all i did was listen ... rachel awes

go visit rachel's blog and see her fab new artwork here!

Monday Monday

Succotash

yellow brain, you know when that one color pops out wherever you look, saw these chairs on the sidewalk and walked in to find whole shelves full of yellow sunbursting goodness

Succotash 1950-70's mod design

781 raymond avenue

st. paul, mn 55114

651/603-8787

Once Upon A Time

First this little drawing was on the table and then this blue looped top charmer appeared. I don't know the story. Sometimes they just write themselves.

for my son

New Mittens from an Old Sweater

Old sweaters that have been accidently washed and sent off to Good Will are the perfect felted weight for new mittens.

Monday Monday ......... Heart Mandala from Findhorn

Here is a post of some art therapy from Findhorn. Thinking of hearts.

Happy Halloween

Graham Carter

My favorite illustrator

I have one little sick one at home that squeaks out hopes that her fever is better and it really is only a small (horrible sounding) cough so that she can convince us to go to her first Halloween party and out for Trick and Treats. What can be worse than sick on Halloween?

Happy Halloween

This is the inside of your stomach, a diorama on the perils of eating food that isn't good for you. Looks like they are also eating the notes that are passed in class and pixie sticks whole.

Molly Young

magicmolly.tumblr.com

SERIOUSLY you will have to check out Magic Molly. I guarantee it.

New Sewing Machine compares to Anvil

This is my new vintage sewing machine. It goes forwards AND backwards and zigzag and well, that is about all but sweetly. Solid metal so it weighs a ton. The true test of a good old quality vintage buy at $25 you can't deny. Big, old, baby blue, beastly and heavy metal......

reminds me of these guys..........

except that it doesn't wear crocs

Monday Monday

Yaaaaa, we launched rachel's blog yesterday! Head over and check out ' all i did was listen'

Picking up the slack........

Diego Rivera

Sorry for the delay there in posts. I have been looking at some paintings and one of my favorites is Diego Rivera. Here is one that I hadn't seen before. I am meeting with a friend tomorrow and showing her how to start up a blog which will be fun. Off to a full weekend and thank goodness for all the help from Thing 1 and Thing 2. They actually live with us now, it's true. I'll share some pics of them next week. Off to teach them how to clean their rooms and unload the dishwasher.

Forts Galorts

How many times have the kids thrown a blanket over a table and made a fort? Maybe a gazillion??? Usually it is all the couch cushions and all the blankets in the linen closet and all the pillows from all the beds and all the crumbled crackers from the cupboard.........

Minnehaha Falls

Alien fort

Bunny fort

Wigwam school project fort

Snow fort

Donnel + Paulo + Tim + Lou

Theresa + Matt+ Caroline + Emily

Molly Costello (had to post it cuz of course there are snowflakes)

Bouwe van der Molen

greatest tree house ever

Love this house. It reminds me of the tree houses that my brothers and I would make. Well, ours never got this elaborate. We had too many architects in the gang.

Monday Monday

This week is the opening for the movie Where the Wild Things Are. They are hosting a contest for the best fort so I have been fishing around for some secret hide outs to post this week. This one was at the MN Landscape Arboretum. Lovely eh? I'm really likin' who lives there.

Children come from the stars

                                                                                                               Jess Gonacha

We are having a birthday around these parts and have been making invites and streamers all owly and such. Have a lovely fall weekend. 

Monday Monday ..........

Stripes

Getting ready for the annual hike into Pirates Cove... a stream that winds through woods and tall stone walls of moss and beauty mouthing into Lake Superior. Have a great weekend. Thank goodness for the rain. We needed it this fall so the trees can winter well.

She and Me

Looks like we both love color..... but then who doesn't. Here are some pairings of our work. The top is my daughters (age 9) and the bottom is mine (age, uh I forgot). I remember hearing about watching kids make art. Do they choose the crayon closest to them or do they look out at the crayons on the table and make specific choices. Even in very early drawings I started noticing her color choices and they were consistently lovely. Yep, love my kids for so many other reasons than just good color choices.

Monday Monday .......

Farmers market

Happy Harvest... the earth's bounty is just toomuchery!!

freezer paper stenciling wild things

It's pretty exciting that the movie is almost here. So much so that we thought we would make some stencils just to bide the time. They are easy to make so here's how.

1. GATHER some freezer paper, not waxed, an iron, piece of flat cardboard, acrylic paint, brush, pencil, something to stencil onto and an image
2. hold up the image to a window with a sheet of freezer paper on top and TRACE the image
3. CUT it out with the exacto
4. PROTECT your garment by placing a thin piece of cardboard inside so paint won't bleed through
5. IRON the stencil onto the surface of whatever you are stenciling using a lower temp shiny side down
6. PAINT your image! Let it partially dry and pull off the stencil.

I think he needs some Terrible Yellow Eyes........

First piece of jewelry beyond The Macaroni Necklaces

I really loved the Children's House macaroni necklaces that taught finger muscle dexterity. Strung on yarn in red, blue and green food color dyed rigatoni. I wore the necklaces proud and now they are safely snuggled in a top drawer. But this, this wonder is really something to blogbrag about. The morning after visiting the Renn Fest I heard pounding and came down to hear Drew and the girl stripping copper wire and hammering it flat around a circular pipe. Put those two together and voila anything can be done before brunch.

new pens for school

These Bee-A-U-Tee-Full pens curtesy of my nine year old. Zowzer! She whipped them up the other day over a couple generic ones. I wish I had a better camera because they are very full of texture and wonderful accents of glitter. Of course the linen they are on is from a wonderful weaver Anna Smits. It is a classic weave of linen with silver accents. If I can find some pictures of Anna and Signe together and some other of Anna's weavings I will post them. She taught at the U of M for I think about 40 years and had the most beautiful garden of dahlias, so sweet and always had a little gift of some sort for Signe when I went to visit.

Monday Monday

drawings by me and her

Here are a couple looks for the day...... and a link to a song here.

MN Rennaissance

Canning

Since it is my birthday week I thought I could indulge myself with some childhood memories. Well, first of all, these are the tomatoes that were canned and the salsa that was made out of that very friendly basket of tomatoes. So much about the tomatoes but really, this is the first year in 12 that we have lived here that I have successfully been able to grow tomatoes. I guess they need really great light something that this yard never really had so Yeah for the red jars.

Ok, here is the memory. When I was about 8 -11 we used to live in Ohio and we had a large garden on the farm of a farmer from church. We would drive out to the country several times in the summer and well, really I would go swimming with my brothers while my parents tended to the garden. It was close to a creek and there were vines that we would swing off into the water. I loved this about going to the garden. I don't really have any memories of helping harvest or plant or weed but the cool water and the Swiss Family Robinson adventures with my brothers swinging, swimming, finding rocks and climbing up the slippery muddy bank are really clear. It was the end of the summer that all the canning took place. It was my job to watch the younger daughter of a friend while she and my mom would can tomatoes, make pizza sauce (the best to this day that I have every had), pickle cucumbers into Bread and Butters and Dills and Sweets in large ceramic crocks that sat aside in the kitchen for weeks. Just a memory.

Monday Monday ..... my birthday : )

I was given a box of old photos this summer. Some I had seen and others never. What fun. A flash from the past. Love some of the old ones of my grandma and her friends (not shown) especially as these had great old dresses and all the backdrop stuff is so stylish. Yes, it's my birthday today and I am taking full advantage to indulge with these 'was it that long ago' old pics.