New Year Good Luck Give-Away!

Guess how many Lady Duds are in this jar

Good luck in the New Year! Hopefully 2009 will bring many smiles, good times, positive changes and manageable stress levels. :) Best of luck to all of us!

As a fun game to welcome in the new year - I am giving away all of these little glass ladybugs. Ah... I should add that they are sorta weird, all "seconds" (as in, some have 3 eyes, or none, or just look wrong, etc). They are beads (there is a hole going thru them) and they are small (you could put one on a dime). Lady bugs to bring you good luck - Aimee calls them "Lady Duds" - I like that!
So here's how the game works: Guess how many Lady Duds are in the jar! There are more than 5 and less than 50. The closest guess wins the lot of 'em - for free!

Game runs thru Jan. 9th, 2009. Anyone can enter - feel free to give it a stab (only one guess per person)

Good Luck!

Blogged

http://www.purplepinkandorange.com/blog/?p=4117

Thanks!

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the Snow has Melted!

This is a picture of what is left of my snowman. We used beer caps for the buttons. All that snow melted in what seems like 24 hours. First there was slush, threats of floods and whatnot, and then there was nothing. Amazing. That was a lot of snow.
The general all purpose store by my house, my useful grocery FredMeyers (the one 0n NE 102nd) is a flat top building - well all that snow and ice collapsed the roof! Saturday morning they found that during the night the roof and ceiling had collapsed and flooded the entire store. So dramatic! Everything was all roped off and I could see employees pushing water out and machines pumping stuff thru the roof. Oh my. Heres a picture!Other than that though - life is way less dramatic now. No snow to deal with. Everything is open again. Hopefully tomorrow I will get mail again. Yeah.

Big Glass Bowls: Birds on a Line

These are two large 17" bowls that I made for my family as Christmas presents. I am currently holding them hostage due to weather snafu.

I thought it'd be nice to blog about something other than snow.

These bowls turned out really nice. I used Brilliant Blue - which is a great color (I can't think of the Bullseye # for this right now) - just cut one sheet in half and cut two big circles, and for each I cut a 17" circle of clear tekta. Then I used some of the scrap marzipan glass from the first "Birds on a Line" big bowl series to make some long wires and birds with my handy dandy torch and some tweezers. I purposefully made one of the wires flex a bit and put a fat bird sitting on it (this is on the bowl that is out of focus in the picture). The other bowl has two birds kissing, and both bowls have one bird flying away.

I love the narrative aspect of this image. Birds on a Line. Birds are funny. We've been watching naturalist David Attenborough, "The Life of Birds" series on Netflicks. Its wonderful.

Snow Day #10

my snow fort is so big now that both Tim and I can fit in it!

What I find really amazing about this snow mayhem is the common suffering. Portlander's unite, this is crazy-town. The snow is beautiful and fun, but this is just day after day of the same predicament. The weather has f***ed us. Its bitter sweet.

Tim and I took the train today to get from my house to his. It took 3 hours and it was completely exhausting. Although if he could hear me say this he would quickly chime in that we stopped at Trader Joes for some food and beer, so I suppose the commute alone did not take a whole 3 hours. But basically, it did.
The train was ridiculous. There were crowds of people waiting, and the train finally showed up full. Thankfully there was another train right behind it, but the dumb fools at the 82nd street station couldn't help themselves from bumrushing the doors so that the train couldn't close them and roll along. We got on the following train and it was still packed in pretty tight. When we tried to get off at the next stop the doors wouldn't open, so we were stuck on the train till the next stop. Then after going to Trader Joes we tried waiting for a bus, but Tim convinced me to walk. Sheesh. We walked for miles. Snow pants, moon boots, multiple hats, mittens, and 2 pairs of long johns. I was alright, but I whined a bit just the same. Tim walks so fast! And the roads are crazy.

There are so many pedestrians out on the snow covered roads. Neighbors shoveling their walks and people trying to dig their cars out of their drive-ways. We are all doing the same thing: killing time. Its fun to bond with my neighbors! Day after day of this incapacitation. The urge to do SOMETHING is powerful. And tomorrow we are supposed to get more snow! wow.

At this point I have trouble appreciating the glory of having all this forced relaxation time. I keep going out in the snow exhausting myself playing and simply trying to get anywhere takes the bulk of a day.

More Photos of Snow!

I cannot stay inside in this weather. I wake up and look out the window and after a few hours of drinking tea and lounging around the house I feel the urge to go play in the snow.
So today that is what I did! I also took the last of my postal packages to the mailbox in the process. I am not sure though if the mail people are still out and about. I know the saying "rain sleet or snow" but I am just not sure. We received no mail at my house, I shoveled the walk just in case! The above picture is my shoveled walk with a 15inch ruler for scale. You wouldn't believe me that it NEVER snows in Portland. Maybe once a year it might get sprinkly, but nothing like this. Never.
The city is covered in over 15 inches of snow and nothing is really happening. ODOT only plows the major roadways and one of the airport runways (although the airport is only servicing 1/4 of the scheduled flights and over 300 people spent the night there last night!!! Happy Holidays eh.)
Okay - so I walked around with my camera and took lots of pictures... the playground by my house looks amazing all covered in ice and snow. So that is what I am sharing on my blog here. If you want to see other pictures I took today, check out my flickr. I even dug a snow cave in this huge snowdrift on the side of my house. Oh yeah baby. I may have no kids to play in it, and it was a work-out for sure just making it - but I had fun. Its sorta painful to sit in, but its quite cozy to lay down in, I'll have to make it bigger inside tomorrow.

Cold Walks with a Camera

I cannot resist this winter blizzard outside. Lots of layers and long cold walks make my cheeks turn pink. Tim walks like a snow fox, he wants to go fast fast fast (to stay warm supposedly, I think he just finds it fun to torture me!) and I like to walk slowly and take loads of pictures. Its so beautiful outside. P-Town was covered in ice today. You can see more of the pictures I took on Flickr. Eventually I got cold (I have this winter bug, my energy only lasts so long) and Tim was ever so patient and waited for the bus with me. I did a happy dance when the bus finally arrived to take me home. It was sleeting and freezing and super cold.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leahpellegrini/

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Christmas Past

this is my car in the snow on the road

I am stuck at my boyfriend's house due to the snow and frozen roads (forgot to put the chains in my car on Friday when I left my house, so now the car sits inept in the road, surrounded in snow) and his TV broke a couple of days ago. Not a big deal, but inconvenient. And I am now learning that this guy has no games in his house (other than the video sort) when I have a whole cabinet of old games at my house. Oh yeah, I've got cards, uno, monopoly, life, the "real game of life", rumicube (an old favorite my Grandma Betty game me), oh the list could go on and on! I have some sort of silly LegoLand game, and a silly Pooh memory game. Oh the best game is this new magnet thing... I don't remember what its called, I'll post about it later... its a neat game!

Anyhow - I am just bitching... I've caught a cold from Mr. Tim (boyfriend) and I'm not too happy about that.

What I really meant to post here was how I have spent the morning reading people's blog entries, posting comments, looking at pictures of the snow all over the continent and my friend Sandy's chow dogs playing in the snow! Its awesome. And my conclusion (other than blogs rock my socks!) is that my favorite blog entry this morning was from my friend Aimee sharing a story of her favorite memories of Christmas back in NJ with the fam.

So I thought I would copy her:) Being that she is a genius!

My memories of x-mas back in Ohio are fabulous and colorful.

Big tree in the living room - the room that was rarely used for the other 11 months of the year other than my Dad taking his evening "nap before bed" on the living room couch every weeknight. There was a train set under the tree that I always really enjoyed - it was an old set of my Dad's - it was a bit persnickety and hard to get going, but I loved that! I would eagerly wait to see the little light glow when the circuit of the track finally met and then I would know that the train would run (this usually took hours)! I would make little clay houses and logs for the trainset and spend hours lying on the floor playing with it. I've always liked miniature things, and this sorta went along with that obsession - and the whole mechanical part of the train made it even more exciting than just a doll house or whatnot.

this is my current tree here in Portland - my stocking underneath is the big teddy bear

My favorite part of Christmas was always the stocking. My Mom hand-made stockings for Tony and I (his is smaller, but it has sequins, which mine does not - we still use them, you can see ) and she would lay them on the foot of our beds on Christmas night while we slept. In the morning I would wake up to weight on my feet and lift up my head to spy the overstuffed stocking. I think my Mom did stockings this way to keep us in bed and prevent the inevidable early morning x-mas wake-up of kids harrassing their parents to let them go downstairs and open presents. Then Tony and I would wake up our parents and see what was in their stockings. My Dad's was always full of stuff from the hardware store. My Mom's would be all stuff from Crabtree and Evelyn. And we kids always went on the shopping trips with each parent to these two stores to get stuff for the other parent's stocking, so it was never a big surprise.

There wasn't much myth to x-mas for me. My Mom fessed up to the whole Santa lie really early on. She was all honesty about life in general and I remember being in the bath-tub as a little kid (what 4 yrs old or sumthin?) and asking her if Santa existed, and she said No. Then I followed up with the rest of the pack: the easter bunny, the toothfairy, etc. and found out that they are were non existent. Strange tactic for my mother to do this to me. But I can relate, I probably would do the same thing to a child (note: I don't have them!) and if you are wondering what the results of such parental choices are: 4yr old little me ran right over to my next door neighbor best friend Sarah's house where she was eagerly looking out the window for Santa and proudly told my cute little friend that he wouldn't be coming, cuz he didn't exist. Sarah cried.

Christmas day for 17 years of my life was spent at my Grandmother's house. My Dad would moan and complain about this, so I remember complaining about it as well, but honestly it was a fun tradition. My Grandmother is not Italien, and is renowned for her lack of cooking skillz, so the x-mas "feast" was a buffet of cold honey baked ham (some people like this, I do not), deviled eggs and shrimp cocktail. It was like something out of a bad TV show like "Married with Children". Grandma likes to play tricks on people too, so every year my brother would get funny gag gifts (exploding snakes in the peanut brittle can, dirty socks, boxes inside boxes with something stupid in the middle, etc). Poor Tony, for some reason he was always the one who would get the gag gifts, and he never really had a big reaction to them, so it wasn't as if it encouraged them to continue. All the other cousins, including myself, would get normal gifts. Although my grandma would hide seemingly-unopened-Pringle-cans around the house for the various hungry and fat relatives to find and bust into and get startled by exploding snakes inside. Oh Grandma! I love you!! (she doesn't read this.)

My Dad has a big family, so it was always a good time. One year before my Grampa died someone hired a woman in a x-mas tree outfit to come celebrate with us. There are pictures to prove this. Wha?! My Dad claims this never happened. I have no idea what the expination was.

One year in the early 80s my Mom hid Billy Joel concert tickets in the inner branches of the tree, propped up against the trunk. It was painful to get them out, and that was the first concert I ever went to. ?!?

Christmas memories are fun. I hope I get to read many more of them in my friends blog entries. Clearly I could ramble on and on with Pellegrini family random holiday cheer. For years now I have done a misfit x-mas in my own home (no extended family, just loved ones and family). My bro and I do a tree decorated in my handmade glass ornaments and his plastic mexican wrestler dolls. Its awesome. This year he made a crowned sock monkey as the tree-topper.

okay - this is by far the longest babbling blog post I've ever written. I blame my winter cold, I feel all rambly.

Happy Winter Solstice Everyone! And big hugs and kisses to my Mom - its her birthday.

Winter Crafty Goodness: Making Cinnamon Ornaments

Mary blogged about her fun times making cinnamon ornaments and the idea was planted in my head to try and make some myself. Cinnamon Ornaments!

Here's my how to on making these wonderful smelling decorations:

What You'll Need:
- equal parts applesauce and cinnamon (I used 1 cup each)
- ground nutmeg and clove if you have them
- Elmers Glue
- oven or dehydrator
- plastic straw
- rolling pin
- wax paper
- cookie cutters
- cookie pan

The process is odd but easy. Mixing up all the cinnamon into the applesauce takes a bit of persuasion, and then the dough isn't very cookie-dough like... but its relatively easy to work with. Use the wax paper to roll out the dough pretty thin (1/4") so it won't take too many days to dehydrate. And the plastic straw is for cutting the holes so you can hang them. Then bake them at 250degrees for a while, flipping them once. If I had a dehydrator, that'd be the way to go... but I don't... so I just left mine out to sit for a couple of days before I decorate them.

Don't eat them - they won't taste good, they just smell good.

The whole house smelled so good as I made these! My brother said he's gonna sleep walk during the night and eat some. When I opened the oven the smell of cinnamon was so strong I could taste it!

Now I need some puffy paint so I can decorate them.

A Reward for Procrastinators

Its snowing here in Portland, have you heard? :)

Here's my pitch - to any shopping procrastinators out there: buy from me online :) Many of the mobiles I made for the holiday season still remain in my inventory! The weather (and the economy) has put the smack-down on the end of my business year. I am ever so grateful for all the orders I have filled this year - I am so glad many many people will be receiving mobiles as gifts this year - but the fact remains that I still have many more to share... wanna help :)

Anyone who still needs gifts this year - buy online from me and I'll throw in a free ornament! (offer good thru noon Dec 22nd 2008 or until I run out of ornaments) Oh yeah - free ornament anyone?! I will be shipping out this weekend, USPS Priority Mail, which takes only 2 days, so everything should arrive by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.

Any last minute gift needs - I can help! I am happy to reward the shopping procrastinators with a free handmade glass ornament!

Snowball Cuteness

Okay, so here I am walking home from the bus (I took a different route home from downtown which included about a mile walk from the stop where I got off) - and I saw a bunch of kids shoveling snow off my neighbors lawns into recycling boxes they had on wagons. This just made me smile so I took a few pictures of them. I wonder what they were planning on making later with all that snow. They were very much distracted by trying to pelt each other with snowballs.

Then they noticed the mailman. He was in his truck waiting at the stop-sign on the corner. They started stockpiling snowballs and planning their attack. I winced and told them to go easy on the mailman (I like my mail-people! I don't want the little local hoolums to beat them up with snowballs! I am such a dweeb - and the little kids called me out on that).

As I walked on, the mailman turned the corner simultaneously putting on his hazards and emergency break - he jumped out of his truck and started pelting them back! He must have been putting on his snow gloves while waiting at the stop-sign and watching the kids get ready for him. I was so pleased I grabbed my camera and took a little video. That mailman was awesome, looked like he had a really good time - and the kids were beside themselves with glee.

Isn't that just awesome!

By the way - I just have to add: the postman really represented well for himself! He was flinging snowballs like a pro - and he had 3 pre-teen kids ganged up against him with their stocks of snowballs. I was impressed by the postman. In fact, I think you can even see him deflect a snowball in the video - defensive action as well as a good offense! Actually, from the moment I heard the mail truck slide to a halt and I turned around to see the postman running out and grabbing snow as white balls rained down on him - I was totally impressed. Go USPS!

Snow in Portland

At first I woke up to the sound of hard rain this morning (I think) and then I woke up to silence and a white-wash of falling snow. Its so beautiful outside! A true winter wonder land!

I took some videos, the still pictures just don't capture the glory. It just doesn't usually snow like this in the valley where Portland is. Its just crazy. Makes me want to get on the bus and go downtown to go to Macy's. ? I dunno, a Christmas sorta thing... bundle up and go check out the big tree downtown and such. And I think I'll clean the kitchen and bake cookies. Its that kind of day. I sorta have a sore throat, yesterday I felt pretty crappy.

Its snowball snow :)

Oh and have I mentioned - I have the car back. And yes, she purrs. I am looking forward to going car shopping with Tim and trading in this car. But here she is. Sitting in my driveway getting snowed on. Already I've lugged home an x-mas tree in her, and she has taken a few really huge boxes to the post office and last night a trip to Ikea where she brought home a new big red chair for tony. Good car, all-wheel drive for this crappy weather, so it feels great to drive. But she's gotta go.

Snow and Cars

Its a frozen world here in Portland, Or, we are supposed to get 6" of more snow tomorrow. That is unheard of here in the valley!!! The news is telling stories of the mid west and the east coast getting covered in snow, Montana buried in record high quantities, some 6 states are suffering from below zero temperatures. wow.

The weather here in P-town is letting up just long enough that I can pick up my car from the shop and get a Christmas tree and do a couple of errands. Yes the car works again!!! Whoopee.

Goodies that I bought at Crafty Wonderland

From top to bottom, left to right :)
Cat by SewManyCats
Massage Candle by AutumnComfort
Koozie (for Tim's metal water bottle - I don't think he reads my blog) by Merrit
Chocolate Truffles by Coco&Co
Richard Scary Purse by MugWump
"Connectivity" (my new painting!) by LeakArts

I actually really did try to hold back and not buy too much. A little trade and a coupla purchases were inevitable though. Seriously.

ps. my mom made my brother a "Loley Worm" doll when he was little. Richard Scary was a big hit at our house back in the day, and Loley was a favorite stuffed animal of Tony's!

Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Holiday Sale 2008

I'm back home from the big super colossal holiday Crafty Wonderland. All 180 vendors were stocked up and set up in the Portland Convention Center, Hall E. Outside it was a winter wonderland, I almost heard sleigh bells when I opened the front door to a white wintery world.

It was a bit scary driving to the Convention Center (thanks Tony for letting me borrow your car!), I crept at a speedy speed of 20mph all the way on the slippery frozen road. As a girl that grew up in snowy Ohio, I cannot believe that no salt is used on the roads in Oregon. Instead just gravel. That's useless when the road freezes. As I ran out the door I grabbed the chains for the car just in case. I fortunately did not need them on the way there.
To break it down, I was simply pleased with myself to have shown up and set up - I was not really expecting many people to leave the house and attend the show. Basically, honestly, if I were at home with the day off and plans to go to CW, I would have bagged and stayed home and warm. But shockingly hundreds of people took the bus and rode the train down to the Convention Center to check out the crafty goodness.
The 200 swag bags of amazingness were given away within 15 min at the door. I suffer from swag bag envy. I want one and I made a few people do show and tell for me, there was some great stuff in those bags! And they served as a great shopping bag for the customers.
It was crazy, there was a really long line of people waiting to get in, and may I say it was the cutest line ever! People were in their snow gear and sitting on the floor playing cards and knitting scarves. And there was another long line at the Starbucks of vendors waiting to get their coffee. I brought a jug of tea that lasted all day. Heres a pictures of my setup, its a bit hard to see what I really looked like... but lets just say it was damn cute. ha! It was an alright setup :) and I sold well, which is amazing, and I had a fine time meeting some amazing customers. I even ran into an old classmate from 1st grade!
And then as the show rounded to an end, a little early becuase honestly the sun set and the roads froze and covered in more snow, more gravel was sprinkled about, and the news was telling stories of pile-ups and abandoned cars... it was a bit sketchy and still snowing. Everyone loaded in the parking garage (Convention Center usually uses the loading docks) and we put the chains on once we hit the roads, this time at a whopping 15mph. But no worries, we got home safe and sound.
So thanks to all my lovely customers - thanks to my beautiful friends who showed up and vended their arts n' crafts - thanks to Tony for letting me use his car - and thanks to Tim for helping me set up and take down. Phew. It was a long weekend. Not as profitable as maybe I might have hoped, but certainly awesome none the less and given the circumstances, it was all good.

and there are more pictures of it on my flickr account :)

Pink Cheeks and Super Colossal Holiday Sales

My cheeks hurt. They are pink from being outside all day. I would take a picture, but I'd rather take a hot bath.

Vending outdoors is for silly people (like myself today!) and while I love my Portland Saturday Market customers (thank you!!!), I am now tired and whipped by the cold rain and wind.

Today I wore 3 pairs of long johns, not to mention countless layers, fleece, turtlenecks, thick wool socks and some kind of adult version of the moon boots I once had as a kid.

Tomorrow I vend indoors at the Super Colossal Holiday Sale called Crafty Wonderland!
And I will be having a super colossal holiday sale: 2 mini mobiles for $35! (regular online price is $25 each). So come stock up and give the gift of mobiles to all your friends, family and co-workers.

11am - 7pm at the Convention Center
see ya there - its free entry

Car Troubles Suck

So this car of mine, its a good '99 Rav4, about 72,000miles. I got it a couple of years ago, used. Good check-out on carfax(no history of any accidents), and I paid my guys at Toyota to check it out before I bought it as well. I even asked the man at the Toyota service center (who knows me from years of working with them)

"If I was your daughter - would you tell me to buy this car?" and he said "yeah, it'll be a good car for you."

So I bought it.

This is the car that recently the transmission died. DIED. No warning, no strange noises or behavior. It just went kaput one day, a couple of weeks ago. Luckily my brother was available to pick me up that rainy afternoon. He has been able to let me use his car on weekends to get my work down to the Portland Saturday Market. My brother rocks and I cannot even imagine what I'd do without his support. Well, I can imagine, I'd have to rent a car, and that would just add to this financial hole.

I am not a car person. I have very little appreciation for them. They freak me out, I have really been enjoying riding public transportation. Its a relief in my busy days to just stare out the window or read a book, listen to NPR "This American Life" - the bus rides are long and its a much appreciated break from holiday madness. But its really screwing with my life. Everything takes 3 times as long to do, and there are 3 times as many things to do because its freaking peak holiday season time! Arg. And I've had a few good experience with running out the door only to see my bus fly past me (arg) and also the joy of waiting at a bus stop transfer for nearly an hour (arg). Public transport has its pro's and con's - but over all, I really appreciate it lately. I think because I am so busy, its nice to be forced to sit around for an hour to get somewhere.

I am surprisingly prepared for this crisis, lots of stuff, lots of shipping materials, lots of inventory - but there is also constant shipping to do, more stuff to make at all times, and did I mention that this transmission failure is amazingly expensive! I think its the most expensive thing that could go wrong with this car! For that I am ill prepared. Financial crisis seem to be a common thread in the world at large right now. Seems to be the "bigger picture" if you know what I mean.

Well, I am having my own micro-crisis. Car failure: painfully expensive and inconvenient.

Tomorrow the car will be done maybe (new used transmission with a 6 month warranty is being installed, plus whatever else needs to be fixed), I have mixed feelings about this. Its going to cost at least 2Gs. Ouch. But the darned car is worth between 7-10Gs in trade in value(I looked up the current value before committing to the work), so its worth value of the car, or at least that's how I figured it. I really almost just donated the thing to Good Will, good ridance kinda thing, tax write-off potential. But it just seemed like the right business decision for me to fix the car, so that is what I am doing.

If you needed any extra incentive to shop for glass mobiles this year - perhaps you feel like doing a good deed for a friend? A few gifts for loved ones from LeahGlass? Please feel free - consider it a drop in the bucket called "fix Leah's wheels!"

I love public transportation for me - but for my glass business I need the automobile. gosh darnit.

Buy mobiles to help get Leah's car mobile again!

Need Inspiration? Take Pictures!

I am sitting here surrounded in work. Literally I arrange the trays of glass pieces and pliers and swivels and whatnot in a big circle around me. Now I just the need the umph to get going :)

So I picked up my camera and put a my lightbox under some of the glass pieces to take some inspirational pictures. They look like precious yummy gems. I love taking pictures of these bits of glass. Even more, I love making mobiles out of them.
So here I am, trying to take advantage of my compulsive picture taking. Inspiration = motivation. I am happy to play with these bits and make mobiles out of them, its just intimidating dealing with the holidays. I already have been making and shipping and selling a lot of inventory this season, but this coming weekend is Crafty Wonderland and I have been pumping out as many little bitty mobiles as possible to share. I am looking forward to the big Crafty Wonderland show, and I will be at the Portland Saturday Market as much as possible for the end of the season.

Making Hard Cider pt 2

Tonight we taste tested the hard cider!
And it was good. :)

Its done fermenting, to some degree. Although it will keep getting better over the next few months.

Tonight we transfered the brewing apple cider into a second sterilized container. This was to separate the liquid from the sediment,
allowing it to become more clear.

I cannot even tell you how good it smells!

Appley and gingery.

Yummy.

My Weekend Vending

It was a rainy Sunday yesturday at the Portland Saturday Market. Its December, so thats pretty typical, but it doesn't make for great weather to be selling artwork outdoors. Silliness. I took a video of the rain, you can't really tell it was raining so hard in the picture above. In the video you can see the construction on the Mercy Corps building too.

However, Saturday was a beautiful day - crazy beautiful. In the morning my world was covered in frost, and as the sun rose the sky was perfectly clear and the big pink building downtown looked like a big disco-ball reflecting rays of sunlight up into the air like a big halo. And I didn't have my camera - I was busy getting my booth out of storage and my purse was in the car locked safe with the camera in it. Ah well.

Later that afternoon the drunk santas came out in mass to confuse little children all over Portland. Its a big pub crawl called "Santa Con" and the drunk people in santa outfits gather in large masses and yell "Ho" in unison. Its always fun when they visit the Portland Saturday Market. I believe its a central meeting place for the organizers. Great for picture taking. There are a bunch of images on my Flickr account.

Then the sunset that night was incredible. Saturday was really a nice day. I got to meet lots of wonderful customers down at the market and enjoy the beautiful sunny day. Sunday I then got to get rained on like a louser - but hey - I ended up getting my neighbors to watch my booth for a bit and ran away to the studio to do a bit of work on a humming bird project.

okay, the image uploader for blogspot just stopped working for me... I'll try more later... but for now, you can see pictures of what I am talking about on Flickr

How to Sign Glass Art

I just bought this little cheap number at Harbor Freight (its dollar days there this weekend!) and its a miniature version of exactly what I like in a signing device. And it was only $5 - so hey - I'll love it while it lasts.

There are many ways to sign a piece of glass - I like to use a dremel tool equipped with a diamond tip bit.

Sometimes I forget to sign my work while at the studio, so now I have this handy little tool for signing things at home. Its so polite, its much quieter than my plug in number that I usually use at home - I am in love with this cheap tool. *sigh*

picture update

Okay - anyone who knows me, knows it doesn't take me long to whip out the camera. So here are a few pictures from the day...

First the picture I promised of my sweet lovins boxes that I picked up at Carton Services. 89cents a piece, this included all the pink foam. And the best part (other than the cheapness)... they are recycled! They must have held computer parts or something. Now they will hold mobiles on their way their maker to their new owners
The next picture came from my acupuncture appointment this afternoon. I wish I could share a picture of what the needles looked like in me today, my Doc did moxibustion, so there were burny things stuck to the end of the needles in my belly. It was neat! There are fragrant herbs in the wool roll that is burned, I liked the smell. The things that look like cigarette butts (wool and herbs instead of tobacco) in the picture are what they burn on the end of the needles.
And then the last image for the day is just cuz I am all excited about this, I thought I'd share! I signed up for Audible.com and downloaded some This American Life to my MP3 player. This took a little customer support to do (my player is a Creative MuVo player, not an iPod or nuthin, so the format had to be changed, but hey the customer support at Audibles was rockin, thanks Sean!!). So now I am all super stoked that the next time I ride the bus I can listen to a This American Life episode! In fact, I downloaded 3 to choose from. Yeah!!!

Running Errands

Okay yesturday I forgot to keep my camera on me (I picked it up to put it in a pocket, and it just didn't make it there) which was really sad, because I ran some fun errands and multiple times I wanted to be able to snap a picture.

I went downtown, or just North of downtown, to Carton Services, which if you live in Portland and are in need of cheap boxes - this place is the shiz-nit!!! I needed bubbles, and I knew they sell these HUGE bags of recycled bubbles (all different sizes and colors - the bag costs $10 and could easily fit 2 or 3 people in it) and I needed some boxes. I borrowed my brother's car and completely filled it with packaging stuff. What got me super excited were these boxes that are perfect for mobiles, only 89cents each and they came complete with pink foam stuffing. Holy crap they are amazing. I'll take a picture later today and post it! I can't tell ya why a simple box with pink foam in it makes me so happy - but it does!!! They are amazing!!! I am going to have to go back and get more soon. :)

Then after the shipping materials madness, I drove a few blocks down Naito Street to the Food Innovation Center and got paid $25 to taste organic chicken broths and give my evaluations.
It was sorta fun in a super geeky way. Next week they are doing fresh fruit tasting, that would be more fun than broth. The place is part of Oregon State University, a service for the food industry to provide companies with statistical data. Quite the easy $25 bucks, and its right down the street from the cardboard place, so hey - it made for a fun errand running afternoon.

If you live in Portland and want me to send you the email to get hooked up with this OSU program, just let me know and I'll forward it to you. Its a completely volunteer program, and easy money.

Small Wee Cute Stuff

Little baby Harry admiring his red/orange mobile! So adorable!

Getting pictures from my customers is the best (and permission to share them here)! Thank You!

a Busy Tuesday

Today I set up a bit of my artwork with some friends from the Aquila Glass Studio at an art show put on by Handmade NW. It was at the World Trade Center in Downtown Portland.Here's my setup in the evening. There are more pictures on my flickr. It gets dark here pretty early, there were snowflake lights in the area where we set up.It was an all day show, but I got wisked away for a card making date, so I didn't get back to the show till later that afternoon. The next picture is my friend Maggy's house - so wonderfully cute! Her chickens and ducks greeted us in the front yard. And do you see the beautiful mobile by me hanging from the corner of the roof

Birds on a Line

I just thought I'd share, I like how this piece is turning out. Its going to be a very large platter, part of a Christmas present for Tim's sister (I don't think she reads this blog). It matches some plates that we've made her.