Sticker Fun

This morning was so beautiful at the Portland Saturday Market. It was already warm and super sunny. In my booth on the waterfront I could hear boaters on the river. As I was setting up I passed this quartet playing in front of the Ankeny Fountain (sorry the volume of the people talking is louder thru the camera than the quartet)

Later in the hot afternoon I noticed this cute girl noticing my business cards and I asked her is she likes stickers. Who doesn't like stickers :) ?! So she and her friend each got a sticker, they stuck em' to their shirts. I love that! Excellent advertising :) I asked the girl if she would like to have her picture taken (because she was just Awesome!) and she gleefully said yes. I'd just like to say Thanks for all the nice people that stopped by my booth to collect my work and help my little business. I am truly appreciative. It means so much to me to share my work with good people. It was a fun weekend, hot and hot, which is sorta nap inducing but I couldn't nap in my booth, I had to stay awake. Sheesh. But honestly, it was a nice weekend. Thanks!

New Glasses Arrived

My new glasses finally arrived in the mail (via ZenniOptical.com)! I like em! They are cute (and orange on the inside, which makes me happy) and they fit and I can see perfectly fine thru them. The best part - they cost all of $24 including shipping. The bad news (isn't there always bad news) they took 3 weeks to arrive rather than the 2weeks that the website claimed. But they arrived safe and sound in a neat little plastic glasses holder wrapped in a pale green gentle lens cloth. I am pleased. Just thought you'd want to know :)

Little Borosilicate Vessels

Little vessels - I love them.

My friend Poe made this last one (I made the two purple ones).

Sauvie Island Strawberry Picking

I went to Sauvie Island today to pick strawberries.

warm from the sun, delicious sweet strawberries... yummmmmm.most of them were green still, seems this year everything is 2 weeks late
but there were plenty to nibble and praiseKruger's Farm now has animals :)
there was a fat pregnant pig sleeping in a barnand chickens running aroundwhat a cute funny looking chick eh?!There were peonies blooming in a fieldI took lots of pictures of the round buds just ready to burstI find the round shape of the peony bud to be so amazingly gorgeous. I love the way it unfurls to become this sweet sultry perfumed huge flower. They are amazing. The bugs seemed to agree, in many of my pictures there were flies or ants or bees hanging out on the buds.

Images on Glass

I've set up an Etsy shop for the glass pieces that Jan and I have been creating, we call our collaboration "LeJa".

http://LeJa.etsy.com

More plates and mobiles will be listed constantly... I've barely begun to sift thru all the pictures I've taken.

We are working on a small booklet that can be purchased as a .pdf from this Etsy shop that will be a great little how-to on our simple traditional block printing methods transfered to glass. It will be a great resource for what materials work in different ways (ink options and powder options/cautions for colors) and where to purchase many of these materials. We will be sharing the results of our experimentation and collaboration... the booklet will be available for sale soon.

Enjoy!!

Mystery Egg

Found this little egg pierced by a stick in my backyard as I was hanging my hammock this weekend.

This little egg is so beautiful, and so sad, and so interesting all at the same time... the mystery remains: how do you think this happened? Your guess is as good as mine

so far here are the going theories:
1. the egg was pierced by a crow (they use things as tools)
2. the egg shell was soft and it must have fallen and bisected on a small branch and the baby bird inside stopped the fall and thus the shell now remains half cut in half on the stick

Personally I just don't know. Theory #1 seems odd to me, interesting though, but why wouldn't the crow just use his beak. Theory #2 is also interesting, but improbable as the egg would have had to hit the stick in a very particular way to bisect so perfectly. Personally I think I must have mini monkeys in my trees outside. Or the loud blue jays that mock me in the early morning with their songs, they must be getting crafty and breaking the other birds eggs.

I think Myth Busters might have to perform some experiments to see if a soft robbin's egg falling could actually bisect on a branch :)

Birthday Sunshine

Okay, so it was my birthday yesterday. I didn't turn on the computer all day!!!
Some friends came by and Tim and Tony helped me throw a little BBQ bash for the holiday. I put out some wire and glass beads so everyone could create birthday tiaras (Alexander Calder made some tiaras back in the day and this cracks me up - I thought it would be fun to see what everyone made!) Aren't they great!!!

And I set up the frisbee bowling - oh yes - you read correctly, Frisbee Bowling. :) Its sorta like frisbee golf but with bowling pins. Yup. And its pretty difficult, no matter how close you get! I couldn't get a single pin down. In fact, I even tried hitting some golf balls at the pins and launched one ball into the neighbors yard two doors down where they were having a party as well. Oh my goodness! I had to holler "sorry!" over the fences!!! No one was hurt. But the frisbee bowling was not entirely a flop - Byron and Judi both rocked out and got 4 of the 6 pins down. A tie for gold. To see action shots of their games click on their names :)

Tim helped me set up the hammock earlier in the day. It was such a sunny gorgeous day. I took the entire weekend off and relaxed casual style. Today I lounged in the hammock all afternoon reading a little Bill Bryson. Okay, so I fell asleep, and it was a glorious nap. I love my hammock.
Oh and of course I must add the gratuitous cat picture from this weekend - look at my cute cats sunning themselves in front of the beautiful flowers:
I've had a good weekend, ups and downs including. Good news: I'm one year older and had a fun birthday. Bad news: some drunk *&%#$@ drag racing in the middle of the day nearly killed Tim when he was out at the grocery store getting supplies for the BBQ. F*ckers raced right thru a red light and bashed right into Tim who was crossing the street. The new Hyundai took the impact amazingly well, the bumper is a mess but Tim is fine and I got to spend a few quality hours on the phone with police and insurance. Gotta love drunk f*ckers who drive on holidays. It was a hit and run, so we will have to pay our insurance deductible to fix the car and I doubt the f*ckers in question will ever get caught... at least their car got smashed in all along the side. But I found that stressful, I cannot lose Mr Tim, and I cannot handle any more people running into me or my cars! I swear its a life-long struggle. I wish this hadn't happened. The car is so new!! And the thought of Tim having gotten hurt is just too much to consider.

I dunno why I couldn't just have a happy-go-lucky easy birthday. I tried my best to make a stress-free birthday for myself, but some things are not control-able. There is always the up with the down. I do believe in balance, and life certainly seems to agree, but I find it sad and painful most of the time. Luckily seeing all my smiling friends (and cute baby Orson in his golden track suit outfit!!) makes me happy, and honestly Tim is fine and cars can be fixed.