sneak peek

Don't worry, I haven't turned to just making jewelry!  I have a few brand new plush designs in the works!  Here's a sneak of something that will be up in the shop very shortly .

modern knotted fabric necklaces

I've been busy making some new jewelry recently.  I've been wanted to try making some fabric necklaces and after making one, I was hooked!  I really like being able to showcase some of the great fabric I have in my collection.  I absolutely love this yellow and white floral necklace above!

These necklaces are made from cotton fabrics and wooden beads.  Each necklace is finished neatly with grosgrain ribbon that is adjustable in length.  Fun, unique, and a beautiful statement necklace!

Find more of my new fabric necklaces here.  

anniversary trip!

Last weekend (9/22) was Kinsey and I's 5th wedding anniversary!  We decided to take a long weekend trip to New York.   After much searching, we found a nice converted barn around the Woodstock/Saugerties area.  We'd never been to that area before and thought it would be perfect for a nice and relaxing anniversary weekend.

The place was really nice and open.  I especially loved the wooden beams and floor throughout!  Here's the downstairs area (complete with our mess of bags on the table!) and below is half of the upstairs area (looking across the room from the bed).  Lots of good natural light and a very quiet area.  On Saturday night, there was a fairly quick thunderstorm and it was pretty cool to look out and see absolutely no lights or rain except every so often when the lightening would light up the entire sky.  

A box of delicious chocolates awaited us when we got to the barn/cabin from the owners!  They were so good!

On Saturday, we went to see the Saugerties Lighthouse, which sits in the Hudson River.  The lighthouse is only accessible (other than by boat) by taking a 1/2 mile trail.  The trail is not accessible during high tides, so you have to plan your hike accordingly.  The lighthouse is actually a bed and breakfast as well.  I would love to be able to stay here sometime!

Kinsey and I LOVE apples, so of course we visited a few orchards in the area.  Our favorite apple hands down is the Macoun.  It's very common in New England (we had our very first at the Bar Harbor Farmer's Market...yeah!), but not so common were we live.  A few orchards have them, but they only have a handful it seems and they're just not the same taste.
We went to Minard Orchard on our way back home and loved it.  First of all, they had lots and lots and lots of fresh, great looking, perfect, crisp Macouns.  We bought a huge amount (we very well knew that these may be our last for the season!) and were so excited to taste them.  (The apples were wonderful!  We have a small handful left and are cherishing every last one.)  Then, we got Kinsey's favorite thing, cider donuts.  He said these were the best he's had.  They had the usual sugared ones and (yes!) non sugared ones (which is a rare thing to find where we live).  Of course, we topped off the trip with some freshly pressed apple cider.
Now we're wondering, is it worth a 4 hour drive to go back for more?  (Probably!)

On Sunday, we also did the Walkway over the Hudson.   It's billed as the longest, elevated pedestrian bridge in the world.  The bridge spans 1.28 miles long each way, so we got so good exercise walking across and back.  It was a beautiful and clear day and you could see for miles and miles.

View from the bridge.  The right side is in Highland and the left is in Poughkeepsie.  This was a great way to end a wonderful trip!

suspenders and succulents

Lately, I've been thinking of different ways to sew some of my plush dolls.  I love the basic shape and parts of my typically boy plush design, but wanted a little something extra to set him apart.  Hats?  Glasses? Super hero cape? Spacesuit?  Pretzel in hand? 

I recently finished one of the ideas I had in mind.  The newly worn item.......suspenders!

I especially am loving the buckles! 

Here's Hendrik:

And here's Hansel:

Both are available in my shop.  Look for more fellows with suspenders coming soon!  (As well as some other new accessories/parts for the dolls.)

Also, just listed a mere 30 minutes ago:

A fabric soft sculpture succulent plant!  Comes in the vintage tea cup shown, but can be moved in another similar sized vessel/cup if you prefer.  I've been working on these for a while and am so happy with the results.  Look for more fabric sculpture plants soon!

pengers and the turtle

I just wanted to share some of the new work that Kinsey has been doing.  I am loving these two new animal prints!  I've always liked penguins a lot and since reading  Lost and Found  by Oliver Jeffers, I've had them on the mind lately.  A penguin softie is hopefully on the way soon from me, but in the meantime here's Kinsey's penguin (or pengers, as we've took to calling him) print.

I really like the simpler designs and bright colors he's been using.  HINT: I'm hoping he'll print out a pair of these for me to hang my craft room.  

You can see more of his work at eager illustration.  

land of happiness

I, like many,  receive the standard Crate and Barrel catalog in the mail.  I enjoy looking through it, but usually only find a handful of really unique and interesting things that I spend extra time looking at.  Then, I started getting the CB2 catalog in the mail.  Nice, but not great great.  Don't get me wrong I really enjoy the items they offer and have bought a few things in the past.  I have a set of blue blown glass dessert/parfait cups that I love and use a lot.  

Then, a month or so ago, I was flipping through the newest catalog and saw a picture of one of their catalogs I didn't get -The Land of Nod.  I had heard of The Land of Nod (or LoN as I'll refer to it in this post), but never really checked it out.  So I headed over to their website and checked it out.  

Basically, it was everything I love in one place.  I, of course signed up for the catalog immediately. 

They have really fun and beautiful things.  While I don't have kids, I still love this catalog.  My style of things I make is very animal/nature oriented with simple shapes and bright colors.  Just check out the colors and patterns of the bedding.  And that giraffe and other animal friends crib quilt below?  So great.  So LoN has been a great source of inspiration.  

I never really gave Yetis a second thought, but I love this bedding and the throw pillows.  The sheets with the mountains and trees (non Yeti) would be really fun for any room.  Of course, LoN is aimed towards children, so the biggest sheet size is a full.  Lucky for me, we have a full bed.  Lucky for my bank account, the closer LoN store is 12 hours away.  (I'm much more likely to buy things like bedding and furniture in person than through the internet.)

  

I mean really, just take a look at these throw pillows they have on their site.  Baby, kid, adult....who wouldn't want this grasshopper guy on their bed or sofa?

Kids or no kids, LoN should definitely be checked out if you want some instant inspiration!

let's spend the hottest day of the year outside all day

Yes, that title is pretty accurate.  Two weekends ago, Kinsey and I did a local craft show in the area - Summerfair in Carlisle.  We never did the show before and weren't sure how it would go.  It was a little bit different than the shows we usually do, but the space was cheap and it was close.  

The weather was the hottest day of the year...103 degrees!  Luckily, we did have a little shade from our tent. 

While we didn't sell out of our art/crafts, this was an excellent time to try out using a canopy tent.  We never really needed one before, but knew we'd eventually need one as we were planning to do more and more shows.  What I didn't realized was how expensive they are!   After much research, I was able to find an amazing deal on Sears.com and purchased ours for under $50! ( And free store pick-up.)  We wanted one that was quick to put up and didn't involve trying to fit together a million poles.  This one is the Ez-Up brand and literally goes up in minute.  So nice!  

This also was the most space we've ever had at a craft show.  We brought all the folding craft tables we could fit in our car (3!) and each had one and a half tables for our work.  This was such a huge change! We're used to trying to squeeze all our stuff on one little 8 foot table!  While I would have liked to bring more props for height, I think this was definitely our best looking set up to date.  

I made map banners to hang around our tent and on some of the tables.  Kinsey made some chalkboards for his display, which turned out really nice.  

The sun is really glaring in this picture, but I really like how Kinsey attached some of his prints on the outer side of the cube shelf.  This really caught attention from people.