I love love love my new nativity. When I set it up I felt like a little girl getting out all her dolls. :)
The wise men are my favorite:
Sciarrino's mom works for this cute shop in Halfway, Oregon called Quilts Plus and she picked these up for me during their 50% off sale. I got the whole set for $86!!! That is a steal don't you think?!?!?! The angle didn't really go with it but I got her too because she is just so pretty! Mrs. Sciarrino also sent me a row counter for knitting. This is going to come in super handy for all the projects I am working. Too bad I didn't have it for Taro's hat, I finished that last night. It is so so soft, I made it of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I want to knit with that again, it's so nice to knit up. It's shows mistakes pretty good though, but I only had one little nubbly bit, that is pretty unnoticeable. Taro better take a picture of himself in it so I can see how it looks on his "large Asian head" (his words, not mine). I spent tonight sorting out Christmas lights and cleaning up the play room some more for craft day 2005 tomorrow. Nothing that exciting, oh besides plugging in a strand of lights and having a bulb blow up on me. It wasn't a mini bulb either, it burnt my jeans!!! But I did make it through alive. Well I should be super productive at craft day, results to come tomorrow.
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Did you get new bathmats?
Uh, no. I got to Bj's tonight and went into the bathroom to pee and I was sitting there and I was like, "are these new?" So I yelled "Hey Bj did you get PINK bathmats?" Well, no, but I did a pretty good job dying them don't think? Hehehehe Must be Karma (as Carson Daily would say) because when my mom dyed a load pink the other day he was like, "I've never done that." LOL I was cracking up at these pink things (he has two). Hehehehehe. I think these are the only pink things he owns. LOL god, it's just so funny if you saw his place, they really stand out. :) Love you babe!
Where the Magic Happens
So this is "my" space. It's really my mom's. She had it all made up this way to work on all her design projects while she was getting her degree. But now, since she is the best mom EVER I have all my stuff piled up there. I know this is a really grey picture, but the room has really weird lighting. It's a really long play room and this is one section that is a little odd because of that slopping ceiling. So my mom got some of those cool Pottery Barn file drawer thingies and had a top made to fit the space. I love love love it. It's cool because it has this gigantic window seat and lots of places to stash things. I do have it a little maxed out and it's not quite as organized as I would like, and I'm always trying to keep it clean!
This is on the window seat, to the left of the window. I've shown this magnet board before. The tins are from a friends wedding and I'm trying to find more. {Edited to Add: I don't know what metal they are but they are not aluminum because you can stick magnets to them. That's why I'm having a hard time finding them} The rest of the organizational stuff is from Ikea, I love it. Binders hold my unmounted stamps, and the cigar boxes hold vintage mounted ones. That cool basket holds vintage type blocks. The basket was an Easter basket one year, I told you I had the coolest mom. 
Speaking of coolness, she designed this unit for one of her classes. I think it is so cool. Of course I have it crammed to the max so it looses some of it's modernness. :) The white thing on top is another Pottery Barn piece. I have all my packaged up still goodies in the basket on the left, run ons next to it, some things that give me inspiration, a few scales for Ribbon Jar, a neat glass box that holds more rub ons, some clip boards I've altered and my Scully my Blythe doll keeps watch over the situation. Below all that are complete albums, ribbon swatches, stationary, cards, buttons, magnetic poetry, a slightly broken typewriter (accidentally dropped it off a ledge at my old place, thank god it didn't land on any one!), stamps, adhesive, ink, and stuff. What you can't see to the right of this is packing materials for Ribbon Jar, boxes, envelops, and a massive roll of extreme bubble wrap.
This is directly across from that. Oh my god looking at it like this I have to get some more stuff out of site, but it's hard. My paper is in those two leather bin things in plastic envelops. The left one is by manufacture and the right one is by color.
This is the Ribbon Jar, minus the Ribbon which has it's own room.
Just some of my favorite organizational things. There you go!
Self Portrait
dripping wet + hardwood floor + running around = boo boo
Cool Stuff
Okay so this sweet girl, Liz, from 2 peas asked me about my Quickutz Tags and how I got the writing on there, and what it was and stuff, and I realized that I hadn't shared my latest eBay stamp find. That right there on the left is an auction I came across on eBay a few weeks ago. It looked like a pile of sticks and it said, "These are photographed on a full size tray. There are 60 larger rubber stamps.108 medium and small loose and 102 in wooden box.They are all letters, numbers and symbols" Hmm, I was interested and I could tell that some of the stamps were like my vintage sign making stamps, but what was a full sized tray I asked my self? Well I decided to bid anyway because it was starting out low. I ended up being the only bidder at 9.95 and shipping was 7.75, so for 17.70 I was thinking I would either get treasures or trash. I got treasures man!
Those sign stamps are much bigger than my others, and no, it's not a full alphabet, but it really doesn't matter to me. The set in the back I think is from an electric company based on the unique symbols that came with the TWO full sets of alphabets in the holder (on really tiny, and one bigger). Plus I got this:
Another complete alphabet (the standing up one), and then more random, almost a complete alphabet of the same style as in the box thingie. Here's the cigar box I altered for them:
The "STAMPS" was done with those ones standing up in this box. Phew, so all that for 17.70, man I love eBay. So there you go Liz!
In another cool stuff note: Yesterday I went to a couple yarn shops, my local one, Have You Any Wool, and one in Beaverton called Knitting Bee. I had never been to this Knitting Bee before and I was like drooling like a crazy woman. Tons of hand-dyed, Patagonia cotton yarn, a huge selection of Cascade 220. I knitted last night driving home IN THE DARK I was so excited about this stuff. Taro do you see your black yarn in there for the requested ribbed hat? :)
Doesn't my CarryBag basket look so happy. If you don't have one of these lightweight collapsible things you need one, and they come in more colors now. I take my packages to the post office in it, go to crops with it, shop at the grocery store with it, basically I use it every day. I digress. I also got an amazing book called the Stitch Dictionary:
I'd like to say that the fact that all the swatches in the book are done in yummy greens has no baring on my having to have it, but I would be lying. No seriously though, if you like to tweak patterns, or just make cool patterned scarfs you need this book. Of course if I got the Vogue Knitting: Ultimate Knitting Book (on my amazon wish list, wink wink), that would be great so that I could actually attempt all 250 patterns.
Yum, yum, yum!
I'm working on the December 01 newsletter right now (tried it last night, but had some technical difficulties). Working with all these "new" vintage jars I've hunted down has been so much fun. Lots of people have bought them, but I haven't found a picture of anyone's jar in their creative space yet. So if yours is in your studio, sewing area, gift wrapping room, whatever, let me see!
Tree and Album
Have to make this quick because my mom and I are headed to the yarn shop, but I wanted to get the tree in good light. It is so much fun, we picked it up off a store display in an after Christmas clearance last year. Cute, huh?
All the little presents look so cute!
And I was totally inspired by Ali to create a little mini album to keep track of all the tags, questions, laughs, and gifts:
I've had some of these things forever. Those little metal pieces I picked up when I was a kid walking a round my dad's job-sites, they came from the punched out hole when you put in electrical outlets. I have a whole collection. I'll post details later on 2 peas.
*Edited to add: here is the link to the album at 2 peas, and I forgot to say that Humpback Whale's milk has 54% fat. :)
Life in Color (photo)
Copyright
- All photos and words are Amber Lee Garrison © 2005-2010. Please do not use with out permission.
Contact me for use: amberlee.garrison@gmail.com.