Saturday, May 26, 2012

Number 17!

What a great experience to take part in the SewMamaSew.com 2012 giveaway.  I loved checking the comments and seeing really yummy and fabulously easy things to make and eat.   You all outdid yourselves with every kind of yummy choices for me. Thank you so much! Without further ado:

Drum roll Please!  


Using the True Random Number Generator the winner is #17!  SewLindaAnn!  So, Linda Ann I've sent you email and when you reply with your address I'll send out the apron kit to you asap!





Thursday, May 24, 2012

Scooters and Sidecars

I've created a whole slew of coordinates to go with my watercolor scooter fabric here at Spoonflower .  It's currently entered in the Motorcycle contest there (if you choose to vote in the contest the link is here

I wanted to make a kid design, specifically boys.  Those poor boys they rarely have a big choice when it comes to fabric design.  I like this because it's geared towards toddlers both boys and girls.  If you look at my coordinates you'll see designs geared for both styles of kidlets. .

 When my son was teeny I could basically find cammo or truck fabric.  Both are fine but I wanted MORE.  He loved vroomy things so that's what I kept in mind as I drew the scooters.

Oh and I might end up using this as a coordinate too.  :-)

Monday, May 21, 2012

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway! Woot!

Yahoooo!  It's time! I'm participating in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway!  See this logo proves it!  Isn't it exciting? You could have a free cut and sew kit in your hands in just a week or two if you just continue reading.


You cook right?  And cooking can be messy right? Especially if you have a 3 year old who wants to get his or her fingers right into the bowl and then after licking their fingers must wipe the rest of it up on your clothes.

Well, I have just the kit for you (even if you don't have a 3 year old and even if you don't actually cook...you could use it while cleaning the house, but it really is cute in the kitchen especially if you have FiestaWare dishes).  You can win (ding, ding, ding!) this apron kit by simply posting your favorite easy recipe (or a link to a recipe) and in a few days (on May 25th to be exact) I'll randomly choose one of you to receive a A Tribute to Fiestaware apron kit!  It's that easy.

It'd be great if you followed me (that would be swell), you don't have to make 500 of your twitter followers follow me with a link back (but if you have 500 twitter followers I'm suitably impressed), all you have to do is the recipe thing AND include a way for me to contact you.  If I can't contact you I have to choose another! I will ship internationally so don't be shy, comment away!

Ohhhh, you wanna see the apron?  It's free you know!  But here it is modeled by my best friend.  And here it is with some fab Fiesta dishes.


If  you want to see the pattern kit go here to Spoonflower (btw, I have tons of designs there: cruise them if you're in the mood to check out a slew of fabric designs) the directions are printed right on the kit, all you need to do it cut it out and sew it up!  What could be easier? I know, having your significant other go out and get a fabulous dinner for you would be easier and if your partner does that then you can still WEAR the apron so you'll match the dishes you'll surely eat from right?

Ok, commence with the recipes...I'm hungry and I really want to try some out!

Oh and p.s. All my commenters so far have blogs! Go read them, give them some bloggy love!

Sunday, May 20, 2012

2012 Solar Eclipse

I live in southern California and we had a solar eclipse today.  In 15 mins I created a viewing box out of a soda cracker box, some tape, paper and a nail.  Oh and tape to tape it shut.  The eclipse was cool, the light shifted and everything had a golden quality to it.

I didn't stare at the sun. I like having eyes that can see but that pin-hole box was just not cutting it.  I mean, I could see the shadow, the box worked perfectly but thing all around me was far more dynamic.

I noticed on the side of our barn this:


Isn't it fantastic? It's the shadows of leaves and branches from our giant sycamore tree.  I thought it was gorgeous.  I thought I'd take a photo of what it normally looks like tomorrow night.  

I'm sure there are better photos of the actual sun, but this make me feel all wonderous.  

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Of retro bananas and anteaters

Bwhahaha, the result for the Retro contest came out today and yep, it was as I expected; my erect candle salad placed dismally. S'ok as I added the erect banana at the last minute because I couldn't come up with a good solid design so I went for the laugh factor. I loved my design once I added the banana...wanna see it? It's here: click here and then zoom on the design to see the detail. It got a decent number of views (which only means people were curious about it) and a number of comments from designers and regular Spoonflower members. But I guess there aren't enough Amy Sedaris fans or Charles Phoenix fans that came out to vote! Dang it!

Onto the Spoonflower hand drawn contest. The criteria is it must be hand drawn. Basically anything goes. You can color it any way you want. To me the better ones are those that are not colored digitally and not converted from hand drawn to vector. I like that somewhat rough look if it's going to be hand drawn. I mean, because I hand draw ALL of my designs...I just draw them with a wacom tablet and pen and in Illustrator. Totally hand drawn. Eh, doing that makes me feel like I'm cheating so nope, it's going to be totally hand done with real materials.

Tough not having a specific theme so I tried watercolor flowers...looked great but too boring as there will be lots of florals. Ditched it. Did a different floral with pencil and used odorless mineral spirits to melt the wax. Nice but still too boring so I ditched that too. Anteaters have been sort of on my mind since the Not Owl contest so last Monday at lunch I drew out my anteaters in ink no less and then started coloring them with colored pencil. I didn't have time to do 3 or 4 of them in diff poses since I had to enter the next day. Drew one, copied it and colored them with different color combos.


That's one of the combos. I love it, it cracks me up. I've watermarked it so if it looks a little uneven it's because the watermark is there. Wanna see the seamless repeat? Go here and check it out. Wanna vote for it so it doesn't have the same dismal showing as my candle salad? Go here and page thru the millions of entries (I do so apologize for the time you'll take going thru them all but really there are some good designs in there!)

I'm thinking anteaters might look good on my couch. And I might just be the only person in the world with anteater pillows! Woot!


Sunday, May 6, 2012

George Clooney's birthday

I'm on Facebook quite a bit.  I read all sorts of stuff my friends post.  In some cases I've "liked" an outside organization such as Associated Press, ABC News, Huffington Post, etc.  Because I like to know what is going on. 

I hate having outside organizations pop up with a subscribe notice so "All your friends can see what you're reading!"  IF I WANT OTHERS TO KNOW SOMETHING I'LL ACTIVELY POST IT ON MY WALL.  I don't need Huffington Post (btw, AP and ABC does not use the popup social plugins and I'm thankful for that) to use me as an advertising tool to my friends by posting what I might have clicked on.  So Huffington Post - I like your articles mostly; at least some of the sections...others not so much. 

This appeared on my wall this morning. 


I do not care that George Clooney turned 51 or that he had a birthday.  George doesn't send me gifts or cards or helps me pay my bills.  He doesn't even know I'm alive.  So, no, I'm not going to click on that story, I'm not going to "Like" the article and if I did read it I certainly don't want to push that kind of stuff to my friends. 

Now if I knew the guy and I liked him as a human and we were actually friends I might go to HIS wall and wish him a happy birthday. But posting a happy birthday wish to him via your article is just inane.  Again, the man doesn't know who I am, nor does he care.  As far as he knows people who post birthday wishes on your site are all nutcases who *think* they know him because he's some kind of entertainment celebrity.

Can you do me a favor Huffington Post? Can you put a No Thank You function on your social networking popup so if I decide to read an article I can go to your site without having to be faced with a danged popup and read it without advertising to my friends?  Come on Arianna...can you do that? 

I'll bet if George asked you would.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

In which I recount my work week

Lazy Saturdays! Worked on a design, changed it up from a very boring shape-driven design to something tongue-in-cheek funny. Not a winner type of design but it totally cracked me up. Can't post it here yet; must wait til Tuesday.

The last week was very busy for me. I was asked to project manage a press conference and I had great fun doing it. In my old work world I project managed long-term, somewhat largish projects. At my current work I project manage nothing but myself. I consider myself quite easy to manage. I rarely talk back to myself. My new boss gives me things that are outside of my assigned duties and that makes me happy because at least I'm doing something besides managing myself. This project wasn't really project management, it was really a coordination effort but they call it project management and who am I to quibble with their institutional lexicon?

I digress. I had 5 days to coordinate this thing. Luckily I saw every email so I could coordinate as things changed or made suggestions on how things should go or should not go. There was total cooperation at every turn so it made it easy as pie. My phone was ringing off the hook, my email groaning at the volume of mail. I thrive on things changing every 5 mins so this was right up my alley.

Thursdays press conference went without a hitch which is the mark of a successful event. We had good press coverage, fabulous technology coordination, great attendance in the audience and we didn't really need the plainclothes officers (we had 2). I sort of cracked up that the officers were in plainclothes but each of them had those ear piece things with the clear cord running into their suits - not very incognito if you ask me.

Friday was catching up with all the things I didn't do during the coordination week. Hahaha, to give you an indication of my normal volume of work I finished all of that with time to spare. But if the boss asks, I was sweating bullets trying to catch up (Ha).

Outside of work I saw my son, he drove into town Thursday, he came to my work to visit me with his friends and invited me and his dad to dinner: he was going to cook. We arrived at 9:20 (yes, it was a late dinner); about a dozen 20-something guys, a couple of girls and us. I don't know that some of his friends knew we were coming. We walked in and those that didn't know us looked at us funny. We're 30-35 years older than them and we're PARENTS. hahahaha. I think those that were smoking blunts in the backyard did a (slow) double-take.

The son cooked mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, pan-fried steaks and a green salad for about 15 people. Everything was yummy. We ate around 10:15....rather I ate at that time as I got served first (good son!). It was fun seeing the kids we knew; most of them we've known since they were in grade school and now they are all 23 or so. Most have jobs, most have graduated from college and most are just now embarking on a real life. I don't think any of them live with their parents anymore. Probably for the best, parents don't want to know everything their young adult children decide to do.

Got home around quarter after 11 and straight to bed since I get up at 5:30. <----another mark of a parental-type.

Yep, a full week, a fun week. So I deserve this lazy, somewhat warm Saturday (and yes, I read some of my book, "The Tigers Wife" and even took a nap earlier. Wheeeee. Perfect Saturday.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Satisfaction

Argh, it's morning. Slept like a log, still feel like a log. Must wake up. The last few days at work have been jammed-packed with things to do and I had fun. I'd love to be that busy all the time! Maybe that's why I've slept so good over the past couple of nights.

Busy, satisfied and feel like I'm contributing. Hooray.

Isn't it nice to feel satisfied with something? Yet, not feeling satisfied creates a need for me to do something better or more interesting so there is that aspect of the push/pull of whatever you're doing.

Speaking of doing...I'm way behind on a couple of projects and MUST get it together so I don't add to the pile of not done yet. My plans for this weekend is go not design for hours but to get some of those projects done.

I'm all happy that my chickens took 5th place in the Not Owls contest at Spoonflower. Check out the design here: Click for chickens Not too bad out of 226 designs eh? I'm fairly satisfied with that! And that bit where I'm not - means I'll try harder next time.