Market Update (long)

Yesterday was the first farmers market of the season, and it was a glorious Spring day. We could not have asked for better weather!

I didn't get a pavilion space this year, so I get to set up a tent. The good news is I have more space to show off my stuff. :) Here is my set-up yesterday:

I hope to have more framed ribbon wreaths on that back table. Several people commented on them, AND I got a commission for a purple one. YAY! Plus, there's room on that table for anything else I think up that's not a card.

I apologize in advance for the poorer-than-usual quality of these photos, but it was so BRIGHT out, I couldn't deal with it.

For the first month or so of the markets, the farmers have mostly plants and the few early vegetables. Here we have asparagus at Farmer Katie's tables:

... and rhubarb:

A cooler full of rhubarb. Some of this came home with me.

Over at Farmer Mike's stand, we have MATERS:

They have a green-house, so they have 'maters from the beginning.

Some of these came home with me, too:

We also had cukes:

Baby zukes:

and baby summer squash:

We also had some of these peppers:

At least I think they're peppers. Note to self: ask next week.

Radishes:

... and STRAWBERRIES:

Farmer Mike's farm is 2 hours South of here, so he has an earlier growing season. As soon as his strawberries are ending, the other farmers are just starting to get theirs in. We WIN!

I commented to Mike he needed to have squash blossoms. He said, "Oh, like these?" -->

Um, yeah. ;/

More asparagus:

and 'mater plants:

I saw lots of people walking around with these.

More radishes at Farmer Margie's:

and onions:

I call them orn-yons, with a nod to the late, great, Justin Wilson.

Margie also quilts and makes pillows. Here is one with pretty blue flutterbys:

It sold.

Here's one with cool cats:

This next guy looks suspiciously like our Twitter friend @Southboundcat:

And another kitty pillow:

Yesterday was also the annual May Day parade. Such a pretty day! Here is Main Street, all blocked off and ready to go:

Check out this old car:

And this new one:

I didn't even think they MADE Fiats any more.

At first I thought this was a fire truck, but nope. It's a TOW TRUCK:

H U G E !!!!

There is a new vendor across from me this year, and she sells CAKE POPS:

She only had chocolate and vanilla yesterday, but she said she has LOTS more flavors, and will bring them next week. I am doomed.

She also has cookies on sticks:

The plant booth was hopping! The light was SO BRIGHT, I couldn't get decent pics of all her hanging plants. Here is one that came out sorta okay:

And this one was under a table, so I wasn't blinded and the image wasn't washed out:

This combination of colors is GOR-JUS:

She also had tables of annuals:



This one might be my favorite:

Now for the DOGGIE portion of our show. OMG, they were EVERYWHERE. Let's get started.

These two are the sweetest furry sisters:

As soon as I knelt down to pet them, the brown one sat with her back to me and leaned into me to be petted. Their Mom said that is pretty normal for her.

A doggie encounter:

Two Havanese:

The breed is from Havana, Cuba. Like curly Lhasas.

This guy really, REALLY wanted Spiderman's cookie:

A doggie in the parade:

A big fur-ball walking past my tent:

Next up, such a cute puppy! Look at those EARS:

He was worthy of another shot:

More doggies:

And another:


Another handsome beast:

A market regular is back:

Another doggie encounter:

A Bassett strolled by:

A Pug for Carla:

A weiner dog:

and are you sitting down? Check out this cutie:

He's 10 weeks old! Here's another shot:

Later in the day he was walking through the market. I don't think he's as big as one of the paving bricks! SO ADORABLE!

Okay, one more of the pug for Carla:

That's it! What a perfect day it was! Today I'm in recovery. Heh heh. I did get asked for a sweet 16 card (nope), more Wedding cards (that section is pretty thin) and graduation (also pretty thin.) I guess I have my marching orders for this week. I also need to catch up on challenges and think about my Stamp Camps, which are next Sunday and Monday. I hope to have something stampy to show you soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little Announcement

Since I don't have a card for you this evening, I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell you I'll be participating in the Shopping Our Stash blog challenges (that I mentioned here) as ... wait for it ... a Crew Member! I KNOW! I am so excited that Carla selected me as one of the founding DT members. THANK YOU, Carla!

The main reason I wanted to participate in this challenge blog is because the focus is not on a particular vendor or occasion. Nope. The focus is USE YOUR S-CRAP, and man, do I ever have a lot of it! I am sooooooooooo excited to get started.

So you'll see this badge in my side bar:


and I'll be posting my cards for the weekly challenges starting later this month.

There's one day left for the DT call, and there's blog candy up for grabs, too, so head on over and check it out if you haven't already done so.

(squee!)

In other news, tomorrow is the first farmers market of the season, and it's supposed to be a lovely Spring day. I hope to have some pics for you!

Thanks for stopping by!

FRED (A Progressive Card Blog Hop)

Note: If you came here from Mary Dawn's blog, please keep on reading. Otherwise you might want to start at the beginning to get the whole back-story and also to see the full effect and changes made to the card.

While one of our dear bloggy and tweepy pals Sue was in Ireland attending to family matters, we decided to do a progressive card for her. Most of us were progressive card neophytes, so Lydia (UnderstandBlue) started things off for us and included very. specific. directions. for us to follow, which was a good thing. I read her every word, and more than once. We were each supposed to add something to the card (making sure to leave enough room for everyone else to add stuff, too), then sign it and send it on to the next person.

Here is the card after my addition:

I added that handsome green Celtic-y heart. I stamped and embossed and cut out and re-stamped and re-embossed and finally ended up with a plain image (The Angel Company) stamped in blue on a piece of greenish patterned paper. I stuck it in the corner and called it done!

I then put that precious card into the mail and sent it off to Lisa PRONTO. So your next stop is Lisa's blog (Papergrace). Please head on over to continue your journey!

Thanks for stopping by!

ETA: Here's Sue's post about the card: Internet Friendships

Sketchy Sunday {TG017} - only 1 week late

Yeah, I'm a full week behind now, and I don't see things getting better any time soon, as my markets start this Saturday, so I'm back to one-day weekends. I know, I know. I LOVE the markets, but I did like having that extra day all Winter to do some of these cool challenges. Hey, maybe I'll get my act together and find time during the week. HA! I crack myself up.

Here is LAST week's Sketchy Sunday challenge over on Tiff's blog:

And my take on it, which I also call "it seemed like a good idea at the time":

Now let me explain... Sometimes my ideas come in complete cards, and sometimes they come in fragments. This card is the result of a fragment, and I'm not so sure it worked. It started with an idea to make that SU flower out of First Edition papers. That's all I had, people. The whole idea stopped there.

For a background paper, I thought I'd rummage through my bag of papers from my last trip to the LSS, and I found that piece of Graphic 45 and thought: Kraft + black. So I inked the edges of the flower with Crumb Cake ink and matted a piece of the Graphic 45 paper on black.

Then I decided it needed some yummy black satin ribbon, and I did a two-sided approach to the wavy ribbon thing I showed you last night on my quilt card. Here's what I did:

See how it left a nice flat area to receive the flower? :) I found an old old old antique-y brad in my drawer and used it for the center of the flower. I like.

But then when I put that finished piece onto the Kraft card base, it was boooooring. THAT is when the Washi tape came out and I added a few strips of it to the card base.

I left off the sentiment because Tiff said we could change up the sketch if we wanted to, and I wanted to.

That's it. I might make a couple more of these since I've already cut up the paper. Then maybe I'll think about this week's sketch. ;/

Thanks for stopping by!

A Quilt Card

I have seen several "quilt" patterns in the Blogosphere the past few weeks, and I just knew I had to give them a try. Here's one I finally finished tonight:

Once I got the math right (grrrr) it was easy. I was going to look up the actual math formula to dazzle you, but it sounded like work, so you have been spared. Most quilters already know this math, and the rest of you will just want me to tell you how to do it. Not tonight. I've been waking up at 5 am for 4 days now, and I'm too tired. And anyway, I didn't take pictures.

Check out that ribbon at the bottom:

It's called "wavy ribbon" and you can see how to do it here in Mary Dawn's most-excellent video.

In other news, I acquired weights for my tent this evening. I went to the big box hardware store to buy bags of sand and buckets to hold them, when I discovered they only had 50-lb bags of sand, which I know I can't lift. Not more than once, anyway. They didn't have 25-lb bags, so I pouted. I finally asked a guy where else I might find sand, and then I spied CINDER BLOCKS! OMG, SO SMART! I got 4 of the skinny more-solid ones and I spent only $4.50. WHOOT! I WIN! :)

Okay, I must go find something crafty to do. Thanks for stopping by!

Jingle Belles Rock - Week 18 - NO DSP!

If there is one thing I have in abundance (besides ribbon) it's patterned paper. This week's Jingle Belles Rock challenge is to make a Christmas card with no patterned paper! ACK! I've been chewing on this one for a few days, which is really the whole idea of a challenge, right? It makes you spin your brain in a different direction and try new things.

I knew I needed to create my own background. I could stamp it, or dry-emboss it, or ... something. My idea finally came to me Sunday morning: Rubber Band Background! I haven't done this in FOREVER!

First, here's my card:

Now for that brayer thing, here's what you do: Take an acrylic brayer attachment (the clear one), wrap several rubber bands around it, then put it in the brayer handle. It should look something like this:

You don't want to cover the attachment - space is good. Roll the brayer 'round and 'round on your ink pad until the rubber bands are inky - they don't have to be perfect, just mostly inked. Then starting from before the card stock, roll the brayer across the card stock and don't stop until you are past it (this is the standard wheel technique - you start before and end after your card stock). You now have wavy lines! Ink it up again if you don't have full coverage - my brayer didn't span my 4" piece of card stock so I inked it again and rolled it a second time on the other edge of the paper.

I took the attachment out of the brayer to clean it, and I found I got almost all of the ink (SU dye ink) off with a paper towel and I didn't need to wash it or replace the rubber bands. I repeated the steps above with Cherry Cobbler and again cleaned the attachment.

For my last step I ran my brayer across an Encore gold ink pad, ran it across the card stock, and then heat-embossed it with gold EP.

Let's look at the card again:

You can see the background has wiggly green and red and some embossed gold lines.

I started out with the scallops at the bottom, but I decided to flip it, I guess because I could. I colored the mousie with a combination of Copics and SU ink + blender pen. I finished it off with a souffle pen for the white parts of his sweater, and some shiny glitter on his scarf fringe.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go fondle some pretty paper. This was rough.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used:
Ink: Glorious Green (much misunderstood and under-appreciated), Cherry Cobbler, Encore gold, Memento black
Stamps: Hero Arts mousie, sentiment (I forget)
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Glorious Green, Cherry Cobbler, Kraft/Crumb Cake, Brushed gold
Tools & Accessories: brayer with acrylic attachment, rubber bands, gold EP, heat tool, Nestabilities, ribbon, MFT scallop border die, souffle pen (sweater trim), glitter pen (fringe on scarf)