FINALLY! Weird Question Number Ten

OK, so let's wrap up this nonsensical business of the ten question interview my husband devised.

10) Have you ever gotten lost in your craft room?

Nope, never lost.

I do, however, get lost in time while in my craft room, also known as the Paisley Room. Like yesterday, I went in to my room full of yarns and fabrics and beads and all sorts of glorious things. My plan was to make a quick necklace for myself. Two hours later I kind of came to, realizing I'd gotten so into it that I'd lost track of time. I suddenly realized my clothes in the dryer were likely sitting there getting wrinkled. Many other chores I'd meant to accomplish remained undone. But, if was fun to have that bit of time to do my own thing.

You may be wondering why Mike would ask such a question anyway. Well, it is because that room is so overstuffed right now, it looks a bit like a scene from hoarders. I admit it. He dared me to take a photo. Sure! I'm not ashamed.

OK, maybe I am ashamed. It's pretty messy. This picture came from Pinterest. As soon as I get the Paisley Room looking more like that, I will post the photo. 

Trading Spaces

Saturday morning Mike and I had coffee together. It is not often that we get to sit down for morning coffee together. Usually I am the problem, often leaving for work about 5:30 a.m. We were enjoying a leisurely moment, making plans and talking about a variety of subjects. It was nice.

As we were talking about our plans for a rare day with no obligations, I told Mike that I was planning to clean up the Rose Room. Funny Side Note:  I just looked up the post about naming my craft room. I had decided to go with Kate W.'s suggestion that I call it the Paisley Room. Somehow, over time, I find I often call it the Rose Room. I don't know when that change took place! It is the room where I do a lot of my creations for Wyoming Rose Boutique and where I also have a lot of leftover craft items from my Grandma Rose, so I guess that is how I started just saying the Rose Room. Paisley Rose sounds nice, though, doesn't it? Maybe I can combine the two names.

Anyway, no matter what you call the room, it had become a big mess of halfway completed projects, mounds of fabric and yarn for future projects, as well as miscellaneous items that had no other room to call home. It was time to overhaul. I wanted to go through each item, discarding, sorting and organizing as needed.

Mike then made a comment about moving his music room, full of, well, musical stuff. He'd been considering moving it upstairs. Well, we got the bright idea to switch rooms. So, we did!

First, we moved all of Mike's musical instruments, bookcases and other things out. They had nowhere to go yet, so his stuff ended up in the family room and living room. Then, we moved all my stuff down to his old space. It was not pretty.

I did not take time to do all that sorting, discarding and organizing I'd planned. We just picked up and hauled it down. What I am showing you in the photo above is only the tip of the iceberg.

Once the old Rose Room was empty, we began collecting his stuff from around the house and moved it in. We must have gone up and down our stairs a hundred times. Well, maybe not a hundred but it was enough to exhaust me.

By the time we had everything in its new home, we'd pretty much used up the entire day! It was kind of fun, though. It was a bit like moving but we didn't have to forward our mail or anything. We've lived in this house over 9 years. That is a personal record for me but it is also likely why I've accumulated so much.  Maybe the gypsy in me is what enjoyed the weird trading spaces day.

Now, I can start organizing, sorting and discarding. THEN, I am going to get back to the business of being creative!  I can't wait!

A Novice No More

Guess What?!  I just learned to take photos of myself with my new Acer Iconia Tablet!  Also, I just figured out how to transfer them to my wounded laptop.  For you younger readers, you probably think I should've instinctively known how to do that, huh?  But I am middle-aged and for my readers who are in that category, you know exactly how proud I am of myself at this moment, don't you?  


And, as I decided this was a reasonably good hair day, I just kept taking more 

and more

photos of

myself!  


OK, enough of that!  


I am celebrating!


I have been blogging for a year!  Actually, I just missed my anniversary.  I was thinking it was coming up but I just checked back to my first post and it was February 20, 2011.   It was kind of a strange post, but I just sat down and started blogging about what was going on that evening.  Truthfully, I didn't think I would keep up with it all.  

At first I didn't want my name to be attached to my blog.  I went by Orange Paisley.  Funny, huh?  Well, I like orange, I like paisley, and together they just seem like me.  It made sense to me at the time.

According to my stats, my all-time most read post was A Change of Heart.  That was my recent interview with my friend, Allen, who received a heart transplant.  I was kind of pleased with myself for the title choice but Allen was responsible for the rest of the article.  Thanks, Allen!

My second most popular post was Breath of God.  I've no real good explanation for that but it makes me happy.  Again, I had very little to do with that one as it is the lyrics to a song that I did not write.  I did not even come up with the title!  See how easy it is to be a blogger?

When I started my blog I didn't really tell anyone except Maria.  She was the one who introduced me to blogging and she was the first to leave a comment for me, followed by Momma CupKate.  Thanks, Kate!  It was quite awhile before I even told Mike I was doing this!

Looking back, I can see how Cordelia has grown and that we've made some progress with Bode.  I've told embarrassing stories and introduced you to members of my family.  I have asked you to help me name my craft room and even drug you through a terrible tutorial.  

I don't have any good explanation for why I have kept up with blogging.  I was horrible at keeping up with my children's baby books, I can't seem to put photos into albums, I still haven't done Christmas Cards from 2011 and I have projects tucked all over the house that I've not completed.  I do love working on my computer and I love to write, though, so maybe I've finally found my "thing". I no longer fall asleep at night wondering if I'll have anything to write about the next day.  I just enjoy writing this blog.  Thanks for checking in and reading it!

Thank-you for stopping by. Feel free to use my photos but please link them back to my blog. I am honored if you wish to share content of any of my posts on Facebook, Twitter, etc. as long as it is linked back to my blog.

Back to Sewing!

Yesterday, as I worked on my room some more, I kept turning green!  No, I wasn't sick.  I mean, literally, I kept turning green.  Remember that I was spraypainting the dresser the day before?  Apparently you really should do it outdoors or in an open garage as the can says.  Although I couldn't see green anywhere, it kept showing up on my hands!  It seems a green dust had formed on some surfaces.  My computer was in there (Netflix kept me entertained as I worked) and so everytime I use my computer yesterday, I got green fingers.   It was weird.

The important thing, though, is it is all back in order and my dream room is again being used to create!  No carpet yet, but that will come.  I also haven't had the guys move my new/old sewing machine and cabinet up from the basement yet.  I'll tell you more about that someday but it will stay downstairs until the carpet is in.

Here is a picture of two of my shelving units.  The one on the left has fabrics, patterns, etc.  The one  on the right has jewelry-making items as well as beautiful yarns.  I don't know what it is but I just love looking at all that potential there, especially the fabric and yarns!  It is kind of like I have my own craft store!

This is where I sew.  I was so excited I had to start a quilt already.  I've been watching the series Eli Stone on Netflix as I worked so I just kept watching it while I sewed.

So, I am going with Kate W.'s suggestion of calling it the Paisley Room.  I just love paisley fabric and I love saying the word Paisley.  I looked it up on Wikipedia and found that the design we know as paisley is from India and Iran.  The word, paisley, is from a town in Scotland.  I have some Scottish roots; maybe that explains my love of that word!  I even like Brad Paisley!

Lucky for you all, I just backspaced over an educational lesson regarding paisley.  I decided to leave a little mystery, meaning I didn't want to get tooooo boring.

You probably can't see it but that quilt top has some black and white paisley in it.  I noticed that a LOT of my fabric is paisley.  I'm going to move my paisley giraffe in there for inspiration and I think I will make a paisley wallhanging for decoration!

Kate, I thank you!