New Crafting/Art/Music Room

So, I recently moved to a new place of residence. One of the best parts about the new place, other than cheaper rent, is that I have a permanent craft room! Well, as permanent as you can get when you're renting. So, semi-permanently permanent? At my former house, I had a craft room some of the time--in the "spare" room upstairs in between roommates living there. Most of the time, I just had to use the kitchen table. This house (actually, it's a duplex) is great because it's a three bedroom that's affordable for just two of us.

Anyway, on to the photos.

Shot upon entering the room. The underwater scene is actually a shower curtain. I love how colorful it makes the room.

 The sewing table all folded up. Formerly my grandmother's. I need to find somewhere to put my ukulele. I also need to put more decorations around/above my Zen Cat calendar. Like I said, my move was recent. This is still a work in progress.

 The sewing table, opened. The machine is under the white cover thingy. The top of the table also flips open. I recently acquired the machine from my grandmother as well. I'll have to take more photos of it another time. It's been hardly used, and I don't really know how to work all its fancy features yet. It's also a few decades newer than my previous machine. Movin' UP.

The computer desk I am sitting at this very moment. Above it, Tom Encounters a Tesseract.

 Once again, the pseudo-mural shower curtain.

 My record player and Table for Miscellaneous Creations (TMC). My landlord left the TMC at the house for me with my crafting in mind. Aww. I put my painted Bean shirt on the half mannequin... it adds a nice touch. Also because I'm a crazy cat lady. A crazy cat lady who is posting pictures of her craft room. Yep.

In the pink bin under the turntable are some music supplies. I have a USB microphone, headphones, and a random assortment of sheet music. I've want to get back into writing/covering music and doing crappy home recordings like this one I did several months ago. I don't care if I'm not the best, doing it makes me happy. My drum kit is at my friend's house where we have band practice, but perhaps I'll have to take my microphone over there and record some beats on the next song I do.

 Dia de los Muertos-inspired painting in the corner.

 My easel! Did I mention that Tom Lewis is the best? He built it for me. I put down a heavy duty tarp so I don't have to worry so much about getting paint on the floor (it tends to happen with me... a lot).

 Party Hat Party Cat watercolor on the closet door. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with the mirror next to it. It also needs a home.

Closet where I can store finished projects, mailing supplies, old art, and all of my vintage clothing I sell/hoard.

 

Happy to start crafting/arting/musicing again! It's such a relief to have everything mostly in place. I've had a mass of creative urges lately that I've had to suppress thanks to finding somewhere to live/packing/moving/unpacking the last few weeks. Today I finished unpacking the rest of the house, so that's even more of a relief. 

Stay tuned for the next blog episode; I will have to post pictures of the rest of the house!

Buy American: Buy Sears

Photo is from this slideshow.

This picture is from a series of photos taken at shopping malls in 1989. Only 22 years ago, enough people still valued American-made clothing (and other goods). It makes me sad that this is hardly the case anymore--quantity over quality has taken reign on values. Well, the quality of clothing Chinese children make might be equal to adult Americans, but I would much rather support fair employment. By "quality" I don't just mean competence of workmanship, but quality of life for employees. I loved the idea of American Apparel when it first developed, but after learning about how much of a scumbag its owner is, I don't want to buy anything there.

I mean, if American-made clothing could become popular again, it would mean more jobs for Americans, more money kept inside the country, and less dependency on other countries. Not to mention no child labor and fairer wages. Sadly a lot of Americans don't care about child labor in other countries, but I'm sure they would at least like the job market and economy to improve. I think it would be a win-win situation for everybody.

If only America never outsourced to begin with. About 98% of the vintage clothing I sell on etsy was made in the U.S.A. If an item of clothing was made in the states, that's sadly also how I date items--it's rare to find anything made in the last 15 years that wasn't made in China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc. Hopefully there will be a resurgence of American-made in the future, without d-bags like Dov Charney. I think there already is in small pockets like etsy and boutique stores. Hopefully the mainstream will follow...