Heather Eddy Art

A few posts ago , I told you about my new friend Nikki at WhimSY Love and how she helped me with my folded books. What I didn't tell you then was that we agreed to swap folded books. It came today! I love her heart books! I consider this one of my first pieces of "real art" and it will be going up in my new house (fingers crossed). (Will this make me a grownup?) Also, I figured out how to make hearts and this new folded book will be going into my shop very soon. I LOVE DOING BOOK ORIGAMI! I should write a book. About books. I mean, using books. As art.

I made the front page of Etsy! Thanks to therainbowgirl for featuring me in a treasury of such cool things. I love the scribble heart... * edit* I first published this entry as My First Etsy Front Page, but found out through Craft Cult (through a Storque article), that I'd been on the front page before and never known...

Last night while listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban I figured out how to fold hearts. Actually, that's not the truth. I just realized that I figured out how to fold hearts during church. Is it the Spirit of God that leads my mind off in creative directions? Is it HIS will that I think about this instead of the lessons? Hmm...

Roller coasters have nothing on me today. I woke up early. We were having the missionaries over for dinner tonight and I had to cook dinner and put it in the crock pot to be ready when we came home from work. I also listed another folded book . Then I come to work to train a librarian from another branch on how to do my job. Am I getting laid off, I wonder? (We find out next Thursday what positions are being eliminated in my system...) The librarian lets me know she is being trained to take over at ANOTHER branch for someone's medical leave. *whew* Then I get a call from my hub-sand that my mother in law has been admitted to the hospital. Then my realtor called and said that the appraisal of the house was fine - we can get our FHA loan - AND we only have to fix two tiny things before escrow can close (of course, the loan has to do its thing). Then I had a program to conduct for Summer Reading Program. My children's librarian quit the month before SRP started so I...

Envy is a terrible thing. Just when you become content with what life and God have given you, envy rears its ugly head and says, "Hey Lady! You WANT this! You NEED this!" I'm not *truly* envious, but when I saw this site , my jaw dropped and I felt the curling tendrils of beauty-hunger writhing in my stomach. I'm in the process of buying a house, and that should be GOOD ENOUGH, but now I want THIS house! I can't wait to see if I can make my future house this beautiful. Wowee. I think I need words in all the rooms. Red words.

One of the hardest things I have to do after I make my folded books is to come up with a name. When I was at BYU in the Fine Arts program, I was exposed to a lot of art - most of it pretentious. A good piece of work can be ruined by a stupid name. One friend of mine named all of his sculptures "Opus No. 1, 2, 3, etc." It got rid of one pretentious element (high falutin' name), but was pretentious in that he had no musical background or musical connection in his work. Duh. Anyway, I was sitting in church with my sis-in-law and together we brainstormed names. Gena is about the most down-to-earth person I know. I started listing all the church-type words I could think of that sounded pretty: eternity, truth, hope, charity and all that. Together, we came up with about 30+ words that would make good names for my work. And then when I made up the pieces, I named them the first thing that popped in my mind when I looked at them. That's why one is named Baleen. I could...

Well, I did it! I've listed two folded books in my etsy shop. After a year and a half of waffling and wondering and some other "w" word I leaped in and did it. Yay me! Back in art school, Wulf Barsch told our class that if we had a good product, it would sell. I really believe that I've worked on these folded books to the point that I've perfected (well...) the craft - I know what a "good" one looks like, I've learned how to fix mistakes, how to test patterns and how to ship the buggers, too. Oh, our house is supposed to close on Aug. 3rd, if not sooner. I hope it's on July 31st. That's Harry Potter's birthday and I would like to share that happy day with him. And yes, I know HP isn't real. But he's real enough for me.

Coming soon to my etsy shop - book origami!

Wonder of wonder, it's a miracle - a miracle! An offer was accepted on a house we like! As soon as the bank signs the agreement, escrow begins and the countdown to home ownership begins! Of course, now the real work begins... inspections, updates of loan apps, contingencies met, etc. I imagine this is going to be quite a headache for a while - but hopefully not heartache! Perhaps I should wait to get my hopes up, just in case it doesn't work out... Oh well. I'll survive. If it doesn't work out, we'll continue looking at houses. Blech. Have you ever wanted to contact someone whose blog you read, but been too nervous? For several months now, I've loved WhimSY Love's site and shop . After I discovered how to make folded books from Mary Engelbreit's (now defunct) magazine, I started looking around for examples on the Internet. To my surprise, I found someone one etsy selling folded books - Nikki's shop. I was thrilled that someone had found folded b...

I have some new work in the shop today. I'm trying out a few more examples of word jewelry for book lovers. In the ten minutes I have between everything else, I try to make up more. It's just such a time-consuming process doing each step of making the jewelry that I can't do too many at once! Reading is sexy. Too much? Too obvious? Read me a book. Very demanding woman, eh? And last of all, READ in Celtic. This one came about because of a customer request. I was surprised that the word is also a name. It's my sister's middle name! Do you think anyone will want to wear a word that could be thought of as a personal name and have to constantly explain, No, this means READ in Celtic/Gaelic. Sheesh. Back to work now.

As an avid collector of cookie recipes I see a lot of recipes that claim to be The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (in the world/ever/even better than yo' momma's, blah blah blah). Well, I saw this recipe on Good Things Catered. Um. They are good. Are you jealous? Behold the beauty! Recipe: 2 cups plus 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted & cooled until warm (THIS WAS THE REASON FOR THE GOODNESS. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. AND LET THE DUMB STUFF COOL OR YOU WILL HAVE GREASEBALL COOKIES! wanna know how i know? oh, i used regular salted butter. mmmm, salt...) 1 c brown sugar, packed 1/2 c granulated sugar 1 large egg plus 1 yolk 2 tsp vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips Directions: Mix butter and sugars. Beat in egg, yolk and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Stir in chips. Roll 1/2 cup of dough (yes, 1/2 cup) into a ball-type shape and pull it...

It's been busy in my shop this week. I have been putting together some new book-themed jewelry. Here is a sampling of what's new: Reading is Sexy. Hullo! Twilight? Honored to be an 020.23. That's the Dewey Decimal Classification number for Women librarians. Hee hee. Lover of Story. I think this one is really romantic... More will be coming as I have time to make them up and post them. My 'to do' box is full of bead sheets to cut and make up. Be on the lookout for "Read Love Pray" and more "lover" beads...