poking about in my drawers (not THOSE drawers)

at blog camp, we talked quite a lot about the many drawers in this house. and to be honest, i'd never thought that much about it before. but with three different units that used to stand a little shop somewhere, we do have an awful lot of drawers around here.  the drawer unit above stands in the famed blue room and is in the worst shape. it needs a serious renovation. as you can see, two of the drawers aren't even in it. they're in husband's workshop, waiting to be fixed. but frankly the other drawers aren't that far behind. the knobs don't stay in and often, i have to get the drawer below open and reach up to open the one above. but it serves its purpose, which is the storage of mostly pretty paper.  the blog campers got to partake of the abundance, so they can vouch for how much is there (a totally obscene amount, i admit).

anyway, i promised marie-thérèse that i would give you a peek inside the drawers:

 1 drawer of pretty paper

 one drawer full of paint and painting supplies

 one drawer full of embellishments and alphabets

drawer #2 of pretty paper

 glue gun and various die cutting tools.

and a bar of soap i intend to felt at some point.

 drawer #3 of pretty paper

 oh look, more pretty paper.

what a surprise - pretty paper.

 and drawer #4 of pretty paper.

various miscellaneous goodies.
beeswax for encaustic work, old iPod boxes, etc.

there's also a year's worth of starbucks sleeves.

they would make a great little mini-book, you know.

one drawer is full of CDs (lounge and chill, of course).
and somehow i missed getting pix of the one w/gocco cards, zip-locs and tape.
mmm, tape.

and as for those blue fabric boxes in the drawer holes, one is full of gocco bulbs & screens and the other is sabin's stuff - pipe cleaners, felting supplies and perleplader (for those beads that you iron).

sorting diversions

i've spent the past hour sorting my scrap stash (no, i'm definitely not procrastinating, why do you say that?). and i discovered a few things.

a minor addiction to sassafrass lass products:

enough cool halloween-related stuff to make some decorations for sabin's upcoming halloween party:

and along the lines of sorting, i keep seeing sorted books stories in the blogosphere and so i had to give it a whirl. (no, i'm NOT procrastinating, why DO you keep saying that?)

first attempt:

and then this one:

and one more, i couldn't resist using "before i forget" again, it just starts things off so well:

you should give it a try too. i suspect it could get a bit addictive.

and i offer one more small diversion. an article about diagramming sarah palin's sentences. it's a doozy! :-)

so much for living a more intellectual life, eh?

on stashing the stash and never actually using the stash

my scrap stash continues to grow and i still don't really use any of it, except to make the occasional card. why is that? what is it that drives me to buy pretty paper and embellishments like a woman possessed? and why don't i sit down and use it? some of it comes in kits i subscribe to, some from shopping online, others from visits to craft and scrap stores.

speaking of scrap stores, the one i know and like best, scrapshop.dk, in roskilde, is closing at the end of this month! so, yesterday, i went there and finally bought that QuicKutz squeeze in pink that i've had my eye on for a long time. i've managed to restrain from going back today. i also stocked up on bazzil basics paper, since i find myself using that as the base whenever i make cards. i also discovered another scrap store in høje taastrup--dream papers--but didn't get to properly explore, as the woman who owned it was on her way to a craft show in sweden and had everything packed up. i did score a couple of sassafrass lass robots papers and one of the sets of owl stamps, also from sassafrass lass. i'm still obsessed with owls. i discovered that shop through this fun blog, the first blog friend i've made who actually lives in the same country as me! :-) imagine that!

my dozens kit also came yesterday. it has some super fun little pink plastic alfas by heidi swapp. they may be what makes me scrap something. i got my label tulip kit this week as well and it has some inspiring bits in it--especially a prima adhesive black felt that looks like a city skyline. i love that so much i put it on the inspiration board beside my desk.

best of all, at the scrapshop, i finally scored one of those little 7 gypsies ATC carousels. there's something about the playing-card size of ATCs that makes it seem less overwhelming than a big 30x30 sheet, so perhaps i'll find my scrap groove doing a few of those. it's a bit silly NOT to scrap when i have so much beautiful stuff to use and because i have tons of great pictures and i really enjoy the pretty paper--wouldn't i enjoy it all even more if i actually used it and had it right in front of me on the little card carousel? one would think so.

i think part of the problem for me is that scrapping is so about squarey edges and perfection, even when people are "distressing" their paper edges or ripping them, they do it just so, all perfecty, perfect. i feel constricted by that. and although i have lots of words in me, i freeze before the scrap page. i might have the perfect photo, and tons of cool ribbons and buttons, but then i never really know what to write in my journal spots (and believe me, i have lots of those) or what to write with my cool thickers and other alphabets. am i the only one who feels this way? in love with the supplies, but paralyzed before them?

does anyone else have issues like this? do you also collect and collect art supplies and then finger them lovingly and look at them, but not really use them? how can we get started? maybe if we promised one another to make and share something, that would kickstart things? anybody up for that?

coolest kits

i found the coolest scrapbooking kits yet on, yes, of course, etsy. it's a shop called sweet twee lab. no subscription like other kits, which is totally cool. and they're full of totally groovy, unique stuff. this is what scrapping kits should be!! i don't even have them yet, but i should get them this week. and then i'm gonna go totally crazy with creativity. here's what they look like:

b-sharp kit

sumday kit

and the owner of the shop was totally cool about shipping to me in denmark! so it's all around a very good experience and i haven't even gotten the goodies yet! but it means my mailman will be popular again this week!

incremental steps

at my painting class today i made great progress and here it is!! it's not finished by any means, as i haven't actually PAINTED on it yet. but, with shaking hands and a pounding heart, i ripped my beloved pretty papers. i think it was good for me, even tho' it felt strange at first. after my heart stopped pounding, it was quite fun to lay them all out and move them around on the large canvas until they seemed right. then i glued them down.

i began thinking that i wanted there to be a bunch of writing in between the pieces of paper. private journal-style writing. but when i started to think about what to write, quotes came out. some favorites that are simply in my head, but then a bunch of those i've been collecting in my little black books for ages. at first, i had intended to paint completely over the writing so that it can't be read, but as i began to scatter the quotes, it seems like now i want them to show, at least to an extent. i'm not finished yet, writing on it. and i've only thought about the painting. what i want to do is extend the pattern again with paint--sort of make the ripped paper whole again using paint. i think that i can learn something about mixing colors and also get to the bottom of what pleases me so much in these papers--what it is that gives me that feeling of molecular alignment .

maybe painting will be the thing that helps me through after all...

making it mine

my head was feeling heavy, but then strangely, everything began to seem clear. all of the struggle i've been having with the "creativity issue." i speed-wrote 4 pages in my journal about it. about my frustrations. about my love of pretty paper. and yarn. but of my inability to actually really DO anything with either one. there is something appealing simply about the acquisition, but that's not really what's been blocking the creativity. i think i've been blocking it myself...(imagine that).

what i failed to recognize (or admit) is that there is some part of me that craves order. although i am currently living in a torn-apart house (building project) and many of my belongings are in boxes, i don't really like chaos. i make lists, for god's sake, of course i like order, why didn't i see this before? (husband said i wasn't ready.) i actually really like having a frame within which i work..and create, as it turns out. which i suppose is why knitting is appealing--that's VERY organized--i just need some help from an experienced knitter (or two) to get rolling on that and it will come.

but, my painting class has been a bit of a source of frustration to me, since i feel i can't adequately let go when i'm there. it was worst the first week. i've done a bit better since then. but last week, one of the other people in the course told me that i just needed to "slip hestene løs." basically, i just need to let go of whatever it is i'm clinging to...and that seems to be the frames. those blank canvases stretch before me in a WAY too wide-open, intimidating manner. the possibilities are limitless and some core part of me wants limits. i would like someone to say, today, we paint fish. and then i could contentedly paint fish like crazy. fantasy fish. colorful fish. fish that don't exist in nature. fish like you've never seen. but to stand there and say, "hey, self, what do you fancy painting today?" that's totally paralyzing.

same with the scrapping. i adore the supplies. the pretty paper makes my heart sing and my molecules align. but to imagine cutting it, or worse yet...ripping it! no, don't make me do that. it's because it's not mine--metaphorically speaking, it's mine, i've paid for it (tho' most of it was on massive sale or bought with the very low dollar--and i can show you the money i saved, husband, don't worry).

what i've been good at, creatively-speaking, is taking someone else's idea and making it mine. like when i painted the wooden stools for our little bitty apartment on elmelundevej. i took the shapes from the matisse paper cut-out poster hanging in the living room. i chose my own colors, i made custom stencils and i painted colorful, wonderful stools. it was a creative act, but not a wholly original act. and that was OK!!!

or when i painted 63 little viking ships around our dining room on baldersgade. they were lovely. and they were an adaptation of a little ship from my big world of art coffee table book. again, an original twist on something that i didn't originate. but totally creative. and wholly mine in the end.

so, what i need to do is find MY interpretation of scrapbooking. what attracts me are the supplies (have i mentioned that i love those pretty papers?), the notion of preserving memories (that whole nature of memory thing has been a preoccupation of mine for years...it's there in the choices of what i read and i would have written my dissertation on it had i gotten around to writing one), and actually, the camaraderie that seems to surround it (even if it's only in cyberspace). but why it's been so hard is that it hasn't felt like MINE. i'm trying to do someone else's thing. i need to stop that and do MY thing.

same with the painting. tho', i've made a modicum of progress there. i've at least been experimenting with color and brush strokes and not trying paint a picture per se. what i need to do there is take the prettiest of my pretty papers, glue them to the damn canvas (preferably after having the heart to rip them a bit) and then paint off of them. try to dig into what it is that makes my molecules align and hum in perfect pitch (which i swear happens with the best of those pretty papers--basic grey biology, i mean you) and try to create it MYSELF on the canvas. combine the things that have been preoccupying me and make them mine.

i can do this. all it took was recognizing what it was i needed to do and letting go of all the angst. excuse me while i go make a list now of the things i need to bring to painting class tomorrow...

pretty papers

most of my pretty papers have come. and still my favorite one, the one that aligns all of my molecules and makes them hum in perfect pitch, is the one that's behind our new banner on our common blog (just know where you are...) basic grey's biology. i love that one.

it was a lovely day today. valentine's day, perhaps that's why it just generally feels good. went to the national museum with sabin. although all of the other people there were either aggressively perfect families (2.5 children, bright blue eyes, long lashes, the right clothes) or single moms out with their kids and their new boyfriends (who were trying valiantly to pretend it was ok with the snot-nosed brats who were crawling in among the mummies) or the grandparents who were near the end of their ropes, entertaining 5-year-old oliver for the 5th day in row...we had a great day. sabin fell madly for the sun chariot, an artifact from 1500 BC (or something like that), found in a field in Denmark here at the beginning of the last century. she asked questions and then didn't want to see any more of the museum, but wanted to go sit in the cafe and try to draw it in her new art notepad (who could argue with that?)

eventually, we came home and made gorgeous filet mignons for dinner, along with some of those yummy green beans i make with bacon, onion and almonds. we had a salad of spinach and mango (that makes us talk SILLY) to go with. and then the gorgeous (i can't make that look spelled right) chocolates husband brought home for valentine's day (along with flowers). with a bottle of south african pinotage (spiers, of course, we've been there!). it was a great evening.

anyway, back to the pretty papers...i'm sure the second to last one will come tomorrow. it just has to!! :-)

sabin's creations

sabin is totally getting into the scrapbooking scene as well. this weekend, we put together a front and back cover for an 8x8 book for her and she made 3 pages for the book. she's so fearless and was totally enamoured of the fun ribbons i got at the scrap shop in roskilde. we've gotta go back there! it's so much fun, working on pages with her because she totally dives right in. i'm becoming more patient and less in need of solitude with the creativity, so i'm enjoying it a lot more that she wants to sit beside me and try everything. it's wonderful!

fun pages

i made these two pages this weekend, using some of the fab new supplies i got from scrapbook express on friday! the top one is still some of the amy butler papers i was able to buy here in denmark. but, the bottom one is love, elsie letters, 7 gypsies papers, and shiny chipboard buttons. i am totally in love with these colors.

it was fun to think of all of the good things that happened in 2007. i had a much longer list and managed to narrow it to this top 7. but, it seemed like a healthy exercise to look back on all of the great things. i think i probably have to make another page--sort of a take 2--as many very good things were left off this one, like:

1. time spent at buresø
2. cape town in november
3. gorgeous beads i bought in cape town in november
4. hugo boss suit
5. the silver ring i got from husband for christmas
6. my chunky pilgrim drama necklace
7. leaving maersk
8. being headhunted
9. the great people i worked with (irene, jacqui, richard, claus, merel, alison, kerttu, monica (x2), michael, møller, jens, all of the guys and girls from headstrong, jari, tomas, erling, henk, søren, i could go on and on...)
10. our super-charged eLearning workshops

it feels really good to look back on all of the good things and it's something that one should do on a regular basis...to be conscious about what's great in life and what's making you tick, instead of focusing on the negatives.

life really is good! especially when i'm feeling in the creative zone.

new banner

i'm so inspired by my new scrapbooking papers that i had to make a new banner for the blog. i tried using the printer/scanner to get it onto the computer. i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. i used paper from basic grey's scarlett's letter collection and some letters from their perhaps collection. i actually had a hard time falling asleep last night, because i was thinking about all of the gorgeous papers and little bits and bobs that i can use to be creative. it makes me happy, just looking at them all there on my crafty table. i'm really anxious for the rest of the stuff i've ordered to arrive! it will all come this week and then i'll be unstoppably creative.