Pattern Storage

For two years, from 1999 to 2001, I lived in Ohasama, Japan, a small town of maybe 7,000 people, and I taught English to junior high and elementary school kids.  Technically, I was an Assistant English Teacher.  Anyway, while there, I collected all sorts of pamphlets, bags, tickets, stampled postcards, stickers, etc... When I got back to the U.S. I had this giant pile of ephemera and I did not want to just toss it.  I think my mom suggested that I take an old suitcase and decoupage it with all those bits of paper.  And that is just what I did.

I don't have a before photo, but ten years later this is what that suitcase looks like.

It's held up pretty well all these years, from living in Brooklyn, moving to California and three different places there, and now at its current home in Minnesota.  There are some scuff marks, but nothing has peeled away.

I even had some photos printed out on paper, so I stuck those to the box.  Here I am, at the O-bon festival with two of my students.  

See that photo in the middle with the flag?  That's me on the top of Mt. Fuji.  It's funny, but even after all these years, I can remember where I got certain pieces of paper. I even stuck business cards on there. 

As for the interior, well, that leaves something to be desired.  I tried using some spray adhesive and some sort of paper, but it didn't work, so I just tore it out.  But it works for my pattern storage.

I keep aprons, costumes, bags, and home decor patterns in this suitcase.  I have a cardboard box for everything else.  It'd be cool to have another suitcase for the other patterns, but I haven't seen any that I like at the thrift stores.

Nursery Evolution: Outlet Covers

I don't remember when I decided to ModPodge the three outlet covers and the one light switch cover in the nursery, but it was the right thing to do -- I could not allow plain covers in that room!  As the stenciling got closer to completion, I knew that I had to go forward with the ModPodge plan.

I've only used ModPodge two times before...once, about ten years ago, to cover an old suitcase with all of this paper that I had accumulated after living in Japan for two years.  And the second time was probably about five years ago when I recovered a big Japanese tea box that had been banged up in my many moves.  It's pretty easy to work with and the results are always fun.

The paper that I chose for this project was in my scrapbook pile.  I can't remember where I found it, but it all came in one of those coordinating paper kits.  

At first, I couldn't choose whether or not to just do them all in the same paper or to just mix and match.   I really loved the colors in the stripes, but the circles matched the room.  And then those little funky oval-square ones were fun too.  Since I loved them all, I used them all.

I didn't take any process shots, because my fingers were sticky.  I also can't remember which tutorial I checked on youtube...probably whatever came up first in my google search.  The only thing that I wasn't sure about was what to do with the paper around the holes.  At first I bent it into the holes and modpodged the edges, but once that was dry the covers did not fit back onto the outlets, so I had to take my exacto and slice all that paper away.

Sorry, I couldn't take a picture of the one on the right from anything but an angle, because I kept casting a shadow on it.  The third outlet cover is covered in the circle dot paper, but it's behind the crib right now and I couldn't get a picture of it.  As for the light switch cover (I keep wanting to say outlet plate...is that what they're called?), I did it in circle dot paper:

I even centered the big circle around the actual flicker thing!  And don't mind that stencil underneath it.  It was one of the early ones and I tried to see how fancy I could get with the paint. It's my least favorite stencil in the room.  Ick!  (And sorry the photo is so washed out...I guess I wasn't paying attention to the camera settings in my excitement to document this achievement.) 

So what do you think?  After seeing them all completed, would you have just done one of the papers or would you have mixed them up like I did?  I really like the stripes and it really looks good against the gray wall, so maybe I should have done them all in that.  Hmmmmm...