Today's 365 Photo That Won't Load Over There

This is a photo from Mike's office this morning. It's an engineer's museum of failures. Wow. Love, love, love it.

Sunday Jojos with Lynn

Here are three lovely 'jojos on this blustery, rainy morning.

 

Cavallini & Company Warehouse Sale - The Full Report

 

Here is my field report from the Cavallini sale yesterday:

My friend Nancy came to my house at 6:50 sharp. I'd just seen an email from Barb and Bob that they were leaving from up north at 5:45 am.

We made our coffee and got in the car and headed from Half Moon Bay to SSF. I know exactly how long this takes (25 min) because I drive it every day. So we got to Cavallini's right at 7:30 am. Already, there were about 80 people in line. It was cold and blustery, but not raining. We parked next door in the Genentech gym parking log (Building 75!) and walked a very short distance through the landscaping to get in line.

The Cavallini's staff had a big tank of coffee with half/half and all the accoutrements, plus donuts on a cart that they brought down the line. Just as umbrellas started to pop up the large warehouse door on the left opened and the crowd literally ran in. Being short, I couldn't see what was on many of the tables that were swarmed. I later learned those were small "gift bags" like kids get at birthday parties. Then, there were tables of paper - oodles of them, calendars old and new, sets of cards in boxes and in tins, blank paper from the ends of card runs. Tip: look on the bottom of the tables - good stuff there for us short folks!  I just grabbed everything that appealed to me and it was very soon too much to carry. Luckily I'd thought ahead to bring a shopping bag or two. I checked out really quickly - no line at all - and took this stuff to the car. Seriously, I could barely carry it. The plastic wrapping combined with the rain didn't help - everything was getting really slippery. (My arms ache a little today; note to self - work out more. I kept thinking of that cute blonde woman in the red track suit and high heels on the Target ads!)

Then, I came back for Round #2 - ding ding. I loaded up again with smaller stuff and had more time to look at the papers. I ended up getting about 100 sheets of paper total. They are quite heavy, but by the second round, one of their staff had brought out a box of rubber bands so we could roll the paper.

At this point, due to the heavy rain outside, the line inside Cavallinis was wrapping in a spiral inside the warehouse. It was comical to see the end of the line keep moving around poles, behind stacks of boxes. Everyone was very cheerful and nice. Many temporary friendships were made in the lines.  One guy, smartie, had about four large boxes of things pushed to a little corner. Rather than waiting in the line, which in round two took about 45 minutes, I think he just waited until the madness subsided and checked out restfully.

Barb was shopping quite leisurely because smiling Bob was there in line. She was cute - kept taking more things back. He was cute - smiling and holding down the fort. Then, Anna and Bill showed up and had some sensible shopping where most of the people were in line.  My friend Nancy kept texting me wondering where I was because it was so packed we couldn't see one another.  The beginning did have a bit of a "feeding frenzy" atmosphere to it, but we were home by 10:40, and that included the drive and a short stop at the market.

Would I do it again? Absolutely! Though I have enough stuff to last a lifetime, it seems.

Afterwards, Nancy and I scooted home to get some things at the market, including the last croissant (one!) in Half Moon Bay and Barb/Bob/Anna/Bill joined us for a lovely brunch. Cream cheese and chive eggs, bacon, a selection of pastries, one croissant, good hot coffee, strawberries and raspberries with yogurt and granola, and some sourdough toast with Bon Maman jam I'd bought at the market in Revelle with Anna and Bill the first Monday. We hashed over the good times at La Cascade and caught up on what everyone's been doing. We missed you Toni, Doria, Sue, Valerie and Leslie, but you were truly all there in spirit, especially those of you who had sent me a shopping list!

Here are the only two photos I had the time to take.

Waiting to get in: open, open, open!



Polite mayhem at the paper table:



The eggs and strawberries, waiting for company to arrive. (Photo credit to Nancy West.)

Cavallini & Company Warehouse Sale

Today, I went to the Cavallini & Company Warehouse Sale  in South SF. Picked up some awesome paper, cards, stamp sets, etc. Some for me and some for my friends from the France workshop. Afterwards, Anna and Barb came by my house and we had a lovely civilized lunch. Bob and Bill were there too and Nancy.

We got there around 7:30 am (yawn!) and stood in the cold until 8 am when they opened the doors. It was just starting to rain. They had coffee and donuts for us and it was all very well organized.  

What a great day. Now I have piles of stuff to put away, mail, etc.

Three More Jojos - I Have Another 45 or So

so I'm going to post three a day. That means these should last about two weeks.

Lynn's are the Beatles (from MOMA's Richard Avedon exhibit?) and the flowers. Mine are the others.

Enjoy!

Three Jojo's With Lynn

Wow - Lynn sent me 46 photos today! All ripe for jojo's. I could work on them all night, but that wouldn't be prudent. Here are three as a little appeteezer.

Lynn was recently in DC. Guess which shots are hers?

Jenny and Melissa Will Be Back @ Celebration of Craftswomen Ft. Mason

This is a shot of Jenny's fabulous boots at the 2009 Celebration of Craftswomen/Ft. Mason, which is where I first stumbled upon the deliciousness that is the work of Junk Girls.

I'm so happy to know they will be back at this year's event. See here for all the details. November 27/28 and December 4/5 at Fort Mason.

 

Keep Them Jojo's Coming Lynn!

We're catching up - Lynn's got so many great photos, all taken with the iPhone 4.

Lynn's palm tree with a photo I took of "blue" in London outskirts:

A dog, with my shot of a white board from work:

Lynn's CD-decorated bik with an abandoned storefront in Hackney (London outskirts):

And the Lake (Merritt) with my shot of a Bellingham recycling yard:

Third and Final Jojo for Today

One Big Report and Two Photojojos

My new 'jojo partner is Lynn Stetler. She's an amazing environmental specialist and on her walk to work everyday, she takes some great photos. I'm so happy to have a new 'jojo partner!

Thanks Lynn! Her photos are on the left (kitty peering skyward) and on the right (birdhouses).

My Favorite Book Cover Collage

This is the one I like best of the 18 I made yesterday. Okay, well, these are the two I like best. Technically, the second one is not a book cover - it is made on book pages, a leaf, from a book.

See them all here, on my Picasa WebAlbums page.  They're for an upcoming Christmas Faire at Harley Farms, where they make fabulous artisnal goat cheeses.

Tonight I was notified that I will have a space at the upcoming Annual Christmas Fair at Harley Farms. This event is on December 11/12 in beautiful Pescadero, just 10 miles south of Half Moon Bay.

I'll post more details when I have them. I'll be selling correspondence cards, journals, and other items, all hand made, using ephemera I've collected from all over the world.

These items are  affordable, collectable and very special gifts for your friends and family. They are similar in design to my boxes from last year that sold out!  I can still make boxes if you want them on commission/special request. Just drop me an email.

George Sleeping

Photojojo is Back!

I have a new Photojojo partner, who shall remain nameless until I receive instructions on how to do the attribution.

For now, here is the photojojo for today, October 30, 2010.

Art Today - Bookmarks & Glass Baubles

Today is a day off from work so I got right to the art. I woke up feeling so much better than yesterday, so I went through the ribbons I got at Antique Trove. I washed them (ugh - vintage years of dust and that "old" smell washed away with lavender soap), then ironed them because several were folded over. Ironing them while still damp was just the trick, then so they didn't look too good, I crumpled them into a ball for a few minutes and voila! nice ribbons for later.

I put away buttons, game pieces, and tore up some maps I bought and went through and cleaned up from doing some art with company last week. Then, I was all ready to make some new stuff.

First I did some glass baubles using packages of $1.00 magnets from Michael's. I took the images off that came with the baubles and replaced them with my own.

Here they are:


Then I made some bookmarks using the cards that the seam bindings came on. They were the perfect size and I topped them with the fresh ribbons I made after coating them with the 'wax.

Here they are:




I had bought this really cool 4th grade math book at Antique Trove. I wanted it for the math problems and images. It was a 1956 book, used by a Louis Wright in 1962. I didn't notice in the store that Louis adulterated every drawing in the book. The one with the baby is especially creepy. (Click on the image if you want to see more detail.)

Some Stateside Vide Grenier

When I first moved to the Peninsula, from the East Bay, I encountered this amazing place in San Carlos called Antique Trove. It was a gigantic garage sale, with class. Hundreds of vendors, each with their own little booth. I found paper, milk glass, vintage pyrex bowls, old photos, music sheets.  I collected up a ton of stuff, and the next time I went to get more paper, OMG - they were gone!

That was 3 years ago. I've found new options - like the Antique Fair at Alameda Point - but that is only once a month and so crowded and difficult to get to from Half Moon Bay. Yesterday, I was in Roseville and saw out of the corner of my eye a sign from the freeway that was similar to the San Carlos Antique Trove sign, so I got off and pulled around, and voila - it was like walking into the past, in two ways. It was the same vendors and items as from San Carlos!

I found a lot of really cool stuff, including some items for my new home.

I can put a mechanism in this to make it a functioning clock for my new kitchen.

I plan to use these old outdoor faucet knobs as pulls on my kitchen cabinets.

And here is a vintage, French blue light fixture for the wall somewhere.

Amazing Photo Discovery

I bought some tulips last week and they were a little droopy but I didn't have the heart to toss them quite yet. Instead, I decided to take some photos of them, because the droopy-ness was alluring.

I took several photos, and they were okay, and then I noticed the miracle - the image of the flopped over tulips in the sun drenched countertop. It was shiny enough to act like the surface of a mirror. Only because the tulips were turned completely upside down did this work. Here are the images.

First, the 'straight' shot. Good, but not great.  They are pretty tulips.


Here are the reflected images. Some image manipulation was used in the making of these photos.