Urban Craft Uprising: promo from Behrens Films on Vimeo.

This past weekend I traveled up to Seattle, Washington for the Urban Craft Uprising holiday show.  Wow, what a show!

It was quite the marathon of a weekend.  My good friend Aimee came along and helped out.  First we stopped by the Laika Studio for a quick holiday show on Friday afternoon.  Literally it lasted 1 hour, it was the quickest craft show ever!  Then we drove up to Seattle and started setting up my booth display again (twice in one day - whew!).  A late night sushi dinner was all we could muster after this long day.  Saturday we woke up early and finished setting up for Urban Craft Uprising and then the doors opened at 11. Over the weekend 10,000 people came into this show.  It was awesome as usual.  So many appreciative customers.  So many mobiles will be shared throughout the Seattle surrounding area this holiday season.  I felt the love.   I am grateful.

Here's what my crafty display looked like

Holiday Craft Show Prep

I am knee deep in holiday prep - working my way thru holiday craft shows. Prep involves many things, like stamping bags....I tried to take a few pictures today so I could share here...
I've been making more terrariums... these pictures are fun because people keep asking me how I make the tiny little arrangements - look see! - I use my old dissection kit!
The q-tips are for cleaning the glass if I get a bunch of dirt stuck to the inside of the terrariums...
I also made a bunch more "care cards" and stickers... more packaging details... the care cards are for the terrariums to tell people how to care for them...

I've been strategizing on how to fit a lot of stuff into a small vending space... this weekend I am working with 5ft by 10ft. Last weekend it was 6ft by 4ft. So I made up this piece of graph paper and cut little pieces of paper to represent my display stuff... put a little sticky glue on the back of the cutouts and this way I can play around with display ideas...

Last week I sorta set some stuff up in my living room to see what I had to work with...

and I bought this cake plate from Ikea to display my tiny terrariums underneath. I LOVE it.

Question: Holiday Shows?

The question is this: Which holiday shows should I apply for?

What are the best Holiday Shows? Which shows do you go to?

Its that time of year and I thought it'd be handy to throw that question out there right now. A lot of people are asking me and I don't know what to tell ya. So far the UCU application is out and I just filled that out today. That is a great show, incredible opportunity. I also plan on applying to the Crafty Wonderland holiday show. That is where my list starts and ends. What else should I consider including?

Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Holiday Sale!

This Sunday is the bestest of the Pacific NW: the Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Holiday Sale!
Its on! I'll be there, on a corner, so hopefully you can find me and splurge on some mobile art for the holidays.

Sunday Dec 13th * 11am - 7pm
at the Oregon Convention Center - Hall D
777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd. in Portland

All Ages * Free Admission * Goodie bags to the first 200 shoppers * Free Craft Activities

The weather is looking pretty crappy:
I am really hoping to do the Portland Saturday Market tomorrow... I feel like my Christmas season down there is slipping thru my fingers... but in the end I am a wussy and if its too cold outside tomorrow I just won't bother. Because Sunday is Crafty Wonderland and hopefully the icey rain/snow won't keep the locals from getting to the Convention Center (it didn't last year!) Heres a picture from last year:
Restocking after last weekend is a happy task - although I have procrastinated, so now I have many things to do today... fortunately I produced little things like crazy in advance for Urban Craft Uprising, and while Aimee and I rocked out and sold many many of them, I've still got plenty left. So today I have to restock on larger mobiles. That is a good thing and I am ready, I have beams of steel wire cut, I have circles ready and waiting, and I have little space heaters humming around me keeping the space warm and costing a fraction of what my gas prices would shoot up to trying to keep my house warm in this freezey cold Arctic blast of 2009. Memories of last years snowpocalypse are floating in my head.

This weekend is a whirl-wind of holiday shopping! On Saturday I will out braving the bad weather at the Portland Saturday Market - please come out and visit, shop, bring me warm tea or chocolate... oh I mean shop for your holiday presents! :)

Sunday I will be at the Convention Center for Crafty Wonderland - this has got to be the biggest and bestest craft event of the Pacific NW. Seriously folks, common out - the first 200 people get free swag bags full of goodies (be prepared to wait in a long line to get one of these free bags). My spot is on a corner, so me and my mobiles should be easy to find!

Urban Craft Uprising Good Time

I am back from Seattle - it was a great weekend, felt like a vacation, with a whole bunch of work in the middle :) I loved staying downtown right by the Pike's Place Market - Aimee and I walked down there both Saturday and Sunday morning before the show. That place feels like a whole different world early in the morning as the vendors are opening shop and the bakers are spilling with fresh warm treats. Its pretty incredible. I took a lot of pictures - heres a link to see more.After gathering Pikes Place Market treats we headed to the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall for the show. It was an exciting two days. The hours flew past and I really loved it. I will definitely apply again next year!! A big thank-you to all the lovely Seattle-ites that came out to this show - a record breaking 8,800 attendees. It was pretty packed, and people were shopping with glee.
I've got a little video of my booth somewhere, I'll upload it tomorrow, gives a better view of what it looked like!

Check out my flickr page to see the 50 or so pictures I took this weekend of all the awesome crafty goodness and Seattle sites...

Holiday Production

I'd like to give a big shout out to my assistant Aimee. She is a good friend and damn good help! Especially after being sick with da flu for 2 weeks I was overwhelmed in the need for production. Holiday shows demand lots and lots of extra inventory. I am so fortunate to have good help.

Creating things en mass continues in the Garden of Leah. Today it was studio time making lots of glass bits with Aimee, prep-work for mass kiln firing. Tomorrow its sorting, cleaning and wire bending. Thursday is cooking and indulging. Friday its back to work :) Saturday I'll be at the market and it looks like we might get good weather for the big weekend!

Local Portlanders - do come out and shop at the Portland Saturday Market this weekend!!! Please! Its such a great place to shop for holiday gifts and the artists could really use your financial help. Many of the booths got blown down and destroyed last weekend. Seriously 40-50booths got tossed by wind gusts last Saturday night and many of the structures were broken. No artwork was lost, but many vendors lost their booths and display structures. Personally I had taken my booth down on Saturday night after vending, I wasn't interested in selling on Sunday, it was just too darned cold this weekend. But I stopped down on Sunday morning to sign out (I had forgotten the day before) and do some volunteer duty... and the site I arrived to was such a mess of destruction and chaos. I have never seen so many booths destroyed. If there was ever a time to come and spend money down at the PSM - this is it!!!

And I cannot tell you how much it would mean to me if you gave your friends or family a mobile for the holidays. They will love it! And your purchases make a big difference in my little life.

Hey if you can't afford a mobile - how about a little craft mobile making kit for a great gift for only $20!

Valentines Day Baking

Happy Valentines Day!

Today Tim and I are baking bread. I wanted to "get crafty" for the holiday (instead of buying silly presents for each other when the budget is tight) - and Tim has been asking about baking bread for weeks now... so a couple of days ago I bought some yeast and a new bag of flour (he insisted on wheat, I pitched for unbleached white as well, my recipes call for using half and half of both, but Tim likes straight up wheat. Can you hear me sighing heavily thru the internet?)

I love baking bread. The sensual elasticity of the dough and the unpredictable nature of the yeast. I like eating bread too! In all its various shapes and forms. And fresh baked bread is the bestest. The house smells sooo good today. Its bliss.

My mother used to bake bread all the time. This is the bread book she gave me. There were many years when she would make a fresh loaf of bread to have with dinner, and many times I would wake up in the morning to the smell of fresh baked bread for breakfast. Frequently she would bake bread and forget it in the oven... oh the memories of her jumping up at the diner table exclaiming "Oh I forgot about the bread!" and pulling an overcooked brick out of the oven. :) If I were a good daughter I wouldn't have disclosed this. But honestly, I do the same sort of thing all the time! I always forget to set a timer.
This bread book is amazing, its recipes from a Buddhist monastery. Monks know how to make nice with yeast, for real, they make the best beer and bread. When I pick up this book it falls open to the walnut coffee cake recipe. Its a well loved page. Back in college I had a friend who would come over and make this cake all the time (at least a couple of times a week) and you better believe I always had the necessary ingredients on hand! So now it brings a smile to my face to see how crunchy these pages are.

It was fun to go thru the bread baking process with Tim. I even made one little heart shaped loaf!

Blogged

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

Thanks!

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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!

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!

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

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.