I Should Have Been a Librarian....

I just realized today that there are books for sale on Etsy. Now this could help solve a big problem I'm having. See, my daughter in Portland, Oregon wants me to move there, something like 1400 miles away! Nothing much left to keep me in Kansas, folks are gone and my son in Kansas City is planning on moving to Washington (the state) in the near future. So I'm all for it EXCEPT that I have so many "treasures" and I just can't afford to move all of them. Books are heavy and if there's a market for them they would be a good thing to weed out.

So most of the afternoon I spent on Biblio.com, checking out the going prices on some books. I have probably close to 300 cookbooks and maybe 100 craft books and this isn't counting paperbacks. I pulled a pretty big stack out of this one bookcase and set it on the floor beside my computer desk and started going through them, putting the ones that I was going to list in one pile and the ones I couldn't part with in another. Well, one pile ended up pretty big and the other not so much. Guess which way it went? Yeah, out of about 30 books I had weeded out 5! Plus I kept getting sidetracked looking through the books, finding recipes I wanted to try and getting pretty hungry in the process.

I wasn't making much progress with the cookbooks so I went and got an armful of craft books from my work room. I picked the ones that were mostly sewing thinking I'd be better at getting rid of them as I'm not that crazy about sewing. Hell, I've glued hems up before and the last time I actually cut out a pattern and made something to wear was a jester costume for Halloween and that was probably 20 years ago!

I did a lot better this time but it was hard, really hard to give up my dreams of the patchwork quilt I've planned to make for the last 30 years, the applique wall hanging that's so outdated that it's back in style again and....on and on....

I know I'll be able to find whatever I want on the internet but it won't be the same to me. There's just something about holding an oversized book on my lap and flipping through the pages, the beautiful photographs catching my eye on the way by, going back and finding the page and then sticking a scrap of paper in the pages of the ones that I'll make "someday". And it doesn't really bother me that there are so many that I'd never have the time to get to all of them if I lived to be 200 years old. It's the same kind of feeling that I get looking through all of the seed catalogs in the middle of winter, if I actually ever bought and planted all that I want in those catalogs I'd have to be living on a farm, a big farm. It's all about possibilities.

I'll go back to "weeding" tomorrow. Maybe it will get easier the more I do it.

Crafting Supplies on the Cheap

Like most crafters, I like to find the least expensive (cheap!) way to support my habit. It gets pretty costly, as you all know, to feed the itch to "create". One way I help keep the cost down is to look for supplies in places that aren't commonly known for having crafting supplies. One of those just happens to be the fishing aisle at a certain discount store.

The other day I was wanting to make some braided necklaces and the only cording I had was either too thin or way too thick. So off I went to WallyWorld, thinking I could find some black twine in their hardwares section. I was having trouble finding where their rope was, go figure!, it's never the same place twice! So I found an actual employee (woo hoo!) and asked if she knew where they had twine. She happened to be the person that worked the sporting goods section and took me right to a display set up for catfishing. I was only wanting black cord to begin with but once I saw the pink and yellow, well, they'll go together soooo well! Plus the ball of neutral color will work well for another project I've had in mind.

The rolls of colored twine are 260 ft. of #18 twisted nylon and the ball of neutral is 180 ft. of #48 cotton/polyester. All of them were $1.97 each! Pretty good price, I thought. While I mostly use hemp cord because I like the natural aspect of it, a roll of it similar to the ball of cotton/polyester is close to $5.00. Besides, I really think the neon colors are so cool! But that may just be the retro coming out in me....

Photo Prep Tip

Here's a little tip to get rid of lint or cat hair or whatever off of your background when setting up to take photos. I like to use dark backgrounds and they show everything! It doesn't help that I have a cat that thinks that the desk I've set up as my "studio" is the perfect spot for a nap.... Just take masking tape and hold a little piece between your first two fingers and wrap it around your hand a couple of times with the sticky part to the outside. Don't wrap too tightly! That way you can release the part between your fingers and it'll roll as you brush across the fabric. Or you can just pat the fabric and when one side gets to where it's not picking anything up, just slide it around on your hand and use the other side. I go through a lot of tape but it sure beats trying to edit out a spot of fuzz or that darn cat's hair. This works great on your dark clothes also!