…and I missed it! Apparently this treasury (that link will be good until about 9 p.m. Eastern today — sorry, can’t save a screenshot at work) made it to the front page sometime last night. I only figured it out because I was seeing who hearts me and noticed dozens of new hearts since yesterday, which seemed odd considering that I haven’t updated my shop in ages. So I started snooping around the treasury, saw a little gold star and surmised from comments on a treasury curated by spaceoddities (featuring one of my photography prints) that it had been on the front page last night! Which was the first time anything from my avenuehandmade shop (I was on the front page once in my old shop) has been there (that I know of). I’m bummed that I didn’t get to see it, but still…YAY!

Also yay: I’m off to Kentucky tonight for the wedding of some dear, dear friends. It should be a trashy-fun hoedown of the highest class. Perhaps I’ll have pictures next week. Happy early Memorial Day to my American readers! Aaaannnd I’m out. Peace.

• More often than not, having a yard sale is more trouble than it’s worth.
• I like how satin-y my car looks/feels on the rare occasions that I wax it.
• It is now officially too hot in Florida for outdoor craft shows.
• I wish processed meat wasn’t so scary, cause I do love me a sandwich stuffed with cold cuts.
• The grass is always greener over the septic tank.
• Watching your boss and co-workers sing karaoke = ridiculously funny.
• Singing karaoke with a co-worker = embarrassingly funny.
• People change, and sometimes you just have to let them.
• A weekend in which you get up before 7 a.m. every day is not really a weekend.

Tom Waits is going on tour. (You should click that link, it’s a funny video.) He’s playing one date in Florida — Jacksonville, my hometown.  On July 1st, two days before my birthday.

Tickets are eighty-five effing bones.

Sad Avery.

Last Friday was payday for my co-breadwinner and me. So naturally, when I logged on to our bank account, I was expecting to see a balance approximately 16x greater than its pre-payday level. Imagine my surprise when the amount was more like 30x increased. The substantial deposit was explained by one line, “IRS Tax Refund.” Woohoo! Free* money!

No matter how badly I want an iPhone, we’ve already put our stimulus package (teehee) in our *yawn* savings account. I know, I know, that’s probably not what the guv’mint had in mind when they said “stimulate,” but since our savings account is a.k.a. “the Beckendorf home-buying fund,” in the end I figure we’ll be contributing the biggest stimulus of our short lives to the economy. So there. But I do still really want an iPhone.

* [I am fully aware that funds the government "gives" us are not actually "gifts" and are far from "free," but I'll spare you my rant about the taxation system. "Free money" is just what I always say about unexpected income, whether earned or not. If it's not written down in our budget, it's free money! For example, I return something I bought on debit for a cash refund = free money. Or (true story) I see a wad of bills near the curb while driving along Virginia Drive, stop, see that it's four twenties, can't see a soul to whom it could belong, realize the apartments behind me are probably crack houses and pocket the cash = free money.]

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and now that I finally have a tent and am getting my act together with my display for craft shows, it seemed high time that I have a sign of some sort. So I chopped up a bunch of my vintage pillowcases and stitched them onto some linen fabric, and this is what I ended up with:

I printed the letters about 8″ high on paper and cut them out to use as patterns and zig-zag stitched them onto the linen. (The “.com” is cut out of felt.) It was a pretty time-consuming project, but I’m really happy with how it turned out, so it was worth it. I even like how hectic all the different patterns look — I think it makes you have to look closer at it.

Obviously a few 8-inch letters didn’t use up an entire pillowcase, so I used some of the remaining fabric to make some bunting (I think that’s what it’s called — or pennants?). I just cut out a bunch of triangles with pinking shears and stitched them to three different lengths of ric-rac. At my last craft show I strung them along three sides of my tent and got lots of compliments on them. But before that I hung them up in a tree and spent an afternoon staring at them from the pool. They’re really happy to look at.

Every day, a roundup of wonderful things from the CRAFT: blog arrives in my Gmail inbox. Every day, I scroll through this list ooh-ing and aah-ing at the marvelous things people make and make mental notes of all the sweet tutorials I want to try. And then I move on to the next e-mail and instantly forget all about those tutorials (a.k.a. future projects). Such is my life.

This is why I send myself text messages, why I have half a dozen little journals and notebooks in various purses, couch corners and glove boxes, and it’s why I use del.icio.us like a fiend — because I can’t be trusted to remember little things like this, no matter how badly I want to keep them in my mind. I can remember what I wore (down to the jewelry and shoes) to work on a Friday a month ago, and what I had for lunch that day. I can mentally keep track of my hours at work for weeks at a time, remember which day I skipped lunch, which day I took a longer lunch, etc. But I can’t remember who had that rad lunchbox tutorial, or the cute eight-dollar dress how-to.

So I’m setting up a new blog category of things to do: Future Projects. I’m going to post to it every time one of these rad things catches my eye in the CRAFT blog or elsewhere, and then I can see all of them in one place when I’m looking for something new to do. And, of course, I can post my results and progress as I check items off the list. Without further ado, I give you part one:

• Simple Camera Case
• Reusable Sandwich Wrap
• Sugar Scrub
• Shopping Tote
• Or this Fold-Up Shopping Tote
• Swirly Wrap Skirt
• When I get super-ambitious: Patchwork Wool Blanket
• Pretty Checkbook Cover
• Little Boxy Pouch

Perhaps you, like me, are a sucker for vintage jars, especially the kind with these latch-able glass lids. Or maybe it’s just me. But I seriously love these jars; I have them in about four sizes. OK, so I kind of love any jar with a lid, but I have a special place in my heart for these ones with the latches. Continue reading →

The professional did a professional job. I am a satisfied customer. I think I would’ve started paying people to cut my hair a long time ago if I had known about the SCALP MASSAGE. Holy goodness. Well worth the money. One more picture after the jump. Continue reading →