Stuck

It's been trying to snow all week, but we were pleasantly surprised (not!) to find this out of our window Wednesday morning:

Eight inches of snow. That's right, eight inches of snow two days before Halloween. Needless to say, it totally messed with our day. Also compounding things were a lot of big branches and trees down in the road, which also knocked out the power. Dad couldn't get to work (it was icy under the snow and we didn't have snow tires on yet) and I couldn't get to school- and I really don't like missing school.

The roads were a bit better later on, Dad and I made it into Corry and got snow tires on one of the Jeeps. We also had to ferry food down to the mobile after jumpstarting the generator down there.

The worst part was that I had to cancel a fall party that I had planned at my house that afternoon for the young women- we were going to make little flower arrangements in pumpkins and everyone was looking forward to it. I tried to just have it at the church but that didn't work out either. I was really irritated that that didn't work out- it's hard to get the girls to come to anything and they were actually going to come.

It seems odd to worry about Halloween or fall decor now that it's snowed SO much- it's pretty much killed it for me. Colorful trees and faux gravestones look pretty crappy covered in snow.

Since Wednesday, it's warmed up a bit and the snow has melted some. It gets pretty muddy when that happens, yuck. We got power back yesterday morning, I was glad to get a shower.

So, yes, the pictures are pretty, but the snow was pretty irritating. We're told this is going to be a bad winter, I can't wait.

Secrets

Inspired by Lisa's post about her secrets, I thought I'd post some of my own. Since I have no need for nipple cream (see Lisa's post), I thought I'd direct this towards my being thrifty/crafty.

• You can find a lot of free patterns and templates for crafts online, I just google what it is I want. I've found some great quilt patterns and baby bootie patterns by doing that.

• If you can't find what you want online, try JoAnn's- but watch the circulars for when they have patterns on sale for a $1 or $1.99. That saves you a good $15! I usually don't need a pattern for a specific deadline, so I make a list of what brands/pattern numbers I want and then buy them cheap when it's on sale. I've got a lot of great patterns this way- skirts, bags, tree skirts, etc.

• If you need a pattern for a deadline, don't buy it at Joann's...go down the street to Wal-Mart. Their patterns are always half off of retail price and they have a pretty good selection.

• I like to pick up pre-measured fat quarters of fabric at JoAnn's when they go on sale for $1- there's lots of great prints available and I use them for projects and on scrapbook pages.

• Sign up for coupons- I use a coupon whenever I go to Michael's or JoAnn's. At BB&B, do your math- are you going to save more with a 20%, a $5 off of $15 purchase or the new $10 off of $30 coupon? I used to have to tell customers all the time that the other coupon in their hand would save them more!

• Go online: Since I don't have access to a lot of stores out here, I can usually find specific scrapbooking products I want on ebay and it's usually not too expensive. I used to buy nifty butterfly plates on ebay too. I go to Amazon for books, they're always cheaper and you can get free shipping for orders over $25. I get most of my photo/art books that way.

• I love to go junking- and out here in rural PA you can find some good deals. Would you believe I got these silver pieces for $1.99 ea? They're in really good condition too. One even says "William Rogers" on the bottom- good stuff. I find treasures for just a couple bucks all the time.

• I am a magazinephile, it's been hard to cut back now that I don't have an income. Our library sells donated magazine for 10 cents ea, I can usually find some good ones. Your library might do something similar. I can also check them out from the library as well.

• I do always buy Martha Stewart Weddings though. I'm not trying to sound pathetic- I really like the photography and I get inspired by the color schemes shown. I've gotten some good party ideas (like for my 25th) too.

• I can usually find great deals at Fashion Bug- every now and then there's something good and cheap on clearance. I recently got a little cover-up jacket for $11.

• One good thing about PA- you don't pay sales tax on certain neccessities, like shoes. I didn't know that til I bought a pair of tennies last month! People come here from neighboring states to shop. PA does ream you in other tax areas, though so I don't know if that's really a bargain.

• I buy my scrapbooking staples, like adhesive and ribbon, etc at Wal-Mart. I love glue dots- they hold anything together! Wal-Mart has stepped up their scrapbook selection- I love the new Martha Stewart products they carry.

• I save all my useable scraps of cardstock- and I use them! I have a drawer full of scraps. By now, I have pretty much any size/color I need. I can make little accents on cards and pages.
• Anything for scrapbooking that I buy has to have multiple functions- like with rubber stamps. They have to be generic enough that I can use them in several different ways on my cards and pages.

• Stressed? Try playing with a kneaded eraser- it's similar to silly putty and helps break boredom and tension in my classes.

That's what I got so far, maybe I can think of more hints later.

FHE

Last night I was in charge of the activity for FHE, so of course we carved pumpkins! I don't have little kids, so here's some pictures of some big kids!

Here's my pumpkin, I was experimenting. It turned out to be a bird (with a stem for a beak).

Andrew and Kate shared a pumpkin, it's hard to carve one by committee!

Laura and I belong to a small but good YSA group, it's one thing that I really like about PA. I didn't really like our old group, I didn't feel like anyone cared if we were there. We're like a little family here. I do miss participating in larger activities- there's not much to do here for the holidays and we don't have anywhere to don a costume.

Cardboard

Here is my cardboard carousel horse project in the er, flesh. The goal of this sculpture assignment was to take architechtural elements and create a sculpture that was not building-like. I took amusement park pieces to create a carousel horse. It took a LOT of time to make and it turned out HUGE! I made the body too big and from there the other pieces had to be big, too. Maybe I'll make a smaller one. I had to lay down the seat in the Jeep to get it to school! I am pround that it stands on its own. I got pretty nice reviews from my class and teacher during critique. Cardboard and hot glue are way stronger than you might think!

The front:

Body: ticket booth, neck: ferris wheel, head: bench seat on carousel, legs: horse tail, rollercoaster track, log ride and rollercoaster cars, thigh: carousel top framing, tail: wooden roller coaster

Front 3/4 view:

Back view:

Rear 3/4 view:

Detail of ticket booth on back (taken from above)

Detail of rollercoaster tail:
Funnily enough, someone else's sculpture made a fence or "paddock" for my horse!

Now, if I hadn't told you what the sculpture was, would you have recognized what it was? Funny Story: There is this girl in class who is a little dense...I don't know if she pays attention or what during critique. You'll be explaining something in depth and then she'll go and ask about what you just explained as though you had never spoken! It happens all the time during our critiques. So I tried to make it an obvious horse shape and I think I succeeded because everyone who walked into the classroom observed it was a carousel horse (they'd never seen it before critique day) in nanoseconds. During critique, we spent at least 15 minutes talking about my horse, my teacher talked about the ride architecture specifically making a horse, we talked about legs, it's tail, body, etc. We were not vaugue during critique as to what it was. Even if you didn't know what it was before, you should have known by listening to critique.

Then after class she comes up to me and says "You want to know what I see in your piece?" and I was like, uh..sure. She then proceeds to say "If you look at it from this angle, it looks like a horse!" as though she had discovered it was a horse and no one else had! She then asked "Did you see that it was a horse when you were making it?"

I tried real hard not to look too dumbfounded, what do you say? "Uh, yeah, I knew it was a horse." I could have totally made a smart aleck comment but was nice and didn't. I was thinking "Gee, it's a horse? Nooo...couldn't tell it was a horse after spending 25 hours on it!"

Some people crack me up.

Weekend

Mom and I decorated the porch with cornstalks and little pumpkins grown from our garden

It was a pain digging thru boxes finding Halloween decor, somehow I seem to be the only one who remembers to decorate in my family!

Missy posed for me on the porch

Laura and I went to a YSA party- had fun decorating cookies and going thru a haunted house. The funniest part was watching the girls in front scream at everything in the haunted house!

In all, a fun but busy weekend.

Raegan Mae

Just an update, Jen's baby was named Raegan Mae later that day. She and John spent time with the baby to figure out what name fit her best. I'm a curious person, can't help but wonder what other names they had in mind. We'll probably always call her Cashew- have been for 9 months! At Jen's first sonnogram, the attendant said most people name the baby "Peanut" til they know more...John wanted to be a bit fancier and called her Cashew. ha ha. Laura and I had flower nicknames before we were born, and that was back when you couldn't find our in advance what you were having...my grandmother knew we'd be girls! Girls run in the family and we're glad to have her in our family.

Cashew

Introducing the newest member of the family on my dad's side....Baby Cashew. No, that's not her real name, her parents Jen (my cousin) and John (her husband) haven't disclosed the name yet. She was born this morning in Alaska at 7:20 am, weighing 10lbs 15oz and was 22 3/4 in long. Jen had to have an emergency C-section. Both mama and baby are doing well. This is their first child, so everyone is really excited. Jen has had a difficult pregnancy, she was on bedrest, so it's a big relief everyone is ok.

Neither side of my family is very large, so it's nice to have a new addition. This is the second blood grandchild for my aunt (my cousin Richard had Alex 13 yrs ago and also has step-children) as well as the second great-grandchild for my grandparents. I'm one of seven grandchildren on my dad's side and one of two on my mom's side...no other grandkids on that side besides me and Laura! Clearly, no great-grandchildren on that side either...neither Laura or I have kids! That side of the fam is a little stagnant, it's nice to see some growth and change on my dad's side.

Congrats to John and Jen!

Scandal!

Sometimes my boring little life gets a dose of drama...last week I had my second exhibit in the student gallery, a show entitled "Autumn" and it was mostly photos with a couple of wire pieces and a couple of paintings. I had the idea to put some faux orange leaves on the ground, scattered here and there around the perimeter of the room. I got some good comments the show. I didn't check on the show too much during the week- I've been pretty busy with midterms and stuff and there wasn't even school on Tuesday. Well, I go in Friday to take it all down...and discovered that one of my paintings was missing! The other puzzler was that some individual had taken it upon themselves to carry in lots of real leaves from outside and cover the whole floor with them. Who has time for that?

Yesterday I met with the faculty member who is over the gallery, I wanted to make sure he didn't have the painting (the string on the back may have broken and I just wanted to make sure he hadn't picked it up) before I claimed it was stolen. He was surprised that had happened and was very concerned and polite. He will do what he can, but I can't expect much to happen. Apparently it is rare for work to be stolen, perhaps I should feel complimented. Naturally it was the one I liked that was taken- I wouldn't have cared about the other one!

I think the lack of respect bothered me more than the missing painting- how do they think they have the authority to change another artist's space? They didn't attend the long meeting last Spring. They didn't present their show idea. They didn't vote on exhibits. They didn't set this up. They didn't help clean up. I'm responsible for filling and painting all my nailholes. I had to be responsible for the mess. It takes a long time to set up/take down and it took nearly an hour to sweep up their leaf mess. My faux leaves only took five minutes to pick up!

Don't get me started on the topic of theft- I hate it SO much. A few years ago people broke into our storage rooms and stole things, the most important were my dad's tools- they were valuable and that's what he used to make his livelihood when he was young and some were from his grandfather and someone took them. We still are sensitive to that attack on my dad. We've had cars stolen or broken into as well. One of my friends from class had her bike stolen on campus recently. Didn't we all learn in kindergarten to keep our hands to ourselves? What makes someone think that something should belong to them?

There is a relationship between the artist and the viewer- that trust can't be violated or the whole system won't work. I plan on writing a letter to the student newspaper. There needs to be a surveillance camera installed- I think that would cut down on theft and inappropriate actions in the gallery. It worked in the storage complex where we used to have our things. Even the gallery at my old community college had a camera in its gallery.

I had already decided to take a break and not do a show next semester- after all this I'm definitely not doing a show for awhile!

The small painting on the left is the one that was stolen:

Sorry these aren't the greatest pics. I wouldn't have cared if it was this painting:
I was pretty pleased with how all these wire leaves (almost 40 of them!) came together.Where's Veronica Mars when I need her??? She could track my painting down!

Autumn II

Fall has definitely peaked- in just a couple of days most of the leaves are gone! Before they went, last week I took some pics on campus. The fall colors really go with all the brick on campus.

I took some photos of French Creek, by the time I got to it a lot of the color had gone:

Zebby was posing for me with the leaves on the step:

Last weekend marked the first fire of the season in our woodstove (we heat with wood only) and Hanky was VERY happy. For weeks he's been laying in front of the stove, begging it to come on! He likes to watch his "show."

Embroidery

Right about the end of August I got back into embroidery...after a hiatus of years. Decades, even. I used to do this stuff when I was a kid, I've enjoyed getting back into it. It's very relaxing to do at the end of the day, and highly addictive!

The above picture is four flour sack dishclothes that I did- in my dream house my kitchen will be aqua and white with red retro accents, so that's the color combo I chose. There's still 3 to do in this set of 7 designs- one for each day of the week. They go pretty fast- just a few evenings of sewing and it's DONE! It's a great feeling to get a project completed!

We have a bunch of these flour sacks sewn by my great grandmothers...doing this kind of work makes me feel connected to them. I think that handiworks such as this are like a sign saying "I was here." What do I treasure more from my ancestors...the things they owned or the things they made? While I enjoy objects or furniture that they owned, I feel a special connection to the things they made. Their handiworks outlasted them, these will probably outlast me. It's partly why I like to make things- to create a history.

I have doilies from my great grandmother that I want to put in frames...always something on the to-do list.

Something tells me I will wind up sewing millions of embroidered flour sack dishclothes for my hope chest! Lol

Beauty

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

~Albert Camus

This is our beautiful backyard, we're reaching the peak of beauty this autumn. All the trees really remind me of Connecticut, that's where I first saw this kind of beauty and I associate Fall with that place. This is one subject that never seems to photograph as beautiful as it is in reality- my digital is a good camera but had a harder time truly conveying the colors and lighting as they really were. My backyard is even more beautiful than what I can convey in photos. I think most cameras have issues with this subject. I'm glad I really watched the trees last fall here, since I'm in school now I haven't enjoyed the season as much. It's all so beautiful, but I can't help but dread the winter that will soon come! The nights are getting crisper and crisper...

Cardboard

We've started on the next project in my 3-D art class, we're exploring how to use planar (flat) surfaces to create structure and volume. We're to use cardboard and hot glue to create a sculpture that uses architectural elements but can't appear to be building-like. A lot of people are making totally abstract sculptures, but that's hard for me, so my idea is to create an abstracted carousel horse comprised of parts of amusement park rides. My teacher gave the ok. That's my preliminary sketch above- ferris wheel neck, roller coaster tail, carousel tent thigh, etc. It's due soon, we'll see how it turns out! Told you I like carousels!

Carousel

One of these days when I have some money, I'll have to buy this cd. Sure, I love carousels (I'd love to own one and I collect little carousel things), especially since I used to run the one at Enchanted Village. But do you know the real reason to own this cd? You can't help but be happy when you listen to it. No ifs, ands or buts. Happy. I always cheered up when it was my turn to run the carousel. I listened to the samples and couldn't help but smile (and I don't smile!).

Parade

Over the weekend I caught the Homecoming Parade at Edinboro. I had a nice time watching it- just a nice downhome parade. Edinboro is pretty small- it revolves around the school. This year's theme was "It's going to be MARVEL-ous", with comics everywhere. It's been interesting to see the happenings during fall- I've only been on campus in the spring.

Cheerleaders:

Color Guard:
Marching band:
This is the alumni marching band, we notice service dogs because Laura raises them:
This juggler was fun:
Here's Magneto and Wolverine fighting (they really moved!):

The Hulk (complete with kilt!):

The Batmobile:

Spiderman:

Then I went to an alumni quilt show held in these picturesque gardens: A cute little building on the grounds

There weren't many quilts, but some pretty ones. It was a nice outing.