The Slow Days of Summer........

Summer is slipping by before my eyes and before long both my children will be in school......then I begin the internal struggle of a mom and teacher. The desire to home school and the need to have time to make art will flow through my mind a million times over and over....... the summer is slowing to an end but not without making lots of memories....

>>>>We joined a local organic co-op this summer that has become the highlight of our week! The kids have experienced life on a farm by milking cows, chasing piglets and feeding the horses. Each week our basket is full of fresh organic blackberries and veggies of all sorts! We have made some great friends too.

>>>>Our chickens are growing up and we check every morning for eggs.....not yet. The bunny has decided to live under the chicken coop and amazingly enough the chickens don't mind.

>>>>We all have been playing golf together in the early evenings after the temp. has cooled a bit. It has been a little frustrating for me since I haven't picked up a club in about 8 years. I'm hanging in there.

>>>>We have had time for lots of craft projects and I have been working on making my kids lunch Eco-friendly by making re-usable snack bags and napkins. Time has allowed me to make some new clothes for my children and work on some domestic sewing too!

>>>>Weekend trips to Louisville to see what traffic is like and enjoy some time with family!

>>>>Started a butterfly and moth collection. Which is sometimes sad for my sweet L.....she has to spend time with them before we put them in the freezer.

>>>>Weekly trips to the library to get out of the heat! (oh, and the occasional snow-cone after)

>>>>In the fall, I will be teaching a class for Murray State......Elementary Art Ed. which I am very excited about!! Now I am planning my projects and working on my syllabus.............

Hope you are enjoying your summer making memories too!!

Beach Time!

These are just a "few" of my favorite photos from our trip to the Gulf Shores! The beach was beautiful and the water was perfect........no signs of the oil spill....yet. It really was the best beach trip ever! We got to spend time with out great friends living it up on the beach and drinking daiquiris after the kids were zonked out. Good memories.

Chicken Coop

Happy Chickens! They finally have a place to call their own. It took about three, half days one of which we worked in the rain. I didn't get to take pics on that day, sorry. This project cost all of 245.00........it's completely made from pallets and recycled wood from an old building and playground. The linoleum flooring was given to us by a friend and the paint was a miss-tint from Lowe's that cost 5 bucks. On the inside I made the perch ladder with rondo found at my husbands golf course which works perfect! There is a door at one end where my daughter is standing that opens up for raking the bedding and cleaning..............and oh, the most important part...egg collecting!! I know what you are saying...."it looks kinda big!" Well, we have 4 chickens and two are silkie bantams so they have plenty of room and we can add about two more chickens to the flock! We have added the nesting boxes made from milk crates and the food and water. Whatcha' think?

Recent Happenings.........

Well Hello! Enjoying the beautiful weather outside has dominated my time as of late. Sitting at the computer (even to blog) has been scarce. I just wanted to catch you up on some recent happenings.....

-Chickens are growing quick!

-Building the coop is top priority.....and happy to say it is almost complete!

-Went to Mammoth Cave National Park for a weekend of exploring.

-Working on several "made to order" Discovery Totes, the ant tote is getting more popular.

-Canoed down the Green River.

-Planting lots of flowers and herbs, and wondering if the veggies will get in this year?

-Visited Grandparents in Louisville, KY and sat in some traffic which reminded my why I love living in the country.

-Turned some snake gourds that my husband grew at the golf course nursery into planters.

-Went to Dinosaur World in Cave City, KY.

Can I get a PEEP PEEP!!

So, where have I been you ask? Well, the answer in short is......spring! I love spring! We have been busy working in the garden, starting some seeds inside, preparing the backyard for a cool play area for the kiddos.........and we have chicks! We have three right now but I plan on adding a couple of silkie chicks when they are available. Right now we have a Buff Orpington, Rhode Island Red and a Rock Barred. They are so cute and growing super fast! Learning all I can about raising chickens and can't wait for our first eggs....most likely late summer.
I didn't get a chance to blog about our trip to St. Louis.....I did the Indie Craft Revolution there at the Art Guild. We made a family trip of it, although, I worked most of the time, I still managed to have some fun! The show went good, I got lots of "your so clever" which is the most common thing people say about me/my work. I made tons of new stuff and have not been able to set aside the time to take photos of for my store. This week. Anyway, I apologize for being gone for so long and I hope you all are having a productive spring too!

IN THE WORKS: I am working on creating a short animation using my work. This was a suggestion from Jesse Kuhn of Raw Toast Design whom I met at the show. His work is pretty amazing too!


Have a great day!

PBS interview

Shortly after moving to Kentucky......before I was even totally unpacked.......I received an email from KET about doing an interview with me. Of course, I was super excited, so regardless of not being completely settled....I agreed. Not being with outsome personal issues....after moving my studio from a lovely 300 sq.ft. space to a laundry room that I had to share with a washer and dryer and dog bowls. Needless to say the space was small and cramped. The KET producer assured me this would not be an issue. And it really wasn't......most of the shots were of me and my work. The shots of me actually working were cropped in very tight. The whole interview process took about 5 hours with the actual segment being about 6 minutes. The crew was great and the producer really knew what he was doing in order to complete his "vision" with the piece. It was a really great experience so I hope you will catch it tonight on KET at 7pm or tomorrow at 3:30 and 6pm.



Special thanks to Catie Bates who kept my children occupied throughout the day!!!

Check This Out!!

I just found out about this very cool nomination over at rikrakstudio's blog! Wow, what a wonderful blog too! If you head over there you can vote for me! The best part is the judge is Robert Mahar from Mahar Dry Goods!! Out of 150 nominations my work has been included in the final 10. I already feel like a winner! I know people say this all the time but, I have never won anything! Well, if you don't count winning every Cure album from a record store in the 80's. I mean I do love the Cure but every album?....I spread the wealth with my friends on that one! Thank you in advance!! >smile....smile......smile!

Go vote! (please).

Bigger Pictures on Blogger : How to

I came across this "how to" make your pictures appear bigger on Blogger via Meet Me At Mikes blog, one that I follow. You have to have a Flickr account to do this......everyone should have a Flickr account anyway!! Flickr is the best! So, the first image was the "medium" selection and the second picture is the "large" view that I had to make smaller so I didn't cut my daughters head in half. I will continue to play around with this process but I like being able to have more control over the image size that the options offered by Blogger. Thanks Pip!.....if you want to learn how to make your images larger on your blog head over to Meet Me At Mikes and check out the tutorial plus tons of other really cool stuff.

Toilet Paper Roll Art

So, my daughter has been collecting toilet paper rolls.......I ask her what her plan is and she just tells me they are telescopes and they are for sell! Well, this weekend I was browsing the DIY section of Design Sponge and came across this cool project. Basically, you just cut the rolls in equal parts then glue them together to create this organic wall sculpture. I thought it was the perfect solution to the toilet paper roll collection...she agreed! Here we are working together on gluing the parts together ( just with white glue) and deciding on our layout. She opted for flowers... of course. I thought it was fun and a quick result project to do with kids, not to mention the recycling lesson. We thought about painting it but we would like to add some more at a later time. Maybe in the end it will get some color. Check out the source of the project here.

Baby, it's cold outside!

Yeah! We finally had a bit of snow! Although, if you live in rural KY and the tinniest bit of snow falls.....then they shut down the whole place. School was out for two days....I love when schools out so it didn't bother me! We had a great time....snow ball fights, reading books, making soup and lots of playtime with all the new toys. I was able to get a bunch of organizing and cleaning completed while my kids played with the new fairy house, playsilks and Lego's. Studio work has been small.......I am working on some "made to order" stuff and gearing up for an entire store re-stocking. All I need is time.....