Window Shopping

WEST ELM
Corrugated cardboard everywhere. In packaging, ornaments, display. I tried to talk them into selling me one of these giant chandeliers.


Book pages used for display, in garlands, flowers, covering branches, etc.


Wooden Pallets, in the middle of the room, with ornaments displayed on them.


Giant Acorn ornament, had to have since I collect them. Every year Hub and I buy at least one new one, so this is the one for 2010.


Lots of nice gift items in stationery, Lomo cameras, and a ton of items that come out this time of year. Of course these caught my eye. Buckets of Japanese masking tape. I used every bit of self-control I could muster. I only bought 2 stacks, green and orange.


FREE PEOPLE
This is a store that has amazing accessories, and jewelry. The clothing is mostly for teenagers in size OO though. Very nice Christmas displays. I really liked the decorated twigs and their boxes were all industrial Kraft color with a light brushing of gesso over them. Also this tree on the wall, made with a lot of found objects. Reminds me very much of the trees my Mother and Aunts used to make with costume jewelry on velvet and then framed them.

Away Too Long

I've spent the last few months in a lot of pain with rotator cuff problems. I pretty much had NO movement in my arm/shoulder without severe pain. I finally had surgery October 13th and have been recovering since. Physical Therapy is a neccessary evil, and it does help. There are still a lot of things I can't do yet, but can lift my arm above my head at least.

Not much artsy stuff or photographs of late. I was able to play with some of my tapes and even acquire a few more rolls.
Here's one little sampler that I put together in a book I'm dedicating to tape play.


I have a few other pages in various stages, and I'm still on the lookout for more tapes to add to my collection. Don't know why, but all this tape makes me smile. And I need more! Tape and smiles!

Tape and More Tape

7 Gypsies Brand tape


I got a few new rolls of tape this week. I really love the red and yellow polka dotted one. It has a splotchy hand painted look. I am driving myself crazy trying to round up all the different tapes I have bought. My bad habits keep me searching for stuff all the time. I will grab something and take it into another room to use, then instead of taking it back where it came from, I will lay it down right there. Then it gets covered with something else and then it's lost. I keep thinking there is a ghost in this place, who keeps hiding my stuff...especially my Tim Holtz tape. I bought a package of the tissue tapes, brought it home, put it aways somewhere, then couldn't find it. I thought maybe I had just thought I bought it, so I bought another package. Now it is missing..never opened, never used. Grr...
This tray shows just a few of the ones I am trying to keep together, and several of the ones that I thought were there, are missing.

For The Love of Anthropologie

My Favorite recurring fantasy dream, is that I live inside an Anthropologie store. I don't care which one. I've removed most all the clothing, and my art stuff is everywhere. of course I have left my favorite displays, books, cabinets, furniture, etc. and hung a lot of my own collections around. In each of their "vignettes" I have a space for working on art. One for sewing, one for paper, one for jewelry and metal stuff. One for large wood things, stacks of boxes, etc. And of course a big sturdy ladder, for reaching and decorating to the rafters. Ah, I'd hang a collection of chairs from the rafters. This particular Anthropologie store has really HIGH rafters. And very bright lights!

These are the spring/summer displays so far. This is the first one you see inside the front door.


Be still my heart! If it is turquoise I melt. Same pots, different color.


More greenery and a cool wall display.



TEXTURES AND COLORS AROUND THE STORE
Scarves

Lamps

Houseware dept.

Owlies..Oh my!


Dyed, rolled paper


The blue painted wall I always take a shot of. It's a bit ordinary this time.


I love their lampshades. How cool is this one wrapped in twill tapes?

It's Another Addiction

Now that I am back into making jewelry again, and have finally located all my tools, I have gone bananas over the Industrial Chic stuff at Michaels. I hit four Michaels stores today. Happily, they have restocked. Of course I have been staking out this stuff for weeks, and all the employees know me. Which is not necessarily a good thing...as I can't use a coupon, then leave and go right back in and use another one. LOL But if the Hubster is with me...well, I can talk him into using one, so that doubles the Chic I can get in one visit. Yesterday, he even volunteered to stop on his way to the golf course and pick up one for a friend of mine. What a sweetie pie, eh? He indulges most of my whims.

Here it is, the little red car...back in stock.



This morning, one of the cute young guys who works at one of the locations was helping me try to find ones I didn't already have, and pointing out new ones. He even broke a couple of the pieces trying to show me how they opened. Here's todays haul.

Paper Makes Me Smile

Just a few of the goodies from Paper Source. A very cool store, sells a lot of what else, PAPER stuff! I was happy to see that they got in some Japanese Washi tape. They had just gotten in 4 packages, my friend and I bought them all. They told us they would order more designs.


Stencil 101 in smaller designs for paper. Yay! I have the regular size. I adore the Deer Stag one.


I made an impromptu little gallery(on the Wall, in the Hall) with the Japanese tape and photos from slides my Dad took back in the 50's in Las Vegas. This tape is fun because it is removable and does not seem to leave a residue. Hubby says "Oh no, now she'll be taping stuff to walls everywhere". Probably... At least till I get bored with that.


Forgot to mention, the Paper Source bag is as gorgeous as the stuff they put in it. Very nice to cut up for journal pages or whatever. Don't waste a bit.

More Jewelry and Power Shopping

Here are the necklaces I made the past few days before my trip to Dallas. My friend and I keep each other on our toes by promising to have a project to show when we meet up. They were hard to photograph, and the glare is bad, but you get the idea. These were made using the some of the new Industrial Chic line at Michaels. We tried buying more, but all the locations seem to be almost sold out. We were told something different at each store...but the bottom line seems to be they only ordered a small amount to see how it sold. Hmmm...guess we will be waiting for the "slow boat from China" until they get some more in.


I like a lot of these elements, especially the enameled flowers. I think I may have gotten all of them so far. There were several colors and different designs.


We shopped, lunched, had Starbucks and laughed a lot, as usual. We wore out our feet, but they still looked good after all that running around. This is kind of funny, we both usually wear PURPLE toes all summer, but we changed it up this time.



My multi-tasking friend, who shall remain nameless...can drive with her knee, talk on the phone, eat, you name it. All safely, of course! This photo is cropped to protect her identity. LOL


I'll have to show and tell the cool stuff we bought at Paper Source tomorrow.