shoes and ships...

trading spaces

a few months ago, my sister's neighbor approached her about them sending an application together - just for fun - to trading spaces to see what would happen.

what happened? 

er, you can tune into trading spaces tomorrow (june 25th) to see.  my sister hasn't seen the episode herself yet and is (to put it mildly) not looking forward to seeing how she is portrayed on national television.  will her pure shock and loathing of the completed room, utter disappointment at the total disregard for her own preferences, sheer disbelief at the ego of one of the designers make it to the silver screen?  that's maybe ok, but will she come across as the evil, difficult to deal with homeowner?  while ellen is dreading the airdate, i find myself once again cursing the fact that i live so far away and will have to find out all about it second hand, after the fact. 

if you happen to see it, please drop me a line and tell me what you thought, ok? 

home sweet home

i like old things.  i grew up with a house full of inherited furniture and garage sale finds.  old houses.  houses with faulty plumbing, peeling paint and lots of character.  homey houses. 

it's not that i hate all new houses.  some are great, and believe me, now that i own a house of my own the appeal of living someplace where everything is new and works is not lost on me. 

but generally speaking, when e and i are out going to open houses (right now just for fun since we cant afford to move, but keeping a finger on the pulse anyway because you never know...) we generally don't even bother visiting places that were built in the last 50 or so years.  it's just not us.

so when i saw this ad in the back of a magazine recently i fell instantly in love.  just our style.  i couldn't believe it when i saw that the ad was for swedish pre-fabricated houses.  i had no idea.  prefab?? prefab now looks like THIS???

fabulous felt strikes again

ooh do i ever wish i did this first!

the fabulous michaela cajvan bernadi.  via daily candy.

maybe this will help

"how to be creative" = wise and clever and funny.  via melody.

world café

normally, delayed flights are not something i am pleased about for many reasons, not least the additional time killing i inevitably do in the shops and spend money that i almost always later regret.  not so this week.  my time killing at the airport ended up being directly responsible for my discovery of a great line of music cds previously unknown to me.  did you all know about the putumayo collections?  have you been holding out on me???

apparrently they've been around for about 10 years or so but you could have fooled me.  they have dozens of collection CDs mostly by artists all over the world that it's unlikely i ever would have heard of if not for the introduction by putumayo.  each CD follows a theme:  world covers (think ladysmith black mambazo covering "ain't no sunshine"), sahara lounge (middle eastern type music remixed - very cool), samba, salsa, african...  it just goes on and on.  i went a little crazy and bought several - the world covers, dreamland (quiet songs from all over the world that double as lullabyes), a kids sing along which i love, and one more which escapes me right now.

they have a neat website too...

stuck

it's felt forced to post lately, and i end up deleting what i've written because it all feels so pointless.  the idea of this blog was to share fun things i see online, share some of the fun things i like to make myself, and also i was hoping it would serve as a prompter for me to be more productive with my crafts.  as much as i love to make things, i find i procrastinate even with that.  which is odd. 

but today i am sad.  but not even sad - more like empty.  my creative well is dry at the moment.  i've been feeling a little trapped in my life.  a little hopeless about the future (i hate even writing that.  hopeless?  how can it be hopeless??  its up to me!  and yet...).  i am at a crossroads - an important one - and find myself paralysed. completely unable to make a move either to the right or to the left. 

i know that it's less important what you choose, just that you choose.  something. anything. and work with it. i know this.  i have always known this. i would be able to offer a friend great advice about this. 

but i can't.  i'm stuck.  i've been stuck for a long time.  and i am afraid that this is all i will ever be.