Art Fire Shop

I have been told by a couple of people that my Art Fire Shop has photos to dark to see the hand knits well. So I have started to replace some of the photos. Please tell me what you think. Thanks to Maggie D. also Loongirl, and ArtFireJohn on Twitter for there help and suggestions.

As I said in my first blog and on-line store, that this is a learning experience for me so all the help and comments are helpful. So with this in mind please tell me what you think. Keep in mind that not all the items have been updated yet.

My shop is at www.artfire.com/users/Handmade~by~Sheri .

Have a wonderful day.

Daily Candy 100 Day Giveaway

Daily Candy 100 Day Giveaway

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Last night one of the bed rails on Eric's bed broke. We lost a rivet that holds the bar in place that operates the up down function of the rail. John was able to do a temporary fix but said that if I put the bed rail down it will break again. The question that has been on my mind since last night is will it take a month of a rental bed and almost 2,000 dollars to fix like last time or are rivets cheaper than circuit boards. I sent out a tweet asking if anyone knew of someone who could replace a rivet on a hospital bed, but I have not received an answer yet. If you dear reader know of some one please let me know.

We did manage to get out of the house today. Lunch at the mall and the movies. I really like the cinaplex's because we can divide and conquer. Teri and John saw the new Transformer movie and liked it a lot. Eric and I saw the new Sandra Bullock movie Proposal. Eric was tired and slept through part of the movie. I on the other hand think that it is on of her better movies. When is the sequel coming?

After the movie Eric and I cruised the mall looking for a new Elmo pillow for his bed. I found it very shocking at the number of stores that were closing. It just seemed so dismal. The only part of the mall that seemed to be thriving was the food court. I do hope that the economy turns around soon.

John made great salads for dinner while I feed Eric. Now that Eric is done with his percussion treatment I am hoping that we can watch the Dr.Who special that John Tivo'ed off the BBC. I am hoping for another quiet night, I really do like to sleep.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

We made it Through the Week or TGIF

Eric got the stomach bug that was going around camp. After a long night of wild eyrps on Wednesday. I trudged through a long day of laundry and caring for Eric on Thursday. Trying to get a few naps in at the same time. In between all that I hand made a basket full of 100% cotton make-up remover pads.

I wanted to let you know that the camp bake sale was an over whelming success. They raised over 100 dollars. They had so much fun that they will do one in a few weeks. I will keep you posted. A big thank you to all of you who stopped by and help the campers out.

Friday morning started off GREAT. Eric was well enough to go to camp. I finally had time to meet up with my friends at the Foothills Mall Food Court. This is the most wonderful group of ladies around. There were new projects to be shown off including hand knit doll clothes and scarfs. I known your are thinking scarfs in Tucson,it's over 100 degrees outside right now, but before you know it the temperatures will dip to a chilly 70 degrees and they will be here when we need them. We had a discussion as to what constitutes "vintage yarn" and decided that anything in your stash longer than 5 years should be considered vintage. I got yarned by Suzy, 2 skeins of super wash wool, it is already saying make me into a scarf, with a zig-zag pattern. Before I knew it it was 11:30 and we broke up for errands or lunch.

A group of us went to Mayco's, its been a while since I have been there and they have changed up the lunch menu for the better. You have just got to try "O" on the lunch special menu it was just a little bit of heaven-sigh.

I have added some make-up remover pads that are hand crocheted cotton of various colors. These were added before camp this morning. I have listed a set of 10 but if you want more please let me know. Please feel free to stop by my shop to see everything I currently have for sale at www.artfire.com/users/Handmade~by~Sheri.

This afternoon with the help of John from Art Fire.come I got a Rapid Cart working on my blog. Thank you so much John. For those of you who have not used Rapid Cart in the past it is very easy to use. I have 3 items randomly in a box in the upper left hand corner of my blog. If you decided you want the item all you have to do is to click on the image and you will be brought to the check out for my on-line shop, pay with Pay-pal and your item will be shipped to you as soon as I receive confirmation of payment.

To sum up to day there is only one word for it, WONDERFUL. Have a great weekend :p

Giving Back

I feel it is very important to create the kind of world that you want to live in. So I am going to invite all of you who live in Tucson to stop by the JCC at Alvernon and Dodge between 10 am and 3 pm today, June 24th to support the fundraiser benefiting TAGLIT a summer camp for young adults with special needs. They will be in the main lobby.

They spent yesterday shopping for ingredients and baking cookies, they would not tell me what kind I would just have to stop by today and see what they made.

The money they raise will benefit the TAGLIT camp and other charity projects that they are working on. For those of you not living in Arizona the state has cut 10% of their funding and they have had to cut back on outings as not to go over budget.

Since the campers spent so much time on the fund raising project I decided to up their take by donating a small basket of handmade items for them to sell and keep all of the proceeds for their activities. So even if you don't eat cookies, stop by and make a donation or buy something handmade from the basket.

You too can help make the world a better place.

Felted totes, befrore and after

Two more of my Stash Buster projects are shown below. The challenge is to see how many one of a kind items I can make just using the yarn from my yarn stash. I'll let you know when I have paired my yarn down enough to move more of it back in to the house from storage :)

My friend Candy suggested that maybe I should show the before and after of a felt purse or tote bag. So since I just finished 2 new felted bags on Friday and I finally have time to blog, here goes.

The first step is to knit a bag from 100 % wool, that has not been treated in the super wash process. The bag is knit on larger knitting needles using a worsted weight yarn. This takes between 30 and 35 hours to knit one tote bag, The tote bags are rather funny to see at this stage. I am 5'4" and the purple bag is almost as tall as I am. The orange bag was taller than I was so the picture is taken as it lays on the floor.

Then I put the tote bags in zippered pillow cases and washed them on a long cycle twice using very hot water at the lowest water setting. The section that was about 3 feet long is now barely 11 inches long. This makes a nice sturdy bag for your small projects or for an evening out. I usualy hang the bags outside to dry, because of Tucson's low humidity. However, these bags had to dry in the house because we had a rare rainy day on Friday.

After they're dry, I trim up any odd bits that don't seem to fit the style of the tote bags. Then they are ready to be photographed to list on my Art Fire shop Handmade~by~Sheri.

Please visit http://www.artfire.com/users/Handmade~by~Sheri to purchase these or any of my one of a kind hand knit items. Thank you for supporting the hand made movement.

Handmade~by~Sheri Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade

Handmade~by~Sheri Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade

Shared via AddThis I just added a new tote bag to my Art Fire shop. It is made from Lion Brand Flower Garden.

Handmade~by~Sheri Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade

Handmade~by~Sheri Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade

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I just listed a new purse on Art Fire. please feel free to check it out.

New Listings on Art Fire

I just added some more items to my Art Fire shop Handmade~by~Sheri. Take a peak and tell me what you think. http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=view_product

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Hi All, I guess I sould not blog so late at night i included the wrong link to my Art Fire shop. Try this link instead www.artfire.com/users/Handmade~by~Sheri. Thanks

Birthdays

This week I turn 50. It is a time of new beginnings. Every year I re-evaluate my life. Every 5 years I make a change and every 10 years I try to make a major change . At 25, I got married. At 30, I had given birth to the last of my two beautiful children. At 35, I moved to Tucson, Arizona with my husband and 2 kids. At 40, I decided to immerse myself in education by taking religious studies classes and increasing the number of books I read. At 45, I learned to knit... And now, at 50, this dear reader is the year of major change for me.

My oldest child is heading off to law school in a few months and I strongly suspect that this will be our last great mother- daughter time. I know that it will come in bits and pieces from now on and I will really miss the good times I enjoy with my daughter, she is a blessing in my life.

My youngest is starting down the road of 12+ , its a road for the few in our society that are severely disabled and do not have much of a chance for independence. It's one last ditch effort of the school system to get the young adults to their highest potential.

So in the mists of all this chaos, I have decided to use my creative energy to start an on-line business and blog, my major change for the big 5-0. So come and join me on this journey though 50+. In addition to this blog, you can find me on ArtFire.com at my online shop, www.artfire.com/users/Handmade~by~Sheri, and you can follow me on twitter at @skaro964. I have no idea where any of this is going, but that resembles my life in general.