.

The printed wrappers are removed from the hard cardboard rolls so that they cannot be used by anyone else.

Then everything is sent through a huge, really huge machine that turns it all into plastic pellets to be resold and made into something else.

Trucks, big trucks, were lined up to the loading docks receiving literally tons of sold by-product, taking it on to manufacturers who will recycle it all into usable goods.

The beauty of all this is that without companies like this, all this "clean" waste would be dumped into land fills around the country. It was just a few years ago that it all did end up in landfills. Plastic does not decompose, but it can be recycled easily.  I wish you could have seen the amounts just in this one warehouse and they don't even deal in small recycling like plastic bottles.  It definitely made me want to be sure to recycle everything I use.  

 

Here is Something to Think About

Study: US Food Waste Is a Huge Energy Drain

Hugh CollinsContributor

(Oct. 2) -- Forget drafty windows and aging cars -- a new study says one of the biggest wastes of energy in America could be the food in your garbage can. 

Every rotten tomato or unwanted chicken wing represents wasted energy, since the calories in the food are never consumed. And the energy that went into growing the food, processing it, packaging it and transporting it to the consumer is also wasted. 

Each year, American food waste represents the energy equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil, according to new research from the University of Texas.

That's enough to power the whole country for a week -- just sitting in the trash can rotting. 

Don Emmert, AFP / Getty Images

Boxes of strawberries sit among bags of trash found outside a grocery store in New York. A study shows Americans waste the equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil in food each year.

"As a nation we're grappling with energy issues," Michael Webber, associate director of the university's Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy, told AOL News. "A lot more energy goes into food than people realize."

This isn't small potatoes on a global level either. Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, with the U.S. agricultural sector representing about 7 percent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions in 2008, even before taking into account the energy used to process and transport the food. 

So every time you order more french fries than you can eat, you're contributing to a major source of greenhouse gases and climate change. 

"It's a significant amount of energy," Jonathan Bloom, author of "American Wasteland," a book on food waste, told AOL News. "It's not America's most pressing environmental problem, but I think it's the easiest one to solve."

Part of the problem is people's attitude toward food. Americans waste an eye-popping 27 percent of their food, Webber's study says. Almost one-third of the country's oils, fats, grains and dairy products end up in the garbage. 

These figures may even underestimate the problem. For his study, Webber used statistics on food waste from a Department of Agriculture study in the 1990s. 

A study by the National Institutes of Health, which measured food waste by calories, put the portion of food that goes uneaten at about 40 percent as of 2005. 

"If you were to ship all of our food waste produced in one day to one central location, there'd be enough to fill the Rose Bowl," Bloom said, referring to the 90,000-seat football stadium inCalifornia. 

Food is plentiful in America, thanks to naturally fertile farmland, a massive agricultural industry and federal subsidies. That means that people don't always think twice about tossing the leftovers in a way that might have shocked thriftier generations of the past. 

According to the National Institutes of Health study, the American food supply per person has risen by almost one-third from 1970 to 2005, as measured by calories. 

"We have a cheap food policy in America," Webber said. "When things are cheap, people don't care so much about wasting it."

The federal government has offered tax breaks on items including furnaces and insulation in a bid to improve energy efficiency in America and fight climate change. 

The government also established the Energy Star program, which highlights household appliances that meet federal energy efficiency standards. 

Webber thinks more could be done to prevent food waste.

He says the government could reduce subsidies to curb overproduction. Consumers could think more about purchases so they don't end up buying food that will rot in the fridge without ever making it to the plate. 

"There's blame up and down the system," Webber said. "We all play a role." 

He also says that measures including a public information campaign and better technology on farms could make massive energy efficiency gains in the food sector, at comparatively little cost. 

That would mean less money wasted and fewer greenhouse gases emitted. 

"We can have rapid changes of behavior if people have the right motivations," Webber said. "People just aren't conscious of what this waste means."

Warning: Bad Photography Ahead

I went to Indianapolis to the Coffee Break Design warehouse sale this weekend.  It is about 5 to 6 hours by car from here. John was not with me.  He was in a Golf Channel tournament which he won!  So, I was alone.  It was an easy drive, but lonesome without him to chat.  

The sale was wonderful with lots of goodies and very cheap prices.  When Mike has a sale it is a S A L E.  There were shoppers shoulder to shoulder.  I loved seeing some old friends such as Gaye Medbury, Connie Newbanks, Marilyn Werst and Pat Pleacher (see her blog link on left).  We laughed, we talked, we shopped.

One of my favorite purchases was this pointing hand.

Mike made it with his dandy laser machine.  I got a left pointing hand and a right pointing hand.  Cool.

While I was driving back home I passed miles of parked railroad cars on a sidetrack.  Climbing up through the cars were vines and weeds.

Obviously they had not been used in a very long time. There were several types of railroad cars, empty and waiting for their next call to duty. I was thinking that with all the natural disasters of late, such as earthquakes, floods and hurricanes, that these cars could be used for temporary housing somehow.  I have seen articles about turning them into offices and art studios.  Why not housing?  They are sturdy and easy to transport.  They would need some modification, but....

Michael deMeng arrives in a few days for his workshops.  John and I have been pulling together our supplies and looking forward to sitting and playing with the other students.

  

The Station Fire

The well publicized California fire began right near our old home in La Crescenta CA.  The entire neighborhood that we lived in was evacuated for 3 or 4 days.  None of the homes were damaged, but the fire burned right down to the backyards of homes that were just a few houses from our house.

People refer to this time of year as "fire season" and say that if you live in the mountains of CA, it is the risk you take. Mountain views and the breathtaking city light views are seductive.  I never get tired of looking at both, but living in fire areas, flood areas or hurricane areas, etc, definitely can be very risky, costly and put in peril the lives of those whose job it is to protect them. It is always a huge topic of discussion after every disaster.  In the case of CA fires, it is also necessary for some plants to have a fire every few years. Their seed pods can only be opened by fire.  This is just one of nature's jokes.

We feel lucky that we sold that house when we did.  A few months after we sold the house, the market values in the area dropped almost 30% and now the evidence of being in a fire area will affect the value even more in a negative way. I doubt that the people who bought the house feel lucky.

What the Heck?

John decided to try a new game on the internet.  It is a free game, but if you win, you win a prize worth real money.  I am sure you are all familiar with that little check off thing that keeps you from continuing to sign up.  It usually says something like "terms and conditions" or "allow access".  Well, my John always reads the fine print even if it is 20 pages long.  Here is what the "free" game wanted him to agree to:

8. CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION: By participating, participants agree to be bound by these Official Rules including all eligibility requirements. By accepting a prize, each winner consents to the use of his/her name, address (city and state only), image, likeness, photograph, voice, and biographical material throughout the universe in perpetuity by any and all means, media, devices, processes and technology now known or hereafter devised (including, without limitation, print, broadcast, Internet and portable media) for advertising, publicity and promotional purposes by Sponsor, and/or any party designated by the Sponsor, including but not limited to, any online announcements, without notice or additional compensation, except where prohibited by law. Participants release and hold harmless AOL LLC, its parent and subsidiary companies, affiliates, and advertising and promotion agencies, including Strobe Promotions, Inc., and their respective employees, officers, directors and shareholders (collectively, "Releasees") from any claims, actions, injury, loss or damage of any kind, including but not limited to, personal injury or death, resulting from participating in this Contest or from the acceptance, possession, or use or misuse of any prize awarded or participation in any prize-related activity (including any travel associated thereto). 

I will certainly read the small print from now on!!!

Go Forth and Read.

Go Forth and be sure you know what you are agreeing to.

Recession Vintage

I have mentioned before that I read and was amazed by the book Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940 by David E Kyvig.  Heavy on history and politics, it was nevertheless so very interesting and very readable.  It took some time to finish because there was so much to think about and mull over in every chapter.  One of the most interesting aspects of the book was the parallel between that recession and this one.  Why do I bring this up again?  Well, I recently read an article about trend watching and upcoming styles.  According to the author (sorry I didn't keep the article or retain the author's name) during times of recession, we seek comfort and tradition to keep us feeling secure.  This can manifest itself in what we eat, what we wear and what we buy.

The above photo from the new Pottery Barn catalog shows the cubbies I just purchased.  Look at the room setting.  Note the old style hinges on the windows, the vintage lamp, old suitcase on the floor, the old camera on the desk all combining to instill a feeling of permanence and security.  Of course I purchased the cubbies just because I like cubbies.  I am sure of it.

Another Pottery Barn photo shows this room that doesn't look exactly new or trendy, it just looks comfortable and stress free.

How about this bedroom?  Look at the old suitcases against the wall or the yellowing pages of the books under the side table. How  about the faded looking rug?  They all harken to a simple and calm life.  They look like the same furniture advertised a few decades ago.

Pay attention to the patterns of sheets, table linens, bedding and even scrapbook papers and you will see the same patterns that perhaps you saw at your grandmother's house or when you were a child.  The vintage look that has been so popular with collage artists and Somerset magazine is going to become very mainstream.  I think we will see more faux antiques and replicas of vintage goods and "found" objects than ever before.  

Does this make sense to you?  I understand the need for comfort and tradition in tough times, but in actuality, the depression era was awful for half of the people of the United States.  Their clothes, bedding, table linens were mended over and over again until they were unusable and faded until the patterns disappeared.  I am sure they were not buying anything.  So why would looking back be a fashion trend at this time?

And that is what I am thinking about tonight.

The River

When I first told people I was moving to Cleveland, the response most often was "Oh, where the river catches fire?" They were referring to the 1969 Cuyahoga river fire. It was not the first time the very polluted Cuyahoga had caught fire. It was a dead river with no fish, no life at all. It was said that if a person fell in, he wouldn't drown, he would decay. The water gurgled with underwater gases. On June 22, 1969 it caught fire and burned for 30 minutes. It is difficult to imagine a body of water combusting. The fire was made doubly famous by a recording made by Randy Newman titled "Burn on Big River".

The good news is that the event spurred the environmental movement and resulted in the Clean Water Act of 1972.  Today the river has fish in abundance and is generally clean and healthy.  There has been a good deal of press on this, the 40 year anniversary of the fire.  I have leaned quite a few river facts from the media attention.  

The river was formed 12,000 years ago from the retreat of the glaciers.  

It flows South and then makes a U-turn and flows North to empty into Lake Erie.  

"Cuyahoga" is an Iroquois Indian word for crooked river.  

Moses Cleaveland (the 'a' was later dropped for some weird reason) founded the settlement at the mouth of the Cuyahoga at Lake Erie.

John left this morning at 4:30 am to go fishing on Lake Erie. This after playing 72 holes of golf this weekend.  The man is a machine.  He went fishing with my daughter-in-law's father and uncle.  These two guys tell amazing stories about the area.  I love their stories.  I love that they are enamored with their birthplace and can recite so much history.  I am sure John will get stories about the shipwrecks in Lake Erie. Estimates of shipwrecks number in the thousands and 270 have actually been located. Having grown up near the Pacific Ocean and then living on the Atlantic Ocean, I find it fascinating to think that a mere Lake can have all this activity and volume.

Last night after dinner we drove over to the Lake to watch the sunset and have an ice cream at Honey Hut. So did a hundred other people.  We were amazed at how many people were in the water and on the small beach. More were in the picnic area cooking and eating. It was like a party. a real summer time evening at the lake.  We stood up on the bluff and again I was amazed that a lake can be so huge. To the East we can see far off in the distance, about 13 miles actually, the Cleveland skyline.  To the North and West, we can only see water and an occasional barge slowly moving along the horizon.  Lake Erie is one of the smaller of the Great Lakes.

I love it here.

Paper Houses

Over at Rag & Bone Blog, these cute little paper houses took center stage.

I wish the directions had been shared.  These are so cute. What to do.  I googled paper houses, of course.  Here is what I came up with.  

A Swiss Co, Gizmodo, offers a $5000, 390 square foot self contained paper house fitted to accommodate 8 (!!!!).  It is their solution for disaster relief and for third world shanty towns.  It has plumbing, tables and chairs and convertible open air kitchens.  Here is what they say:

"It has been designed so that a family can slaughter an animal on the veranda, wash it in the shower and hang it, along with fish, on an integrated washing line." It is made from resin soaked recycled paper.

Artist Sumer Erek was disgusted with the amount of trash and waste he saw on the streets of London. He erected this paper house completely from discarded newspapers.

Talk about upcycling!  Great insulation, but what happens when it rains?

In Marathon TX they are building houses out of Papercrete.  Papercrete is 93% recycled paper pulp, water and a small amount of cement.  Pretty cool.

I never did find the instructions for the folded house, but good news, Rag and Bone is writing a new book and the instructions will be there!

Snowy Tuesday

Weather:

We are having our first snow of the season.  It snowed yesterday, but melted away by early afternoon.  It has been snowing intermittently ever since with a little bit of success.  Temp: 31!

Gas: $1.72 gallon.

My friend, Mary Ann over at Dispatch from LA, has been making these fun and relaxing little books from left over bits and bobs.  I decided to try my hand at it, too.  Since I currently have a few blank books around, I have a ready-made base to play with.  I love Mary Ann's blog.  It has been one of my favorites for a long time now.  You should be a regular reader (if you are not already).

Speaking of the little books I made last week, several of you have asked about the papers I used on the covers.  I checked all three and there are no manufacturer's names on the edges.  The typewriter paper is a thin wrapping paper.  It wrinkled like crazy and I had to spend quite a bit of time with my acrylic brayer to get it all smooth.  I think I bought it from the now defunct Paper Post in CA.  Oh, how I miss that store! The other two papers were recently purchased at Hollander's in Ann Arbor, MI.  The alphabet paper has been around for many, many years.  Both of the latter papers are heavyweight, similar to Cavallini papers in weight and touch. I apologize for not being able to give more information.

I talked with my brother, Bruce today and he gave me updates on the fires in Southern CA.  He took some photos of the distant fire. This is what he could see of the Sylmar fire from his mountain top home on Saturday night...click on the photos to see larger version....

The next day, this was the scene...

Today, he told me that the smoke was gone.  The fires are about 40% contained with hope to get them fully contained.  Thank goodness the winds died down.  Fires are so scary in CA.  When I lived there years ago, there was a huge fire in Malibu from the mountain canyons all the way down to the beach. After the fire, the canyons looked like the moon surface.  There was no vegetation whatsoever.  It is a natural phenomenon in CA for there to be fires.  There is actually a species of tree with seeds that will only propagate after a fire.  

The only other news I have is that John just returned from a fishing trip in Mexico.  He caught 300 fish in 4 days!  He is already planning his next trip so I think he must have had a great time.

If you are starting to plan your holiday shopping, please stop by Small Studio and check out some of our unique offerings. 

Hopeful

NYT photo

There will be much written about last night and written much better than I am able to write, but what an amazing night.  Whether your candidate won or lost, you had to have been moved by the crowds that showed up all over the country to witness the results of this election.  

I was pleased with John McCain's concession speech.  It was as it should have been.  

I loved Barack Obama's  acceptance speech.  It was inspiring, yet humble.

But what must it have felt like to be the Obamas and Bidens looking out over that crowd during the acceptance speech?  What must it have been like to be Barack Obama with the loss of his grandmother just the day before, to achieve this monumental acceptance?  I cannot imagine what it must be like to be African-American and to see this election.

Obama faces a huge challenge in this currently messy United States and every American, no matter who they voted for, needs to step up and do whatever they can to make this country whole again.  

On the less than political aspect of last night, I loved the scenes of the Obama family really celebrating together and the same when the Bidens came on stage.  Did you notice how the children and adults from each family hugged and mingled?  There seems to be real affection there.  Did you notice how the adults were so protective of the children?  There was an obvious respect for all the many generations standing up there on stage...parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren.  Maybe there is hope for all of us.

A Little of This & That

THIS

This will be turned into some sweet Christmas Cones for decoration or for tucking little gifts for my girls.  It is on my list of things to do this week.  Now I have publicly committed to making them THIS week.

THAT

That just shows you how difficult it is to get a good photo of six children on a sugar high and just a bit excited.  Photo taken at the other grandma's house Halloween night.  Joey was Harry Potter and just finished his 7th Harry book since mid-summer.  Tony was a Transformer.  Then there was Indiana Jones, two kittens and a fairy.  All the visitors to the porch were happy and polite.  Some even performed for us on demand.  They were all ages and sizes, all colors and cultures and they all got along.  Maybe the key to world peace is the promise of candy.

THIS

This is happening again.  They have removed a small farm house and they are getting ready to remove the trees.  I know progress is supposedly good for a community.  It creates jobs and creates a new tax revenue, but one of the reasons we moved here was all the trees and the fact that it was still partially rural with large areas of undeveloped woods.

THAT promise I made about no more fall photos.  I was wrong.  It keeps getting prettier and now that the aptly named "America Demolition" is around, I am afraid some of the trees will be gone next year. Below is the street they are beginning to work on.  Isn't it pretty with all the trees?  This view is the other side of the street from the above photo.

With camera already out and ready to click away, I also took a few more shots of our neighborhood color.  

That red is beautiful  The bushes are commonly called "Burning Bush" (Euonymus alata).  It is green all summer and then turns this beautiful scarlet in the Fall.

THAT is not all.  Below is a card I received on Halloween Day from the sweet and kind Amy Alford from Kalamazoo MI.  She wrote me the lovliest note which made me want to hug her, but since she lives in another state, I will just give her an electronic hug.  Thank you Amy!  I loved getting your card and note.

And THIS of my grandkids in NV  (Okay, Wendy in VA, we need photos of those Grandkids).  Below is Cees as the Hulk, Ginny as Colonial Maiden and Amanda as a dead bride.  Amanda designed her costume and Georgia, my daughter's costume buddy made both Amanda's and Ginny's costumes.

Follow-ups.

If I did my conversions properly, in Britain they are paying $6.00 per gallon of gas.  Yikes!  Of course they have an excellent transportation system in place.  Thank you to one of the commenters ( justaplanerideaway) for this information.  And my old friend pj dutton remembers that it was about March 2005 that the gasoline prices inched up over $2.00.  Good to hear from you, pj.

Have you voted yet?  Be sure to do so.

This and That

Today's book project:

MOVIES

We have seen two controversial movies this week.

The first was "Religilous" by Bill Maher.  It was irreverent, but interesting.  It was staged in many ways, but thought-provoking.  It was funny.  It was scary.  We talked about it for hours.

Much of the same can be said about our second movie, "W", the story of George W Bush.  This movie, if accurate and it might well be, is a tragedy.  It might also be a reckless movie to put out into the public when so many hate America already.  We talked about it afterwards for a long time.

BOOKS

I have just finished "Five Quarters of an Orange".  I have to stop reading books about World War II and occupied countries.  I go to bed and read and get depressed.  How lucky America was not to have war on our continent.  We have been so lucky in so many ways.  Hopefully whichever candidate wins next month, he will keep us safe and restore our economy.

WEATHER

Getting chilly...58 today...and beautiful with the autumn colors and clear blue skies.

There is that Fall energy in the air that makes one feel so alive.

ART

Are you familiar with Frances Twombly?  She painstakingly embroiders replicas of her receipts as she did the ones above.  Amazing.

What are you working on?

It's All About...

....Keeping your head...

These are such scary times in the world with war, economic woes and global warming.  Every time I turn on the radio or CNN, I am told not to panic, but it is scary and evidently out of the average Joe's realm of control.

...Friends and Family....

Where would we be without our dear friends and family?  Do you actively work at your friendships, making sure you call, remembering their important days, telling them how much you care?  I am so grateful for my loving family and dear friends.  They make life rich.

...Presentation...

John and I had been meaning to go to breakfast at a local restaurant that is only open for breakfast and lunch.  Friends had mentioned what a good place it is and every time we drove by (early in the day), there was a line.  They must be good, I thought, to be able to close for dinner.

This weekend we got over there for breakfast.  The fairly large place was crowded, but we were seated within minutes.  We were seated at a not so clean table which was remedied pretty quickly.  The menu was large with a really good variety of items that sounded great.  We ordered and were served in a timely manner.

The food was okay, not great, but nothing was really wrong with it.  But here is my comment.  The table was brown, the chairs were natural wood.  The walls were brown.  The artwork (all coffee cups), you guessed it...brown.  The plates were ivory, the food was pale.  There was no garnish, no colorful slice of melon or other fruit, not even a spring of parsley.  John and I felt as if we had landed in an old black and white film.  How different we might have felt if the plates were colorful to counteract the bland colors of most breakfast foods.  A sliced strawberry or other fruit would have livened up the dish, too.  Maybe sunrise colors to go with the hours of operation.  When one walks into any retail place, one must feel as though there are possibilities to have a great experience.  Our experience was just flat.  It was just food.  Has that ever happened to you?  

...New Products...

Amy, my webgirl, is working hard as I write this to get all my new products up and running at Small Studio.

New Pennants

New Paper Goods and Notebooks

New French MarketPlace

New ATC Frames

New Ribbons

Tomorrow is the last day to send in an entry to our Empty Mailbox contest, Part Deux.

The Saturday Post

We have been having the most wonderful time taking mini vacations.  We take off for the day to explore and play.  It is ever so much more economical than our driving trips across country that we took last year. Less gas, less restaurants and no lodging.  There are definite pitfalls, though.  A few days ago we decided to go to Pittsburgh to visit the Andy Warhol Museum which is less than 3 hours away. We had visited the museum a few years ago when we were dating and really enjoyed it.  It is definitely worth a repeat visit. Unfortunately we stopped at Ikea on the way down.  It is the closest Ikea to us (2 1/2 hours!) so we had to.  It is a rule.  Definitely.  We spent so much time there that we ended up just returning home, skipping the Warhol Museum.  We bought a wonderful drawer unit for my art room that will be delivered today which requires an entire art room makeover.  I keep my art room pretty tidy, but this is what my art room looks like in the process of moving stuff about.

I liked my art room before, but one always needs more storage...c'mon, agree with me here.  And I wanted to rearrange it so I could have friends over to play.  That is my rationalization and I am sticking to it.  All materials used in our new purchases are from renewable sources and recycled materials.  We asked.  

Do you remember a post I did last year about a woodsy area near here where the trees were being cut down?  Nothing was ever built there, but the tree killers are back, cutting hundreds more trees down.

I called City Hall and asked what was going in there and I could not find anyone who would give me an answer other than it was private property.  I asked if the owners were required to plant trees to replace those cut down and the answer was no.

It has been absolutely wonderful weather here in the high 70s, breezy, sunny and lovely clouds.

I love it here in Ohio, not too hot and lots of sky.  One night last week there was an electric storm over the Lake that provided a better show than any fireworks display.  John and I sat and watched it for quite awhile before it finally moved East.  But then the next night, we sat outside at Tim's for another BBQ after the men played in a charity golf tournament.  It was just perfect.   

Sunday

Thank you to all who have commented and e-mailed me about yesterday's post.  John and I try to do the things mentioned, but we all can improve and we all can encourage others to improve.  Have any of you talked about this on your blogs?  Let me know and I will link to you.

Art Challenge:  

Recently I read on a blog (sorry, I have forgotten whose) a challenge to make something in 30 minutes with only the supplies you can reach from your work table.  Now this is not the best way to make art, but it was challenging and fun.  Here is what I made below.  I had a 3" square board book bought on clearance, some stamps (mostly Stampers Anonymous), pens, colored pencils, paper scraps I keep in a jar on my desk and ink.  Love my Inksentials pen for highlighting.  If you need a really good white pen, this is it.  As soon as my webmaster gets my new products up, it will be available through Small Studio.

You may click on the photo to see the full image...if you must.  Remember, it was finished in 30 minutes.