Lauren Ferguson | There are no mistakes in art, just opportunites to embellish. (tm)

Euro Disney or Bust...

Somebody SMACK ME...  HARDER...  DAMN IT I SAID HARDER!!!!!!!!!!

Do you think that this Famous Rodent is different in Paris than he is in Florida.  Do you think that with a french accent I will like him better...

PROBABLY NOT... But I am willing to take the chance.

Yep, I think that we are going to take the kids to EuroDisney.  Now while I would love to go to Tokyo or Hong Kong, that is just not happening.

But I think that I can swing Paris.  Of course, I did run this passed my Dad to see if he was even open to the idea of coming.  There is no way that I can make a trip like that and not bring my parents.  They would be PISSED!!!  It would measure on the Richter Scale.  Life would cease as I know it.

OK before you say no let me tell you my general plan...

First we fly to London spend two days with my in-laws. 
Then we take the train to Paris and stay at Disney for four days. 
Then we take two more days and do Paris.
Then we get back on the train to London.
We stay another two days in London.
Then we fly home.

That would be 12 days with two extra days to fill in if we want. 

OK, think of the cultural experience that the kids would have.  Think of the fact that it is the 15 year anniversary of EuroDisney.  Think of it Disney and Paris in one trip.  I know I know, SMACK ME HARD.

My mom "has no desire to go to EuroDisney".  My Dad said, "Go if you want to..."  OK, at least work out the numbers and we can talk about it.

Tell me what you think.  Honestly.

until we meet again,

Sunny and the Queen...

My BIL has a dance company in London.  They call it ADANTA - African Dance and Theatre Association.

They have danced for the Queen of England at the Queen's Golden Jubilee during her birthday, the Millennium Celebration and the frequently travel to Dubai. 

Well, they have struck the big time...

Y'all they made it to YouTube!!!  Yep, they made it

I just got the link today.  It actually is a nice video.  I am really surprised.  It shows a great cross section of what they do when they do what they do.  And yes, there is a WHITE woman in the dance troop.  And she can dance her ASS OFF.  She is good.  She actually is one of those woman who is so grateful to dance the art form, that when she comes to practice, she brings her A Game all the time. 

I wish that typepad would support YouTube videos.  But I am not moving all my stuff somewhere else just to view this video.  I love them but not that much.

Go take a look and tell me what you think.

until we meet again,

My Personal Palette Pad...

I decided that I was going to need to have a pad/book/piece of me to walk around with at CHA. 

One of the ladies on the Yahoo Board said that I needed to bring a piece of art with me so that people could see my work. 

So I made this Pad. 

Yes, there is a digression coming.  But stick with me. 

I was getting ready to take my nap one afternoon last week. And the music for B|Original was playing.  All I heard her say was we will be making books today with plywood.  Well needless to say my nap was put on hold for another 30 minutes.

I watched her use canvas sheets as pages and she covered them with Gesso.  I was like OK, I can do this but I need to use something other than this plywood.  So I ran over to my local craft and hobby store -- you know the one that carries the woman who made over scrapbooking... yea that store -- and looked for the the artist palette. 

Then I saw that they had the small ones in wood.  I picked up two of them and went over to the local man store and had them cut a two inch piece off of the edge.

Well never mess with and man and his electric tools.  I asked the first man that I saw, Mike, to cut a piece off for me and he pulled out his ruler and measured and did some things.  He then fired up his electric saw and got to cutting.

So I covered this with the Batik Mulberry paper and cut sheets of handmade paper the same shape as the board and then it was a matter of putting it together. 

I originally wanted to use hinges.  But it did not work, I was going to need way too many holes to get the pages to connect to the back cover so I scraped that idea and then asked my DH to find me a leather belt.  He came back down with this piece.

As you can see the rest is history. 

I am going to make another one.  I am just going to use some paper that I already have and I am going to cover it with a bit of padding.  I will sit this other one on the Designer's Showcase table at CHA. 

I think that this is going to be a lot of fun to carry around during the weekend.  I love the way that it feels in my hand and I love how easy it will be to have that perfectly hard surface to write on.  I am going to add a few folders, pockets and a pen holder.  But I will do that later.  Just don't have the mojo.  I am worn out.

until we meet again,

The local man store does not sell...

wallpaper anymore.  Yep you heard me correctly.  They stopped selling wallpaper. 

Boy I wish that I had known that they were going to stop selling the stuff, I would have stocked up on the textured wallpaper.  I love that stuff.  I just made another book today using the wallpaper. 

I use it all the time.  I love the look of the stuff.  I love the way it feels and I love the way that it takes paint and embossing powder. 

Now can I tell you a secret...  Oh, I feel a digression coming on...

The book board came out of my Revolution. You know where you can store the extra bindings in the case and they gave you the spacers.  So I took one end off of the box and had a book cover.  I did not know that it would fit perfectly the other book pages.  BUT IT DID!!!

I am going to do something with the cover, but once again, that is something that I need to be moved to do so I will be thinking of ways to finish this book off. 

I wanted to paint it, then I wanted to crackle it.  Then I even thought about just using some distress ink to hit the high spots. 

But needless to say, I have decided to leave it alone until I get a brilliant idea and run with it.  They come and go...  That is the brilliance.  Stop laughing...

until we meet again,

Who would have thunk...

That my Baby Wipes would have turned into such a fabulous book!!! Yep, the cover is also a baby wipe.  I love how it came out. 

OK, first let me say that the cover is a frame that my friend Amy Wood found for less than a buck at the yard sale a year ago in Knoxvegas.  I loved the fact that when I split it in two I had a front and back cover.  I have not decided what I am going to do with the book yet.  But I love the fact there are two very nice holes for me to add either mica or a microscope slide or even a transparency to mix.  The possibilities are endless.  I will old onto this one until I figure it out.

The pages are wonderful for some altered stuff. I think that I am going to use the pages as a base to add stuff.  The sewing of the binding is OK.  This is the first time that I have sewn using tape and a kettle stitch.  But all in all, it is GREAT. 

I did cut the wipes down to a uniform size to get rid of the stretching the occurred in the process.  I am digging it.

Tell me what you think...

until we meet again,

Now this must be art!!

I grew up in one of those homes where education was more valued than common sense...  Can you tell.  Yeah it is true you may not beleive it but it is true.

Well when I was younger, I can remember going to NYC Museums on Wednesday, and running up the stairs or sliding down the railing... My Mom telling my Dad that it was OK because we were just kids.

I can remember asking my Dad, "How do they know that it is ART?"  In my Dad's own flippant fast thinking way, he would say "It must be Art, because most of the time I don't get it." 

So that has been my philosophy, It is definitely Art if I don't get it.

Is it possible to start a blog entry with a DIGRESSION.  I think I just did... WOW, that is a first...

Well anyway, I just got this in my email and it made me think of that...

until we meet again,

Why wipe when you can…

Make paper with them.  I know, I know, but I figured that since I have stock in Huggies, I should use the bad boys for other than blowing noses, wiping butts and cleaning hands.

Yep y'all, I have made some fabulous book pages with some baby wipes.

I was surfing the web a while back I was on the AskSuze Yahoo Group and saw that Glitz-O-Girl had changed her blog up.

My own personal opinion, it was a much needed change.  I like nice clean sites, I am not good with all the shit and the funny back ground colors and stuff. Y'all know what I mean the stuff that makes it impossible to read the font and the colors make the text jump all over the page.

Deep down inside, I need to have order in my life.  I know that my basement does not seem to hold true to this personal desire, but trust me, I do need the order.

I like her style.  It is not my style, but I like a lot of her work and she is on the design team lead by Lisa Vollrath.  That is a whole 'nother story that must begin with a round of "Bless her Heart"… before I can say anything else.

Oh, But I digress… Jughandle

So, I saw that she had taken some baby wipes, from another project, and turned them into a book. Now she used paint which I think is great.  But at the time I did not have all the Ranger colors.  So I did not do paint.  I used Color Wash.  Then I saw the call for beeswax and decided to go all the way and make batik baby wipes.  I must admit I love the way that they turned out. 

Ok, so why do I like the beeswax over the paint.  With the beeswax, the wipes become stiffer.  They actually have some substance to them because the wax gets absorbed into the fibers.  Now what I also have done is spray them with Workable Fixative from Krylon.  That helped to get rid of that waxy feel on the top of the paper.

I am going to make a book, just not sure which kind of book.  I think that I am going to try a new stitch tonight. I promise to take some photos.

until we meet again,

I put him to work today...

You know I am a pretty reasonable kinda girl. 

I feel like since I am the one who has put all the effort into finding all the players and putting all the pieces together and getting the money...  I have not aksed him to stop doing anything that he is already doing with his regular day to help...

 

BUT TODAY, I PUT DOWN THE GAUNTLET...

I told him today that if he ever expected to meet me in the BIBLICAL sense again, he needed to stay home and fill the other container so that the people could pick them up.  Well he stayed and now the other box is full.

I had the contractor come by so that I could put a kitchen downstairs.  My aunt Jean is willing to think about giving me the money for that piece of the basement.  So I think that I am just going to have to go the saving account and get the money for the carpeting of the house.

I am just going to have to suck it up. 

I am also going to put the washer and dryer down there and get a new one upstairs.  I am going to get a triple loader.  With the kids and all the laundry I do, I am wanting a bigger one.  When I got mine they did not have the triple loader.

I am also going to put the fridge in the basement also. 

I hope to have the whole house finished by December.  Is it possible with all that is going on... who knows...

But I am going to put my best foot forward and put this plan into action..

until we meet again,

You know that you have too much trash...

in your basement when you have to call the garbage company and let them know that they are going to need to bring an extra truck. 

So today was just getting boxes out to the curb.  I was hoping to get it completely emptied, but considering what I did get done, I think I did really well.

Ok, now for the photos… First let me say this… Yes, all of this was in my basement… But honest, I am not a slob…. It is my husband and the kids.

Ok, so now are you ready to see the first container.  It is only filled with clothes that are in plastic bags.  And these are the clothes that I am going to sell on eBay.  If they do not get sold, I am going to give them to the Good Will.

Ok, these are all not their clothes, there are a few bags of mine in there too.  I will tkae pictures of the basement tomorrow after I have gotten another load into the other container behing this one.  Yes, there are two and I probably will need a third or fourth.

Ok, off to finish my stuff for the Krylon Challenge. 

until we meet again,

My Basement Epiphany

YES, It is possible to be in the middle of lugging the massive amount of SHIT out of a basement, sweating like a true homeless person with a winter coat on to have an epiphany.

I will never again buy a house with a basement.  I understand why my Dad told my Mom that he was not buying a house with a basement.  I have also realized that it is impossible to honestly measure how much SHIT one family can accumulate until you have to take it out of the basement.

I literally lugged 60 large black garbage bags full of clothes into the storage container.  One container is full of just clothes.  I can clothe most of the northern hemisphere with a full wardrobe.  My kids have clothes that still had the tags on them because my peeps purchased everything and anything they could find two of for the boys.  My husband must have 400 suits in the basement.  The job he had before he decided to open up his own business required that he wear a suit every day.  Do you believe that I had a black garbage bag full of ties. 

DO YOU THINK THAT WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH CLOTHES? 

And I know that you won't believe me when I tell you that I gave my SIL two large black duffle bags of clothes from my daughter when she had her last child.  I know that you won't believe me when I tell you that I gave another friend of mine all the boys stuff because her twin boys are about 9 months younger.

I thought that two containers were enough.  Apparently not.  I am really going to have to throw out a lot of stuff. 

I sweated like a pig for 3 hours and then decided that I had done enough sweating for the day and had to get the rest of my day done.

I would show you pictures, but you would not believe me.  So I am hoping tomorrow to make it look like I have really done something.  No matter what, I will take pictures tomorrow.

until we meet again,