what a day...

Mariana, my Romanian au pair left today for Sweden- after two years in Lancaster. She left me her very cool black sweater coat that I will wear proudly all over downtown:-)
and change and excitement is in the air today.
we cast our votes this evening. So proudly.
This is an eloquent man I voted for. The first president I would ever be in awe to meet, one I could listen to for the next four years, and someone I respect.

...later....HE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a wonderful thing for the nation and the world.

Chairs in the car

Tonight Max was playing with his dollhouse (one of those big light wood modern numbers) and he started talking to the little people and then he put them in the big car. (the dollhouse came with a garage and a car).
And then...he took the kitchen chairs out of the house, and loaded them into the car, and the people were chatting and driving along with chairs all stuffed around them.
it was so funny to me. I don't know how many times he has driven with a chair next to him in the back seat, or one in the passenger seat!
My Dad often finds them for me by the side of the road, or at house sales, and we'll drive home from their house with one. and then we'll pack one into the car and deliver it to a show or an event or something.

Check it out!

Thank you to Strawberry Curls, for putting one of my Our Lady's in this show! If you are in the area check out all this fantastic artwork.
How refreshing it would be to see bright beautiful artwork on a chilly November night!

Our Lady

This is a Mary I made earlier last week, getting ready for St. Anne's- I had to make a special trip to Restore to find a door that would fit this panel. I think this door works really well, I hope I find some more.
A woman asked me about my art while I was holding the fabric up to the door.
She said, "people go for that?"
it was funny.

Pen Cups

(Halloween week and I'm thinking Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!)

These are my cool new pen cups made from:

tin cans
a gray coat
a red sweater
a white polar fleece pullover
and new trimmings

I am bugging everyone for tin cans, and rummaging through recycling bins on my street, it's rough but look how cute they are!!!!

They will be at the St. Anne's show and at
City Arts Market.

"Be proud of your composter!"

Earlier in the month, my mom and I took a free community class on composting, and with the free class you got a free Earth Machine!

Today Max and I installed it in the backyard, close to the house for easy access. He thought it was a fort and I turned around and he was inside it!

So far, I composted a tiny gourd!:-)

I like it. I like things that make you feel self-sufficient.

(the manual said that beginning composters often put the composter too far from the house, but they recommend being "proud of your composter" and putting it nearby for frequent deposits from your kitchen:-))

Cute card

I ordered these from TayloredArts on Etsy. They remind me of my black chairs, and my love of red and Christmas...:-) I am going to make a Christmas chair and this will be the tag. xo

KnittyDirtyGirl teaches my nannies knitting!

A very special thank you to Rachel-Marie, www.knittydirtygirl.etsy.com for coming to my house for my October au pair meeting and teaching all my girls to knit!!! yeah!

She was super great, and very very nice to all the girls, even though they went crazy and ransacked her bag of yarn balls!

I feel like this has been such a busy week. I've been working on little crafty projects for the upcoming shows, and had to really work hard to clean the house up for this meeting. So much is going on!

I'm learning that the fall/winter is the busiest time for shows-
I need some soup and I need to go to bed! it's almost 2am!!!!

A Secret Photo for Someone....

Hi my friend, and you know who you are:-) Isn't this just a crazy coincidental photo? And I knew who they were! even weirder!!! Your grilled cheese is waiting for you. It's all buttery and cheesy and stuff. This pic is a sign from above! Come by anytime...
I am always your friend:-) xo

My first class!

With the girl scouts! what a delight they were! and I felt like I came full circle, as a former art loving kid, and a big time Girl Scout myself:-) we painted drawer fronts from ReStore, using salvaged house paints and craft paint. They loved my buttons! This photo is so similar to my Girl Scout "unit" camp photos...it's uncanny. The cool difference is that I'm like the counselor now!
xo

Happy Birthday Occy....

Here's a doll I made for Octavian out of one of my old handbags (the brown micro suede part), his 1st birthday is tomorrow- the party was today. Rachel-Marie's sweet son.

I love FreeCycle

I think I started using FreeCycle in May? I love it!
it's crazy how much stuff we have that we don't really want, and how people in the Lancaster County Freecycle group are so giving.
It has been not only fantastic for cleaning out my house, but I've gotten some things that I would never have expected. Like a large tin barn star which are popular here- I hung it on the side of my garage. Yesterday...the Hunter baseball ceiling fan for Max's room, and over the summer Max had more shorts from Freecycle than I could fit in his dresser.
Whereas before, I would have bagged things up and dropped them at Goodwill, now I give them to real people directly! and no one pays anything for anything. how great is that!

The price of making your house unique

I need a new bathroom vanity and sink but the ones I've found near me, are made from particleboard. I can't use particle board cabinet doors in my art, so no way am I using them in my bathroom!
So, I'm redoing the existing vanity, replacing the doors with beadboard ones, and replacing the sink and faucet with a set I found on the side of the road. Amazingly, it fits my vanity, and has cottage-ey "hot/cold" faucet knobs. However, the cost to install this top and put new pipes in under the sink (they are old and noisy)...$239!
The parts I found retail for $300, so it's worth it. And what a story...the plumber says, "so you find your plumbing supplies by the side of the road?"

Last night at Goodwill I found a pair of milk glass bedside lamps. A PAIR! I am infatuated with the lamp in the little girls room in the new Charlotte's Web movie. The decorating from that time was all about texture. I love it. The pair I found was rubberbanded together with that scary Goodwill appliance price tag "Sold AS IS"...for $3.99.

It felt daring to take this old lamps home, all dirty, but they are SO cool! and isn't that what all the cool homes in magazines have? really funky cool old lamps?

So I cleaned them in the sink with a brush (the dirt was all in the grooves), they gleamed. Then today my husband bought two rewiring kits for $30. Ugh. Then we went out tonight for shades, and I ended up with pleated ones, that might be all wrong, I don't know, but the white of them works (I'm really working towards all CLEAR colors in my house, no beige). The shades were $14 for the pair.

Today, when my husband took the lamps apart, I had to repaint the brass "look" bits. Brasso didn't work, so I don't think they were brass:-)

When I was at the dept store, a woman next to me in Lamps was buying a set of wrought iron ones for $30 flat. When I got home tonight, unsure of the shades I bought, I almost threw in the towel. But then I thought that in two years the dept ones will look boring, and I'll still have my ones that are at least 50 years old. That are so hard to find. That are as old as the house, and are unique like me.

And of course, down the road, when the house is in Cottage Living :-), they'll be a little notation about my lamps. "Found at a Goodwill for $3.99, Maggie's husband fitted the lamps with new wiring, and Maggie added the ball fringe to the shades."

You can't write stuff like that boring new lamps!

Etsy chair

my Etsy chair with beautiful hand spun yarns from knittydirtygirl.etsy.com!
it turned out so bohemian, and you gotta love that:-)
Add your own Etsy pins and things to it!
available soon,
on... you guessed it!

my new Grocery!

oh my....heaven....!
Stauffers of Kissel Hill's new Rohrerstown store- opening day today (the biggest SKH is the county)...it's right down the road, and looks like a really big version of Whole Foods (which for some reason hasn't come to Lancaster yet).
the produce aisles and aisles and aisles are so tidy .... the prepared foods are gorgeous, it's just great.
I am partial to SKH because when we moved to Lititz when I was 17, from a tiny town in Massachusetts, the SKH was so close to us and we thought it was fantastic. We went there nearly every day and came home with tasty things constantly. We took our guests there...it was kind of a joke, but they loved it and would go back the next day too.
now I have my own store and it's better than that one. there is something about having a really really really nice food store near your home. It makes you just feel good. I think it's because it's one of those places that you go to all the time, so the nicer it is, the nicer your life is.

1000 Handmade Greetings....

is coming out a month earlier than expected!!! Hooray! Look for two of my cards in it!

ISBN: 9781592534739
January 2009

$25.00
$27.50 Canadian
£14.99

Flexi-binding
1000 photos/illustrations
320 Pages
Size (in): 9 x 9

1,000 Handmade Greetings

Creative Cards and Clever Correspondence

Laura McFadden, with Deborah Baskin

Even in this current day and age, where we are all senders and receivers of voluminous emails, handmade greeting cards, stationery, and invitations never lose their charm or fail to touch the heart. This book is a delightful showcase of 1,000 exciting and contemporary hand-designed greeting cards, with examples that feature a wide array of paper craft techniques, including: paper cutting, paper stencils, stamping, punching, stitchery, monoprints, screenprints, paper piecing, and more.

Laura McFadden runs her own graphic design studio, Laura McFadden Design, Inc., and has contributed to various craft books and magazines. She is co-author with April Paffrath of The Artful Bride: Wedding Invitations and The Artful Bride: Wedding Favors & Decorations. Her most recent book is 100 Ideas for Stationery, Cards, and Invitations.

Press today....

Claudia, aka reporter called me last night for info on au pairs and technology while they're working....it's fun to be quoted in the paper:-)

Fun night with the au pairs....

I met the au pairs from Reading and Lancaster tonight at Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant. It was really fun. People (ie. the waiter) find them all very entertaining...7 young people from all over the world. the place is a little bizarre but you remember going there, that's for sure:-)
Really really excellent service I might add and the salad was spicy! (but really good)

And YES! those are two boy au pairs!!!! Moritz and Tobi!

Yesterday I painted the kids table at Eastern Market with the kids...it is BEAUTIFUL! I can't believe I didn't have my camera. At one time there were about 10 kids painting it at once.

Very very hot here...I was enjoying our early fall!

I crack myself up late at night:-)

The edge of the seat has Lancaster street names around it!

Check it out....I'll have some art here....