Showing posts with label Not So Crafty Things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Not So Crafty Things. Show all posts
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Cupkins Link Party TOMORROW!
Good news, friends! I may be busy - but Cupkins lives on! Tomorrow (Monday) is our November Cupkins link party right here at Ready, Set, Craft! So get your bake on today and stop back by tomorrow to link up your cupcakes or muffins with a Thanksgiving theme! Can't wait to see what you come up with!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Change
Forgive me... dear friends and readers. Forgive me first for being such an awfully inconsistent and mostly absent blogger over the past couple of weeks... and forgive me second for this post not being craft-related at all. If you'd like to stop reading now - please do - I won't be offended I promise!
The past couple of weeks have been chock full of highs and lows.
On a (very) high note, I have accepted a full-time job offer with Gilda's Club - a wonderful organization that works to provide support, resources, and programs to patients and family members dealing with cancer and/or grief. I'll be working primarily in special event fundraising - which is my favorite area of development - and I couldn't be more excited to be a part of such a wonderful organization with a great mission and community presence. It is humbling to be a part of such important work in the fight against Cancer.
On a much lower note, a dear friend of ours has been in the hospital all this week with complications from Myasthenia gravis and has been very sick. We've been doing everything we can do help the family - and were thrilled to hear that he gets to come home late tonight. Thoughts and prayers and good juju are most certainly appreciated as we hope for a speed recovery.
Another high is that we're celebrating the birth of my friend Cindy's son Beckett Paul Bylsma! Beckett was born to proud parents Cindy and Dustin and big brother Caleb yesterday morning. I look forward to visiting them in the hospital this afternoon and meeting the little guy.
With all of these events and more, I've been working my butt off trying to get as much work done on my thesis as possible (I didn't anticipate going back to work until AFTER my thesis was completed!) and finish up a number of freelance and home projects before I start at Gilda's Club. Tomorrow is my first day - and I still have about a million and one things to do between now and then!
As a result of all of these changes in my life - I'm not sure how much blogging I'm going to be able to do in the next couple of months. I really can't say! I DO plan on continuing Ready, Set, Craft! - you just may have to live with continued inconsistency until we get through the holidays! I do hope you understand!
For the time being, I am going to try to post a couple of times a week, and go from there. Sometimes it may be more often, and some weeks I may not get to posting at all. I'll have a much better idea once I get into a new routine and get ahold of my schedule.
I value you all so much - and am always thrilled to read your comments, get your e-mails, and see photos of your own projects you've completed that have been inspired by this blog. What an honor to have all of you in my life. Thank you!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Joanne : )
The past couple of weeks have been chock full of highs and lows.
On a (very) high note, I have accepted a full-time job offer with Gilda's Club - a wonderful organization that works to provide support, resources, and programs to patients and family members dealing with cancer and/or grief. I'll be working primarily in special event fundraising - which is my favorite area of development - and I couldn't be more excited to be a part of such a wonderful organization with a great mission and community presence. It is humbling to be a part of such important work in the fight against Cancer.
On a much lower note, a dear friend of ours has been in the hospital all this week with complications from Myasthenia gravis and has been very sick. We've been doing everything we can do help the family - and were thrilled to hear that he gets to come home late tonight. Thoughts and prayers and good juju are most certainly appreciated as we hope for a speed recovery.
Another high is that we're celebrating the birth of my friend Cindy's son Beckett Paul Bylsma! Beckett was born to proud parents Cindy and Dustin and big brother Caleb yesterday morning. I look forward to visiting them in the hospital this afternoon and meeting the little guy.
With all of these events and more, I've been working my butt off trying to get as much work done on my thesis as possible (I didn't anticipate going back to work until AFTER my thesis was completed!) and finish up a number of freelance and home projects before I start at Gilda's Club. Tomorrow is my first day - and I still have about a million and one things to do between now and then!
As a result of all of these changes in my life - I'm not sure how much blogging I'm going to be able to do in the next couple of months. I really can't say! I DO plan on continuing Ready, Set, Craft! - you just may have to live with continued inconsistency until we get through the holidays! I do hope you understand!
For the time being, I am going to try to post a couple of times a week, and go from there. Sometimes it may be more often, and some weeks I may not get to posting at all. I'll have a much better idea once I get into a new routine and get ahold of my schedule.
I value you all so much - and am always thrilled to read your comments, get your e-mails, and see photos of your own projects you've completed that have been inspired by this blog. What an honor to have all of you in my life. Thank you!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Joanne : )
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Pumpkin Carving 2010
Every year we get together with our friends Cindy and Dustin to carve pumpkins. In fact - this year marked the 5th Anniversary of our annual pumpkin carving activities! As always, it was a lot of fun, and I think this year's pumpkins were our best ever!
Before...
I have a thing about making chocolate covered pretzels lately...
Travis' famous artichoke dip... a Halloween tradition...
Action shots...
Cindy and I...
The finished products!
Happy Halloween!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Pumpkin Patch & Halloween Decorations!
Happy Thursday, folks! Just one more day until the weekend! There hasn't been much time for crafting this week (boo!) but we did carve out time (no pun intended!) to do a couple of fun fall things. On Tuesday night we headed out to the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins, and then last night we did a little Halloween decorating. I thought I'd share some photos with you.
For the past three years we've headed to a local farm to pick our pumpkins with our good friends the Hill Family. Usually we go on a weekend, but our schedules were extra packed this year so we ended up doing a weeknight. It was actually a lot more relaxed, and very beautiful.
Anthony is always in charge of the wagon. Thank goodness! That sucker gets heavy with seven peoples' pumpkins in it!
We played on the playground and checked out the farm animals while we were there...
And of course we couldn't leave without two things: 1) Sitting down and gorging on delicious homemade donuts and apple cider...
And flagging someone down to take our annual group photo. Maybe I'm jinxing it by saying so, but somehow we ALWAYS end up getting a good picture of EVERYONE! : ) Such a wonderful memory to keep each year!
I've never really decorated the exterior of our home for Halloween before. Still being relatively new homeowners we don't have a lot of either Halloween or Christmas outdoor decorations, or the money to spend a lot of cash to buy them. My Mum always says that you accumulate holiday decor over the years, so I'm kind of going with her philosophy and building our collection as we go along.
We have an enclosed porch and I change the tablecloth of our table out there for each season, so I've got the Halloween table cloth on now...
I picked up a box of orange lights for $3 and we hung them on some preexisting hooks in our front porch. It took all of five minutes! I figure I'll try to grab some more lights on clearance after Halloween for next year. We then hung some ghosts from the lights - I was worried they wouldn't show up from the outside but you can see them really clearly, and at night the orange lights case a spooky glow over them!
A couple of $1 bags of cobwebs cover our bushes below the porch windows. I need some big plastic spiders or something to put in them...
Our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. Pleas disregard the extreme need for our front steps to be painted! Next year... : )
To finish it off I'd really love some of those fake gravestones in front of the bushes. Again, maybe I can get some on clearance after Halloween for next year. All in all, we decorated (minus the pumpkins and mums, which will stay until closer to Thanksgiving) for about $7. Deal!
For the past three years we've headed to a local farm to pick our pumpkins with our good friends the Hill Family. Usually we go on a weekend, but our schedules were extra packed this year so we ended up doing a weeknight. It was actually a lot more relaxed, and very beautiful.
Anthony is always in charge of the wagon. Thank goodness! That sucker gets heavy with seven peoples' pumpkins in it!
We played on the playground and checked out the farm animals while we were there...
And of course we couldn't leave without two things: 1) Sitting down and gorging on delicious homemade donuts and apple cider...
And flagging someone down to take our annual group photo. Maybe I'm jinxing it by saying so, but somehow we ALWAYS end up getting a good picture of EVERYONE! : ) Such a wonderful memory to keep each year!
I've never really decorated the exterior of our home for Halloween before. Still being relatively new homeowners we don't have a lot of either Halloween or Christmas outdoor decorations, or the money to spend a lot of cash to buy them. My Mum always says that you accumulate holiday decor over the years, so I'm kind of going with her philosophy and building our collection as we go along.
We have an enclosed porch and I change the tablecloth of our table out there for each season, so I've got the Halloween table cloth on now...
I picked up a box of orange lights for $3 and we hung them on some preexisting hooks in our front porch. It took all of five minutes! I figure I'll try to grab some more lights on clearance after Halloween for next year. We then hung some ghosts from the lights - I was worried they wouldn't show up from the outside but you can see them really clearly, and at night the orange lights case a spooky glow over them!
A couple of $1 bags of cobwebs cover our bushes below the porch windows. I need some big plastic spiders or something to put in them...
Our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. Pleas disregard the extreme need for our front steps to be painted! Next year... : )
To finish it off I'd really love some of those fake gravestones in front of the bushes. Again, maybe I can get some on clearance after Halloween for next year. All in all, we decorated (minus the pumpkins and mums, which will stay until closer to Thanksgiving) for about $7. Deal!
I hope you're enjoying the fall season as much as I am!
Friday, October 8, 2010
Artprize
Have you heard about Artprize?
If you live here in Grand Rapids then you can't help but hear about it - but for those of you all over the country (and world!) I'm curious if you've heard about this interesting event that's in it's second year.
According to the Artprize website...
About ArtPrize®
Designed as a very different art competition, the goal is for the general public and artists to collide, exchange ideas and come away changed.
2010 in brief
Grand Rapids, MI USA
September 22 - October 10
Part arts festival, part social experiment--this international contest is decided solely by public vote.
$449,000 prize ($250,000 to 1st place)
Top 10 entries receive a prize
Artists can submit one entry
Property in downtown Grand Rapids can be a venue
Venues choose the artists they exhibit
Anyone attending the event can vote
Winner is determined by public vote
Artprize is fascintating to me on so many levels. Fascinating because it's having such a huge economic impact on downtown Grand Rapids, fasicnating because it's exposing an entire community to art, and fascinating because social media is a core component to its very being. It's pretty exciting.
If you live here in Grand Rapids then you can't help but hear about it - but for those of you all over the country (and world!) I'm curious if you've heard about this interesting event that's in it's second year.
According to the Artprize website...
About ArtPrize®
Designed as a very different art competition, the goal is for the general public and artists to collide, exchange ideas and come away changed.
2010 in brief
Grand Rapids, MI USA
September 22 - October 10
Part arts festival, part social experiment--this international contest is decided solely by public vote.
Throughout the city there are orange venue signs everywhere you look - and hundreds of businesses and other locations are hosting artists and their pieces.
(I asked Travis to strike an "Artpize-type pose" and this (above) is what he came up with!
We're in the second week of Artprize right now, and we were downtown last night looking at some of the Top Ten pieces. They really run the gamut of visual and performance art pieces.
(You can read about the Top Ten in detail, with all the artist info, here)
This piece may look like a painting from afar, but it is made entirely of mosaic stained glass...
This huge penny is made entirely of pennies... (check out the little boy's smile as he's posing for a photo!)
This is painted on transparent sheets of plastic and hung in a clear display box. The photos don't do it justice. Really, really interesting...
And this huge drawing was done entirely in pencil. Absolutely amazing...
If you're in or close to Michigan, I encourage you to come check out Artprize now, or in the future. Voting closed for this year's Top Ten on Wednesday night (in fact, by the time this posts, they will have already announced the winner) but the art will remain all over town until October 10.
It will be interesting to see how the contest evolves as time goes by, and the project is certainly not without some flaws, but the most important thing in my eyes is the 100's of 1,000's of people that are getting out there and looking at art, having an opinion about it, and talking about it with their kids. For that reason alone, maybe every city should have an Artprize...
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The Windy City
Hubs and I got out of town last week for a (very) belated wedding anniversary trip, and to spend a couple of days together before the madness of fall sets in. I say madness affectionately, because I love fall and all of the holidays that follow it - but this one is sure to be busy. I'm writing my thesis, hubs has lots going on at work, I have six (count them, six!) friends who are pregnant and expecting their babies starting in November and going through April, and I'm already looking forward to football parties (emphasis on the party, not so much on the football), apple-picking and pumpkin carving that fall brings with it.
Our trip was much needed, and a lot of fun. We stayed just off the Magnificent Mile and did plenty of shopping, sightseeing, eating, and walking (hopefully the latter two items canceled each other out!) We even took a trip over to Shedd Aquarium. Other than a brief afternoon trip to see the show Wicked back in 2007 I hadn't spent any time in Chicago since my friend Meg's (hi, Meg!) bachelorette party back in 2005. This alone seems a little silly, since we're just a couple hours drive away from the city.
We took the commuter train into Chicago - a little longer of a trip but you can't beat $8 train tickets, not having to park or pay to park, and being able to relax and enjoy the ride. We ate burgers at Chef Marcus Samuelssons "Marc Burger" at Macy's (he won Top Chef Masters) and had a lovely dinner at Chef Art Smith's "Table Fifty-Two" (former chef to Oprah - yes, I obviously have a thing for celebrity chefs!) and just enjoyed spending so QT together.
I hope that you all had the opportunity to enjoy your loved ones this summer, whether home or away. I'll be here all week doing some summer recaps, Ready, Set, Craft! style while I get into fall-mode. Happy end of summer, everyone!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Happiness is... magic wands and sandcastles
This past weekend we headed out to the lake as we so often do, and our friends Heather, Anthony, and daughter Lily joined us. South Haven hosts a Blueberry Festival every year complete with live music, an art show, and yes - lots and lots of blueberries. We took advantage of the events and headed down to a concert on the water on Friday night, then spent Saturday on the beach.
It's funny how you can see places and events in a whole new way just by adding a child into the equation. It was so fun to watch Lily at the show, and on the beach. She had a great time. She loved her light up wand at the concert and clapped heartily at the end of each song - she had a whale of the time on the beach building sandcastles and sitting in the water as well.
It's funny how you can see places and events in a whole new way just by adding a child into the equation. It was so fun to watch Lily at the show, and on the beach. She had a great time. She loved her light up wand at the concert and clapped heartily at the end of each song - she had a whale of the time on the beach building sandcastles and sitting in the water as well.
Sitting at the waters' edge laughing with Lily as the ends of waves touched her toes was one of the best moments of the weekend - life doesn't get any better than experiencing true joy in those that you love. I need to do a better job or realizing that it's those little moments that mean the most. So glad the Hill Family was able to spend the weekend with us at the lake!
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