allsorts

Ho ho ho!

Tada!  The blog has its new look for the Christmas season!  I also dusted off the Gingerbread House and Zoe Holiday Dress-up buttons over there on the right sidebar.

So.... let the festivities begin!

Cheers,

Jenny

Trick or Treat!

If you stopped by Allsorts sometime yesterday or earlier today, you were given an unintended sneak peek at some behind the scenes experimenting with my blog design.

So,have a Jolly Halloween indeed! wink wink

Cheers,

Jenny

Poor neglected Allsorts

All the action is over at Owlsorts!

Cheers,

Jenny

A little owl told me...

Some freakishly fun things have been happening over on my Halloween blog Owlsorts!  Just yesterday the Wise Old Owl shared The Tale of the Family Cursed, my contribution to a celebration enjoyed by over 200 Halloween blogs.  And also....

A covey of Spooky Pinspinners have been spotted!  If you'd like to make these for your own haunted mansion, apparate over to Owlsorts for patterns and a tutorial.  But don't delay, because when Halloween is over, they'll evaporate with the rest of the dreadful decor to make way for Christmas!

Oooooooo scary!

Jenny

Man do I love me a good yarn!

Last week Vicky and I visited the Woolie Ewe, where we were delighted to find all their Cascade wool yarn on sale. Despite my limited yarn-wrangling skills, I couldn't resist indulging in this banquet of yummy jewel tone skeins. The colorway is clearly inspired by the gorgeous saturated colors used by Lucy of Attic 24. If you want to enjoy some major eye candy, drop by her blog and spend some quality time going through her posts. She even has me loving purple... now that for me is a seismic shift.

In fact, when I was selecting my colors, I opened her web page on my iPhone right there in the shop and we did our best to match this collection of colors from one of her projects. Yes, I know... shameless!

My original idea was to make a ripple blanket using her excellent tutorial, but after she showed off this scarf, I may hold out to see if she offers a pattern for it. But then she has an excellent technique for joining granny squares as-you-go, which tempts me to make another granny square blanket. At least I already know I can manage that skill-set.

I bought fifteen skeins and the gals at the shop patiently wound them into those squarish, squat little balls on their funny winding gadget thingie. But after bringing them home and looking at them a bit, I began to feel like they were lacking "soul" so I re-wound them into good old-fashioned squooshie yarn balls. Ah, I like them much better now. Maybe I won't even make them into something... that would at least guarantee a completed project!

Cheers,

Jenny

Whoooooooo-sorts?

Hey guess what... a couple of weeks ago, I was just hanging around, minding my own business, when ouch!   I got bit by the Halloween bug!  In a big way.  SO big in fact that I didn't think it would fit into my cute little Allsorts world, it needed its own little world!

So... please allow me to introduce my new blog... Owlsorts!  It's kind of the odd second cousin of Allsorts, only with a quirky Halloween-y vibe!  Since I'm just getting started, there are only a few posts up yet, but there will soon be more because I can't stop thinking up stuff I want to tell you about, ideas for crafts, decorations and general mischief to get into over there.  And it's only the middle of September!

Do me a favor and take a peep, and let me know what you think!  Just click here.

Cheers!

Jenny

Browsing the Cath-alog

Ow, yes I know that's a horrible blog post title. But hopefully the eye candy will make up for it! The new Cath Kidston online magazine is up on her site, and I've been flipping through the pages and feeling extremely jealous of my UK friends who are near one of her shops. Like this adorable one, could it be any more picturesque?

For some reason she pulled out of the US market, at least it seems like she did. There used to be a local shop that carried her goodies, and I even blogged about it here. But sadly, it is no more, and now I am lamenting the loss. If I'd known I would have bought out the store!

So now the cyber-shopping experience is the closest I can get.

So many cute things. I absolutely love her colors and styling.

I'm getting tons of ideas...

It's got me thinking... wouldn't this be a nice look for my room upstairs? Hmmmm...

Cheers,

Jenny

Everywhere at Once

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post. Words are pretty powerful aren't they? The telling and the hearing... like little hugs. So, thanks.

Several people asked to learn more about Katy's thesis and see the Two Boxes web site. She's here for a brief visit before she moves to Boston (sob), so I wheedled and she gave me a thumbs-up to share a bit about what she was up to at RISD.

The title of this post is also the title of her thesis. Well, the full title is (deep breath) Everywhere at Once: Narrative Multiplicity and the Digital Archive (whew!) The web site she created for it can be viewed here and the Box Project site is here. I'm not very good at explaining the premise of her thesis, so here is an excerpt from the abstract:

"Everywhere at Once addresses the tension between digital and physical within contemporary archives such as collections, libraries, and the urban landscape, and examines ways of extracting meaningful narrative from them."

And there's Katy, about to defend her thesis. I still don't grasp why they call it defending one's thesis. Anyway, the other photos are from one of her projects... might be my favorite.

I think it ties in quite nicely with my previous post.

Cheers my friends,

Jenny

A year ago, and two boxes

I love this photo of my mom from years ago. Always smiling... she smiled more than anyone you ever met. I thought a lot about what I wanted to post about on the anniversary of her passing. I finally decided to tell you about two boxes.

My daughter Katy was entering her thesis year at RISD this time last year. She knew I was having a tough time going through the many boxes of memorabilia my Mom had stashed away, so she proposed a unique project that would allow her to share in the process. In fact it ultimately became part of her thesis. I sent an unopened box to her in Providence, and kept another box for myself. Then every day for two weeks, as we each explored the contents of our box, we chose an item and wrote about it on a web site she created, a tandem blog.

So, as if we were side by side in real life, we shared images, wrote our thoughts and impressions, then continued the conversation through comments on each others' posts.

It was really an amazing journey. My mom saved just about everything, and I mean everything. We never knew what we would find next...

Spanish castanets and fans, tons of old photos, sorority and Navy ephemera, my hand print in plaster!

Old art projects, greeting cards, newspaper clippings, menus, Disneyland ticket stubs, letters and postcards...

A disco ball Christmas ornament, books and music scores... mementos of many happy times.

Memories of a life well-lived. You could tell she truly loved absolutely every minute of it!

So thank you Katy for making this memory with me!

Cheers,

Jenny

Work in progress... the room upstairs

Amid the recent periods of crazed activity, the redo of the room upstairs has been quietly progressing. Katy left home a gazillion years ago so I decided it was well past time for a major fluff. And instead of painting the walls some vivid color as I usually do, I decided to paint them white. All white, white trim, white ceiling. Super white. Radical. It's a real experiment, to see how I decorate without wall color as a starting point!

So... this is my lovely yellow cabinet.  I snagged it for a song in the as-is room at Ikea. It had been assembled wrong and the shelves won't go any lower, but who cares? My Ikea-hacked illuminated wreath looks happy perched atop and some miscellaneous linens and quilts are snuggled within.

That's the little bathroom. It was already yellow so I plan on leaving it since it looks nice with the cabinet. Those shelves under the window are (guess what) another as-is score at Ikea. $23 and change, I swear. The windows in this room are small, high and oddly placed, so the space below is awkward. A lick of paint and some of my children's books and it will be perfect!  And now to my favorite part...

The new daybed! Now I know it will shock you but it came from... Ikea! Yes, I confess I am a fan. It is the tromsnes daybed and it now comes in blue. Too cute for words. For now I've just grabbed pillows from other parts of the house and piled them on, but it will need its own collection of cushions eventually. And now you can see how weird the windows are. Way out to the sides and up high. At least they look out onto lovely leafy branches and get plenty of sun. In fact I need some way to block that sun out in the afternoon, plus some privacy would be nice. Still mulling over options.

And looking around to the right...

Another blank white wall. The chair... yes, Ikea. Sheesh I swear I'm not on their payroll. But how could I pass up owning a piece of furniture named Jennylund? The tall shelf cabinet thingie was in my dining room before being replaced by my Welsh dresser. It will get some paint, too, once I decide on a color. And in a wonderful bit of synchronicity, the dollhouse fits perfectly on the bottom shelf! I won't show the fourth wall, its too boring for words... there's a long table holding a big mirror and my iMac, which doubles as a TV. Snore.

And that's the room-in-progress which we haven't yet figured out what to call. Guest room? Nest room? I'm full of ideas for stuff to put on the walls, tons o' projects and I'm pretty geeked about it. I'll keep you posted about my progress!

Cheers,

Jenny