Where Have I Been All Your Life?

Since October 12, I've been away from ye olde crafting blog. Not because I don't love yous guys, but more like a little well-deserved break from the crazy craft blitz I was on in August and September (I'm the boss around here, so I determine when breaks are well-deserved). So I paused, reflected, cleaned up, put my thinking cap on, schemed some new plans, and renewed my little creative spirit. I think there's good things on the horizon.

And while I rested from my crafting labors, I had some time to enjoy the best season in Texas -- autumn. It's cool and crisp, the humidity takes a much needed rest, every day is a good hair day, the sun feels great shining down on your back. And of course, autumn in Dallas means the State Fair comes to town, and that's the greatest place on Earth. I don't usually go all Chamber of Commerce re: Dallas, but I wanted to share with you three of my favorite pictures from this year's State Fair. Above are the awards handed out to the vendors who win for the best fried food of the year. I love it! I had to jostle some truly impatient fried goober gobblers out of the way to take this picture. For those who don't know, that head is the head of Big Tex, the official mascot of the State Fair. I tried a fried snickers bar this year. It was good. Better than last year's fried cookie dough. Or at least that's what I think I tried. Whatever it was, it had been battered and deep fried and was still hot and greasy when I ate it. I pause to wonder whether I should really say, "yum."

And I love the signs at the State Fair. The fonts, the scroll, it's just a great piece of work. The vintage look and feel of all the stands, and they aren't vintage because they are going for a currently popular trend of interest in all things old. No way Jose. These signs look vintage because they are old. Why tinker with perfection? Oh and, I'm obsessed with Tiny Tim. Really, the obsession began years ago when it was a different smallest horse on Earth named Tiny Tina (it's amazing how many smallest horse on Earth's there are since that phrase is supposedly reserved for just one miniature animal, right?). I don't know why I love this exhibit so much -- it's a total rip off because it's clearly a dog with a horse tail glued on. It's so sad! But somehow listening to the tape they play on a 30-second repeat "This is the smallest horse in the world! He eats just one cup of oats a day!" just reminds me of what a silly experience the whole fair can be. But it is the kind of experience that everyone should just submit to, because life is silly.

This year they had swan boats on the pond by the science center. I thought they were pretty beautiful. It's not Boston or anything, and the pond is really quite a small area, but all in all, I felt good knowing I was getting a bit of a workout in my paddling, especially on a day that's so stuffed with fried fry.

Well, now you've seen my highlights from the State Fair. Get ready to see some crafts! Yay!

Super Green Garden

I'm rather proud of this artsy kind of shot. It's from above and it shows a collection of glass bottles, chopped off and finished with a crusty rim of gold paint. Together with some glass marbles and stones, potting soil and a plant, it's a little garden. The glass echoes terrarium but it's also like a planter. I spend time and anxiety worrying about the variety of glass colors, heights, thicknesses just to make sure that the bottles are all slightly different; that each brings its own piece to the overall puzzle. I'm liking how this collection is going. (I have my own little garden of bottles on my window sill.)

And here's me holding the smallest of jars. It's tiny. I'm hard-pressed finding a plant that will fit inside this little guy, but I'm working on it! And in the background you can see the plastic container of marbles, stones, and sea glass pieces that I've collected to be the water-draining portion of the planter. Oh and you can see the mixing bowl that has been repurposed to house plants as they await their final planting in a jar. And, for kicks, you can see that this whole operation is currently going down atop my stove. Like I said a week ago, there are little projects everywhere! As long as I stay sane, I'm happy to let the crafts take over. It's not like I could put the plants under a cabinet or anything anyway.

Finally, the plants in all their glory, with some glitteratti frogs chillin' in the open space. I don't know exactly why I decided that I needed to glitterize a set of plastic frogs, but I enjoy them living among the plants.

The Eggcellent Easter (Or the End of Egg Posts)

A little late perhaps to be debuting my Spring Easter decorations, but I'm such a lagger when it comes to blogging. I sure hope you'll forgive me. Above (and in a few shots below) is the arrangement I did (with all flowers grown by my mommy) and the Easter Egg wreath I made for our family's Easter lunch. We decided to do things super laid-back and casual. We grilled hamburgers (in the rain, as the weather didn't cooperate with our plans), baked french fries and had an All-American chocolate cake instead of typical Henry-family over-the-top feasts of fancy-pants foods.
I don't know why we decided to go super laid back, but it worked out really well for everyone. Did I mention the Bloody Mary's? With spicy Cajun salt on the rim? Oh my goodness. It was a great holiday.
And I got to do the centerpiece! I showed you a week ago my technique for draining the eggs shown here. I dyed them all with kiddie egg dye and high-end paint supplies. Then I thought they weren't quite showy enough so I rolled them in rubber cement and added super-fine glitter. Awesome. It made such a mess but it was great! You know how when you play with rubber cement it gets on your hands and rubs into those little balls of rubber cement? Well, add in tons of glitter and you have a genuine mess on your hands. Thankfully my nose didn't itch or anything like that and the mess was completely containable. I took a cardboard box and cut out a 9" circle and then inside of that I cut a 7" circle and used the 2" ring as the starting point for my wreath. Then I took a piece of fancy tissue paper (made by Papyrus and purchased at Central Market, which is generally way to fancy for me for craft supplies, but with tissue paper, you can see the quality) and cut it into strips, wrapping the strips around the cardboard ring and then letting the extra stick out of the ring like grass. When the wreath was completely covered, I glued the glittery eggs in a haphazard way to look casual and springy.
The arrangement was simple enough -- I took what mom had grown and picked and put it in a mint julep silver cup.

Below is a much better picture to get a straightforward view of the whole project.


And below this is the cake I made. Dyed the vanilla icing green and covered it with coconut flakes and some little Easter peanut M&Ms.

Brr-Rrrr, Heavy Traffic

When I was a child back in the days of "C:/" instead of today's visually intuitive computers, my daddy bought me (or maybe he bought it for himself, fuzzy memory) SimCity. I'm not going to say it was the very first ever edition of SimCity, because I really don't know. Alls I do know is that I loved that game. LOVED. It was so fascinating. I could build a whole town. And then destroy their power plant and see how long they'd live without electricity. In many ways, SimCity might just be what started it all. From there I graduated to home design software (I'd try to fit all the essentials -- stove, fridge, toilet, shower, bed, door -- into 100 square feet or less. I think the best I ever did was 80 square feet, in a house where the bed was stacked above the fridge and stove, which, obviously, would be a really pleasant place to live). And from that software, I started to read interior decorating magazines, study art history and ultimately become a craft blogger. Wow, what a progression...
And you may wonder why I am mentioning SimCity in conjunction with a picture of my kitchen. I'll tell you: in the SimCity of my youth, when you had traffic congestion, a radio helicopter-esque voice would say, "Brr-rrr-rrr-heavy traffic." Or at least that's how my dad and I interpreted what the guy said. And it joined the Henry family lore as a family phrase -- brr-rr heavy traffic. It's right up there with "tit-titilly-boo," "teeka-teeka," or "fiffffty." And if you know much about we Henrys, you may well have heard these phrases. Well, when I was painting this piece of glass (detail shown below), I could only think of one phrase, "Brr-heavy traffic." I don't know why it reminded me of a busy SimCity, but it just does somehow.
I painted this 1 square foot piece of glass over the weekend. I thought I'd tuck it in behind my kitchen CD player and radio to create a little vignette right there under my canned goods cabinet. It's about three layers of paint deep, so it's pretty busy. Good thing it is nice and small. The color palette is a range of colors of the rainbow between orange and blue -- all my yellows, greens. It's like Mediterranean citrus colors, the palette of a bottle of Orangina (seriously consider clicking on this link, if nothing else than for the cute little Vespa graphic). All the swirls, curls and zigzags are very tightly wrought. And there are dots on top of dots. Plus I used lots of shimmery and glittery paints so that the whole thing really sparkles, much like the fizziness of a bottle of Orangina sipped in Italy... (cue some Dean Martin and daydream with me).
Frankly, its been a long, long time since I last presented a painting. This is partly because I didn't bother to post my last three paintings and partly because I thought ran out of glass and keep forgetting to order more. But over the weekend I found this pristine little piece and pulled out the paint trough. It felt so good to get back into the paint-covered swing of things. I found three other plates of glass -- all so well organized that I just forgot how neatly tucked away they were -- so I have lots to work on. Keep your eyes peeled for more.

Can't Stand To See Them Go

St. Valentine blessed me with a pair of flower arrangements this year. What can I say, I'm a lucky girl. Oh that and my Granny loves me (aww, Arkansas!). And while the bulk of the flowers in the arrangements lasted a good week or more, when it came time to throw out the flowers, there were three white carnations with life left in them still and a heck of a lot of greenery that still looked nice and fresh so I decided to do a quartet of mini arrangements. I have a little collection of baby glass jars/vases and I thought they'd pair nicely with some bone china candle holders. I tinkered around with a lot of destinations for the four little flower holders and after a stint in my bedroom, bathroom, desk area, kitchen, living room window sills, they found a good home atop my light-up liquor table. I had to turn old Queen Victoria on an untapped bottle of Bombay gin on her side to prop up one little vase, you know, to give the arrangements so height variance.
I was pleased with my camera's treatment of these pictures. Usually shooting candles and twinky lights can be dull. I thought the colors turned out pretty vibrant (and I cheated with a bit of dramatic photo toning). So I am showing three pictures. Below is a shot of a single vase and then a view from above.

Thanks for Voting!

Sixteen of y'all voted on my wall arrangement. Thanks! And the winner from the get-go was B. So B it will be.
I had to mess around with the blog's layout to accommodate the voting and I'm glad it is back to normal, though with updated "spring" colors. I was getting tired of the old font color scheme. And I'm really looking forward to spring this year; I don't know why exactly since summer follows spring and that's never any good in Texas.
So enjoy it. It's March and we're rocking some bright, refreshing greens and blues over here in my corner of the internet.
And thanks again for voting. I would promise to upload pictures of the wall when it is all finished, but I'm not very good on following through with these promises so I won't promise. I'll just say I'll try. Happy Monday...

Get Out Of Craft Jail Free

Spray paint, a power drill, safety goggles, a Phillips head screw driver, a level, a diamond-blade rotattor drimmel bit, rubber gloves, three types of scrubber brushes, chisels -- and a wedding! This was a very busy weekend for me, with lots of crafting tucked in to the free parts. And as you can see from this outdoors shot, I had some choice weather to work in. I'm working on a couple of little projects for a baby shower that takes place next weekend. Can you tell it's for a boy?
I'm really excited about a lot of the projects that I completed this weekend. I stress the word "completed," because I'm pretty often starting things without finishing them. I'll have to take a look back at the ATCKLTC archives, but I think that completed a project over the weekend that I started this time last year. Seriously. That's procrastination.
And that's why I titled the post the way I did. I feel a sense of freedom in completing these projects, even if I worry that my to-do list is dwindling to pretty low levels. Plus I love to use a Monopoly reference whenever I can.

Sorry Kid, You Really Do Use Math In Life

The title says it all here, but upon the rarest of occasions, I have to use math to be creative. Yuck! You know I was the president of the math club in high school (mom said it would look good on the transcript for college applications and I was the only one who showed up on Mu Alpha Theta election day). And then you know I got a D- in calculus freshman year of college and retook the class to get to B-. Oh Paul Bourdon! That class was all but impossible (to me, lots of other people seemed to ace it, overachievers). Not that my personal relationship with mathematics is particularly exciting (Does it count that a lot of my favorite people in college were math majors -- Dj Jazzy, LDA & Molly McGint?), I just wanted you to know that it is only on the solemnest occasions that I will get out the tape measurer, graph paper and draw something to scale. You do know that "to scale" means solving some math equations, right? So being a regular Archimedes, I decided that I wanted to make a wall of art. And I couldn't decide on the right arrangement for these prints and paintings. So I took measurements of the wall, the height of my comfy reading chair and then measured each little work of art. Above you see the results. I'm actually planning to show you a collection of arrangements I come up with and letting my general readership vote on the final selection. We'll see if that works. I fully expect no votes at all, but who knows.

Also, it has always bothered me that people of UK-ish origin (Aussies, Kiwis included) call it "maths" instead of "math" with the idea being that its a shortened version of a plural word: mathematics. I've never bugged a Canuck about that particular English misnomer, but I ought to. I'd like to think we have Canada on our side of this crucial linguistic debate. And today, I've really strayed away from the usual topic. Err, sorry.

Button Switch Upgrade

Look at my WalMart sweater! I've garnered a plethora of compliments now that I've upgraded its buttons. This is a wardrobe upgrade. I took something that looked OK and made it look great. Clearly, I'm proud of this one. I liked this shirt when I saw it at WalMart. It is so versatile. It can be paired with so many outfits, too. I always thought the buttons were a give away that the thing came from a discount store. So, I bought some new buttons and changed the sweater up, quite drastically. I got these green ceramic buttons at the craft store without measuring the size of the originals. And naturally I guessed wrong. The new buttons are significantly larger than the old ones and, therefore, the buttonholes needed to be changed. I hate breaking into knit sweaters and buttonholes can be so tricky, but as the sweater was both cheap and fuzzy, I figured, what's the worst that can happen? Turns out, not much. The ceramic buttons are so much heavier than the old plastic ones that I had to sew a snap into the neck of the sweater so that every part would stay in place. And while I was sewing that in... I decided to give the label an upgrade, too. I take the sweater off frequently, so I thought it would be neat to have an arty little label inside instead of WalMart's No Boundaries. So you can see that in the pics, too.

This is my arty button shot. I don't know why I included it with this post other than because I thought it was just plain awesome. I inherited this massive button collection from my mom when she was trying to pare down her sewing supplies. I carefully separated them into categories, by color, material, size. I love when I get a chance to dive right in and grab some good ones. I'm always scheming of ways to use these buttons. I think you'll see lots of 'em in the next few weeks!

Here's the before shot. The sweater in its cheap button glory. And behind it is the lovely postcard wall that I've been working on for the past year. Thanks to all of those who have contributed.

I included this picture so you could see the size difference between the green ceramic button and the cheap plastic ones.

And finally, I took this picture and liked the way the fuzziness showed up. Hope you enjoy it, too.

Baked Cuteness

So last night found me on my big baking blitz of the holly jolly season. And it was much more tame than in years past... Only three cookie types, just two dirty bowls, one messy counter and a 30-minute cleanup session make this a record for small-scale baking blitzes, but that's OK with me. I did get to spend lots of time making sure that the presentation of the cookies was dazzling. This year, the baking part was just to get me to the cookie-plate making part. Above you'll see the finished project. Actually, you see an artsy-design-bloggish view of the cookie platter. I'm kinda proud of the platter part of the deal -- I took a piece of cardboard, wrapped it in fancy paper from my FAVORITE paper store in Dallas, Paper and Chocolate. Then I artfully arranged the cookies, wrapped the whole bundle in shrink-wrap paper and tied a green and red bow to the whole thing, with a nice little happy santa face ornament tucked in for flare. I've done this flat cardboard cookie tray thing before and here are my little tips in case anyone actually reads this wanting to know about crafts...

• Use paper that's got a waxy sheen to it. Using a matted paper is really leaving yourself open to unsightly greasy spots. No one likes those. It just reminds you that cookies are fattening and when indulging in a cookie, it's nice to also indulge in the fantasy that it's calorie-free.
• Use spray glue from the spray-paint-style can to attach the paper to the cardboard. It looks so much flatter and prettier that way.
• Recognize that because you used shiny, slippery paper, the cookies are going to move around on the plate when you drive or walk to deliver the cookie plate. So plan on doing some gentle nudging of the cookies between your arrival time at your friend's house and the actual doorbell ringing moment.

And as that last tip went far beyond the realm of common sense, I'll stop there! I'm sharing a few more pictures of the baking process, mostly because I'm really thrilled that I got to wear my awesome apron that I bought in Los Angeles a month ago.

There's a shot of one of my peanut butter kisses cookies. Truth be told on this cookie -- it is messed up because it sadly took a tumble to the kitchen floor. It was thrown away and the night's only cookie casualty. I took the picture because I'm trying to learn how to take good close up shots of my little items. It's harder than it looks for me. For my years of working at newspapers around professional photographers (Andy Molloy comes to mind here), I didn't realize how hard it was to take good, interesting still life photos. Alas, this blog is giving me even more respect for how hard those photogs work!

I am thrilled anytime I get to dive into my bin full of baking supplies. The most popular cookie that I make, according to my cookie eaters, is one of the easiest cookies in the world to make. You can see it in this entry's top picture, the raspberry sugar cookie. Here's what you do... make sugar cookie mix or even use a tube of sugar cookie dough. Roll it out all flat on a counter or surface with a light dusting of flour on both sides of the cookie. Use a biscuit ring (a round cookie cutter) to make a bunch of circles -- make sure you do this in pairs. For every pair of rings, one should be a plain ring, and the other needs a cutout. I use hearts, stars, Christmas trees and angels as my cutouts of choice. Bake them according to instructions and as soon as they come out of the oven, spread jam over the flat cookies. Then put the cutout cookie on top, and people will rave about them tasting good, being pretty -- all that jazz, which is music to a cook/crafter's ears.

And, finally, I will mention a few notes of praise for the apron. I read the city guide for LA on the best design blog ever, Design Sponge, and attempted to lead myself on a walking tour of LA's hottest shops for design and all things cute. Well, apparently no one in LA walks anywhere. People stared at me as though I was from Mars, walking the streets of LA. It was a Saturday morning and apparently the cool LA design shops are intermixed with lots of Jewish Temples, so I wasn't alone in walking the streets, I was just the only person not wearing a yarmulke. Anyways, after walking all over, I found a heavenly store for Francophiles... It's called Maison Midi, and it's a section of the larger American Rag Company, on South La Brea Avenue. I wish I'd bought everything I saw, because it was all so wonderful. They even have a french cafe inside the boutique. Well, the one thing I did get was this apron, which is made out of an "antique" French tablecloth. I instantly feel the old world charm when I tie it on!

Brand Spankin' New

I'm always striving to live a creative life. I'd describe my style as "over the top even though I'm consistently striving for minimalism." You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take the big hair out of the girl... I guess. And I'm back in Texas now anyway, so I guess there's no hope for me. I am doomed to a life of projects that involve glitter, beads, fancy buttons, bright colors, wild textures. I'm OK with that, because my projects make me one happy camper.

The above picture is from a fairly random pdf I made of objects from around my desk at work. It just goes to show you the kind of stuff I like to work with... Colors, textures, anything that makes the drab walls of my cube nice and bright.