Amy Artisan

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Author: Amy (page 77 of 84)

Signs of Spring…

Today was a glorious spring day where you think that Winter may actually end in Chicago. So what were the signs?
– Sun + Blue Skies + 69 = A Lovely Day!
– The chance for spring thunderstorms overnight
– Throngs of spring break tourists along Michigan Ave. (Including plenty of little girls toting “American Girl Place” bags as big as they are)
– The neighbor’s crocus sporting purple flowers
– The appearance of sandals & linen capri pants on some fellow commuters (a bit early, in my opinion)
– Doris firmly ensconced on her nest above my back door (must snap pictures)

When I got home this evening I was able to do one of my favorite things about nice weather in my apt: open the stained glass windows above the mantel to get some fresh air flowing through the room.
Stained Glass Window

I guess this picture is a good Project Spectrum transition – the pink petals of the tulip in the window against my terra cotta walls.

My Project Spectrum postcard arrived from Rome this week & is awesome! Once Karla has received mine I will post pictures (she doesn’t have a blog so I took pictures of the one I made as well).

My sister is coming in town this weekend for a couple of days – Saturday will include a road trip with friends that will include crafty acquisitions – what fun!

Neapolitan Ice Cream!

For some reason I associate Neapolitan ice cream with birthday celebrations. So, when I received Mailorder #1 from Amy at Kingpod & saw that the Birthday Calendar was on pale pink paper I immediately thought of accenting it with brown. (And since it was pink I thought it would be a fun Project Spectrum activity.) This weekend I finally had a chance to put this calendar together.

CELEBRATE - A Birthday Calendar

The only craftiness I had to buy to complete this project was pink brads – everything else was in my (non knit) stash & seemed like perfect compliments to the calendar. This was a fun hour of crafting & I’m pleased with how it turned out – it will be fun to remember loved ones birthdays through this calendar.

Speaking of neapolitan ice cream – check out Amanda Cathleen’s Neapolitan Dynamite socks and also a little history about about neapolitan ice cream.

Saturday morning I hosted my quarterly Crop Club with some scrapbooking friends. We spent several hours working on our current projects. I didn’t create any new pages – rather, I spent the time jouraling & embellishing the pages that I made 2 weekends ago.

I started on some scrapbook pages focusing on Pink & Red for Project Spectrum. Instead of rushing to finishing them this month I have decided that this will be an ongoing project & I will get started on all color pages & add to them each month – I will reveal these at the end of Project Spectrum. The basis for these pages will be “What does {Insert Color} mean to me?” For example, I always associate red with my red hair.

This weekend I finally did a Red & Pink Photo Scavenger Hunt around my house. Here is a collage of the things I found.

Pink & Red Around the House

Knitting Comfort…and other things…

This morning I mailed this afghan square to Christine for her Comforting Jef project – the knit blog community has been sending in lots of squares a 2nd blanket will also be made for Vickie’s brother Michael .

Comforing Jef Afghan Square

It’s my “standard” pattern – the dishcloth that Grandma taught me to knit with & I have made into lots of baby blankets. This is the Blue Berry Cotton Tots yarn – I knit it on size 8 needles so it is a denser square than normal but still very soft & cozy. This was a great knit project on the flight home to GA on Thursday & I finished up while watching the new Pride & Prejudice DVD on Friday night with the family.

There were several other crafting encounters with the family while I was home over the weekend. First up, a “Reading Wrap/Lap Blanket” for my Aunt Clara Pearl who will turn 70 at the end of April & is recovering from some health issues. On Friday afternoon my parents & I strolled the yarn aisles of JoAnn ETC & selected the “Waterfalls” Homespun colorway.
Weekend Crafting
What’s that in the picture…oh, an iPod! Have I mentioned that I have an awesome little sister? On Friday afternoon I received this lovely little “prezzie” & a great handmade card from her – she left me speechless. Rebec asked if it would make it into my blog – of course! The first listen on the iPod was Pink Martini (of course) & on Saturday afternoon as I cast on for the wrap I was listening to some knit podcasts that I had thought I would just listen to on my laptop (when I didn’t own an iPod) – Pointy Sticks, Cast On, KnitCast. I plan to knit a case for the iPod – which Rebec has christened “Sally” – I haven’t decided on the colors or yarn but Rebec has stipulated that it include a pink/raspberry stripe for her. Stay tuned for a finished object sometime soon.

In other crafting news from this weekend…
– My Project Spectrum Red & Pink Post Card is on its way to Italy.
– Kudos to my sister for finishing her first scrapbook – her trip to Scotland & England. It has been fun to see her develop her own style & the album was a treat to look through!
– Dad continues to make progress on his Poppy Needlepoint project.
– Many thanks to my Mom for whipping up this shoe bag for me while I was home. I decided I needed something better than a Jewel plastic bag for carrying my dress shoes back & forth from work. I came up with my design needs & Mom whipped it up in no time.
Shoe Bag
The design details: 1/2 yard of cotton (a Tracy Potter print), 1/2 yard of a flannel to line it, a drawstring. Inside are 3 pockets (aka my design needs): a small one at the bottom to hold a dryer sheet for freshness, one pocket to hold a spare pair of knee highs, one pocket to hold some bandaids for bad shoe days. (Since there isn’t a lot of pink & red content in today’s post my favorite red heeled loafers are modeling the bag.)

Spring blooms were in full force while I was home this weekend, unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of Dad’s garden taken before the rain moved in.

That’s all for now…I’m hoping to get some more pink & red crafting in this weekend – if not the colors may run into next month…

A Wee Bit of Irish…

A knit shamrock especially for you…Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Shamrock Dishcloth

This was the March Monthly Dishcloth KAL – my Mom is the lucky recipient of this one because I will be home with the family in GA this weekend…and able to enjoy Mom’s corned beef & cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day (even though I make it myself… hers is so much better!)!

I’m also looking forward to seeing the spring buds & blooms in Dad’s garden – maybe I’ll even end up with some “color” pictures for Project Spectrum!

In the Pink…

…paper that is!

It was a crafty weekend around here – specifically scrapbooking.

Saturday was Memoranza with some of my Creative Memories scrapbooking pals – 12 hours of uninterrupted time to work on my 2005 album. The “limited edition” Project Spectrum March Mix CD from Anjo, aka the Craftymodster was a well enjoyed soundtrack to our crafting. (No pictures of the CD today because I accidentally left it at Jen’s…in addition to containing a clever mix of red & pink tunes the CD case is a great display of red & pink.) At the end of the evening I had completed the layouts for 16 double page spreads – all that I have left to do is the journaling/captioning & some stickers & the pages will be complete!

As I was looking through all the pages I had completed I discovered that I had actually used quite a bit of pink paper in my layouts – here is a sampling of the papers that I used.
Pink Paper

More pink & red crafting “reveals” will be coming throughout the month.

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