July's Ehag Emporium Offering

Ada and Ashes

Be sure to check out all of the Halloweeny fabulosity

going on over at the EHAG Emporium.

and

While we were in the Halloween spirit

we made another one-of-a-kind too!

Miss Kitty Kitty Squashblossom

You can see more of her here tonight at 10:pm EST.

Thanks for looking!

Mailbox Love

Lookie what the postman (or it that postperson?) brought me-

So many buttons!! And my favorite kind. . .old! Can't wait for a day off so I can go all Zen-like with sorting them. The Ol' Softee herself,  Pam Gracia, sent them to me. Thank you, Pam! And (as if I weren't spoiled enough) my favorite Dutch artist pal Kitty Kilian surprised me with another tidbit of awesomeness which is now gracing my refrigerator gallery. Thank you, Kitty! Out of the blue generosity, no special occasion or anything, somtimes life is just sweet.

Do you stick things on your fridge too?

Window-Shopping Wednesday

(OK, so I know it's technically Thursday. Whatever. I can pretend.)

Today's window-shopping fun

is brought to you by the letter

R is for. . .

nydampress, johnwgolden, crankbunny,

mikelandminori, FranksSister, ashleyg,

happyquilts, Lichenesque, ForTheLoveOfWords

Good Words

With my eldest approaching adulthood, my godfather offered her these words of advice. I liked them so much I had to make them pretty enough to color and hang on the wall. You'd think that as long as I've been a grown-up (forever, according to my kids) I wouldn't need reminding, but I do. Anyway, he let me share them with you. Thanks Goddaddy-O!

................................

Click, and it should get big enough to print and color.

Do grown-ups color?

Black and Orange

Here's a little mixed-up peek at our latest girls.

 The two new one-of-a-kinds are getting up to mischief in the studio today. I'll have to figure out something to keep them occupied until Saturday, July 31st which is when they'll become available. One will be joining its friends over on the EHAG Emporium at 9:pm EST, and one will be in our Etsy shop an hour later.

Meanwhile our tiny new-to-us air conditioner is happily humming away, blessing the studio with its sweet icy breath.

Hope you're all staying cool today.

In the Works

Today I'm working a whole lot of stuff, including  finishing a couple of Halloweeny pieces for next weekend's EHAG Emporium. It's so much fun to be playing with Hallowen again! Since we've moved to an actual neighborhood now, I'm already excited about the prospect of trick-or-treaters this October. We've never gotten any at any of our past places. Another thing I'm excited about is that Dylan scored a little window unit AC on Craig's list and is off picking it up right now. My hero! Even though we only moved an hour and a half away from our last digs, it's at least 30 degrees hotter here (I'm not exagerating) and we're all melting.

Raindrops

Drip, drip, drip. . .

All of them are different.

This one is Dylan's and my favorite.

I'd like to cover an entire wall with them.

We've got them in our Etsy shop

for an especially low price, just to be nice.

All gone!

Raindrops scattered across the continent (and another continent too). I think we'll make another batch soon.

Which one do you like best?

On the Table

It's raining on the table today.

Princess Crowns

We wanted to make something princessy (they are kinda obssessed) and packable for the girls' visit. They love playing dress-up, so we made crowns fit for princesses.

Dylan used the crown from a fast food place as a template. Then sewed, stuffed, and quilted.

I painted them light gray then stained them with purple (instead of my usual brown).

Added some buttons and a pretty initial in the middle. . .

Voila!

They were a big hit with the nieces. The most fun was had by putting them on Uncle Dylan, magically causing him to run screaming through the house.

Parade!

Our new town just celebrated it's birthday with a parade. What fun for our visiting nieces! We scored an awful lot of candy tossed by enthusiastic parade-players. Here are a few of my favorite featured parade participants-

(Yes, that's a garbage truck.)

The aluminum foil robots were my very favorite part.

My camera was doing stupid things, so I missed out on pictures of all the Maid Marians and Robinhoods, a slew of campaigning politicians, way too many dentists, the unicycling club, and the Larpers. (For those of you who aren't familiar with the term LARP, I suggest you Google it. Seriously, it's surreal in so many ways.) The neices were thrilled with the amount of real princesses that they got to see!

Oh small-town America, we love you so!

The Latest. . .

. . .one-of-a-kind

(thank goodness for that, he's a naughty little thing).

Devil with the blue dress, blue dress, blue dress

Devil with the blue dress on!

Woohoo!

Company's Coming!

There's no better excuse for me to finish up some little homey projects than company coming over. Late tonight we get to see Dylan's brother, Morgan, and family (including our adorable nieces woohoo). They'll all be staying here for a few days. Needless to say, there are little-girl craft plans in the works. Morgan just finished a tour in Afghanistan and we are super happy to have him back home with his family.

Anyway, I got a yard of some yummy fabric from Ikea last week with the plan of recovering this chair-

It was a $2 garage sale find. I thought it had potential. It's really sturdy metal but the fabric on it is some sort of  itchy blue burlappy stuff with stains here and there. So I took the cushions off (with Tuzy the Wonder Fluff standing by in case I was in need of any assistance).

That was easy. Gave it a scrub.

The blue fabric is held on with staples, but I didn't have the right kind, so I just used high-temp hot glue. Worked just fine and dandy.

Trimmed up the fabric as I went along.

Then put it all back together.

Voila!

The whole thing took about an hour, and cost less than $7!

AND I had enough fabric left over to make the front of a big ole pillow. The pillow back is just cheaper cotton fabric that I already had.

And what's ONE pillow without a friend? So I made another. And another.

An inexpensive black cover, and a crappy old futon gets a new life in the studio.

Now I'm off to do less fun stuff, like laundry.

○ ○ ○

What's your least favorite chore?

Done and Done

4 newbies joining the menagerie today-

Go here to see more of them.

I know I said that there'd be 5, but one of them had other plans.

Scenes from the Studio

The new studio is almost done! It has been workable since day 3, but the prettification continues. I still have to make some pillows, but we got shelves put up last night. We painted a block of color behind them to break up the big blank space. (You'll have to forgive the crappy photos, the lighting in there still needs work. And no, the color block and shelves aren't crooked, but apparently my camera is.)

A few of my favorite things. . .

This morning's table greeted me with 5 faceless newbies-in-the-works. I can hardly wait to finish them. I love this part! Now is when they really come to life.

Hope you're all having a colorful day.

Something-New

Tah-dah!

It's Alice and the Cheshire Cart,

a one-of-a-kind piece.

You can see more of them here.

I'm finishing up the newest limited-edition pieces in the next couple of days, but Alice was anxious for her debut. And who could say no to that sweet face?

More new stuff soon.

Sneaky Peeky

Tomorrow. . .

Thursday's Table

Busted out the Paperclay this morning.

I wonder who I'm making? (*hint* hint*)

I'm having way too much fun sculpting her hair (the funnest part).

A bunch more new creations are impatiently waiting for paint,

tapping their little unpainted feet (the ones that have feet anyways).

They're sharing this morning's table with some of yesterday's Ikea finds. Dylan took us girls (me, the eldest, and my adorable sis-in-law) galavanting! He was so patient too as we ooohed and ahhhed our way through acres of Swedish design. I got some shelf brackets so we could build some wall shelves in the new studio, some drinking glasses to replace casualties of the move, some pretty little tins just cuz I couldn't resist their organizational possiblities, and some gorgeous fabric to recover a chair. We also got some yummy cinnamon buns, but there's nothing left of them to take pictures of.

I'm trying not to melt in this uncharacteristically Oregon heat while listening to The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farell today while I paint. Maybe I should listen to some Jack London instead, the Yukon sounds pretty appealing right now.

Window-Shopping Wednesday

S is for. . .

chocolateandsteel, LaLaShoes, DonnaWalker,

mooshoopork, houseofharriet, CartBeforeTheHorse,

simbiosisbyjulia, bunnywithatoolbelt, FLYoungStudio

(A square of some silly skellies snuck in. So sorry.)