Easy Ornaments

Tis that time of year! The time when I make a million lists of things I want to make for Christmas. 


But this little craft is easy and looks amazing. I would use it for gift toppers as well. 
Lightly coat one side of a clothespin in glue. I use a tacky glue, but modge podge or school glue will work just as well. Then dust with glitter. 

When that is dry, just lightly coat with modge podge or fixative of some sort and add a little fob. 
It is pretty darned inexpensive and you could make many in an evening. Which makes it great for exchanges and extra stuff to have on hand.   

A new local store is always the best.

I have found a new local place to spend my crafting dimes.

The Artist's Palette Studio  in downtown Eugene is a lovely place. It is clearly owned by crafters and scrappers. They offer classes and crops. They are local. And let me just say that the owner I met was just lovely. 

Nothing is better for me than finding a local store to share my money with. If you are close to Eugene, please stop by (they are behind the Blockbuster on Willamette) and check them out. If you are not in Eugene, check out their website. 

 

My new passion

I adore making banners. I love making them out of paper, out of fabric, out of whatever I can get my hands on. They are surprisingly simple. 

For the banner pictured above, I just cut out the triangles in the prints and matching triangles in white cotton. I wanted it to be a bit heavier so it would hang the way I wanted. Then I stitched them. I made my own binding, with the ribbon. Love the look. Matches my kitchen just perfectly!

In other news, look here for big news in a week or so. Really big. Really awesome!

Also, I am taking over some of the admin responsibility for my husbands blog . 
 That means that his blog will be getting regular updates again for the first time in a year. It also means this blog will be too! Time to get excited, we are ready to make our dreams reality.

I am getting an insane number of page views for a blog that doesn't update.

Things have been tough for me. And I am moving forward as ever. I have a new craft blog... you can find it here Kristen gets crafy. 

I really don't know what else to say. But Thank you for all the support. 

 

 

Feminis alert.

I know that it doesn't seem like I am much of a feminist. But, oh boy howdy, I am. Some have called me a radical feminist and I am okay with that.
It comes from having been surrounded by strong women, watching some of them survive abusive relationships. It comes from being in an abusive friendship or two. It comes from watching on of my best friends destroyed by emotional abuse he simply wasn't strong enough to walk away from. It comes from seeing an acquaintance black and blue because she couldn't give her abuser what he wanted after her surgery.
So today, I start volunteering at with an action group to help strengthen access to health care for women (ALL HEALTH CARE). Today, I wrote letters to politicians asking why they behaved the way they did, against women.
And today I share a blog link with you. I hope you will read it. The author speaks of what happens when women have an emotional response. The shutting down, the quieting of our voices. It is a very good read. It gave me a better understanding of why I felt insignificant when my abusive friend would belittle me in front of others. I was crazy, or overreacting because "it is just a joke".
I know I will be making sure I don't say things like that to others. I know when others tell me I am over-reacting I will respond with "NO I am just reacting." My feelings, my words matter. And so do yours.

No pictures please

We are in mourning. Last Thursday we had to put our 14 year old lovable grumpy old man (cat) down. He has been battling cancer and it finally was just too much for him. He had lost a pound of weight in a month.

We had had him since he was a stray little kitten, he came home with us in a toy pet carrier! He was grumpy and hated people. Some more than others. But he protected us. If one of use was ill, he would lie with us. He made the rounds every night to make sure we were okay.

So, rest in peace, Pancake. I hope you are happy in the catnip bed. You will be loved for ever.

And then she has another idea.

And I have been pretty much beyond busy. Gardening, making my own cleaning supplies, working on being an herbalist (or a potions master, I haven't decided). For example, today I made a double batch of biscotti, finished a basil tincture, and a fever few one, made 5 gallons of laundry soap, 6 loads of laundry and then will be heading out to the farm to help a friend. And I still managed to blog and do three hours of homework.

But the big news is that I am planning on starting a line of gourmet biscotti. For mail order sales... I think. Perhaps a couple of local vegan restaurants. I need taste testers and a few months of experimenting. But after that, hopefully in time for Christmas, I shall be ready to launch. 

So, if you would like to be a taste tester, please let me know. I will be able to ship anywhere in the U.S. for the testing phase. (The actually details of world shipping I will need to look into.) 

So, yet again, another change and another adventure. This one will be yummy!