A Tale of Pumpkin Walls

At last! The great painting project of 2008 is done! And I must say, with neither my husband or I having painted walls before, the end result is quite beautiful. Especially love how the setting sun catches this pumpkin wall in the evening making the whole room just glow!

My new pumpkin wall above the fireplace.
The lavender was handpicked locally last summer.

Why did this project turn into almost a two week monster? Well, that would be because we elected to leave the window casings white for a depth effect and the line between the orange and white did not go as expected. Blue tape is now my new mortal enemy. Our walls have a bumpy texture and when the *very* well-pressed blue tape came off .... paint had bled under it just horribly. So .... after many days touching up and handpainting with a 1/4 inch fine art brush (TINY!!) all the transition lines were prettied up to look like this:

Ah, a beautiful handpainted seam!

And now ... as promised ... some new pretty jewelry. It's all about vintage style! I've discovered all natural brass and I think I'm in love!! Just adore the Art Nouveau feeling of many of the brass pieces. And one of the great things about natural brass is that it's nickel free so it's more friendly to people with metal allergies. These are all part of my new line currently being featured at Saturday Market. (The new line also includes a rare stash of loose vintage costume gems reworked in natural brass filigree and reproduction vintage images fashioned into bamboo tile pendants and chokers.)

One of a kind, asymmetrical brass sparrow necklace.
$25 at Sherwood Saturday Market
SOLD - THANK YOU!

Art Nouveau style brass butterfly necklace.
$25 at Sherwood Saturday Market

One of a kind, vintage flower bead and brass sparrow necklace.
$25 at Sherwood Saturday Market
SOLD - THANK YOU!

And the painting is finished just in time, because my mother arrives from out-of-state for a week long visit in just a few hours!! Time for a Starbucks and chocolate donut double combo. Think I can clean up all the painting stuff, tidy the house to get ready for her visit, pick up the kids, read some blogs, and finish making my custom order for Saturday in the next 4 hours? Yeah - no problem for superwoman :) Gotta have the coffee and chocolate donut though - that's the secret :)

Puttering Around the House

From freak hail storms that came magically come out of thin air about two weeks ago, we've suddenly snapped into 95 degree weather!!! Whoa! With the extreme heat and longer light at night, we've been cooking dinner much later and eating out on the patio long after the sun has set. Well, talented gourmet chef hubby has been cooking :) As most people know, I'm cooking challenged unless it's sugary baked goods :) Here's a recipe he created!Hot Ginger Soba Noodles
3 carrots
3 yellow squash
3 zucchini
6-8 spring onions
1 bag pea pods (about 4 cups)
1 white onion
9 oz. organic soba nooodles (we use Hakubaku noodles from Japan)
4 grated or very finely chopped tablespoons ginger (hubby didn't measure - but he thinks about 4 grated tablespoons - it's enough when you can smell ginger in the air when frying)
soy sauce

Chop all vegetables except pea pods. Stir fry vegetables and ginger until soft. Boil soba noodles for 3 minutes. Add well-strained boiled noodles straight to stir fry pan. Stir in soy sauce to taste. Serve hot.

While I was watching him cook, I was reflecting on our last lonely Happy Kitty bowl. We had bought two several years ago but one broke and the remaining kitty just hasn't seemed as happy since that day.

The inside of a Happy Kitty bowl. Isn't it cute?? I love Japanese contemporary pottery design!

So, thoughts of the Happy Kitty bowl were fresh in my mind when I went shopping in downtown Portland. And look what I found at the store Three Monkeys!!! It was a little bigger and a lot more expensive, but yes, it definitely was ... a Happy Kitty bowl!! Now what are the odds of that??? Of course I had to get it and the lone Happy Kitty is now happy again with it's sister bowl :)

The back of a Happy Kitty bowl.

Puttering around the house, I also realized that it was finally time to paint. Our children were young Monet's and expressed themselves on the walls but now that they are beyond that phase it's time! I have spent many years pondering and plastering paint chips to the walls in anticipation of this moment and I've finally settled on the color. The new color will be .... pumpkin!! I just got the new Martha Stewart magazine and a dyed paper lamp like this would look *fabulous* with my soon-to-be pumpkin walls!

Photo from Martha Stewart.

So, the family will be painting this week and maybe next week too! We've never painted walls before so wish us luck and an aesthetically pleasing finished product! Next blog post when we are done :) Can't wait to show you the cool new jewelry lines I've been working on!!!

The Magic of Books

Every once in a great while I find an artist that seems to really embody creativity in a new way that stirs the soul or makes me think. It's not just pretty art, or cute, or sensational, or a technical marvel -- no, it's more than all those things. It *communicates* with you. And that is the kind of art I'd like to share today from talented paper artist Su Blackwell. Her works are made from fragile, delicate, oh-so-easily destroyed paper, but their subjects are timeless, classic and in a sense, eternal. I like the contrast! :)

"The 12 Dancing Princesses"

I love how she adds illumination to some of them, or better yet, *inside* of some of them.

"The Castle"

Interesting, no? In these next two you can really see how she deconstructs the pages and text of the book to pull out the story into a three dimensional image. I'm one of those people that can't bear to mangle or destroy any book, but her art is really fascinating. So, I guess I am both squirming and admiring at the same time.

"Alice–A Mad Tea Party"

"Alice: Through the Looking Glass"
all images from Stainless Steel Droppings

In other news, another great week at Saturday Market! Thank you everyone who has stopped by my booth to take a look! And a giant thank you to everyone who fell in love with one of my creations and did me the honor of taking it home! The last of the dragonfly necklaces will be at market this week and the first of the butterfly necklaces will appear, so if you are in the area please come by and say "hi"!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Mother's Day!!!!!

Garden Poetry

Dragonfly Necklace $25 from Jeweled Elegance (SOLD - THANK YOU!)
and cherry blossom tree from ... my garden!

dozing in the garden
a shower of petals
swift dragonfly

Dragonfly Necklace $25 from Jeweled Elegance (SOLD - THANK YOU!)
and chives and thyme from .... my garden!

in the herbs
a bejeweled dragonfly
is happy

Sprouting radishes in a huge re-purposed urn
in .... my garden!

first leaves
in the garden pot
-- table's bounty

One of the wonderful things about doing markets and shows is that you get a chance to interact with customers, make new friends and ... get invaluable feedback about your art. I really pay attention to what people say at market and use it to better my product and produce new jewelry lines. For example, last week I listened to many, many people rave about my dragonfly necklaces. They loved the vintage aspect and the dragonfly imagery, but what really attracted them was the free-form asymmetry. So..... today I took my portable bead box out to my garden and inspired by the natural beauty around me, created several more asymmetrical vintage dragonfly necklaces for this week's Saturday market.

I think the garden pictures turned out great! I usually struggle so with my pictures, but these turned out wonderfully without any photo tweaking at all! I can hardly believe it was my camera that took them :)

And I would like to thank Silver Bell Cottage for this lovely award!! She said I had "amazing and feminine designs" and seriously, my heart just melted in joy when I read that :) Thank you!!!

Saturday Market Grand Opening!

Today was the grand opening of the local Saturday Market I am a vendor at. It was a beautiful morning, the market was filled with happy vendors, and we had an absolutely great turn out of happy market-goers! Even the predicted rain held off until the very last 10 minutes of market - yeah!! I had been worried it would be a very soggy day :)

I couldn't wait to run home and post some of my booth pics! I gave my booth a makeover this year and I really like how much richer it looks now. Here's a grand overview shot. I would love to have more tables, but with a car full of car seats and kid gear, everything has to fit in the space left in the trunk ....but boy can I pack that trunk full!


A shot of my necklace busts. One for vintage gem and filigree necklaces (more on these in a later post) and one for just .... cool stuff! Do you like the brocade linens? I just love how rich they make the display look.


Close up of the necklace bust for "cool stuff". Both of these sold quickly.


My new booth display idea. I found two of these French-style bulletin boards in "antique linen" on sale and bought some wrought iron stands to accommodate them. They are just perfect for displaying pins and earrings! And it was really nice having such a strong vertical element in the booth to help maximize my table display space.


A close up of some of my hand crocheted pins in their pretty boxes. And you can see some of my new pretty business cards in the corner there :) (Those pins may look familiar to some of you as being from my Etsy shop. I will be pulling a few items from Etsy and/or the website boutique every week to take to market, so if you are looking for something and it is missing, feel free to contact me!)


What a fabulous start to market! Looking forward to next week already!