Portrait wall improvement

Justin and I have been living in our home for nearly two years now. That seems unbelievable. We still have the light fixtures that I promised would be "the first things to go".

When we first moved in, we filled up the most massive green wall in our living room with every portrait we owned, stood back and enjoyed it. Some were framed, some pinned, they were irregularly hung but we had more pressing projects to tackle (like eliminating all the tan paint).

We are very slow decorators and home improvers so we left the portrait wall in it's original state. I am so glad that I finally added shelves and neon orange hardware because it makes the whole room look more orderly! The living room is going through a major change and I'm optimistic that it will be pretty neat. I am inheriting a family piano and have just cleared space for that and we agreed to get rid of our television and set up a projector! My big fantasy right now is to use the piano and projector to have a silent movie party with live accompaniment. I have a flapper dress that needs to be seen.

Halfway up the mountain!

With Twist behind me and all my Craftland goodies shipped, I'm rationing my remaining energy to sustain me through two more fairs. Bazaar Bizarre Boston is right around the corner and Mass Market (also in Boston) follows shortly after.

I have plenty of inventory and my display all set but I'm a little disappointed in myself for not introducing as many new products as I'd planned. There are a couple new card designs but I didn't set up my studio in our new place quickly enough to be truly efficient. With just three work days left before Bazaar Bizarre, I'm trying to decide which of my many new design concepts will be realized in time for the show. I've got a dusty chinchilla print, some pinback buttons, tea sipping camels and a cat in a paper bag to choose from.

I'm also trying very hard to not let the new home suck up too much of my attention this month. I'd like to be able to put everything on hold and take a week to hang art, sew pillowcovers, decorate for the holidays and go thrifting for furniture. I must remind myself that the home isn't going anywhere and it isn't a priority during the hectic holiday season. And yet... I have to show you these acts (above photos) of wintry window embellishing I committed last night while over-caffeinated from chai-nog.

Well, I must get going on tonight's print sleeve-ing process. I'm glad I can do that task on the couch in front of a movie because I'm really in the mood to watch Die Hard (at least one of them).

I forgot to mention these:

Last week I was overindulging in a fantasy about home ownership and pining away for one particular 1920s cottage for sale in our neighborhood. I was browsing the listing photos online and imagining my stuff in it's rooms and my garden in it's yard and especially my relaxed self in it's claw-footed bathtub. I dove so deeply into this dream that I began wondering what the neighbors would think of us when we moved in. I sketched a friendly little note to them and pictured myself putting it in their mailbox and them being utterly charmed by my neighborly-ness.

Sadly, I don't reasonably see Justin and I having the opportunity to buy our first home for quite awhile but that didn't stop me from printing the cards up anyway. For maximum sweetness, I was given permission to model the houses after Jessica from Petite House's little sculptures.

Home again.

I'm still in Connecticut visiting my family. Justin and I had a really nice Christmas that didn't leave us completely exhausted for once.

I'm spending the rest of my week here cleaning out my old bedroom and my parent's basement. So far, it feels more like an archeological dig than real cleaning. I found a huge box of photos I'd forgotten about and my mom found some old 8mm film and set up her projector for a show. The process is slow because we are reminiscing so much and quite challenging due to sentimentality. I am running up against my desire to save my special old stuffed animals and costume jewelry.

This trip also has me experiencing something I haven't felt in years. Boredom. I deliberately chose to not bring any art projects to work on while I was here so I could have a break, but my parents go to bed so early that I've taken up puttering softly around their house for entertainment.

I miss making stuff. I'll probably make an emergency run to the craft store tomorrow.

The fine little wood house above is made by Somethings Hiding in Here.

Latke Coma

I made a latke-inspired dinner last night and added parsnips and sweet potato shavings to the traditional potato mix. I also baked apples and made my very own applesauce as an accompaniment. It was so good that I completely overindulged and fell soundly asleep on the couch at 8:30 while trying to watch a movie leaving a huge mess in the kitchen. I also never got around to cleaning up after all my printing earlier in the day. My home is a disaster and to tell the truth, I still haven't completely recuperated from the chaos that surrounded preparing for the Bazaar Bizarre (shown above).

I have made myself an energetic mix of music and I'm going to wrap my hair in a bandanna and scrub until my place sparkles. This is the first step of my process of making my home a more efficient studio. If my home is to be my new workspace, I need to treat it as well as I would if I had a boss watching over me. You know I'm serious about this because I asked for a filing cabinet for Christmas!

My fancy wall

I noticed quite a few of my favorite bloggers have been showing peeks of their own homes and displays of their favorite possessions. I really like seeing the homes of artists because they are often very thoughtful spaces filled with unexpected treasures.

It is amazing to me how much my home is my mirror reflection. When I'm feeling happy; my home is bright and clean. When I'm feeling moody or stressed; I tear the place apart. Justin just sort of goes with the flow. Our home is in a pretty constant state of change. It gets messy then clean and I'm often rearranging everything. Our apartment now is quite small and the three rooms have very obvious roles but when we lived in a bigger place; I was constantly switching the bedroom, office, living room and studio locations.

I thought I'd share a few images of a wall in our home that displays an ever-growing art collection. The wall is devoted to our small artworks (primarily prints). They are arranged in a semi-orderly blob that builds in an organic formation as we accumulate more art. I think we are beginning to run out of room though.

Pictures of our wall with notes over each print crediting the artists can be found here and here.