My New Red Door

Back in June, I posted about my front door getting vandalized, and how it led me to the decision to finally get the red door I always wanted. Well, here's the red door!

I finally just gave up on trying to sand it myself, and hired my friend Michael to come over and do it for me before the weather got really nasty. I love the way it turned out . . . the color is called "Red Pepper." Of course, then I decided to paint the bricks!


You see, once I really saw the color of the door, I realized that the bricks were just too dull - look at how faded they are on the right "before" section of the wall. And those white bricks always did look funny. So, I did some dry brush highlighting on the bricks with the Red Pepper paint. Then I painted the back door and the door to the shed. Now, I think it may be time to paint the garage door . . . and anything else that holds still.

Wednesday Give Away and a note about My Hair

One of the things that happens when you spend a lot of time looking at blogs is that you end up ordering a lot of cool things, like this Cathy of California vintage flower loom kit . . . and here's her tutorial on how to make them.

Of course one of the other things that happens when you spend a lot of time looking at blogs is that some of the things you order sit in your studio gathering dust. Which means it's time to give them away . . .

GIVEAWAY!

So, if you've been craving your own vintage flower loom kit, all you need to do is leave a comment by Wednesday, February 25th, and I'll randomly select a winner and ship the vintage flower loom off anywhere in the continental United States. Well, to the winner, that is! If you win, I'll get in touch (make sure you have a blogger profile with e-mail enabled, or that you check back next week to see if you won) and get your address.



I also just got my hair cut. The gal over at Bliss Salon did a great job - she gave me exactly what I asked for. And I'm still not used to it. It looks weird.


So, in that reactionary way you do when you're not used to a new haircut, I was thinking maybe I need to get it all chopped off in a blunt wedge cut with flippy front . . .


and maybe all asymmetrical, like it was the 80's all over again.

But for now, I'll just leave it the way it is and do my best to channel my inner Joan Jett.

Wasting Time Online

I made some candy hearts.



I obamaconned myself. Poorly.


Then I tried another candy heart generator. Needless to say, not much art got made.

And I have yet to actually update my web site. It'll happen soon.

Just probably not tonight.

Snow Daze.

When Portland gets snow it usually lasts a day, throws the whole city into a tizzy, and then leaves in a little moist whiff leaving barely a memory of itself behind. Not so this time. The snow has been here for over a week, and it's just getting deeper!


Here's the drift in my backyard. It has made exiting through the rear sliding glass doors almost impossible. Darren, however, did make it up the drift to refill the bird feeders.


Which I must say is very good for this guy! I love how when it gets cold, the birds all fluff up their under feathers. It makes them look so sweet and round . . . like Japanese brush drawings.



I was beginning to get a bit of cabin fever, but then I remembered . . . I have snowshoes! Darren got a few shots of me frolicking in the front yard before we trekked down to the grocery store.

So here's me making crazy deep footprints in my front yard yesterday with my big foot snowshoes.

And here's the front yard this morning. As pristine as if I'd never walked on it at all! The snow just doesn't seem to be going away . . .

So, when life gives you snow, make snow angels!

Walking in a Crafty Wonderland . . .

Part of why I love Portland, Oregon is that for 11 months out of the year, the temperature hovers between 50 and 80 degrees. Warm enough for sandals and sundresses in the summer; cool enough for boots and sweaters in the winter. Only rarely do we swelter, and only rarely do we get snow or below freezing temperatures.

Rarely.

Which is not the same as never.

This year, one of our allotted two weeks of real winter weather just happened to coincide with the big holiday Crafty Wonderland event. And I have to say, people of Portland, I am impressed. In spite of a strong discomfort with icky weather, about 3000 people wandered through the event at the Oregon Convention Center . . .and some of them even bought stuff from me! Cool! Er, below freezing, really.


Here's my silly display of buttons and bauble rings . . .



It was a good day. Loading up to go home, I noticed my tire was a little low. I still managed to get my chains on - a very proud moment for me!

And the next day, it was almost completely flat. It's still kind of a cool picture, though, eh?

Spotted: World's Biggest Squirrel

On Thanksgiving, I put out some dried corn on the cob out for
the squirrels who frolic in my yard.

Believe it or not, these guys usually hang upside down
and eat from the bird feeder.

Occasionally, they fall. But mostly they are able to successfully
hang upside and eat like bats.

So, I thought it was time to give them a break and set some food out just for them.
It looks like this big guy got all of it - We call him Alpha Squirrel.
Of course, it's also possible that he's only part squirrel. I'll bet he has raccoon DNA.
Or maybe even bear.

I'm a Winner!

One of the best things about blogging is the friendships that develop. I've met new people, and gotten to know other people better. Like Dayna Collins over at Alley Art Studio. I love following her adventures as she hunts through junk shops around Oregon and around the world! She just got back from Italy . . . I had so much fun reading her blog and following her journey, and then as a "thank you" for commenting, she sent me this super cool care package!


A bookmark from Assisi, cool yogurt glass, sugar packet, sand and stones, a bit of a place mat from the Cinque Terra . . . and my favorite, an antique brass keyhole! As a thank you, I sent her a little goodie from Mexico.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, Dayna nominated me for a blog award! How cool is that?! And now that I've won it, I get to put the badge on my blog, and pass it on to more folks . . . seven more folks, to be exact.


And all those folks get to put the badge on their blogs and nominate seven more folks.

So, I'm nominating a few of my latest favorite blogs - at least the ones that Dayna didn't nominate - and it's hard to narrow it down!

Erin over at A Dress A Day - cool vintage patterns and sewing nifty-ness
Betty at Bitter Betty Blogs - crafty adventuring
Claudia at Aux Petits Oiseaux - a wonderfully whimsical crafter
Diane at CraftyPod - your link to all the crafty goodness out there
Alice at FutureGirl - general craftiness, now with even MORE future!
Jen at Jen Worden - slightly creepy mixed media wonderfulness
Michael5000 at The Life and Times of Michael 5000 - a brainy break from the craftiness, with quizzes!

Now, I'm off to notify everyone . . .

The Best Halloweenieness Ever!

So, I love seeing dachshunds dressed as bananas (little dogs dressed as food) and skeleton gingerbread men (food dressed like little people) and babies in roast turkey costumes (little people dressed as big dead birds) as much as the next blogger . . . but this, ladies and gentlemen, this takes the Halloween Cupcake - From Bitter Betty, my new favorite blogger, may I present Costumes for Houseplants:

the Ferocious Ficus

and - my personal favorite - the Rest in Peace Lily.

She's got a tutorial for this folks, so get on over there and give her a visit!

A quick "hello" and some philosophical questions . . .

First, a little distracting eye candy to get us in a warm, summery mood:


Ok, so things have been a bit crazy here, and I've got six or seven posts in my head that I haven't gotten out yet, and I've even been resorting to a little post-dating on some of my blog entries to try and keep them close to the dates when they "should've" been posted (like this one dated September 25th and actually published sometime er, later) . . .

But there's just no getting around this one. Back in August, while it was still summer, the marvelous Sister Diane of DIY Alert, your local Portland guide to all things arty and crafty and do-it-yourself-like, interviewed me for the DIY Alert blog's PDX Profiles. It was a lot of fun, and I've been meaning to do a thank you shout-out to Diane - and then she sent me the link to that great pickle recipe in the comment section of this post, leaving me even more indebted. The interview got me thinking about serious questions like the difference between art and craft . . .

For me, the line between art and craft is pretty blurry . . . they’re both verbs in my book. Craft is the method and quality of the making; the art is in the meaning it holds and conveys.

So, here are the two big philosophical questions for today's (not post-dated) post:

Is post-dating blog posts morally suspect?
What do you see as the difference between art and craft?

Feel free to comment on one or both, or simply to ponder in lurking silence . . . (we'll address the issue of lurking on another day . . .).

Until then, I'm going to bribe you with a little more eye candy from this summer's trip to Whidbey Island:

Things That Seem to be Simple, But Turn Out to be Very Complicated

These things include:

1. Losing 10 lbs.
2. Replacing the circular florescent light bulbs in the kitchen.
3. Remembering to call my mother on her birthday.

Update:  Phew!!  I did manage to reach my mom - even though I thought it would be too late to call - and we had a great conversation.  I still need to lose 10 lbs and the light bulbs I replaced in the kitchen still don't work, but I'm considering the resolution of #3 evidence that the world still has room for miracles!

Some Random Things

So, a few weeks ago, I got tagged with a meme from Becky over at SoulfulArtisan. At first, I wasn't going to do it because I'd already done it once - and then failed to tag people to carry it on (mostly because it seemed like everyone I knew had already been tagged - and once again, this is still the state of affairs)! But then I got tagged again, this time by Sister Diane over at CraftyPod. Two times seems like a command - so, here is the encore performance of the Seven Random Things About Me Meme:

1. I actually think that I look pretty good with facial hair. As examples, I present a photo of myself wearing a chocolate goatee at the recent Scarlet Star Studios Meeting of the Muses:


And again, at a Princess Bride theme party many years ago where I am dressed as the first Dread Pirate Roberts:


And just as a random aside, here are some shots of the lovely FingerstotheBone with photo-shopped stubble (it's after all the nifty gocco printing info).

2. I lived in Germany from the time I was seven until I was eleven - I can still count to twenty and ask where the bathroom is in German.

3. I love houseplants, but don't do a lot of outdoor gardening. Plants that live outdoors and need more than watering are a bit intimidating to me, though I will still occasionally give it a go.

4. I lettered in theater in high school.

5. I have never learned to play a musical instrument or read music, but I would love to be a lounge singer.

6. I love composting and I love worms - the fact that both of my current compost bins are crawling with wiggly red worms fills me with delight. I have been thinking about pursuing vermicomposting where the worms are introduced intentionally.

7. When I was in junior high, I had my own humor column in the school newspaper. When I was in high school, my drama teacher suggested a career as a stand-up comedian. Scary. While I can make the Sweetie laugh, I'm actually not that funny.

Bonus! My new favorite place to shop on-line is Hannah Grey Curiosities and Dry Goods. What other single on-line store offers jewel beetle wings, Diamond Glaze glue, fake barbed wire, dried starfish, Ranger Inks, shrine die cuts, and coils of rusted wire?

Just in Case You're Not Feeling Pretty (or Handsome) Today

Go Here. You'll Feel Better, I Promise.

My Banner?

What the heck happened? It's all squished. Did I somehow lose my Blogger pixel allowance? Help?

For Ann

Seven Random or Weird Facts About Me

1. I once summitted the Grand Teton. I was with the then-greatest love of my life, who got a pulmonary edema on the way down. And we also got lost. There is no greater reality check than realizing that you are lost in the dark on a mountain in October and you are repelling down into a crevasse that you cannot see the bottom of - and that you are doing all of this with a man who has blood in his lungs.

2. I once led a 5.10 sport climb at Smith Rock. Not such a big deal in the world of rock-climbing, but a very big deal to me at the time.

3. I won a Dead Poet’s Slam by portraying Richard Brautigan and reading a very carefully edited selection from Trout Fishing in America.

4. I have read my own poetry on the radio – twice. One of those times resulted in a series of rather disturbing phone calls from an inmate of the Oregon Penitentiary.

5. I had my toilet paper stolen from me by a monkey in the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali. I was surrounded by Japanese tourists at the time. I still do not know if I appeared on any episodes of "Japan's Funniest Home Videos."

6. I own a Limited Edition Battle Scar Angel Puppet Replica doll. It is from the episode where Angel got turned into a puppet, but could still fight. Also, I am not embarrassed to say that I own this.

7. My coolest moment as a market researcher was going to Pixar and interviewing animators regarding their pen tablet input device preferences. I don't think I am violating any confidentiality agreements when I say parallax is a big issue.