Laume's Studio

Did you miss me? Didja, huh, didja!? Well, I've been off having grand adventures. I'll have you know, having fun is a lot of work! Too much to do to fit it all in each day of my holiday, so something had to go. Uhm, yeah. That would have been this blog.

But, I'm back now. With lots of ideas and pictures.

First, a show and tell post. I was up and down the Pacific Northwest all last week. All sorts of treasures came home with me. Books, new pretty things to wear, chocolate. I'll try to stick to just photos of art related finds for this post.

The first weekend I was gone I was at Faerieworlds 2007 with my daughter-in-law Lisa, my granddaughter Joli, and Lisa's two sisters. There were all sorts of tempting arts and crafts to buy. And when I say arts and crafts, I don't mean it in the belittling combination phrase "arts and crafts" (why does that phrase have a negative association, anyway?), but in the purer sense of the words individually. Wonderful creative pieces of art. Unique and finely designed crafts. I mainly took away ideas, trying to pace myself in the spending department (although, ahem, towards the end of the trip I kinda made up for the slow start).

I did buy this small mirror. The mirror is on the other side and the back of it that you see here is small enough to hang around your neck and wear as a pendant. Of course I had to buy the pirate one. Lisa bought one from them as well that was a perfect memory piece of our time at the festival. Perhaps when she gets back home she'll take a photo of it and post it on her blog for us.
The artist was one of three women, if I've got it straight, who had a booth called Magpie's Daughter. (wonder why it wasn't Magpie's Daughters?) Unfortunately, they don't have a website. They sold beautiful collage jewelry, art dolls, and handmade books and journals. This was the sign hanging at their booth. I posted a photo of their booth, which looked more like a gypsy tent, in my post about the festival over on Beach Treasure. Tou can see pics of the girls costumes there as well. Now I'm curious about their name. And, aren't the birds in the photo ravens or crows? The magpies I know are black and white with long tails. Are there different kinds of magpies, some of them all black? Now I'll have to google stories and myths about magpies.

The second day of the festival I attempted an ocean fae themed costume. This is the necklace I made. Okay, so I bought the trim already made at Walmart and just tied it around my neck. It still made a great necklace.

I did make this small wreath for my hair though. After the first day of the festival, we were bursting with new ideas, so we stopped at the only thing left open on the way back to the motel, a Walmart, and raided their craft and fabric department. I saw something similar done with flowers so I tried to duplicate it. By the time I had all the supplies in front of me, I couldn't remember all the details of the wreaths I had seen and so I just ended up winging it. Simple, but after struggling to make it, I liked how it came out and it ended up being comfortable to wear. If you click to make the image larger, you can see the curlicue wire and beads that stuck up from it.

The next day I found this lovely beaded dragonfly for sale and he happily alighted on my wreath.

Fast forward to this last weekend and I stopped by a quilt store in Ashland called Quiltz. I really just wanted to browse while waiting for hubby to arrive (he was meeting me for the weekend) and to use their bathroom. But then I found this new line of Halloween fabrics and I couldn't resist.
Because you all know, if there's something I don't have enough, it's Halloween fabric! SNORT! It's all from one line except the one autumn leaf piece on the top of the pic.

I also bought a bit of this panel-ish print and the accompanying moon print.

Annnnnd, these lovely sparkly blacks! The one on the right is for quilting, the print on the left might find it's way into one of next year's faery costumes. The bright fruit on black on top I bought because I thought Lisa should have some of it for her bottle block quilt. (which, now that I think about it, she has yet to post any "in progress" pictures of her blocks on her blog)

At the Goodwill store in Ashland I found these wonderful large remnants. The apple print is a heavy cotton quilt fabric, the red is something silky and slippery, I assume a poly blend, with a pretty embossed floral pattern. The green in the top righ corner is actually a corduroy and last but not least the large floral is a knubby cotton upholstery piece. I might make the red into a scarf. The apples might make a nice Mabon altar cloth. Have no idea what I'll do with the rest of it yet.

And finally, an impulsive stop at a little art supply store in Mt. Shasta City. I left, after a long and affirming (that there are good people and good ideas afloat in this world) conversation with the interesting man at the counter, with some new toys. And yes, I know, the next step is to actually USE them. First things first. Still painting walls and rearranging things, hello! And, that's what I'm off to do right now. I'm in the middle of alphabetizing and shelving books on the shelves I relocated to my studio. Geez, now that I've moved my desk and fiction collection into my studio, someone is gonna think I'm just being a copykat. Not true. Not even after it just dawned on me that I also stole someone's brown and apple green color scheme. Sort of. Although, I might repaint the brown wall a nice dark wine red. So there! Not copying.