South Side Works Artists Exposed- Come See Me This Weekend!

Getting all prepped and juiced up for a three-day weekend of crafty vending coming up at the end of this week! Woot! :) Come and check me out there, along with lots of my talented fellow crafters. Hope to see you there!





SouthSide Works Exposed is an outdoor bazaar and music festival celebrating summer and the arts in Pittsburgh. The setting for this event is in and around the Town Square of the SouthSide Works.

More than 70 local artists and craftspeople will be selling handmade wares including ceramics, photography, paintings, jewelry, clothing, nat...ural body products, woodworked games and more.

Each day features food from SouthSide Works restaurants, drinks, music and traveling entertainers – and a dedicated area for kids!

To learn about the excitement and to see a sample of the artisans, visit http://www.imadeitmarket.com/ or http://www.southsideworks.com.

How My Garden Does (& Doesn't) Grow

Feeling pretty discouraged about our backyard garden today, so I'm gonna start out by complaining. :P Turns out it is quite disappointing so far. :( Updating on previous posts, my wildflower bed is a bust, our spinach is gone with most of our lettuce, we have no cucumbers yet, and the cuke plant is starting to lose pieces. *sigh* Since first writing this, I learned from a friend that the heat can be hard on lettuce, so I'm thinking that our big 90+ degree F heat wave over the past couple of weeks may have something to do with our sad lettuce harvest.

Despite meticulous weeding and verbal encouragement, it seems our garden succumbed to all of that super hard rain we had loads of just after we planted. It ended up pounding our soil into hardness, packing it down so that there isn't much aeration and room for the roots to grow down. Or we may have to continue our quest for the perfectly balanced soil in terms of nutrients.











Sad little lettuce that has never reached its prime.













Our spinach (bottom of picture) never grew past a few inches, and went to flower. The empty patch beside the baby lettuce used to be home to our butter lettuce.


On the plus side, we do have lots of Roma tomatoes growing. Looking forward to seeing them ripen and redden (they seem to be staying green an awfully long time)! And we have quite a few greenbeans- woot! I love garden fresh greenbeans in butter (vegan), one of the only veggies I prefer in a dressing rather than plain. Our carrots are growing too, and we're hoping there are little ones growing underneath the pretty leaves. :)







Hoping for a pumpkin!


Plans from here include loosening up the soil, fertilizing and composting, and trying again with the lettuce and spinach. Maybe we'll have a crop for late summer and fall. And hopefully, we'll be eating lots of greenbeans and tomatoes!














The happiest part of our garden: beans (cut off in pic on left), cukes, tomatoes, and carrots.

I Learned How to Make Paper Stars!

And I am so excited about it! My friend Susan taught me how to make these darling little puffy origami paper stars that I found nesting in a bowl in her dining room. It is gonna become an addiction, I can feel it! And you can make them into all sorts of things, like garland and earrings and mobiles. Though I have mine sitting in a bowl in my own dining room, as they make me happy when I look at them! Ah the simple pleasures. :)

TUTORIAL COMING NEXT WEEK!

Adventures in the Woods

I have been loving my time in the woods hiking lately. The scent of honeysuckle and earth, the teeny purple butterflies that land on the puddles on the trail, tadpoles swimming in clear gentle streams, the lilting tune of song sparrow and chatter of chickadee- these lull me into a sweeter state.







Were it not for a fall, twisting the same ankle twice, and the occasional daddy (or mommy) long-leg that hitchhikes out on my back to surprise me later, it would be downright perfection. :P

When T & I hike together, we have even been wandering out of the woods to walk in the local cemetery! I've always been freaked out by cemeteries until we decided to explore the one just near where we hike. It is so peaceful and quiet and nature-y... we stumbled on three deer there playing one evening! In the park, we've also seen baby snakes, and late last week I met the teeniest, tinest, most miniscule, squee froggie baby I have EVER SEEN! it was like half the size of my pinkie fingernail- no joke! Her legs were so skinny and wee I was amazed at how they could be strong enough for her to (clumsily) jump on. :)

Since I last posted about my hiking adventures, I've actually remembered to bring my camera with me! Sharing some photos here now. I didn't change my settings for the sunny conditions, so the quality isn't that great. But you'll get the idea. :)


Giant black snake. Scared the crap out of me!


The little toad I mentioned meeting in my last hiking post.


Song sparrow.


Tadpoles!




More tadpoles!


Sweet little chickadee hiding in the trees.

Crafty Inspiration- New Finds!

I spent part of yesterday afternoon in the hot, dirty, dusty warehouse of Construction Junction yesterday after dropping off a donation to Creative Reuse upstairs. Don't let those adjectives scare you off, as they do not outweigh the awesomeness that is CJ's ginormous building filled with recycled construction and building materials, tools, architecture, and other mysterious treasures. :) I poked through boxes and boxes and more boxes of random collections of hardware bits and pieces, my hands getting grimier by the minute (it's so fun, though) looking for interesting metal shapes to use in my jewelry. I found lots of new inspiration! I don't know what 95% of what I found actually is or does, but I know it will all make for great new upcycled jewels!





I am so inspired by other artisans of all types who can look at a random piece of something and figure out how to make it into, well, something totally unique and different. And I love metal and the way some artisans reuse raw and rough industrial-looking metal-ly stuff in their work and make it into fabulosity and loveliness. Sooo, I've been working on figuring out a way to do the same thing in my own way. I think I've done it! Think delicate swirls and sparkles and flowery-fluttery things blended with stark, cold utilitarian metal. I'm working today on some new pieces, so keep an eye out! :)

This is the latest little something I've made and really loved. This necklace is made from an antique (old) sterling silver cuckoo clock charm. In the center of the clock I glued a glass rhinestone from the 1940s and a tiny vintage (from the 1960s) copper stamping of a bird in flight.



The necklace sold the very day after it was made (actually, like 4 in the morning the same day- those all-nighters get me every time) at I Made It! Market at WYEP's Summer Music Fest! Yay!

So back to the tiny copper bird stamping... the Etsy seller I purchased them from had not only tiny birdies, but tiny butterflies, hearts, and leaves. So freakin' sweet! So sweet, in fact, that I contacted her after my initial orders and bought her entire supply of them! *evil laugh* I must have all! :P

SO anyway, look for more new jewel designs using those little coppery treats! And some fantastic antique chandelier drops like the one in the necklace I wear at shows (I made it for myself) and get so many compliments on!