It's Freakin' Hot

I know how you feel, Felino.

Garden Party

We had a small gathering at our home this weekend to show whoever was interested around the garden. Enthusiastic friends I have met since moving to Virginia came to meet our plant and animal allies, eat good food, and have good talks. Drew and I had a blast getting to better know these folks. I love spending all day making food and prettying the house! I'm such a girl.

Flowers to look at (echinacea, lavender, mint, rose, yarrow) and flowers to eat (nasturtiums).

My geeky labeled spread-- We made flax crackers, sunflower pate with garlic flowers, creamy garden collard salad, organic potato salad with local grass-fed yogurt and our own Silkie eggs, fresh farmer's market peaches, raw grass-fed farmers cheese, and just-picked wild blackberries. Our guests thoughtfully brought hard cider, local wine, and homemade banana bread. For imbibing we provided sweet iced mint-tulsi tea, cold wild spring water, home-brewed kombucha, organic wines, and locally brewed beer. For dessert I made a chocolate spread, of course, with two old stand-by's (Black Flower and Forest Cove) as well as a new flavor I've finally gotten down (top secret until it's official!). I was so nervous about it all, but everything was a huge hit! Can you tell I get excited about local food...

Drew took everyone on a tour of the grounds, stopping off at the chicken run for some freshly picked mulberries and a chance to meet Guthrie, king of Silkie roosters!

 photo by Teresa

 We missed the folks who couldn't come, some of which were still sans electricity and cleaning up fallen trees from the storm the night before. Pretty crazy happenings in nature lately. We can't wait to have another shindig! But I think we'll have to wait till the weather cools down a bit (it reached 100 F the other day). Now I'm off to listen to a Netflix movie and beading...

This summer is already a whirlwind

I am fully aware that my posting has been pretty erratic lately, but I have good excuses, I promise! I've been in the midst of a jewelry-making wave, my family has been visiting in shifts for the past few weeks, and Drew and I are preparing for our first big party here at our mountainside home. I'll catch you up chronologically:

 My sister Isadora came to visit immediately upon her return to the U.S. from a trip to Israel. One of our first outings was to The Loft gallery in Culpeper, VA. Super cool space! If you're in the area, it's definitely worth checking out (but note that it's only open on the weekends).

See my work in the jewelry display case? I've got 6 or 7 pieces there altogether, two of which are the beaded cuffs in the center. My mom, Deborah Mosch, also has work in this gallery!

We went on a hike,

made tons of food, and learned some songs. Click here to see more photos from Isadora's perspective...

And just when I was starting to go through family withdrawal when Isadora left (sniff, sniff), my mom came! We spent a night at a haunted B&B in Harpers Ferry. There were a lot of rules which we immediately broke one right after the other, but the views were amazing and the late night talks on the porch I wouldn't trade for anything.

Mom was on the constant search for examples in nature of atmospheric perspective for her classes, so every once in a while she would give me a mini heart attack and make me pull the car over. Here is one such instance as we drove through the Virginia countryside to pick up a birthday cake for my (soon to be visiting) dad. Chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream icing and chocolate ganache from Triple Oak Bakery. Need I say more?

After my dad arrived, we drove up to visit family in Coudersport, PA to stay at another B&B. Frosty Hollow is a little slice of heaven. And I had no idea that was their motto until just this second after I typed that when I was making a link to their website.

They grow a lot of the food used in their country breakfasts each morning (including eggs from their chickens!)

Then my dad visited for a couple days on his way back home to Georgia. We went to the Alamo Drafthouse theater to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. And yes, it was as entertaining as it sounds. If you have a Drafthouse in your area, it is worth every extra mile to drive to it. The ticket prices aren't any more than a crappy I mean normal theater, and you get waited on hand and foot the whole time.

Drew, my dad, and I also took a day trip down to visit Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. Good thing all three of us are nerdy and are totally entertained by living history. It was so fun! Not to mention how beautiful it is there. Think ride-less theme park + nature trails + heirloom gardens + 1780s United States.

On another note, I finally mustered up the time, energy, and motivation to paint this Craigslist bookcase to put in our bathroom. Could it be because... (drumroll, please) Drew and David got the faucet installed on our clawfoot tub!!! The bathroom is really coming together now!

 Before...

After!

A New Gallery

A new gallery is opening up in Culpeper, VA, and they invited me (lil' ol moi!) to be a part of it! It's called The Loft and it will be located at 107 B, W. Davis St. The owners use the space as a working art studio for themselves during the week, then Fridays through Sundays it will be open to the public as a gallery. I'll be a part of a select group of mainly local artists, along with a weaver, painters, photographers, a potter, sculptors, and metal jewelers. I hope some of you can stop by the "soft opening" this weekend, Friday June 1 - Sunday June 3. If you can't, here's a sampling of some of the new work I've created for the space:

And a little more paint

goes even further!

I was trying to get as close as I could to my favorite crayon I remember from my childhood: Cornflower. Remember that color? And I'm not usually drawn to blues, unless they're being cried out on a street corner with an acoustic guitar. Actually, I had a love-hate relationship with my cornflower crayon. I loved the way the crayon looked on its own, but the color that emerged from it was never the same on paper. No matter how hard I bore down, I couldn't get it dark enough. And I never understood why a color with the word corn in it would be blue-violet. But here's why:

This is a cornflower! I must say I got darn close with the color. Once in a blue-violet moon, my memory will serve me pretty well.

A little paint

goes a long way.

I wish I had taken a Before photo of this chest. It is solid wood, currently with no hinges (hopefully to be fixed soon!). I bought it from a woman on Craigslist who was going through a divorce and selling all her crap. I went to her house to buy an advertised bookcase (which I did), and she talked me into this chest. Even though it was stained a hideous dark, dark wood color and broken, I felt kind of bad for her. So I paid her the five bucks or whatever it was she asked for it, then spent the next hour and a half listening sympathetically as she told me the story of her break-up. Don't feel too bad, it really does seem like it's for the best, and I left on a positive note. A year later, I uncovered it in our garage. Oh yeah! I had just finished priming our antique vanity cabinet, and I figured while I had the white paint out, why not throw a quick coat on this? Try four not quick coats. But it looks just how I was envisioning it, and after purposefully distressing my lovely paint job with a sander and screwing in some Anthropologie knobs, here it sits in the sunroom, soaking up some ricocheting beauty from my mother's artwork.

Some Small Improvements

So I've taken a bit of a break from posting, both on this blog and on our Immortal Mountain blog. For those of you who didn't know, my husband Drew has been all over Europe for the past six and a half weeks with his band, spreading around their music. But he comes back today!!! I'll be in his arms in five hours, and counting! It's been a looooooooooong six and a half weeks, I'll leave it at that. One of the downsides is it has left me with very little time for my extracurricular activities, like blogging. Working part-time, commuting, looking after our kitties and silkies, keeping the house relatively fur-tumbleweed free, making tons of chocolates, visiting family (yay!!!) and feeding myself everyday is nothing to scoff at! I have so much admiration for single moms.

Here are two projects I've done recently:

The most simple curtains ever. I had this fabric up in my studio, and the branches came from right outside. I got hooks that I painted the same color as the wall, and voila!

And this is a commissioned piece to match a collar a lovely Etsy customer ordered. Thank you!

It's official... Etsy!

So I finally did it. I started an Etsy page, which is where you'll find the above photo, and more like it! I've listed my current on-hand inventory, including all my most recent (some within the last couple days) work. You can check it out here.

But in case you're too busy to click on a link that will take you to a whole different world (because trust me, Etsy will suck you in-- you'll get obsessed looking at what everyone else has created!), here are my two latest pairs of earrings:

I'm trying out some new earring designs involving multiple layers. What do you all think? I'm still experimenting, but I'll definitely take suggestions. I hope everyone's staying warm this fickle winter! It's snowing as I type this...

A Craft Day

It was freezing the other day, literally, but that didn't stop Ann and me from crafting the day away (thanks to David's handiwork with the studio heater). Ann painted ornaments that she sells at Booth #B038 in the Strasburg Emporium, while I oiled my rusty book-making skills, folding paper accordian-style.

It's so hard to stop when the creative juices are flowing! These short days are messing with my head. The cold weather is saying, "Come on, stay in today, get some artwork done," while the sun is smirking, "Oh, no you don't... well, OK, but only till four o'clock, then it's quittin' time for me." I guess this means I just need to get some more lighting for my studio.

And here's a baby T-shirt I silk-screened for my cousin's new daughter with a combination of two old designs I had. The bubbles are actually fill-ins for circles from another design, but I thought they worked pretty well together. Until I realized I printed the design on the BACK of the shirt. Doh. But Ann suggested continuing the bubbles onto the front of the shirt, and voila! It works! I can't wait till my mom and dad finally buy their dream summer home up in Pennsylvania. Then I can have my mom over to make jewelry on weekends in my new fancy-schmancy studio! (hint, hint, mom & dad...)

Indoors for the time being

It's gotten really cold lately up here on our mountain. Today it stayed around freezing all day long. I made the first fire of the season in our wood stove this morning! The hibernating stinkbugs hidden in the crevices of the stove were quite confused, emerging in a daze thinking it was spring already. Little do they know, sitting in their jar, that they'll be fodder for the chicken-folk tomorrow morning... A bleak day for the stinkbug, indeed.

On a brighter note, here's a cheap (but a little time-consuming) winter decorating idea I've been wanting to try for a while now, and finally got around to it while watching Four Weddings and a Funeral for the first time. All you need is oranges (on sale right now!), about 1/2 ounce of whole cloves per orange (cheap if you buy in bulk at your local natural foods store), and a toothpick (which you may or may not end up using). Directions: push cloves into orange peel in a design you like, using the toothpick to pre-poke a hole if necessary. Voila! It smells amazing, and it'll keep for 5-7 days.

And I couldn't resist some cat-in-basket photos. Phineas sure is photogenic.