Indulge Your Shelf

Life is pretty busy these days, and I want for NOTHING I can find in an antique shop, thrift store or vintage fair, but -- I still have to treat myself to a shopping trip now and then. Thrifting is good for my soul.  I found these great alphabet tiles at my friend Kathy's booth a couple of weeks ago. From another vendor -- a tiny box of Shiny Brite ornament hangers.  This little box just makes me happy! Yet another vendor had this sunny, out-of-season but still spectacular Vera butterfly sheet in her $2 fabric bin.   Yes, please. On my last thrift shopping trip a few days ago, I found this more-season-appropriate Vera scarf -- isn't it fun? Also, a never-used little ornament kit that I will be using to make something like this one I bought recently: Well, it's a little more kitschy, if that is even possible, but I just couldn't leave it behind! Getting back to my passion for all-things-Vera Neumann: this year our Thanksgiving table featured the line...

I'm thankful for all of you, for friends that have moved on in their journey, for my loving family, for my sweet, loyal fur family, for having a job, and for The Graphics Fairy for this lovely image. Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your day!

Rebecca and I tried our hand at using resin the other day to make a couple of Christmas charms.  I just finished mounting two of them. For the Christmas tree one, I had to kind of wing it; I really wanted to use this multi strand pearl necklace I'd thrifted last year, so I rigged up a clasp to make it work.  I can't wait to wear it.

We awoke this morning to "sugar dipped trees." We've had snowy weather for a few days now.  Here's what my commute to work has been looking like: Frosty.  This is heading west towards Pikes Peak Mountain. Here's a sneak peek at my latest (and final) tag swap project; this time I made 13 White Christmas tags and I'm so looking forward to receiving the swap! Are you doing any holiday swaps? How much do you love this little vignette? I bought it from Simply Stated Crafts at a craft fair in Colorado Springs a couple of weeks ago. You can see our snowy yard in the background. More from Simply Stated: a book page wreath. A little book tree -- with sparkles, and bells. It's a good day for snow white crafting in Colorado today!

There is power in accountability: after my blogging confession last week that I haven't made any progress on my goal to write 50 works before next year, I got busy and did numbers 1 and 2! Neither is available for sharing, unfortunately, but let me tell you -- they were heartfelt! 'Read any good books lately?  I decided last month to re-read Stephen King's The Shining , in anticipation of the sequel being released.  When I finished that I began Dr. Sleep .  It's classic Stephen King.  And I have learned that I've outgrown Stephen King's writing.  Still -- when I lie in bed and open Dr. Sleep , it brings back happy memories of teen age summer days and books that are predictable in a good way, so I am satisfied. I've been doing a lot of paper art lately but I can't really share because they are swaps and I don't want to spoil the surprise.  Here's just a sneak peek of a swap I sent off last week to England. Working on these sure has put...

November is National Novel Writing Month , and all over the world published and unpublished-writers are typing away.  The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month, and it's not easy to do but it is an AWESOME experience.   I've done it a few times in the past bu I'm not doing it this year, are you? I happened to be wearing a NaNoWriMo T-shirt to work today and got to talking about it with a coworker.  I remembered that one year our local Colorado Springs group was featured on a radio show called The Next Big Thing , which airs on NPR.  I Googled it this morning and was surprised to discover the link to the interview is here  but it you can't listen to it online...which makes no sense! (But I do have CDs; there were actually two interviews .)   Then I realized it feels like yesterday but was actually 10 YEARS AGO this month. It also made me remember the goal I set a couple of months ago to write 50 works this year.   Ask me how...

Thank you, everyone, for the love; I'm so glad you are all here in my little corner of blogland! Kelli is the one chosen to receive my giveaway gift! How fun -- Kelli, please send me an email and let me know what you would like me to make for you! And I'll need your address, too. Meanwhile...  I'm at it again with the pumpkins.  I showed you this one in progress in the last post so I wanted you to see it finished.

This is it -- the 1,000th post I mentioned was coming up! Time flies; I started this blog on December 11, 2008. It wasn't my first blog, but it has been my favorite. I started out here just talking about some of the fun stuff I made, and picked, for my Etsy shop, Indulge Your Shelf . Thus the blog's name. But it became so much more -- a place to find meet friends who visit, stay a while, and come back. So first let me say, Thank you for visiting...and for coming back...over these past almost-five years!  I have so enjoyed meeting you online, and, when I'm lucky , in real life, too! When I started writing this blog my son was just 11 years old... we're all a bit older now! If you've been around for these five years and 1,000 posts, then you know some of my creative and art-related dreams have come true: In 2009 I finished a long journey to finally graduate from college, with a BA in Creative Writing. Along the way I started ...