Bazaar Season

 Last weekend I was part of the Lady Bug Bazaar in Vancouver WA with my sister Angie of Dear Spring Green.  She has been super busy with the new baby and her 2 little raga muffins that it was amazing to see she filled her table to overflowing.

I have been working on several new pieces and one new series this year but what seems to take the most time is the frame making

Mark straight lined the boards and cut them to width ahead of time...oh ya, and salvaged the tree from the middle of a field, and from there it went slowly but smoothly.  Above are my piles of sized frames waiting to be pieced together.

Hollow Mortising Chisel

I thought this time I would count the hours spent but it was pretty sporadic with the time I have spending at the shop, traveling to see family and the normal household stuff.

All in a row ready for lacquer

This year I stuck to the custom stain I used last year but added some Ebony for a darker edge on some and one that calls itself cherry but was more of a dark oak. 

The finished product!

Only a few originals were available this year. The rest were all archival reproductions, which are actually a better deal because they last longer and will not fade in the sunlight like watercolor does.

 The day before the show Mark built me this fantastic wall for the back of the booth (I helped but did a lot of complaining because the stress was getting to me)
It is all 2x4 boards with only 6 screws to put it all together so I was able to do it all on my own once at the sale. The center is a cattle panel we bought at the local farm store for $22. The electrical panel had smaller squares but was $76. I couldn't rationalize spending that much.
I had a couple people ask about it, wanting to know if I was local and if he made them to order.

Here it is all set up. It could have held hundreds of pounds. When the long line of excited buyers were let in I was overwhelmed with the positive feedback from so many. A few lovely ladies from last year stopped by to see what was new and to add to their collection and I think I have a few more happy customers that will look for me next year. 

In the few spare moments we had I was able to snap a few photos of Angie's treasures. I have ordered a mermaid bag for El this Christmas and can not wait to put it in her stocking. Spring Green's Etsy shop isn't yet open but I'm sure if you sign up to follow her HERE then you will be the first to know when the shelves are stocked. 

What am I planning now you ask? Well, I came home to this......

I have no one to blame but myself. 

Garden Gate- Operation:Save the Chickens!

Mark has a dream. A dream that some day our chickens can again forage our garden in safety. We have lost many in years past to not only neighboring dogs but (head hung in shame) our own. 

This gate is the beginning of that dream. 

While in Savannah's  Boanventure Cemetery I took a ton of pictures. These oak leaves stood out to me as most plant-like things do and I logged away the idea for future use. When Mark suggested making a gate for the vegi garden entry I jumped at the chance to not only use this design but to try out my new-to-me burning tool. 

 I first sketched it on then slowly...very slowly drew the outlines. Since this is a second hand tool it may be that a newer one would heat up and maintain temperature much quicker. The whole thing took me less then an hour and when I was finished mark spray lacquered and hung it! For me it was nothing short of instant gratification but for Mark it was a much longer process.

He took this picture not only to show off his colorful collection of clamps but to also show a bit of his process.

My brief interview with Mark:

Mark: I needed some heavy old growth cedar the purple stuff with lots of tanin very hard to find even if you could afford it. Jerry's a local building supply gets over thickness cedar out of Canada for use in garden boxes. If correctly sorted it yields some very nice boards.
Elizabeth: What does it mean by correctly sorted boards?
M: It means you can find some nice boards in there
E: Oh
M: Most quality boards are high graded in the mill occasionally you can find boards with small defect and with proper cutting you can loose virtually all defects. This was the case with this gate. 1 1/2" just wouldn't get the feel I wanted.
I grooved the sides and tenoned the top and bottom. I used exterior glue with the tight fitting connection. It should last, The pickets in the center were also tongue and groove. The arch was tricky and took some time. I'm pretty happy with it.
My friend Don years ago gave me some giant brass screws I've been struggling to find a home for. They worked beautifully to hold the curved top. As you can see by the picture the board didn't want to do it. I took some clamps and some more glue.
E: How long did it take you
M: About 4 hours...give or take.
E: What's your next wood project
M: I'm working on your printer cover. I've glued some CVG fir. I need to put it together and lacquer it.
E: Squeal!
(by printer cover he means a teared storage system for my printers and scanner I'll show you as soon as I see it for myself)

On to our next project!
Elizabeth

Fall Framing

Thought I would give you all a little sneak peak at what I will be selling at an upcoming bazaar. Along with the harvest season and my regular day job I have been painting and stamping and frame building for this sale. I am especially excited because I am not only selling my originals but now have a new tool (frame building) under my belt. Mark and I spend a few hours a night creating together and It was the best date nights we have had in a while. Who needs a fancy dinner?

To the left is one of my more modern looking frames which I promptly dropped on the ground and broke! Luckily Mark made it all better. I guess it has happened a few times to him but I just stood there devastated for a while, reenacting in my mind how it happened and all the ways I could have used my cat like reflexes to save it..but didn't.  Each frame takes about an hour total, from raw wood to the picture you see above so you can see why it pains me.
 I promise I will make a tutorial as soon as life slows down. OK, let's face it, that's not going to happen. How about I try to get one up in the spring :)

To the right is a mess of cards getting stamped and wrapped. Because I need so many for the sale I have been forced to take them off of my etsy site for now but they will all be back where they belong the first week of November. For other original prints (unframed) check out my etsy mini on the Right side bar.

 Here is the latest piece I have been s-l-o-w-l-y working on. I apologize for the dark original image.

 It is a bit more whimsical then I am used to painting and this is my first crow! I hope to get it done before Halloween so if nothing else I can tape it to the front of my fridge. 

For those of you who love watercolor here are a few of my fav painter/bloggers:
Amy Abshier Reyes- OK I know she is oil and watercolor but I love her dearly
Sketching Spirit - She has inspired me to finally spend the $ and buy a good traveling moleskin and paint on any trip I can take it on. So far I only have a bit of Sunriver and the Coast and I'll post those later.
Golly Bard also paints from nature and I just LOVE everything she does. And now she has fabric!!! Oh, my heart!
And the best for last Brittney Lee an artist for Disney that I have followed since day one of her blog. She is a brilliant paper artist but uses every medium so I think it is fair she make the list. Her work is so inspiring.
After drooling over all of these artists and their obvious success I need to remember that they most likely do not have children still at home. That helps me relax a little bit.
-Elizabeth