new favorite artist...

Last weekend at the Brookings Art Festival I found some new cool art. One of my favorites were these super cool paintings of monsters. The artist also uses fabric. I wish I would have bought one, but they were kind of expensive. Here is her blog & website. http://kargolart.mosaicglobe.com/journal/1324

Check it out...

is it monday...

This conversation took place at approx 11:00 am, 7.19.07

Me: Mike is your vehicle fixed yet?

Mike: It shoud be done this afternoon. Kathy is going to pick me up and noon and take me to the gym. She is going to go to Target and shop while I work out.

Me: Does he have today off.

Mike: Yes.

Me: Since when does she have Monday off?

Mike. Its THURSDAY!

Me: It is? I thought it was Monday.

DonnaMae: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh, I am smart......

me + ebay

My most recent ebay winning is this super cool depression glass hand. I bought it to photograph my jewelry designs on. But it also looks really cool in my room. I have always wanted one of these. Is that strange?

who we are...

Bobbi and I were talking last week about what makes us who we are. We were taking about all the projects we use to do as kids. Sewing, knitting, art and 4-H. Mom & Grandmas that sewed and taught us to bake & cook. We think this is what has made us crazy project creative people. Are kids today missing out?? So today I finally organized my newly scanned 400 childhood photos and I found a lot of photos that reminded me why I turned out the way I did. I feel very lucky for having two creative parents, any very lucky they passed their passion on to me.

Mom & Dad.

This is my 3rd Birthday cake. I remember loving this. Thanks mom!

This is my winning kindergarten poster, it won 1st place in the whole state.
"What Safety Means to Me". I guess this is my very first graphic design.

Every year in July the family went to the Art Festival in Omaha. Here Bryce, mom & I are making art projects in the kids area. This was the best!

Little girls and brownies. What could be better?

My very first piano recital. I have never looked good in belts!

Birthday parties. These were our childhood favorites.
That is my mom in the witch costume. Fall, halloween & birthdays are the best!

Does anyone remember "Shrit Tales" & Pammy Panda?
This was my favorite cartoon.
Dad built her out of snow! Oh, the coolest!!!!

4-H and sewing. The annual summer torture! I remember having to rip out all the not perfect seems and start over. Mom was very patient with me. It must have been worth it. I won a purple ribbon and it went to state. I remember re-doing the collar/lapel over and over!

So...I think this kind of explains why I am the way I am :)

Creating...

Besides my regular day job of creating the last week has had fun extra creating projects. Yesterday Bobbi & I spend the 4th of July Decoupaging our super cool and super cheap tin pots. We have been wanting to this for months. We also grilled and watched fireworks.
It was a good day. This photo is stage one of the chaos.

Half way done. A lot of ohhh & ahhh at this stage.

Yeah we finished! Now where to put them? So many decisions.

Saturday was our 3rd annual Art Falls. Katie & I have made this our tradition. This year we added Nicola & New Katie. Abbey & Eric (Katie's kids) also joined us, which gave ma a great excuse to do the kids art projects. Here is Katie's link with more photos: http://www.overcaffeinatedkatie.com/

The photo above are our Raku creations coming out of the kiln.

This is the pot I made. And by made I mean I picked out the glaze. It is still very rewarding.

Here is my new art with the branches I had to spray paint white the minute I got home so I could put it all together. Do I have a sickness??

After spray painting, I decided to make magnets out of some old type I bought at a antique store. This has been on my list for awhile. Now I just need to find some cool things to magnet...

Here is a photo of the tie dying at Art Falls. It was the most fun part.
Thanks Abbey for letting me help.

This is what 3 days of sewing looks like...

Sometimes I wonder why I start these crazy projects. The sewing started on Friday afternoon and ended on Sunday. The quilt just kept growing. I had originally purchased a queen size batting for the inside, thinking that would be plenty. But by the time I had the border on and the binding it had grown past a queen size. So I made it to the fabric store by 5 pm yesterday to exchange the queen for a king. I came to work (the monster does not fit anywhere in my house) and laid out the backing and the batting and realized that it was way too thin. Oh, the struggle...do I leave it like it is or go to Wal-Mart (not Target :( ) and get more? Since they are the only place with batting that is open on a Sunday night. Ok, so if I am going to do all this work I am going to do it right. Off to Wal-Mart.

Back to work with the new batting. I spent another hour fighting to get all four layers flat. How come no one told me this was going to be the hard part? So I finally gave up and called in reinforcements. My super cool friend Bobbi came to the rescue. She saved the day. We pulled, smoothed and pinned the quilt for an hour and a half and now its all put together. I could not have done this without her. Thanks Bobbi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now all thats left is the hand stitching. Which will probably take me another 8 months to finish. I hope it will be worth it when I am done :)

father's day trip

Our trip started bright and early on Saturday morning. Dad was excited because we were taking the convertible. Packing is harder for me in a limited space, but I was able to get everything in! We made our way to the hills, stopping in the ever popular Wall, SD. I did see a really cool pair of cowboy boots at Wall Drug, but they were $300.00. We also stopped at the Ace Hardware store in Wall. Dad actually has a map with pins in every city where he has been to an Ace. I guess its tradition. We made it to Hill City where we were staying. It was beautiful out that day, nice and cool. We walked around downtown and ate at the Alpine Inn.

Sunday was another beautiful day. We started out early. We went for a nice morning drive that required jackets! We then when to Mount Rushmore. 7 am is totally the time to go. There is no one there. Next back to Hill City for our train ride on the 1880 Train. I was so excited about this. The train died twice. One time we sat there for about a half hour while they tried to get it fixed. It was fun though. We spent the afternoon driving though Custer State Park and trying to avoid a thunderstorm since we were in the convertible.

Monday was our driving back day, we did drive through the Badlands. I was already to see some wildlife and of course we saw nothing. I think its me. The wildlife hides from me.

I have posted my trip photos on my flickr site. Here is the address:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristieweiberg/

quiet...

I recently purchased a new air conditioner & furnace. I had kind of been putting this off, but its finally done. Today is the first day I have used the air. I turned it on...and I thought it was not working. But it was, its just so quiet you can't hear it in the house at all! Can this be?? Before it sounded like there was a monster in the basement. This is so exciting! I can't wait until I have to use the heat.

scanning...

I guess our family is not very organized because we have 2 big boxes of photos. Harold Photo Center has a shoe box scanning special. They will scan 400 photos for $59.00. What a bargain. Scanning is super time consuming and boring. Today I picked up my 400 photos on a cd! I am so excited to organize them in iphoto. Here is a sampling...


Bryce (my little brother, now 28) and I. I am sure all of you who know about my fall obsession will notice I am holding a pumpkin :)



This is my 4th Birthday. I received Sesame Street socks. I remember how much I loved them. Can you tell?

the best place to work...

We just had smores for an afternoon snack. Joan our super cool receptionist brought the supplies. Where else can you work and get to make smores??

projects & shopping

Saturday was a great girl shopping & visiting day. My really cool friend Bobbi & I had a girl day. We started out chatting and ended up at Hobby Lobby. You can read her Hobby Lobby account here http://backfortydesign.blogspot.com/

I am sure a few customers where afraid of us. We bought almost all the same stuff!

These really cool stars on the fence were only $2.60. So I had to have them. I had the stars that are hanging in the tree. I guess I kind of have a star theme going now.


On Sunday Dad came to work on the house. We went to Menards & Home Depot. I wanted to find plants for the hanging baskets. I did not want ferns this year, but of course I ended up with ferns. They were only $13.00 a piece and they are gigantic! We also bought plants for the big pots.

It was a good weekend!

stay focused...

I can never seem to stay focused while shopping. It's so hard. This morning Mike & I went to Pier 1. They had a lamp we wanted to buy for the office. I did pretty well until the end. When we took the lamp up to the check out there it was. A wicker couch on clearance. I have been looking for awhile for a cool couch for my sunroom. The tag said it was usually $475.00 and on clearance it is $87.00!! WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So of course I instantly think there is something wrong with it. The guy said it had been discontinued. I had to have it. Bargains make me so happy. So next I needed cushions for it. They also had some of those on sale. The ones I liked were normally $100.00 a piece and they were on sale for $13.74! Ok, now I am not focused at all. Oh and I had $16.00 left on a gift card. Thank goodness we brought Mike's vehicle. There is no way all this cool stuff would fit in my little car. Here is my cool new clearance stuff!

my favorite kind of days...

I have two favorite kind of days. They are...any day that feels like fall or Colorado. Today it feels a little like both. I LOVE these days. If you can wear a long sleeved shirt or a light jacket, I flail about. As soon as the temperature hits 80° I start counting the days until fall. Tonight I decided it was a perfect night for mowing. I blasted my ipod (the most coolest and bestest album: Glory Revealed) and enjoyed the fall/Colorado weather. If you are wondering where this obsession comes from. I inherited it from my father. Every big project we talk about doing we say "that's a perfect project for the fall" and every vacation we plan is in the fall, we are slightly obsessed.

(Only 4 months till fall!)

long list...

I have a really long list of projects I want to do with my house. There is always so much to do with an old house! This last weekend we replaced the ugliest storm door at the back of my house going to my patio. Now I have a pretty new one that actually closes! Love it. It took almost all day to install the stupid thing. Dad kept saying...this whole door frame is an 1" off! This created us a lot more work.





Next step: The end of this week or early next week I am getting a new furnace and air conditioner. I am so excited. Currently the air condition lives on the patio in a bad spot. It is also ancient. I have been waiting 5 years to move the stupid thing off my patio. I can't wait. The only not fun part is paying for all the new cool things.

cutting squares...

This is how I spent my Sunday, ironing and cutting 270 — 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" squares. Who ever came up with the rotary cutter for fabric deserves a big kiss. I love it! I am sure it sped up the process.

Step 2. The squares came to work with me today. I do not have a big enough room in my house to lay the pattern out. So I am going to do it here. I can't wait to arrange all the colors and patterns. It will be so much fun. Then I can start sewing them together :)

let the sewing begin:

My super cool fabric purchase arrived today. It contains 40 squares, 18 x 24 of the most beautiful patterns and colors. I am going to make a quilt for my bedroom and then paint it a crazy pink or blue. I can't wait. It is almost too pretty to take apart. I just like looking at it all stacked up perfectly.


This is the rest of my purchase. I bought 1 lb. of scraps. These are so cool. Bobbi and I have plans for these. Stay tuned for the results of our project.

my ebay addiction.

Every couple of days I happily log on to ebay to see what cool vintage silverware is there. On Monday there was a posting for an Eames 1960 silverware set. Ok, I do not need a silverware set. But how do I pass this one up? It's an investment right? The really cool part was that no one was bidding on this super cool thing. Ray & Charles Eames were very cool designers in the 60s. They designed famous chairs like this...


So I won the whole set for $23.00. Yeah!

At the same time ebay showed me other things that seller was offering. He was selling a set of 3 vintage Nebraska Postcards. No one was bidding on them either. So of couse I thought they would be so cool framed in my house. I won those today also for only $5.99.



Prayer for the day: Please make my ebay addiction stop :)

so cool...

At three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on the 6th of May this year,

the time and date will be 02:03:04, 05/06/07

This will never happen again.

for crying out loud...

Yesterday was designer learning day. The speakers favorite saying was..."for crying out loud". You know its going to be a good presentation when that is his favorite quote.

Actually the preparations for this day began on Monday. I unwillingly volunteered to be the food committee for the all day event. I already had Honey Baked Ham lined up for the lunch but I had to take care of drinks and snacks. So Monday night I went to Sam's. I hate Sam's. I do not have a membership card. Why would a single girl have a card for a store where the smallest quantity of a product is 1600? So I borrowed the Paulsen card and set out on my journey. I did not know where anything was, since I never go there. About half way though my shopping my shoe broke. It was one of those cute little black ballet slipper type shoes and the button to the cute little strap popped off. Number 125 why I hate Sam's! My shoe breaks there. So I get home with all my supplies and it takes 26 trips in the house to carry in the 10 - 12 packs of pop, 7 dozen muffins and 3 dozen pieces of fruit. All together we were feeding about 70 people.

On Wednesday morning, the morning of the workshop. Mike picks me up @ 7:00 am. I talked him into helping me since he has muscles and a blazer. All that crazy food would not fit in my car. So we start loading up the food. Mike goes to pick up the bananas and drops them through the stairs in the basement. Yikes. The only way to retrieve them is to bend a hanger into a banana fishing pole and fish for them. After a few minutes he retrieves the bananas and we are on our way. We stop to buy ice and then to the event location.

We get there and start unloading the food and setting up. The sign-up begins @ 8:30. It is now 7:45 am and I have not started the coffee. It is generally not a good idea to have the person who never drinks coffee and does not know how to make coffee in charge of that. The first couple of people drank more of a tea than coffee.

The learning began. Designers are kind of a strange group of people. My friend Bobbi said it best...where else can you find a room full of people who get excited about ruler lines? Yes, its true, the strangest things make up happy.

Lunch begins and I realize we have run out of water. Since I did not drive, Mike dropped me off, I borrowed Jon's car and headed to Hy-Vee. You know how if your credit card is not signed the cashier usually checks your drivers license. Well I had my fancy AIGA name tag on. The cashier said...I guess I don't have to check your license. (Note to self, you look like a dork if you wear a name tag to Hy-Vee).

Back to the presentation. The afternoon session was good. I think we learned a lot. Its funny how once you get something like that all set up, you forget that you have to take it all back home with you.

After all that, I was kind of tired last night. I tried to stay up to watch my new favorite show. Shear Genius. (It's like Project Runway, but with hair styling.) I fell asleep before the end of it and missed who got kicked off.

It was good to be back at work today :)

mini vacation :)

I had so much fun this weekend its hard to know where to start. I guess I will break it out day by day...

Friday:
I picked up Bobbi @ 9:00 am and we headed out of town. We talked non-stop all the way to Northfield, MN. We stopped in Northfield for shopping fun. It is a cute college town. They have the coolest vintage buildings and the best shops. We ate at a great sandwich shop and shopped the afternoon away. We both purchased some vintage silverware at an antique store. Now I have brought another friend over to the dark side of vintage silverware :) One of the really cool stores, is a store called Digs. Bobbi saw it in one of her magazines. They have the best fabric, yarn and other cool things. Here is their link: http://shopdigs.com/homepage.htm

We decided it was time to head to the big city. We typed our destination into the GPS (which we named Mac, in honor of our favorite singer) and headed north. We arrived at our destination (thanks Mac). Our hotel was very cool (thanks Shane). It was an old Railroad depot that has been converted into a hotel. It has the best, puffy beds. We felt like queens.

Here is the view from our hotel window.

We continued chatting and getting ready for the concert. We left the hotel. I don't know why Mac the GPS tells us distances in yards. Because I don't know what 1000 yards looks like! So I took a few turns a little early and we went around the block a couple of times. We finally made it to the concert. We had really great seats. It was a smaller auditorium and we could see really well. It was the best concert I have ever been to in my entire life. I did not want it to end.


Then back to the hotel, then to Dunn Brothers coffee for a snack and to bed.

Saturday:
Was happy with hope of more shopping and meeting Bobbi's friend K. We went to her house, of course with the help of Mac. K took us to a cool little coffee shop attached to a yarn shop. It was so cool. We had coffee, yummies and conversation. Next to the yarn shop. It was so cool. I think I wanted everything. There was alot of squealing. 3 designers who love color in a yarn shop is a crazy thing. I purchased 3 skeins of yarn. Bobbi was going to teach me how to crochet. Now I was set. Of course all the yarn I purchased fits into my favorite color category of blue & brown. We actually made it out of the shop and then saw some really cool purses in the window and had to go back in and buy those. They were so worth it. Then on to a more cool stores. Bibelot, lunch at Highland Grill and a super cool store Patina. They had the coolest stuff, I wanted it all!!! And the design of the store is amazing. Here is their link http://www.patinastores.com/index.cfm

I also saw a restaurant called bread & chocolate. If we would have had more time. I totally would have been there. I think it may be my home.

Lunch at the Highland Grill was fun. It was a funky little grill/diner. It has the coolest bright green on one wall. We had fried green beans & sweet potato fries. Yum.

the cool girls

Besides loving pretty, shiny, design things. We all love animals. Perhaps K loves them more than the rest of us (check out her blog to see her zoo...http://39andrising.blogspot.com). She is amazing. So we went to a pet store to see Hedgehogs & puppies. We ended our shopping day by hanging out in the hotel room. We talked some more, B taught me how to crochet. Later that evening we decided we wanted Dairy Queen. Someone was talking about it at the concert and then we wanted ice cream. We pulled out our trusty GPS Mac, and found the nearest location. When he said we had arrived at our destination all that was there was an Arbys that was closed. NO!!! So we drove around for awhile looking for ice cream. The not so smart thing was that there was a Twins game that night. And we were staying close to the dome. So on our ice cream hunt I blindly drove into the parking lot of the dome as the game was getting over. Panic! We made our way out :0, went back to the hotel and went back to our safe zone Dunn Brothers coffee for the 3rd time. Then back to the room.

Sunday:
We left the hotel and headed home. We stopped in Medford and the outlets and bought some cool stuff. Shopping is good. We arrived home around 6 pm. Of course we talked at each other all the way home. Below is a picture of the swag I assembled over the weekend. I guess my purchases were a little random. Some how I ended up with 3 purses and some fabric to make a 4th. What?

Last night I worked on my new crochet project. I am so addicted now. Its so much faster than knitting. I can't wait to finish the scarf I started. Thanks B!

Thanks girls for the fun weekend!