Sunday, September 19, 2010

Work Day and Name Change

I've officially been accepted into the Ft Collins Holiday Craft Fair over Thanksgiving weekend! Hooray! So as you know, I have some work to do, and today I invited three helpers into the art room to help me with some of the grunt work of mass card-making: Mivvy, Haley, and Katie.


We worked for a good 4 hours (with a gourmet snack break half-way through) to do all the finishing on my non-Christmas cards. The photo below is the pile of cards we completed. I'd done all the design, painting, gluing, layout, etc. beforehand. Then today we sewed on buttons, beads, and other embellishments while keeping each other company and laughing at the chickens clucking right outside to screen door. We accomplished so much; that was 16 hours of work that the four of us did in 4. Fantastic!


Now, a story: when I was in Oregon over Memorial Day weekend, I stopped in a great quilt shop in Hood River. I was explaining to the woman there the type of art I did and the reason I was there to buy buttons (for 2 cents a pop from their bulk basket), and she asked if I had a card, so she could visit my website when she got home to her computer. A week or so later, she called me(!) and said she'd had problems finding my Etsy shop, Follow Him.

Whoa.

And so, I would like to announce the transition to my new studio name: Parsley Art. I am still working through the details, but you will see that it is a good fit. "Fresh art with lots of taste," you know, something along those lines. Katie came early to our work session today to do some photography with freshly picked bunches of parsley from my garden. We experimented with all sorts of things to integrate the parsley and some of my art supplies. You'll see more of those photos soon. For now, here are a couple...


Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Without Meaning To...

...I recently learned some new techniques! The other day, I was in the scrapbook store by happy accident, and since I had no agenda or no project to buy specific stuff for, I could just look around. Well, I got inspired, as usual. And I saw some stuff I'd never seen before. Handmade paper ribbons, ruffles, and flowers. So I asked the lady there how to do them. Here you can see my own successful attempts! (They're pretty easy to do, just something new and different.)


This menu features the ruffle (under the bow) and a couple of the flowers. I just love how much the ruffle looks like fabric, but it's paper!


Aren't the flowers just so cute? In person, you'd see that they, too, have a fabric-esque feel and look to them.

NEWS FLASH: I applied to the Fort Collins Holiday Craft Fair and although I haven't heard back officially, they did cash my check. Soooo, I'm thinkin' I might be in. Below is my list of things to make before Thanksgiving weekend. I've got my work cut out for me but boy am I thrilled!