Marsbarn Designs...

Collage with family

Another fabulous deal that followed us home from
the Expo Antique show was a giant (GIANT) bag of
postage stamps.  It was a bargain. 

During Spring Break we had a collage day with Grand M,
Auntie O, Sweetheart G, and myself.

Grand M made these wonderful collages with some of 
the stamps.  I love the textures created in the repetitions.

This is a collage Auntie O made. I loved the way she
cut the stamps to fit the contours of the map.

This is a collage Sweetheart G made. The fern
is an illustration from the Cyclopedia, and sushi grass;
I'm such a sucker for sushi grass.

This is another collage by Sweet G. I love her uses of
color here. That bluegreen stamp with the orange 
just sings in the original. 

It was a great day.  So relaxing.  So fun.

Universal knowledge in cyclopedic form

At the beginning of March, we (a gaggle of 7) went
to the big Expo Antique show.  Auntie H and Cousin M
flew across country to attend with us.
It was a grand show. 

 

My purchase of the show was a set of cyclopedias.
Cyclopedias of Universal Knowledge, no less.

The best part of my set of 4 books?
Beyond the $25 price tag,
was the condition.  The spines are shot, but the pages
are lovely, high quality, non-musty, non-mildewed paper.
In other words, perfect for art.
With the spines beyond repair, I had no qualms about
buying the books with dissection in mind.  
The illustrations are wonderful,and the subjects divine.  
Most of the entries were written in the 1880's
and early 1890's,  so there is a flavor of science and
research driven knowledge, but still a whim of datedness.
Phrenology is still hot, and the Eiffel Tower is still
temporary, octopi have a single eye, but we know
that muscle is made up of fibers. Oh, and if you 
were unsure of how to use a fork, we've got you covered.

But would Liberace really have let his hair go white?

I had a dream last night that a friend asked me if I'd ever wanted to be in a band. 
I said, "Sure", because really who hasn't at some point wished they were?
This friend said, "Oh, I know some guys. We'll make a band for you!"
Well, cool I thought.

So time passes, and I'm told it's time to meet "The Guys".  About 2 dozen older guys are paraded past me.
They aren't introduced to me, because they're
all famous.  Who introduces Elton John, right?
Well, then in walks Liberace, and my first thought
is, "Hey, he let his hair go white" followed quickly
by, "And he's been dead for at least 20 years."

 There they are the great and the late,
and I can only put names to about a quarter of them, and it occurs to me that I have no idea what role I'm going to play in this band of greats.
I can't play an instrument, can't sing, can't read or write music, and I only write lyrics about zombies. 

FAQ about Dice Bags

Here's a little FAQ primer on my dice bags.

Marsbarn Dice Bags stand up for themselves.
When I game, I want to be able to look into my
dice bag, and see what I'm getting.

I've been making these bags for more than a decade
from an original pattern. 

I make square bottomed, reversible, drawstring bags.
I make them in two sizes, MINI and regular. 

A regular sized bag measures 4 1/2" by 4 1/2" across the bottom, and 5" tall.
A MINI dice bag is 3" by 3" across the bottom and is 3 1/2" tall.

To give a sense of scale.  The above image is three sets 
of poly dice in the bottom of a regular sized bag.

This is the same three sets of dice in the bottom of a MINI bag.  

Looking for a custom dice bag?
Custom dice bags cost $14 each, plus shipping.
I keep a listing of my fabrics here.
Choose two fabrics (or more) that you like, and
send me an email.  I'll create a listing for you in my Etsy Shop.
Keep in mind that the bags are reversible! 

 

I also make Monster Cups.
These bags are regular sized dice bags with an added
hand cut embellishment.  I feature two types of decoration.

This dice bag has a hand cut wool felt design that is sewn
onto the bag.  There are many colors of felt to choose 
from, including black, white, green, red, purple, grey, 
blue, and yellow.

The second type of decoration is a heat set vinyl product.  
The vinyl is similar to that of t-shirt decals. It is machine
washable (unlike the wool felt).
For colors, I have metallic silver, metallic gold, yellow
black, red, green, blue, and white.

Here I've featured an Elder sign, but I can do other
symbols.  Email me, and we'll talk about your ideas. 

Each dice bag featuring a hand cut design is unique.
This is a handmade product, and they may very from
bag to bag. 

To order a custom made Monster Cup, email me with 
your fabric choices and the kind of embellishment 
you'd like.  
Monster Cups cost $16 plus shipping.

Do you have an idea for a bag with a different design
of embellishment?  Send me an email.
I am more than willing to try something new.

You can email me at marsbarn(at)comcast(dot)net.

 

Creating space

Our house is not small, but it isn't big either.
It's a house that is illusionary in its space.
You'd think there would be the space for everyone
to have their bit of earth, but then I keep hearing
the chorus of "She's in my space."

My girls, who can share a bedroom, cannot share
creative space. It's like they were born with
A Room of Ones Own tattooed on their souls.
Was Virginia whispering to their fetal selves?

My last round of spacial creativity lead to the art nook
upstairs.  Sweetheart G has her desk and art supplies
well laid out, and she continues to be quite pleased.

So, the challenge of Spring Break was to turn this space:

into an art space for Little e. (Yes, I remembered to take a "before" photo.)
Oh yes, every artist needs a potty in their art arena.
Actually, we come from a long line of combination
art/bathrooms.  Papa D had a drafting table that set
on top of his bathtub back in his studio apartment days.
This gives us precedence.  

Now, this photo shows our second bathroom at its best
i.e. you can't really see it.  It is an ugly room.  

The plan is to remove the horrible contact paper
from the windows, paint the ugly walls,
make new pretty curtains, and to move Little e's
art table next to the window.  
We shall see. 

Back to our regularly scheduled program (?)

So, Spring Break is done.
It's back to the daily daily.

It is a return to the morning alarm,
and the morning grumbles,
and the morning walk
(that one at least is a good thing).

I'm hoping that this will also be a return to the regular blog post as well.
I've got things to say and projects to share
(some of which have waited for months
for me to get into the swing again.) 
But, I make no real promises.
I'm not sure how it happened
but I've become a fickle, feckless blogger.
We shall see. 

A bad patient goes on holiday

I have become a decidedly bad patient.
I don't whine particularly (at least, I hope I don't.)
But, to my husband's annoyance, I don't.. um..
rest well.  There are things to be done, you see.
I want to do things on my schedule, not the one
dictated by the viruses and the (yes) bacterias.
I also, might be, just a tad... stubborn. 

So one thing led to another, and I've got a bottle
of what may be the largest antibiotic pills I've
ever seen. The sinus infection that I cultivated
was apparently most impressive.

The doctor also said I had to rest.
So, I've spent most of the week ensconced on
either the bed or the couch watching my
various symptoms run in reverse.
Green turns to yellow, then clear.
Things that were stuffed, unstuffed.
The bits that hurt (hello, face) stopped hurting.

So, although I think I've been being good,
my husband thinks I haven't.
Curiously the things I normally do, that go unseen (dishes, laundry, dinner, bringing girls to school, picking up)
are now the things that get me into trouble.
The refrain, "You're supposed to be resting!"
echos around the house.  What's a girl to do?

My answer?  
I pointed out to Big E that if we were away 
from home, at say, a hotel, I couldn't possibly
do laundry, or wash dishes, or cook meals.

We had already planned to go on a little getaway
this weekend, and while it might not be the trip I'd hoped for,  I think it will be a good trip, none-the-less. 

Ladies Art: Ukrainian Eggs

It was Ladies Art this past Friday.

Last year (or was it the year before?), in a fit dice bag
money and optimism I purchased a Ukrainian egg dying
kit. I purchased it from the Ukrainian Gift Shop.
(In full disclosure, I bought the kid's kit.  It was just
my speed, and all of the supplies were great quality.) 

I had thoughts that this project was going to be fussy,
and messy, and difficult.

I was wrong on all counts.

Well, I do have blue dye on several fingers... but
not much more than I normally do from coloring with 
the girls.

I ordered a dozen pre-blown eggs, because I felt lazy,
but the egg blower that came with the kit works
amazingly well, and we did use a few eggs I'd blown
last year (when I was being optimistic with ability to
bend time).

The leftover dye is in the fridge, and I'm looking forward
to using up the remainder of my eggs with the girls and
Big E on Sunday.  

A big wall of kill, or learning to play chess

Big E is teaching Little e to play chess. 
It leads to conversations like this one:

"That's a big wall of kill, that's a big wall of kill.
This is a wall of kill, and that's a wall of kill.
Kill here, kill there. Go here you die, go there you die. 
Now where do you go and what do you do?"

Little e is really enjoying herself, and Big E is too.

Me? I've never been a chess player.
It hurts my brain to think that far ahead.
Which is ironic, since I am the distance planner,
the "I do this, so you do that, and this is here,
so in two moves, we can take over the world" person in our house.
I can juggle a 24 person dinner, but keep track of 
those bitty plastic bits? Um, ow. Head hurts. 

Big E likes to tackle what is directly in front of him,
one thing at a time, and doesn't like to think too far ahead.
But put a chess board in front of him, and he's all
"If you go there, I'll win in four moves and get the
8 ball in the corner pocket."

Craziness, I tell you. 

 

A post in which I say, hey I did some stuff, sort of...

So, The Dread List To Do has been done (sort of)
The taxes are done !
(Except that I still have to mail in the state forms.)

The bathroom of doom, has been cleaned!
(In that I scrubbed, and scrubbed the floor, but there is still more scrubbing to be done, and painting, and there is now a table blocking the upstairs hall that needs to go to my Mom's house.)

See? Progress.
(What?  Jeans? I put buying jeans on that list?!
Crap.  I haven't even started doing that.)

But, I did do so much scrubbing that my shoulders were sore the next day!  That counts for something, right?

Okay, I didn't actually get anything finished,
but I got some stuff started.