Modern Motifs of Mexican Trend

aka "My best friend went to Mexico and all I got was this tiny sombrero"*

Yes stitchy friends, here's your erstwhile blogger managing a post...although I can't feel guilty because a) so many other great bloggers regularly share stitchy goodness and b) I still don't have a scanner.

Mexico is on my mind - literally:
...As my best friend recently returned from two weeks in Mexico and brought me back a wee present. Hope I'm not scaring you with my pic!

I haven't been to see all her photos yet, and for those of you without your own sombrero (because I know you're jealous) I present "fiesta motifs for colorful touches of Mexican gaiety". You know your breakfast nook wants it.

Apparently:
"Your needle will fly along the simple sitches of these motifs of Mexican flavor. Gay up your kitchen with Mexican-inspired dish towels and pot holders. Put a variety of these designs on curtains and table linen in the breakfast nook to add charm to informal meals. Delight the bride-to-be on your gift list with hand-made guest towels, refreshment napkins, luncheon sets or dresser scarfs reflecting in these designs the happy Fiesta spirit of our South-of-the-Border neighbors."

I'm keen to see if my friend's holiday snaps include women with baskets of fruit on their heads, giant cactii, boys eating bananas, and fighting cocks (actually sounding "gay-er" by the minute...oh dear! Come back readers...please...**) But this pattern assures me that these are common South of the Border capers.

Men wearing rugs will give you flowers:

Doves, cactii and maracas abound:

But the scariest thing in Mexico are the deadly attack parrots!

Watch your fruit girls.


*only kidding Nat, I do love my pressie.
**sorry, really I am.

Source: http://stitchybritches.blogspot.com/2010/04/modern-motifs-of-mexican-trend.html

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Retro kitchen delights

For as long as I can remember I've had a real weakness for retro/vintage crockery. Left to my own devices and without thought or care for life essentials such as food, bills and rent, I could quite happily part with significant chunks of my budget on more vintage kitchen accessories than I could possibly ever hope to use in a lifetime.

I guess part of my love of pieces such as these is the sense of childhood nostalgia they evoke. The colours, patterns and images prevalent in pieces by Hornsea, Staffordshire,Denby, Turi Gramstad Oliver and the like are a tangible link to grandmothers china cabinets, fathers mugs, old storybooks. It is a style and form of artwork that must have imprinted on me at an early age, and that I still respond to with a feeling of lighthearted joy.
It is with no small measure on happiness that I can claim not to remember the last time I bought a 'new' item of crockery, and that my kitchen shelves are bursting with a mismatched assortment of flea market finds.
I plan to start experimenting with some of these design elements in a series of sketches/collages soon.

1. Ceramic pestle and mortar,2.Creamer,3.Pots,4.Owly tea,
5.Tea for 3,6.? 7. Hornsea mug collection, 8. Hornsea mugs ,9.?

Apologies for the couple I forgot to make note of....

Loads more amazing finds in this groups: http://www.flickr.com/groups/vintagehousewares/pool/
and this blog
http://hisforhomeblog.com/

Source: http://microcosmic.blogspot.com/2010/07/retro-kitchen-delights.html

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All in a row

In the mysterious shell grotto - ooooooh!
Margate - Kent

Source: http://microcosmic.blogspot.com/2007/08/all-in-row.html

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Soured by Pennsylvania's ridiculous liquor laws

By Scott Beveridge

PITTSBURGH ? Pennsylvania appeared to be stepping out of the Dark Ages when its lawmakers permitted the sale of six packs of beer at select grocery stores two years ago.

The store in Pittsburgh with some of the best brew turned out to be a Giant Eagle Market District, which stocks top shelf craft beer in its ?cafe.? The megagrocery store gets around the state?s liquor laws, though, by pretending to be a bar where customers can only purchase single serve food items prepared at its nearby food gallery. The sale of groceries, something as insignificant as a quart of milk, is not permitted in the fenced-off beer department.

Regardless, the store in Robinson Township quickly became a regular stop, a place where I could easily satisfy my odd taste for a gourmet chocolate brownie or cupcake washed down with a good India Pale Ale.

That convenience has come to an end. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and store?s management have decided a couple of cupcakes are not single serve food items. Two cupcakes have to be purchased at a different cash register in the store, the cafe clerk said Thursday.

?I have always paid for them here,? I replied.

?Not anymore,? the clerk said, while aiming her bar code reader at the six pack of Dark Horse Brewing Co. Crooked Tree IPA that I had selected. The two raspberry iced cupcakes were set aside, with instructions to pay for them around the corner at the coffee bar.

?How could they not be single serve food?? I said. ?I could easily sit down over there and polish off a half-dozen of them.?

?They?re not,? she said. ?They?re from the bakery. I cannot sell them to you.?

Now this has to sound ridiculous to those of you who live anywhere else in the union, in any number of states where beer is commonly sold in grocery and convenience stores.

Here in Pennsylvania a guy often has to walk into a dark beer garden wrenching of cigarette smoke to buy a few bottles of beer to take home to drink. And most often the selection is limited to boring six packs of Budweiser or Coors Light or 40 ouncers of Colt 45.

Or, he has to travel sometimes a good haul to a place called a distributorship, where beer is only sold by the case or keg.

So I take my IPA and two cupcakes over to the woman at the coffee bar, while working en route on those anger management skills.

That clerk took one look at me, rolled her eyes and said, ?I know. You are frustrated.?

Then she said something about her having just taken one of the store?s employee classes on selling beer and decided the rules are too complicated.

Source: http://scottbeveridge.blogspot.com/2011/04/soured-by-pennsylvanias-ridiculous.html

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Necklace makes another treasury appearance

My Caribbean Sea Blues Necklace has made another appearance on Etsy, this time in a treasury entitled Blossoms Up by Lorraine ofTrinity Designer Jewellery. Enjoy the beauty of her selections ! Be sure to follow the link to the treasury, because I still haven't figured out how to get a screen cap of all four rows of a treasury :-(

Source: http://ambrosianbeads.blogspot.com/2010/05/necklace-makes-another-treasury.html

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The sky ISN'T falling

The sky looks beautiful this morning over my little community in southwestern Pennsylvania
By Scott Beveridge


Sometime during eighth-grade in 1969 I heard students saying the world was supposed to come to an end the approaching summer.


I was a gullible 13 year old kid from a poor neighborhood when the rumor circulated at Rostraver (Pa.) Junior High School, and the story probably had something to do with the crazy musings of serial killer Charles Manson. He had predicted to his followers that Helter Skelter would begin Aug. 8, 1969, and ordered his followers to carry out the Tate-LaBianca murders that day to get the end-of-the-world ball rolling.


So after hearing the prediction in school I went home to warn my family.


"Oh don't worry about that. The sky has been falling since the beginning of time," my mother said. "The world was supposed to end when I was in high school, too, and we're still here," she added.


Thank God some of us had intelligent, rational thinking mothers. 


I say this on the day of the rapture proclaimed by a California minister, when some folks have been praying for forgiveness as a spate of earthquakes were to begin at 6 p.m. and bring with them doomsday. According to the 89-year-old prophet who started this apocalyptic nonsense, Harold Camping, nonbelievers were to survive for a few days longer to suffer any number of plagues.


Well as I write this, the Associated Press reported it's beyond 6 p.m. in New Zealand and the world isn't ending.


Thank God, too, for clever journalists.

Source: http://scottbeveridge.blogspot.com/2011/05/sky-isnt-falling.html

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Detail

Near the Tour de Hassan, Rabat Morocco

Source: http://microcosmic.blogspot.com/2008/01/detail.html

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EBW Spring Swap-Tale of Procrastination and Regret !

A couple months ago, an idea for a swap of beadwoven creations among members of the Etsy Beadweavers started to be tossed around. 12 members signed on and then the beading began. I received Laura Zeiner's name. I didn't know Laura, but she listed her preferences and said her favorite colors were earth tones...wouldn't you know, most of the bead colors in my stash are bright "jewel" tones like magenta, purple, royal blue...alot of black, gold and silver beads too. I had to search the stash for a few muted colors and thought about trying out a new beadweaving technique. I was curious about the spiral peyote stitch I had recently seen in Bead and Button and thought about creating a bracelet for her. I poured out the beads, got settled and time after time, got lost in the pattern and found myself ripping and restarting. For some reason, I couldn't wrap my brain around the directions, or the pattern just didn't present itself in the beadwork as I went. Oh, well, back to the drawing board.

After having procrastinated long enough on even starting the project, I found myself up against the deadline and feeling guilty. I tried a couple more designs, but they weren't interesting enough or shaping up properly. I had some round agate slices and one of them was in muted brown shades. I started beading around it in peyote stitch, switching bead sizes, but the edges were too wavy...more ripping ensued. Finally, the piece began to shape up, but I needed to finish and get it in the mail. I slipped it on a silver neck cable and packed it up to send, regretting that it was just a mere shadow of the project I had in mind initially. Fortunately, Laura wrote that it was beautiful and she loved it. Whew ! I hope she's not just being nice ! Please visit Laura's blog: Stick Lizard Designs and make sure to follow the link to her Etsy shop.

Today I received the swap item that was made for me by Hadass and was thrilled that she used my favorite color, magenta and that it fit perfectly. She added pearls which I never use, so I'm pleased to have some to wear. Please visit her blog: Spring Colors and make sure to check out her Etsy shop.

Thanks to Christine of Christine's Beadworks for keeping us all in the loop ! Please stop by her blog and see the beautiful mosaic of all the beadwoven creations made for the swap.

Source: http://ambrosianbeads.blogspot.com/2010/04/ebw-spring-swap-tale-of-procrastination.html

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Metropolis Necklace-Etsy Beadweavers Challenge

This month's Etsy Beadweavers challenge theme, Fashion Through the Ages , struck a chord with me because I had a pattern developed that fit perfectly with the Art Deco style of design. I created the triangular portion of my Metropolis Necklace using the pattern I made with my BeadTool design program and stitched it in herringbone using 4 beads at a time. Then I worked upward in brick stitch to a decent choker width of 1/2" and finished out the rest of the choker in peyote. I had fun looking through my vintage button collection and found the perfect button to complement the Art Deco design. Of course, I finished it all last minute and could only get some basic photos done. Next time, no procrastinating (yeah right) ! You can check out all the amazing entries from our beadweaving team now and vote on March 8th.

Source: http://ambrosianbeads.blogspot.com/2011/03/metropolis-necklace-etsy-beadweavers.html

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A Handmade Day

Leather bindings. Hazelnut coffee. Watching puppies nap. Painting anything that will sit still with gesso.

Source: http://howtomakeart.blogspot.com/2011/01/handmade-day.html

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It's Getting Hot!

relax, baby, originally uploaded by howtouseart.

silkscreen, spray paint, pastel, charcoal, and acrylic
18" x 22"

Yeah, I think summer is officially here in Florida... As soon as you step outside, you get covered in an icky film of sweat and humidity. So that is why I'm staying INside and doing lots of painting! This is one from a few months ago, plenty of new ones to show you too, but of course I gotta take some pictures first...

I'm super excited because in a few weeks I am off to Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. I am taking the "Print and Clay Buffet" class and learning how to make images onto pottery - yay! So exicted...and lucky because I got a scholarship to take the class. :)
I will keep you guys posted on how it goes and will definitely want to show you what I make!

Source: http://howtomakeart.blogspot.com/2010/05/it-getting-hot.html

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Carefree

According to a new government census India's tiger population has fallen drastically during the past five years, with poaching and urbanisation cited as the probable reasons for the decline.

Tigers are poached for their body parts - skins are prized for fashion and tiger bones are used for oriental medicines. India is home to 40% of the world's tigers, with 23 tiger reserves in 17 states.

Source: http://microcosmic.blogspot.com/2007/08/carefree.html

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Soured by Pennsylvania's ridiculous liquor laws

By Scott Beveridge

PITTSBURGH ? Pennsylvania appeared to be stepping out of the Dark Ages when its lawmakers permitted the sale of six packs of beer at select grocery stores two years ago.

The store in Pittsburgh with some of the best brew turned out to be a Giant Eagle Market District, which stocks top shelf craft beer in its ?cafe.? The megagrocery store gets around the state?s liquor laws, though, by pretending to be a bar where customers can only purchase single serve food items prepared at its nearby food gallery. The sale of groceries, something as insignificant as a quart of milk, is not permitted in the fenced-off beer department.

Regardless, the store in Robinson Township quickly became a regular stop, a place where I could easily satisfy my odd taste for a gourmet chocolate brownie or cupcake washed down with a good India Pale Ale.

That convenience has come to an end. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and store?s management have decided a couple of cupcakes are not single serve food items. Two cupcakes have to be purchased at a different cash register in the store, the cafe clerk said Thursday.

?I have always paid for them here,? I replied.

?Not anymore,? the clerk said, while aiming her bar code reader at the six pack of Dark Horse Brewing Co. Crooked Tree IPA that I had selected. The two raspberry iced cupcakes were set aside, with instructions to pay for them around the corner at the coffee bar.

?How could they not be single serve food?? I said. ?I could easily sit down over there and polish off a half-dozen of them.?

?They?re not,? she said. ?They?re from the bakery. I cannot sell them to you.?

Now this has to sound ridiculous to those of you who live anywhere else in the union, in any number of states where beer is commonly sold in grocery and convenience stores.

Here in Pennsylvania a guy often has to walk into a dark beer garden wrenching of cigarette smoke to buy a few bottles of beer to take home to drink. And most often the selection is limited to boring six packs of Budweiser or Coors Light or 40 ouncers of Colt 45.

Or, he has to travel sometimes a good haul to a place called a distributorship, where beer is only sold by the case or keg.

So I take my IPA and two cupcakes over to the woman at the coffee bar, while working en route on those anger management skills.

That clerk took one look at me, rolled her eyes and said, ?I know. You are frustrated.?

Then she said something about her having just taken one of the store?s employee classes on selling beer and decided the rules are too complicated.

Source: http://scottbeveridge.blogspot.com/2011/04/soured-by-pennsylvanias-ridiculous.html

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Jumping in with Both Feet

Remember that big dream that I was hoping would come true in the last post? Well, it looks like it IS going to come true after all - hooray!!

I am very excited to tell you that I will be taking a workshop with my #1 favorite artist/author, Sabrina Ward Harrison, this May in Prince Edward Island! I can't wait!! Just a few days ago, I was making my Mondo Beyondo list, and one of the items was, "Take a Class with/Meet Sabrina Ward Harrison." Two days later, I was browsing through my Google Reader, and I saw a post from Papaya's blog that talked about an upcoming workshop Sabrina is teaching! I thought, "This was meant to be," and I decided to jump in with both feet and sign up right away.

I think I first found Sabrina's books when I was a senior in high school. At that time, Spilling Open was the only one out, and I don't remember how I stumbled upon it, but once I saw it, I knew it would be an instant favorite. Sabrina's art and honest deep-down-digging writing was unlike anything I'd ever seen in print form, and it was super inspiring. It also made my own art journals feel a little more validated, making them more of a priority in my life. I eagerly awaited the publications of her next three books, loving each one of them very much. I am so excited to be taking a class with her and can't wait to share photos and stories with you about the trip... May can't come soon enough!!

I feel like I have been doing a lot of this "jumping in with two feet" thing lately. At the beginning of the new year, one of my goals was to focus more on my art and my Etsy shop, so I decided to take two days off of work a week to work on those goals. To be honest, right now it is not paying off financially, but I hope that with time and with persistence, I will find that I made the right choice. If not, I can always go back to full time at work, but I hope it doesn't come to that. The good thing is, I am SO much more happy now that I am working at my day job less, and that has to be worth something even if the Etsy sales aren't quite there yet.

Speaking of Etsy, I will be posting new goodies throughout the day today, so be sure to take a peek at the shop... lots of new clothes, including the buffalo t-shirt below:

Source: http://howtomakeart.blogspot.com/2011/01/jumping-in-with-both-feet.html

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Chaos and Insects

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

E.O. Wilson

Source: http://microcosmic.blogspot.com/2007/08/chaos-and-insects.html

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The Fox Girl, A Handmade Book

Go on a tour of the pages inside:


Listed in my brand new shop here!

Source: http://howtomakeart.blogspot.com/2011/02/fox-girl-handmade-book.html

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EBW 2011 Spring Swap

EBW 2011 Spring Swap, originally uploaded by ambrosianbeads.

This year's Spring Swap was much more of a success for me. I've been feeling more creative and having a goal has been good to get me more motivated. This year, my "swappee" was Callie Mitchell aka Peregrine Beader on Etsy. We can request that the "swapper" make something using a stitch that we don't usually use, so she requested bead embroidery. That was perfect for me, because I wanted to use some metal bracelet blanks I had and try covering them with bead embroidery. Her colors were reds, browns and golds. I had enough beads in these colors to get started, so I measured out a piece of Lacy's stiff stuff to fit the metal blank with about 1/4" extra all around. Later I ran into trouble when the fabric started to pull up too much and came out too short to use the metal blank. Oh, well, I decided to abandon using that and after finishing the embroidery, I covered the back with a piece of tan suede. I stitched up a loop and added a button, and I had essentially the same style bracelet but with more flexibility. I got a message from Callie that she loves it...yay !

Shortly before the deadline of the EBW swap, I received a package in the mail from Charlene Abrams aka More than Somewhat on Etsy. I was thrilled to receive such a lovely necklace made in my favorite colors, midnight blues, purple, magenta and using RAW which is a stitch that I failed to master and can only appreciate. Also, this necklace matches a pair of earrings I made several years ago that have always felt lonely, now they make a nice set. Thanks, Charlene !!!
See the other swap creations

Source: http://ambrosianbeads.blogspot.com/2011/05/ebw-2011-spring-swap.html

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Commercials, lately - how gross can you get?

By Denise Hart

I admit, I?m just back in the swim of the commercial sea, after having been too poor and too proud to have cable for the past six years.

I was shocked at how easily I fell into the reality TV pit - I?m finding that there is practically no show too stupid or banal to mesmerize me:  Real Housewives of Virtually Any Town, ?Hoarders? (although I could not watch the one where the guy bred the pet rats and there were literally thousands in the house), ?Top Chef? (kind of an upper echelon reality, so there!), even, God help me, those Bethenny shows where it?s really just one long episodic swilling of her low-cal tequila cocktail mix.

What can I say - I love her baby?s Dominican nanny, Gina - Gina is sick. 

I choose to watch those silly shows - I find them funny and �ber relaxing.

OK, almost coma-inducing.  But the commercials are so disgusting I can hardly sit them out.  The worst offenders, for me, are the toilet paper and floor-wipe categories.

I?ve never liked the commercials where the bears poop in the woods and leave their used (though amazingly soft!) toilet paper behind. Although I see recently they?ve been upgraded to a house.

Somehow, the new toilet paper issue has become the pieces of lint from the paper that might stick to your ass after wiping.  I?ve never had that particular problem.  I?ve almost always lived in an old house with bad plumbing that could barely handle paper at all.

So it?s always been slick paper Scott for me?no lint, no butthole mess.

But now, we?ve got to look at the baby bear?s bum when he comes out of the bathroom.  Yep, lint and pieces of paper all over it.  Gah!

There?s another t.p. product where (although I wouldn?t swear to this) there are some middle class women having tea and this issue comes up.  The tagline is ?Enjoy the Go.?  Gag.

The floor-wipe commercials are not the only ones guilty of this putrid sell move: close-ups of dirt and microbes that they wipe up from our floors.

Toothpaste and mouthwashes use this tool, too; but somehow the floor-wipe ones get to me more.

I don?t mind the microbes so much, actually, because they?re more like little cartoons.

But the dirt and hair and lint shots, to quote Roseanne Roseannadanna, ?Mek me SICK!?  (I just realized hardly anyone recalls Ms. Roseannadanna anymore.  In addition to having a sensitive gag reflex, I?m getting old.)

There are cuter ones now, showing dirt and mud characters all dolled up waiting for a date only to connect with the soft attractions of the floor-wipe, but damned if they don?t show the close-up dirt shots too.  For some reason, the same one that makes me incapable of emptying the sink drainer thing myself (that?s Paul?s job), this kind of thing makes me want to hurl.

Oh, there are other puke-inducing ads out there.

One is a cartoon of babies trying to get their diapers full?the fullest one wins.

And silly ones?the one advertising bikini razors that has women striding by differently shaped bushes makes me laugh.

I am aware that I really need to turn off the sound or walk away?but I?m often in some Bravo induced state of watching.

Watching.

Watching.

Watching other people live their lives.

Watching these damn commercials.

Somebody throw me a line!  I need help, I think.

(Denise Hart is a writer in Minnesota.)

Source: http://scottbeveridge.blogspot.com/2011/05/commercials-lately-how-gross-can-you.html

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