I spy (with my little eye) something. . .

Orange

Wanna play? It's an orange cure for a gray day.

Show us something orange and put a link in the comments.

I spy (with my little eye) something. . .

Red

Wanna play?

Show us something red and put a link in the comments.

It's a lovely cure for a gray day.

Today's Table

Twins. . .

triplets. . .

. . .and quadruplets too!

Whew!

Window-Shopping Wednesday

M is for. . .

sabahnur, hisss, laurawallstaylor,

 berkleyillustration, SandraHealy, flyingstartoys,

CuriousPortraits, theblackapple, TheSecretNest.

. . . . . . .

In honor of my son's dear pet,

Miss Mousie (who is actually a rat),

and all her much-maligned kin.

♥

Tidying Up

January always seems to be a month that demands organization. Maybe it's the new year. Whatever the reason, I keep finding myself organizing little nooks and crannies on painting breaks. Today I'm tackling the mountain of kid art I've saved over the years. I have a big ole trunk full of the stuff. Once upon a time it was all neatly tucked into folders, organized by kid and age, but now. . . not so much. I'm editing as I go too. Seriously, do the kids or I need to look back on every spelling test they aced in the 2nd grade? No. So I got me some plastic accordion folders and I'm only filling 2 per kid. OK,  maybe 1 for the boy kid and 3 for the girl kid. No, I don't love her best, it's just that she was more of the sit-down-and-draw type and he was more of the run-around-like-a-crazy-person type so I have more stuff with her name on it. I've barely scratched the surface so far, but here are a couple of treasures from the girl kid, age 6. 

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

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This haggard looking "mom mouse" cracks me up.

Scenes from Today's Table

Oh no!

What has she done?

Oh, the humanity!

Just kidding! All the tiny dollies are fine. They were just playing a strange little game. They do get up to mischief when I make so many of them. Luckily, they're all tucked in now and on their way to New York to hang out with Jen O'Connor over at Earth Angels.

Little Peggy Angel (who is the tenth one of her kind) is off to snowy Michigan, and the big angel (who has repented her wicked dolly-killing ways and earned her wings) is on her way to the UK to live in a 500 year old house. Imagine that, 500 years old! That's twice as old as my whole country! Wouldn't it be amazing to witness all the trials and triumphs that that house has seen?

And now the next batch of silliness is well underway. . .

I really do have too much fun.

Speaking of Valentines. . .

Here's a little love for you. . .

Click 'em, print 'em, give 'em to your sweetie.

♥ ♥ ♥ 

Love Notes

All this Valentiney stuff that has taken over the studio has me thinking about love notes. Remember those? You know, before e-mail?  Here are some faves I found in Etsyland-

fifiduvie,  inkadinkadoodle,  LettucePress,

dudeandchick, Judykaufmann, laurageorge,

RedTandemStudio, sandymastroni, luckybeepress

I loved Valentine's Day as a kid.  We'd all bring those cheesy cards to school, chock full of pun-tacular goodness. 

And if you were really lucky you might just get some of these-

 I think I'll go make a mailbox out of a milk carton now,

just in case.

Nine

The latest batch of silliness is all done and added to the shop.

I'm delighted with them all, but must admit that Dylan and I both love O'Henry best (he's the  heart-headed fellow bottom-row-middle). I'm pretty sure I need to make him a little friend. We'll make 9 of each design. Nine seems to be the magic number of times I can make the same design without going into robot-auto-pilot mode. Plus, 9 is a nice number, what with all those 3's.
So 9 it is.

Sneaky Peeky

Just a little peek.

Will you still be sending me a Valentine?

When my folks got married 12 years ago, my brother sang the Beatles' song When I'm 64 at their wedding. Well, my sweet Papa Steve turned 64 this year, so my brother had the idea for us all to do a remake of that song for him and my mom as a Christmas present.  Here's Papa Steve on his birthday wearing the sweater and hat his sister Kate made him ---

Here's the cover College Girl made for the CD case ---

And you can click here to listen to the final frivolity.

Dylan played bass and lead guitar. My brother did the drums and more guitar. Aunt Kate played the banjo, and Uncle Steve added even more guitar (and "mouth trombone").  My brother, sis-in-law, daughter, Kate and Steve, and I all sang. Our youngest whistled. Dylan mixed it all together on his little editing machine, and we had a mighty fine gift come Christmas morning. The folks happily sniffed and boo-hoo'd most satisfactorily. Yay!

Today's Table

This is what this morning looks like-

I'm feeling like such a girlie-girl!

(Which is funny considering the hobo-esque painty outfit I'm wearing, the unceremoniously gathered pony tail on my head, and my distinct lack of anything resembling a tiara.)

A la Cart

 Cooking up lots of new stuff today. There will be liberal dashes of pink and red, with hearty helpings of stripes and polka dots.

Another fun new thing-- we have our very own fabric! Got our first fabric back from Spoonflower and we are so pleased with the quality of it! Dylan promptly stitched up some little quilts/prints that I can see so many possibilites for.

Hope this new year is already presenting all of you with new possibilites.

Neighbors

OK, so they don't live next door, but rather a little way down the street.

Goats are cool.

Did you know that there are over 200 different breeds of goats?

We've made several of them over the years.

Here are a few faves-