Workbench Wednesday ~ Bits & Pieces

What's on your workbench/dining-craft table/sewing surface today? Please comment/blog/share it!

Not much creativity going on in the Little Pink House this week--the sale at Room With A Past ended Sunday and now laid out before me is the task of compiling the spreadsheet! Taunting me on my craft table are some lovely supplies.



I peek in on them daily as I pass my craft room on the way to my computer and say "Hello!". Some of these goodies came from Tangerine in Dublin (if you haven't gone you must not have heard of them!) and some of them are from new vendors at Room With A Past.






Soon my pretties, soon!

Holes In My Heart

Behind the Little Pink House flows a creek. From early spring to summer it's banks are tangled with weeds. Perfect for Stella Bella and Rusty Bucket to explore and hunt mice, but not so accessible for me when they get tall and dry; I have to just peek over the fence.

The city comes by every year and whacks down the weeds for fire control. After they rake it up and pack it in, I love to head back there with my furry entourage and take a look around. The dog went off sniffing and the cats walked circles around my legs as I walked around looking at the earth, newly bald beneath our feet.

There is a lot of wildlife back here all year round. If you sit quietly long enough (a glass of wine would be nice here) after the buzz of the weed-whackers has ceased they'll all put on a show. Lots of song birds, ducks, egrets, opossum, a muskrat and one blind raccoon who's been known to roam the neighborhood during daylight may show up. Wait until dark and you may hear the bats and owls.

I came upon two large, round divots that had been dug into the ground and I had to smile at the memory behind them. The holes get more and more shallow as the years go by. No one would even know what they were if they weren't looking for them like I do.

A long time ago in what seems like another lifetime now, my young son had a friend come over to play.

They got busy outside and left me some time to get a few things done in the house. I was at the computer when my son dragged our two shovels out of the garage, and through the house. "Where are you going with those?", I asked. "We're gonna dig some holes in the dirt." He excitedly told me as he headed through the back gate into the creek area.

Upon checking up on them about 20 minutes later I found they had each dug a hole about 18" deep into the flat part of the creek bed and were starting on the next one! I imagined some poor unsuspecting person walking along the creek bank in the spring to come, and twisting an ankle as they fell into the holes, now over-grown with the thick, tall green weeds.

I told them they had to stop, visibly squashing the enthusiasm on their sweaty little faces.

As instructed, they filled them back in the best they could, but I am grateful for those two little divots that spark a memory this time each year, when the earth is newly bald beneath my feet.

Workbench Wednesday

What's on my craft room table today? It's a birthday crown for someone special! Just a peek for you today and then I must get back to work before my glue gun overheats!!











(P.S. Happy Birthday Marlene!)



What are you working on? Please share!

(Post updated 5/24/2011)

Workbench Wednesday ~ Custom Orders

What's on my craft room table today? A few customer orders! I feel very lucky to have had quite a few requests during the last opening at Room With A Past. Here's two of them:

These miniature (3 1/2 ") chicken wire crowns are for dolls made by one of our regular customers. I started making these crowns last Christmas by request from my pal Mandi and as you can see from the post below, have found different and fun things to do with them!



Almost done with this custom-colored banner requested by a mom of of high school senior for a graduation party.



What's on your workbench? Any quilters out there excited about a project you're working on? Please share!

Queen For A Day

When's the last time you were "Queen For A Day"? Hopefully it was today!
Happy Mother's Day!

Workbench Wednesday ~ Got Hope!

What's on my craft room table today? Ideas in every stage of the project. Some will be finished at some point, others, sadly, well it's all part of the process!


First of all, my craft room desk is clean! Please look no further than the inside of the photos. You must avert your eyes from looking at the pile of projects in the center of the room, lest you think I'm some kind of hoarder.


I went to an estate sale last week. Cute little house, uncomfortably jam packed with vintage stuff stacked/piled/hung all over. BUT my purchases were limited in knowing that I'd have to pick up and carry everything I wanted to buy through the crowd of other shoppers and up to the front where items would be priced and paid for. Almost everything had the name "Maureen Mildred" scrawled on it, who I imagined to be the owner of the house, and a woman after my own heart with her love of vintage. I made it out with a few things plus these small items:


Lots of beaded necklaces in luscious shades! An old rhinestone clip, two cameo front compacts and one round brass compact.

When I opened one of the compacts when I got home and had some elbow room, this is what I discovered: (!)

Maureen musta been kind of sweet on him, huh?

What are you working on? Please share!

This Old House

There's a house in my neighborhood that's been empty for years. It's funny how I can't say I even noticed it until it was empty. I drive by it almost everyday and wonder about who lived in it and it's fate. Until last week.

I made it my destination on my morning walk. With camera in hand, I walked around the block and took pictures from the outside of the cyclone fencing from every side.




I came to the front and spotted a parting in the fence, and as I stuck in my camera to get a few shots without any obstructions, a man working on a car at the auto mart next door piped up to let me know he was tired of chasing the homeless out of it. Aware of my grungy sweatpants and tee shirt, I quickly told him I was just trying to get some good pictures of this old house for my blog and asked him if he knew anything about it. Lucky me--he was the owner! He gave me a short history lesson which, combined with what I had already learned from researching the house, gleaned me these facts:

The house was built in 1870 on a stone foundation and occupied by Mr.Goodale who was an early Concord merchant.

Then Dr. and Mrs. George McKenzie made this their home sometime after his arrival in Concord in 1891. For many years Dr. McKenzie (and Dr. Francis Neff, Concord’s only other doctor), were the only doctors serving Concord and the surrounding area.

Mrs. McKenzie used to raise the flag at the house to signal to Dr. McKenzie (at work at the hospital about 400 yards away) that his lunch was ready.

There was a bicycle-powered windmill on the property that generated the electricity for his x-ray machine.

Mrs. and Dr. McKenzie both died in the house.

Then it was occupied by the Collins family, about whom little is known.

I asked would he minded if I went inside the fence and took some more pictures? He didn't so I did.

You must have really been something in your day, house.



I'm so sorry you've been neglected.



I'm so sad that the beauty you still have goes unnoticed and unappreciated.



I'm sorry your foundation is turning to rubble and your wood is decomposing into the earth.

















I took some cuttings of the roses in the front and then squeezed back out through the fence posts.

I wish you could be saved, rehabilitated, resurrected, revived. But even though the owner wasn't at liberty to say what the future holds for you, he couldn't look me in the eye when he said the land had been sold to a developer in Washington.


You are the jewel in the crown of a city which loses a small amount of it's glint each time an old house is torn down.