Last week, eager to get back into exercising creativity after some time away, I created a tiny flower painting, and wanted to share its progression with you.  This piece is about three inches square, and such a nice way to spend a few hours one evening.  I wish I could paint every day.

hello!

i've been pressing on to complete a lot of items for the two craft booths i'm preparing this month. yesterday was the sugarplum holiday fair, and now that it's over, i am excited to share what i've learned.



















it can be intimidating to put together a booth if you've never done it before. this was my fifth craft booth, so i'm certainly not an expert, but i'm learning as i go, and finding this process really fun. this is what works for me - which may not work at all for someone else. it really depends on how you want to display your items, how large, heavy, fragile or numerous your items are, and your own aesthetic.



















for me, i want to use as few items as possible. i drive a camry. i need everything to fit in my car. i want tables to be lightweight and easily portable. i prefer to exhibit indoors (though i **love** to visit outdoor fairs) so i haven't needed to buy a canopy.



















this year, in a 10 x 10 booth space, i used one standard-sized square coffee table, and two 20" x48" tables by cosco. i could have possibly used another cosco table if i had one. i chose an L shaped arrangement for the tables...mostly because i was positioned right in front of the restrooms and didn't want to block access.






























i brought my belongings in unfinished wood crates. one crate doubled as a display shelf, and the other became area to keep bags and behind-the-scenes items that aren't visible behind the booth. i also brought an ikea bag filled with a few display pieces, swiffer cloths and cleaning wipes (because you never know), and a plastic container that held some smaller items. i also brought some additional materials for creating signs and price tags (kraft paper, paper punch, sharpies, number stamps, stamp pad, washi tape), small plastic bags and brown paper bags.



earrings three ways
this is the first year i've displayed earrings, and my challenge for the past few weeks was figuring out how i would display them. i had visited a few shows where people used purchased black velvet-ish earring holders for each pair, and shows where people used purchased earring holders, with each earring attached to a separate hole in the rack. neither of those options sounded right for me. i wanted the customer to be able to pick up a pair of earrings without having to take them apart from a rack, and i wanted the earring holders to match the rest of my booth's aesthetic (and i didn't want to pay a lot for any of these things). i liked the idea of using framed chicken wire or a frame with stretched ribbon and hooks or clothespins, but the volume of earrings i'd made didn't seem to fit either of those options.

here are the ideas that stuck:
1. i made my own earring holders using kraft cardstock, a hexagonal paper punch, and two sizes of hole punches.

























2. i elevated an unframed, cardboard-backed corkboard on a frame stand, and pierced sixty pins through it.

























(yikes from behind the scenes:)

























3. i used a three-tiered stand that i already owned, bought 4 packs of 8 picture hanging hooks for 88 cents each, bent them around the top two tiers, and put the stand on a turntable. (then, because this piece was also magnetic, i attached magnets to it in lieu of bringing a magnet board this year.)

























4. i bought two deep frames on clearance, then inserted iridescent white glitter scrapbook paper.




















there are some things i could have done differently. i could have chosen a different table configuration, as the display could have been somewhat hidden from one walking direction. i could have chosen tablecloths for all tables, but made the last minute decision against them. i could have used more shelves, or an additional table. but i received compliments on the earring displays, and loved the comments from little girls, including, "Ooh! Shiny Things!" and "This is fabulous!"

it was the best craft fair yet.

i recently rediscovered my stash of jewelry making supplies. the whim to create jewelry strikes me every few years, but i had some newer beads left over from projects used as gifts last year, and a donation of five pairs of earrings into an auction this spring reminded me how fun it is to make earrings.

dangle earrings are my favorite kind of jewelry to assemble. the beads, findings and tools are extremely portable (so much more than paint!), and the process goes so quickly that the feeling of accomplishment is sudden. i love all of the textures and colors and combinations of the beads. i like rearranging beads until they look right. also, i can work on earrings and still focus on other things (the emmy awards were a three hour long earring making session, and i still feel like i got to see everything).

these will be a great addition to my craft booths this year.

so far, there are over 120 pairs. they don't photograph well on the cork tray i use to corral this crafty mess, but here are some of the finished pieces:








Enjoy this week!

Hello and goodbye, August.   I couldn't let the month pass without writing something!

This summer, I put most of my energy into the school where I spend most of my time. Changes needed to be made. It was the perfect time for big transitions so I planned (and paid attention to many lightbulb moments) and worked really hard to put everything into place for my students. It's work that I love, but it consumed most of my creative energy. It has already started paying off, though. The first month of school has been great!

So my painting table wasn't really used, except for last weekend, when I created the painting above. I think this happens every summer. I have to practice to get back into the creative process. This painting started out as an experimentation of something new to me - but it *wasn't* me or my style. So I kept going until it looked like something that might look like mine. SO MANY LAYERS. And then it just felt finished-ish, and I don't know how I feel about it, and I'm not going to think about it too much. I like it more than I dislike it, and most of what I dislike is how long it took me to get to the end. And there were lessons learned in all the experimentation.

Similar experimentation is what got me to the end of this painting, which became the most pinned thing I've ever put on Pinterest:
























So it's all good. And tomorrow, this girl who has lost her keys too many times this month and can't remember words is going back on vacation.

Have a lovely weekend!

This summer has been full, and it feels like it's almost over. School starts in less than three weeks! Many districts in Indianapolis have switched to a "balanced calendar" - typically nine weeks on, two weeks off, with an extended Thanksgiving break. That means school starts at the end of July or beginning of August, and lasts until June. I like the two week breaks, and I don't work a typical teachers' calendar. If I did, I might love the two week breaks!

Anyway, this has been a fairly cool summer temperature-wise, which is awesome. I just spent the past weekend in Cincinnati and the first week of July in northern Michigan. There is so much to tell! Today I just want to post this photo of a painting I made for my niece, Gretchen. It's 11x14. It's cemented my inkling that my next painted projects will be strictly painting - no additional media. I love creating with mixed media - but I love just painting, too.

Gretchen's painting is a follow up to the monogram painting I made last summer. I've worked on my flowers a bit, and I like these shapes more. Gretchen, once again, was the color advisor. She has a keen eye.

Have a wonderful week!

It's been a few months since I first posted about my recent adventures in art journaling.  I still don't like the phrase "art journaling", and I'm trying to come up with a term I'm more comfortable with.



I am liking this more and more all the time.

The first game changer was the day I added washi tape.

Pictured below - just a sampling of the vintage/antique/artsy goodness of a Saturday trip through the shops on Jefferson Street in downtown Franklin, Indiana*.  I'd been through a few before, but taking in all of them on one day (with Heather K.) was fun and creatively inspiring.  I think this needs to become a seasonal visit!



























*All of the shops were awesome in their own way, but the link only mentions a few. If you go, I can't stress enough the coolness of Bird on a Wire and Vintage Whimsy - they skew toward midcentury quirkiness. We stayed in those shops the longest, for good reason!