Mistress Mary, quite contrary

I missed blogging yesterday as I was sooooo busy but maybe I'll do two today. Yesterday morning I made a layout for the Stash Diet challenge on SIS - to use what you had on hand and to use a nursery rhyme. I knew immediately the rhyme: Mistress Mary quite contrary as that was my favorite nursery rhyme. My first name is Mary (although I go by my middle name) and I used to think the poem was about me. I had an old kodachrome photo (isn't it awful the way kodachrome photos are deteriorating) of me at age 2 and once I got it out, the color yellow was what I wanted for the background. The shade of yellow was very hard to select as the photo almost has a greenish cast and I only have a few pieces of yellow cardstock (which I got in a Bazzill kit on QVC a long time ago). I'm not fond of yellow so I rarely buy yellow things or supplies. Then I wanted to do a flower from the tutorial on http://iluv2scrapmilestones.blogspot.com/. On Tuesday I had gone to the library and at the front of our library there is a big table where people leave magazines to give away - I had picked up the December issue of W and it was full of ads. I found an ad for a perfume that was in pink so I used the page to cut out the flower and then I knew that I would use pink for the accents. I also found an ad for Dilliards for perfumes and one of them was for Harajuku perfume and had photos of all of the little doll bottles. I cut them out for the "pretty maids". I painted the edges of the paper with paint and used lots of Heidi Swapp tapes. I have old supplies I got when I first started scrapping that I rarely use so I am determined to find new ways to use them this year. the whole layout came together in a couple of hours and I posted it to SIS in the late afternoon.

I also finished cutting out the 1 1/4 inch pieces for my yellow (obviously I am in a yellow mood right now) quilt and while doing that listened to some of 1776 by David McCullogh on CD. I am learning so much more than I ever knew about the American Revolution. I will look at the bookstore for some books about John and Abigail Adams, and their relationship.

I am also reading one of the books on my booklist for the year: Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman. She is a writer of children's books who gets divorced 16-18 years ago and never again has a permanent residence. It's a very liberating book and even though I loved being in so many countries when we lived and cruised on our sailboat, I now like the stability of being in our home. Just last night at dinner, Dan and I were talking about how happy we are to live in a paid off house - it's like our little cave or lair where we can hide away and escape the economic turmoil. Sure, its "value" has dropped but it is still our home and since we don't plan to move any time soon, we feel good about it.