Enchanted

I wanted to get some pictures posted from my trip to the coast a few days ago. The forest right on the coast is so beautiful there is no way to capture it with my camera. The best way I can is to shoot facing the sun, and that gives it the right feeling.







I'm going to be heading for the train station in a little bit. I'm so excited to make a little nest in the train compartment where I can just sketch and read all day, and watch movies when it gets dark. But, it's going to be a three day ride so I am going to be out of communication for that time. If you send me any art/shop related emails or Etsy convos please be patient and I will be with you as soon as I get to my family's house in Michigan!

Dahlias

On the way to the coast a few days ago we stopped by a gorgeous dahlia farm. There were over 400 varieties, so many beautiful colors!

Garden visit

Still catching up on pictures from this last week!
I finally made it to the Portland Classical Chinese Garden. I can't believe I haven't been there before, it's so beautiful and peaceful, with interesting little winding paths and hidden courtyards. It was an interesting weather day, pouring one minute, sun out the next. I love that sort of weather, and it made it so my mom and I had the garden almost to ourselves. Next time I go hopefully I'll have time to have some tea in the tearoom.







I just died over this tiny forest with a little mushroom growing in it:

A few pictures from the show setup and opening

It's been such a busy week! First my birthday, then my mom visiting, the show opening, a few nice parties, and halloween! Now I'm at the Oregon cost spending some much needed time in the out-of-doors (many pictures to come). So much has happened I feel like I should have more to say but I'm just too tired!

The Mountains and Hills Will Burst Into Song

I hope if you live in the Portland OR area you will come to the opening of this awesome show that I'm in, curated by Rebecca! I'm really excited because I am going to be showing some of my newest and in my opinion best, or at least my favorite work.
This Tursday! The opening is from 6-10pm.
Together gallery is located at 2314 NE Alberta St Portland, OR.

Leaves falling

Wow this week has so much going on! I'm in a show thats opening, my birthday, my mom is coming to town, various get togethers and parties, and Halloween; then next week a quick trip to the coast before I catch a train back to Michigan where I'll be staying for a few months!
Related to that I wanted to show you some in progress shots of some new brooches. They'll be in the shop when I get settled in Michigan. Also due to travel and show opening related chaos I just wanted to let you that after Wednesday I'm going to be putting the shop on hiatus until November 19th. You can still order things but they won't be shipped until after November 13th.

Expo time

Yesterday was the last great Antique expo of the year, my favorite marathon of endurance antique shopping! Whenever I get there I get so overwhelmed with amazing things that I can never actually figure out when to actually buy. There were many things I wanted, and a few were actually in my budget, but in the end I just went for my favorite thing and bought a ton of antique trade cards and ephemera. After looking at my pictures I guess the other things I was most attracted to yesterday were the old stuffed animals. I love their worn fur and funny little faces, none of those were even close to my budget though!






I'm going to be slowly adding all the ephemera I bought to my ephemera blog, but I've already added a few of my favorites so take a look over at Ephemeratopia

Birdies

I'm working on some new designs for brooches using these bird heads. I hadn't drawn a bird in a while (not in detail anyway), and I was sort of surprised I still could! It just goes to show you that as long as you keep drawing your hands stay in practice.

Framing

I'm so, so, happy with these displays I just made for my brooches:

I had the idea the other day because I'm sending some brooches to a retail shop on consignment and I wanted them to be displayed to their best advantage. They look so much better like this than just displayed in a box or something like that.
Anyway, everything just came together right! I really wanted to have the display match the feel of the brooches and I happened to find some silk in the perfect color, and the perfect heavy dark antique frame. Actually I found two, and made one for myself to keep some of my own brooches that I don't wear every day. (my frame has some little acorn looking things on it, so perfect)



I'd actually like to sell more of my brooches on consignment, especially around Portland. Can any of you Portland readers think of some shops around town where they might be a good fit?

By the way, I added some new prints to the shop. Exciting! Take a look!

Fall Days

What miserable weather we've had lately. I love it! I'm happiest when the sky is full of dark ominous clouds and the wind it blowing rain against my window. I'm going out in a little bit to buy some ingredients for this butternut squash curry, it seems like a perfect, warming, meal for today.
I feel like I have a lot going on and not enough time to do it, especially when what I really want to be doing is curling up in bed with a book. Actually that's not really true, I'm happiest when I'm working as long as I'm doing what I want to be doing and I can do it at my own pace. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be adding some new prints to the shop!

New Pints up at LPP

Just thought I'd let you know that Little Paper Planes has three new limited edition prints up, done exclusively for them! Including one of my favorites, Forest Leaf Spirit:

To see all the prints go Here

Sketching

inspired by a matchbook cover.

This past week

I stared some embroidery for the first time in almost a year.

Lunchtime meeting.

1930's repro fabric, someday I will start that quilt.

A trip to Suavie island pumpkin patch


Thanks for all the love on the Mechanical Animals and to those who have already bought some!

Bloksky (2008)

I just saw this great short film posted on Tumbler and had to share it with you:

Animals in the shop!

It took long enough I know, all summer, but the set of six jointed paper doll animals are finally in the shop! They were inspired by a picture I saw in a magazine of a set of antique paper toys (this is the original blog entry where I talk about that). I think they came out great, the prints are actually deeper and more vivid than the originals!




And I am especially proud of finding those great side opening envelopes that fit the entire set of six perfectly, and with some style. Not to mention all the fun I had designing the front of the envelope. All in all, I'm pretty excited to finally have them ready and in the shop, and you should buy a set and give me some feedback about it! I'm curious how other people with will find putting them together, hopefully it's pretty easy.

film

I forgot to mention I went to see Bright Star over the weekend. Such a gorgeous movie, probably my favorite of the year. The whole look and feel stayed with me long after I left the theatre. I highly recommend it!

Rabbit friend

I have an exciting shop update planned for Wednesday, here is a sneak peek:

Little pieces of my brain

A few more bits and pieces from my sketchbook





Thank you for all the well wishes on the Meltdown show! I sadly won't be going either, I'm not a huge traveler unless someone else plans everything and I can go along without having to turn into a huge ball of worry! But I think it will be a really fun show and I wish I could see everyones work in person because I know it's going to be amazing based on what I've seen on their blog.

Also, I have no idea what came over me today but I signed up for twitter. I was pretty indifferent to it for a while but all of the sudden I feel like giving it a try! I don't really know what I'm doing yet, and it's probably going to be a lot of things along the lines of 'I got cool mail today!', but look me up and follow if you feel inclined!

Show opening at Gallery Metldown in LA

This is show I'm in Opening Friday in LA. I had a lot of fun making the piece, and I have to say this is the best postcard promo I've seen in a while!

New Brooches and Medals

I'm extremely pleased with how these new brooches turned out! I found a bunch of ribbon that I loved so that inspired me to make a few new images for the settings as well! That deep rich orange is soo perfect for fall, it just makes me happy to look at it. Then those stripes, they look great on everything I pin them to! I need to buy more of that ribbon. I guess my thought with these wasn't that they would look military exactly, but more like awards of merit that you might get from a fancy club? What kind of merit? Well you'll have to decide that for yourself.









Photographing these is so hard for me, it took all day yesterday to photograph and then edit them. All day. And I sill don't think they look as good as they might, but they're getting there.
I'm going to put a few in my shop right now and put the rest up slowly though out the week.