Way Back When-sday: 1981

1981

Welcome to this week's installment of Way Back When-sday!! (yep, I got a little punny with the name and made a little banner to make it seem like it's a really big deal that thousands of people read and participate in...ya).

Wow - 1981 - I was a mere 20 years old... I had just moved with my entire family from the SE part of Houston (Pasadena) to the outer reaches of the north part of Houston, a sleepy little town called Conroe, Texas. The reason my entire family relocated there was because we all worked for the same Christian gift manufacturing company, Christian Enterprises, who had pulled up stakes and moved there. The founders of the company were dear friends of my parents...and they were from Conroe, so that's why the move...

Here's my entire family (and one person I don't recognize in the back) - We all are standing in front of Christian Enterprises during a VERY rare snow in Houston.

My Daddy managed the production department, My Mom did accounts payable and accounts receivable, my older brother did everything remotely connected to production, and my sister-in-law worked in assembly.

I was mainly the product designer/illustrator - but I was also the advertising staff, the on-the-road sales staff, the exhibit booth designer, a silk-screener, and a production worker. Suffice to say I learned a lot in those days about every facet of the giftware business - it was a wonderful 5 years! And it was GREAT to work with my whole family doing something we believed in!

Here's a sampling of what I created for Christian Enterprises in 1981...

Notecards...

Refrigerator Magnets...

I was even into fabric art back then...

And I'm trying my best to include a photo of myself from each year (whether I want to or not), so here ya go...a much younger, (thinner) me...sigh...well at least today I'm a tad bit smarter...maybe :o)

And finally, here's a little touch of pop culture from that year...

Top 5 songs of 1981:

1. Bette Davis Eyes, Kim Carnes

2. Endless Love, Diana Ross and Lionel Richie

3. Lady, Kenny Rogers

4. (Just Like) Starting Over, John Lennon

5. Jessie's Girl, Rick Springfield

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And who could forget...

The # 1 Top Grossing Motion Picture of 1981

Yep, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - LOVED it!!

Yep, Harrison Ford was pretty darn cute
(but not nearly as cute as you, sweet hubby!!!!)

OK, it's YOUR turn...

• How many times did you see Raiders?


• Did you listen to, dance to, or perform karaoke to any of the top 5 tunes of 1981?


• Where were you working in '81 - or what grade were you in?

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Well, thanks for the sentimental journey - it's much more fun having you along!! Please join me next week as we travel way (sorta) back to 1995!

Illustration Friday: Garden

(click image to enlarge)

Finding Faith in a Garden Shed

When I saw this week's Illustration Friday topic, "Garden" I knew I had to participate, even if I needed to submit an existing piece of artwork - and that's exactly what I've done. This, appropriately enough, is the March design from my 2008 Calendar. Even though I'm not a gardener in the least, I still have a love of all things garden and I have immense respect for those hardy souls, full of faith, who bury tiny seeds into the ground, water and feed them, and then, with time and patience miraculously see the fruit of their labor - as the Scripture says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1).

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"The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." (Isaiah58:11)

Way Back Wednesday (umm, Thursday) - 1992

1992

On the surface that doesn't sound that "way back", but, wow, it was 16 years ago!! - my, time just flies, huh?

These little puffy peeps are part of a silk-screened t-shirt design I did when I was working at the The Gift Solution, a gift and hand-painted clothing boutique in Austin, Texas. It was called "Puffy Chicks", and it was one of my earliest attempts to do silk-screen design (it was a rather involved process and I was not great with technical graphic art stuff). But still, it came out kinda cute...

I worked at The Gift Solution from 1986 - 1994 ; I started out personalizing gift items and t-shirts, and eventually worked my way up to being the chief designer managing 25 amazing at-home cottage artists who painted stock clothing and earrings that I designed for our 12 storefront and kiosk locations around Texas. Here's what the kiosks looked like piled high with hand-painted clothing and general giftware...

This business was a lot of fun - I'm sorry that the hand-painted clothing trend died out - they were so fun to create! I imagine that some of you reading this wore creations similar to these in those days. We painted LOTs of matching t-shirt and legging sets, chambray shirts with matching painted button covers, and my oh my the glitter, glitter, glitter - on everything! All the women in my family were clothed with this stuff for years as I routinely gave painted shirts as gifts for every occasion (though this photo of my Mom, brothers and sister-in-law was pre-1992, you get the idea)...

Working full-time as a designer kept my creative juices flowing constantly and it spilled out onto a lot of other creative endeavors in those days like the fabric "paper dolls" I created for my niece for Christmas circa 1992. Talk about fun to make - I first made a hand-painted little stuffed doll, then, using stiff watercolor paper, fusible webbing and Velcro, I created a series of outfits and accessories with fabric - then cut them out and assembled them into this little wicker suitcase. The little Velcro-backed clothes attached to corresponding Velcro on the doll - it was pretty cute...I wish I had a better photo...

I plan to make more fabric cuties along these lines in the upcoming weeks and months - I have so many ideas rolling around in my head right now...

Oh, and just for fun, here's what I looked like in 1992...

Goodness gracious was that big hair or what!?! Man, the money I spent on perms!!! See, in Texas, it didn't matter if big hair went out in the late 80's, we embraced big hair long past the point when it lost its appeal to the rest of the world. And those GLASSES - wow! I don't know how I wore them, they were so heavy!! Ah but they were stylin' - they were just like the ones my HERO Mary Engelbreit wore back in the day...

I still have those glasses - one of my many bunnies graciously agreed to model them for this photo...(my, what was I thinking back then....?)

I will save more Mary Engelbreit stories for future Way Back Wednesday features - she was such a huge influence on my design/illustration style, as she was, and still is, for so many other illustrators of my era...

So what were you up to in 1992.? How high was your hair? Did you ever wear or create hand-painted clothing! We'd love to hear about it!!

Thanks for coming by for this edition of Way Back Wednesday - next week we'll be heading back to 1981 - don't miss it!!

Our Trip to Canton: The Haul

As promised, here is part two of the two part Canton Trip series - this chronicles the shopping aspect of the Canton trip... Funny note - only the embroidered pillowcases and a couple of the breakables showcased below were from Canton vendors - ALL the rest were from the myriad of garage and estate sales in the town of Canton itself and all the way home on Hwy 19 - to me, those are the most fun and yield by far some of the best bargains - with a few notable exceptions. Here's what we hauled home...

The above vintage embroidered pillowcases were purchased from a Canton vendor for $.50 a piece! So I scooped up 16 of them for a mere $8!! That was just about it from Canton vendors themselves.

Yard sales like this one in little Elkhart, Texas yielded the bulk of the loot!

These embroidered linens were found in a small suitcase on the back table...


We picked up the following china and glass collectibles along the way...


The Debbie Mumm plates (8 total) were just a quarter a piece - the plate-hangers on the back of each and every one of them were worth much more than that!

In the midst of all the breakables was this teensy, oh-so-cute teacup - just a buck for this one! You can see from the scale of the quarter how tiny it is...

It looks right at home on this little 25 cent doily...


These are the crafting supplies gathered from several sales - all super cheap! I love the roll of vintage pink rose shelf paper - oh the crafting possibilities...oh, and it was thrown in for free when I bought the 6 little chalkboards!!


File this next one under "Hidden Treasure"...on my way out of a dimly lit po-dunk (that's Texan for small-time or 'insignificant') re-sale shop that was having a moving sale, I happened to spot this stuffed vintage suitcase... (LOVE how the sign reads "Close" patterns instead of "Clothes" patterns) Heck, I'd have bought the case alone for $2.50

Yep, it was filled to overflowing with vintage patterns - over 40 of them - most from the mid 50s and 60s....wow!!!

If you're into vintage at all, you gotta love these....

Finally, here are the "big-ticket" buys - but even at that, all three cutter quilts (to be used for crafting) were a mere $30 total!! I LOVE finding deals like that....

You can see that Maddie has staked out her personal favorite - the butterfly quilt... I'm pretty fond of it too...

All in all, the shopping part of the trip was a huge success. As for the shops at Canton - even though I didn't buy much, I was overwhelmed with wonderful ideas - it was great to see the Spring trends and take note of the pricing - all of this is helping us as Hubby and I formulate plans for crafting framed fabric collages and hand-painted pieces, assembling collage crafting kits, and remaking, restoring and re-purposing small furniture and accessory finds.

Oh yeah, and we had a blast together to boot!! Life is good...

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On more thing, lest I forget....I was SO EXCITED to get to meet two of my blog-link buddies in person at Canton:

First off, it was sweet, kind and talented Linda at Blue Gate!! She and her husband create the most incredible mosaic-studded structures called "Conservatories" (as well as a bunch of other beautiful mosaic goodies) - check out her blog and her studio as well - sweet folks and GORGEOUS creations!!

Also, a perennial blog favorite, Tina at Cherry Hill Cottage is just so very nice and gracious!! She helps out her buddy Laurie at her Canton booth (which was fabulous BTW) every month, but Tina is a star in her own right, having her wonderful cottage featured in the current issue of Country Almanac. She also makes any number of cute cottage accessories and sells them from her blog, and she is famous for her step-by-step recipes she so generously shares.

It was so great to meet my "imaginary" blog buddies in the flesh!! :o) Just the sweetest most talented folks... I love Blogland!!

Our Trip To Canton: The Cabin

I think the pictures speak for themselves...

...yep, it was all that...

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PS - I'll do a separate post to chronicle the haul from all the treasure hunting we did...stay tuned...