Hoot owls--new colors

Here's my latest batch...I've been working on my owl pins and pendants in dark reds, browns, purples, and grays. I especially love the brown and gray ones.

Ok so it has been pointed out that I am a bit obsessive about the owls--I keep cutting more and more of them. I think I've made at least a hundred at this point, in various colors. I think I just want to try every possible color combination, and keep working on them while I'm on a roll. They're fairly quick and easy as far as projects go. I do  have a craft fair coming up in two weeks though and I should get to work on other items soon...

More exciting news--now at VisArts Too!

As of last week, my crafty items will now be sold at VisArts Too! in Rockville Town Square. The VisArts space is really cool, I explored a little bit while I was dropping off my artwork. It's a brand-new space filled with lots of light and fabulous art! VisArts Too! is the retail store on the round floor. Upstairs, they have great studios, and you can walk around, explore, and ask the resident artists questions.

The shared studio of a group of 8 fiber artists upstairs was particularly interesting...they had great woven, dyed, and printed fabric pieces of all kinds. Definitely inspired me to go to December's meeting of the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild. My friend Krista went last month and had great things to say. I've been meaning to go for some time, and at the December meeting they're having their annual sale/auction/brunch so it should be fun!

This all came about because I went to Strathmore's Museum Shop Around this year and fell in love with pretty much everything at the VisArts booth! I bought a few things, including a gorgeous floral ceramic tray for my parents, made by Wandering Trail Ceramics.

Anyway, some of the items I have at the VisArts Too! shop are my handwoven chenille scarves, owl pins, felt tags, leaf coasters, flower barrettes, and felt purses. So if you're in the Rockville area, go check it out!

Cleaning & reminiscing

I'm doing a lot of cleaning this week (yeah, trying to cram the last 3 years' worth of cleaning I should have done into a month). Today's cleaning project was the hall bookshelf, which turned out to be composed of:

40% fancy decorative papers and origami paper
30% blank sketchpads, bristol board, watercolor blocks, etc.
10% folders of inspiration and art projects/instructions from years ago
10% magazines and catalogs
5% games (so that's where the Mad Libs were hiding!)
5% stickers and stationery

Among the folders of old art projects, I found a folder from my Fibers I class in college (embroidery, beading, felting). This was a fantastic class--I got college credit for the kinds of craft projects I was already doing! Here's a picture of my embroidery stitch sampler from that class.

Yeah--check out those awesome French knots!  It definitely made me want to use more of a variety of stitches in upcoming projects. I think I could work a few of these into a felt purse.

Here's my finished embroidery project from the class, which I think sufficiently demonstrates my love of satin stitch. :)