tricks and treats

happy halloween to you! the past week has been filled with halloween decorating and costume making. i am currently a mother to an airforce pilot and a smurf, one costume bought and one made. i am trying to hold on to their innocence as long as i can, so no blood and guts from this address, yet :)

a little green and a little yellow

can you see it? can you see the yellow starting to emerge? three lemons have been growing on my lemon tree for close to 6 months and they are just starting to turn yellow. i was beginning to wonder if i was sent a lime tree instead. haha!

oilcloth and a giveaway

through the small world of blogs and twitter, i was asked by the wonderful kelly mccants of oilcloth addict to help out in her country living fair booth. well, she didn't have to ask me twice! plus, the icing on the cake was when she said i could sell my aprons and hoop art in her booth. i said it to my friends all day long, and i will say it here - kelly is truly one of the most generous people i have ever met. the opportunity she gave me to be a part of this festival means more than she knows.

me (on left) and kelly braving the cold morning temps

so, i spent saturday cutting and rolling oilcloth for the thousands of people who came through the gates - um, can you say workout. seriously, i never knew that rolling oilcloth would make me break a sweat! i worked with 5 great women all day saturday and met so many fun people coming through the booth. i hope all of your oilcloth projects turn out beautifully!!!

did i mention that kelly was generous? she sent me home with a signed copy of her new book "sewing with oilcloth" from wiley publishing as a giveaway for one of my blog readers. just leave a comment here letting me know what you love about oilcloth. that's it! the giveaway will run for a week and a half, ending on sunday, november 6th. i will announce the winner on monday, november 7th. *be sure to leave an email or blog link so i can contact you if you are the winner!

country living and a fair

did you know the country living fair came to atlanta this past weekend??? i definitely did and i made sure i arrived bright and early on friday to shop. but first i had to get my picture taken in front of the pumpkin patch before the area got too crowded.

there was so much eye candy, i didn't know where to start first. however, we did know one thing since we remembered the crowds last year, we decided to start at the end and work our way to the front.

this double shabby chic booth was amazing! (i grabbed a card, but no website listed :( if you know it, shoot me an email). it was done out in white and cream sheets and lots of vintage goodies. the styling was impeccable.

i rounded a corner and the skys parted when i came across a booth entirely of buttons. seriously, every kind of button and price point you could imagine. the woman who runs this booth also sets up shop at the new lakewood antiques north of the city.

vintage notions were available everywhere. i especially love this vignette because it gives me an idea of ribbon storage i can build.

the sisters on the fly girls were also there with two of their beautifully redone campers. isn't the custom painting amazing???

this is the inside of one of the campers. i just want to crawl inside and take a nap. actually it really makes me want to scour the internet for a camper of my own to redo and park in my back yard as a little retreat.

this was a sweet decoration that twiststyle added to a tree outside of her booth. genius way to attract customers as they round the corner.

i think i walked and shopped for 9 hours straight with 3 trips out to the car to deposit goodies. overall, i thought the fair was so much fun. i did wish that there was more individual art and less wholesale products represented, but still a great day.

check back tomorrow to see how i helped out at the fair on saturday, along with a giveaway you won't want to miss!

labels and country living

i've been sewing up a flurry of aprons this past week. i shouldn't say this, but sometimes i get so burnt out on making them, the redundancy of it all, so there is a long time in between batches. but once i get going again, i love mixing together crazy patterns and seeing all the colorful fabric laying around my studio. the best part about this batch? they are the first ones that include my woven business label. i get very giddy over the professionalism of it all!!!

and...

they will be for sale at the atlanta country living fair this weekend at stone mountain along with my hoop art! i will be helping out the lovely kelly mccants in her "modern june" booth and she has graciously offered to sell my creations alongside of hers. i will be there all day long on saturday cutting up a storm of oilcloth and laminated cotton fabrics. and, who am i kidding, probably buying some as well. if you are in the atlanta area, swing by and say hello!

and...

did you know that kelly is the author of this new book? she is going to be doing a signing at whipstitch fabrics tonight if you can't wait for the weekend and want to swing by and pick up your very own copy :)

goals and dreams, a recap

about a year and a half ago, i posted about my goals and dreams for linwood avenue. i thought it would be a good thing to revisit them to see where i stand. i try to be a very motivated person, and to actually put one foot in front of the other when i put my mind to something. looking back over the list lets me know where i have made strides and where i need to devote more time. so here goes...

small goals:

• be published in a national magazine by the end of the year  - yay for artful blogging!
• create a calendar with my botanical drawings and find a publisher for it. month to month in flowers, but with a modern, youthful twist - 6 more months to draw
• purchase linwood avenue embroidered labels for my products regardless of cost - loving these!
  
• become a much better product photographer - photos aren't yet where i want them to be, but i'm getting there.
• keep my etsy shop update regularly - working on this
• save money to attend an art retreat - art and soul portland
  

big goals:

• enter the world of licensing. would love to design and reproduce vintage inspired lamps
• expand linwood avenue so it overshadows my graphic design business - not yet, but it is about half/half right now which is great!

blog goals:

• have my blog become a place of creative inspiration for readers  - i think adding more tutorials has helped this.
• build my blog followers - thank you once again artful bloggging!
• have a larger tutorial section - my partnership with may arts has contributed greatly to this section. 

that's it for now. i feel good about what i have accomplished and some of the items are almost there. overall, i really, really need to devote more time to etsy because i think that will overflow into some of the other goals. and i really want to finish the botanical calendar because i think i will feel such a sense of accomplishment after it is done. don't you love how freely you can breath after you have finished something that has been hanging around for a long time?

blooms and rain

this is the piece i was holding in my post about the classes i took at art and soul. it was the first one i created in class that day and i am really so proud of it. it is sitting on the bookshelf which hangs above my desk and i can't stop peeking at it. it makes me happy, pure and simple :)

more estates and sales

this has not been a good week so far. nope, not at all. i came down with an awful cold on friday and it has lasted clear through today with a minor trip to the ER on monday (don't worry mom, i'm alright). good news is i am on the upswing thanks to some great drugs that may or may not have been injected into my backside :)

so for today's post, you get to see some of my latest finds because, well, that is about all i can muster right now.

you all know my love for milk glass, specifically fenton, right? well, when i was in portland, we stopped at a random parking lot sale that was in the process of closing. i walked up and down a few aisles and then darted to this lovely platter. i knew it was fenton right away, but had to conceal my utter delight. i asked the guy how much it was, he went and asked his dad, and came back with $4. what? did you say $4??? let's just say i whipped my cash out as fast as i could and immediately walked away with a treasure in my hand.

this next piece i found at an estate sale near my house last week. estate sale is a bit of an understatement. it was actually a sale in a warehouse that included 9 full estates. can you say huge and overwhelming! anyway, after i pushed through my last aisle, i came across this vintage seltzer bottle. let me just say that i have been looking at these forever! with this one, the $10 price tag and the beautiful blue color sold me in an instant.

for a while i couldn't figure out if it was actually old or just a reproduction. once i got it home, i could see it a bit more clearly and realized that the straw inside is glass, so that means it is old/original, right? chime in if you know anything about seltzer bottles. i love it no matter what, so even if you tell me it is a reproduction, i won't be sad.

so, those are the treasures that have come into my home lately. i am getting very addicted and can't stop bringing things home. all i keep thinking about is how to stop my house from becoming an episode on hoarders???

friends and cupcakes

here is a new tutorial i created for may arts. i am on a serious roll lately with all my inspiration from their beautiful ribbon.

when I have friends over to the house, i love going the extra mile to add something special to the evening. we were hosting game night last friday and celebrating a friend’s birthday at the same time. i decided to make cupcakes for dessert because they are the perfect treat for kids as well as the adults, but i wanted to make them extra special. i looked around my studio and my eyes landed on 2 beautiful may arts ribbons and I knew immediately that i wanted to make some glittery cupcake toppers. these are super easy to make and come together quickly. plus, this tutorial could easily be adapted to different color schemes with all the color options may arts offers in these specific ribbons.

click here to get started!

art and soul, part three

i was completely blown away by the flowers i saw in portland. i guess all that rain does something good! although i must say that in the 6 days i was there, i did not feel one drop of rain :) believe it or not, all these pics were taken in one grocery store. i was a huge dork and took over 60 images of all the flowers they had for sale - these are just the tip of the iceberg

the colors, the different varieties of peonies, the crazy plate sized flowers i had never seen before, all blew me away. if i lived there, i would forever have a pencil in my hand sketching everything i saw. and would probably only leave the house to go buy more inspiration!

this wraps up my trip to art and soul portland. it was truly such a fun experience. i am so excited to check this off of my list and i dare say i am hooked on art retreats. although next time i go back, i am hoping to do it as an instructor.

art and soul, part two

 

on thursday, jenni and i were both free, so we used it as a day to explore portland. we rented a car and it was super easy to get around. believe it or not, we tackled much of the city and only clocked 30 miles on our rental car - crazy.

i loved taking random closeups throughout the day and i couldn't resist this bike. the rusty wear is perfect! i already have plans for this shot in a new piece of artwork that is floating around my head.

 

we started at the beginning of hawthorne street and went into this store first. you all know how i feel about the revival of swags - love it!!! if i didn't already have a bunch, a special little purple swag would have come home with me in my carry on. and the prices, holy cow, the prices in this city are so reasonable!

i have no idea what this place is, but the outside deserved a photo. this was taken jsut before a random sighting of a powell's bookstore. i'm sure jenni though me a bit crazy with my desire to go in, but i have read about this store for so long on my favorite blogs, that i had to.

the rest of this post is about food, oh the food. i knew portland had a ton of street vendors and i made it my personal mission to find some. how cute is this picnic table set up. i would have loved to have seen it at night with the lights lit.

we started with some poutine (which i thought only existed in quebec, silly me) and then out main course was this delicious fennel and sausage pizza. thank goodness jenni and i have the same taste in food and were able to share our meals or else i would have come home 10 pounds heavier.

finally, this peanut butter cake was the most amazing dessert ever! on friday night, we snuck into town for the best dinner and dessert at this restaurant. it was on 23rd street, but looking at their site, not sure if that is the east side or west side location. i split a fancy sandwich for dinner so i could devour this entire cake. so unexpectedly light and so, so, so good!

art and soul, part one

i am back from a whirlwind 6 days creating and exploring in portland at the art and soul fest. i had no idea what to expect, but i am pretty sure the real thing was better than anything i could have imagined. oh, i have so much to share, so please forgive these image heavy posts that will spread out over a few days, because i don't want you to miss a thing!

my first class bright and early on wednesday morning was a painting class with lisa kaus. i've said before that painting is very intimidating to me, so i welcomed learning all about fluid acrylics and how to use them. we started out the day doodling with paint on a piece of loose canvas which we then cut up to collage into our final piece.

that's me with lisa and a portion of my final piece. truth be told, i am not super in love with the painting i created - it is lacking much needed depth of color, however, i will definitely keep at it as i love the techniques we learned.

these are two pieces painted by my table mate teri. aren't they amazing? (please forgive the horrible lighting caused by the conference rooms. ugh!). i could not believe when we started talking and found out that she lives in the small ohio town where i went to college. very random!

here is my new friend patti with her painting. i loved her color choices and the added collage elements! it is amazing how much the fluid acrylics resemble watercolor.

my class on friday was an amazing introduction to lazertran water decals in painting. the lovely sara naumann traveled from amsterdam to teach this class and i am obsessed with the product, really obsessed. this transfer product allows me to combine crisp, clean lines with painting. i also fell in love with pan pastels and ordered my first set today.

one friend i met in class was kathy and i couldn't resist taking a pic of her art supply carrying case. it is a vintage suitcase - hard shell and covered with travel stickers!

this is beth, a blog follower and friend of my brother who i finally got a chance to meet. we were lucky enough to have class next to one another on friday, so we met for lunch. i had to get a pic of her lovely piece created in another of lisa kaus's classes.

 

finally, here is a pic shot out front of the widmer brewery after class on wednesday night. teresa is farthest on the left, followed by my roomie, jenni horne. then there is me and sheryl is on the right. teresa and sheryl are twin sisters and were so much fun, seriously, their bright attitudes were contagious, i wish i could have packed them in my suitcase!

up next... what i did on my day off and then a post about all the amazing greenery in portland.

halloween and buckets

in honor of october, i have a new tutorial for you! for this months may arts project, we partnered up with tattered angels. they make this amazing misting paint, glaze and glitter.

i was immediately inspired to create a halloween candy bucket with ribbon, paint, paper mache and of course a glittery spider. this project is super easy and your munchkins will love helping out with the paper mache part.

click here to download this tutorial and of course, check out the may arts blog to see all the fabulous projects our team comes up with.