Hibernating

It's one of those winter weekends where it's really too cold to go outside if you don't have to. We don't have very much snow, just enough to cover the ground, the roads are bare but it's bloody cold outside. When I woke up this morning, it was minus 24 with the windchill and there wasn't much improvement expected in the forecast so I thought, right, I've got everything I need indoors and that's where I'm staying.

I went grocery shopping last night while I was out running errands so no problems there. Last weekend, when it was also too cold to go out, I eventually had to gear up and make a trek out into the frigid air when I ran out of milk. This time, I'm ready! An extra 4L are chilling nicely in my fridge as we speak.

For animals, hibernation is a period of inactivity but not for me, I've had a rather busy day. I've been cruising the Internet, chatted with friends via email and Facebook, done the laundry, set up my budget for 2010 (so far, on track! okay, I know it's only the 9th of the month but really, this is good for me to have gone this long without going completely off the rails!), packaged up some things to be mailed, talked on the phone to a good friend, changed the bedding, watched some TV, I'm about to go work on some art and/or beading projects (the night is young) and organized a closet shelf (baby steps).

But it seems there is always something to lure you out of your cozy cocoon of warmth. My friend Heather tells me that Michaels is having a sale, an extra 20% off everything in the store, this weekend only. It seems I might just have to go out tomorrow!

Hunka Hunka Burning Love

Yup, it's true. If Elvis were alive today, he'd be turning 75 years old. Hard to imagine, isn't it? Elvis as a senior citizen, a grandparent? Nah, it's just not something I can wrap my head around. To me, he always looks young and hot, kind of like this photo. I had lunch in the Elvis booth at Jack Astor's today. Not because it was the King's birthday, we were actually there to celebrate the birthday of someone I work with, it just happened we had a large group of people and that's where they sat us. But it seemed fitting to spend part of the day surrounded by black velvet paintings and a cheap plaster bust of Elvis' head on such a momentous occasion. :)



And what's a birthday without cake? Or in this case, a cupcake or two? I read about this on Wil Wheaton's blog (do you remember WW from Star Trek: The Next Generation? Little Wesley Crusher has grown up into a very intelligent and entertaining blog writer), when he posted a link to this site the other day. This woman named Robin Dahlberg made 100 cupcakes and cleverly decorated them with images of various board and video games. They are the coolest cupcakes you will ever see. Check them out and see how many you recognize! http://www.steelheadstudio.com/100cupcakes/.

To give you a taste (if you will pardon the pun), here are the cupcakes for two of my favourite games, Boggle and Yahtzee:

Did you know Yahtzee was Elvis' favourite game?

Thank You, Scott Bartky

While reading my friend Kate McKinnon's blog yesterday, I discovered that a gentleman by the name of Scott Bartky passed away last week. I never met Mr. Bartky and indeed, had never heard his name before, but it turns out that I have used something he invented quite often and for that, I must raise a glass to his memory and say "thank you, sir". Mr. Bartky was the inventor of the crimping plier, a tool that most of us beaders have in our basic arsenal. As I recall, it was one of the first pairs of pliers I ever bought and it is definitely something that all beginning beaders should own if they are stringing beads on wire.

You'll want to read Kate's post about this man and especially the 37 comments that are attached to it (click on the link on the right and scroll down to her January 6th posting entitled "Sail on, Scott")(for some reason, I can't link directly to that specific post but there's lots of interesting stuff to read as you scroll down so it's not a bad thing).

Kate describes both herself and Mr. Bartky this way - "both of us loathed greed and idiocy and celebrated open hearts and foolishness." The people who have added their stories to Kate's in the comments section include Mr. Bartky's wife Elisabeth, his son Alan, Mike Sherman from Soft Flex and Herman Kirkpatrick, who used to own Euro Tools and describes how popular the tool has been for Euro Tools, who licensed the tool from Mr. Bartky. The stories are all quite delightful to read and paint a picture of a man of honour and talent, who leaves behind a powerful legacy in the hearts of those who knew him, to which we should all aspire. I think his son Alan said it best, when he spoke of the most important lesson his father taught him: "The choices you make in life, what you create and how you interact with others always can be done in a way that as you say “makes you a better person” but also helps others."

Click here to see the Euro Tools page featuring the various sizes of crimping pliers available. http://www.eurotool.com/PDFs/catalogPDFs/BeadStringing.pdf. Upon inspection of the pair I own, it seems they are not made by Euro Tool, so I'll have to get myself a new pair one of these days to remember Mr. Bartky by. But remember him, I certainly shall, whenever I use any pair of crimping pliers from now on.

Family Portraits

Stephanie Lee posted some family pictures on her blog the other day, the second one of herself and her two daughters (a.k.a. the "wild ponies") with their dog peeking out from behind. (You can see the photos and read her January 3rd post, entitled "Digital Redemption" here: http://www.stephanielee.typepad.com/). It's a fabulous photo but I had to laugh at her puppy, shyly tucking herself into the frame. It took me back to a day when we had a family portrait taken, many years ago, somewhere in the late 70's.

I don't have the picture in front of me, but here's what I remember: the session got off to a bad start, as far as I was concerned, when the photographer showed up early, before I'd had a chance to curl my hair. As a result, it is dead straight in the photo and clipped back off my face with two barrettes - not a flattering look, let me tell you. It was bad enough that I was still wearing braces but to have to suffer the indignity of being photographed with straight hair, oh the horror. And I think I am wearing a corduroy floral print dress that I thought was the cat's meow back in the day but now makes me sort of wonder what I was thinking. Then my dad said our dog could not be in the photo, in spite of all our protests that he was very much a part of the family, which made my little sister cry so she is rather red-eyed and sad looking in the photo. And one of my brothers is wearing a salmon pink suit (I think they called them "leisure suits" back in those days) with running shoes.

I don't have a scan of that photo and I'm not sure I would post it here if I did, it's that awful - of me and my hair, that is. As I recall, my mother looks quite beautiful in the photo (as she almost always does - my friend Wendy keeps telling me I'm so photogenic but I get that from my mom) and I think my dad and one brother look reasonably good too. Stephanie's post just got me to remembering that day and how even all these years later, I can't quite look at that picture without wanting to both laugh and cry at the absurdity of the whole thing.

Ten years later, we got it right - here's a family picture taken in 1988 that I love and yes, our beloved Duffy was front and centre.

New Year, New Calendar

While the Toronto Bead Society's 2010 calendar has been available for several months, the time has come when we can finally start using it.

This year's cover features a beautiful vessel created by Jennifer Morris, which she created as part of last year's Bead Challenge. The rest of the photos can be seen here: http://www.torontobeadsociety.org/web/index.php?option=com_imagebrowser&view=gallery&folder=Calendar%20Projects/2010+Calendar&Itemid=71

Every year, Toronto Bead Society puts out a calendar featuring fabulous jewellery made by various oh so talented TBS members. Proceeds from the sale of these calendars go to a charity chosen by the Society members. This year, the money will be donated to Bloorview Kids Rehab, a childrens rehabilitation and complex continuing care teaching hospital associated with the University of Toronto. More specifically, the funds will be used for the Possibility Beads Program.

This program ensures that all of the children receiving treatment at Bloorview also get started off with a necklace and beads to spell their name. They then receive special beads to represent each of the procedures they undergo, accomplishments they achieve or events they experience while staying at the hospital. These colourful plastic beads are a motivational tool for the kids. For the rest of us, they symbolize of the courage and strength these kids have to possess in order to endure what they have to to fight their disease. Let's face it, wouldn't you enjoy having an MRI just a little bit more if you knew you were going to get a happy face bead for your necklace once the test was over? I know I would.

You can learn more about the program and the hospital here: http://www.bloorview.ca/. I believe the calendars are still available (although they did sell out last year), at a cost of one for $10 or 3 for $25, with volume discounts also available - contact the Calendar Coordinator to get yourself a couple dozen copies: calendar@torontobeadsociety.org.

Geez, It's COLD!!!

Here we are, January 4th, and already I've had enough of winter. We've had several days of subzero temperatures and even colder windchills. I stayed indoors for most of it. Except for a brief trip out yesterday, when I had to go out for milk. And then again today, when I had to go back to work, which means having to bundle up just to walk from the car into the office building, which can be quite the trek if you can't find a parking spot close to the entrance. Then you've got to do it all over again if you go to the mall at lunch to pick up vacuum cleaner bags, a trip which you can't put off any longer if you want to keep your cat from eating unidentified bits of stuff off the carpet. And then again when it's time to go home, except on the way, you absolutely have to stop and put gas in the car and there's no point in waiting any longer because it doesn't sound like it's going to get any warmer any time soon, so you go to the gas station that is situated just right so you can park your car in such a way as to act like a buffer between you and that bitter cold wind. The holidays are over, and we had just enough of the white stuff to make it pretty but now, I can live without it. Except...spring is at least 3 months away and according to the forecast, we've got several more days of the deep freeze ahead of us. Sigh.

I rode up in the elevator tonight with a woman who seemed quite pleased it was so cold, as she is convinced we need several days of frigid temperatures in order to reduce "bugs". (Honestly, I'm not making this up, this is what she told me. Why she's worried about killing bugs in the ground while living on the 16th floor of an apartment building is beyond me!) She told me, if it's this cold now, we'll have less bugs in the summer. Okay, lady, if you say so! That's just not enough to make it worthwhile for me.

Exactly a year ago, I was enjoying the warm, sunny weather in Puerto Vallarta. Man, I wish I was there this week, sitting by the pool, sipping one of Sam's margaritas!

Remains of the Day

At last, I'm ready to show y'all what I've been making with my new sewing machine. Just before Christmas, I signed up for an online course called "Remains of the Day" being taught by the wonderfully talented Mary Ann Moss. It's all about making journals out of paper and fabric. If you follow this link, you can read about the class and watch a 40 second video giving a demo about what we are doing: http://dispatchfromla.typepad.com/dispatch_from_la/rotdoci.html

This has to be the funnest $60 I have ever spent. Once you are registered for the class, you have access to the very entertaining class blog and 27 instructional videos (about 4 to 8 minutes long each) and several PDF downloads of information and usefulness. We also have a Flickr group where everyone is posting their (totally amazing) photos and a Yahoo group where we are chatting away, sharing ideas and making friends. Mary Ann is a great teacher, very amusing and absolutely fearless when it comes to putting her journals together, it is very inspirational to see how she works. She calls it "guerrilla sewing" and that's exactly how it feels, we take no prisoners!!

A friend who is also taking the course came for an overnight craft play date/visit last week and we had great fun putting the outside covers of our journals together with fabric that I had picked up at Fabricland, the Salvation Army and Goodwill.

This first cover I made is red, black and white. Mostly because that was the colour of the fabric I had on hand. The first photo above shows what the cover looks like folded up and tied shut. The next two photos are what it looks like lying flat.

I made the inside of the cover out of a piece of white silk and it ended up being rather simple looking inside (in Mary Ann's version, there is a lot more stitching showing on the inside), which I don't mind, but I did end up adding a pocket on the inside flap with a picture of the Eiffel Tower, as a reminder of the fact that in just 228 days, I'll be in Paris. I intend to use this journal for the month of January and to make a new one for each month of this year.

Once the cover is made, we make journal pages to put inside the cover. These pages are made out of just about any paper we might have on hand - old ledger pages, cards, pages ripped from magazines, you name it. You know those envelopes your bills come in, that have the interesting patterns inside and the clear plastic windows over your address? They're called security envelopes and I never looked at them as closely as I do now - some of those patterns are quite lovely! (There's even Flickr group where they are collecting pictures of the patterns from around the world - who knew? http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephking/sets/72157594547931731/) They play a big part in the journal pages. I'll post some photos in a later blog.

Suddenly, every scrap of paper and fabric is a potential addition to this journal (or the next 3 or 100 I'm going to make). I've really enjoyed myself this past week and I'm sad that I have to go back to work tomorrow, as that will take me away from my sewing machine but on the plus side, you wouldn't believe how many of those security envelopes arrive every day to my office and would normally get thrown out - so if you see someone under the receptionist's desk, rooting through her recycling bin, that will be me!