what 60 looks like

Last night when I went to bed, I was in my fifties. When you say it that way, you might possibly be only 50, just barely out of your forties. Barely middle aged.

This morning when I woke up, I was 60.

Same aches and pains when I got out of bed, same wrinkles in the mirror, same batch of pills to take, but... I was 60.

I remember my 30th birthday party. Went out with all the crazy party girls from work and got real drunk on Jack Daniels and Coke. Not quite barfing drunk but close. At one point we went to the ladies room which was in the basement of the bar we were at. I splashed water on my face in a vain attempt to sober up a bit, then realized there were no paper towels left. One of my enterprising cohorts turned the hand dryer nozzle toward the ceiling and held my head over it. By the time my face was dry, my makeup had melted and reformed around the edges of my face and my hair was all shooting straight back like I was standing in a hurricane wind. We sort of fixed it but I knew my night was over, so I wobbled out to my car and headed home.

On the way, one of the two screws that held my glasses lens in place fell out and the lens rotated on its remaining screw to rest against my nose. At this point, a police office pulled me over because I'd been weaving a little trying to find the teeny tiny screw on the dark floor of my car. I looked up at him with my glasses lens hanging lopsided against my nose and explained my entire night to him. Why my hair looked so weird, why my makeup was all the way back by my ears, why my glasses lens was on my nose.

He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then asked me where I lived. When he learned it was just a couple more blocks, he told me to drive at 20 miles an hour all the way there while he followed me. I got to the parking lot and made it up the steps to my apartment door. When he saw me open the door, the cop flashed his light and drove away.

True story.

I expect my 60th birthday will be slightly less eventful.

I'm famous

Julie FFB, one of my favorite artsy bloggers, is running a series of 'how to get organized' posts intended to make you more productive when you have time to art. She put out a call for organizational ideas and I responded. Today's post is about storage containers and I'm one of the three featured crafters. What fun to see myself out in public, so to speak. Go take a look. Thanks, Julie!

husband gone fishing...

A couple times a year my husband goes deep sea fishing for a couple weeks. I love it when he's gone - all housework is suspended and other than going to work, I spend the entire time doing everything I like - arting, thrifting, cruising the antique mall (more on today's trip in a later post), eating cereal two meals a day and Taco Bell or pizza for the third one. (just kidding - I don't eat quite that badly. But close.)

Last nite in bed, I made a journal spread about it. The phrase Home Alone came to mind, and then in a rush, 'man gone fishing, woman gone wild' burst into my head, so I wrote it out real quick and did the rest of the page from there. The tape was some that held swap packages closed. I carefully peeled it loose and saved it until now. As I worked, I drank hot chocolate and ate cookies, alternately feeding myself and then the dog a piece. Maggie likes cookies in bed almost as much as I do. I never go to bed before DH but when he's gone, I go up as early as 8pm and read or art. And always with a hot drink and cookies. Bliss.

Acrylic wash background was done a long time ago.
Used black Pitt Artist pens, gel pens, copic markers.
And that's was supposed to be a pork chop at 9 o'clock on the plate,
along with peas, a roll and fries.

cabinet card hanging

Sugar Lump Studios has a lot of wonderful projects, vintage-y things made from materials I often already have. This post, featuring cabinet cards turned into wall hangings, really grabbed me, so yesterday when I got home from work, I rounded up the lace, buttons, glue, and wire, then spent a few minutes flipping thru my cabinet cards until I found one that appealed to me.

I rummaged thru my lace drawers, auditioning several pieces before I settled on the ones I used. The buttons took even longer. I almost went with MOP, but really liked the way the dark ones looked. After I punched the holes for the wire, I realized the card was more brittle than I'd thought, so I glued a strip of lace completely around the top of the card, to help reinforce it a bit. Worked well.

The bottom piece of lace isn't quite as white as the photos appear. It blends well with the other laces. And the bottom picture is a very odd color. I fiddled with it in PS but to no avail.

Julie's Christmas mitten

My friend Julie in San Diego makes ornaments each year for her friends. When she was here in July, she had me do some sewing for her, so I knew what the ornys would be this time, but not exactly what mine would look like. It's a very cute little mitten made from Warm & Natural quilt batting and decorated with velvet ribbon, old buttons and a bit of tatting. Love all the greens. Thanks, Julie!

Many of the blogs I follow had Christmas projects made with Warm & Natural. It really lends itself to a vintage look and the edges don't need hemming. I have a big bundle of it in a tub someplace and think I'll make some things during the year so that I'm much more prepared for Christmas 2012 than I was for 2011.

Mary Green's January Challenge

I love the challenges that she does each month, but you have only a week to get it completed and when it falls at a busy time, I can't always squeeze it in. But... today I worked my butt off until around 2:30, then came home and played around in PS CS2. I've been buying the occasional digital art pack from Studio Tangie in the hopes of getting better at digital collage. Mary's January Challenge became what you see here.

The elements in the challenge are the picture of the girl, a certificate and a card of flowers with a verse.

I played with a few different layouts, trying to put the girl on the certificate, trying to cut out the flowers to put them in her hair, but I'm just not that good in Photoshop yet and instead of getting all frustrated, I chose to frame them with frames from a digital pack.

With her crown, she looks like a princess, just hanging around the house, leaning on a table. I love all the layers of her dress. Wonder if she was dressed up to go someplace.

Thanks for a good challenge, Mary. I'm glad I got to play this time!