Blogging Break

Hello readers. Unfortunately I am going to have to take a blogging break until next week. I am working on a big grant that is due Nov. 5th and it getting to be really stressful. All I will be doing is working for the next few days (was up to 1am this morning) so there won't be much to blog about. I will be back next week!

Happy Halloween

Greg and I don't do much in the way of celebrating Halloween at home. In fact we don't really know what to expect tonight in terms of trick or treaters. NYC is a little strange when it comes to that. We have some back-up candy just in case and Greg replaced the light bulb outside so we have a porch light. Whether or not that is enough to draw kids to our door I don't know. We should probably put up some decorations if we want visitors but it is too late for that now.

There is however a little party here at work. Miriam brought cookies. Marcela brought candy apples and a pumpkin. I have supplied the Cheezits (thanks Sandy!) and of course I wore a costume: I came as smart Alexis! (Or undercover super hero Alexis, or librarian Alexis). Unfortunately if I wear my costume too long I get headaches since I don't need glasses anymore. Happy Halloween everyone.

Card Camp Success

Craft Club Card Camp was a great success. Four ladies were able to make it and we worked on cards for 4+ hours. I think all cards were made except for the poor little pumpkin card. No one liked that one unfortunately but that is OK. Pumpkins have a special place in my heart but not everyone's! We also celebrated Peh's birthday which was the next day. Alice brought over a yummy cake. The real hit of the party were the shrinky dinks but I knew that would happen. They are just that awesome. I made little name plates for everyone out of shrinky dinks. They were so cute. Here is a photo of all the cards Alice made and her little name shrinky dink. We are already planning the next club meeting. I am so glad craft club is back this year!

Office Organizing - Finished

There are people out there who think I am "so organized". Well, I took some photos to show that isn't always the case. It takes a lot of work to get organized, even for someone like me who loves organizing. I am finally finished with my office/studio. Of course there is still work to be done, pictures to hang, some new paper trays coming, the closet could use more organizing but for the most part it is done and totally usable. This is the way the studio has looked pretty much since we moved in. The main culprit was my shelving situation. Not pretty or functional. The closet wasn't helping any with not a lot of shelving and nowhere to put my sewing machine so it ended up here on the desk. That made it hard to work on the computer! So lets look at the solutions I came up with. The biggest issue was the shelving. I loved my new modular style shelves (Expidit from IKEA) but none of my old Sterilite containers looked good in there. Well IKEA to the rescue. They came out with cabinet and drawer inserts that you buy separately and slide into the holes. Now I can hide my supplies behind closed doors. I found new plastic tubs at Target to sort my supplies into. That made a huge difference. I have some more paper trays coming for the top cubes so that will look even nicer once they arrive. Next was the work table. I hung two bulletin boards above the table to tack up ideas and new products and I found a giant self healing ruled mat at Joannes to protect the top and provide easy measuring. This is especially helpful for sewing projects. My favorite thing is actually the big tall garbage can. So nice to have a large place to toss out paper and garbage (for sorting later). In my old apartments I only had space for a tiny little bag or can. For the closet I bought a small bookcase to house my sewing machine and my sewing supplies in the closet. I may eventually get another one but for right now it is looking much better. I still need to re-think my wrapping paper situation. I always used under the bed storage because I had no other options but now those tubs aren't really functional in the closet. May need to switch to an upright or hanging solution. Cleaner bookcase. You already saw the file cabinet and roman shade and now the desk is clear for just computer work. I love this space now. Now I need to work on some other room in the house. I don't think any other rooms will be this much work since we were really starting from scratch in the office. Thanks for looking.

Sneak Peek

Well, I stayed up late last night and got each and every kit ready to go. I am really excited for card camp. I think it will be lots of fun. So here is a sneak peek at most of the cards.These feature: Stamping, chalks, decorative scissors, brads, rub-ons, punches and ribbon, layered stamping, paper tearing, and sanding.These feature: SHRINKY DINK MAKING!, tags, punches, brads, and ribbon.These feature: Bleach stamping, buttons, waxed twine, wet embossing, and eyelets. There is actually 1 more card (9 total) but I forgot to take a photo of it last night. Looking at them now they are all a little girly but it is the techniques and ideas that matter most. You can adjust the ideas to any type of card for any occasion. I hope the ladies don't see these and decide not to come. They are way cuter in real life, trust me. More on card camp after the fact.

Chugging Along

The hole in the ceiling is still there. I know you were all worried that it would get fixed right away and that I would have nothing to talk about! No no no. Ricky had car trouble so he couldn't come. Uh-huh sure he did.

I spent all last night finishing up the card designs for card camp and getting my studio put back in order. There will be 9 cards to make if the ladies so choose (and I hope they will make one of each) and they are CUTE! I typed up directions for each and started throwing kits together. Whenever I think back to stamp camp days I think of my girl Tiff! Hey Tiff! Then I start to think about Pampered Chef parties and realize that I went to a lot of direct sales parties! No wonder I have so much great stamping and kitchen stuff! Ha! Anyway, I will have some previews tomorrow of card camp (if I have electricity since Ricky is supposed to come tonight!).

Continued Electrical Excitement

(Guest blogger Greg Cruikshank has an update for you on our continuing electrical saga!)
As Alexis mentioned previously, we had some electrical problems in the past month. We lost power on our second floor for a week until the problem was located. We were told there was a short in the hall light and they were able to temporarily fix it and by that I just mean they were able to get our lights back on. There was still a hole in the ceiling where the fixture had been. A short time later I tried to install a new hall light fixture only to find that the problem wasn't the fixture. When I was up in the hole I could see several bare wires that had been stripped of their insulation and I figured that was really causing the problem. Since bare wires are a major fire hazard we requested they come back and fix it ASAP. After several days of trying to get our landlord's handyman (Ricky) out, he finally showed up and confirmed my diagnosis:

1. Behind the "electrical box" in the ceiling was all bare copper wiring. (Alexis-YIKES!)

2. The "electrical box" is actually left over from when this house was lit with GAS LAMPS!! they simply cut the gas and ran the electrical lines through the old jets. you can see the old round jets in the pictures. (Alexis-Fascinating! How old is this house anyway?)

Ricky was able to cut the lines and found covered (albeit with cloth) wire and rewired us up so there were no bare wires. He is supposed to return today(hopefully) to install a proper electrical box and maybe even a light switch in the hall.

(Alexis here- You can see the mess Ricky left behind. He brought no tools with him. He was using my craft hammer to bang away at the wood support while standing on one of my dining room chairs. He cracked the plaster in the ceiling in several places and was banging so loud Greg had to go up and tell the neighbors we weren't going to break through their floor. I just hope he can fix the problem once and for all!)

Create!

I spent part of my weekend in the studio preparing for craft club. Next weekend I am hosting craft club here in Queens and we are having Craft Club Card Camp. A take on Stamp Camp but with less stamping. This weekend I worked on designing the cards we will be making.

The photo says it all. I had all my supplies out on my big table, the floor, and the desk. It was fun to be in the creative mode again. Two of the cards feature shrinky dinks and boy oh boy when I started playing around with them I fell in love with shrinky dinks all over again. Why is everything miniature sized so darn cute! I do wish my mom lived nearby because my stamp collection is very minimal and she has tons of great stuff what would have come in handy but I have made due. I hope the ladies like the cards.

Office Window

I managed to finish another project last week for my office/studio. I took all the lessons learned when making the shade for my kitchen and created a roman shade for our office window. We now have some type of window treatment on all windows in the apartment but this is by far my favorite. Here is the window before:

The window didn't have a rod left over from previous tenants so I did the total Ghetto-trash thing and opened the window, stuck a piece of fabric out and closed the top back up.

For this shade I went with a black and white Damask pattern. I thought the Damask would go well with the stripes already in the room. I had to line this fabric (the red fabric in the kitchen was pre-lined) and I went with a stiff craft iron-on lining. It made it a lot easier to keep everything square and makes the folds really crisp.

I was going to use dowels to create the folds but though the stiffness would prevent me from needed them. It didn't. I wish I had used the dowel method since the shade still needs to be adjusted when it is up.

I was also going to add some yellow ribbon to the shade to help it tie in better to the yellow room but changed my mind at the last minute. That and I forgot to buy yellow thread. No matter, I am still happy with it. Thanks for looking. More office/studio projects coming soon.

Home

I am working from home today. In addition to the plumbing problems and then the electrical problems our phones decided to jump on the bandwagon and break as well. The Verizon guy is here now fixing the lines so I could probably go to work in a little while but I am going to stay home all day and work and see if I can make some headway on a really big project (grant proposal) I have going on. I did manage to get one project done in my studio last night which I will hopefully be able to post about tomorrow so stay tuned!

The Blogiverse

I thought I would share links to some of the blogs I enjoy reading each day. They break up into categories:

Scrapbooking
I like to read the blogs of some of my favorite scrapbookers or scrapbooking magazines. I find out about the latest news and get inspiration. Plus many of them are just funny ladies. The interesting thing is that I don't actually like some of their styles but I enjoy their blogs. Hmmmm
Becky Higgins (my favorite scrapbooker to lift from)
Cathy Zielske (Funny lady who rarely talks about her scrapbooks)
Donna Downey
Stacey Julian
Heidi Swapp
Ali Edwards
Tara Whitney
Elsie
Simple Scrapbooks Magazine Blog
Scrap Smack I just discovered smack blogs. Lots of scrap gossip!

Crafts
There are a million and one craft blogs out there and for a while I was reading them all but slowly I narrowed it down to just a few.
Wee Wonderfuls
Soule Mama
Angry Chicken
Claudine Hellmuth

Food
I love to eat and I love finding good vegan recipes.
Vegan Lunchbox This blog has pretty much died but it is still a great resource for vegan lunch ideas that fit into the cute bento box which I have.
Fat Free Vegan Kitchen
The Post Punk Kitchen Love the show, love the cookbooks, love the blog
Vegan Friendly They try out different restaurants in NYC and give reviews from a vegan perspective.
Vegan Yum Yum

Organizing
My new obsession is organizing blogs. I love getting good tips!
Creative Organizing Organizing with scrapbookers and crafters in mind
Monica Ricci My favorite professional organizer. Love her podcasts.
Unclutterer
Clutter Control Freak
Apartment Therapy Specifically about living in NYC's tiny apartments.

Fun
Various blogs I find entertaining.
Office Tally If you are a fan of NBCs the office this is the place to go.
Things I bought that I love Written by Mindy Ephron who plays Kelly on the office and is one of the writers. Funny AND informative.
Cute Overload
Dooce Pretty famous blog. Love her dry sarcasm.
Funky Finds

Friends
I only have 1 friend blog left since all my friends abandoned their blogs.
Tiff's life Don't give up Tiff!

Yes, I try and check all of these on a regular basis. Not to mention each blog links to their favorite blogs so you can hop down a blogging trail for hours. It can be lots of fun, when I have time. Do you have a favorite blog? Tell me what it is.

Filing and Flinging

While Greg was away recently for a trip to Texas with our friend John who has moved to Dallas I decide to try and tackle a big project. At first I wanted to re-do the closet but that would have required a bit of demolition and I didn't think I could do it alone. Plus I still had to work everyday so I really was only going to have a day or two to finish the project. I decided to tackle the office which was still only partly organized. All the major furniture had been purchased but nothing had been done since that time. One area that really needed work was all the paper and files. We didn't have room for a file cabinet in the old place so we had a system of containers and folders that held important documents. This new office had room for a file cabinet so I needed to put together a new filing system to go with it. I decided to used a filing product that came highly recommended on some of the organizing blogs I read. It is called Freedom Filer and is a self purging system that is supposed to take just a few minutes to sort into and purge from. I had read the directions for the system and had put the folders together to customize it for our needs but I still need to take my mountain of files and incorporate them into the drawer. That is one thing I worked on while Greg was away. It took me almost 4 hours to go through all our old papers (only a few piles shown above) and weed out stuff that could be discarded, re-classify the stuff that should be kept and file it all away. That also included the time it took to shred 3 bags of documents that were being recycled. My shredder got a lot of lovin that day! And here it is all done. I am loving the new system so far. It is truly very easy to maintain as it takes me under 2 minutes to file a stack of new bills, receipts, and documents. I did a lot more to the office during Greg's absense which I will report on soon.

Gold Scissors

One of the perks of our new neighborhood is Gold Scissors, a barber shop accross the street from us. You see for 6 years now I have cut Greg's hair in our bathtub. I have never been very good at it and really never enjoyed it. Greg was always too cheap and too lazy to go out and have it done. Well now he has no excuse. Our bathroom is too small for haircutting, the cut is only $10 and the barber is right accross the street. Plus Greg likes supporting local business and once he went in for a cut the barber continued to wave at Greg every time he walks by, thus guilting him, I mean encouraging him to come back. I couldn't be happier!

Before and After a cut and shave from Sam an Gold Scissors. And you have to say it like it is a James Bond tag line. That's what we do.

Newest Toy

I recently purchased a new camera to replace my aged and ailing Olympus (my first digital camera). I wanted something small enough to fit easily in my purse in hopes that I would take more photos and it would make blogging easier. I settled on the Canon PowerShot SD750 Digital Elph. I know several people who have an Elph and all swear by them so I jumped on the band wagon. For a better idea of the size here is a photo of it in my hand. Now I just need to find a cute camera case to put it in. One that will protect the 3" screen from scratches. I am already loving the new petite size but will keep my old camera for portrait sessions since it has the ability to be used manually and also has a 20x zoom for those times you need a lot of zoom. Maybe I will have to shoot some movies and find a way to load them onto the blog. Hmmmmmm.

We are go for power

The "electrician" (and I use that term loosely) came last night and found the short in the line. It only took him about 15 min to discover the problem but then it took over 2 hours to undo all the damage the landlord had done last Saturday. Then it took me another hour to vacuum up all the dirt and paint chips and such and to wipe all the black fingerprints off of switch plates and walls.

BUT at least we have power again!

I'm in a Maine state if mind

I had a really fantastic time visiting my friend Karen and her family a couple weeks ago and I have a few photos to share. Karen took lots of photos too but her computer is broken so we couldn't get any pictures off her camera for me to bring home (bummer!).

Friday afternoon I arrived in Portland and we started my trip off with a trip to the kids barber to get William (2 years old) a haircut. He was such a good boy and looked so grown up with his short tidy locks. The hair place is right next to a fire house so we walked over there to let William see the fire trucks. He is WAY into fire trucks. I can't even describe his reaction to the trucks. It is like he becomes possessed and can only squeal and point and jump around. It was adorable! We were there a couple hours and the firemen were so nice to humor him and show him all the trucks and let him sit in them and try on boots and hats and all kinds of stuff. There are lots of great photos of that. One of the firemen gave me a tour of the fire house and even offered to let me slide down the pole (which I declined!).

I got to hold baby Eileen the entire time we were there so mom could take photos which was fun. She is such a sweet little baby and she smelled so good. I nibbled on her the entire time I was there. DELICIOUS!!

The next day we took the kids to the Children's museum in Augusta where Karen lives. It is the state capital and her house is very close to the capital building as a matter of fact. William had a great time playing with all the exhibits and so did I. Eileen slept happily in her sling the entire time. That evening was a yummy meal and lots of lounging around with the kids. I am a home body so that kind of evening is right up my alley. It was fun hanging out with Karen for girl talk and filling her in on all the office happenings since she has been away.

On Sunday went apple picking (William got to ride a in a tractor trailer with daddy. He likes all kinds of machines.). Then Karen and I went shopping for dinner stuff and some containers to do an organizing project. We had lots of fun with the kids at the store. Then it was home for homemade pizzas which William and I put together (he is a good chef!) and then Karen and I stayed up until 2am reorganizing her bathroom, putting up curtains and reorganizing some shelves in her entryway. I wish I had taken before and after photos because both projects turned out so great. Her bathroom is so adorable now and the entry is so much cleaner and finished looking with matching bins and tidy shelves. It was lots of fun and got me revved up for my own organizational projects at home.

I left the next morning. Overall I had a fantastic time and really wish I had stayed longer. Thanks to Karen and Allen for showing me a good time and letting me love on their kids. It was fun to be goofy for 3 days with William but boy was I exhausted by the time I got home. I have a new appreciation for moms.

Chinese Banquet

On Saturday night Greg and I attended a reception for some friends from Church (Joe Yan & Christiana Coyle). They actually got married a month ago in DC but had a NY reception Saturday for everyone who couldn't attend the wedding. I didn't actually get a photo of the happy couple because we were seated behind a post and couldn't see them when they were together (we aren't taking it personally!).

The most interesting thing about the evening is that Joe is Chinese so the reception was a traditional Chinese banquet at a seafood restaurant in Flushing, Queens. We had a really good time at our table and it was fun to see all the food come through but unfortunately there was only 1 dish that was vegetarian and it came at the very end. I do occasionally eat meat but I loath seafood and have since childhood so we were really there to support our friends and not so much for the food. The menu included:

Shrimp & Fruit Salad

Jellyfish salad with pork, ham and other meats

Scallops and Squid on Pea Pods

Shark fin soup

Abalone and sea cucumber with Bok Choy

Whole fish (don't know what kind)

Chicken dish

Lobster dish

Pork fried rice

Seasame Noodles (Yeah! Something for us!)

Red bean soup (for dessert, yum!)

Cookies

Wedding cake (not a strong point for Chinese chefs. It was really bad)

There may have been more but I couldn't keep track of it all. Each dish came out as a course and was served to us. Joe opted not to have menus printed because he wanted people to try things and he was afraid they wouldn't if they knew what the dishes were. Our table was pretty good and most everyone tried each dish.

I was fortunate enough to sit next to Mark Horton who kept me entertained the entire night!

We didn't venture onto the dance floor at all. Greg was tired from moving a co-worker all day and I had spent the day with our landlord trying to find out why we have no power on our second floor. He couldn't find the problem so we are now waiting for an electrician to come.

It was nice visiting with people from church and getting a taste (pun intended) of Chinese culture. Plus we got commemorative chopsticks to take home!

Martha Martha Martha

I recently attended a live taping of the Martha Stewart show for her National Sewing Day episode. Thanks to Sandy and Connie for organizing the outing and inviting me! This was my second trip the Martha Show and it was far better than the last time. We were supposed to bring a recent sewing project with us. I recently make a roman shade and didn't want to bring that so I brought my bedside saddle instead. You could actually see a lot of us in the audience shots, especially since my project is a big ugly brown square so it was always easy to spot amongst the other more colorful projects.The show had multiple segments including the following (no photos allowed during the show):

A talk with Tim Gunn from Project Runway and his new design show. It was fun seeing Tim Gunn in person since I am a Project Runway fan. Unfortunately his segment was REALLY short (they all are) and it was kind of lame. He and Martha draped fabric on manikins and discussed the history of the toga. Yep, it was about at boring as that.

Next Martha introduced us to a new amazing sewing machine from Pfaff, the Creative Vision. It was a great machine but it retails for $8,500. WHO IS GOING TO BUY THAT MACHINE? Martha has entered into a relationship with Pfaff so it make sense she would hock their stuff. They were supposed to give the machine away to an audience member but at the last minute decided to raffle it off on the website instead.

We saw a segment about freestyle machine embroidery. It was actually really interesting and I hope to try it myself at home. Again the segment was really short so I am glad they offer directions on the website.

The other segments included interviewing audience members, non-traditional sewing projects, and we saw some of the things Martha is working on (using her personal $8,500 machine from Pfaff of course!).

We had a good time at the show and walked away with sewing gift bags from Pfaff with thread, scissors, machine needles, a needle guide, and some disolvable stabilizer (for the embroidery we saw).

Now that I have so much more dedicated craft space I am looking forward to sewing more and the show got me kind of fired up to do that. You can watch the whole episode here.

More trouble

As if plumbing problems weren't enough we lost power on the second floor of our home last night. Only one outlet still works and it happens to be the one the alarm clock is plugged into. I guess it was God's way of saying I shouldn't miss BSF this morning!

We are working with the landlords to try and figure out what the problem is. The breaker had tripped but won't switch back. We are hoping it is just a faulty breaker and not a larger issue! I may have to go home early to work with an electrician.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I'm Bringing Blogging Back.....

Sing along with me now!

I can't believe it has been almost 3 weeks since I posted last. Life has been getting in the way of my blogging abilities. For instance I spent this morning waiting for a plumber to come and snake my shower drain. He pulled up a big nasty clog and now all is well in our home again. Technology is nice and often convenient but that doesn't mean it still doesn't take work to do things like blog. Sometimes I forget that.

BUT I promise to pull together all my recent photos and projects and get them all together this weekend to bring you fresh posts starting Monday. I PROMISE!!!!

I leave you with this photo and back story. Have a great Thursday! -Alexis

We have a new dumpling place (Rickshaw) that opened up here near my work which everyone in the lab has been enjoying. The other day I decided to try one of their desert dumplings called a "Chocolate Soup Dumpling". I ordered 1 and the girl behind the register assured me they were delicious and then handed me a giant paper BIB! I gave her a scared look and she told me that they are hot and melted inside and can cause a mess and since I was wearing a nice shirt she thought she should give me the bib. Needless to say I was nervous and once I put the bib on everyone in the lunch room was very interested in what I was about to do. So much so that Suzan got out her camera. She took a whole series of shots which may make a nice movie but I will spare you (and me the embarrassment). When I bit into the dumpling the filling squirted out the other end onto the bib. It was a mess but very entertaining for everyone. There is talk of a chocolate dumpling eating contest in the near future but I am opting out of that one! Oh, and I couldn't waste all that perfectly good chocolate so I ate it off the bib with my finger. It was yummy!