Nature Magnets

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Blue Turtle Magnets

Regularly $4.25 each, now on sale for $3.00 each.

Allison Thibos of Blue Turtle Studio makes these from laser prints of her hand painted watercolor paintings. Some colors may vary from above photos.

Her beautiful cards are here.

Unfortunately I won't be carrying her lovely pieces after these are sold out because I'll be focusing on my own art. But I've enjoyed getting to know Allison over the past few years. We've bartered a few cards between us and she's been nice enough to link to my Pine Tree Designs site from her site. I've learned a lot from her and value her friendship.

She now offers sterling silver jewelry made from her watercolors, as well as t-shirts. Please visit her site!

Baby Buggy

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This is the baby card I made for us to sign at work, for Jen, in honor of her two new grandchildren born last week. I was inspired by another paper embroidered baby carriage but changed it to make it my own. I'm pretty happy with this, especially love the colors. But I either need to make the design smaller or buy a supply of square envelopes.

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Clean & Purge

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This is a birthday card I made for us to sign at work tomorrow to celebrate Jen's birthday. She was out of work most of last week - her mom passed away. Two days later her newest grandson was born and the very next day her granddaughter was born - a month early! She said she didn't know if she was laughing or crying. What a week, indeed.

I sold out of these at the Casa Larga show so I have a ton of parts cut out ready to be assembled into more of these cards. I have three framed quilts to make for orders too. Then I want to try one in a larger size than I've ever made - like maybe 7 blocks by 7 blocks.

This weekend's main project was to clean the garage of its winter-accumulated junk. It took a lot less time than I anticipated, probably because we already know where everything goes. That stuff in the middle of the garage floor is waiting to be picked up by Freecyclers.

My studio had become unmanageable so my other task this weekend was to clean it up. Anyone who knows me, knows clutter kind of freaks me out so how our garage and my studio got into these states is beyond me. When I move my studio into Simon's bedroom in a few years, I imagine I'll still have the same problem somehow. The life of an artist, I guess. Have to work when the muse and/or deadline calls. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

These are 3 frames I bought at Michael's this weekend. They were 50% off. That 10" x 10" frame was $10 and the other two were $5 each. I don't have specific uses for them in mind but I'll use them to frame paper quilts or mandalas I'm sure. The price was right and it will be nice to have some variety, besides the plain metal frames I usually favor.

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Funnies

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I love my new mirror!

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Note to self: Wear pajamas to bed.

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Bazzill

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This is for all the paperphiles: Bazzill Basics Papers started a blog recently. The owner and designers take turns blogging - and once in a while you get photos of lots and lots of paper. They are my #1 paper vendor!


You remember this stack of paper from my last order that I left sitting on my kitchen table for days, rearranging it, admiring it.

In the News

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Want to see where I work? (Hello stalkers!)

This is a piece the local news did on our company a few weeks ago. Oddly enough, I was not left on the cutting room floor. Towards the end you'll see 3 people sitting at a table. I'm the one with my back to the camera, wearing a black patterned shirt. We were having a conference call in a downstairs room, slouching around, when the tall, dark & handsome photojournalist walked in with a camera on his shoulder. You never saw three people snap to attention so quickly!

Early in the piece is a man and woman standing, looking at a notebook. The man is my boss, the woman is my friend. You'll see our CEO and the inside and outside of our building, which is pretty unique.

15 seconds of fame all used up.

New Spirelli Card

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This is a card I made for a swap in which I'm participating in the Paper Crafts Techniques Yahoo Group. I used two new punches I bought recently to punch those spirelli shapes. The pointed spirealli shapes I have been using were handcut by me and only in one size. Oh, the plans I have for these!



I got a lot done this weekend - housework, paperwork, etc. I finally got to play with paper Sunday afternoon. Good thing - I was getting kinda cranky. Steve might argue the "kinda" part of that sentence.

Oh - another thing that helped alleviate my crankiness is Steve and I went out for "lunch" at Bruester's. It's in Webster and their homemade ice cream is to die for. I ordered a frequent favorite, Chocolate Raspberry Truffle. (Steve had Banana Cream Pie ice cream.) This was the most poorly scooped cone I've ever had but I managed to keep it together, even while walking very briskly back to the car in the sleet! Not exactly typical ice cream weather but damn, that thing was good.

Bird Update: Not a peep nor scent out of the bird in the chimney. It's like it just disappeared!
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Flower Dogs

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Aren't these the cutest dang things? A friend sent me these pictures via email. I started poking around the Internet to find the origins, got off on 64 tangents and two hours later I'm back to finish this entry!

I can't resist showing you this photo I stumbled upon. Snopes says this is real. Kinda takes your breath away, doesn't it?

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We came home Friday afternoon to find both cats on the fireplace mantel, a first. Turns out there's a bird stuck in our chimney. Saturday morning, we had a guy from CritterControl.com come out and see what could be done about it. Not much as it turns out. The fireplace is gas-fired and the flue is encased in a sleeve that is just big enough for a bird to fall into but obviously can't get out. The guy told us quite often they just lower a rope into the chimney and the bird grabs on and they pull it out. Weird, huh? But he couldn't even do that in this case the way the sleeve/flue is set up. The poor guy was way more frustrated and disappointed than we were about the outcome. It seemed like if we could just pull the fireplace insert out, the bird was right there. We consider ourselves bird lovers but that amount of work and expense just doesn't seem worth it.

He told us because birds are cold-blooded, it shouldn't stink too badly when it dies. More of a funny dried grass smell that should only last a day or so. I'll let you know how that works out.

The chimney is capped properly so he determined the bird must have gotten in along the side of the sleeve thing, so he installed 1/4" fencing around the perimeter to prevent this from happening again. He's going to come back when baby bird season is over and replace all the vents in the soffits around the house. They are plastic and have been deteriorating over the years. Being plastic, the birds can break them apart pretty easily and we have not been 100% diligent about replacing them. We've replaced a few over the years, but we know there are at least two that need replacing. It only takes one to cause a problem, eh?

Meanwhile, Venus & Verona have been intrigued as hell. Reggi doesn't seem to notice or give a hoot.


The much maligned starling is the suspect in the chimney. You may remember from years past that they also build a nest in our gas grill every year, going in through the vent holes on the sides. Nest building season is always upon us before I realize it so I get startled when I open the grill and see that it is just packed with nesting material. Typically, I toss the nest about three times before they stop rebuilding. We had eggs once last year.

We have kept the grill covered with a canvas cover but it's fairly windy out here and we have a lot of trouble keeping the cover on the grill. I noticed one of our neighbors uses a bungee cord around the legs of the grill to keep their's secure so that's our next step. Not sure it will be a cure-all to thwart the birds, but definitely worth a shot.

Scherenschnitte

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Shannon Reinbold-Gee is a member of the Scherenschnitte Yahoo Group that I belong to. Scherenschnitte is the German word for paper cutting. It's an art I admire, but haven't done. Yet. Isn't this amazing work?

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In other news I've been invited to participate in Sharon Kahler's craft show November 9 at the Daisy Flour Mill, a restaurant in the area. This is the same woman who organized the recent Casa Larga show. She also has two shows at Casa Larga, one in October, one in November, to which I'll be invited too. And I've signed up to be at MJ Cramer's Home Show in October. Assuming I'm invited back to the St. John's of Rochester show - the first one I did last fall - I feel comfortable saying I have 5 shows coming up in October and November.

Know what that means?

I best keep cranking along! Good thing I'm chock full of enthusiasm and ideas. I'll post the dates on my Pine Tree Designs site when we get back from breakfast.

Steve and I are trying a new place this morning, somebody's Cafe. For the locals, it's on Whitney Road in Fairport, used to be Joey B's - that teeny, tiny building on the corner of O'Connor and Whitney.

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Edited to add: Rene's Cafe is wonderful! The building looks so tiny, I swear I thought there were 4 tables in there. But there are maybe 20 tables - didn't see the whole place. The decor is lovely, the menu is good - he offers regular breakfast fare plus some fancier stuff. I had Foccacia Scrambler which was divine. They are open for breakfast, lunch and catering. 617 Whitney Road, Fairport. 388-7480.

Prairie Points

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This is what I've been working on the last few days - 48 bookmarks in 4 different color schemes for my favorite sister. She's using them as her business card in pitching the book she's written. I can hardly wait until it's published - I'll really be busy!

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Early Mother's Day Celebration

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Gretchen and I took Mom to Steve's Place for breakfast today to celebrate Mother's Day. Gretchen brought Mom a lovely all purple bouquet of lilacs, irises and allium blooms. It was so big it felt like a 4th person at the table!

I made this for mom. I found that butterfly button at Golden Thread Needlearts. It's made of polymer clay, very detailed.

Happy Mother's Day!

Quilled Cake

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You know how I've been getting into quilling - the art of twirling strips of paper into designs? Check out this Quiller's Cake. Isn't that an amazing use of fondant? Check out the other Royal Easter Show photos taken by this Australian photographer.

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Creative Presence

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I met with the owner, Rachel, on Sunday and she loved my framed pieces! I took out more to show her than I intended but so many are my favorites that I couldn't seem to narrow it down. She kept them all! I really hadn't gotten that far in my thinking but it sure seemed like the right thing to do - jump right in and leave them there.

Good thing I don't have another definite show booked until October - I now have close to zero inventory of framed stuff. Good thing I'm feeling super motivated! Time to get busy and how.

She has a real eye for displaying everything and they offer a nice variety. It's all good stuff! I also fulfilled my other purpose of going to this store - I finally bought a piece of silverware yard art. I had my eye on this at the show but couldn't bring myself to spend the money that day, though I knew I really wanted one.

This one stands about 3 feet tall. It took me a while to decide between this or this same design in a wall hanging or a tabletop piece. I opted for the yard art so I can use it outside this summer, then bring it in and stick it in a houseplant for the winter. Lots of my houseplants have "plant poke" type things in them. I'm so happy I bought this today - I think it's adorable!

I forgot I had these pictures on my camera from the show! This is my booth, obviously.

This is the table with the pins, suncatchers and framed art. Now that I know I'm going to keep doing this, I'm going to figure out a wall system so I can display these pieces hung on a wall. I think they'll be more visually appealing. I've sort of been researching portable walls at various shows over the past months. I need something obviously portable, something I can assemble easily and looks good. I had sort of been thinking of chicken wire or hardware cloth stapled to two wood frames hinged together. I'd finish the wood and make it look nice, I mean. That way, I can hang the pieces anywhere on the wire mesh, on hooks, like drapery hooks probably. I don't know, I need to keep thinking about this and looking around. I'm open to suggestions, as always.

This show was at a winery in Fairport. They offer tours and tastings and hold events there too - weddings and corporate events and the like. This is the deck that was off the room I was in. The craft show was in three rooms. It's a very nice place. There are tons of vineyards south of here, in the rolling hills of the Finger Lakes Region but it's unusual to have this one in Fairport - on a fairly busy street, surrounded by houses. It's been here since 1974.

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We received word on Friday that my AR counterpart is returning to work one week from today, on May 15, after a 3-month medical leave. No one is cheering louder than me, believe me. I told Mary, my massage therapist, the good news on Friday and she whined, "Does that mean you won't come see me anymore??" I told her I planned to keep going as long as it felt like the right thing to do. I know I won't do this forever but it's sure saved my sanity these past three months. I'm getting better and better at relaxing. Mary says she can detect the change in my breathing the minute she starts. The last time, I sort of dozed a tiny bit, and woke myself up with my snoring. I was on my back and it was just a micro-second but sheesh. It gets worse. This week I think I sort of dozed off a tiny bit - and actually twitched a couple of times. She always tells me to take my time getting up and I do. This time I had this sudden fear I'd better get up right away or I'd zonk out for the night.

Yep, life is good.

Mother's Day Card

.This is a Mother's Day card for an order. I'm very happy with the way it turned out so I'll be making more of these. All the elements are hand cut or punched. The dark diamonds around the edge are punched from dark blue velour paper. The thread is two shades of regular DMC floss and the beads are Mill Hill Petite Glass Beads.

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So much fun!

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The craft show was a big success!

I made some nice money, took orders for more and did a lot of great networking.

A store invited me to sell my stuff in their store! I'm going to drive out tomorrow and check them out. It's about 45 minutes from home (I think) but it is consignment so I don't have to work there so that's not a problem. I was also given a brochure about participating in Palmyra's Canaltown Days but it's an outdoor show and I've pretty much decided not to do outdoor shows, at least for now. Too much expense but mostly too much of a risk, weather-wise, with my paper art. I'll keep it under consideration for the future though.

The vendor next to me was very nice; I had a great time getting to know her. She sells fiber necklaces - I was her first customer before the show even started. She doesn't have a website or I'd link to it but I'll take a picture of my necklace soon to show you. Her work is outstanding. She also gave me a list of indoor shows that she participates in with some contact info so that's next on my list - to look at the dates and distance and make a plan. Some of them are 2 day shows out of town, which adds to the expense, so they'll require special consideration.

I had a ton of interest and praise for my work. The thing I heard most consistently was that people had never seen anything like my work. Great! That's what I was hoping to hear! I didn't count but I bet 80-100 people took my business card. I got a couple dozen new names for my mailing list. A lot of people asked about future shows. It was all very cool.

The paper pins went like crazy this time! These are the same pins I had displayed at last fall's show - sold 1, maybe 2. This time I had them displayed at the end of the table so they really caught people's eyes as they walked by. What a happy accident that was! If I had a nickel for each time someone picked up one of those pins, I'd have, well, a big ol' sack of nickels!

The spirella pins were by far the most popular. I've ordered two punches to punch my own shapes so I'll be making a lot more of these. (These are the round shapes with the thread wrapped around - like the old Spirograph designs. I don't have any pictures handy - need to take some of them too.)

I only sold two framed pieces but I think that's okay. I think that's the kind of thing that people will think about and purchase next time. That's how I am about stuff like that. Takes me a while to ponder a purchase sometimes.

The quilt motif cards and the paper embroidery cards sold out. I have a ton of ideas for new ones. I'm going to have a whole series of quilt block cards.

I read a lot of stuff about the craft biz and shows - books and online. I've read several places that while in your booth during shows, you need to engage with the customers. Reading a book is a no-no; you look disinterested. Got all that - knew that already - common sense. But I also read that it's not even good to work on your craft during the show - because you need to look approachable, not busy. I sort of like watching people make stuff but I understand the point too. But during the slower periods, I find it very difficult to just sit there. I had taken stuff to work on so I did. I'd set it aside when people came by so I could talk to them - but some people saw me doing it and asked questions. I guess you just need the right balance. Be interesting and interested in the customers. Anyway, I got quite a bit of paper embroidery done so that was cool too.

It was Steve's ex-mother-in-law that bought the two framed pieces from me. I told her she's running a close second to my own mom as my best customer! The funny thing was though when she picked up the first piece, I felt my heart clench a little. Like, "What? You're going to buy that? Then I won't have it anymore!" I've heard people say they become attached to their art and they don't want to sell it, even though they do want to, obviously. I always thought that was so stupid! Oops - maybe not. It totally surprised me that I felt that way. I quickly got over it, don't get me wrong! Humans are so weird, aren't we?

The card that I posted yesterday is one I just finished the night before and I just love it to death. The colors are a lovely soft green - looks a bit grayish in the blog. A woman bought it but didn't take the envelope so I asked her if she wanted it. She said she was going to frame it. I love hearing that. Actually, I hear that a lot and wonder if people really do it. Some do, some don't, I imagine.

It was a long day but it was all just great. Set-up began at 6:15 so Steve and Simon and I got there shortly after that. (They bring in my very heavy big card rack and leave.) Simon had to be at school 7:00ish and Steve always goes into work early so that worked out fine. There were only a few of us set up that early. I was all set by 7:30 or so. I thought that might be the case and thought I might go home for a while. (The show started at 10:00.) But I decided to stay, save the gas, soak up the atmosphere - and work on some paper embroidery pieces. So it all worked out fine. But I was beat by the time the show ended at 7:00. It takes no time to tear down though and Simon picked up subs on the way home that Steve kindly treated us to. I wolfed that down and went to bed. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

My studio looks like a cyclone blew through it. All my boxes are still on the kitchen table because I need to reorganize them. And I've got a handful of orders to work on. So first things, first - get cleaned up and reorganized.

I'm going to Geva Theatre this afternoon with my friends so that will be a nice diversion. Have to do the dreaded grocery shopping too. It was my weekend to do that when we were in Tampa so we've basically been scraping by all week. My body is dying for a big glass of cold milk! I wanted to make smoothies this morning and realized we have don't have bananas or milk so I scrapped that idea and had yogurt and leftover pizza instead. I've been on such a smoothies kick the last month or so, can't get enough. Back in the 90s I went through a multi-year phase of having a strawberry smoothie and bagel for breakfast every morning. Feels like that habit is quickly approaching again.

Thanks for all the good wishes and support for this show. Thanks to my family and friends (and new customers who might be reading this!) who came to the show. There was all kinds of cool stuff there. My favorite was yard art made of silverware. The couple that makes those things is also at this store I'm checking out tomorrow. I'll share more about that after my visit.

Casa Larga Craft Show & Sale

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Stefani Tadio

Paper Artist, Pine Tree Designs

Invites You!

Craft Show & Sale

Casa Larga Vineyards

2287 Turk Hill Road

Fairport, NY

Thursday, May 4, 2006, 10:00—7:00

I'm Ready

.In researching hotels for our Tampa trip, I was amazed at how many are pet friendly. Ours was not but we've talked about some day taking a trip with our beloved Reggi. Especially if we could carry her like this! However, pudge that she is, it would take two men and a boy to lug her around. She'd be very compliant though. From day one, she has let Simon put her into ridiculous positions, sitting on her butt like a human, "braiding" her beagle ears. She cracks me up.

We arrived home Monday around 5:00ish I think. The house was in decent shape and so were the pets. Simon even thought to take the garbage and recycling out Sunday night. He had DJ & Gershum & Paul (or some combination, I'm not clear) over to spend Friday and/or Saturday nights. They had pizza and left about 5 pieces which Steve and I scarfed for dinner. Good boy.

I actually cooked dinner tonight - spaghetti - woo-hoo! It only took me about 5 minutes to remember which appliance was the stove. Boy, am I sick of eating out. NOT. I say this after every vacation, whether it's spent at home or elsewhere. I was definitely born to be a woman of leisure.

I was up by 6:00 this morning and started right in with pricing the framed art I'm taking to the craft show Thursday. I just packed up all my cards, pins and suncatchers, making sure they were priced. I'm actually feeling as ready as I can be tonight. I'll make a checklist of what I need to take - something I meant to do after the last craft show when it was all fresh in my mind. I'll keep making cards so anything I can do now is gravy. I'll probably always wish I had more product, but it's going to be good enough, I guess.

This is the postcard I mailed to my local customers, family and friends last week. Got one order out of it so far! I hope you'll stop by - should be a good show.

Departure

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I'm sitting in the Tampa airport; we board in about an hour. I'm enjoying a #7 smoothie (variety of berries) and just finished a lemon poppyseed muffin. We have a layover at JFK, then fly home, arriving home around 5:00 or 6:00 I think. Simon will be working. I've talked to him every day and he seems to have kept himself out of trouble. The pets seem to have survived his care, even the fish, which seemed to be on his last legs lately, so to speak.

Yesterday we went to a craft show at the Florida Fairgrounds. I was curious to see if there was anything I hadn't seen before. There were a couple of things - one was the teeniest miniature flowers made of two kinds of clay combined. I wasn't familiar with the kinds of clay but they are both air dry clays. The other was those reed diffusers - never saw those in a craft show yet. I was also curious how much of the stuff would be Florida themed. Not much - it was pretty much the same stuff I'd see at home, which is kind of what I expected. It also seemed a good deal of the stuff was purchased product being resold, not all hand-crafted, which was disappointing. I wish the show had been bigger too, but that's probably always the way.

By the time we found someplace for breakfast, toured the craft show and got back to the room, it was 3:00 or so. I wanted to spend some time in the room working on the paper art stuff I brought with me. So I did that, read, napped - all good. I ordered a pizza online from Papa Jack's, then we went to pick it up. After that we went downstairs to the restaurant and got the ice cream sundae bar to go - and ate our sundaes while watching The West Wing. Then we went in the pool for a while. I wasn't keen on it but am so glad I did because it finally put out the fire on my legs. Then we went in the hot tub, which we affectionately called the warm tub. That fired up my legs again but just for a minute. Then back in the pool and back to our room to watch a little TV until we turned in around 11:00.

It was a good final day - did some stuff - did some relaxing. As I said to Steve last night, I like my life just fine and don't mind going home - but I really liked my fake life for the last five days. Still, it will be good to get home - it always is, isn't it?