heather « LibrariAnne

Little Red Riding Hood gone wild!

Okay, not really. More like gone AWESOME!

The most recent Blythe Swap theme was fairytales, and my partner and I both chose LRRH as our theme for our packages.

I created a dress, underskirt, cape, and basket LRRH outfit for Lauren. Here’s Ash modeling before I packed them up:

You can’t see it too well here, but the cape is lined with the same fabric that the dress is made from. I also used a fancy stitch on my sewing machine to do a leaf/vine embellishment on the cape.

I also made a mini-album, inspired by the awesome one Heather sent to me for the Vintage Valentine Swap!

This mini-album is about two inches square. I used a couple of stickers, but most of the things in here I cut out by hand. Which was a lot more tedious than I expected, but since I was only doing a few things it wasn’t that bad.

For the cover, I used a toilet paper roll! Gotta reuse things around the house when you can, right?

For the interior pages, I sewed them together at the spine. It’s really not difficult when you only have a few pages. I did two sheets of pages (so that’s four pages total) this time, since I wasn’t sure how much content I had to fill it up. Next time I do a mini-album, I’ll definitely add more pages, though, since I probably could have filled another few in this one.

Awhile back I purchased a big notebook of scrapbooking paper to use for whatever, and I was so pleased that, among the random options included there, I found perfect choices for this project.

I also used a scrap of old cloth book-binding tape that I had lying around (hoarding scraps from the library garbage bin isn’t so crazy after all, right?) to hold the book together.

Because I couldn’t resist making a few things that fit Lauren’s other likes for color and style, I also made her a couple of skirts.

Here’s the package contents I sent to Lauren:

And unwrapped:

And here’s her Enid playing LRRH:

I’m so pleased with how this swap package came together!

And now on to the awesomeness that Lauren sent to me!

Wow! What a great lot of goodies! Peppermint Ghirardelli, English tea, an original piece of LRRH artwork, a capelet, puppets, and bucket, and a classic vintage edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales!

Check out the LRRH illustration from inside:

I love it!

And here’s the capelet Lauren knit. I love that it can be worn with the arms through or underneath – so flexible!

And did you see those puppets?! I cannot overstate how much I adore them. They’re so cute, and so perfect!

I feel like I made out like a bandit on this swap! Thanks, Lauren!

more back fence shrubbery

So, based on your awesome recommendations, readers, I have more options for the back fence/apartment-hiding project. I got some ideas from Landscaping for Privacy (thanks for the recommendation, Heather!) and some from your comments.

Amelanchier alnifolia AKA Western Serviceberry or Saskatoon

This one seems pretty but I’m not sure what it looks like in winter. It’s deciduous, so certainly it’s not going to provide privacy, but I’m thinking it might look actively ugly with no foliage.

Taxus xmedia hicksii AKA Hick’s Yew

This one seems pretty similar to the other evergreens I’ve looked at, though it does seem to have a few bonus features: it doesn’t taper at the top the way many of them do (thus it provides optimal apartment-hiding) and it has pretty pink fruit/berries (the female plants, at least).

SOMETHING FRUIT-BEARING

I am afraid that a fruit tree will provide too much shade over the back garden, but I do love the idea of having fresh fruit! I’m also slightly wary of the trick of having female and male trees in order to make sure that fruit happens – I really don’t know too much about this yet. Does anyone have any recommendations for specific types of fruit trees that would grow well in zone 6 in full sun? I’m thinking that even if they don’t work for this spot, at some point we’re going to have to replace the giant silver maple in front of the house, and that would be a terrific spot for fruit trees.

and my favorite for the name alone:
Ilex vomitoria ‘Will Fleming’ AKA Yaupon Holly

This one’s got bright red fruit that birds supposedly love.

So, of course, having given myself more choices I’m no closer to deciding. That’s probably a good thing, though, since I’ll need to wait to see what the local nurseries have available, anyway. I’m still all ears for recommendations and opinions, though, so keep ‘em coming!

Vintage Valentine Swap

I just got my swap package for the Vintage Valentine Swap and it is AWESOME! Seriously, my swap partner did an amazing job of finding things that are just perfect for me, and the things she made, even more so! Check it out.

Such sweet wrapping! And so many goodies!

Wows!!

Check out the best valentine card ever:

and the inside:

And a mini Adipose! He will live happily in my office with my Who minifigs.

And HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS! It’s a handmade Blythe scrapbook featuring my dolls! Personalized and SO AWESOME!

There are a bunch more photos over at my flickr. I am just SO impressed with the detail and how awesome this is!! Thank you super mucho mega, Heather!!

Tagged!

Heather tagged me! But I’m a lazyass so I decided I’m not answering as many questions. Meme gods be damned! I just watched a ST:TNG episode where the Enterprise gets trapped in a time loop and the crew send themselves a message in the form of the number three, so I’m changing everything here to be in quantities of three.

Here are the rules:

Post these rules
Post 11 random things about yourself
Answer the questions set for you in their post

11 3 random things about myself:

I’m not really superstitious in general, but I always set my alarm clock to a time ending in the number 7. It’s just a thing I do.
I’m not as much into styling my wardrobe/look as much as I once was (again, with the laziness) and not that you’d know it from looking at me, but when I look in the mirror and asses what I see, I think to myself, “is there something punk rock about this?” Increasingly I’ve decided that since not caring is pretty punk rock, I’m not going to get too fussed and I can still be assured that I’m not unpunk.
I am a super mega creature of habit. I have gotten to the point where I like to be asleep by 11pm since I know I’ll wake up around 7am and I can’t survive on less sleep (at least if I am going to be around others). Much as I’d like to think that I’m spontaneous, I know that I’m totally not when it comes to certain VERY IMPORTANT things like sleep.

Questions:

If you could do anything (career wise), and money was no object, what would that be?

Are you kidding? I would craft the crap out of everything! I’d sew and knit and teach myself how to do all the other crafts that I haven’t learned yet. I’d still sell stuff that I made, and I’d probably give away a whole lot of stuff, too. So I would mostly be making things.

What is your go-to comfort food?

For comfort food, I’ve gotta go with a cup of tea and a slice of apple pie.

What did your 10-year-old self want to be when you grew up? Do you still want that? (Are you that?)

I really have no idea what I wanted to be when I was 10. I have a vague recollection of wanting to be a fashion designer when I was a kid, so let’s go with that. I’m not one in my day job, but I do design the patterns for the Blythe clothing I sew and knit, so YEAH, I totally AM a fashion designer. Screw you, doubters.

Tagged:

Susan.

Sarah.

Carrie Anne.

Same questions. But no pressure! Pick and choose whichever questions you want to answer.

LibrariAnne

Little Red Riding Hood gone wild!

more back fence shrubbery

Vintage Valentine Swap

Tagged!

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