angry chicken

Auction next week-One in Ten

This art print Dusty is Busy, (which sold out last year) is going up for auction starting Sunday, August 19th. You can find all the details about the auction on the One in Ten site.This is an auction is for Eireann's mother, and I am so happy to be helping anyway I can. (See her side bar for the complete story.)

It comes framed. More information will be listed about this piece over on e-bay. There are some truly amazing handcrafted items that will be auctioned. The direct link to this piece for bidding is here, and you can link to all the other pieces at the One in Ten site.

she's here!

Lydia Rose Matern came to us Friday, June 22 and we are ecstatic!! We have 3 girls! Papa hasn't put her down. My water broke Thursday and then. . . . nothing. So we waited and waited and had her here, at home, in the tub, about 27 hours later. It was awesome and we are all doing great!

I supect good times will be had. . .

This Saturday, here in Portland, a friend is reading at this amazing event. She is one of the organizers as well, and the whole thing sounds so very cool, I really am hoping to go. (Hang in there, baby!) Local writers/performers "read and reflect on their favorite passages from the famous works of Judy Blume." Brilliant! I would be reading from Wifey, because I was one of the naughty girls who read that one way too young. I know I'm not the only one! Oh, and Forever, that one I remember so well. . .sigh.

thank you! (and there was no barfing.)

Thank you all for the birthday well wishes. Getting all those happy comments on my birthday made me feel wonderful, so seriously, thank you.

We ate a great dinner at the new restaurant, Country Cat. I had strawberry shortcake for dessert, very tasty, and I got some lovely gifts, including a gift certificate from Pete to buy a piece of art, which I did about an hour after I received it. I heart computers. The piece above is mine now. It's called, untitled (white bear in a blue shirt holding a bird's head) by the uber-talented Matthew Feyld, and I love it. I've been wanting a piece by Mr. Feyld for a long time now and Pete was going to surprise me and get one, but couldn't find where I had him book-marked. Apparently, I have "the entire internet book-marked." Ahem. So I got to pick one out myself.

I am putting aside the orange and white quilt for baby to try and get issue #7 mailorder together. My hope is to get the subscriber issues out some time next week (probably the end of the week) and have the sale for the single issues next Friday, June 1st. This is all loosey-goosey, because they haven't been taken to the printers yet, so more on all that soon. (And once I know for sure, I will send out an e-mail to the mail list over at kingpod.) But because of all that potentially happening quite soon, Subscribers, if you have moved in the last 3 months, or if for any reason paypal has old info for you and you have never told me, please send me an e-mail. Thank you, and have a relaxing 3 day weekend.

a comic and some links

I was siting around the last few days looking through my well worn copies of Everyday Fashions of the Twenties, Thirties and Forties (Dover) and got the urge, again, to start a comic project. Yet another thing on my "want to try this in my lifetime" list. I admit this might fall by the wayside, but it's a start. I don't have a hand sewing project right now, and need to do something while the girls play (the computer and phone are not okay by them at all.) It's very Henry Darger (old timey style) and Dan Clowes (tentacles and fur) inspired. I also found this great tutorial about coloring drawings in photoshop via Drawn. I didn't follow the directions because that would have involved reading and way too much concentration, but it inspired me anyway. I ended up just drawing by hand, scanning, adding the color in Photoshop the way I always do, but good to know a better way is out there.

I also found a great photo editing site via my husband called Snipshot. Great for all of you who want to edit your photos and make them look all pretty but don't have photoshop. I do have it, but not on my main computer (long story) so I use a lame program most of the time and Snipshot is WAY better. It allows you to "enhance" your photos with a miracle one-click button! (you can also do it with more control) You can then upload directly to flickr if you want to. 2 things.

Thing 1: If you do upload to flickr, you will get a warning from flickr that says Snipshot then has access to your account-if this bugs you, just save as a jpeg to your computer and upload yourself.

Thing 2: I thought at first you could only edit photos if they were already on a website-this is not the case. You just have to "open" a photo in Snipshot and then you can edit from wherever. I can't tell you how cool I think this program is-cropping, resizing, color enhancement is so easy. It's free (why does that seem suspicious?) for now anyway. . .

And my husband swears ask a ninja is the funniest thing ever. I haven't watched it yet, but it sounds promising. Because I haven't seen it yet, go at your own risk. (We can blame him later.)

thank you!! and a brain dump

Wow!! Wow! Thank you all so much! God, I felt so great yesterday-floating on air. Heck, I still feel great! The whole process has been so exciting/nerve wracking/worry producing/and wonderful all mixed up in a huge bag. I was nervous to put it all out there yesterday, you all are so awesome. So, again, thank you.

I finally got around to framing the Mailorder #5 cross-stitch sampler. I didn't use glass, and I am very happy with that decision-having no glare is really nice. The amazing painting above is Camilla's, of course, and the one peeking out from the other room is an older one of mine, "Friendly Squid."

Okay a few things I can't stop thinking about or looking at:

-helloyarn's terrariums photos on flickr. I heart moss so much.
-these crazy amazing prints from artist, Beci Orpin, that are making my wallet feel lighter by the second. Holy smokes, can't stop looking at them.
-the fabric collection, Nell's flower shop, by Moda, which has some cute cross-stitch cheater cloths and a very cool linen/cotton blend solid color collection-I saw all this at Fabric Depot about 4 weeks ago, and I bought none. Why?? I see Miss Emily snagged some, now that's some good shopping!
-I keep thinking about the movie we netflixed last week, Junebug. loved it so much.
-Why don't they have a drive-thru for pizza by the slice? It's not that messy, I could totally grub it while driving, I really think there is a missed opportunity here.
-so excited to get my hands on these new magnets by the crazy mind of the small object. They are amazing/painful/happy/cute.

letterpress love.

Hooray! Brian has opened his shop over at Boiled Art Editions! I got the most amazing custom cards from him a bit back and have loved using them any chance I get. Along with his wonderful custom work, I am so happy that he now has individual cards for sale as well over here. The Squirrel is extra special, I say. Can't get too much of that letter press goodness.

rebelling against myself

I have had this book idea in my head for awhile now. It's for the girls and I was thinking of putting them in different scenes, with a simple story and simple drawings. I think they would freak at seeing themselves in a book. I would! So, this was started about an hour ago and I guess there is no way I can do ten drawings and write the story and get the book made by Christmas. I was hoping to get it bound in one of those books you can make on flickr, I need to mess around with it still.

This came about because I am a bit antsy lately with the crafting. For about 3 weeks now the cross-stitch has taken up all my time. I like it, but multi-tasking craft projects is my bag--I never work on one project at a time, let alone one for 3 weeks. I am too ADD and get all freaky when I work on one thing for too long. So, I was  working on mailorder this morning (hubby took a vacation day off, whoo-hoo!) and found myself working on this book project instead. I hope to get mailorder out the first week in January. Not sure why the timing of mailorder always seems to be very close to a holiday.

Anyhoo, I think mailorder will happen on time, but I am so glad I rebelled against my own deadline to work on this a little instead. It's good for my brain. Okay, back to stitching and cookie baking and freezing.(And maybe some more drawing for this book.)

happy arty stuff.

Thanks you guys for the really really nice comments about my podcast-it was fun doing it, but sort of nerve wracking knowing it is going to be out there. . .

A super genius friend of mine directed me to these giclee prints done by the uber-talented Jen Corace. There are 3 of them and they are available at Art Star as a limited edition, so I moved fast. Some of the original paintings from this series are here at motel. .

I freaked out about these (a huge understatement) and got all 3. I missed the Tiny Showcase Jen Corace print this last time do to an family emergency (literally, an emergency room style emergency) so this more than makes up for that.

Art Star has other lovely prints by several other artists. This whole giclee print thing is so cool. The prints are beautiful and so very affordable, I just love them.

**updated- don't forget your tie one on apron for june/july! You have until Tuesday-the perfect weekend project!

it's too hot to be doing this-

Wow! Thanks you all for the box bag love! I forgot how fun it is to paint on wood (except when it's not fun, if you know what I mean)

Here is box bag #2. She still smells like varnish. It's so flippin' hot here I'm amazed these things are drying. This is a dutch inspired type of design and I'd love to do one in black next, instead of the orange. I am still thinking about trying a stencil (freezer paper?) but my first attempt didn't work. I think the paint was too thin-so maybe a freezer paper stencil with thinker paint. I don't want it to look like tole painting, I am going to smooth even color. . .the pin cushion box that matches this is here, along with other photos. . .and I am happy to report that I am now the owner of my first Enid bag (en route) I have been trying for the last few days and finally got one. whew! that was a hard one!