Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Etsy Shop: Faerie Acres Now Open For Business

Well, I finally took the plunge and opened my very own Etsy Shop! I am working on de-stashing and have created card kits for sale. I am working on scrapbook kits and also kicking around the idea of custom orders for fabric books. I'll try to keep you posted!
If you go to April's blog, she posts card sketches from Unscripted Sketches that would be a great way to use the items in the card kits!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Pics from Virginia

Today I was able to upload some pics from my summer in Virginia; unlike here in AZ in so many ways: rain, green foliage, wild animals, cool weather, open windows at night, etc. After prepping the house Wednesday, we left in this weather:

The view from our front door.....this is why it's called the Blue Ridge! It actually rained for most of the first two days on the road until we hit Texas and New Mexico.
Here are some of our neighbors:

This Eastern Hognose showed up one of the last days we were at the house. It was about 4 feet long, harmless but interesting.
There is a farm at the back of our property through the woods where there are goats, donkeys, horses, cows, and a mule. We could hear the donkeys braying through the night and quite often the goats chimed in! I love this picture of the goat peeking around the building as if saying: "What's up?"

On one of the larger roads into the next town there was a mare and her colt. This is one of the earliest pictures where the colt is actually standing! Many times we would drive by and she/he would be laying down (looking dead!) resting from whatever it is that tires little horsies out!

Needless to say there were quite a few white-tailed deer roaming around. It took many shots to get some good pictures of them.......... I missed it the one morning there were six including a buck with a rack, that's what I get for sleeping late! This doe and her fawn walked right under the elevated porch while Dave was standing there the afternoon before we left.

Tomorrow I will post some of the things I made during the summer!

Call Me "Crazy"

I was looking through some "stuff" in one of my art rooms and found a Crazy Quilt Lesson from here and sat for a while just looking at Annie's crazy quilts, samplers, and stitches. This is one thing I want to learn to do in the next year. My mother made a crazy quilt for my sister and I love looking at it when I visit. Jane made some mini crazy quilt pages for a swap and I would love to practice embroidery stitches and learn some new ones!

Friday, July 31, 2009

Back in the Heat.... Boo! Blah! Yuck!

Well......okay........I can't seem to get my photos uploaded, so will post some later. We arrived back in the heat this morning so I can start my 8th grade language arts position in the next week. I am excited to be back with the kids, but not here in the desert and heat. I miss Virginia already. I got used to sitting on the porch and listening to nature (not neighbors, trains, traffic, and F-16s) and watching the deer wander around eating grass. It was so nice there that I didn't use either heat or air conditioning and slept with the window open almost every night, even when it rained! I forgot how much I hate being cooped up with artificial air for most of the year.
I got to travel to NY state and visit with my sister, her family and my mother for almost a week. Had a great time (even despite the water incident!) and can't wait until we are back East permanently next year and spend more quality time with the family!
I got pretty busy with Facebook and hope to use it more now that I have DSL rather than dial-up so look for me there and ask me to be your friend!
Bad news today, I found 0ut that Art Fiber Fest (which I LOVED) will be no longer. I am SO glad that Jane and I got to experience it at least once. Thank you, Teesha!
Pizza and wings at April's house in a little bit..... yum!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Art Fiber Fest

ONLY FOUR MORE DAYS UNTIL ART FIBER FEST! Wahoo! Flying to Portland, OR this Wednesday to attend AFF. I am taking classes with Ruth Rae and Alisa Burke. Right now I am finishing up a tote bag to take on the plane with me, still trying to figure the best way to take my sewing machine, buying some "more packable" clothes that don't have stains (I did not bring any decent clothes with me to the woods!), and generally getting excited about my first time at AFF!
My dial up isn't too bad at uploading pics, so I have a sneak peek at a "secret project" I worked on and will be taking with me to Portland. On the velvet ribbon is my first attempt at herringbone stitch (with perle cotton):

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

VACATION!

My posts will be VERY sparse for the next couple of months and definitely no pictures.... I am in VA for the summer and we only have dial-up here. I have been making lots of good stuff and taking lots of walks. I have many pictures of flowers, trees, mules, etc., but won't be able to post them until I have DSL again....
Ah, the cool weather and green trees! And... April... I saw bluejays and today a cardinal!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Kelly Kilmer -- Fairy book

I attended Kelly's "Reclaimed: An Altered Artist's Journal" class yesterday at Frenzy Stamper here in Scottsdale. We spent most of the morning painting pages to go in our gutted books. I took a copy of "The Queen's Physician" which I only bought at the thrift store because it had queen in the title, thinking I would play off the queen theme. Even saved the spine to use in the book, which didn't happen. I was looking through some of April's collage materials when I saw the fairy picture which happened to be the same color scheme as my book and painted canvas spine. I got two signatures sewn in and a little bit of decoration on a few pages before we had to leave, but I really wanted to do some more to the book so I could take it to school and show the kids, they LOVE to look at my stuff! It gives me incentive to keep plugging away on my projects. So I added a dragonfly charm to the front along with some wool felted beads, the front is not finished, but getting there.

I fixed my "upside down" pocket accident. The pocket holds my ticket from So You Think You Can Dance show which was on my birthday last year:

I also cut Alice out of my Alice in Wonderland book as an homage to the Jabberwocky poem we worked on in Reader's Theater, added some color and some wings so she can escape the JubJub bird and mome raths:

And cut out some puppies from my puppy book that I passed around at class because I love puppies:

And, Kelly, if you're out there: I licked the brush when I was finished!