Pencil Box

A few months ago, I serendipitously matched up a toothpaste box with my colored pencils and have been surprised at how darn handy and perfect it turns out to be. I carry that thing all over the house. Yesterday I decided that if it's going to follow me around for a while it needs to become joonified. Naturally I have a story to tell.... Also, yesterday we received yet another piece of mail from Massachusetts, the entity, the commonwealth. We officially moved from there August 2008. We completed the required transition tasks ~ even speaking with real live people face to face. Yet the cities and state send mail piece after mail piece for things like income tax {huge booklet}, car registration {& taxes, of course} to our TEXAS ADDRESS. Someone had to have entered those address changes into their systems. Maybe I shouldn't get so annoyed but the knowledge that trees are dying over this incompetency makes me a bit nuts. How many more of these go out every year? I have to admit I am too often a glass is half empty gal. I don't want to be, but there you have it. I save a lot of paper and, at first, I was going to break my habit and throw this envelope into the recycling bin because of the negativity it brought to my environment. Then I thought: No. Instead I will transform it into something happy and positive. So here's what I did.

I made a photo record of the process. Hope you enjoy it.

Here is the original makeshift pencil box.

Here is the envelope after I decorated it with my favorite vintage and new stamps.

I wrapped it around the box and taped it inside. By the way, notice how a business envelope is an amazingly perfect pattern match for a toothpaste box. :) Here is the bottom.

Then I took sticker paper and measured pieces to fit the inside bottom and inside and out ends and put those pencils to work a bit. Put those in place and viola! Originally I planned to cover this with clear tape but I like it better this way. I can doodle on it.

Hope you all are warm, healthy and happy this evening.

It's a great day for America, everybody. Yes it is.

Posted via email from thing-a-day 2010

Scuppernote ~ A Happenstance Design

Last year's calendar & other recycled papers get a new life.
Tri fold notebook with velcro closure.

This afternoon while Scout was resting and the sky adhered to gray mode with a vengence, I worked on a new design. My objective was to create a notepad with a pencil attached. That didn't work out, but I love this design, which sprang from that template and formed as I went along. Here's the short of it:

Random papers are cut to the proper width. They will be stitched together & slipped into the reusable paper case (a folded magazine slice), which, in turn, will slip up into the paisley (vintage tie) fabric, which is sewn onto a card stock remnant & tucks into the inside pouch seen here:

The calendar is 2008's Scuppernut All Year Long . The view below shows the back of the note pad. If you look closely you can see that the fabric pocket wraps around the bottom edge, is pinked & stitched in place. The policeman fending off 'alligators in the sewers' (of NYC) is from a discarded Children's book. You can see the velcro closure in his choppers. Anyone else hearing little Drew Barrymore in their head right now?

Here is a view of the notepad insert system:

And here it is in place:

The finishing touch ... a denim shade cotton yarn bit with a vintage bunny button I've had forever and then some, as my favorite cousin would say. My pencil challenge is also solved as this led me to the answer that will see my design work. My template was made first, this evolved, so I abandoned that, but now as luck would have it, I am all ready for my next happenstance adventure. I'll see you soon ~ pencil me in, won't you? ox joon

i love you like etsy

etsy has a new trademark agreement policy & my design was approved! Next to sign and return the contract, but, naturally, I wanted to include one of my pinbacks. And, then, naturally, I needed to send it in style ~ my style ~ and then, naturally, once I started browsing for something to catch my eye...and, well, it just kept going from there. This is Manhattan for the love of kismet. I mean, honestly. It was a sign.




Note: Click on the photo above to enlarge and read text with ease.

The toughest part was finding the picture of the earth in the right size. I wanted it to be a balloon. And I wanted an earth taken from space. People, I have only 14 days to return this contract!!! I have standards which does make my life challenging. No, I do not want an earth printed off of the internet. It has to be found in a discarded magazine, book, calendar or ??? Do I have a vault full of these? No Ma'am. No Sir. I do not. I gave myself a deadline. If I couldn't find one by last night, I would have to illustrate (GULP) my own. eek! Desperate times call for desperate measures, folks. I had an earth balloon in my head and come hell or high water, there was going to be one on this collage. No matter that all I sought was a simple attractive square in the first place. Let's be serious here.



There was only one way to solve this. I started working on my new horse linocut. (My first! This is another story. You can see a couple of photos on my flickr or my post on CAD. ) As I was searching for magazine pages for my little pony :), there she was!!!! My little blue planet. She was a little too large, but the thought of resorting to plan B ... Next ... how was I ever going to cut a perfect circle around her? Hey ... this looks like the size of my pinbacks. Hey... wait a minute... and the earth balloon magnet, she is born! Now, the true dilemma... how do I part with this baby? I am sorry, but this is one sweet collage. I am going to send it. And pray that whoever receives it at the other end of the rainbow has a brighter day because of it. Life is a mystery. I'm adding another to the mix.



What would your reaction be if, in the course of your workday ~ this includes you, house people. Remember, I am one of you and yes, we work! ~ you opened an ordinary envelope (OK, we all know, that is not possible here and I will be making a super joonie envie, but... I am overcome with the power of the written word) and this fell out onto your surface? I would love to know. The truth. Thank you for making it this far into my tale.


PS. Be sure and let me know if you'd like to hear how it all turns out, too. Or if your answer to this is: God forbid. ox to you all & happy, happy birthday little blue planet

Front Page of etsy!

I am having a great start to my Friday! Woo Hoo! My first front page as far as I know. How fun is this? Here's to eco friendly handmade. My painting, floating city, is one of two in my etsy shop that I painted onto discarded falling apart vintage book covers. Visit my shop to learn more and see this painting and its sister, JUMP.

Recycling Bin Dive ~ It's SpRing!

Today it is sunny and in the 60s, which is a first this year. Plus, as luck would have it, recycling week in my neighborhood! I found these treasures walking around just a few blocks of our home. And this is without rummaging through...I only took something if it called out to me. Plus, I am moving across the country in a few months so I was sparing in my picks. I am very excited to reuse these items, most in my creations for etsy. I will store craft projects in the Harrod's Tin as I love double decker buses and am not giving that one up. I am going to make my very first tin project, inspired by this incredible bath salts tin.


Do you regularly put items like these into your recycling bins? At the very least, the magazines and tins can be donated to libraries and thrift stores for resale. Yes, people will buy these! There are also places where you can swap your used magazines & books for others. So many people cannot afford these items and would be thrilled to have these to read or use for projects (or both ~ like me!) I passed by a perfectly adorable little blue couch, chairs & many vintage items. It's sad. You can call many recycling based organizations and they will come and pick up your cast offs. In many ways, it is actually easier to reuse, recycle or regift your dispensibles than it is to set them out on the curb.


I would love to hear what you do with your paper and tin goods. With your permission I can compile & incorporate them into a new blog post. I have plans for these paper items and you will see them reincarnated here on my blog and for sale in my etsy shop very soon! Remember: environment is everything.



Let's all do our part to save our little blue planet. One person does make a difference ~ either way. Which path will it be? Refuse or Reuse? Thanks for visiting. And please share your comments, questions and/or ideas with permission for reuse :) below!

Have a wonderful day today and every day.

Love Our Earth & Things Can Be Pretty! by golly!

Today I have a joonbeam blog first. I always make my own envelopes and packages when I can. The other day I was cutting a grocery sack so I could use the body. Normally, I cut down one side first and slice all the way to the base, discarding the bottom. Maybe it was my tired brain ~ I had seven packages to prepare that day! - or maybe it was celestial intervention, but, for whatever mysterious reason, I cut across the fold first instead. Then I looked down and, by golly, I said to myself, that is an instant large envelope! So I grabbed the camera and, by golly, I had brainstorm #5,067,876,439,274,183,201. My first blog tutorial. Woo Hoo!

Here you see the cut across the sack. Next, the item placed inside the envelope. I wrap things in wax paper, bubble wrap or glad wrap to protect my paper items from potential moisture.

Then, I place the collage (just my style. Not necessary, of course!) and address right over the folded closed opening. Viola! Instant sturdy envelope for your larger items and you saved money, energy, time, trees, the environment, the world! From now on, I will be using all size brown bags for this purpose! I mean you have instant four sealed sides. How great is this? Can you tell I am excited?

Here are the tools of my trade. I adoringly use Yes! Paste for all of my paper projects. And I reuse all kinds of paper and envelopes. Do you see my return address? That is a remnant of the postage kiosk stamp. It comes out of the self service machine as a sticker. And I found that I can make two self sticking return address labels with the leftover! I am hard core saving woman, but why not? It's easier and more efficient, too.

Here is the back of the envelope. That Pottery Barn catalog theme came in so handy!

This tutorial is dedicated to Mister Rogers. Just when I thought I couldn't love him more, we saw an episode where he was demonstrating how he and you can reuse envelopes by simply slicing carefully along the lines and turning it inside out. A little tape, glue or paste and... New envelope! Thanks for reading my post. I love everyone and everything ~ Let's all love our earth a little extra in celebration of today, the first day of spring! Try something new. Use something old. You'll feel great. Really. You will. Habits...the more good ones you curate, the less room in your life for the bad ones. It's a win, win, win situation.