Practical Hints for the Household

Excerpts from Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine
August, 1886


"We so frequently hear the remark from women that household duties are distasteful, and uninteresting; upon consideration, most necessary occupations in this world inevitably bore us, if we do not endeavor to take some sort of interest in them.
...
Under most circumstances at the best of times housekeeping is a disagreeable occupation, but, as it is impossible to evade it during some period of one's life, the best plan must be to extract from it every atom of interest which it is capable of yielding.
...
It is surely quite possible for any woman, possessing an average intelligence, to become, after the experience of a few months, a perfectly capable housekeeper without being "born" so; and moreover, a score of reasons could be given, if space permitted, to show why household affairs should not be devoid of interest to a clever woman.
...
A woman should not, however, only consider herself in the matter, but remember that the whole comfort of the home depends upon her cheerful performance of the duties devolving upon her. If the husband, father or brother does his duty in supplying the necessary wherewithal to supply the needs of the household, her duty and pleasure should be to add by every means in her power to the comfort of all beneath its roof."


"The average girl at marriage is well instructed in sewing. To take her place at the head of a family without a fair knowledge of this useful household art would be to disgrace her mother and herself in the minds of all their acquaintances."


(Thanks, Kelly.)

Trashion Sale

As you may or may not know, I am a member of the Etsy Trashion Street Team. "What the heck does that mean?" you ask. It's basically a group of people who:
1. Sell things on Etsy
2. Incorporate recycled materials into their items (hence the "trash" part)

Well, we're having a sale! You can find out all about it here and here. (Yep, there I am! 20% off everything next Sunday, December 2nd!) Also, shopping guides!

So, as I mentioned before, buying handmade for the holidays is good. But buying handmade and recycled is even better! Check out the Trashion shops. There's some pretty neat stuff.

Three Things

One:
A nice lady wrote a nice blog entry about me and Chaos Into Art.


Two:
Shout out to my mom! We make a great team.



Three:
Apparently along with the Writers, the Writers' office chairs are also on strike.

Buy Nothing?

I've been hard at work (yes, still) getting ready for what I hope will be a busy holiday buying season. I had my home show last Friday (a smashing success -- thank you to everyone who showed up to support me!), and I have a booth at a craft show in a week and a half.

And because the holiday shopping season is upon us, whether we like it or not, buzz has started up again about "Buy Nothing Day". You can read all about it at the link, but the basic gist is -- don't buy anything on the day after Thanksgiving. This day was chosen because it's usually the biggest shopping day of the year, and people get up at the crack of dawn and trample each other trying to get to the bargain big screen TVs and mp3 players.

Now, while I am certainly against 1.) getting up at the crack of dawn, 2.) trampling people, and 3.) measuring your love for another human being by how much Christmas credit card debt you rack up in their name, I really can't get behind Buy Nothing Day. One day, and then you can get back to swiping those credit cards to your heart's content? Eh... It makes a great press release, but isn't there a more consistent idea out there?

Now here's something I can get behind: The Handmade Pledge. "I pledge to buy handmade this holiday season, and request that others do the same for me." You know you're going to give people gifts around Christmas. It happens. And it's fun! And by buying (or making!) handmade gifts, you can participate in all the good ideas behind Buy Nothing Day in a productive way.

Handmade gifts mean thought, care, and individualism. Buying handmade will support someone who works at what they love. Buying recycled handmade helps rescue stuff from the dump (literally or figuratively), and assures you a one-of-a-kind gift.

Here are some links to get you started:
Etsy
another handmade shopping website
Craftster (ideas and tutorials for making your own gifts)
Martha Stewart (gift and decoration ideas)
Wists.com (make an online wish list with links to any web page)


(Am I just saying all this so you'll come to my show that happens to be the day after Thanksgiving and buy stuff? No. Do I care about this because I make handmade gifts for a living? Yes. Is that the only reason I care? No.)

Stockings!

I've been rather busy:





Mostly they're for my shows this season, but some of them are in my shop right now.

Costumes

And now, I give you Halloween 2007:




Pam Beesly as a Cat (I had a tail, you just can't see it...)


Three Hole Punch Jim Halpert

Merchandise Exchange Fall 2007 -- Part IV

This was the last weekend until April! Let's see what goodies were gathered...

-- a three-drawer plastic chest full of greeting cards and craft stuff
-- a bag of gift bags, tissue paper, and wrapping paper
-- 4 textbooks, which are now listed on Half.com for a total of $245 (I swear, some people...)

But most exciting? A commode encounter! We found 3 more commodes, bring the grand total for the month up to 15! But when we stopped for one of them, a man and woman were standing out in the yard. Well, we couldn't just keep going -- we needed it for our collection! So I rolled down the window and explained it all to the nice old man. Trash hunting is a cheap date, commode collecting keeps in interesting...
"Oh yeah, heh heh, I think I saw another one around here somewhere."
"Down at the corner? Yep, we already got that one."
"Some people'll just put anything out in their yard!"

Turns out he didn't even live at that house; he was just a neighbor.

Workin' hard...

Or hardly working. Sometimes I can't tell. But besides those crewel embroidery pouches, here's what I have to show for this last week, craft-wise:




9 blank hardback book journals. To be featured at my home show and craft fairs throughout the season, not in my Etsy shop, so if you want one and you won't be at any of those events, speak up!

Merchandise Exchange Fall 2007 -- Part III

There's not really too much to show for this outing -- a few records, a few books of sheet music, a Martha Stewart Living from a few years ago, a few folding tomato cages. Good stuff, but not a great abundance of awesomeness. No, that came in the form of breaking our COMMODE record! Woohoo!

Yes, Norman and I are odd people, but collecting pictures of commodes breaks up the monotony of pile after pile of actual garbage (how dare they?). Anyway, you can see the complete commode collection here. We have 11 for the month, which is two more than last April, and we've still got another week to go!

I'm particularly proud of this one:

Wow. I mean, avocado green. How do you top that? I think maybe we should just give up and stop collecting. That's as good as it gets right there.

Life can be crewel...

Yes, it's a very bad pun, but I couldn't resist. I pretty much cleaned up at the First Pres thrift store today. Neckties, napkins (read: fabric), vintage Christmas cards, envelopes, and ...
Three framed crewel embroidery panels. Two of them have already magically turned into zipper pouches and been listed in my Etsy shop.


The other got a reprieve. I actually had it out of its frame and off its board before I decided to keep it and hang it on my wall. It's so cute! I don't know if you can tell, but it's very 3D -- the little macramé basket hanger and some of the branches are loose. Adorable! It's now hanging above our kitchen sink.