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.

HA HA! Am I still Here? OH yes, I am.

Holey Smokies, time does fly, does it not? Whether you are having fun or not!

I am trippin' off to Dallas for some art time with my pals and to get some new inspiration. Maybe some more jewelry supplies to practice my rusty craft of stringin' stuff on a chain....

Here's a sneak peek of what I made yesterday:

The tea box makes a great holder for keeping my chain straight while I choose the links to stick "stuff" on. Joint effort to invent this little gizmo...I can't take all the credit. The idea was mine, and the hubster did the searching the garage for the perfect box and attached the little nails. Genius? Oh yes!

Fun at Renegade Craft Fair

This past week-end the Renegade Craft Fair came to Austin for the first time. It was so crowded you could barely move at times. They advertised over 250 indie craft talents, and I think I saw them all. Was so exhausted near the end, the last 50 were kind of a blur. It was fun, and I got to meet a lot of the people I only knew from their online shops or blogs. The first photo shows just a handful of the business cards and "stuff" I came home with. Now to sort them out and re-find the ones I want to get in touch with again. I usually make notes on the business cards at the time, but this time just gathered. I could have spent a fortune, but I am quite proud of myself for my self-control. I only bought a few things, and told myself I could always order from them later...tee hee. There was a great booth that had Japanese Washi tapes though and it was a struggle to get out of there with only 4 rolls. That stuff is addictive, but a bit pricey to get too carried away, at least I think so. I already have quite a few rolls of different tapes so it was easier for me to be choosy. One lady I saw who had never seen the tapes before was about to purchase the entire booth's worth. Ha Ha... My 4 little rolls are in the upper left corner of the photo below. I am already wishing I had bought more...but my wallet is happy I didn't.

Their logo is this cute little owl, he is on all their posters and ads, bags, t-shirts.

My friend Pat, bought this very cool ring to add to her collection of many.

After the show, we were so tired we could barely walk back to the car, and drag ourselves to Beets, where we gorged on raw foods.

Greens salad, caesar salad, Asian noodle salad and nori rolls. There was more, and there was dessert too, but forgot to photograph the mocha ice cream and lemon cheesecake. Yum! Tired, but full and happy. A day well spent!

A Little Sewn Journal

I finally got one finished to take on my trip to Idaho. I was supposed to be packing, and it was the day before we left. Hub came home and saw me still sitting in my P.J.s at 2 p.m., sewing away. I threw this together, start to finish in about 2 hours. Aack...don't know why I always get an inspiration when I am just about to go somewhere, instead of when I am home and have plenty of time. It's all paper, the cover is a recycled file folder. I had planned to add tidbits from the travel as I went, but there was no leisure time to journal. I have an envelope of notes and ephemera that I need to add in now that I am back home.