Even doll cakes melt in this heat !

Current Mood  : Sugar buzzed

 

Well, ya'll know me - cake doesn't sit around long ! We attacked poor Belle tonight, and her skirt was actually a three layer cake ! Delicious. Of course, the figurine stops at waist level, and was attached to a clear plastic post that anchored the bust into the cake. On closer examination, the post detached, and I found a curled-up bit of paper inside. Stickers ! I got a rose, a crown, and a Cinderella shoe. How cute !

 

But before that, I was about as lazy as you can get and still breathe. I'd bought a DVD of Kentucky Fried Movie during the grocery run, since my twenty-year-old $8. VHS copy was showing signs of degrading. In a slight irony, the  DVD was only $7.50. Watched that, and listened to the MP3 player during yet another Hotel For Dogs run. I am truly getting sick of that movie... Also, if it's such a ‘kids' movie, why is the lead theme song "Let's Get Lucky (Let's Go All The Way)" ? Did the producers watch the animated Chipmunk Adventure first ?

 

Beloved Hubby was having a rough day, so I decided to use the frame I found Monday and the designs I bought with my SiCK points last week to make him a special place for his certification. Did the math and everything... but it's not right. One corner isn't straight with the other, and the fabric I thought was enough wasn't. It came out OK, but not my best work. Beloved appreciated it though, but couldn't quite figure out why I made him that. I told him I had a design I wanted to use, and a technique to try. Actually, I just wanted to make him something. You get that photo tomorrow.

 

I've seen rain and sun...together !

Current Mood : Weird

 

Not much going on today, except we had a weird rainstorm - while the sun shone ! It was so weird - I heard thunder, and looked outside to our usual bright and sunny late afternoon. But I pulled Molly-car into the garage anyway. Just in case.

 

She'd had a busy day, although about all I got done was groceries. It really ranks to shop in this heat. Got what we needed, and did the banking, and came home. Dearest Son took a short eternity, with several second-guess returns to the Lego aisle, to decide on a small set. Oh, he knows which of the $60. to $90. sets he wants, but the $20. and under are kinda hard for him to choose. He ended up selecting a set of two racecars that came with a fold-away track. It's actually pretty neat.

 

He's currently enamored with Hotel For Dogs, a kid-fantasy from Nickelodeon studios. It's cute enough, I suppose, but I just have a disconnect with the fact that Big City has no problem with electronics genius boy and Miley Cyrus-hair girl stealing power and water in an abandoned hotel that's full of saleable props in fantastic shape. Also that these dogs live better than 99% of humans. If the hotel property was so fabulous, why was it abandoned ? And why are only dogs living there ? I know, I know - kid movie. But still... just ‘cause it's for the younger set doesn't excuse the writers from plugging up their massive plot holes. Dearest has his own take - he plays the good guys all morning, and the bad guys after lunch.

 

Found another Chinese site with tons of freebie embroidery designs. I'm on page 68 of 930. Each page has around 20 designs. Most are bad holiday or odd religious interpretations, but I know I'll be hip-deep in Endless Floral soon. There's a few copyright violations - who knew Bozo had this many designs, and that there's a girl Bozo character ? I guess it's inevitable that there's also a Bozo baby... I snagged a few small designs and a Hello Kitty or three, m'self. Of course, some of the SiCK folk are just morally outraged at those copyright dodgers - OMG, we should all boycott the whole site because of them ! Never mind that the whole thing's in Chinese, we couldn't support any ads on the page if we wanted to.

 

I also got my birthday cake - a bit early, but since there's no way to know if they'd have a Belle figurine cake when I'd actually need it - and you'll see it tomorrow. It kinda melted and slid a bit on the way home, that's how hot it's been.

 

Finally got off my butt and did the dishes. It took a while, but it's done, and the kitchen smells much better ! Oh, and the Alphabet XPress folks finally answered ! Too bad it wasn't my question. I asked, "Can I sell or give away designs I make with your program using your fonts ?". They answered, "Yes this is fine if you are combining lettering with a design you already have, we see no problem with this. " Cut/Paste quote, exactly. (sigh) I give up - and I'll be giving away my s#it snowflake on the SiCK boards, appropriately enough, next week. Tired of it all.

Pinball and flat surfaces

 

Current Mood : Increasing sleepiness

 

Learned a lot from yesterday's experimental ‘sew at the computer desk' trial. It's great to know that I can, and I'll have to keep it tidy ! And that the most comfy seat in the house is the best one to sew on. And that the cuticle scissors I'm using for embroidery are great for doll clothes, too. It's often hard to clip the corners and curves of Barbie-size clothes with regular huge scissors - because it's so easy to cut beyond the stitches or seam by accident. Tiny embroidery/cuticle scissors have a lot more control. Still gotta be careful, ‘cause the tips on those are super-sharp, but I could control them much better than my usual dressmaker-size Fiskars sewing scissors.

 

I also learned that a piece of random fabric draped over the monitor makes a great backdrop for photos, and one of the Mad stands fits perfectly in a desk drawer, too. Wow. My computer desk is fast becoming my nearly all-purpose surface !

 

The material for yesterday's Belle t-shirt came from my Lab cleaning efforts - I cut one of the bad Wall-e "Eve" stitch-outs away and had enough material for two shirts. So you may see another soon. That's the thing about machine embroidery - if the smallest embroidery space is 4 x 4", most digititzers feel they have to fill every centimeter. Doll-size designs are actually difficult to come by ! I've been hoarding ‘em like a miser when I find them. I like the 1 x 1" designs when I can find ‘em, but more often, it's 1 x 1.5 or 2".

 

Oh, and the Mystery of the Suddenly Rusty Iron was solved yesterday, while I was sewing. Beloved Hubby remarked on the embroidered fabric's rust marks, and I told him that I was very lucky that most of the damage was to the wrong side. I need to remember to check from now on ! He cringed, and said it was his fault - remember when he used the iron a few weeks ago, to steam the brim of a favorite hat ? He thought he'd emptied the steam chambers, but it may have been wet when he put it away, he didn't pay much attention to anything other than it was cold enough to store. Whew ! No biggie, I told him, I'd just wondered how a almost-always dry iron - I never use the steam part, since few of my craft applications call for it  - suddenly developed rust !

 

And we got the Wii pinball game I wanted - GameStop had it used, and I love it. Pinball Hall of Fame : The Williams Collection is so much fun ! I got the high score on two tables, and Beloved Hubby got one, too. I played Black Knight, Funhouse, Pinbot, Space Shuttle, and the vintage classic Jive Time. I had no idea that I was giving the tables some ‘English' when I jerked my hands to spring the flippers ! Figured it out when I saw the large red ‘TILT !' on the screen.

 

Tomorrow's gonna be busy. Got grocery shopping, video returns, book returns, rent to pay, and a rebate to mail off. And I'm hoping to vacuum. Wish me luck ! And thanks, Manda - I'm hoping to sew some more later this week !

At least I didn't forget the title today !

 

Current Mood : Happy

Spent on embroidery designs : $10. (well, it was a great sale !)

 

Managed to store eleven reams - it was a bonus case ! - of paper in the file cabinet in Beloved Hubby's Parlor (gonna call it that from now on), once I moved the Huge Box of Yard Sale Envelopes that was in there. Cleaned out the Bill Drawer in my desk, which made space for nearly all them. I'm glad it worked out that way, since I kinda hated rummaging around in the file cabinet for envelopes. Between the box and the cabinet, it was always a struggle. Much easier to buy envelopes at Dollar Tree and keep them in my desk. Now they stand a chance at actually being used.

 

Although I've used about half the box already. Couple years ago, I hit a yard sale that was evidently run by a family that used to have a stationery store. There were boxes of papers, envelopes, stationery available, and display racks were stationed all over the driveway. Guess they wanted to ditch it all, because prices were super-cheap. I got a large boot-box full of all sizes of envelopes for a buck - mostly business sized green ones, but a lot of holiday and plain ones, too. It's been worth the buck, for sure. The rest of the envelopes went to the Stationery Drawer. And I found a forgotten frame I can use soon !

 

The twelfth ream got stored mostly on the paper rack under the printer, and the rest is under the desk, out of the way but nearby. Not sure what Beloved has planned for the box, but a good copy-paper box is so versatile ! Since it takes us about a year or so to use a ream, we're stocked for a while.

 

And I learned to always check the iron before I use it. I wanted to stitch up that silver thread heart I stitched during my experiments, but after I picked out most of the bad silver stitching around it, it needed to be ironed up a bit. Luckily, I was ironing on the wrong side, otherwise the fabric and stitching would have been wrecked. There was rust on almost the whole soleplate ! I have no idea why, it's been stored there for years. Got it cleaned up, but now I know to check it first.

 

After all that, there's not much I can do with the fabric. It's too close to the edge to be much good. May end up making a small patch out of it. Darn. Oh, and ironing thick, embroidered-on plastic doesn't help smooth it out much. About all I can do with the pretty fairy I embroidered on it is make a ripply window ornament. At least I have plenty of grommets and a set of snap/grommet pliers for the hanging cord !

 

With that silver heart still in mind, I wondered if I could clear my computer desk and sew with KJ, my mechanical sewing machine, right there, without having to drag everything over to the kitchen table - where I have a bad habit of just leaving everything ‘til ‘later'. If I sewed on my desk, I'd have to put him away as soon as I was done, so I could use the computer ! That was an idea...

 

And that's where today's image comes from. I used an old pattern from a doll magazine, and still messed up - it's supposed to be a pullover T-shirt, but mine's split and Velcro'ed up the back. Those old patterns don't like for ya to put in hems. Took about an hour, but I think it came out well. And I just used Stitch Witchery to attach the heart patch to the shirt, after edging it in Fray-Check. I've been wanting to doll-sew for a bit, just hated dragging everything around. But with the wireless keyboard and mouse, long as I keep the desktop clean, I can move the computer stuff to the side, sew, then use the monitor as a backdrop for photos - I taped some whale fabric to it for today's image - once KJ's put away. Only downside is, KJ's cord isn't quite long enough, so it doesn't lie completely on the floor, so it's a trip hazard. I may have to put a power strip aside for KJ, and Brody, when he's getting new designs, so I don't have to worry about my guys taking a gainer off a power cord.

 

So I had a great Sunday.  Hope your weekend was fun, too !

 

Current Mood : Whiny

Spent on crappy doll magazines :  $8.25

 

Stuck to my word of ‘no yard sales' this weekend, but it was easy - Beloved Hubby was home, I slept late, and there's darn few because it's so hot so early. Found some more fabric that needed storing and downloaded a few more designs... what more could I want, much less find, in someone's yard ?

 

Helped Beloved print out an online hobby book he likes, mostly by babysitting the printer. We soon ran out of paper, because it was a 243 page book. I thought we had another ream, but we didn't, so we headed to Home Depot. I was kind of excited, since I love office supplies. Doesn't everyone ? We'd also planned a trip to Target and a few other places, then have a late lunch. Well, we barely got the paper and ink picked out when his phone rang. Dearest Son had forgotten to pack the power cable to his laptop, so DFIL would be there to pick it up on the way home from work. Well, shoot. He hung up - and wouldn't answer his phone - so we busted butt to get back home... and he never showed. So much for my fun afternoon with Beloved. At least we got the book printed.

 

We did go out later, and I got the latest issue of IHatethese Dolls, oops, I mean, Haute Doll, but it was mostly out of frustration. I really wanted the afternoon we had planned. At least there's a couple of patterns in there I can use. More rail-thin ‘female' dolls that look like drag performers, and more doll manufacturers complaining that they can't make the $$$ dolls anymore, so they have to slum and make the $ or $$ ones the hoi polloi are actually buying these days (heavy sigh). Just because you name your dolls an unholy mix of French and Japanese, it doesn't mean it's worth any more than a Playline Barbie, so deal with it.

 

And more paper-doll and Space Force Adventures filler, which I'm sure somebody somewhere enjoys. I kinda regret buying this thing, but Beloved had something to read, and I wanted something new, too. I really am a whiny, spoiled brat 90% of the time.

 

Once home, we got a call - Beloved's friend wanted to visit, so that was my day. We did have a little time together, since Friend wisely packed it in early for once. Yes Man is actually a funny, cute movie. We both enjoyed it, and laughed. And while it's hack as all h#ll, based on the included preview, I kinda want to see Ghosts of Girlfriends Past when it comes out.

 

So I had a good day, just not what I'd really hoped for, and I know I sound like the biggest spoiled princess there is. Wish me luck finding space to store our brand-new 11.75 reams of paper tomorrow !

An Uncommon Mind...

 

Current Mood : Jubilant ! 

 

I may have figured out something really important, I'm just not sure yet. And from what I can tell, no one's figured it out before. But then again, I'm reminded of an old Calvin and Hobbes strip, wherein Hobbes voices his belief that, if all man needed to fly were paper feathers taped to clothing, someone would have thought of it before. Calvin calmly replies, ‘It takes an uncommon mind to think of these things, Hobbes'. He has to agree.

 

Well, here's the current fruit of my uncommon mind. Fairly frequently, when you have a 4 x4" (100mm x 100mm) maximum embroidery area, you find designs that are either a tenth of an inch or three inches too big. Of course, you really really like these designs, and they're not available in your size. This is especially unique for me, since I'm not used to being too small for anything. Or having anything too big for me ! Besides my mouth.

 

So, when I got a link to download a free resizer, I was thrilled. Resizing software is often pretty pricey. You may remember that fight as part and parcel of the ‘Sew Red for Women' debacle. That, however, ended well when I got Explorations Resizer to download, install, and work. Only one problem with it - it says all my .pes designs are inferior artwork, and resizing them by more than 10% will probably cause problems. Of course, I'm not sure what more than 10% of the design would be. Sure, taking a design from 4.2 inches down to 3.95 is probably within specs, but most designs are set up for 5 x 7" or even 6 x 10" ! And is that 10% width plus height, or overall ?

 

After yet another round of ‘darn, too big' designs on a freebie page, I pulled up Resizer again. And this time, I paid attention to the warning message. Hm. Apparently, this program likes the .art format - not as popular as my usual .pes, but it's usually available. Brody can't use .art, but what if I downloaded some oversized goodie in .art, reduced it to 4x4, then saved it as a Brody-ready .pes ?

 

Well, no time like the present. The SiCK site offers hourly freebies, and coincidentally, when I was ready to try, there was a simple redwork (one color line art) design that was 5 x 5". Nothing I really wanted, but it'd be perfect for my... experiments...

 

Aaaand, it worked. It didn't nag me about ‘inferior art', it resized it as I wanted, and I'm fairly certain taking a 5 x 5" design down to a bit under 4 x 4" is more than 10% - if I use square inches, going from 5x5 (25) to 4x4 (16) is actually about 37%. No warning, no cautions, and it saved like I didn't do a thing to it. It stitched out beautifully in Ambassador's simulation, too. I always wondered, if a design stitches out well in Ambassador, is it a near-guarantee Brody will also do well with it ? Provided I use standard hooping, thread, needles, etc ?

 

Well, you've already seen the answer - the rag doll above was the next SiCK freebie. Originally, she was 6.67 inches tall and 5.05 inches wide, using 6240 stitches in her makeup. Few minutes with Resizer, and she was 3.54 inches tall and 3.8 inches wide, and now she only needed 5855 stitches. Smooth as silk, no nagging, no flaws in Ambassador's virtual stitch-out. Deep breath. Almost time to make it happen.

 

After a quick dinner, I realized I had several firsts going on with this project. First stitch-out of a redwork design. First stitch-out of a resized design. First time I've added new designs to Brody since we moved all the furniture around. On the latter, it's much easier to move him now, and get to outlets. So I like the change even more.

 

I wasn't really worried about redwork. It's one of the simpler forms, but I'd never done it before. Lemme tell ya, it's fun ! Since it's all pretty much one continuous line of stitching, you never know where it's going next. And when you've altered it as much as I have, you don't really know for certain if it's gonna come around and finish that leg, or put in that piece of hair. But now I know. It can be done, because I DID IT !! It's a darn near perfect copy of the original. Just smaller. Whoo-hoo !

 

Eventually, I'll get back to that Barbie design...

Bad news, even when you expect it, still ranks.

 

Current Mood : Feeling a bit helpless - and still kinda hot, drat that A/C unit !

 

With nothing new on the Alphabet XPress question - that must be one busy lawyer ! - and temperatures in the low 100s today, I scrapped my plans of going out and stayed in for some intense, small cleaning. Got the last few ‘corners of clutter' cleared in the Lab, which surprisingly took nearly two hours to get sorted and stored. Another bagload going for donations, too. It's always more work than I think, and now that it's done, I know why I always put that off. Didn't gain a lot of space, but it's nice to not see the piles and think, ‘I really need to clean that' anymore.

 

Repurposed a now-empty storage box for kitchen rags and a wooden felt-bottomed cigar box for Beloved Hubby's tattoo supplies. Last week, I found the plastic pantry shelves I'd bought at a yard sale - they expand to fit any shelf, and look like stairsteps, so the stuff in the back is visible. I'd intended to use them for doll photos, but they'd been sitting around for a year. They look surprisingly ‘at home' holding Beloved Hubby's collection of inks and paints in his Man Cave.

 

Finally rounded up all the washed-but-not-stored fabric scattered all over the house and got that bundled, too. I am seriously suffering from my own version of affluenza - I have too much, it was all too cheap, and it takes too long to clean and sort and store it all ! But I love every millimeter of it. And just looking at it makes me feel good, secure, and rich !

 

Which is good, because it doesn't look like I'll be doing any more spending soon. After the landlord had ‘her' repair person out here twice to look at the A/C, it's still running nonstop, and it was 85 degrees inside at noon yesterday. So we called a repair person of our own, who told us the compressor is shot, it's an old system, and can't possibly cool anything efficiently. No repairs possible, whole system will need to be replaced. Since landlord futzed around with the broken oven for over a year until we replaced it at our own expense, and ‘her' repair person said the A/C was a filter issue, we kind of know she's not willing to pony up a couple $K to fix it. After the rent's paid, we'll tell her what our repairman said, but I think she's 1)not gonna care that our power bills will be $300 - $400./month, and won't do a thing,  2) will tell us we can leave if we don't like it. So you may get to hear me whine soon about packing and giving up my Lab. (sigh) Not very happy right now...

 

Well, not much I can do right this minute - and I'm gonna go use our new-to-us oven to make dinner. Hope your Thursday was great !

Still shuffling. And being shuffled.

 

Current Mood : Happy and busy

Current Image Notes : Here's the frame mat I designed for Beloved Hubby's 'Blood-borne Pathogens'  class Certification. Shh - don't tell him yet !

 

As the proud owner of a licensed copy - no longer the trial version ! - of Alphabet XPress, I want to share my questionable taste with the world, using it as the medium. You may recall that I made a ‘naughty' Christmas ( or anytime !) ornament using a fairly generic swear word - yes, the ‘s' one. I reserve the ‘F bomb' ornaments for close family members and those who deserve it. Anyway, finding out if I can give the ten-minutes-to-make design away has been a comedy of errors so stupid, I'm seriously considering sending AnnTheGran one of my little  ‘bombs'.

 

First, I did what could be construed as extremely dimwitted. I read the sketchy Help files, which don't really deserve the title ‘help', but I was willing to let it go. Then the bog-standard Byzantine licensing agreement. Which basically says, if this program blows up your computer which activates Skynet and brings about world devastation, well, it's your own fault for choosing to download it and install it, ya bum. Not our problem. We'll sue you and disable the program you paid for if we find you using it any other way than what we intended it for (not that we'll actually tell you what we intended it for anywhere in here), so there. Please enjoy our product, and tell your friends.

 

Okay, nothing there. They have a forum, so I'll see if it's been discussed. Surely someone besides me will have asked. Even just out of sheer intellectual curiosity ? After two days of listening to folks complain about how AnnTheGran went from offering 5000 free easy-to-download with ads designs to maybe 50, and made even access to those a PITA (this happened back in February, but they're still snipin') , I again found squadoo. Lotsa people had trouble getting AX to work with Vista, so I must be supremely lucky. But not in finding what I was looking for. So I asked. Several days pass. And then...somebody responds !

 

Yep, they tell me to e-mail Support. Um, the site asks for program owners to use the forums first, Honey. And it wasn't a site moderator or anyone in charge or on staff - just another forum user. But, what the heck, I'm about to give up anyway. I sent a brief (amazing, me being brief - you'd think that'd bring about world devastation, right there !) note again, and send it off into the ether. I get a form note back, saying that if I was writing concerning a licensed-to-me product, they'd respond within 24 hours. If it was to whine about the freebie situation, it'd take three days or more. Guess they're tired of the sniping, I figured they were simply ignoring it.

 

So today I get a response ! Well, not really. In response to ‘As a licensed user, can I give away or sell designs made by your product using your font ?', I get four inches of ads and a greeting, then, "I will verify this and get back to you." And a business-like sig file, showing that I've just ‘talked to' Person's Name on the ATG Support Team.

 

Um, what is she verifying ? That I'm a licensed owner ? I had to give the order number and the serial code to send the note to Support to begin with. There's nothing here to verify - yes I can, with permission and within limits, or no, I can't, so I'll just make ‘em and give ‘em away instead. This has never, in their history, come up before ? Unbelievable.

 

I'm starting to think I wasn't far off when I joked with Beloved Hubby that the reason I got no response on their forum - before I wrote Support - was that their lawyers were already out of the office for the weekend. It may be that they're contacting them to get the answer !

 

I got all the piled-up doll clothes put away, finally. Opened up a few more inches of space ! Now I'm looking at other piles ‘o stuff, and thinking of where they'll have to go. Some of them, I'll have to decide if they go or stay, since I'm at about max capacity in the Lab. I'm thinking of setting up the nearly-vintage Sears ‘Olympic Gymnast' set I got last year, taking some great photos, posting them to the main site, and then let the actual set go. It's all kindsa cool, but aside from the 70s box and Malibu imagery, it's not really something I'm interested in, or even really like. It was a great find, but I don't appreciate it enough to keep it forever, ya know ? I got at least another boxload of stuff that's much the same. I hate to let it go, but I already got boxes of stuff I really love, and I can't keep it all...

 

That's why I've not been seriously yard sailing this year. My space limits are far more severe than the money ones. Nearly every time I go out, I find something amazing I just have to have, and heck, I already have stuff darn near suspended from the ceiling ! Closets are packed, shelves are crowded, floor space is darn near at a premium. I gotta draw the line somewhere, or I won't have time to play because I have too much to play with !

 

But at least I got some stuff put away. The interfacing, stabilizers, and such that I use with Brody have outgrown the yard-sale Disney Princess trash can I scored last year, so I figured I'd look for new storage alternatives when we went grocery shopping today. Turned out that the 50^th Anniversary "When You Look This Good, Nobody Cares If You're Plastic" Barbie tote holds it all perfectly, and it fits into a small unused nook, which uses less space than the can did. I was also gonna look for a new desk-side trash can, since my old kitchen one is too big for the new space in the living room. But with the Princess one freed up, I can use that instead. So I got new, improved storage and a trash can without spending any more money ! And the Princess can uses Mal-Wart sacks perfectly. I'm happy how that worked out.

Fun with PaintShopPro

Current Mood : crabby with tummyache

 

Aaand it looks like Tripod's out again tonight. No warning on their user blog this time. (sigh) There are times I really wanna take my lousy $5./month elsewhere...

 

After all the furniture shuffling and cleaning yesterday, I got lazy today and sat back for a bit. Plus my tummy hurt off and on all day. I got some ‘admin' work done - balanced Beloved Hubby's work checkbook and addressed a difficult personal issue I've been avoiding - but not a lot else. Getting that done will probably help me sleep a bit better, though.

 

We put Dearest Son's old bed and a semi-busted office chair out on the lawn with ‘Free' signs on ‘em, and just now, they vanished. Alleluia ! Took longer than I thought, but I'm happy to think someone has a good, if rather stiff, bed with drawers beneath, for free.

 

Putting Dearest's computer and mine in the living room is actually more fun than I thought it'd be - I spent more time with him, and he was very giggly and affectionate. Only downside was, I had to watch Benji one last time, since it goes back to the library tomorrow. Did a bit more laundry, but not much. It's too hot to use the dryer, so I'm back to the clothesline for the summer. I've been so lazy about hanging it out.

 

SiCK has a new patriotic set, and it's mostly stars. So I used some of my points. They've changed the cash prices on the sets - they were $4. last week, then there was a dollar sale, and when the sale was over, the price went to $5. I still have enough for 1.75 sets, but it should be a while before I want another. But it was darn nice to buy what I wanted for free ! 

 

Found a small unused ring binder while we were sorting through stuff, and claimed it. I've been wanting one to store my stitched-out design print-outs, but had decided to wait until funds and back-to-school supplies were more readily available. So today, I got that organized, and found a box for all those Barbie ‘iDesign' cards I bought from Dollar Tree. I still have a burgeoning box of doll clothes that need sorting and storing, so I'll do that tonight. It's so nice to be in the Lab, when it's dark and quiet.

 

While I was going through design print-outs, I pulled the Barbie one aside, and worked on the colors for it. In the original image, she's blonde and wearing pink (of course) and grey, with leggings. As you can see on mine, when it's stitched out, she'll be almost completely different. I'm hoping her eyes won't be so... thick, and that the red the design calls for actually shows up on her mouth. Once I get the colors finalized, I'll start stitching the multi-part panel I have in mind, probably as soon as this weekend. This project will be all about learning how to place and center various elements. As usual when I'm doing something new to me, I'm a bit nervous, but it should go well. Heck, even if it's off, no one will probably notice unless I point it out to ‘em. If it really goes well, I'll probably put it on a t-shirt or sweatshirt. Maybe both !

 

Tomorrow's busy. Got groceries to shop and library to visit, a boy to teach, and laundry to work on. It's amazing I still have insomnia !

Summer shuffle...

Current Mood: Increasingly frustrated with Tripod - this is my eighth attempt at getting this posted. Why are the entries vanishing ?

 

Slight Update : Some days, ya just can't win. I'm making an extra effort to keep on top of my meanderings here, so I don't do another ‘week in a day' catch-up... only to find out that the Tripod blog builder is down until 6am tomorrow. So I can't post this on time, as the previous seven tries have already shown me. Gee, thanks for the notification, guys. Ever hear of a little thing called e-mail ? Well, back to what I wrote yesterday...

 

Busy day. Beloved Hubby called in a mental health day and it was Rearrange Everything Day. His hobby is tattooing, and he did that grapefruit for me this weekend. While I don't have one - just can't wrap my head around scarring m'self on purpose when Life's already given me several real bad ones - he has several, and as you can see, he's quite good at it. His supplies and such have overflowed a corner of the dining area, so we shuffled the Office around, with most of it ending up in the rarely-used living room. He now has a man-cave much like my Lab, and a place to store all his tattoo and art supplies. Yup, he paints and draws, too.

 

My computer and Dearest Son's desk and laptop ended up in the living room, and we repurposed a coffee table for his Lego, provided he keeps it cleaned up. He even has an underbed storage box for pieces beneath. I lost a bit of desktop space, but it's kind of nice - I can watch a movie, keep an eye on traffic and the front yard, and be a bit less isolated like I was in the Office. And when Dearest and Beloved do art lessons, they have a special space for it !

 

Of course, to shuffle two and a half rooms of furniture, there was a lot of preliminary cleaning. Took me 45 minutes just to get the DVDs back shelved, and it's not like I put them in any real order, besides ‘Dearest's here, everything else there'. I've gotta talk to my guys about putting discs back in boxes, and boxes back on shelves. Also got two loads of laundry done, and some dishes. We cleaned out the weekend's leftovers for lunches.

 

I'm happiest because to do this, Beloved finally had to clean off his desk ! And he calls me a packrat - I didn't have two boxes of loose receipts to store. It looks so much cleaner in there now. This fall, he hopes to have time to texture and paint in there - if he'd decided on a color, or had one he already liked, it'd already be painted. Right now, his Studio/Man Cave is the same ugly blue that my Lab used to be. Ick.

 

Tomorrow, we may head up to the Library in the morning. After the last Thursday fiascoes, I won't be wasting our time for ‘Drop In Crafts' again. I found a ‘You're Already Pre-Approved !!!1!!!' catalog in the drifting piles of paper, so we're gonna do ‘make your own TV program' cards with the images of big-screens and computer monitors.

 

After all the cleaning and moving, I'm pretty tired. Too bad our bedroom is still a wreck. But now that there've been changes, I'll be more motivated to freshen up our other living spaces as well. And that'd be nice !