Valentines

Christmas is lovely and now we've already moved on to Valentine's Day!

I think all of the un-decking of the halls leaves the home a little blah, so we need to throw some hearts up for a little color.

Hint, hint.

I made a felted wool heart mobile for my mom for Christmas (hearts aren't only for Valentine's Day, of course) and everyone loved it so I made a few more for my shop. The hearts are sewn from felted wool sweaters. The various textures really make the mobiles lovely. My mom hung her mobile in between her living room and sunroom, and I have one hung against a wall. I think they would be lovely in a nursery, too.

I hope to make more woolen items, but it is getting hard to find wool things in the thrift stores. I need to make a trip to "THE CITIES" (the all caps and quotes are for fans of The Church Basement Ladies) and look in the big huge thrift stores.

Final bit of business: I was the lucky recipient of a NEW sewing machine from my in-laws (a Janome) which zipped right through my super bulky wool. I'm also using it to sew cute little fabric hearts onto pretty chocolate brown paper for valentines, also available in ye old shoppe.

Perhaps I will use this machine for some more "regular" type sewing, too. :)

New Leather

The cyber world has officially taken over the Monday after Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all of my sales yesterday. Giving a 25% off discount really works. Awesome!

After packaging up my orders late last night I finished 4 new leather journals. These have been sitting in my studio nearly finished for a few weeks as I waited for metal eyelets to arrive in the mail. I am adjusting to living in the country after living in St. Paul for a few years - there were so many art supplies stores within minutes before and now I need to plan ahead for a trip to the city or else figure out a way to get things online. I found these great metal eyelets in an Etsy shop. Did you know that Etsy has an entire category of art and craft supplies? It's a great way to find unique supplies as well as tried-and-true items.

Cyber Monday

SALE SALE SALE!

Save 25% in my shop on Cyber Monday when you use coupon code "cyber25" at the checkout!

WOOOOOOWEEEE!

This was the view outside our patio door Friday morning. It's not exactly the red and green holiday colors you associate with this time of year but they certainly were intense. The lake was glowing pink.

We enjoyed our "Black Friday" at home eating swedish pancakes, playing and working outside, organizing the barn, and feeling cozy inside our house with the early nightfall. It was great. No crowds around these parts.

Hopefully everyone participated in "Small Business Saturday" by supporting a favorite small business. It is wonderful to support local small businesses, but also those of us found on the web :). Etsy is great place for holiday shopping, so take some time to browse on "Cyber Monday."

I decided to offer a pretty drastic discount on Monday. I have about 20 new brag books in my shop and quite a few hardcover albums and journals.

Happy Shopping!

Show!

What? Work? Me?

Well, not really. I am just getting things ready for an art show at Levandowski Pottery in October. To my amazement, there were over 30 necklaces in my stash that I had yet to photograph. Huh, I guess I forgot with the new little one around. I will have brag books, albums, and journals there as well. I'm running short on leather journals but will try to make more before Christmas.

I recently cleaned up my studio a bit. Since I haven't been using it much I moved my work table into the kitchen as an island. Basically, I do all of my creative work in the kitchen now - cooking that is. I am using our old August Earth sign as my work table now. So aesthetically pleasant.

I am much more motivated to spend time in my studio now that things are out of boxes. I have collage on my mind, so hopefully this winter I have time to tinker with all of my mixed mediums that I've been collecting over the last 12 years. I want to start with some wall art for over our couch. Right now there is a painting I made in 10th grade in that spot. Yikes. I keep stashing it in the basement but it ends up back on the wall. The husband likes it. It's a tree in front of a pink and purple sunset. It is just so...pink and purple.

Bee in the Buckwheat

Ivy!

Ivy is two weeks old today! She is doing well and she's ready for her blog debut. Here are some highlights of her life:

Her last hours in the womb. Yes, I am in labor here. Obviously I'm between contractions.

And she's out:
Visit from GG:
Tiny hand:
Eyes!
FGH finally held her after she was home for a week:
Well, the baby awakens. More later.

New Website

I have again started a new website/blog. I feel weird posting all this farm stuff on my "art" blog, so I've set up an August Earth website again. Check it out! I have a handful of posts on the blog, some farm photos, and a ton of recipes from our old CSA newsletters and some others I've discovered since then.

I DO plan on making art still. It's just so wonderful to be working outside again. It being Minnesota and all I know that winter will come and it will be long, and my little art studio room will beckon me. Plus, I just signed up for an art show for the late fall which is a motivating factor to get some work made.

No baby yet. I'm due. I don't want to think about it. It will happen eventually.

Oh, the above photo captures the 3 acres of buckwheat that is just starting to flower in our field. It's so pretty. I blogged about it.

Happy August!