art table - long winter days pt.2

 It seems like soooo long ago when I moved in the art supplies from the front porch for the winter.  What ended up being a vintage metal assemblage of furniture is our art table.  A wide trough held paper, stickers, crayons etc. ready whenever the mood stuck the boys.  I tried to clean it up, move supplies through every once in a while to keep it fresh but too often it just became another cluttered mess.     SO,  enter in another vintage piece of metal furniture. 

 This tall organizer has been in my studio for about 10 years,  holding....who knows what.  Time to give it up, haul it upstairs and give it over to the family's newest artists.  It gave the table top more space,  more supplies with less clutter and hopefully inspiration.   With a blizzard on the way I'm hoping this updated art table get's some more use.  sooo now what?

stone cowl

hello
  
here's the quick update:


-made this cake for my mom & LOVED IT!!
-got a new job at my old job, hopefully leading to a less hectic life
-the show was a great success.
- I wrapped myself into a bunk bed frenzy but now it's up & I can move on to sewing new curtains. 
- I've got the knitting bug, badddddd. But not in that sweater or sock kind of way,  I'm going for the simpler quicky kind of way.  My first project is this cowl last week, and I absolutely adore it. I made it using a cheapo cotton & acrylic yarn I got from Michaels because I liked the color so much.  On the needles now are some hats for the boys. 




I hope to be back sooner rather than later, oh &  I've missed you too. 

deck to landing : before & after

It's always been in the back of our minds to redo the back porch/deck/jail cell one day.  So we designed, talked to friends and started to hoard materials.  A few bricks here,  some flagstone there, and what seemed like a snails pace project now is DONE!!!  Take a look see.









The old, thankfully rotting, deck.  With it's high railing and small stairway oriented not to the yard but the driveway instead.  Sure we had fun out here, and it was functional but it always seemed apart from the yard rather than an extension of it.





This is the new patio & deck ( sorry for the dappled light, it's just been so damned sunny lately)  We built a cedar landing with wide large steps, going to a brick & flagstone patio.  We wanted it to act as a space where kids & friends could come & go.  Eat, play music & shuck corn or have coffee on those steps.   Be in the yard. Here are a few more in shots of the progress















designing the shape & size the materials we had would allow.









Another reason I love my handy & patient husband, he built the stairs on the nights that I worked.  That means these two were happily helping out too.

summer treasures

Some simple shots of what's happening in our neck of the (vary mosquitto'y) world.














I have a piece in a group show that is at our local botanical gardens, we went to see it this last weekend with my mother in law.   It it a magical place every season of the year, especially this one.





















Growing, picking, eating, preserving, storing.  We asked for it and we got it.  I just heard a 'clink' from a jar of pickles sealing in the kitchen,  sigh of satisfaction.
































Treasure hunting today led me & Oscar to a crazy place we would go before we had kids ( because it is FILLED with junk.) But within that junk there were treasures. A  handmade quilt, a wooden tricycle, leather log carrier, black metal lunchbox, large tin serving platter ( seen under those green tomatoes) and ....

  this awesome awesome basket.  all for $60.  can't beat that


Heading to a dance tonight and camping after , crossing my fingers that we don't get eaten alive.  No twirly skirts for this dancing gal,  long pants and socks I'm afraid.   ta ta for now.

a quiet day

Found myself by myself today, odd.  It is amazing how alive your house can be one day and how quiet it can be the next, still, almost waiting for them to come home.  While I do miss them I have been using this time to work on some paintings for an upcoming show in October.  Here's a sneak peak. 

projects, always projects

the camera was working on vacation

We're back.  A great time had by all.  We swam, ran, ate & slept a lot, I think we call came back very aired out, which is all I ask from a family vacation.  I only brought 2 projects to work on,  one is a knitting project ( post later it's almost done!) and the other was my camera.  I finally had time, and such beautiful scenery to fiddle with it, move dials, get low down, try the same photo again and again.   I had some successes,  here are a few.   I hope to have more posts soon about all the folks we hung with wayyyy up there in the north woods.

liquid gold - homemade maple syrup

A few weeks back I posted about taping the trees in our yard, another experiment in our urban homesteading.
I'll be damned, it worked !  Now credit is givin where credit is due, Todd did about everything, except digging the buckets out of the dumpster at my work.  A friend had the taps, after the initial tapping of 3 trees in our yard & 8 across the street we yielded 35 gallons of sap.  Which boiled down to about 1 gallon of syrup. 
here's a good link if you want to do it too!


  A bunch went to the maple syrup festival yesterday, where families could come and see the whole process.

Besides having pancakes I also made a Maple Cheesecake for guests last week.  Ironically I forgot the sugar but the maple syrup provided enough sweetness for everyone.
After giving pints of homemade syrup to those who helped we have about 10 left over, now we have to make that last until next year.   Do you have any favorite things to eat with maple syrup?

Snippits v.2

I'm participating in a collaborative art piece put together by my good friend Elizabeth, and you can too! 

Here's my response to her words. 

Tin Pail by Elizabeth @ clarity-chaos.com

And when she finally spoke, her words dropped like pebbles in a tin pail.

You may need an explanation for this one.  When I read Elizabeth's second snippit I first thought of the buckets hanging on our trees outside collecting sap, an easy response to her collaborative project.  But than I saw my husbands shoes, the shoes he bought for our wedding, the nicest ones he has ( no judging ! )  These have been worn a lot lately because of the losses our family has had recently.   Elizabeth's words made me remember that early morning phone call, a quiet voice saying those heavy words ' he's gone.' 
a somber response I know, but it's real for me.

spring-ish

Carhartt coveralls,  a spring must.  Found this pair on accident at a thrift shop, I'm not sure what we would have done without them.  The boys have been outside much much more these days.  I'm starting to feel OK with the fact that we're not that into winter outdoor play, so we're making up for lost time. 



Spotted the first snowdrops in my yard today, thrilling.

















At my in-laws place, a majestic crumbly old barn.  I feel like a kid again exploring each corner, looking for treasure but finding a surly barn cat. 









Sap, hoping to get lots of it.  It's our first try at collecting maple sap from our yard & across the street.  Feeling very optimistic that we may get 1 gallon of our own syrup. 












but that would mean that we would need 30 gallons to boil down.    maybe we should change it to a 12 oz. jar?















chickens scratching up the yard, unearthing our spring for us.  Hope you're having a good spring-ish week.