Red Instead BLOG

Archive for October, 2006

going graphic

Saturday, October 21, 2006 @ 9:31 am
Filed under analog artlog

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Here is the latest from my analog artlog (artist journal) in which I doodled some lovely shapes and things.

I really love the black and white spread above. I went colourful for the next set:

More of my analog artlog at Flickr. I love Flickr.

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Catching up

Saturday, October 21, 2006 @ 9:22 am
Filed under papercraft, stuff n nonsense

I have had the MOST frustrating and annoying time this last week. I stupidly downloaded something from the seedier side of town and landed myself some trojans and various malware. These little buggers must have claws or something - they dig in and are so hard to get rid of. A thousand times I thought it was all sorted and then… more stupid popups and crap. It didn’t help matters that one of the programs I downloaded to try to help was itself a malware program, masquerading as a malware eradicator. Anyway, all seems good now - not 100% but very nearly.

This clipboard now sits on my kitchen counter and nags me to get things done. I bought the clipboard itself for just $2.50 and then covered it with scrapbooking papers and some letter stickers.

I printed the “to do” list itself from www.organizedhome.com which has some great ideas and lots of printables. I have also been checking out www.flylady.net for tips.

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A doll for baby Freya

Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 12:45 am
Filed under stuffies, toys and dolls

I am so happy and excited because last night my very super good friend Nicole (blogless, alas) gave birth to her second baby, little Freya - new sister to big brother Mani. I haven’t seen her yet but I can’t wait to go visit! I got sewing this afternoon after hearing the big news and finished up a doll for Freya that I started working on a while ago and then left unfinished.

Actually I finished the (naked) doll body ages ago but I wasn’t sure I liked her so I wasn’t motivated to finish her up. Today I started by making her some cute clothes - a dress and matching bloomers and then I gave her (felt) hair and a face and she came to life. I think she is rather gorgeous now and I hope Freya loves her too. She is about 18″ long.

I deliberated about her hair because I wasn’t sure if she ought to have long hair, but to be honest I think she looks quite adorable with her little short hair - babies don’t have much hair for a long time and she is a baby doll after all!

Here she is from the back with the little bow in her dress and her soft baby hair. I simply freehand cut some felt in the shapes that looked right - trying paper first for a proper fit - and then I handsewed the felt to her head. There are a few little darts at the back to shape the hair to her head.

Emma had a lot of fun playing with her (gently!) this afternoon and she insisted I take a picture of her with Sally - my old doll - because they are friends. I also made up a little wrap for Freya from the rest of the dress fabric and I will include a t-shirt for new brother Mani too. I really enjoyed making these little welcome presents! I hope I get to meet Freya tomorrow…

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hooking up

Saturday, October 7, 2006 @ 5:53 pm
Filed under scrapbooking, studio / workroom

In my continuing quest for organisation and better productivity, I have just put up some new hooks on the back of my workroom door.

I bought the two keyholder hook thingies from KMart for about $5 ea, gave them a couple of coats of white semi-gloss (they were originally pine) and then got busy putting them to good use!

I bought some metal rings recently and started loading various scrapping products onto them, grouped by whatever seemed to fit together. So I have one set that is alphas, one for rubons, one for tags, one for words, one for chipboard things and several for “other” or “misc” things. Now if I want some rubons for instance, I can just grab the whole ring from its hook and flip through them all. Previously I had to wade through a big mess on my desk to find anything. This should work a lot better! They are in view and off my desk!

I have so much stuff that I try to use every inch of space! Here is the rest of the back of my studio door:

At the top I have a magnetic strip from Ikea with papers stuck with round magnets, then there is a magnetic whiteboard that is covered with Magnetic Poetry words. Then below that is another whiteboard that tries to keep me on track with what is due and when, and at the bottom are my new hooks. I have some favourite postcards running down the left side too.

I hope I might have given you some good ideas to declutter your stuff - rings on hooks like these could be used to organise papers, ribbons and… other things that aren’t springing to mind just now! Do you have any good ideas for this system? Let me know in the comments.