Indulge Your Shelf

I think you would laugh if you looked around my house today: the dining room table is strewn with ephemera, there are two sewing projects in the family room, there is a computer project on the kitchen table, and the guest bedroom bed is literally covered with my laces and trims.  You would think I didn't have an entire room devoted to my creations, but I do!  The thing is, I never work in there.  (Who's with me on this?) Anyway, the dining room table project is my current passion: I'm putting together pages for one of the Silver Bella swaps I'm doing.  I have to do 15 pages, and while they can all be different, I had a goal to make mine similar.  You are to start off with a 7" x 11" page, and fold it in half to make four 7" x 5.5" pages. Here's what I've come up with for the first one.  It's the only one I've completed so far -- my first try. (Note: I don't consider this a spoiler for the swap, because this is only one of 1...

Today is my Etsy shop, Indulge Your Shelf 's 2 year birthday!  I'm pleased with it; there's a lot of competition on Etsy as you probably know if you have a shop yourself, so my 143 sales and 200 people who call it a favorite mean a lot to me! To mark the day, I decided to restock the shop.  In addition to marking down some items earlier this week, I've spent some time this morning listing some new items and have many, many more that I hope to get to throughout the coming days. Fun and Funky Train Piggy Bank Fairy Birthday Candles Tiny Framed Scrap Sweet Homer XL Sugar bowl Coors Pottery Salt and Pepper Cottage Rose Coffee Pot Calico English Tea Pot I hope someday my other Etsy shop, Twice Shy Restored , catches up; meanwhile, thanks for looking and for making Indulge Your Shelf a modest success!

Etsy Bloggers Street Team is reminiscing about Kindergarten.  I'm from the generation that attended at the end of the 1960's.  For me, Kindergarten meant a half day of stories, finger painting, ABC's, then graham crackers and milk.  Afterwards, a nap on a flat mat, then playing outside until mom came to pick us up. "Outside" was a small yard, separate from the Big Kids.  The yard was carpeted with tan bark, and shaded by huge Eucalyptus trees.  Beyond its fence, a golf course.  We had swings, and monkey bars to play with.  And boys! On the first day of Kindergarten, I was excited to be going.  I'd spent the whole year before adjusting to my brother's absence at home, and was ready to move up in the world. My mother walked with me to the class entrance, where my kindly older teacher smiled her welcome and waved me towards her.  My mother let go of my hand and I walked happily to the door.  Just then, a little girl named Bronwyn scr...

Have you all noticed the pretty bee button on the left sidebar of my blog? This bee is called Belle Abielle, and she's there because I'm listed in The Blog Guidebook , which is an awesome blog by Lyndsay and Sarah, who put it together as a blog community.  The Guidebook lets you list your blog for free under one of many categories; there, you can find like-minded bloggers.  I feel my blog is most closely associated with those under Vintage and White , so I put it there.  I could also have listed under Flea Markets and Antiques , or Junking/Thrifting/Collecting , or Fabric/Sewing/Quilting , or even Writing !  In any case, I can peruse all those and other categories to find new blogging friends! Besides this listing and categorizing function, The Blog Guidebook is also a fantastic resource about blogging; check out their Giveaway section , and their Linky Party page .   Know someone who wants to blog but doesn't know where to start?  They even have ...

Ever since I learned it had opened in 1993, I have wanted to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and was very glad to have had the chance.  The museum has been described as "a lesson on the fragility of freedom and the myth of progress", and indeed it is chilling to visit it, and to remember. Dennis outside of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The main exhibition, called the Permanent Exhibit, is very powerful and is not recommended for children under 11 years.   The exhibit is divided into three sections, each on a different floor: Nazi Assault --1933 to 1939; The "Final Solution"-- 1940 to 1945; and  Last Chapter.  It takes 2-3 hours to go through the entire exhibit.  During those hours, I hardly heard any of my fellow museum-goers speak out loud .  It struck me that we passed through the exhibits, it was as if we were all paying tribute, and our silence was a sign of respect. Upon entering the exhibit, y...

I've done it!  I've spent some time knocking out the projects I mentioned earlier this week !  For everyone who said they wanted to see it, here's my 46 squares project framed: The same day I did the framing, I also had a chance to complete a scrapbook I'd started a couple of weeks ago.  It's a book of some of my favorite photos of my hand made creations!: It's in a pretty K&Company scrapbook. Forgive the glare! The products should look familiar!  Some of them are still in my Etsy shop ! I also worked on that quilt: first, I traced a fleur de lys (the Scout symbol) onto a piece of fabric. Then, I arranged my son's Cub Scout patches from several years ago into the shape I'd traced and applied them to the fabric: I finished it this morning and I am very pleased.  Now, I can pack it up, along with several fabrics I've chosen, and send it off to Angela to piece it!  The above patches will become the center square of the quilt. Mea...

I hadn't had a chance to blog yet about what was probably my favorite part of our trip to Virginia: visiting George Washington's estate, Mount Vernon. I think what intrigued me most of all about it was the history of its restoration by the Ladies Association.  When a group of women learned the estate was in ruins, they took action, and the country's first historic preservation society was born.  To this day, members of the Association -- all women -- seek out original belongings of the estate and try to buy them, or get them donated.  They try to bring them home.  I found that so romantic.  From the website : "Mount Vernon is owned and maintained in trust for the people of the United States by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, a private, non-profit organization founded in 1853 by Ann Pamela Cunningham. ...Mount Vernon does not accept grants from federal, state or local governments, and no tax dollars are expended to support its purposes. Primary sou...