22 October 2007

New crafting room to go with my new blog!

This weekend T (the boyfriend) and I went on an adventure to Ikea land. It's been something we've wanted to do for a long time now, and we finally got up the courage, did enough research prior to going and got paid in time to go. I'd already picked out a cool EXPEDIT bookcase to go in my crafting room and we figured there would be other smaller purchases. We went in my Prius (as opposed to borrowing a larger vehicle) to prevent us from making other large purchases.

We spent about 4 hours there total, taking in all the amazing designs and their very small price tags. We started daydreaming about spending a summer in NYC, and all the ingenious furniture possibilities. They even had an NY style, box apartment which we could totally see ourselves living in for 3 months. Right. Tiny space, with virtually no room for big crafting project. The whole space was like 82 square feet or something . We didn't buy anything from that section. We did get 2 floor lamps (which are about 2' shorter than we'd hoped, but they work out quite well in our bedroom), 4 FIRA drawer organizers (which took us the better part of Sunday to put together), some magazine holders and an awesome bean bag chair slip cover that looks like a hedge hog. Instead of buying the $10 air pouf thing that is supposed to go inside (instead of the traditional environmentally un-friendly styrofoam pellets), we brought it home and stuffed it with my fabric scraps. I've been collecting and saving those for a year now. I think I did throw away the ones I'd accumulated in Charlottesville... but I've been collecting them not knowing what I'd do with them, but knowing they'd come in handy one day. Now they fill out my super cute Hedgy MaHog.

SPeaking of Hedgy, I think we spent at least half of our time in the Children's Section. I love the inventive, fun yet practical designs they have for children. I like the small, children sized furniture that seems to me to be in keeping with the Montessori method of allowing children to explore their world on their level. I also like the way the toys and furniture invite imaginative play without bringing in branded characters and cookie cutter story lines. Even as much as I love Disney, I think children should be encouraged to play and create their own imaginary, silly and fun worlds rather than re-enact the situations they watch on tv.

In other only semi-crafting related news, I found out today that I will be in charge of the school's participation in the Town Halloween Parade. I will have to go early, check us in, find our designated staging area and help keep our group corralled as people arrive. All this in costume. A costume I don't have. I don't really like Halloween much. It can be a good excuse to craft, I suppose, but it is so often scary instead of fun, and I don't really like dressing up. Oh well, it might be fun. As long as it doesn't rain.

1 comment:

Clare said...

Hi Gwen! hooray for Ikea! I think my fav. part is the kid section too (and the cinnamon buns of death). We miss you guys :( I hope you don't mind if I link to your blog from my blog. Then everyone who reads my blog (all 2 people) can see all your sweet crafts.

-Clare
www.clarecorner.blogspot.com