I Am So Not BLUE

If Your Favorite Color is BLUE...you are conservative, reliable and trustworthy!

Oh, Whoa!!!  I AM conservative, reliable and trustworthy...but BLUE is not my Favorite Color.

Having a personality color BLUE means you have a deep need

 for peace and harmony in your everyday life.

Not a 'Deep Need', but some peace and harmony is always welcome!



You don't like to draw attention to yourself...you prefer to be in the background.

Uh...No...somehow my background self ends up 'Front and Center' of attention.

As a personality color blue, you are sentimental and love things from the past. 

Okay, now we are talking!  I'm positive this is a trait for RED, too!

How else can I justify and call myself a BLUE and RED Button Collector?



When I am into RED WHITE and BLUE Button Jewelry Making!!!!

Okay...So I am a Little Bit BLUE!!!

Linking To

Smiling Sally's BLUE MONDAY

Oh My Luckyday Mop Buttons

Have you noticed how 'Collectors' have their own 'Lingo' when describing their particular treasures?  I have discovered that to be so in the 'Button World'.

As a 'DNA Collector' of Buttons, I have never been much of a discriminatory button picker, although, as a 1930-1940 Fabric Collector, I am drawn to the buttons of that era as well.  Many of the buttons of that time are referred to as 'MOP' buttons and the 'Card' condition as being 'Pushed'.



I don't about you, but  mop and pushed in the same sentence did not strike me as anything to do with buttons.  No SireeeBob, not one button did I think of while wringing out that PineSol dirty water, stringy gross mop that when done pushing it across Mama's kitchen floor it hung on the rusty 'T' pipe that held three strands of galvanized wire chocked full of wooden spring loaded clothes pins where Dad's starched to the nines western shirts and our Peter Pan collared blouses with their mother of pearl buttons flapped in the West Texas wind.

Nope, not a thought to those Mother Of Pearl buttons....except Mama's warning..."Sue, be careful not to break those buttons in the wringer.  They are made of Mother of Pearl."

Yep, today was a 'Luckyday'...thanks to a 'Pushed' card of 'MOP' buttons!

Oh, and a Mama who believed in PineSol, Stringy Mops, Wringer Washers, Clothes Lines

and Luckyday Genuine Mother of Pearl Buttons.


MOP...Mother of Pearl

Pushed Card...Rounded corners-worn edges.

Value...BackInThe Day~10cents....Today on Ebay~10dollars

My MOP Memories...PRICELESS!!!

Linking To

Pink Saturday at How Sweet The Sound

Wordless Wed...Old Dog New Picks

The Garden...THE DOG....The Produce!

The Cost?

PRICELESS!!!!

Lure's of An Old Tackle Box

I have been known to tell some Fishin'Whoppers in my time, and you may think this is going to be another one, but this time the truth is about more of my UseIt or LoseIt  Collectible DeStashing.  About this time every year, I get the urge to go fishing.  You know...with a pole and worms! 

I make it a practice to start each fishing season with a well supplied, organized and clean Tackle Box.  It's been several years since the last fishing outing, and no 'whopper', it was not easy finding all the 'Stuff/Tackle' for this years 'Catfish Catching Fever'.

Okay, I have been reeling you in and baiting your interest with all this 'Fishing Talk', but here's the real jest of this post.....I have been tackling my Jewelry Tackle Boxes!

It's another collector/ hoarders dream nightmare of beads, charms, wire, findings, vintage broaches, broken necklaces, more beads, pieces and parts of this and that and have I mentioned beads.  You get the picture!

Now picture this....I am hooked again on designing, repurposing and making jewelry.  My intention was to organize it all to sell.  HA!  Now, I'm full blown into browsing PINTEREST, ordering off Amazon and updating 'Findings'.  It's another 'OverDoSue' Thingy, but boy, is it fun!

 Designer Lure's....Vintage Silver Jeweled Fish pin, Abalone Shell earring,

Oyster Baroque Pearls, Amber Swarovski Crystals and InVogue silver spacers and Clasp.

I cured my Catfish Catching Fever with a trip to the grocery store.

Whopping good price and eating...cheaper than gearing up and buying worms!

BUTTONS...Basic To Human Psyche

In the last few years, I have agonized over downsizing my collections. Although it has been painful to let go, it has also been liberating. I was sure I could not live without the yards and yards of my 'Fabric Stash', but I have, and the upside of that has been twofold...dollars and space.

On the 'Liberation Front', enough time has passed that I can confess to being beyond my 20 year 'Longarm Addiction'.  Yep, 'QuiltALottie' has left the Studio' for a new home and a new owner with LotsAQuilts to quilt.

Talk about making SPACE...the studio space has doubled with the selling of the longarm quilting machine.  So LIBERATING!  Now I have room to spread out the 'BUTTON COLLECTION'. 

I know, it's swapping one addiction for another, but honestly, I have been a 'ButtonAholic' since childhood.  I've learned that it's in my DNA since discovering my grandmother Minnie's 'Button Collection' mixed in with my Mother's 'Button Collection'.

According to the National Button Society, households have long followed the practice of snipping buttons from clothing headed for the rag bag.

 "The impulse to collect is a basic part of the human psyche."

I can not tell you how LIBERATING that statement is to my psyche.  To know that it is not an addiction, but a normal thing to scrounge through ragbags, to rifle through thrift store clothes racks with snippers and be tempted to snatch and run when spying collectible buttons on strangers shirts.  I have no problem with people I know...I just snip and say..."You will just love the necklace and earrings I'll make from these buttons."  Then I give them a handful of safety pins.

Did you know a BEAD COLLECTION is a 'basic part of the human psyche', too?

Wordless Wed...BackInThe Day Self Portraits

Although I wasn't really starving 'BackInThe Days of GradSchool~1989',

it's a good thing I didn't count on selling 'Art' for Apples.

RETRO ReMake on Monday Monday

Monday, Monday, so good to me; Monday morning, it was all I hoped it would be.

Yep, it was all I hoped it would be. 

From the moment I found the glass pendant in a bag of jewelry to be re-purposed, I envisioned  a 'WireArt' bail (hanger).  It's original necklace strap was a black string...so not enough for this exquisite handblown piece with dichroic glass.
 

Dichroic glass first appeared in a few pieces of Roman glass from the 4th century and consists of a translucent glass containing colloidal gold and silver particles dispersed in the glass matrix.  In modern times a composite of non translucent micro layers of metals are produced in thin strips which fuses in...as the pendant...or to glass...as the beads.

It is a fun and creative process which I have had the opportunity to do in a jewelry making class.  Which takes me back to the RETRO aspect of this post and Monday Monday.  Yep, it's the 'Mama's and the Papa's' and 1966.

There you have it...a 'BackInThe Day' Monday Monday!!

Times Nine Proverbial Lazy Gal

A stitch in time saves nine.

I think of this old proverb when I drag out this needle point piece that I've worked on for at least NINE years.  The TIME part of the proverb I associate with how much time it has taken me to get this far, and how many more NINE billion stitches I have to go. 

Will I ever finish?  Yes!  I am almost there, but I reduced my TIME and SAVED myself some NINES.  Rather than a pillow, as the canvas was sized to be, it will soon be an insert for a wooden jewelry box. 

Won't it be a perfect place to keep these special earrings I've made from vintage blue buttons, antique silver beads and a needle workers charms?  I think so, too!

Now about the proverb and what it really means.  The 'stitch in time' is simply the sewing up of a small hole or tear in a piece of material, so saving the need for more stitching later when the hole has become larger.  The first users of this expression were referring to saving nine stitches.

The proverbial expression was meant as an incentive to the lazy.  Many English proverbs encourage immediate effort as superior to putting things off until later; example, 'one year's seeds, seven year's weeds', and 'the early bird catches the worm.'

Yikes, now I feel like a 'Times Nine Proverbial Lazy Gal'.

Linking To

.Smiling Sally's BLUE MONDAY

At The Chicken Farm Art Center's FIRST SATURDAY

Introducing SIMS FIBERARTS Studio

@The Chicken Farm Art Center

San Angelo, Texas

SIMS Specialty...SEWING...CLASSES...Signing Up...NOW!!!

SUE's Specialty...SELLING~Quilts~Threads~Fabric and MORE Stuff!!!

 

OPEN

 for

The Chicken Farm's

FIRST SATURDAY ART CELEBRATION

June 7, 2014

 



Wordless Wednesday....Look Don't Touch!

PRETTY N PINK...But PRICKLEY!!

How Does My Garden Grow? With Chimes...No Cockles!

 Mary Mary quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,

And pretty maids all in a Row

(most common modern version...oldest version printed in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book c. 1744)

Sounds pretty innocent...right? 

 I've always thought so and have quoted it to myself while tending my garden.

Not So...innocent that is...if you choose to believe one of the 1744 British interpretations.

It seems the rhyme is connected to Mary, Queen of Scotts, with

"how does your garden grow" referring to her reign over her realm.

"Silver Bells" referring to cathedral bells,

and "cockle shells" insinuating that her husband was unfaithful to her.

"Pretty maids all in a row" referred to her ladies-in waiting...'The Four Maries".

Poor Mary...as if being locked in a Tower and losing her 'Crownless Head' was not enough of a historical burden to bear forever.

Bless her heart, having to put up with a Cockled husband...actually several of them.

(History of Mary Queen of Scots on Wikipedia)

I do like the 'Pretty maids all in a row'.  That's what I call my Squash Plants.

Aren't they pretty...planted all in a row in the Veggie Garden Box?

 

They are blooming!  Maiden Squashes on the way...yay!

Do you think I'll have trouble with those pesky squash bugs?

I hope not, but to help, I planted rows of 'Pretty Maiden Marigolds'.

And just for extra measure...a Blue Dragonfly Chime!

Dragon Flies love squash bugs!
Linking To:
Smiling Sally's BLUE MONDAY