Much has been going on at Jersey Made.   On Wednesday a bunch of friends came to help move some of the big furniture from my house.   My house is looking empty.  What once was a crowded workspace where 8 of us had room to scrapbook could now host a square dance.   The cats are a little confused and keep walking around imaginary furniture.    Meanwhile Jersey Made is starting to look like something big is happening.   The furniture really brought the place to life.   Just seeing my table in the classroom got me excited.   It looked so small in the big room and there will be plenty of room for classes and clubs!

This is me in the area where my recycled art will be displayed.   The walls are looking awesome with the variety of maps that have been collected.

My friend Hope arrived just as we needed her.  Such a great friend!   She brought along many useful items and display racks, including a little white shelf that we have been passing back and forth over the years.   The sweetest gift was a roll of paper towels and a roll of toilet paper.   She looked puzzled when I told her to put them in the “cupboard under the stairs” but quickly chuckled as she found it.   LOL!!!   Plus a delicious pumpkin pie complete with plates and plasticware!  

There was furniture for everyone to move – even Neil!   He loved playing with this little cabinet table and it kept him entertained while his parents went to get us some much needed food and beverages!   If you look behind Neil you can see my table in the classroom.    Lauren came by with some chairs that had to be made by the same manufacturer and will go great in the classroom.

Hehe – it has no back so it was extra fun!   He began saying hello like me so it sounded more like hellloooooooooooo.   Both of us laughed a bunch!

Abbie did a great job with the maps on the walls.   They really look sharp.   We were laughing that when someone needs directions to anywhere in Burlington County or New Jersey the place for directions will be Jersey Made.  

Many thanks to Kelly & Dave.   Geez they really helped a bunch!!!    I can’t wait for the ATC Club to start on December 16th – that will be so fun making minature pieces of art.   Please check the Leafpile events calendar for upcoming classes and clubs.    Meanwhile Sean is busy getting the Jersey Made website going.

The inspector came for the Certificate of Occupancy and I was so excited when Jersey Made passed!   Came in a little under the wire with last minute repairs but the MRV staff is awesome and really helped out!

This was my entertainment on Monday and Tuesday as I was busy painting at Jersey Made.  It seems the main passtime of the young teens across the street is finding connections to the wireless internet in the neighborhood.   This kid was extra persistant.  It must of been a great game he was trying to play.   When opening the downstairs window did not work he went upstairs.  When opening the upstairs window didn’t work he proceeded to hang out the window.   Further and further I watched him go until finally he was practically out of the house.   He stayed this way for quite awhile pushing the buttons on his little gizmo.   Needless to say, Jersey Made will have locked internet!!!

It’s all very exciting!   Tomorrow I will be setting up my recycled art and other items that I have created.   Artists will be coming in to bring in their artwork as well throughout the weekend.    Abbie has some great ideas for displaying her t-shirts and art blocks.    James, the upstairs neighbor, had some shelves and brackets for the slatwall that is in many of the rooms at Jersey Made.    So every piece of furniture and shelving is being re-used.    Many in unique ways!   Go green……

Hope you plan to stop by Jersey Made soon.    It will be open this Saturday & Sunday but offically open on Wednesday, December 2, 2009.

The Leafpile has accumulated 100 comments as of Tuesday.  I thought that was an interesting milestone.   It also helped me to see that if I want more comments I need to set some goals for that.    

 Step 1 towards this goal - say PLEASE leave me a comment…..

Thanks for reading – PLEASE leave me a comment!!!  

There is inspiration all around us.  Sometimes it leads us in the opposite direction but nevertheless it gets us moving.  I have chickens on the brain.  Been playing with MyFarm on facebook a little too much these days.  Been building up my fields to make enough money to buy a chicken coop and begging my friends to send me chickens.  Finally I got the coop on Monday and my first chicken arrived on Tuesday.  You could hear me hooting and holloring from miles away.

So when it came time to pack up my stamping stuff for a creative evening with Abbie, it was easy to decide what I would pack.   All kinds of stamps and papers and inks and supplies to make some chicken cards.  Also I brought along a picture from a magazine with the egg pattern that I had blown up to 170% the original size.  I am sure you will see more egg-citing cards that were ideas that started to ember in my brain from that little sample in a Papercrafts magazine that I recently picked up although it was from a few years ago.

My other inspriation is my Mom.  She lives in a retirement village and is loving it.  Recently she took over the position of manager of their little gift shop.  The shop sells toothpaste, greeting cards and other little items to the residents and staff.  Their biggest seller is candy – hehehe.  I decided it would be nice to donate a few cards to the gift shop.  My Mom would have fun telling everyone her daughter made them and it will help the cause as well.

With all this inspiration it was easy to create these cards…..

Things got a little over the top when I decided to add the peeps on the left hand side of the envelopes…..

But then there was Neil and the bunny!!!   This “Gotta Hop” bunny from Hallmark sings this catchy tune while his ears wiggle all around.  It had Neil dancing around the room in a hop-like jig.  I was laughing so hard as I watched him that I had to take a few pictures – which of course added to his excitement and kept him pushing the button on the bunny’s foot to keep it going non-stop.   Even Hendrix, the family angora rabbit, seemed to get excited about all of it and came out to hop along.  It was pointed out that I should be making bunny cards and not chicken/peep cards.  Guess I will use this inspiration for another Easter related card another day………

Hope all you peeps have a hopping good Easter!!!

Last night I got together with Abbie to scrapbook.  I packed all kinds of things cause you never know what will be needed for an evening with paper.  I had gone to a birthday party on Saturday for my friend Julie’s 50th birthday gathering and made her a cute little notepad holder.  Of course I forgot to take a picture of it – duh!!  But we took one on Julie’s camera so I am hoping she will send me a copy.   Anyway, that became the inspiration for the notepad madness that ensued. 

Using small 5″x7″ lined notepads I cut chipboard and a binding to make a cover for them.  The cover was then wrapped in paper from my vast collection of awesome paper designs.  Crochet cotton was run through holes punched into the binding to keep the notepad in place.  This was then tied on the outside to add another decorative touch.  A replacement notepad could easily be slipped in when needed.  The upper flap of the notepad was also covered to match.

I had a wide variety of paper with me.  The fruits and vegetables came from a scrapbooking show.  Yes, I carefully cut out all the little pictures on the blue notepad cover.  It really compliment the fork & spoon motif.  Just right for keeping handy in the kitchen for the ongoing shopping list.

We both oohed and aahed over this paper for a long time before finally I was brave enough to actually use it.   The antique looking tags and old fashioned stubs were colorful in a rustic sort of way.  This was Abbie’s favorite.  It is a discontinued paper copyrighted by Stampin’ Up!   Several replacements notepads were also made with the smaller pieces left over from the 12″x12″ sheet.  Couldn’t let any little bit of this paper go to waste.  Plus it seemed like a clever idea so that people could have the notepad match the holder.

While we were busy creating snow had begun to fall.  They called it a “thunderstorm” – oh my!   It looked so beautiful falling and landing on the pine trees surrounding the porch.   We still continued to play with our paper.  Abbie made some awesome scrapbook pages for Neil’s book, we laughed alot and enjoyed some wine.  Even the thunderstorm could not stop us from having bunches of fun. 

Since I ran out of notepads and needed a few embellishments that were not packed in my bag there are a few finishing touches to be added.  Then they will be added to the Leafpile store…..

Stampin’ Up! products   http://creatinginslippers.stampinup.net

The “Cutest Kid Ever” turned 3 this February 2009.  Neil is a really great kid and I wanted to create something special for his birthday.  This container once held cashews but was washed out and reused to make the gift.  I measured the tin and cut out a piece of paper to fit it.  Using the Stampin’ Up! “Leapfrogs” set I stamped it and wrote his name.  Then it was filled with some small gifts including a small triangular bag that so he could carry small cars and trucks with him wherever he went. 

Stampin’ Up! products   http://creatinginslippers.stampinup.net

Well thinks didn’t go as well as expected on my projects to begin in 2009.

1.  The blocks and fabrics that I chose for my new kitchen curtain really don’t match.  To add to this the curtain rod that I selected won’t work with the way the window and shelving across it are set up.  So it is back to the drawing board on that one.  Meanwhile my neighbor has removed the bright lights and I can only wait to see what happens for the next holiday coming around.

2.  My plastic thread case has a big crack in it.  Didn’t find this out until I took it out of the packaging.  Haven’t gotten it together return or exchange it.  I did search on CreateForLess hoping to find something that would not be so breakable.  The idea here was to use the case to carry around my thread and keep it protected.  If it breaks easily that would defeat the purpose.  Although CreateForLess did not have anything there is a bunch more there and it is one of my favorite online stores that stocks crafting and sewing supplies, books and all kinds of good stuff.  While there I spent my $25 gift certificate that I was given on some beautiful quilting thread.

3.  This one worked out perfect.  I covered a box with the awesome guitar fabric and placed the money inside.  Not sure if my nephew really liked it but the rest of us did.  It came out very well with the help of Liquid Stitch and super duper 3M tape gun.   

4.  This one has gone from bad to worse and the deadline is fast approaching.  Never did find my template to make the fancy diamond stars that were visualized in my mind.  So instead I used a book by Mary Ellen Hopkins called Kansas Connections.  Using her Personal Private Measurement (PPM) system I created my own verison of Stars Over Kansas.  The photo shows my layout ideas so you can see the direction this is going.

This idea went way better than plan A (the diamond stars).  Of course plan B also got scrapped.  Seemed my dark side cam shining through on this one.  Somehow I had it in my head to use black fabric.  Well the theme is “Spring Into Quilting”.  Not too much black in that kind of theme.  So the black fabric will be given to Abbie for the cutest kid ever’s Happy Birthday banner.  More on this as the banner progress.  

My Star Over Kansas came out well and I was really pleased with the results.  Plan C began to form and now I was on my way to making a vest.  I adjusted my standard vest pattern for my slightly smaller size and also to the overall design of the vest.   I fancy myself a sew-er so this was a fun part.  Once that was done I continued to add to my Star so that I had 3 pieces for the back and 2 fronts.  I sort of used my own method of PPM for this one.   But then…..   I machine quilted it.  After many tests of the quilting stitch on my relatively new (but used) Pfaff sewing machine I thought I had it all set up for my random meanderings that I call machine quilting.  It was going really well and I finished all 3 pieces.  After I was all done and was looking over my work I realized that the tension was all wrong and the back looked horrible.  You could pull threads out without a ripper.  So the next plan was to rip out all the machine quilting – not an easy task.  I have finished the back so far and now have the 2 front pieces to do.  My old motto “as ye sew – so shall ye rip” has been ringing in my ears.  Now I am off to another plan – maybe it will be a vest or maybe it will be a hat.  We will see where the therapy involved in all this ripping will take me……   

Creating has quite the learning curve and I realized that there are several lessons that I have learned so far in 2009 – 1. Patterns are good but if you follow your inspiration something else that is really cool might just happen  2.  My old motto “as ye sew – so shall ye rip” is still true   3.  Black is not a good contrast for spring   4.  A reminder that I still need deadlines to keep me focused on the tasks at hand  5.  lastly – it is good to have a plan and good to follow it but it isn’t a requirement.  I made the plan so therefore I can change the plan.   You might just have to come to the quilt show to see what actually happens with the “Spring Into Quilting” theme.    More details are in the events calendar.

Happy Creating!

It was just like in the song – well almost like that.   On Saturday, December 13, 2008 Santa came to Medford.The temperatures required heat and it is alot of effort for volunteers to turn the water in the mill on and off repeatedly.   So although still under renovation, a place was made for him in the Sawyer’s house which stands behind the old mill.  This was our first time (that I know about) that Santa came to the complex at Kirby’s Mill. 

Although there weren’t the throngs of kids standing in line to see him, Santa was his jolly old self and seemed to enjoy himself anyway.  I called Abbie in an effort to help the event along and asked her if Neil might like to see Santa.  They arrived a short time later and Neil got to sit on Santa’s lap.  Seems Santa’s left knee was not where Neil wanted to be so after he switched to the right knee I snapped this gem of a photograph.  Isn’t he just the cutest little boy ever?!!!   He did not cry and it was great to see him waving to us along with Santa. 

Although I do my very best to keep the Christ in Christmas who can resist a photo of yourself taken with Santa – so I had to do it!!!  He said I’d been good and assured me that good things would be under my tree – HOHOHO!   Perhaps Santa does not know all – hehehe!!!   Just in case I went to the local cheap nursury and bought 3 little trees for $10.   2 I am giving away to brighten another’s day and the other now sits on my computer desk with a single candy cane on it!

The funniest thing was this little dinky tree that was placed on a small table near Santa.  Santa called it a Charlie Brown tree but it was a little more than just sticks.  Still it was smaller than Santa’s beard.  Of course no one would take my picture while I was holding the tree upside down next to Santa to demonstrate this very point.  So through the magic of computer I am hope you can see what I mean!!! You can tell we were really trying to entertain ourselves while waiting for more kids to arrive. HAHAHA

Lastly but least – Santa gave away a beautiful Christmas present today.   Jackie was the winner of the 2008 Medford Historical Society’s raffle quilt.  She was so excited to win the vintage reproduction quilt that she arrived just 1/2 hour after we called to tell her the good news.   It was a pleasure to meet her.  We spent some time talking quilts and guilds and the joy of Christmas.  Jackie and I shared the fact that both of us make quilts but few remain in our possession, having been given away.  She looked forward to keeping this quilt at home and I know it will be treasured there.

Then we heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight – Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!!!  The world so often adds so must hustle and bustle to the holiday season that it takes our focus off the glorious event we are really celebrating.  I hope you find joy in the little things this holiday season!