Feature Friday: Jen of jenscloset

Above: Vintage Pink Set or Sewing Projects Description: Well..I love pink and this is full of pretty pink! Includes 1 Advance dress pattern (teens size 14). The cover has tears on the corners; it looks as if this pattern was never used.5 feet of cute pink rick rack1 yellow plastic thimble

------------- feature friday written by jen ----------------------

As soon as I had my first child, Lindsey, I knew I was meant to be a Mom…and that would be my most important job ever! I have three fantastic children! Lindsey, my oldest daughter, is 26, and just happens to be my best friend! She definitely got her talent from my Mom (I think it skips a generation!). She’s always creating as you can tell by her blog http://www.linques.typepad.com/ My handsome son, Mark is 17 and will be a senior this year! My daughter, Katherine just turned 16 in March and is actually traveling in Europe right now with a group of students and teachers from her high school!

Ever since I can remember I have had a passion for antiques! My fondest memories of beautiful antiques, were rummaging through my Great Aunt Esther’s 250 yr old Rye, NH house…oh the things I found in that attic…if only I had all of them!

My daughter Lindsey was the one that encouraged me to start my Etsy shop back in April 2008 when I was laid off from my job! It’s amazing how you can turn things around when you follow your passion!

Above: Retro Cool Knowles Golden Foliage Blue and Gold Teacup and Saucer Set of 2 Description: I just love this gold and sea blue leaf design..it has a great retro feel! This is a set of 2 teacups and 2 saucers by Knowles. Marked "Knowles", "Golden Foliage", "Four Seasons", "Casual China".

Let’s see…I am supposed to think of 10 things you don’t know about me..and should try to be clever..or funny I guess!
#1 speaking of funny…I am sure anyone that went to school with me will describe me as being very funny! I always loved (and still do) making people laugh! I also got in trouble in school for being funny!
#2 I feel bad for my family right now..especially my dear husband, Bob! They have put up with me collecting all of these beautiful vintage items, that are now taking up the entire house!
#3 I am so addicted to twitter..well, I’m guessing those that know me on twitter, know that that is not a secret!
#4 I am more comfortable with who I am now, than I ever have been!
#5 I love clothes and have an entire bedroom devoted to my obsession! My husband turned one room into an entire walk-in closet for me!
#6 If you haven’t been able to tell from #5, I can be a little obsessive! #7 I believe if everyone would just try a little kindness, the world would be a better place (and I don’t care how mushy that sounds!)
#8 I’d rather have just one true friend, than a bunch of so-so friends.
#9 I love to cook…and I love to eat!
#10 and #9 is why I also love to workout!

Above: Vintage Wire Mesh Pretty Little Butterfly Brooch


Inkwell Alley Notes: Jen loves her milk glass. She even opened a shop exclusively filled with all kinds of milk glass treasures. Her collection is phenominal.

1. Fenton Milk Glass Covered Footed Comport Description: 8 1/2" tall including the lid, milk glass, hobnail...even better yet..Fenton!Great candy dish (don't tell anyone where you hid it!). Made by Fenton between 1953 and 1968. 2. Cute Vintage Milk Glass Covered Hen Description: Cluck cluck! What a cute milk glass hen covered dish! From bottom to top of her tail she measures approx 5 1/2" tall. The base is oval with a candlewick edge and measures 7 1/8" x 5 3/8" with a depth of 2".

More Interesting News: Jen is recognized!

Etsy's Handmade Blog asked their readers to nominate their favorite Americana decor items. Out of all the contestants, jenscloset with her Vintage Ruby Red Candleholders (above) stole the show and got the most votes. Inkwell Alley Congratulates you!

>>This is just a snippit of what Jen has...she has so many beautiful items, it's hard to list. Her original shop is http://www.jenscloset.etsy.com/ Be sure to check out her other shop http://www.mymilkglassshop.etsy.com/ for milk glass as well as http://deerlyneeded.etsy.com/ for fantastic jewelry supplies! You can usually find Jen at http://jensvintage.blogspot.com/ She is now a member of the EtsyVintage Street Team http://team.etsy.com/profilest/vintage.shtml and you can usually find her at http://www.twitter.com/ @jenscloset

Written by Jen. Inkwell Alley would like to thank Jen @jenscloset for taking the time to chat with us; we really appreciate her talent and her shops. We look forward to shopping with her in the future. And as always, we will continue to help promote your talents and we wish you well in your future endeavors! --Monica & Sbass

Ballet, Barometers and Bosoms

We all have our own tests, our own inane maneuvers that we perform in solitude (usually after getting out of the shower or when trying on clothes) and use as absolute barometers of thinness and beauty. Unfortunately, I have several and the one I have been doing the longest is the Inner Thigh Touch Test. I started taking ballet and tap class when I was twelve and, at about age 14 and 15, everyone starting changing--except me. Most girls' pink tights were stretching thinner across their thighs and their black long-sleeved leotards swelled in places--butts, bosoms and hips--where my leotard still clung flat to my bony body. One day we were all facing the mirror and standing in first position--heels touching, toes turned out. I looked down the line, making mental notes: Her knees are almost touching, her knees don't touch but her thighs do, her thighs only touch at the top, where that really bulbous piece of fat first starts to form; skin is rolling over her hip bones, and, damn, her calves even touch. And then I looked at me, a stick poking out at harsh angles in Spandex. My legs were separated from each other from ankle to the bottom of my leotard. You could drive a tractor trailer right through and it wouldn't bump into anything on top or the sides. Every time I went to ballet class, I took note of this and beamed from within. I wasn't the prettiest girl or the most popular; I wasn't well-versed in pop culture or the latest trends in fashion, cosmetics and hair, and I certainly didn't attract the boys. But, gosh darn it, I was skinnier. My waifishness and height was all I had. And it's still all I have. Although those inner thighs seem to creep closer and closer together every year...

photo courtesy blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre

Feature Friday: Milli Thornton

I recently discovered Inkwell Alley and I'm excited to be a Follower on this blog. I get a burst of joy as soon as I get here and look at the artistic header. I also love the feeling of the creative collaboration that goes on here.Thank you to Monica and Sbass for inviting me to write for Feature Friday.

Here are five things that a few people know about me but it’s not mainstream news. One of the topics, #4, is something I haven’t spoken about much on the Web at all, except to make a few stray references to it.

So, there you go. An exclusive for Inkwell Alley! LOL..
#1 – I wrote my book, Fear of Writing: for writers & closet writers, back in 1999 because I had severe writer's block.

It all started when a friend used the term “fear of writing” to refer to my condition. This triggered something in my subconscious and the material for a book—including 112 fun and therapeutic writing prompts—started pouring out of me.

Luckily, at the time I was working from home and could determine my own schedule. My boss was in another city. As long as I got my work done he didn’t check up on my schedule. I’d put the “office” on voicemail and go to my favorite coffeehouse to write.

I was so on fire, I wrote the book in only four months. And then I self-published it. Then panic set in! After that phase, I set about overcoming my intense shyness by learning how to promote my book and build an audience.

That was back in the ancient days—no Twitter, Facebook or blogging—and I had to start my online book promotion with an old-fashioned Website and email newsletter. LOL!

Ten years later, I’ve made many friends, helped many writers, cured my own fear of writing and learned tons about writing, livin’ and lovin’ life, book promotion and the Internet.

If you've got a specific fear that dominates your life, I highly recommend writing a book about it as a way to turn that fear to your advantage.

#2 – I often use Dragon dictation software when I'm writing something of any length. I'm using it right now to write this Feature Friday for Inkwell Alley.

Some purists may call this cheating, since it doesn't involve typing or handwriting. But I've come to believe this: anything that helps you get more writing done is fair.

I still have to edit everything I've dictated (and not only for my own mistakes: for example, Dragon typed the word “purist” as “jurist”). So I never lose touch with that hands-on involvement with what I've written.

Dragon can type as fast as you can talk. It's fantastic for those times when you're so inspired you can’t type fast enough to keep up with your own brain.

#3 – I hate the taste of brewed coffee. I stopped drinking it many years ago because

a) spots would appear before my eyes after just one cup

and

b) I discovered cappuccinos.

I now refuse to drink anything but espresso drinks (my favorite is the breve—a latté made with half-and-half). This has also helped me cut down on the amount of coffee I drink, because I find espresso drinks so much more satisfying than the thin, yukky brewed stuff.

#4 – I’ve long had an interest in alternative healing. I used herbs and diet changes to help my daughter avoid surgery for glue ear. That happened when she was little; she's now 25 with a baby of her own.

I've also almost completely eradicated my severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by using natural means, such as acupuncture and CranioSacral Therapy, as well as energy healing methods for the aura, chakras and meridians.

I used myself as a guinea pig and tried probably hundreds of different things until I found what worked for me. Eventually, I’d like to start a blog to recommend various healing products and services.

#5 – I'm writing this while taking part in a 10K Day for Writers that I've started hosting at my blog every month. This is an event where a bunch of writers get together and challenge ourselves to try to write 10,000 words in a day.

We communicate by posting two-hourly check-ins on my blog. The idea is to encourage and support one another's creativity.

It's an incredible feeling to be in a group of writers who have agreed to mutually support one another. I’ve fostered many such groups over the past ten years, but the 10K Day event has a special energy of its own. It combines the power of the Internet to bring people together, no matter where they are in the world, with the best side of our writing spirits. In my opinion, that’s when we glory in the creativity of others as well as our own, instead of focusing on critiquing one another (or, as happens in some writing forums, conflict and harassment among writers).

I'm using this Feature Friday as a warm-up for my 10K Day because I knew it would be fun to write. And already it’s given me a word count of 1,232 (before editing) in less than an hour.

Plus, good ol’ Dragon’s helping me do it faster than I could type myself!

----------

MILLI THORNTON is the author of Fear of Writing: for writers & closet writers and still misses Australia, where she lived for 25 years. A bit of a gypsy, she currently lives in Ohio with her husband. Milli blogs at the Fear of Writing Blog, Screenwriting in the Boonies and Milliver’s Travels.

>>This weeks' Feature Friday written by Milli Thornton

Thank you Milli! --Monica & sbass, Inkwell Alley

Transcendence

"I'm sure that I could be a movie star if I could get out of this place." From the song Piano Man, by Billy Joel

Call me sensitive, particular, needy and just plain hard to please, but when it comes to my writing environment, it’s crucial that several elements be in place. In other words, I’ve found that some of my most outstanding prose takes to actual ink on paper when the air temperature is between 45 and 50 degree Fahrenheit, the air quality is green (or good) on the weather charts and the sky is overcast; when I’m wearing indigo jeans that make me feel skinny and a sweater that makes me feel as if snuggled up somewhere in a ski lodge.

I write well when no one is around—not talking upstairs or breathing next to me—and I love when thunder rumbles in the distance, not clangs over my head, when dogs bark in the distance, but not next door. My ability to draft a masterpiece is directly related, I think, to my basal body temperature, my hunger level—I can’t be starving and I can’t be bloated—the clarity of my skin and my mood:  depression breeds too much angst, anger, insanity; sadness, extreme pathos; happiness, shallowness. Jaded, bitter, aloof, independent, defiant, determined, hopeful, energized, focused, level-headed: If I don’t feel any of these productive characteristics, I might as well pretend I don’t know what a pen is.

I’m inspired by mountains (no where near where I live in rural South Carolina, the antithesis of creative energy), shop-lined, oil-stained city streets  (also non-existent in my current environs) bustling with women in business suits and tennis shoes, hot dog and funnel cake vendors, ticket scalpers, guitar players, street painters, international characters and culture. Culture—oh how I do miss the laidback, Polish-Catholic culture of Baltimore, the origins of my entire immediate family.  There’s this one street near the harbor and not far from Sip n’ Bite (a hole in the wall that serves the best breakfast and Baltimore special, scrapple) that is full of Polish shops: bakeries, imported crafts, religious article shops. It’s not a flashy street; on the surface it looks like any old street. No neon signs, not a lot of traffic or people. But when you’re strolling the sidewalk you can actually see the displays in the window and the battered signs over the doors. And the smells are wonderful: pierogis, kielbasa, babkas, breads, the aromas of which just waft warm and fresh right out the doors.

I need to transcend my current setting—hot, subtropical climate, retirement community, artistically infertile—to subconsciously and emotionally get where I need to be in order to write.

Given all that needs to be in alignment for me to create, it’s a wonder I get anything done.  

image courtesy http://www.polyvore.com

Feature Friday: Kari (Karilynnlove)

Take a short walk down Inkwell Alley with Kari (Karilynnlove), and you'll see that she's not your typical 21-year-old nursing student just trying to get through life. Kari describes herself as a walking contradiction since she naturally chose a career path that will keep her financially comfortable...but still wants to develop her artistic side. To satisfy her "other half", she frequently takes on little projects--painting random things, drawing, writing, decorating as well as photography. She doesn't claim or acknowledge that any of her works are spectacular, but says, "she enjoys being creative and it's what makes her happy...to tame the beast within!" Kari uses her blog as a means to vent, especially when school is in session (soon to start again in August.) Forty students in one classroom can cause tension and drama--so stay tuned for those daily updates. You can find Kari at http://karilynnlove-thoughtfulconfessions.blogspot.com/ ...be ready for a front row seat to her crazy, hectic life.

"Kari says!"

>> 1. I drink coffee all day. Whether it be to help be out of bed, ease my tension, or help me study, I sip coffee throughout the day. In the mornings it wakes me up. In the evening, it soothes the nerves (which makes for better sleep). And during those dreaded 9 month stretches of pure hell (nursing school), it channels the ADHD into OCD (which isn't much better, but at least I'm focused!).

>> 2. I have a coffee cup collection. Doesn't matter what store or what I'm actually shopping for. If I see a cup I like, I have to have it. When I have my own home, I want an entire wall in my kitchen devoted to my coffee cups with each one in it's own little nook! (This is a smaller scale of what I want. As seen in the television series The Gilmore Girls)
>> 3. I can make one eye go side to side and up and down while the other stays put. I don't know how I learned to do it or why I first tried. It's great entertainment for kids!
>> 4. My only allergy is to a drug called Chloral hydrate. It is commonly used as a sedative and sleeping medication. My reaction is opposite of what is desired. My sister (who is also allergic) was given this once prior to a dental surgery. She was put in velcro restraints because of the reaction but managed to work her way out of them. As a result, I am now terrified of taking any sort of sedating medicine or sleeping pill regardless of whether Chloral hydrate is in the ingredients.
>> 5. I never forget a face. I sometimes see an old kindergarten classmate in the supermarket and still know exactly who they are even though I haven't seen them in fifteen years. I've learned not to speak to them though.

>> 6. I played Clarinet for five years (put it aside about six years ago) but can still pick it up and play from memory just like I've been doing it all along. I even have a bad habit of moving my fingers to songs, simulating the finger positions I believe would be needed to make the song I'm hearing.
>> 7. I hate touching any sort of paper when my hands are dry. I get the same feeling as when I hear nails on a chalkboard. I'm getting over it though. When I'm doing clinicals rotations for school, I wash my hands a lot and flip through papers and charts.
>> 8. I find it hard to eat some things of more than one consistency. Examples: Potato salad with onions, Jello with fruit in it. I also hate my foods mixing together, and if I feel it necessary, I will use and second plate or bowl.
>> 9. I'm always jealous. Every person I know has or does something I am jealous of. Clothes, car, money, hair, good grades, ability, favor, where they live, where they go, who they know. Absolutely anything is subject to my jealousy. But don't worry, in person you'll never figure out what it is you have that I want.
>> 10. I can deal with bodily functions (poo, vomit, urine, mucus) easily, but I can not deal with feet and teeth. Anything to do with feet or teeth grosses me out. I very nearly passed out while observing a tooth being removed.

Red Velvet Cake

It looms before me, a flashing white rectangular box that is a treasure trove of goodies. The cookies and cream ice cream in its waxy container that will put rolls on my hips; the frozen pizza that, when warmed in the oven, will sizzle and slide with grease, a sludge that will strain my arteries. And then there's Robert's leftover mozzarella sticks from our favorite diner; those thickly breaded logs of chunky cheese, a cork that will block the intestines. Pudding, divine and smooth on the palate, but a padding for the waist. Oh God—then there’s the red velvet cake, a wad that stays packed for hours in the stomach because it’s essentially a congealed mixture of dough, fat, eggs, fat, dough, sparkling sugar and, did I mention fat? Fat—I hate you; Fat—I love you; especially when you’re dancing in that red velvet cake, an enigma that is not chocolate, that is not vanilla, but the best, the most decadent of both. It’s moist and compact under a slathering of butter cream icing.

There’ only one thing left to say: Thank God I play tennis. Because I love my food.

Lung Cancer Has Opened My Parachute

I decided tonight to blog - it's 4:12 am. Because, as it happens, it is the 4th of July weekend, and although it has been quite wonderful having extra time to spend in the garden, with my family and watching fireworks, there seems to be a part of me that is missing. During the past year, I have been through different holidays...easter, mother's day, mom's birthday - but none that has affected me quite like this holiday. Why I ask? Why do I feel such sadness during this holiday? A patriotic american day-full of spirited fun...but maybe that's it. Ya know, America - baseball, mother & apple pie. Yes, the memory of mother has spawned me to want to share how Lung Cancer has changed my life. Mostly to tell you tonight that my heart is heavy. Heavy missing mom, wishing she didn't have to leave on January 28th to that beast, LC. That was the day that my life changed. My heart was broken. And then I noticed something. That when you lose someone that is such a big part of your life, your whole world opens up. You're not afraid anymore. And as time goes by, your whole life seems to shift. It's not anything that you do consciously...your life begins to take another turn. It's like being a part of a movie where a progression of events carry you through. As the days pass, they say that time heals all wounds, and I guess that's true. But I will tell you that just as a scab or a scar is left behind, there are remnants of heartache. There is a change. A part that will never be the same. Ultimately, these changes aren't necessarily bad. Sometimes it's the one thing you needed for new beginnings - to push you a little harder to progress. My mom's passing has become a pivotal moment in my life. Almost like jumping from an airplane with a parachute when you find out the engine quite. Inkwell Alley has become my parachute - and although I'm not sure where I'm gonna land, I look forward to exploring the unknown. I'm sure mom is watching and smiling knowing that I have her spunk. Deep down, I know that she would want me to use this to reach a place I never knew possible. The beast of Lung Cancer has made me angry enough to push forward. So if I can share anything, my wish would be to encourage you if you have lost someone or if you've ever dealt with Cancer in your life or with someone you love. Don't dismay for I have found that there is a bigger purpose. I know it's not easy. Take care, have faith and take one hour at a time (...hang on to your parachute until you see where you land.) It's now 5:54 am, time to rest. Until next time. sbass