Home is where you are.

Just finished this little assemblage. I found the wood box at St Vinnie's the other day and knew it could be something great. The theme is Home is where you are. In the bottom heart I used a technique from Jane Ann Wynn's book Altered Curiositites. Holy crap if you haven't seen that book yet you need to go and get it.
For this part I used a little nest I found on one of my walks.
And for this one I fashioned a little nest out of wire.
It was fun..but bad news...while I was typing my sleeve caught it and it fell on the floor and the bottom egg broke. I guess it will be eggs for supper tonight.

Custom collages

Did you know I do them? Well I do. Here is one I just got finished. The customer was someone who I know so it was easy. She just gave me a few details of the couple she had it made for and let me kind of do my thing. I had fun and hope they loved it. Let me know if I can do one for you. Custom boxes run about $50. What a fun gift for someone who has everything!

I am feeling very very creative lately.

It felt really good to get my hands good and dirty making some 5 by 7 canvas board collages. I just listed a couple in the etsy shop and will have more at the store. By the way if anyone ever sees anything you like on my blog that is not in my etsy just let me know and I will be more than happy to list it! hmmm Emily the necklace in the post 2 posts ago is in my etsy shop now....

ARt NiGhtS!!!

They are back...look to the left<<<<

Another bauble beauty.

So it's been weeks and I am still enjoying assembling jewelry from vintage components, buttons, beads and anything else I can put in a pendant or drill a hole in. It is so much fun. You can get this one at the store for just $35. That vintage ball of discoish beauty is huge and so much fun it is hard for me to part with this one!

On another note...Beth from the blog Green Cricket is making the couple hundred mile trek today to come to my store! I love that. It is one of the major reasons I will always have some type of retail space to meet other crafty people. I love it when someone walks in the store who gets it. See most don't really understand exactly what I am doing and I think it bothers people sometime. I get asked so what kind of store is this anyway alot. But every once in awhile I get the person who is fascinated and stays for an hour or more. Just the other day there was this cool girl who I let come in the studio and she actually got shaky! I love that. It is how I react when I visit stores that inspire me so to see that my little chunk of the world gives others that same feeling...well it just feels darn good. So thanks to all of you who get me.

I love making jewelry.

A great new necklace I just listed on etsy. I am seriously on a jewelry roll here folks. Can't get enough of it. I made 15 new pendants today too! Watch for them soon.....

Changes ahead

There are changes coming soon. I am not quite sure how what or when but I have made some decisions lately that will make the store a little different than what it has been. I had so much fun with the Sputnikfest art fair and it was crazy how much I made in just one day. It really got me thinking about myself, my store, and my future. Nothing is going to be happening overnight and I will NOT be closing but hours may start to change.

Besides the things I mentioned above another thing that has been really changing my views lately is overall consumerism. I don't know if it is just because I tend to hang with the sustainability crowd or if I am just getting older and wiser but there is so much waste in this country. From the packaging that our food comes in to the disposability (is that even a word?) of our possessions. This is where the focus of the store comes in. In the past I have ordered from a few giftware companies and have really cut that down to just two now. One is a art/craft supply wholesaler and the other is the Smart Women Company. The rest of the store has always been a mix of local and regional art and craft, vintage and a few supplies. While I do think I will continue to carry both of those new products I really want to change the rest of the store to reflect my waste not view. I will be focusing mainly on artists and crafters who recycle objects to make their wares. Don't get me wrong there will still be glass from Kate Gadd and a handful of just cool crafters but the focus and attention will be on the fact that we are trying to do our little part to keep what we can out of landfills. I may not be able to save the world but I am hoping to make just a small impact.

I will also be developing a line of jewelry that I hope to market to other shops and galleries that will focus on using old beads and jewelry components. I already make them and sell them in the shop but will just focus on marketing them a little better.

We are planning a downtown fashion show on Wednesday October 29th at the Capital Civic Center and that will be the launch of the line. I will also be showing at the Holiday on the Lakeshore at Fox Hills Resort in Mishicot on November 14 and 15. I hope to see you at both of those events!

Sorry for the long and probably boring post but I needed to get that out. I hope all of my readers and shoppers can adapt to the changes ahead because it is you that have given me the confidence to move forward to my future me. Thank you.

In a jewelry mood.

I'm not sure if other mixed media artists or artists who work in more than one medium will agree with me but I go through these stages. They usually last a few days and then I get bored and move onto a different project. Well for a couple of weeks now I have been stuck in a jewelry mood. I have soooooo many bins of broken jewelry and great vintage bits and just have been having a blast putting them all together. Now to find the time to list a few in my etsy shop????

SPUTNIKFEST!!!!

Sarah's lovely frocks thanks to my sister Kelly...they won 3rd place!!!
The great crowd. There were thousands!!! Thanks everyone for coming! The art fair was so much fun and so eclectic. The festival goers really enjoyed the great selection of arts and crafts. One of the artists also won the tin foil costume contest!!! Just fun stuff!
Molly and Kevin aliens.
A little cutie with her new friend.
The Miss Space Debris ladies. It was a tough decision to pick a winner here. The lovely lady wearing the pink boots was the winner.

Thanks to everyone who made this very fun new event a huge success! It was just an all around wonderful day here in Manitowoc and it would never have happened without the hard work of dozens of wonderful community minded people! Barb Bundy Jost is a true superstar of this community! A huge thank you to all of the staff at the Rahr West Museum. Without you this crazy little idea would have never become the out of this world fun event it did. I am so looking forward to the future of Sputnikfest! If you were there let me know what you liked about it and even maybe what you didn't...let's make Sputnikfest 2009 even better!!!!

Meet the blockbots

These little fellas will make their debut at Sputnikfest this Saturday in my first ever real outdoor booth! I got these blocks at the thrift store the other day and when I got them to the shop all I could think about was robots so here they are. I made 7 of them and they will be just $24 each!!! What a great Sputnikfest souvenir!

This one is a very bad blockbot.

Be there or be square

This weekend!!!! Get ready for a wacky tacky good time. For all the juicy details visit the official Sputnikfest Website here. I still have about 20 posters left for a measly $18...get em before they are gone!