Dappled Air

How time flies, I just realized that tomorrow is already November. So I quickly looked through my photos I took during October to find one that would make a great wallpaper. I picked the one of the flog lifting off Oat Hill Lake. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels

I got a reminder today about folding plastic grocery bags as I have done for years so that they take up less space. The website shows pictures on how to do it. I learned to do that from my mom from Switzerland. She was visiting one time and showed me what she had be taught by a friend from South Africa. It does only work with all plastic bags, only the ones that have the long side handles and not the ones that have a hole at the top of the bag type handle or are made with thick plastic. Now as grocery stores are more and more encouraging using other bags, taming the plastic grocery bags has become less of an issue. The way I remember how to do it is, that you fold the bag like they do in the movies with the American flag when it is not flying.

I was just informed that my beaded goddess bag was included in the great beadwork treasury at Etsy. It came as a total surprise, I am not quite sure what to say. I guess this means that it is time to add some more of my creations to my Etsy store . In the meantime all my craft creations are also available at the marketplace section of my Marlies' Creative Universe website.

I love to work with beads, but they have a tendency to run away on me. So I have experimented with various materials I had at home. First I tried paper, then a tray, then some felt. The paper was too slippery, the tray I did not like and the felt, well the needle got stuck in it when I tried to pick up a bead. Then one day when I was shopping I came across this cool shelf liner that had a slightly spongy and sticky feeling to it. It has a diamond design on one side and it plain on the other. I lost the label and don't know what it was called. It wasn't too expensive and came in various colors. I picked off white and cut a piece about 12 inches long, it is 9 inches wide and got to work. The first thing I noticed was that the beads did not slip around any more. So it looks like I have found my beading mat. March 2009: I found the label. It is called 'All purpose storage mat', 12" x 30" non-slip. On my searches around the web I came across this very helpful beadi...

Yesterday I found a link from the Pink Paper Peppermints blog to this cool website called PhotoFunia. Be forwarned that you get lost at that site as it is just too much fun to play with the different options.

Yesterday I came across a question on how to recycle business cards at about.com family crafts That reminded me that I had the same question a few years back and found a really useful way to recycle all those business cards by turning them into a small box that is 2.25 inches square. When you buy them commercially you end up often with way too many as the information on them seems to change just too fast and you have to get new ones. By making your own cards you can print only what you need and make the changes as they occur. I don't remember where I got the idea from, but I created a step by step tutorial on how to turn 19 business cards into a little box with a lid. The cool thing about it is that it does not use any glue or staples and there is no cutting involved. All you do is fold the cards and then slot them together. Without a lid the current business cards can also be store in the box. Multiple boxes can be connected together with other business cards. I have also made ...

Yesterday's Sunday outing took us the the York Redoubt. "York Redoubt was the heart of the defenses protecting the outer harbour approaches to Halifax. It is currently a national historic site of Canada." The last time we were there was when we first moved to Halifax and I did not have a digital camera yet. The fall colors were beautiful and the temperatures still quite nice. My favorite picture of the afternoon is the one above. It is a shot of the interior of the quaint little wooden church (1846). I took one picture, but it looks like I took a few and put them together in Photoshop, but I did not. left: Closeup of gears in the canon right: broken trees still show the damage from hurricane Juan in 2003 Check out the other pictures I took here .