Mermaid Thoughts

Every now and then I just absolutely have to make something with a mermaid theme. It might be the end of summer where you live, but it’s still going strong here. Summer is always in my heart anyway and mermaids do not hibernate.

Over the span of a few years, I watched as Kim Antieau wrote her book Church Of The Old Mermaids and was thrilled when it became available this year in both print and Kindle versions. While reading one of her blogs (Old Mermaids Journal), I learned about the delightful 13 Suggestions from the Old Mermaids contributed by friends she calls Sister Mermaids.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

Since I’m pretty much a tactile kind of person and need to have something to actually touch, I made a set of the suggestions in sea shell form but am calling them Mermaid Thoughts.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

My husband drilled holes in the ends of two Lion’s Paw shells so I could tie them together.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

A picture of the shell was used to create my pages in Microsoft Word which I printed on cardstock. One side depicts a saying and the back is a shell image (you can see one of the backs on the top left in the picture below). Binding the pages together doesn’t appeal to me as I like the idea of them being free and wild (like mermaids). Open the shell case and out spill Mermaid Thoughts—just as they should.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

I added a thought of my own, making it an aggregate of 14 cards, feeling I shouldn’t just swim along mindlessly behind the other mermaids but put a bit of me into it, too. It’s presumptuous, but I crowned myself an unofficial Sister Mermaid.

Charitable Donations

Fall cleaning is underway at my house. Purging is part and parcel of my seasonal cleaning efforts. But what to do with all this stuff I decide must go?

Garage sales make me absolutely bonkers. I mark things down so much each item really ought to be gift-wrapped. But still I’ll get a request to lower my prices. For example, a brand-new-in-the-box $50 electric ice cream maker (we got two for gifts one time) was marked as $3 and someone insisted I sell it for $1. My response: “Well, how about $4?” See, that’s what I do, add in their offer to my original price—it flabbergasts people and they aren’t sure what to think. Obviously, I don’t deal at all well with garage sales.

Anyway, forget the garage sale. I can do something worthy with our stuff by making charitable donations. I made arrangements and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America came by on Friday, so that pile is now gone. A different charitable organization is selected each time the purging mood descends upon me.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

Now I’m purging my fabric and yarn stash. Yes, sacrilege, I know, but my enthusiasm for crafting has exceeded the bounds of realism. Thus the stuff has to go. There are charities that can use such things.

The joys of seasonal cleaning are all encompassing, aren’t they?

Resources

Here are but a few charities that welcome fabrics and yarns:

• Care Wear
• Charity Craft Volunteer Network
• CUREchief
• Project Linus
• Tips and Tricks for Donating Your Fabric article

Lingerie Bag in Black

I’ve finished the second of my two lingerie bags. The first one (found here) was stitched using white floss. Today’s finish is stitched in black.


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You know what I just realized in looking at the picture I took of my finished bag? If you look at it just right, it looks like a jack o’lantern face in a really strange kind of way. Just goes to show it doesn’t take much to make me smile and that my imagination is, shall we say, a bit different.

Resources

Although I listed them in my August post about working on this project, I’ll repeat the French sources of my materials and cross-stitch chart used for making the lingerie bags:

• Picque & Picque home page
• Picque & Picque lingerie bag
• Picque & Picque cross-stitch chart leaflet

Remembering and Learning

As everyone knows, today is the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We honor the memory of that day and the resulting huge loss of life.

At the time of the attacks, I was traveling for work and had just handed my ticket to the airline agent to board my plane home from Pensacola, Florida. As I started down the ramp, airport officials suddenly called for an immediate evacuation and the agent hustled me away from the plane.

Passengers streamed out of the airport doors, some boarding buses and private vehicles to leave as we were all directed to get away from the airport immediately. I had no transportation and had to take my luggage and sit in the median of the nearby highway.

I was panicked as to what to do and how to reach my husband and children. I couldn’t reach anyone at first via cell phone, but finally managed to connect with my mother who explained to me about the transpiring terrorist events.

Calling rental car agencies to try to drive home to Arizona didn't work, no cars were available. Buses and even Amtrak were packed and there was no room for me. Finally I called my mother-in-law and arranged to be picked up and taken to her house where I stayed two weeks until I could get a flight home.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved. This is a flag project my sister Connie was making in glass.

We remember the heartache of the losses and the terror over the events of 9/11—an infamous day in history and our lives were irrevocably changed. Most Americans have no idea what to do in the event of disaster—I certainly didn’t. We are not prepared, but we should be.

I’ve since learned about emergency planning and the preparation of a disaster kit. I cannot control the behavior of others, but I can somewhat mitigate my helplessness by being as responsibly prepared as possible.

Resources

The following is a brief list of emergency resources from a national level. Your state and local governmental plans drill down from the national point.

• Emergency Alert System at Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau
• Federal Emergency Management Agency
• National Terror Alert Emergency Preparedness

The Birthday Book

Today’s date is an interesting one—09/09/09; we won’t see such a repeating, single-digit date until 01/01/2101. Just a little trivia for you as it seems I’ve been awfully focused on calendars lately.

To add to my calendar obsession, I thought it would be nice to make perpetual birthday calendars for our family this year—something they can use year after year and even add to as needed. They’ll make nice stocking stuffers at Christmas.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

This is the cover of the first of the birthday books. I used pretty double-sided cardstock and layered the front and back covers with two different pieces. Each book will utilize different paper designs, but this cover gives you an example. The label is a free graphic offered by The Graphics Fairy to which I merely added the title.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

Inside is a page for each calendar month with recorded birthdays and room to add more—each page uses a different cardstock priint. I created the calendar pages on my computer using Microsoft Word. The edges were cut using my Creative Memories scallop paper cutter.


© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

This is the back of this birthday book. I used my Zutter Bind-it-all V2.0 machine to make the bindings.

Resources

While I opted just to create my own book by simply playing around until I had what I wanted, there are numerous tutorials, free printables, and other resources available for making such a project. Here are just a few.

• Mish Mash
• Birthday calendar download from Splitcoaststampers
• Birthday calendar tutorial
• Blank calendar templates (some are old, but you’ll find a monthly template you can use)
• JustRite Perpetual Special Occasions Calendar
• Perpetual Birthday Calendar from A Page At A Time blog
• The Graphics Fairy
• Zutter Bind-it-All

Manicure Kits

Over the weekend I sewed five little manicure kit covers using a cute tutorial written by dhbuscher.com and featured on One Pretty Thing.

© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

The easy tutorial makes for a project that works up quite quickly. Four kits were made with bits of leftover fabric from my Tiffany's project to give as gifts; one of which will be added to Connie’s gift basket.

© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

I also made one for Carolyn’s Chanel gift basket. My interfacing is Timtex which I’ve been hoarding since it’s no longer manufactured, so these kits are certainly hardy little things.

My sisters will love these little manicure kits and the extra ones I made will make for nice little gifts for others.

Labor Day Blogiversary Giveaway Winner

Happy Labor Day to everyone! For most of us, it’s the symbolic end of summer. Generally it means a day of rest and end-of-summer picnics and that’s what we’re doing at our house today.

To capture the beginning of autumn colors, I offered a small portable watercolor painting set giveaway on Friday. The lucky name drawn out of my mythical (number generator) hat is …

… Kim of Midwest Musings. Kim, please email me with your mailing address so I can get my package out to you.

Thank you everyone for sharing your fall inspirations, just reading them inspires me to look at the world around me in different ways.