My Journey As A Scroll Saw Pattern Designer #1640: To 'Bee' or Not To Be

It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of another week. Time seems to be going by so quickly this year. I can’t believe we are heading into the last week of October already. Yesterday Keith and I took a nice long walk around nearby Eel lake and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was what one would call a ‘typical’ autumn day – overcast, cool, breezy and it even drizzled off and on a bit. The road we follow when walking that particular path is surrounded by woods, and the colors of the trees was stunning, with most of them still full of their leaves. It is truly a pleasure to walk when it is like this out and a great way to think things through and plan. I want to take advantage of every minute of these days. 



The past couple days I have been in 'organizational’ mode. This usually happens when I have some time in between projects. These short breaths of taking inventory, cleaning things up and making sure that everything needed is where it should be are so important to me and instrumental in my own creative process. I know many that don’t mind working in a somewhat cluttered environment, but I am not of that line of thinking. I like all of my materials clean, neat and organized so that I can focus my attention on creating and not be distracted by hunting for things. I do have a story for you all about that though … 



On Wednesday, I had the idea of sorting through my paint brushes and weeding them out. I do this about once a year or so, and I like to replace the worn brushes with new ones that I have purchased. I have a box of  'gently used’ brushes that I keep for spares or use when I teach, and I also have a box of brushes that are brand new and unused, which are there to replace the ones that wear out. Last month though, when I began obtaining colored pencil supplies so I could create with pencils, I decided that my brush box that I purchased from Mary Kingslan Gibilisco would also work beautifully to hold my Prismacolor pencils:







So I ordered up another one and in the mean time, took my brushes out of it so I could put my pencils in it now to use them. I put the brushes in a box in a 'safe place’ until the new piece arrived. 



Long story short – the new box arrived early this week and I wanted to put my 'good’ brushes back into their new home. That is what triggered my desire to really sort them out. But I couldn’t find the box – the temporary home that I had given them. It was extremely frustrating to spend a couple of hours tearing through everything in search of my good brushes. Not only were most of these brushes in mint condition, but many of them were my more expensive tools – some costing close to $20 each! I had recently cleaned out and organized my supply closets and had gone through and labeled almost every box in them, but I was unable to locate the temporary home for my favorite brushes. Where could they be? Had I mistakenly thrown them out in my organizational frenzy? 



After searching several times in the same closet for the brushes, I finally found them. In the closet, there was ONE box without a label. I had thought it was for some supplies that I had intended to use for embroidery. In fact, I was SURE that was what was in it. I was about to give up my search, but in desperation, opened the box 'just to be sure’ that what was in it was what I envisioned and lo and behold, there were my best brushes. I was truly relieved, and angry that I spent an entire afternoon looking for what was literally right in front of me all the time. It really emphasized the importance of keeping things neat and tidy and in order. What a waste of my time! (Not to mention the FRUSTRATION!) The older I get, the more important it is for me to LABEL things! Being lazy about it will certainly come back to bite me! Lesson learned!



So yesterday I finished up sorting through my brushes. It is amazing how long I do keep them, as I am pretty good about keeping them clean as I use them. Some of my favorites are over 10 years old. But like most painters, we just never seem to have enough, do we?



I spent the evening finishing up my colored pencil drawing of a bee. This was the first time I have attempted what I will call a 'fine art’ drawing using pencils. I created this piece using Fabriano 140 lb hot press paper and Prismacolor pencils. I used the Derwent Inktense pencils and blocks for the honeycomb background. The pencils for the bee itself is multiple layers of colors added on and then blended with odorless turpentine (Mona Lisa brand – it truly is “odorless”) The brushing on of the turp allows you to blend the pencils and it rids them of that 'pencil’ look. The results look more like ink or paint. 



Here is the progression of photos for the project:



I began by creating the honeycomb background using the Inktense pencils and blocks and a honeycomb stencil. Once the Inktense is laid down, it is permanent and will not lift when applying subsequent layers. I began at the head. (Here is my reference photo that I used, too):

I worked my way down to the body and began the wings. At this point I am about 4-5 hours into the drawing:

And here is the 'finished’ drawing:

I still may add some shading on the body, as suggested by one from the drawing page. It wouldn’t require a lot, but the body is a little 'flat’. 



Here it is again with the reference photo:

I am pretty pleased with it for a first effort. What I was thinking of doing is making a hexagon shaped scroll sawn frame that will resemble a honeycomb. That would finish it off nicely. I think the bee itself is about 5-6" big. You can see my hand in the above photo for size relation. 



I really like working with the pencils, and I think on some level they may be compatable with some of my woodworking projects. I think that woodworkers may feel more comfortable using them than using paint on wood, and I am going to be experimenting on some applications in the near future. 



It is thrilling for me to keep exploring new ways to create. Most of the creative people I know use several types of media in their creative processes. I think that these nearly endless resources offer a huge amount of opportunity to make unique and beautiful things, don’t you?



Today I will be drawing some new scroll saw patterns. I also have some ideas for painting as well as needlework designs. There is always something fun and new to explore and I love how the different types of projects overlap. 



I hope you enjoyed seeing this bee design. And I hope it inspires you to give something new a try. 

Happy Friday to you all and happy weekend! :) 

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My Journey As A Creative Designer - Woodworking and Beyond #1743: I'm BACK!!

It has been a crazy couple of weeks! Even though I didn’t get much ‘work’ done, I don’t think I have ever worked harder in  my life. Perhaps it is because I am a touch older now (EGADS!) Or maybe it was because this was the first time that I had to not only move myself, but a moderately successful business as well. It certainly entailed much more than I had anticipated. 



But all went well and there were barely any hiccups in the process. We were fortunate in so many respects. The house we moved into is a lovely two-story home over 100 years old. It has a history that we are learning more about every day. The owners are wonderful and kind people who are a joy to deal with. (We are renting this home long-term, as the family moved to another town two hours away)  We look forward to a long and lasting relationship with them not only as landlords, but also as friends. We have increased our living and working area to over four times as much space as we had at our old place. I can’t tell you how good it feels to stretch our legs and really be organized. I am sure that our productivity will surely increase tremendously just by having this extra room. It is all good. 



The owners had the house decorated lovely, but it was suited to their own purpose. They had a teen aged son and a lifestyle that was quite different from ours. It is only natural for us to want to 'nest’ and make the home personal to us and conducive to our business and needs. We are very grateful that they pretty much gave us a free hand in making these changes. It is one of the reasons that we were so excited about the move. We have known for the past three months that we would be coming here and have had time to plan and to figure out how things would be set up. For us, the excitement came after the first meeting with them way back in March. Since then we have been planning and shopping and waiting for the day to come to finally move our things in. That is when the real work began. 



Over the next several months, I will show you our progress for each room as we finish things up. One thing that I am realizing with this move is that nothing happens instantly. Things take lots of time and planning and work to complete. We are still awaiting five large storage  pieces of furniture that we are having made for our main floor. Until we get them (hopefully within a week or so) there will be neat piles of boxes sitting in their place, waiting to be put away. The good part about that is that everything is sorted. (And I mean EVERYTHING!) That is where the 'grunt work’ came into play, as we needed to migrate supplies from several locations into one. I think that was the most difficult part, yet will be the most improved part of our lives. We will no longer have things here, there and everywhere. Everything will be in centralized locations so when we don’t see something that we are seeking, it will probably mean that we don’t have it. This alone will make a huge difference in productivity for us. No more buying duplicates or searching here and there for something we need. I can’t stress the importance of the impact of that enough.



Here is a photo of our home:

It is located on a large plot of land not too far from the old mill on the river that I frequently show.  We were thrilled to find something so close to our old place (less than a kilometer) and it made the move that much easier for us. 



I will show each room as I see fit. Naturally I can’t show everything at once. Since most rooms are still 'works in progress’ it wouldn’t make sense anyway. There are loads of makeover projects that I have in mind. I will have a great time focusing on those as I do them. And finally, I hope to get back to work designing and creating patterns. It seems like forever since I have done that. But blogging again is a good start. Things will get back to normal soon. 



Among other things, we decided to make our main scroll saw 'shop’ in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The upstairs consists of two large bedrooms and a powder room, which made it ideal for a bright and beautiful working space. We chose the western bedroom as our shop and scroll saw room. It has two nice windows and lots of natural light throughout the afternoon.  



We decided to paint the room and put a new light fixture in. The hanging one was over a bed, but was too low for Keith and he kept hitting his head on it. (doh!) 

We liked the pine floors and also liked that we had access to the powder room at the front of the house. Not having to travel downstairs to the bathroom was a real plus:

Our tool box and scroll saw cabinet fit in nicely. For now, we are storing my shipping boxes up there as well. Keith is working on the basement and I think eventually they will be stored down there. 

Along that back wall, my work table will reside. We still haven’t brought it from Keith’s mom’s where it was shipped. We need to get a truck to do that. There is also a matching storage cabinet that will go under it, allowing room for me to store finished pieces to sell. (They are in the aqua bins in the photo now). It will be nice to have a place to store my kits to ship and hopefully I will be able to keep some more in stock for immediate shipping. Those boxes against the wall will go as well, as we will sort them into place as soon as the other pieces arrive. 



Here is the view of the other side of the room:

The closet is a great storage spot for our dressed wood – ready to cut. The door is to the powder room and the large cabinets hold my craft magazines and books. 

Every magazine is in 'date-issued’ order and they are all divided by publication and type of crafts. These were scattered all over the house at our old place and some were on high shelves buried behind other things. I can’t tell you how much better it is for me to have every issue at hand where I can put my finger on it immediately!



You can also see that I added some of that foam flooring. Not only does this make things a bit more quiet, but it makes them more comfortable to work on and will help protect the floor. I just love it. 



Yesterday (Sunday) was my first opportunity to actually work in my new environment on orders. What a lovely difference having such a wonderful, large space to do my work! I sometimes read that others think that a clean shop is unproductive, but I beg to differ. I find that keeping things neat and organized offers far more productivity than a cluttered mess. It is so pleasant to work in such a wonderful place. I took a break and came down to make dinner in between my cutting and sanding and I can’t begin to express the JOY of not having to clean the dust off of the counters or step over the scroll saw to do so. (For those of you who don’t know, I have been scrolling in my kitchen for years! I don’t think I have EVER had a designated area in the main house for my woodworking. What a TREAT to have that now!) Look at the result:

I would say that it was a very good day! It felt GREAT to be back at work!



I promise to keep you all updated and show you all the new things as they are put into place. Keith’s basement project is in itself amazing. Over the past several days, he wired our computers so that the main units will be housed downstairs. Everything is networked to each other and not only will they run cooler in the summer, but we don’t have the clutter of the units here in our main living area. I will blog about that in another post, but here is a photo of the finished wiring:

So that is all for today. I am dying to get at it and get some more accomplished. I missed you all and hope you all stop by to see what I am up to. I hope to start writing regularly again and share my creative journey with you every day. There is so much fun to come!



Happy Monday to you all! 

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Colgate EALL (18)

The last phase of construction for the Colgate University East Asian Language Lab (EALL) involved a pair of sliding doors to be fitted beneath the alcove in the Japanese room.

Since I had previously fabricated the tracks for these doors, I was able to fit the individual rails to the tracks as they were completed:

These sliding doors pair avodire panels with reclaimed Hinoki frames:

In this photo, you can see one is assembled and the other is getting close to completion:

All done and clamped up:

A little cleanup with a plane followed:

Tenon ends trimmed:

The lengths were left slightly long on these doors to allow final trimming at site.

The completed doors:

I do believe the two woods combine well together, and it will be interesting to see how they look after a few years, as they may well oxidize differently.

So, even with all the principle parts completed, there was a myriad of tasks to complete on a wide variety of components to get ready to go to site. I was flat out in my shop for the 10 days preceding the loading up for the trip out to Colgate.

Matt J., who had helped me previously with the MFA gate installation, as well as a Japanese ceiling install at a residence in Natick, MA, came along to help out. It was very good he did, and not just for the company:  I would otherwise have been out at site for a week at least.

In the two and a half days we spent at site, we managed to get it all done, save for a few minor details.

The cusped window, with framed glass panel and sliding picture frame behind, was installed in the framed bump-out in the Chinese room:

I like their choice of paint color and tile for that room.

The lattice window insert was fitted to the window in that same room:

Hard to take a photo of a window with light coming in, at least with my nascent photography skills.

Completing the Chinese room had taken a little more than half a day. During that time I had set Matt to work on the wainscot for the Japanese room, and that work ended up being his focus for the entire time we were there.

We had intended to use a quick-acting construction adhesive to apply the wainscot to the walls, however the product I selected, Loctite ‘Power Grab’ Express All-Purpose adhesive with claimed ‘0 second’ bond time, proved to be completely worthless. The stuff is a cruel joke. Despite near idea conditions of a clean substrate and material which glues readily, temps in the 70s, moderate humidity, etc.,the Loctite product just wouldn’t bond anything to anything, regardless of how long the parts stayed in contact. Stuff left overnight would simply fall off once the tape was pulled. ‘Power Grab’ they call it [gag].

I like and trust Loctite’s threadlocking products, but this is the second adhesive product of theirs I have used which did not impress, so I think I’ll steer clear of their adhesive offerings from here on out.

I spent two hours today trying to obtain an alternate adhesive, which had been the preferred choice from the very beginning but seems to be unavailable generally in New England, namely Titebond’s Titegrab adhesive. today, with the help of a customer service person at Lowe’s headquarters, I managed to source some tubes of that product from all the way down in Pennsylvania, which is shipped expedited to me and I should have it in hand in a couple of days. Hopefully it will perform as advertised. I’ll let y’all know.

I spent most of my site time working on installing the alcove, or tokonoma, in the Japanese room. In the following picture, you can see that the left corner plant-on post is in place, along with the framing for the toko-waki section, or flanking alcove:

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BCM 2017: On a New Track (4)

Post 4 in a series describing some repair work on 4 sliding paneled doors, or ita-do, and related sliding track, for the Boston Children’s Museum.

—————

After the frame members were through joinery and finish planed, the stiles received a coat of stain so as to match the rest of the doors:

Rails next, after a coat of stain, which is still wet in the photo below:

The panels and battens had received a lot of wear and tear, exposing raw wood in a number of places, so the four entire panels were given a refresh with stain:

As noted in a previous post, removal of the old frames revealed several broken batten tenons. One of those battens had tenons snapped off of both ends, so I removed the batten from the panel, and placed it in a fixture so I could rout a short mortise for an insert tenon:

Here I’m doing a dry fit of the panel and batten assembly to the two newly made stiles:

The bare patch you can see in the above photo is where the removed batten locates, left off for the trial fit as I know it will fit the mortises just fine.

Everything was fitting up nicely, so I knocking things apart one more time, put the batten back into place, and then glued up using ‘Old Brown’ hide glue:

Though for many circumstances a 72" rip capacity on a table saw is of limited use, it happens to be an ideal surface for placing a clamped up assembly of about that length :^)

On other panel assemblies, only one batten tenon was broken, so instead of removing the batten to effect a repair, I worked on the joinery in situ using a simple set up like this:

You can spot the just-completed batten mortise in the middle:

At the end of a Sunday, I had three of the four doors glued up, and two of those doors were into a second application of stain. Tomorrow should be the last shop day on this project, and Tuesday is the planned day of install at the BCM. Hope you’ll stay tuned for the next installment, and thanks for your visit today!

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My Journey As A Scroll Saw Pattern Designer #1665: Self-Challenges

As a designer and and artist, I think it is important to continually learn and work toward advancing myself. It seems that every time I accomplish a certain technique or skill, I feel satisfied only for a short time and soon I begin to look for ways to push myself to a higher level. It is just my nature. 



Because I am fortunate enough to be able to work doing something that I love, I am able to explore these many facets of the artistic work in the name of ‘work’. I admit that I am quite spoiled in this respect, as what many are only able to do in their 'leisure time’ I can justify as 'working’. It is one of the perks of creating art and designing for a living. 



Over the summer, I stumbled on the work of an amazing artist and teacher named Lisa Clough. I think I was browsing some YouTube videos when I saw some of the lessons that Lisa had offered using colored pencils. Like most, I had thought that colored penciling was something that we did in grade school. Pencils were much neater than paint and it was much easier for parents and teachers to deal with a room full of students coloring than those getting messy with paint. Colored pencil work wasn’t something that I would generally refer to as 'fine art.’



I can’t believe how 'wrong’ I was in my thinking!



If you stop over to Lisa’s YouTube channel, you will understand exactly what I mean. Lisa not only works in colored pencils, but oil and acrylic paint and several other mediums. She offers a wealth of information about many different kinds of drawing and painting and I have become an enthusiastic follower. People such as she are gifts to those of us who are seeking to learn. It is rare to find someone so talented and also such a great teacher. 



Long story short – I poured through her videos and visited her pages and decided to become a Patron sponsor for Lisa. This helps support her and gives back a bit for all the time and effort she puts into sharing her talent and teaching us. Sponsoring means that you agree to pay a small amount each moth to Lisa and in return you get special 'perks’ from her such as access to long instructional videos (usually around 2 hours or more per project), a monthly post card with her original art featured, and special access to monthly challenges for the group. I find these all very inspiring and helpful in my own journey through art. You can do to the Patron page to read more about it. 



While I have little time to work on ALL the monthly challenges, I want to try to have at least one ongoing challenge that will help me expand my skills in this area. I certainly won’t finish it this month, but it will be something that I will do in the background when I have a little time here and there to do something for myself. 



This month’s challenge was a Christmas themed one. A white reindeer and some holiday accessories. The white deer is quite challenging because when using pencils, the light colors are much harder to do than the dark. I thought it would be something that I could learn a lot from. Here is the reference photo we were provided:

I loved the composition of this photo, and I think it will be quite interesting to work on. I wasn’t crazy about the curtain in the background though, so I thought I would do my own thing with that. 



Back in September, I had purchased a set of Inktense blocks and pencils by Derwent.

I liked the idea that the Inktense were warter soluable, but then once dry, the colors were permanent (unlike water colors which reconstitute each time you re-wet them.)  This meant that once they were dry, they were permanent and would not bleed or smear into the subsequent layers of color, making them an excellent choice for things like backgrounds and base layers of color. 



Since I wanted the background to look like old, faded wallpaper, I thought it was also the perfect opportunity to use my new cutter and create some custom stencils to make the wallpaper pattern. I quickly drew up a pretty Damask motif that I felt resembled a Christmas tree, and cut the stencil:

My cutter worked perfectly and I was thrilled with the results. (Another new avenue for me and my artwork!) 

I used Fabriano Extra White 140lb hot press watercolor  paper for my drawing. I wanted to use a good paper that would withstand the amount of water, pencil and erasing that it would eventually take to complete the picture.



I used frisket on the deer to mask it, as I want it to remain white at this point.  I then taped off the floor area and used three different browns to wash the floor in. I kept it streaky so that it would resemble the wood grain and make it easier later. I will be using pencils over this, but for the base, I liked the effect. 

I apologize for photographing it on the brown mat, but I had taped it there and didn’t want to disturb it. You can see what is going on though, I think.



I then switched the taped side and began work on the wall. I washed/blotted and stippled it to give an uneven texture:

I used a darker green and my stencil to apply the wallpaper pattern, again with the Inktense blocks and water:

Finally, I once again washed the entire background before the stenciled design was dry. This made a beautiful aged effect and made the background look old:

I really like where I am so far on this. With the holidays just around the corner, that is as far as I got. I wanted the paper to be completely dry before moving on and I spent the rest of the weekend filling orders and doing some work on some of the gifts that I am making that need to be mailed out. I have to mail them soon in order for them to arrive on time. 



I hope you enjoyed seeing this little progression. I also hope it inspires you to try something that you may not have considered in the past. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that I would ever be able to create artwork like this, but the more that I see and learn, the more eager I am to try. Challenging ourselves is a great way to learn. We my not always succeed at our first attempt, but if we never try, how will we learn new things? It certainly makes for a fun and busy life. 



Today is bright and sunny out. What a nice day for December!  I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend and are accomplishing all you wanted to accomplish. (Do we EVER do that??) 



Have a very happy Monday and a wonderful week ahead! I hope you do something creative!  

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My Journey As A Creative Designer - Woodworking and Beyond #1804: The Value of Online Classes - My Sloth Progress

I am slowly getting to the finish line with my sloth. I think that is quite appropriate, given that I am drawing … well … a sloth!  They don’t do anything quickly, now do they? 



Actually, I think this is going much quicker than I had anticipated. So far this has only taken three evenings to reach this point: the first for the background, the second for the branch and the beginning of the eye, and the third for the head. I believe it will only take one more session to be pretty much ‘done’. I will then leave it for a bit and come back to it and see what to adjust. I am sure I will find something. 



I always thought that working with pastels would be a chalky mess. I remember one day when my daughter Danielle was young, I allowed her to use my soft pastels to 'color’. She was about six or seven years old and we put an old shower curtain on the floor and I was glad I did. There was certainly a lot of pigmented dust everywhere. I can honestly say that I haven’t touched them since. Perhaps the vision of the mess in my mind deterred me, or perhaps maybe it was because the style of art that I enjoy creating the most is photo-realistic. After all – how could you get realism from things like chalk and colored pencils?   



Oh – but times have changed! 



Because of amazing artists such as Lisa Clough of Lachri fine Art and Jason Morgan of Jason Morgan Wildlife Art, entire new worlds of creating have opened up for me.I saw some of Lisa’s work on Pinterest, where half the picture was colored and the other half was not and I stared in disbelief. Certainly, I thought it was a photograph!  To find out that she used colored pencils to create her paintings just about blew my mind. Add to that, her openness and willingness to teach her method (much without cost to us) really was amazing. I soon became a 'groupie’ and began watching her videos and studying her methods in my 'spare time’. (And you all thought I was slacking!)  I even had quite a large set of colored pencils to get me started, so all I needed to do was fill in some supplies, right?  Little did I know it would take me on another wonderful path of art discovery. 



Through Lisa, I became familiar with Jason Morgan and his work. Jason is also a multi-talented artist who’s main focus is wildlife. He is also very giving and generous in his sharing of his talents and I became a follower of his Patreon page as well as Lisa’s. For those who many not know, Patreon is a subscription where you pay a small amount (that YOU decide) each month to help support your favorite artist. Depending on the level of support, you receive access to detailed instructional videos, reference photos, and even critiques. It is a great way to advance your own abilities while helping these great art “teachers” as well. I hope that some of you consider it, as the money I pledge to them has gone much further in improving my skills than just about anything that I have invested in. (My other favorite subscription is from Mary Kinslan Gibilisco’s Net Subscription Classes. She is another amazing teacher!) 



In any case, I wanted to update you with the progress of my sloth. After three sessions here is where he stands (or rather HANGS!):

So far, I am not unhappy with him. :)  He is coming together nicely and I ham having a great time playing with his fur.  I am pleased with his eye and while the nose needs a bit more work, it is getting there:

His nose is quite tricky. It is a fleshy, light brown, yellowish nose with a texture that is hairless, but not really smooth. It is buried in the shadow for the most part on  my reference photo, and I may wind up shading the left side of it a bit more before the drawing is completed. I will go over everything once I finish the arms and adjust the colors finally then. 



I also want to make sure that the hairs are not too 'neat’. I noticed that in much of the wildlife art is see, the hairs are too uniform and not 'wild’ enough. After all – we are depicting animals. They seldom look completely neat and tidy. My slot is a bit tidy right now, but these are still not the final hairs that will be on top. I can mess them up a bit when I complete things next time. 

Overall, I am pleased. For this being my attempt at this media,I am pretty happy. Fortunately for me, the basic principles of drawing, painting and art are pretty global, no matter which media you are working in. It feels good though to pull out these supplies that I have had for over 20 years and make use of them. 



And the dust?? I would say that it is pretty much 'non-existant’.  Between the Pastelmat paper, which 'grabs’ the pastels and my light style of drawing, I can honestly say that I have done all of this work in my 'white studio’ without any issue. I think I put a white paper towel under the drawing on my desk when I did the initial background. I used the larger Conte a Paris crayons for that and there was a little more dust. But the details on the branch and sloth both were done with the CarbOthello Pastel pencils and I have hardly had to even sharpen them. With the way I draw, they will last me a good, long time. 



I hope you enjoy seeing the progress on these. In between I was drawing new scroll saw patterns. I didn’t actually start on this piece until nearly 9pm last night, and I probably put only about three hours in since the last pictures. As I said – it is a quick process as the pastels cover very quickly. I watched some great things on Netflix as I drew and had a great night after a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. 



Thank you all who have sent me encouraging messages and comments. I really feel that being part of my online communities have made me a better artist and have enriched my life. I am very happy to be here. 



Have a wonderful Friday. 

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My Journey As A Creative Designer - Woodworking and Beyond #1747: Slowly Returning to "Normal"

If this move has taught me anything, it is taught me that things don’t happen overnight. Even if things appear to fall into place when looking in from the outside, there is usually a huge amount of work to make that happen. I am beginning to think that the more seamless that change appears to be, the more work it required to get there. “Effortless” takes more effort than we can imagine. 



It has been over three weeks since we made the big move to our new place. (I actually had to check the calendar after I wrote that, as it seems impossible that it would be so long yet time passed so quickly!) These weeks have gone by in a flurry because every single day we were busy doing something from the time we awoke until the time we went to sleep. Later on this week I will show photos of Keith’s progress in his workplace downstairs. It is nearly completed to his liking (at least for the time being) and he recently brought all of his RC’s (remote cars) and accessories over and they all found a place. Just barely. Apparently he had no trouble at all filling up his workshop here. We are both amazed at how we have grown into this house. 



As for myself, I spent the weekend working on finishing up a wood order that I wanted to go out the door this week as well as making the curtains for my new studio room. I will show photos of the studio later on, as I am still awaiting the two large cabinets to store my supplies which will go in there. Right now I have two large piles of smaller boxes of supplies there and while I know that the furniture will arrive any day now, it is getting rather troublesome to not only look at the stuff, but to have to fish through it whenever I need something. I can’t wait for closure on this part of the move where I can have everything at hand and accessible without moving ten other boxes. I suppose I am getting a bit impatient. 



But time marches on and here we are in the latter part of July already. Summer is half way through and before we know it, fall and the holiday season will arrive. There should be a law regarding how quickly these days are allowed to pass. How is one suppose to get everything done when time passes so quickly? I wish I knew the answer to that. 



The shop upstairs is the closest room to being completed, which makes it a great sanctuary when trying to return to ‘normal’.  Below is a photo of the result of our day trip last Thursday in quest of storage containers:

The shelf was from Kieth’s mom’s house and the small containers will be great for storing the pieces to the many wood kits I have and will be offering. It will help keep me organized and I will know at a glance what I have stock in and what needs to be cut. It was the last piece in the puzzle of our new shop and makes that room complete. 



By the way – this photo was taken AFTER I finished up a large order of cutting yesterday. I have heard from several that “a clean shop is an unproductive shop” and I beg to differ. I find it very easy to clean up after each session and I like walking into a nice, organized place every time I go there to work. Perhaps it is because I worked in the corner of my kitchen for so many years that I developed the habit of cleaning up my mess each time, but I find no reason to have a mess left when all it usually takes is a quick pass with the shop vac and putting things back where they go. It saves lots of time hunting for things that are misplaced and also offers a much safer environment for working, which is very important. 



Yesterday I was able to cut, rout and sand 100 ornaments for an order I was doing. 

It feels great to see everything ready to pack up to ship this morning! 



Of course, I had the help of my two 'shop assistants’. Here is Richard overseeing things:

And (of course!) there is Pancakes making sure I vacuumed properly:

No wonder I get so much done! :)  



It will take some getting used to, but I really did enjoy working in such a wonderful environment. I feel like a queen! :) 



Today we are working on doing a newsletter for our customers and updating the site. Keith has three new pattern designs that he posted.  



His first one is SLDK678 - Good Coffee - Good Friends:

His second new pattern designs is SLDK679 - The Lord Will Fight for You:

And the third and final new pattern this time is SLDK680 - Grapevine Welcome Plaque:

I love all three designs! 



I don’t have any new patterns now, but I do have a new pattern set that I created with my Birds of Prey that is available at a special discount. 

You can access the set here: SLDBOPSET1 - Set of 4 Birds of Prey Patterns.



I promise that I will be back at designing soon. I have many ideas and as we settle, I am hoping to have more time to draw, paint and create patterns. 



Little by little things will fall into place. While there are days when it seems that we are not moving forward, when I look back I see that we accomplished a great deal over these past weeks. I need to remember that and be positive about the strides we have made. Things like this just take some time. 



With that said, I am off to get moving this morning. If you are on our mailing list, expect a newsletter later on today. I also have some new embellishment charms that I am going to be posting up on the site. These are fun pieces to add to your scrolling or painting projects, or any projects that you may be making. I think they are fun and will be something that everyone will enjoy. 



It is rainy today and quite cool. It seems that the warm, summer weather of Saturday has come and gone again. What a strange year we have had here weather-wise. But as with anything, we just need to take it as it comes. 



I wish you all a wonderful day and a great week ahead. Happy Monday to you! 

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