Busy, Busy, Busy!

Well a lot has happened since Easter...

I got a haircut
The crop in Orange
Running errands galore!
Getting the car ready for a road trip next month
Swaps!
A little bit of shopping

And NO BLOGGING!

A friend sent this & I couldn't resist sharing! ;)


Have YOU seen any funny craft related cartoons lately? Would you mind sharing them?

:)

Pam Hoffman

Happy Easter All You Rabbits Out There!

Royalty Over the Rainbow

What an amazing adventure participating in Scrapbook Royalty's "Royalty Over the Rainbow" last weekend!

I'm especially grateful to Elena & Nanci for enabling me to be there:

Nanci & Elena

I got to try out new techniques I never tried before...

Like altering pages in a book by painting on them and sewing on them, right in the book!


...and creating ribbon layered hearts of felt (in Rainbow colors!)


Thanks to Cheryl, pounding into damp chipboard with special tools!

The food, by Zele, was wonderful and rejuvenating, all catered. It's Royalty alright!

I stayed up all night and enjoyed the peace and quiet and productivity without distractions.

Lots of people were there and art for sale, a silent auction and craft supplies galore!










Almost forgot, the goody bag, bucket w/tools, the Fairy Flybys!!! So wonderful. It's too much to put into a blog post. You gotta join us some day!

Have you been on a crafts retreat? Has it been awhile? Check out Scrapbook Royalty for ways to get away AND do good at the same time!

Pam Hoffman

I got a LOT done at this retreat!

I Made a Commitment!

I am a Wardrobe ReFashioner!



Here's the official pledge:

I __________________ pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 / 4 / 6 months. I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that my thriftiness brings! Signed__________________.

Only, I need to amend this slightly for my handicap(s)...

You see...I'm not very good with the needle & thread. Perhaps I shall change that for myself by taking on this challenge.

I haven't bought anything new for myself in a very long time. That has more to do with budget than my particular skill set.

OH, and I don't have a working sewing machine at the moment...

You KNOW that I'm 'green' so this is a no-brainer.

I'll do the very best I can to work with 'preloved' clothing items and create something new from them for myself rather than buying new stuff from the store; for the rest of my life!

I must admit, I'm not a big fan of clothes shopping in the first place so this opens up a world of possibilities in that respect as well! I don't think my 'size' on top and bottom are in sync...

So Here Goes...

I, Pam Hoffman, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the rest of my life, as best as I can.

I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate and recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract to the best of my ability.

I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that my thriftiness brings!

Signed,

Pamela Hoffman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Funny thing, I LOVE to embroider, so perhaps I'll start there!

I know I'll continue to get a ton of help and inspiration from Nikki's Wardrobe Refashion blog anytime I visit. It's a wonderful community!

There IS a bit of wiggle room in the rules [tho i'll try not to abuse them!] so we'll see how this works out.

Do YOU refashion anything in your wardrobe or your family's wardrobe? Do you like to sew? Won't you check out Nikki's site? :)

Pam Hoffman

The sleeve of a worn out turtle neck shirt becomes a
'fingerless glove'! [the 'thumb hole' was already there! ;)]

It's a start...

"I'm Sweet, Smart & Green"

Christmas present from a friend...

Speaking of "GREEN," it seems to be a big deal to be 'green' these days.

Have you changed your habits in the face of this new wave of thinking? Perhaps recycling and such is something of a new concept for some people. For me, it's been SOP (standard operating procedure) for decades now, only I always called it 'spaceship thinking.'

Ponder if you lived on a spaceship, even a very large one.

Wouldn't you have to do things a little differently?

Would you dispose of that wrapper in the same way that you do now?

I suppose it helps to live in a community, like ours, that collects separate bins in which you put the different items. We create very, very little actual 'waste' at this time... when I had a compost heap, it was even smaller.

And when you've been at this a very long time, you start seeing the creative possibilities in practically EVERYTHING!

Here are some examples...

Body: plastic from Mel
Markings: photo 'twins' from other people's scraps & pens
Antennae: wire from my stash
All but the wire is from otherwise discarded material*


A 12x12 'Layout' ready for your photos...


A close up: all of them are strips cut from the unwanted photos from other crafters. I LOVE all the textures from these scraps! They also work very nicely in a punch.

I go to a couple of crops (crop=a gathering of crafters) per month and many of the other folks generate various scraps from cropping photos, cutting papers, and other things.

If I see that they have pitched them, and they are still dry (not covered in actual debris like food) I ask to have them.

This does a couple of things right away...

Saved!
It keeps these things out of a landfill. Yes, my particular contribution may be small (over the decades it has added up no doubt!).

Endless Supply!
It has the added benefit of alerting others to my particular process and consequently, I get a whole bunch of great scraps now and they are freely given.

Maybe Even Inspirational
I like to think that I may be leading by example...so many people have remarked on how amazing it is to get something from such scraps. They bring me theirs and maybe, just maybe, they will create something from something that might have otherwise been discarded unnecessarily.

I'm certainly inspired by the scraps from others!

I've been at it so long, I can even see ways to create things with the packaging that almost ALWAYS gets thrown away:


The Packaging - had Lil Davis buttons in between the layers

I thought it might make a good double 'shaker box' with the two layers...

Testing the Layers

The Finished Product:

Front


& Back

What are you doing with your discarded items? Are they ending up being recycled some way or do they go to the landfill? Can you put some of them to good use instead?

Pam Hoffman


*The completed 'butterfly' was sent to the Holocaust Museum Houston, for The Butterfly Project

I Created a New Blog!

For several years, I've enjoyed Valentine's Day very much for all the hearts and 'love' items on the market. I collect new items almost every year and I pull out many of them and start decorating around the house, a little bit like you might do at Christmas!

It all started when I read a book called "Love 101" which helps you be more loving towards yourself.



I recently had an idea about this particular emotion, so to support it, I started a blog!

To visit my "You Are Love" blog, just click on the link!

Pam Hoffman


*Disclaimer: As a member of "Amazon" I will receive a material gain if you follow the link from here to there and make a purchase.

The Magic of Getting Mail...

I just LOVE getting cool stuff in the mail, don't you?

Well, it was a great day for mail today.

Three interesting things arrived.

I got a prize I won from The Kerrs....

beautifully wrapped!

I had forgotten that I won this so I was wondering what I had until I opened the package:

Thank You Jenny & Travis!

And for some reason, this came to me too:


I'll be digging thru the pages to see if there are any interesting images I can use for crafting and I'll probably recycle the rest (or maybe use some words from the pages).

I looked thru the items inside and they are better than average for this kind of thing!

And I did a survey a little while back and the reward came today too...






I was actually kind of expecting this one and I knew right away what it was about upon seeing the return address:


Do you have any prize winning tips on winning prizes and giveaways? What have you won lately? Are you using giveaways on your blog for anything?

Pam Hoffman

OWOH Winner!

Thank you all SO MUCH for visiting my blog for this One World, One Heart event!

You are ALL winners - you met some great new blogger buddies and you got a lot of eye candy with all the prizes and all the things everyone creates and posts to their blogs and maybe even a little inspiration! I know I did.

And the blogs are still there to go and see. I'll be visiting even more as I did not get through the entire list in time - found out about it a bit late I suppose...

As for the giveaway on MY blog, I printed out all the eligible entries, cut them to size (as uniformly as possible!) and had my boyfriend pick out a winner!

drumroll please..



And the WINNER IS...



Grace!

I'll send Grace an email message letting her know that she is the winner of the greeting cards (and a few other things i picked up over the weekend!).

Thank you all for participating in my blog giveaway for OWOH!

Pam Hoffman

One World, One Heart: A Blogging Community Event!

I recently learned of an interesting event:



I have read the particulars, which I think I understand, and I have decided to participate!

Thanks to Lisa for creating this and continuing the process which seems like a daunting task to me!

A little bit about One World One Heart...

• Who: Lisa Swifka
• What: OWOH is an annual blogging community event
• When: once a year, OWOH was started by Lisa in 2007
• Objective: to encourage a closer community amongst bloggers with a little prize for commentors thrown in for incentive

OK, so here's my giveaway...

I recently participated in a card swap which is the inspiration for this giveaway.

I am offering at least ONE (1) giveaway of one set of 4 handmade greeting cards (blank inside for your own message) & envelopes to send them in, of my own design, also including my 'pam-o' branding on the backs and pictured here:



No guarantees but I have a little time before I send this prize out and I may get a chance to add in more goodies. You'll just have to participate and see!

IF YOU WANT TO WIN...
If you want to win my giveaway, you want to follow the directions!

#1 Leave a comment on THIS blog post on MY blog!
#2 Make sure to include some way for me to contact you in the event YOU win so I can get your mailing address and ship the prize to you!
#3 Your comment must appear on this post of my blog by February 12th at midnight MY TIME [i'm in southern California if you want to look it up!]
#4 I reserve the right to eliminate a comment (and therefore your entry!) which seems to be objectionable which includes hate related, sp@m related, racist, sexist, ageist or anything I think of as objectionable and I'm pretty darn tolerant!

If you don't want your kid sister or grandmother reading it, it shouldn't be in your comment!

This giveaway is open to anyone who leaves a comment and follows the directions!

Winner will be ANNOUNCED on my blog February 15th sometime as I will be celebrating Valentine's Day on the 14th and then my birthday on the 15th!! It's a busy time of the year for me.

There is still a little time left to join. Will you visit Lisa's site and get on board of the One World, One Heart bandwagon or will you wait until next year? You do not have to be a creative type, you do need to have an active blog!

Pam Hoffman

Here's the View Out Back!

Facing generally north the highest point visible from our place is Saddleback Mountain on the far right and I do a bit of zooming in on it.

Pam Hoffman
Introducing Mambo:

He's the old man of the house - almost 17 years old! Big and long - everything's long on him. All his whiskers were black - now a few are getting white. He's VERY social. Expect to be found if you are here! :)

Video on Blogger

Well, I know what happened earlier and you may want to know too.

Blogger seems to have updated their 'editor.' Seems that they ALSO volunteered me for the new one.

I certainly don't REMEMBER changing this setting and I certainly don't WANT the new 'editor' because you can't upload video, adding photos is real screwy with it and I don't like how some of the blog posts appear on the blog when it's in charge.

I found out when I mentioned it during a Mastermind call earlier today and the guys went into 'fix it' mode...

They tested it out and LO, they had the editor I'm used to.

And my lovely boyfriend actually found the setting where they made the change...


Oh, I may have found it myself.. eventually.

I might not have either. Not crazy about arbitrary changes when there isn't a real need and certainly when it happens without warning. Perhaps I just 'missed the memo'...

The real point of this post is to let you know that if YOU want to go back to the editor you remember, you can.

Here's where you find that "Global Setting" in a screen shot:

Just click on the radio button for the editor you prefer then [SAVE SETTINGS] button and Voila! You'll have the editor you prefer.

Seems odd that at the height of the importance of having video on your websites, blogger offers you a 'simpler' editor that won't allow you to add it at all.

I don't get it.

Pam Hoffman, geeky girl by day, crafter by night!