Well, I’m off to Banff now for a few months. I’m taking the rest of the fun fur to finish the craft fair scarves. I’m leaving 9 finished ones behind, and I’m not sure how many balls I’m taking. A lot, let’s leave it at that.
I really wanted to take some other craft supplies; I signed up for a swap on the Canadian Altered Books Yahoo!Group. I had to drop out, I finished packing and there is not the tiniest sliver of room for anything else. Especially glue and paint. So my craftiness these next few months will be limited to knitting dead muppet scarves.

I have found the ultimate thing to do while knitting: usually I watch TV, but I miss things because I look at my knitting. Now, I have the magic of audiobooks. I have Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, and I’ve also subscribed to Audible Proops. JS&MN is great to fall asleep to, but I tend to drift off in the good bits.

If the hotel has wireless internet, you’ll hear from me soon. If it doesn’t, you won’t.

I had my workshop today with Suzanne Cannon; Niches and Drawers. I had so much fun! Most of the ladies there were about 20 years older than me, but that was fine. Many of them were scrapbookers, and brought tons of supplies. I can see how this could become addictive, and so could buying all the fun little things.
The niche was easy, I didn’t have anything 3D on me that I really wanted to put in, so I kept it fairly shallow. Island Blue had supplied some thingys for us, I put a page pebble (clear raised plastic sticker) and a fancy brad on mine, along with some ripped up bits of the pages I took out (some slightly gilded). In the niche is a picture I liked from the book, coloured in a little bit with a calligraphy marker.

The way I decided to do my drawers made everyone thing I was insane. Her instructions were to make a drawer out of cardstock, and then cut a hole to fit it. While doing this, I realised that if you cut neatly, and keep all the bits of pages together and glue them, you can cut a drawer out of the chunck of stuff you got out. You need to be really neat though, and no one there could believe I had the patience for it, or that I could actually cut that neatly. I love it.

I only did the one book, even though I brought three. I still haven’t decided what to do with the field flower guide, I either want to do a deep niche and put a little 3D butterfly in (on a suitably nice flower drawing, of course) or I had this idea about covering boxes in book pages…. who knows.

I’m just brimming with ideas for this new craft. It’s sad I’m going away next week, and won’t really be able to bring all the stuff with me. Tuesday I am going to Wells Books again, to stock up. One of the ladies there was visiting from Vancouver, and she is going home with 200lbs of books from Wells. I hope there’s still some left!

Wells Books (a local used bookstore) is closing soon, and has 70% off everything. I got 3 very nice books, older ones, and interesting. I got ‘Odd Craft’ just because altering books is and odd craft. The red one is Pickwick Papers and has the most beautiful Art Nouveau end papers (see below). I would feel bad about cutting it up, only it was just $1.00, before the the 70% discount. The green is a wild flower identification guide, with lots of nice drawings of flowers.
Obviously ex-library, just with discrete stamps, and no real damage. I think I’ll go back there during the course, it’s in the next block, and by then I’ll know if I want to do more, and if the course is what I was expecting.

I explained to the lady at the bookstore what I was doing, and asked if she had any wrecked books, or bits, and she had a little pile of covers that had fallen off other ones. I got two matching ones (not a pair from one book, the cover from each of two books that are the same). She threw them in for free with the books, so my total came to… $5.10.

To combat my being bored out of my skull until I leave for Banff, I signed up for a class at a local art store. I needed some photocopying done, and they have a ‘reprographics’ part of the store, so while I was waiting I was wandering around. I got so inspired! I’ve always loved small colourful things, and boxes with compartments to put small colourful things in, which is why I love crafting; it gives me an excuse for my obsession. I want to learn to paint now too, but that can wait until I come back in August. The class I signedup for is an altered books class.
I found the instructor’s website, I’m doing this one. the niches and drawers. I’ve had all sorts of ideas, and a possible plan of more things to sell at the craft fair in November.
I have also been reading this thread at Craftster, and decided I need a hand-crank drill and one of those Xyron machines. I almost bought one of those when I was working at Michaels. I should’ve.