Snow Sculpt

I am always impressed and on the lookout for natural structures and sculptures. Those works of art when created by the natural process's of the earth are so remarkable and beautiful. I love flow forms and faces in trees. Ice patterns and tree's split from lightning and wind. Lichen growing on rocks in the shapes of rivers, a glowing geography of the earths landscape in miniature.

Today I saw some very special sculptures that I can't share with you in images but if you live where it snows you can go out and find them.

Beautiful and grotesque all at once the snow that has been built up on the sides of the highways and roads around here, and has been melting. Creating incredible five foot tall statues coated in grass and sand that has been kicked up by plows and compacted by snow. You can find them around mailboxes and entrance ramps and huge piles where roofs have been scraped free of snow.
There was literally so much snow that there were crews out for two weeks after all the snow that fell in January and February using bucket loaders and removing it off the highways. Over bridges it went. There were even the tall sections of sound barrier walls that were removed and snow pushed through. Sculpting and molding snow piles as high as they would go. Stark yellow machines against tall white castles.

Their uniform artwork has mostly melted now, but the chance for the ice and dirt to make their last stand has come. And they are taking the opportunity to show themselves off. Though not so crisp and clear as it was when it fell, bringing us to that magical wonderland of snow filled dreams. The snowmelt now melds what we see into something closer to reality. We are no longer looking up at the sky wondering what the snow will bring, but looking down to the earth, and dreaming of the first crocus's and bouncing robbins.

And if indeed father winter has more in store for us I know I will be waiting for the next formation of icicles on un suspecting objects, and animal prints just dusted on to that magical stuff we call snow.

Bee's To Arrive!

Welcome creatures of the Sun!

Pat assembling a box.

This is the year we are finally getting bee's! I'm so excited, it's something I've wanted for a long time now, but we dove in head first and there is no going back now. The past month I have been working on cleaning up an old hive that a friend gave to me (not always recommended due to the chance of disease, it's best not to take old equipment unless you're really sure where it's coming from) assembling frames, making orders, and doing lots of research and reading. I'm so excited to embark on this new endeavor along with Pat.

I am lucky to have a couple of good beekeeping friends who I hope will help us along the way. Here is a link to a "hanging basket hive" at the Melissa Garden. Prepare to be amazed.

Some new supplies that came in the biggest heaviest box I've ever had addressed to me. Some bee supplements, a hat and mask for Pat, hive tool, and two "deep boxes" the main body of the hive where the bee's spend most of their time over winter, and laying brood, before all those extra honey supers ever get put on.

A Good Trudge

A wonderful friend has reminded me that we all have our unique gifts and talents to share with the world. I have always firmly believed this, and try to act on it, but sometimes it is difficult to wade up stream through the mire of self imposed doubt in ones ability to succeed. Through trudging methodically by snowshoe through the woods and the wind, I feel myself renewed in spirit and purpose. We all have so much to offer to the world, the earth, and to each other, and to do anything other than working towards that goal of full offering, is to deter yourself further and further from what it means to be alive! So thanks for the reminder, and for the firm steps made into fluffy snow, furthering my path forward, furthering my resolution to live big in the world!

In with old and out with old

My year is gonna be THIS BIG!

I hope your Holiday and New Year were either peaceful or eventful or both, whichever works out best for you this time around. Mind found me witnessing fireworks on a street corner, dancing to reggae, eating pizza and chocolate and hiking! Pretty much all of my favorite things wrapped up into two days. I went to see The Rubblebucket Orchestra, went to a couple great breweries, and went hiking, a beautiful entry into the new year with people that matter!

A favorite new years tradition always dies in the early days of the new year...The grand statements and promises made to oneself. Well this year I've take a different approach. My "new year" always feels rushed when it begins in January. Too much time put into other people during the holidays to even begin to contemplate what life could look like for myself in the year to come. So I started back at my birthday this year. Yep, when we are born we are new again so what better time to start accomplishing all those goals and lofty things to improve oneself on the day of days, the day of ones birthday. Here is my list of 23 things I'd like to do this year. I am really good at generalizing my goals like "get better at..." what does "better mean?" I wind up asking myself. Or "Try to mediate more" once again, this is way to ambiguous so I wind up not feeling like I've accomplished what I set out to do, when there was no goal set in the first place!

Here it is:

1.Knit a sweater

2.Write a cooking zine

3.Write an album in a month

4.Learn to weld

5.Go to the Edward Gorey museum

6.Make a dress

7.Go snowshoeing in A LOT of snow

8.Build a headboard for my bed

9.Make pumpernickle bread

10.Create a fancy cupcake display

11.Build a snowman

12.Brew a Stout

13.Go to a show in NYC(Broadway or otherwise)

14.Strengthen Brown Boot Salvage online!

15.Make French Onion Soup

16.Read A Peoples History of the United States

17.Go to Floydfest!

18.Improve my skills in math pertaining to sewing and brewing

19.Try surfing

20.Learn to ski

21.Go to a cidery

22.Kayak in the ocean

23.The last just has to be a secret....

Happy new years....May all of your dreams come true too

Merry Christmas!

The moon is peaking through cloudy weather, and the last large sunflower still standing tall is drooping in front of the window. There are candles burning, a fire going and it's Christmas Day! I hope to enjoy the day today with family, treasures, and food preparation! Here's to the clear day we're about to have, with crystal ice on windows and toast feet in bed. Merry Christmas.

The Flower Fairies

Cicely Mary Barker has penned and illustrated some of the loveliest children's books. As an adult I still love them, and each seasonal book is still lovingly placed out on a table to flip through and admire. Her books have accompanied my growing up years, through each season, marked with images of beauty and delicate poetry in a style all her own. Flower Fairies of the Winter is out now, and here is an illustration of the Christmas tree fairie that is in the book.

I've been working on my ornament collection for about a year now and have amassed quite a few that just appeared, so I spent some time putting those on the tree last night, finishing wrapping, and ice skating out in the open air and frigid winds of the big northeast!

Music Mind

Today I'd like to feature the music of Nik Bartsch and the collaborting quintent, Ronin. They call it zen funk, and I think that is a great description of what they do. I don't even remember where I came across this music, but it's positively magical I think. So creative rythmically and timing wise they make very odd time signatures so effortless in these compositions. This music feels very grey, and very winter and matches the day perfectly. Please enjoy.

An excerpt from their website:

"There are two paths a samurai can walk: that of a clan member, and that of a ronin, a lonely warrior. The former is highly esteemed in Japan, the latter is bitterly detested"

Wood Series: Christmas Tree's

What better way to grace our spaces with the beautiful messengers of the woods themselves, silent in snow and wind, they hold down the fort, putting up with our holiday attire that we adorn them with, sturdy and pleased with themselves, some of them puff out with the grandeur, others droop with embarrassment, but whatever kind of tree you have, or with whatever personality, you know the holiday season has arrived when they accompany you day and night. When they light up the night sky outside, or greet you in your dark early morning, they are bringers of hope and light.

Wood Series: Tobacco Barns

Images via google images.

Today's wood series is inspired by old Tobacco Barns. It may not be know that here in the Northeast there are still many tobacco barns that still stand from the days when it was widely produced here. I think all of these pictures though were taken in places down south. I love that they are these positively huge relics that still stand in half grown over fields, watching over the land after they've been abandoned, or just waiting out the season till the work and the sweat return to their walls. A testament to the wood that made them, and the labor that lives all around it's being.

I attended The National Biodynamic Conference back at the start of October, and during the first day there was a half day offering of a gathering for young people, farmers, and those involved in agriculture. The first activity that we did was to answer the question "If you were a beehive, where would you live?" I answered that I would live in the corner of an old abandoned tobacco barn in North Carolina, next to an old oak tree.

Where would you live?

Kraft Paper Lables and Cards

Here is a fun quick last minute craft project (if you have more time to cram another project in)

A little group of Christmas trees cards! Draw out your tree shape on paper, trace onto fabric, and then cut out. I used batting for snow, and free form sewed around in a contrasting thread. Select your favorite fabrics and buttons and use embroidery thread to attach your star/button to the top of the tree.

I've been utilizing some leftover Kraft card stock paper that I used for making labels for my Brown Boot Salvage table a few weeks ago and folding small squares to turn into Christmas cards!

I cut out a template of a kind of funky Dr. Seuss like tree, pinned it to fabric and then cut it out. I then sewed the tree shape to the card stock with my sewing machine.

Then I picked out my favorite color if embroidery thread accenting the tree, chose some leftover wool fabric (you could use an old sweater, or any other textured funky fabric) and embroidered on the trunk of the tree. Then I sewed on a little button for the star! Voila a sweet looking and totally handmade Christmas card.





Now I'm working on some shape cut outs for gift labels!





Just tear or cut squares of the same Kraft paper card stock, cut out shapes from some pretty fabrics ( I used silk, cotton and linen) and sew onto your cards. Mine are still a work in progress right here, but now they are hiding in a closet and adorning gifts.

Steppin with the Handmade Revolution turns Dubstep

The reggae/dubstep/funk obsession has begun to amplify itself over the past few months. Friends have passed along good albums, and the what I like to call "band association research" has taken place over and over. Basically I like to make a map, starting with musician/artist number 1. Then look up what collaboration they've done with others, (via album covers, online wikipedia searches, or music articles and reviews) who their band mates are what they've done musically etc. It doesn't take very long to make a musical map of a specific area or music scene.

Try it out with a favorite track on an album. Look up names. Do the leg work (in this case it generally means dancing to all the good tracks you've found) and enjoy!

Here are some videos that I've found that I really enjoyed, starting with Rootsmanuva. Jamaican born, UK rapper. Great great rythms.

This video features the track Witness

Here is the UK Dj duo Coldcut featuring Roots Manuva.

The track is called True Skool

Check out this wonderfully creative video by Coldcut
Coldcut-Colors of the Soul

I hope you've enjoyed the days mashup of musical selections. Keep searchin and keep moving!

Christmas in the Sticks

The holiday festivities have kicked into high gear around these parts. I've spent the day today finishing a knit garment for a Christmas gift, baking sugar cookies, and decorating a huge tree that required a ladder to reach the top! We're expecting our first snowy messy weather day tomorrow and it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas out here in the sticks!

I'm excited I've really been getting to do a lot of work on projects that needed doing for presents, and also for Brown Boot Salvage. I had some help in getting a beautiful wooden stand for my bags made, so that I could bring them to a local retail shop that sells things at Christmas time. Though I don't have a picture of it yet, I'm really proud of how my garlands and bags look hanging there on a real rack in a real store.

More on my recent projects soon, one of which includes a pink silk elf hat complete with pom pom and magical bird adornment...

Indie Extravaganza Photo Update

My Booth at the Space over the weekend

My new Brown Boot banner, bags and booth!

A veiw of all the makers in the main room at the Indie Craft Extravaganza

Once again I had a wonderful time at the craft fair and met many great folks and made some great connections. I already have some more ideas for improving my booth for next time and I'm working on some new product ideas. Thanks for looking.

In the wood and Stave Churches

I am always inspired artistically by the element of wood. I love it in art, in homes, in architecture, and in so many forms. I have grown up as a carpenters daughter so the sound of an axe splitting wood in the early morning hours is something that feels very visceral to me. I remember being woken up with the subtle vibration of the splitting maul hitting the wood (driven by my father) so hard that the ground shook up through the house, and underneath my pillow, to awake me to the sounds of the wood stove door creaking open and the freshly split logs getting loaded inside.

We live in an old re built cape, and the homes of New England feature wood as a primary structural element, with exposed beams, wood floors, old wide shingles and the ever present backyard barn. This exposure to the northern style homes, and living out in the sticks near a lot of woodland has made me a forest and tree's kind of lady, so in lieu of my interest in the uses, history and craft of using wood in human life, I'm going to be doing a series on this special and integral part of our lives.

First I'd like to take a look at the work of the Stave Churches of Norway. A medieval form of post and beam construction many were built in the 1500's and still stand to this day. Here are what I found to be some inspiring images.

After the Show when the lights go down...

I had such a wonderful time at the Indie Craft Extravaganza yesterday at The Space. I've been working so hard to get all of my products, packaging and display booth ready I haven't had much time to post on my blog. If you're reading this because you took a card or met me at my booth yesterday, welcome, and thanks so much! Drop me a line if you feel like saying hello.

As my first craft show experience as a seller and not just an attendee I was really impressed with the turn out of the crowd and vendors, and also the quality of the workmanship that people put into there goods. I feel like I walked away with some new friends, some good feedback on my products and booth and a bunch of great resources. My neighbor seller, Treasures of the Moon bought a bag from me, and I bartered an amazing fabric cuff with Magaly Ohika.

I worked so hard to get everything done for the fair, but walking away with some products left over, I'm now moving on to the next goal of getting my bags in a local antique shop and

food co-op.

I'll be posting pictures later on of the craft fair and of my booth, and everyone cloaked in pretty lights and christmas music!

Indie Extravaganza!

I recently just entered into my first craft fair! I'm so excited, it's been a goal of mine for a while now, and it's finally happening. It is held at The Space a venue where I have performed a number of times, and they have a constant full calendar of events and music. I am hard at work creating my handmade items for the fair, working on packaging, my display and general production. I am a lover of all things handmade so participating in this event is going to be a great time. Come and say hello, and check out the beginning of my product line for Brown Boot Salvage, handmade bags, garlands, collages and more.

Thanks be to the ovens for the world

Here is a picture from when we used the oven on my birthday this year, I made the chair in the foreground as gift for my father, and also the fall themed banner (now complete) hanging from underneath the oven roof. We worked for months on and off to finish the oven in our spare time, even having to redo half of the cob building over again!

November is here and the family plans for the Thanksgiving holiday abound. This year we will be bucking tradition (something that happens a lot around here anyway) and having a pizza party in the cob oven. We worked so hard on it over the warmer months, and though there is more still to be done till it's finished, it'll be great to use it again.

I though I'd share my little menu that I've got planned, and it seems that every day I'd like to add something else to it to see how it does in the oven. Some of the cooking temperatures will vary, and we'll have to stagger the cooking times, it's still such a learning process but it makes the cooking so active and fun.



Thanksgiving 2010 Cob Style!

Whole Wheat Bread and Dark Rye from Laurels Kitchen Bread book (highly recommended)

Individual NY style pizzas with fresh mozzarella and sauce

Baked Potatoes with roasted garlic, cheddar cheese and sour cream

Roasted Vegetables-Sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, acorn and butternut squash

Roasted Peanuts

Mulled Cider

Pumpkin pie (made with fresh pumpkin puree, my favorite baking ingredient)

Chocolate cookies



A simple but fun menu, I'm excited to try out the grand experiment.

Matt and Kim

Yes it has been a while, but here I sit again, now in the summer heat, prepared to write again. Thanks to my leaving my headlights on all day, and now my waiting to get a jump, and my being in a place with a computer, this opportunity has extended itself to me.

I feel that I am perhaps a bit late in this discovery because this band I was just told about is nothing near infancy, they seem to have quite the following. Check out Matt and Kim. Catchy pop hooks and vocals, simplistic yet slamming drumming, it all adds up to a good car trip in the hot sun. I heard these two on the car ride that led me here.

Click on the picture, it'll take you to their myspace and their music!

The V Dub

I had to smile today when I was invited to a big VW rally next weekend. A fellow v dub driver told me about it. I think when you have an oldy but a goody of a car, and you wave to vintage plate drivers, and give full on salutes to other rabbit drivers you are officially in the club. I'm not in too many camps, but I think I'm in this one. People who drive them understand the care and attention and number of breakdowns that must be endured. That must be what binds us together. The triumph of still rolling down the road.

I'll have to get you a real picture of her, the car otherwise known as "the Agen" "the Beanpod" and the "Leaky SOB"...Though whenever I call her that she stops running, so it's best to not jinx it and keep her going.

Thread Nests and a little Peek

(my heart pincushion gettin some serious use today)

Hello all,

I spent a lot of time sewing today, I'm so excited to finally be persuing my goal of having an etsy shop in the next couple of months. I've wanted to sell some of my handmade wares for a long time but haven't been quite sure how to approach it, but now, thanks in a large part to the Indie Business class, I'm creating goals and moving forward. I'm going to be creating tote bags, some knitted items, big mixed media collages, and hopefully some other surprises. Here is a little sneak peek...

If you live where the weather is fine this week, I hope you get out and enjoy it. The daffodils are blooming here, the tomatoe seedlings are coming up in their little soil blocks, and it seems that spring has really arrived. I'll be outside all day tomorrow, painting a house yellow, have a good one!