art journal class

i am super excited, i've signed up for a spot for rachel's art journal class ... i can't wait. i need some inspiration and i've been super stumped on journaling lately ... i know it'll be great, i love everything rachel does, and i absolutely loved the little journal kit i got from her a while back.  must must must eventually sign up for the red velvet kit club, i adore it, just haven't felt like i should spend the money ... but soon, especially now that i'm working 40 hrs/wk.  anyway, just wanted to update about rachel's class - go check it out! 

quilting

i posted a few more pics up on flickr, including some of the queen size quilt that i designed & quilted (with the help of my mom) for our bed. the story of the quilt - last may when i moved home after graduating from college, i decided i needed a project. i had made a quilt in 6th grade during summer camp at quilt-in-a-day, and since then, it's been my cherished bedspread. anyway, my mom has been in to quilting off and on for a while, she's such a perfectionist so she loves sewing perfect corners and all of that, haha. so anyway, we went up to quilt in a day and i started picking out all this pretty fabric, and then of course i had to pick a pattern to make. well, me being me, picks a quilt that's hanging up on the wall that is the one quilt in the whole damn place that they don't have an instruction book on, and no one even really knows what the deal is with it. well, i INSIST that it's what i want to make. the one hanging was a lap quilt. i wanted to make a queen. so, i ask for some graph paper, and with my neck straining up to 30 feet high, i draw out the pattern and then mathematically figure out how to expand it into a queen, how much fabric i'll need, how many different patterns of fabric, etc. it was seriously intense, everyone thought i was absolutely crazy. but i did it. and then, slowly over the past year, i cut all the pieces, sewed all the pieces, etc. then, it sat unattended to in my closet at my mom's house for months. and then finally we went to a quilt workshop that's offered through the community colleges and got advice from some serious quilters on how to finish it, and now it's done, and on out bed, and i love it. i love that greg & i sleep every night under the blanket that i made. it's so special. i love it.

a picture is worth a thousand words

ok, finally some pics. please excuse the poor quality, i am NO photographer & have no patience to learn editing and all of that. i just point & shoot.

most of my mini books:

some pages from my newest mini book a la elise blaha:

cover of the mini book i'm making for my sister to take with her when she goes abroad in the fall:

some pics of my mini book a la rachel denbow:



yesterday i took a class over at paper tales taught by amy hanson and this is what i made, i love it!:


the BEAUTIFUL black shabby chic hutch i got at pat's corner:

quote i painted underneath the bar (it's a jack johnson quote that says "it's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving i'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together"):

i've been busy on many different projects and i'm dying to post pics! gosh. not having a digital camera is killing me.  i'm gonna try to get my sister to come over tomorrow and bring hers so i can post the mini books i'm working on, the necklace i made today at paper tales (so fun! i had such a good time) and the beautiful new hutch i bought a few weeks ago.  plus some other house hold projects.  so much! one of the mini books i'm working on is using some polaroids from my birthday last weekend, and i'm finally putting rachel denbow's book kit to good use. it's so cute.  it's a lot more writing than i usually do, and less scrapbook-y, but i like it.  and i got elise's "she could think of thousands of reasons to believe in fairy tales" paper kit and i can't wait to start working on that when i'm done with my birthday book. i have a bad bad habit of starting projects and never finishing them.  

this is turning out to be the best weekend ever.

i spent some time yesterday over at paper tales (my fave!) ... had to pick up a few more things for my sister's mini book ... and of course, picked up a few things for myself ... and signed up for this awesome charm necklace class that they are having on july 26.  so excited! love the girls over at paper tales (thank you michelle & helle) ... they told me about this awesome place in north park called Pat's Corner ... so my sister and i drove over there straight from paper tales and OF COURSE, i found this AWESOME black shabby chic hutch that they had literally JUST FINISHED refinishing, and it is now mine for a sweet $125 - plus i paid 20 bucks more for them to deliver it ... SAME DAY, so now i have the awesome hutch sitting in my condo, and it looks so perfect.  i'm in love with it.  the other REALLY COOL THING about pat's is that you can bring in furniture for them to refinish (repair, paint, shabby-chic it out) ... sooo going to bring them two chairs i have that needed repairing and painting! the house is really coming along! we even bought a 32 inch flat screen tv on friday (i think i have lost my mind?) .... i am going to borrow my sister's camera again SOON hopefully so i can post new pictures of the house & of a bunch of mini books i have going! 

happy 4th of july ... guess i should go eat a burger & drink some beer?

my head is going to BURST with ideas. i need someone to help me narrow it all down.  i'm on overdrive.

walked on over to Vintage Religion, which i've been meaning to visit since i moved in to the neighborhood.  such goodies in that place! got some awesome PaPaYa! cards and came home to spend the next hour and a half getting all googely eyed at Anahata Katkin's work.  OMG, can you say, NEW OBSESSION.  also go an awesome " MAKE ART NOT WAR" poster that i want to frame for the craft room.  i'm thinking a cool decorative black frame ... something like the frame above on the right but in black and rectangular ... links anyone?? (thank you amy rice from flickr) 

still on an intense wallpaper hunt.  i'm thinking something green - lime / chartreuse ish ... damask maybe?  some type of cool print.  or maybe i should seriously just use me some brocade hambly overlays .... so much love.  

home sweet sweet sweet home

lately i've been getting the urge to work on the house.  the living room wall / eat in kitchen wall is HUGE, and i'm talking HUGE ... 20-25 feetish high.  so in the living room part i want to make a "frame" out of crown molding for some awesome wallpaper in a 105in X 77in rectangle behind the couch.  i got the idea from the pic above on flickr (thank you homebug)

so, if you have wallpaper suggestions, post them!! (ok, i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to just slap tons of hambly on the wall, BUT i don't know if that's practical?  any input?) 

ok, the craft room needs a lot of work,  i can't even see the floor right now because there are piles after piles after piles of stuff. paper, magazines, cardboard boxes, bubble wrap, paint, beads, embellishments, stickers.  i need shelving, or something.  DESPERATELY.  

i think those are my two top priorities, craft room and wallpapering the living room, because i think whatever wall paper i fall in love with will determine the rest of the living room - since i can't seem to make up my mind about the color scheme / theme of the room.  

so overall, i just need some awesome home inspiration.  i need to go thrifting / garage sale-ing bad,  any san diego peeps want to go this weekend?