Taking a Bitter Pill

This is my chosen cup to drink from.

I take a bunch of meds for fibromyalgia, back problems, hip issues, knee deterioration and lately shoulder pain.

I used to have just a regular kitchen glass in my bathroom to take my medicine. It would get dirty and yucky. I don't know why I didn't trade it out for a fresh one daily. It got gross and then off to the dishwasher it would go and another nondescript cup would move in in it's place.

One day as I was about to grab another plain old kitchen glass, I thought," I have struggled to add beauty to the rest of my life. Why not in this task too?" After all It is part of taking care of myself. I guess it is more important say than, not having chipped polish on my toenails or making sure I toss out holy socks and underwear. As a younger mom I used to let those things go and did whatever it took just to get by, day by day. But now as a middle aged woman I am more picky about the details. So indeed; why not add beauty here too. It makes taking my medicine an act of self care and it makes me mindful of my blessings as well. And I keep this one clean!

Etsy Store Items

After I get my next antique booth up and filled at another antique mall, I will be posting items like these on my Etsy store. These type of things go into my booths as well, but they are there for eye candy. Most of the buyers around here are looking for old rusty things and peeling paint more. Well, anyway, I love to make crafts and feel a deep need to share those creations with the whole world! So the Internet is a good thing indeed. Artists have never lived in a better time than now. Mainly because we don't have to face a jury just to display our stuff. I hit publish and I get instant gratification. Now I know that I have to get traffic to this site and to my Etsy site, but I believe the more items I put up and the more I write here, the greater the chances of getting found. I also have heard, from my web designer Jennifer, that  it is very important to hook up to already successful blogs and ask if I can guest post there. Also, Etsy offers all sorts of tutorials on how to get found on their search engine too.

So I present to you these beautiful objects for your consideration before they hit my Etsy store..

This is a three tier candy dish/pin holder/button holder, whatever holder. I used E600 glue to marry all the small dishes together.

These are miniature cloches containing treasures from the sea.  I used upside down candle holders glued to candlesticks.

Here I glued together inexpensive candlesticks, vintage jelly jars and old aluminum jello molds to create very interesting votives. I glued on random bits of sparkly leftovers which were at the bottom of my bead bag. Even broken shards of mirror were put to use to create something lovely made from recycled scraps. This is a very "green" project

I bought this pretty bottle from the thrift store and gussied it up with a label I downloaded from the Graphics Fairy at http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/. After gluing the label to the bottle I dry brushed on burnt umber and yellow ochre paint to age the label.

This little box used to be a Christmas box. With the help of Martha Stewart glitter it looks springy and cheery.

These paper roses were made from leftover tags from my antiques booth. Go recycling!

And lastly; here is a little tin that the future owner can turn into a portable sewing kit, The top  and side image are from The Graphics fairy. The top one is actually printed on fabric run through my laser jet printer. You iron your fabric out super flat and adhere it to freezer paper using Elmer's spray adhesive. Next cut the cloth/paper the exact same size as a piece of printer paper. Iron out again to get super flat and then run it through just the same way you would send any specialty paper through your printer (very carefully). The results can be used on whatever craft you can dream up!

 I hope you enjoyed these ideas, and I hope you  have a very crafty day.

 Yours', Cynthia

Antique Booth At Bear Ridge

Well booth number two at Bear Ridge Antiques went up this last week. It was a huge push of buying, cleaning, and tagging. It takes a bunch of work when a booth goes up from scratch. Weeks of picking through thrift stores and garage sales and flea markets finally pay off with the creation of a beautiful vignette that is friendly and shoppable. But I am still new to this business and just pray that people will come and purchase my hand-made and hand picked goodies. It feels like hanging my heart out in public for all the world to see. So I get really nervous if folks don't buy stuff and I take it personally if nothing sells.

That will never do, I intend to keep a strong and positive mindset. I will be a successful entrepreneur!

But I tell you, I love all of this stuff. I hope my customers and you love it all too. In the near future I will be opening up an Etsy shop so I can offer the same type of wonderful treasures that I either find here in the flea markets or the goodies will be hand made by me.

But for now, I hope you enjoy these pictures as you come shopping at my booth today.

  These chairs were a sad and faded ugly blue before they got a coat of paint. Yes paint. I figured if an artist can prep a canvas with gesso and paint, why not a whole chair as a 3 dimensional canvas?

The graphics on the chairs and other pieces are from http://www.graphicsfairy-diy.com/. Better known as The Graphics Fairy. Thank you so much! You make my stuff look great!

After I painted the chairs and let them dry for a couple of days, I applied the images with the help of a projection machine that makes images bigger. Using a plain old black Sharpie, I traced the outlines first and then filled in the centers. Easy as pie.

 Some other things in the booth are items cobbled together with E6000 glue. The candy dish on the left is an example. On the right (requiring no glue) is vintage bird cage I fell in love with at a flea market in Springfield MO.. I gave it a teacup "bird"to make it cheery.

There is more fun stuff on the shelves.Behind them is make-do newsprint wallpaper. The shop owner, Dee, suggested it. I think it will mellow to a lovely gold as it ages.

This piano bench got a layer of vintage sheet music and a design of an antique skeleton key (from the Graphics Fairy). I added some dry brushed white paint to lighten it a bit and give the whole piece texture.

Here is another small fancy table treated similarly, but instead of drawing the dragonfly on, I printed it out. I learned how to use water slide transfers from a kind lady at http://thepolkadotcloset.blogspot.com/2011/03/using-water-slide-decals.html. The proprietress there shares all of her crafts and is a major inspiration for me. Thanks Polka dot Closet!

Some more hand-crafted things are on top of the piano bench. There are some great close ups here
of the bottle.

.The "Dream" board sports a crown found at The Graphics Fairy too. I love her vintage images, and can't get enough! I also had fun decorating that lampshade on the right.

Thanks for coming to my booth today. I hope you enjoyed your time here! And just so you know some days when  I write I feel fun and bouncy, like today. Other times I am thoughtful and post deeper ideas like yesterday when I wrote about breast cancer. It is all the same person. I know we all have our moods, so I hope you will understand. Some of the posts will be Photo shop intensive and look very different from images like here, where I want you to see the booth only. Often times I will manipulate an image to express a feeling or an idea. Those times will have different colors added and other tricks so I can communicate better with you, the reader. Stick with me as I grow as an artist, business owner and blogger. I look forward to our time spent together and would love to read your blog too.

I Hate Pink

I hate pink.

Or at least I used to. Memories of thick pasty Peptobismol are what made me detest it. Or girly girls, and goody two shoes who hated me. Umm, not that I was a bad little girl; I took my medicine and wore dresses. But I loved my couture to be glaring orange or chartreuse green. Traditional? Never! Somehow along lifes' path I decided that pink was my enemy. Maybe 'cause all the sweetie pies who acted so darned cute were the ones that would turn into vampire-bunny backstabbers when the teachers weren't paying close attention. With a sneer and a swish of barbie pink skirts I was banned from the popular girls table; left to my lonely lunch staring at my unusual clothing choices. Kids can be so mean! And yes I do have a few unresolved inner child issues.

Pink as a young lady in high-school was a no-no, baby. Coolness was the thing, and no one was going to take black away from me. Lucky for me I grew up in the 80's and chartreuse and neon orange were "totally radical" too. Like, y'know? I shaved off half my head of hair in an asymmetrical cut one year before it was hip, and sported a large safety pin in my left earlobe as an act of rebellion against the rules, and of course all things pink.

Fast forward to baby number one. A son! Blue and more blue. A cute snugly-cuddles baby bundle wrapped up in a blue blanket. And then as he grew, the colors became the red of skinned knees and the brown of ground in dirt. Not just his dirt  but mine too as getting a shower when your kids are too young to leave unattended for very long, results in 3 day stink-a-thons for supremely exhausted moms. Why they don't warn you of this stage of motherhood while you are engaged in the act of starting a family is beyond me. However keeping up such a slothful routine is a guaranteed method of keeping your husband at bay. Not too shabby of an idea if that is your goal! But things being as they were,( me showered and cute), boy number two arrived and sealed the deal. No ballet pink tu-tu's were in my future. Tai kwon do, skateboards and a perpetual stink which emanates from my boys' bathroom is the reality that I now live in. They are 12 and 16 respectively. (At least I get more sleep).

So what do I do with this color?

My mom is a breast cancer survivor. I am so grateful for her time here on earth. Even when she is bossing me and driving me nuts. Well...she likes pink.

Pink is for the lady in Sunday school class this morning who has already had 3 cysts removed from her breasts and is looking at 4 more to be removed. Are they malignant... benign... what? Aghhhhh!

Pink is for the other woman who spoke words of encouragement to her as she told of her own ordeal with the disease. Two ladies in a group of eight. How about those statistics? That makes it one in four

1 for every 4!

But pink can also be pretty. Pink is the softness of first kisses. Pink is the color of the boutonniere he gave you for prom. Pink is the warmth of your beloved doggys' tongue as he greets you. Pink can be a blush that you got as you were gently teased by your husband for being sexy even when you were 9 months pregnant!  Pink are chubby child's hands holding yours in the parking lot of Wal Mart. Pink is your teen-age daughters hair after a friend dared her to do it.So many different pinks...

Pink is a ribbon for survivors. The toughest survivors on earth.

What do I think of pink now? I am not a breast cancer survivor, so why do I have a voice in this? Because it hits so close to home. My mom, my friends, maybe someone you know too. As a middle aged woman I have grown out of black and neon orange punk induced fits. I still dress kind of weird, but I like it that way. No longer in a popularity contest for being the coolest; I have come to a place where I love pink. For me it is the Hollywood glam of a feather boa draped across my bedroom mirror. Or the silly flower I crafted onto the top of my favorite pen. It is my go-to choice for all fancy underthings. I think of it as a luxury that is easily indulged in. But it has also become something stronger than steel and I believe in the strength of our joined voices in the fight against breast cancer. I believe in our inherent toughness even as we are weak and sick. I believe that God has made us stronger than we believe we are. And I believe that His love will help us through.

Even if what is wrong with you is not breast cancer. It could be depression, or fibromyalgia or M.S., or any other "common to women" malady. God will be there through it, right by your side and in your heart.

He is the pink of the sunrise in the morning after a long night of darkness and pain.

An Ethereal Angel

Tonight I wanted to show you a couple of things in my quiet sanctum; my bedroom. It is the only room in the house where I have allowed myself completely free reign of the decor. It is not the shared master bedroom, but rather my escape from the snoring of my wonderful husband who has sleep apnea. Irrelevant because he is overseas still in Korea. See my other blog http://tribeofstinson.com/ for more information on what it is like to live in Korea. When I got back here I wanted to make sure that when my hubby came home from his tour there, I could still get a restful night's sleep. So I rented a house with two master bedrooms. In my room girliness is dripping from the walls, ceilings and bed linens and I love it. As a mother of two boys and owner of two male parakeets and boss of one very arrogant male shi tzu doggie, I have a ton of testosterone in my life.

I need a haven.

But that is just back story for what I did on Photo shop today. And I said all that because the angel in the first photo actually hangs on my wall in my bedroom. In my thrift store wanderings I spotted her in a giant pile of outdoor Christmas decorations and I fell for her. She is old, very old for a Christmas decoration and she has the lovely patina of age. Of course that was not enough and when I brought her in she promptly received an aura of pink, baby blue and white feather boas. Initially the creation struck me as tacky and gaudy. However when the lights were turned on the lovely lady became ethereal. I hung her up and she remains in my room as a year round reminder of creativity and God's protection over me.

I have used Gaussian blur on the original photo to soften the lighting and to help you see the angel as I imagine her to be.

Well I have another lovely thing in my room that I'll show you tonight as well. On the opposite side of the room, hanging on one of the window shutters is a faded Chinese dress that I picked up in Korea and had altered to fit me. On the pretty turquoise material hangs a necklace with all sorts of random bits, and it sparkles at me and makes me smile whenever I look at it. I remember finding it at one of the vendors that are at the Osan BX in Korea. They always had something interesting in their carts to sell. As much as I did not like living there, I did enjoy shopping there and will still beg my husband to bring home more treasures before he comes home for good.

I added a bit of blur to this , but those are the real colors and have not been tampered with at all.

The next picture is a combination of the two that I did almost by accident, but I loved the result. The angel and the heart combined are thought provoking and the colors are super. I know the whole world has been able to do this kind of art for a long time, but to me it is all new and you can go ahead and laugh at me if you want. OK here it is.

So good night and God Loves you.

Learning A New Art

After getting the knee injections yesterday, I had no desire to go anywhere at all today. The drive wears me out. I went junking too and after a full day, my knees felt funny. It was like I had two miniature water balloons under my kneecaps. Not really a painful sensation, but weird anyway. So I sat around and made some small crafts and then really took my time figuring out some tricks in Adobe Elements 8. I have had it for a long time but only have used it to re-size pictures for my blog. Today I felt patient and well equipped (After computer class in college) to tackle the program. A whole new world is mine! Yeah!

OK here we go. I took pictures of some of the crafts I made recently, and then I made them look better through my growing skills in Photo shop.

That is a flower pen and a bottle with a water slide decal that I made with the assistance of a tutorial from the kind lady at http://thepolkadotcloset.blogspot.com/2011/03/using-water-slide-decals.html
She is so generous and shares her tips with everyone. There are a ton of craft ideas there, so don't skip it.

That's the top of the bottle and the button flowers are my little bit of added creativity. Don't you love how someone can get your muse all exited and then your brain is off and making a borrowed project all your own!

These cute little bottles were inspired by a 99 cent an alphabet set, purchase from Wally world. Why not store craft supplies with some panache? I'm keeping one set and the other will be for sale at my booth at Bear Ridge Antiques.

This tiny box was created from the left over wrappings from the alphabet stamp sets. I love to use up itty bitty snippets of lace, flowers and ribbon left over from the big projects. The crystals will make some other crafter happy and the packaging might get saved too. I hope it gets passed along.

This is another pic of the flower pen. The light shining through the water slide decal on the bottle looked like stained glass to me. The face is an an acrylic stamp from Stampington.

Today slowing down and getting meticulous over the details was what I needed to relax. The labels that go on the items for my antiques booths are usually simpler. But pink crumpled crepe paper was calling my name. The flying swallow makes me think of springtime and freedom.

But this is what took me most of the day. Up until now, I had no idea how to create layers in Photoshop. so this is a celebration for me. The Graphics Fairy http://www.graphicsfairy-diy.com//, had the butterfly, rose perfume label and blue frame background on her site. The pink roses are my own photography as well as the words/hearts label background. I started in Adobe Elements and finished in PowerPoint 10 for the complete image. How fun! Now I am all computered out! By the way; Adobe has no idea that I exist, nor Stampington, or even The Graphics Fairy or the Polkadot Closet. I just wanted to crow about everything I have learned lately!

Off to make dinner.

Off To The Lake

For the next 5 weeks I have to drive an hour and a half to the doctors at the Lake Of The Ozarks to get my knees and hip injected to stave off arthritis pain and damage. Yuck! you might say, but to me it is a huge blessing to be out of pain. I work physically hard painting and moving furniture for my fledgling business. I need for my body to be able to do those things without being stuck in bed the next day.

So off I go as soon as I am done with this post.

Another side benefit is going to a super large indoor flea market in Camden called Bear Market. Camdon is 10 minutes away from the lake. Last time I was there I scored a big bag of vintage seam binding, old lace and a bunch of tchockes for my booths. I looooove going! So it makes the long drive to the doctors much nicer knowing that I get to junk while I'm there!

See you soon! By the way all of these beautiful pics are from my spring spent in South Korea.

Whoo Hooo My New Look Is Up!

I was just going to put up this scanned image and then I was so surprised to see that Jennifer has been super busy making me look good. Thanks Jennifer! Oh, here is what I was going to post tonight. I had some fun with my scanner and power point.

I have been crafting all day and my brushes have gotten a work out. I love the way the paint builds up and makes a great texture on the handles. The hearts are my handmade tags I use to price my stuff for my antiques booths. Lastly, there are the pink silk rose petals and an antique yellow doily; They all add up to a happy picture.

I'm A Genius

The most important thing I learned this last semester in my Introduction To Three Principals of Business Management was: "Do your best and hire the rest". So because I only know so much about how to run a computer, I hired my most wonderful friend and web designer; Jennifer Hendrickson at thestudio@curiographique.com.
That makes me a genius, because she is really smart, and talented. So This blog is about to look much cooler. Because I hired the best!