Unique Like Everyone Else

A New Blog

I started a new blog today:  My Peace of Paper. 

It will feature all the craftiness that goes on in this house.  I figure mostly it will have scrapbooking pages I create, and I can feel free to post details like which paper and glue I used (as other scrappy people seem to do) without boring you dear readers here on ULEE (Unique Like Everyone Else) who are here for the story, not so much the art inspired by it.  Does that make sense?  Also, sometimes I like to participate in scrapbooking "challenges" which can inspire creativity by limiting supplies or instilling must-have elements.  Often these sites like your entries to be linked/submitted through your blog, and I always felt weird putting them here, like they would be out of place. 

Now, I have a dedicated realm to geek my crafts on! 

I'm sure I will have some posts cross-linked between here and there now and again.  ULEE isn't going away; if fact, I feel like I will may be able to post more often with a clearer focus and sense of direction. 

So check it out if you want to see what we've been getting our hands dirty with lately! 

Cheers!

Sometimes My Brilliance Astounds Me

We are only two weeks into the school year, and already I am bored with making lunches for the kids.  Especially J-Boy.  In addition to having a narrow palette of foods he finds acceptable or even tolerable, when you add the persnickety/perfectionist aspect of presentation, I am limited even further by what will travel well in his soft-sided lunchbox.  While we've come a LONG way, I can't tell you how many cereal bars I ate when he was under the age of 5 that were "ruined" because they broke in half before he was able to take the first bite.

J-Girl adopted a bento-box style lunch carrier, from Laptop Lunches, a couple years ago.  At first I found the constraints of the hard sided partitions and case to be annoying, but soon I learned to love it.  I can't talk J-Boy into using one, though.  Even with his love of things Japanese.  If they made a digital one, he would probably be into it, for the greatest thing to come out of Japan for him is video games.  If I could download meals to get him some HP ("Health Points" = strength, energy in video games), that would be awesome!

So, back to the boredom...I decided to spread peanut butter between graham cracker squares to change up the ol' PB&J.  When I thought about how they would fare in the lunchbox, though, I pictured a sticky mass of crumbs that would never get eaten.  My problem was that I didn't have an available plastic reusable container that the graham crackers could fit in.

What I DID have, however, was the box that the graham crackers came in! 

 

VICTORY!!

Fond Farewell

I saw something amazing yesterday morning when I went to pick up the farm box.  A bunch of Canada geese (not Canadian geese; stay tuned for a post on that) were lined up along the edge of the pond of a little waterfront community near our neighborhood.  The geese were stately and grand, perfectly aligned on the bank of the water.  It looked as if someone was on the bridge giving a speech, for they were attentive and had an air of purpose.  I was so bummed that I didn't have my camera with me.  It seemed such an unnatural scene, the order taken by these wild animals.  And yet, it was more natural, more by Nature than I yet realized.

 

 

I hurried back after collecting my organic veggies, remembering that I could use the camera on my phone.  Hoping I would not be too late, I half expected that I'd witnessed a freak phenomenon, that they would all be randomly scattered across the grass pecking out breakfast from the lawn.  I was so close, a block away, when I saw them fly overhead, a perfect V-formation heading south for the winter.  An awesome, awesome sight! 

 

Bon voyage, my feathered friends!  See you in the Spring!

 

Since I didn't have my camera and missed the opportunity to snap pictures with my phone, I decided to come home and make some art about my experience.  I am a water-fowl dork fan, and seeing this totally trumped my celebrity sighting of a favorite morning news show anchor the night before, and let me tell you, I was pretty giddy over that!  

 

 

In making this page, I just "went for it".  And started hating it--I nixed the idea of making a two-page 8x8 spread for my "pets" album, then started to regret that I was mixing two different styles of  painting on one layout.  But I continued on, and I'm glad I did.  Now that it's done, I can see tht the two styles relate to how I saw the two different scenes.  I saw the geese staging at the edge of the pond while at a stop light.  I had the luxury of taking in details.  When I saw them flying overhead, it was more a glimpse, a brief snapshot as I ducked forward to see them out of my front windshield as they passed, no time to study the elements of the scene.

 

I knew I wanted to stamp the images of the geese, to emphasize their sameness.  I found a picture of a Canada goose stamp on Google (the artist accredited only as "April"; thanks, April!) And printed out multiple copies that I stamped with a snowflake to add some stippled color.

 

Even with a bunch of them cut out,  they looked weird on the layout.  So, I glued one to some craft foam, cut around it, then glued that to a second piece of craft foam to create an actual stamp.  I applied paint, stamped, reapplied paint, stamped, etc. around the rim of the pond.

 

 

I stamped the houses with randomly cut shapes of craft foam.  The grass was dabbed on with scrunched up bubble wrap. 

So, I'm continuing to obsess about these big ol' birds, looking at migration maps on the internet, wondering where they are headed as Southern California already seems to be a fairly southerly wintering destination for them.  And, with it being in the high 90's temperature-wise, what triggered their internal clocks that it was time to go?  Perhaps the position of the sun in the sky?  Well, I sure am happy that I got to see them go, and I will sure welcome them back in the spring!

 

Edit:  It is September 15, and the birds are either back, never left, or perhaps
this is the 2nd Brigade.  *Sigh*  I still feel I witnessed something special,
if not actually "grand".  :)

Hat Trick

Big Daddy and I had been feeling...displaced. As in two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. And if TWO things can't, well, certainly FOUR things can't. And when some of those things bring friends over, and then take over the living room with gaming or movie watching, or line themselves up along a couch, each with a laptop (is that weird to anyone else??) then Big Daddy and I find ourselves pushed outside or holed up in our room to watch the other TV.

But we LIKE being around our kids. And they seem to LIKE being around us. We are pleased that they do not hermit away in their rooms. So we decided we needed some extra seating downstairs. We looked long and hard at various sofas, tiny sectionals and chairs. Our space really isn't that big. We eventually discovered that patio furniture can be of smaller scale, is WAY less expensive than indoor furniture, and was just what we needed to solve our issue.

It is a perfect place to read or crochet, do a sudoku or chat.  Tandem-ness, if not togetherness, as this area is separated by a half-wall from the living room.  Here is the first little project I created while chillaxin' in our new nook:

Little hats!

Just kidding.  They are not hats.  But when Big Daddy asked me if they were hats, I had to stick them on something!  I was especially laughing at the R2D2 pez dispenser.  Have you seen The Family Guy's Star Wars Parodies?

I resisted for SOOOO long, and tried NOT to like that show, but I love it!

 

Ok, so they are not hats.  But I'm sure you noticed the lovely paint job in that shot of our room.  The half yellow/half white wall?  We had the house repiped uh, recently, *cough, cough* and haven't repainted yet.  Still, I had to spring into action when I saw this:

 

 Ta-daaaaaaa!!!

 

Protective head gear!  Now I can rest even easier!  :)

 

Any Given Saturday

Big Daddy and I have a Saturday morning routine:  We head out while the kids are still sleeping (J-Girl asked us to stop waking her to tell her where we are going, because "it's Saturday, so she knows."), we pick up our farm box of organic fruits and veggies, head to Starbucks for the ususal, and most times, stop into the adjacent donut shop, then head home with our haul, and do a crossword puzzle together.  Sometimes we may forego the donuts and come home for oatmeal which is our weekday staple.  Sometimes we may stop at a garage sale if we are on the hunt for something in particular or something catches our my eye as we pass.  But on any given Saturday, that is our routine.

This past Saturday I was inspired to scrap the routine.  Oh, not scrap it as in "not do it anymore", but scrap it as in make a scrapbook page about it.  As we made our way to all the stops, I collected a piece of ephemeral memorabilia at each place.  Playing with the pieces in little fits and spurts, I eventually commemorated our little slice of alone time:

 

 

Here's a closeup of the journaling, because that is my favorite part
of lurking around other scrapper's blogs. ;)

 

I was pretty proud of myself for thinking to frame us with the bag handle.

 

And I like the dimension of the fanned crossword puzzle, and my hand-sketched lettering.

And, for the record, we usually don't look that good when we head out on these errands.  It's more of a roll-out-of-bed-put-on-clothes-from-the-floor-brush-teeth-and-go kind of thing.  But is is OUR thing, and we look forward to it each and every week. 

Ni-Ni-Ni-n-Ni-Nineteen

Big Daddy and I celebrated our 19th anniversary last month!  

 

 

  Like my "sushi"?   I adapted them from a flower-making lesson by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  I kept the green plastic thingy that came with our real sushi appetizer and the chopstick wrappers, too.

 

I incorporated the lovely handmade card that Big Daddy's mom sent us.  Cute!

 

 

The photos were taken by the restaurant hostess and given to us in a little frame as a momento.  I cut out the sentiment to add the date to this page, and added a hand-painted heart left over from another project from Julie's class.

 

Lastly, I stitched around the page to kind of anchor all this hodgepodge together.  I based the layout on this sketch from Pencil Lines Challenge Blog:

Sketch #237

 

We sure had a nice night out with the kids to celebrate our special day.  Being new to scrapbooking, I will enjoy being able to revisit this day through a tangible record of the memory.  :)

 HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BIG DADDY!!  I LOVE YOU!!

http://www.pencillines.com/

A Mother's Work

I think since I was a child, I've always been in possession of a few Guatamalan Worry Dolls.  I'm not really sure by what means they have found their way to me, but my guess is that where there is a need, the Lord provideth.  I don't really consider myself a worrywart (the Lord also provideth medication for such things), but as a mother I think it is a natural part of the job to have some sense of anxiety over the uncertainness of our kids' paths and futures.  This can be heavily compounded when raising a child with a disability (hence the meds) and J-Boy's autism has certainly kept me up nights. 

I heard a story long ago about a man who ritualistically touched the leaves of a tree as he walked up the path to his house every day after work.  One day his kids, or his wife-I can't remember-asked him why he displayed this odd, meaningless behavior.  He answered that he hangs his troubles from work outside on that tree so that he doesn't bring them into the house with him.  I loved that idea, and have kept a small pouch of worry dolls hanging on my headboard for a very long time.  Sometimes I give them a gentle squeeze before closing my eyes and handing myself over to sleep.

 

 

The next project in the It's Sew Easy online class I am taking from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer was to make a small heart-shaped pillow.  Boy, was I feeling uninspired.  I really liked Julie's example; the fabric she used appeared to be a well-used paint rag filled with a myriad of mish-mashed color and pattern from many a past project.  It had such character; it was so "Julie".   I needed the find something that was "me". 

I was reading an interesting crime novel recently, House Rules, by Jodi Picoult, a perfect crossover book for me as it chronicles a case --possibly, allegedly-- involving an 18 year old boy with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism, who is a crime scene investigation fanatic.  (Some of you readers who don't know me personally may find it interesting to know that I worked as a forensic scientist before my son was diagnosed with autism. It became clear that caring for him and advocating for him was a full time job in itself.)  The mother in the book made an analogy that got my mind racing.

 

"Sometimes I think the human heart is just a simple shelf.  There's only so much you can pile onto it before something falls off an edge and you are left to pick up the pieces."

 

With my bag of worry people perched over my shoulder as I read that passage, propped up in bed, inspiration for my heart-shaped pillow finally hit.  I immediately unstrung the pouch and was actually surprised at what I found inside it:

Had I literally worried their little heads off????

 

And, why were the heads of the girl dolls completely gone? 
Had I subconsciously transferred my worry-work about J-Girl to these dolls
so I could more consciously worry about J-Boy, ala some kind of
emotional divide and conquer?  Weird!!

Anyway, my idea was, with regard to worrying, "A Mother's Work is Never Done."  Here were my first attempts for the pillow's design:

 

Yeah, I wasn't really feeling it.  I ordered some new worry dolls (with heads!) from the internet.  Here's the final result:

 

 

I love it!  And there are plenty of worry dolls on there to help me get
these kids through High School, I think! 

I'm going to go hang it up on my headboard now! 
Good night!

It's Sew Easy: Banner and Tags

You may remember me saying that I've been stalking, no, following, no, admiring from a totally safe and not-at-all-creepy distance, a wonderful artist named Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  Well, she recently started an online class, "It's Sew Easy:  A Journey Into Mixed-Media Stitch" and I am participating!  (While the class has technically started, it is self-paced and it is not too late to join in if you are interested!  Join me!)

I bought a sewing machine back in 1994.  It was a pretty big purchase for us at the time, us being fairly newly-wed and me getting my first real job after being unemployed for about a year. But I took a class and learned how to use it well enough that I could make some cloth napkins or hem some of Big Daddy's torn riding pants into shorts. Over the years I've been able to make some pretty good Halloween costumes for the kids, knowing they'd only need to last through a night of trick-or-treating.

Julie's class is geared toward the beginner who just picked up a machine for this course, but also for the accomplished seamstress who will find challenge in stretching the art side of sewing.  I figured I might fall somewhere in the middle of the group, learning some helpful tips and tricks with the machine (yeah, like, several every lesson!) and soaking up mixed-media techniques using fabric, paint, paper, and embroidery, like a brand new sponge.  Boy, Julie is amazing, and truly inspiring and encouraging.  She is such a great teacher.  What I didn't expect, is that all the other women in  the class are not dabbling, stay-at-home moms--they are true artists.  Their blogs are about their art and creativity, and they teach art classes, too.  I feel a little star-struck, rubbing cyber-shoulders with this crowd! 

So, here's a look at what I made for the first couple of projects:

The first project was to hand-paint some papers, punch out some shapes, and sew them all together to make streamer-type banner.  Very festive!  Julie wrapped hers around a plainly wrapped package, and it was beautiful--definitely something I'm going to have to try!

 

The second project was to make three different gift tags, based on three different techniques:

The first was made by cutting many fabric circles, freehand, layering them up and randomly stitching them to a manila tag.

The second tag involved tearing squares of random  papers and stitching them in rows on the tag, then hitting them with a paint splat.  The example used old book pages and letters.  Julie suggested using the patterned insides of security envelopes, and since I'd just organized a bunch of bills, I thought that was a great idea!

The last tag was definitely outside my comfort zone.  It involved hand-dying some scraps of lace.  I'm not a lace type of gal.  And I'm not a very good measurer either, so after I dyed my lace (with watercolor paint, because it was "there" and my inks were not) I found that it didn't actually cover the tag in vertical strips like I'd intended.  So I measured and found that it would work if I made diagonal strips.  But, again, I misjudged.  So I had to get creative to fill up the big blank area at the top of the tag.

If it weren't for the lace, I'd think this was pretty cute. 
The denim leaves were a late addition after staring at this and hating it for a couple days. 

 I love the pink-stitched veining.
Hmm, I wonder where I got that idea??? 
(Hint:  go back to top and look at Julie's class logo.)

She's genius, I tell ya! 

Can't wait to share more of my creations with you all!!

Crazy Sniffable

In my adventure into scrapbooking heartfelt moments and feelings more than specific events, I've decided to make a "Pets We've Known and Loved" book. I want to incorporate all the funny dog, turtle, and rabbit stories we have, but also include pages of maybe poetry, quotes, comic strips, lists of favorite books that feature animals, etc.

I decided to use an 8x8 inch format. I pictured myself missing our long-gone dalmatians, Baci and Junior, and taking out this scrapbook to "be with them" for awhile. A 12x12 album just seemed too bulky if I felt the need to curl up into a fetal position while cuddling a current pet and manipulating a book of memories.

Here is the first (completed) page!

"Who are these people??? Who are these dogs???" you are probably asking yourself. My first page is an homage to The Beastie Boys, and a great rap lyric that is so something Big Daddy would say! And, truth be known, Big Daddy IS crazy sniffable and dogs do love him! Mmmmmm...Downy...!

I got extra crafty on this page and carved my own brick wall stamp out of some craft foam. I drew the pattern out with a sharpie, then used an X-acto knife to trim away the "mortar" and randomly poked it all over for the pock-textured look.

I painted the stamp with red, brown, and black watercolors, and printed it onto some light gray paper. I like the way it turned out!

The city scene is from the label from a can of my favorite coffee, Trader Joe's Bay Blend Ultra Dark Roast. I'd saved it a while ago knowing it would find a home somewhere!

Lastly, this is the first scrapbook page I've ever used the sewing machine on. I'm taking on online mixed media sewing class, a birthday present from my Mom and Dad (thanks, Mom and Dad!) and in the first week I am already feeling myself freeing up and branching out. I will share more on that in the near future!

In the meantime, keep your nose to the ground and a wag in you tail!  That's a traditional Irish Setter blessing. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bird's Eye View

All mom's have favorite stories they like to tell about their kids.  This is one of my J-Boy stories.  It is an example of how he thinks outside the box, maybe because he is a kid who IS outside the box in many ways.  I was inspired to create an art journal piece about it because, to me, it is a visual story, though the event itself ocurred about a year and a half ago. 

  

 
 

 

I enjoyed cutting out the bird stencil from a picture I found online and mixing up some dilute paint to spray to get the resisted image.  I also diluted some metallic gold paint I had to tone down the white of the doilies and unify this busy smattering of elements.  The initial inspiration for the page came from Starbucks and their "Stories are Gifts to Share" cup sleeve and my "berry bushes" are actually reindeer antlers that were on bags Big Daddy and I got there containing our oatmeal fixings.  And I have no idea why I had an Old Navy tag from a pair of size 10 pants, but since J-Boy was 10 years old at the time, it seemed to fit. All in all, I think it is a pretty busy page, but I had fun playing with all the elements while looking at those darling eyes and thinking about my boy.  Maybe my next attempt at this freer style of scrapping will offer a place to rest!

 

 

 

J-Boy, I love the way you look at the world!