Happy Halloween!

 I wasn't going to bother carving a pumpkin this year, but a few hours before Oct 31, after watching an extreme pumpkin carving show on the Food Network, I got inspired.  I felt like doing something goofy, so here's what I came up with.

I love Halloween, not for the scary stuff or dressing up, but for the pumpkins and decorative gourds.  We finally got out to Forneris Farms, a 5-min drive from us.   They have a great Harvest Festival with an excellent corn maze.  Of course, we didn't get out of there without buying pumpkins and gourds....lots of pumpkins pumpkins and gourds.  Our house now has pumpkins all over.  We keep them as decoration for as long as they'll last, which is usually until Spring.  Here's a sample of what our home looks like at the moment:



We have more pumpkins spread around the house.  I may have a slight addiction.  Thankfully, my hubby likes them, too. 

Mandala purse is finished

I finished the mandala purse.  Here are front & back photos.  I will have this for sale at The Majestical Roof's Art Market this Saturday.  If it doesn't sell there and/or the store doesn't take it, I'll post it on my Etsy store.

Front view, open

Front view, closed

Back view

In the view above, you can see what the lining looks like.  The whole inside is lined like the lid.

Halloween/Autumn Art Market

I'm signed up for my first craft fair in a long time.  I'm excited!  I'm almost done with the mandala purse, so that will be ready for sale.  It came out beautifully, if I do say so myself.  I'll also have the extrusion jewelry (shown on a previous post), as well as a new rainstick I'll be putting the finishing touches on this week.  Plus, I'll have a nice selection of polymer clay and gourd items -- see my Etsy store & Flicker blog (links on the right) for previews.

This market is hosted by The Majestical Roof, a great little gallery store carrying handmade stuff by local artists.  If I get enough interest in my wares, they'll carry some of them in the store!  So....Please come out and support me! 

Hope to see you there!

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

I've been keeping so busy, that I haven't gotten around to posting anything here.  I added a few Autumn-themed items to my Etsy shop, however.  I haven't gotten much further on the mandala purse, but I'm hoping to work on it this Saturday.  I made some Autumn-themed inchies for the Greater Los Angeles Polymer Clay Guild's swap.  Can't wait to see what everyone else made.

I spent last Fri-Sun in San Francisco at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  It's held in Golden Gate Park and has six stages of bluegrass and other music.  There were legendary players and new (to me) groups.  Robert Plant (here, with Patty Griffin), Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Gillian Welch, and others all put on excellent sets.  And I was happy to be introduced to DeVotchKa -- what fun music!  The weather was absolutely gorgeous all weekend (surprisingly).


All around, there were young bands of bluegrass musicians playing unofficially for whoever would listen.  I heard these three later that evening with their other band members; and, yes, that's a washtub bass the guy on the right is carrying.  It was great to see so many new bluegrass bands and so many younger people playing banjo, mandolin, violin, etc. 

 To top it all off, there was a hand-cranked penny machine with two HSB designs.  I'm a card-carrying member of The Elongated Collectors, so this was a very happy surprise for me.  One of the designs was from last year--those weren't being given out, but the operator let me squish a few of those when he saw how into squished pennies I was.  Yay!
 
By Sunday night, Carl and I were both completely exhausted.  I'm only now-on Wed-feeling somewhat rested.  It was totally worth it!