I'm addicted to dyeing...

This is the rainbow of ribbons that is drying on my kitchen counter this morning.  You should FEEL them...the tactile experience is awesome & the colors are spectacular.  I'm an addict.  This is almost an entire 100 yard bolt of white ribbon, dyed up last night & into the wee hours of the morning.

As soon as I figure out some color combos...and dye some more, of course, they will be up for sale in my Etsy shop, KittenCreates.  Hop on over sometime...help support my habit if you can!  I'll send lots of love with my ribbons, too.

A gift for St. Patrick's Day...

And what a fine gift it is, indeed!  A bit of natural green, embellished with shades of lavender & yellow...a welcome sight for sure to give me hope that SPRING will be here soon.  It's even 67 & sunny today...but the air is still a bit too chilly for me.  I can't wait for balmy breezes...even if they no longer come to me off the Pacific Ocean.

These crocus bloom quite faithfully each March...over the years they have naturalized throughout the front lawn of this house. I remember the first year they came up all over the lawn...the summer before, my Dad had planted a new lawn & in tilling the soil, he had chopped up Mom's crocus bulbs with the tiller...so we didn't know if we'd even have crocus the folowing spring. They used to be in a circle in the middle of the yard...I'm not sure why, but they were. Much better scattered casually across the entire lawn, I think.

Until next time...enjoy these crocus that have grown into a free form heart...Springtime Love!



It's beginning to look a lot like Easter!

Well, even with the heavy snow that got dumped on us yesterday, I'm trying to think SPRING around here.  I used to decorate like crazy for Easter, but now I've edited my collection down & I'm selling the rest over in my Etsy Shop.  I've listed just a few things to get started.

This adorable little musical bunny is one I made back in 1983...when I did a lot of sewing of pretty little things.  My creative style has changed, but I have to admit, this bunny is still terribly cute.  She's all handcrafted & has a wind-up music box that plays a bit of "Easter Parade".  She's wearing her Easter bonnet in the spirit of the music & of her favorite springtime holiday.

Her little friend is in need of a new home, too.  Created around the same time in the early 1980s, he's good & plump & just too cute. 

Then over in my jewelry category, I recently created this bracelet full of hand painted floral eggs.  The eggs are wooden & make a delightful soft noise as you move your wrist. 

Then because it's just too early to start dyeing eggs, I've been busy dyeing ribbons.  And tags.  Oh my!  This is just one of a collection that's also available in my Etsy Shop, KittenCreates.  They're the same ribbons that I love to use to add a special touch to gifts, and people who have received some tell me it's great stuff.  I know I love the colors & crinkled texture of these ribbons & I hope you will, too.

Now all I have to do is wait for Spring to really arrive here in NE Ohio...this snow is starting to melt, but that doesn't mean it will be our last...after all, Clevetown is where your baseball home opener can be called on account of SNOW...in APRIL! 

I'm hoping for the snow to be over once this stuff melts...when it melted recently, I could see the crocus & narcissus starting to poke their little green shoots out of the ground.  Spring...I can't wait!

Swapping with my Red Lead Art Sisters...

After a bit of a hiatus from art swaps, I needed to get back into the swing of things & the "Welcome to my Cottage" swap sponsored by the girls at Red Lead Paperworks was simply irresistable. 

Each Swap Sister is taking 3 of these chipboard cottages & altering & embellishing them to create artsy bits of springtime beauty.  Since SPRING cannot come soon enough for me, this was just the thing to have me really thinking of warmer days & nature springing back to life after the all too long & bleak doldrums of winter.  Winter in NE Ohio lasts for half of the year...and one day of it is too much for me!

My favorite of the cottages I created is the "let yourself fly" one above.  We feed the birds here all winter long, but soon there will be even more of them around & the dogwood in our backyard will begin to bloom.  It truly is one of the most beautiful sights after a dead winter.

My other 2 little cottages are shown below.  They will all be mailed in to the Red Lead Swap Sisters & I'll receive 3 cottages from others in return...along with a vintage paper pack as a gift for playing.  You can't beat that. You should play with us sometime...the Yahoo group can be found by clicking on the button at the top of my sidebar.  Sign up for the weekly newsletter, too...all sorts of great ideas & often a contest to enter to win a fabulous goodie bag.  From the shop home page, just click Mailing List & you can sign up.  

Counting the days until SPRING...we've been teased with some warmer weather & snow melting, but that ugly snow stuff came back over the weekend...we've had snow as late as April here...which is a cruel, cruel joke by Mother Nature!  Let's hope that groundhog was right & it's an early spring. 

I swapped with a Texas Cowgirl...

This is the mini fabric collage I created for my swap partner, Nancy.  Nancy lives in Texas...near Austin...and is a member of The Paper Cowgirls.  So after reading her blog & getting to know her favorite colors & all through a bunch of emails, I decided I'd use this image of me back around 1956 or so...all dressed up as a cowgirl.  Well, almost all dressed up as a cowgirl...I never did get the cowgirl boots, so Mary Janes it was.  I always wanted to be a cowgirl...or an artist...but being a cowgirl was my secret dream.  Don't you LOVE that I was allowed to play with a rope to lasso critters?  Gotta love the 1950s in suburbia.

I got my love for cowgirls & cowboys from hours spent watching Westerns on TV with my Grandma.  She lived with us and I adored her.  Now the story goes that she had a record player in her room & that I would spend hours dancing in front of her full length mirror singing along to "The Yellow Rose of Texas".   When Phil & I moved to Dallas, he came home one of our first days there with a yellow rose for me.  I guess for 2 years I was a Yellow Rose of Texas at last.

So Nancy's collage has fabrics from the 1970s or 80s in pink & turquoise...two of her very favorite colors.  There's a row of yellow roses, of course...and lots of buttons to frame the image.  I decided to add the hanger so she could display her piece right away if she wanted to.

And this is the back of her collage.  Nancy also loves red as an accent to turquoise & pink...and I had just enough of the pink & red fabric to make a little quilted heart & add a heart charm.  There is a thin batting sandwiched inside the front & back of the collage, so it's almost like a little quilt.

Nancy has a wonderful blog called My Crafty Little Page.  You should visit her when you have some time.  She also posted the wonderful fabric collage she gifted to me here in her "California Girl" post.  It's a great piece of bright Hippie, Dia de los Muertos & CA artwork that hangs in my studio, right across from my work surface so I can see it as I create.  Thanks again, Nancy...I adore my collage!

Of course, in the spirit of "rules were made to be broken", I also made Nancy a little necklace with another of her favorite things...a bluebird.

Had to wrap it in a little matchbox giftbox, too...just because I could.

Thanks to Linda for her excellent idea to swap mini fabric collages & for organizing another great Swap for All Seasons...be sure to check out that blog to see links to other fabulous collages created for lots of happy swappers.  I can't wait for the Spring swap...it gets announced on March 20...the first day of SPRING!!!  

Happy Valentine's Day !

With LOVE to all on this Valentine's Day.  I hope your day is special...and don't forget to hug your furry 4-legged friends, too. 

Crying into their Terrible Towels...

OK...so we weren't crying...don't even like Pittsburgh here in Clevetown...but The Super Bowl is a good reason to party with fun little appetizer type foods.  And it turned out to be a good game.  And it's a lot less stressful when you really don't care who wins.

But this post isn't really about football at all.  This post is about the yummy little morsels pictured above.  I took a pic immediately out of the oven because soon there would be little evidence these even existed.

EVIDENCE:  Bacon Wrapped Jalapeño Thingies, courtesy of the recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

So my fingers burned for the entire game because while jalapeños usually don't bother me, there were some powerfully hot & stubborn veins in these.  It was worth the pain, however...as the end result was soooooooooooooo good. 

I suffer for my art & my food!

The game is over...The Green Bay Packers won...and all of these little yummies are now just a fond memory.  We also had some great chicken wings with Panda Express Orange Chicken sauce glazing them...thank you for the sauce, Kimber!  Oh and beer...gotta have BEER!  But the little bacon wrapped cream cheezy bits of peppery goodness were definitely the star of the show.  The good news is that there are jalapeños, bacon & cream cheese left in the fridge...as well as some uncooked wings...so we can have another evening of grazing soon. 

My sympathies to my on-line friends Bev & Joy...Steeler fans for sure.  Y'all will get over it...and it could be worse...your hometown team could be the Cleveland Clowns...or Browns...nope...definitely Clowns!