holiday...

the carmona's house

Solstice came and went with blustery wind and a little snow. At the dinner table our family lit a candle to celebrate and Lili requested we give a cheers to the light returning so we all raised our sippy cups and beer bottles to this special occasion. 

Our Seed & Sky orders have tapered off and my father and Amy arrived for the holidays yesterday. My mom and Paul are coming this evening. They are all house sitting for the Carmonas which is so easy and perfect (Thanks Carmonas!). My sister is also due to have her baby sometime in the next 3 weeks too. Exciting times here! I hope wherever you are you are feeling loved and cozy. xxx

my dad. 

snowflakes

Have I told you how much I love making snowflakes?

The past couple of years I have been using coffee filters to make snowflakes. They work well because they are ready to go and they are such a light paper so they are easy to fold and cut.  Alex discovered that you can use hole punches to make neat dots in them too. The decorative scissors are hard to use on the coffee filters, but an adult can do it.

When you are making snowflakes with little ones they need so much assistance it is almost impossible to make your own, so I took a bit of Seo's nap-time the other day to revel in making my own. I just love making snowflakes. 

dear santa...

I have mixed feelings about the notion of Santa Claus. I have sweet memories of Christmas and Santa, and I wasn't personally scarred when I found out Santa wan't "real". As a parent I am one part giddy about the magic of it all and the twinkle in the eyes, and one part uneasy with not telling the truth and the consumerism aspect of Santa. It is all so much.

And yet, while my adult mind is feeling muddled and fretful about how best to instill what I think is important about this time of year, my children are excited. So excited. Seo is in LOVE with the tree and Lili is in awe about the reindeer and the mystery of it all. And they are joyful at making cookies, and snowflakes, and presents for others. Whenever I find myself complicating it I try to let it go and see it through their eyes. 

DEAR SAMTA,

*BOOSTER (as in a big kid booster car-seat)
LIPSTiCK (preferably purple)
BARBiE
ORANGE (yes, the kind you eat)

half heart, half heart, half heart (she said she doesn't know how to draw a full heart yet)
iiLKOi" (Lilikoi)

When she is older I hope I have the grace to explain Santa eloquently like this: http://www.cozi.com/live-simply/truth-about-santa

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~Wendell Berry

random...

 Some random photos to share...

At the Indie Craft Experiece (ICE) show in downtown Atlanta they had us park in a parking lot near the show. This is what we parked next to!

 At my friend Devon's wedding: The first time I have seen Alex in a suit.

 Our car turned 200,000 miles!!!

 Waiting in line for our Thanksgiving turkey. It was grown by our friends at the Which Came First Farm:

I am sure there are a lot more randoms, but that is enough for today ;) 

my show

Alex and I hung my show at Ananda Hair Salon on Tuesday night. The space at Ananda is huge with beautiful wood floors and a long 44' wall and several smaller walls to hang work on. It took us 5 hours to hang my show, and we were both delirious when we finally turned off the lights at 1:30am.

My show consists of 20 of my original paintings. It felt so good to see them all together. My art studio is only 7.5'x7.5' so I never get to see my work all spread out with room to breathe. They had asked me if I wanted to have an art opening a few weeks ago... and at the time it felt way too overwhelming to consider it and I said no. Now that my show is up I feel a bit sad about it. It all looks so good together and I don't know if anybody I know will get a chance to see all of my new work. At the very least it was good practice for future shows!

 Life has been so full I haven't shown anyone my new work... I love this one. 

 Some more new work...

 And one of the biggest paintings I have ever done at 4'x5'. I got the canvas for free because it was all wonky. I always have disliked the give and bounce of painting on canvas, but for some reason I enjoyed painting on it for this one...

 This one doesn't match the majority of my work right now as well, so I hung it in the back near the shampoo area. It looked really nice all on it's own.

 If you live in Asheville stop by and check it out! 

whew.

Our Big Crafty Booth 2012

So much of a whirlwind these past few weeks! The short list:

*A weekend show in Atlanta (Indie Craft Experience.)

* A visit from Alex's Dad Gramps ♥

* Thanksgiving. 

* The Big Crafty Show in Asheville.
* Making, making, making.

* Packing, packing, packing our Etsy orders. :)

* Hanging my art show at Ananda Salon (more on this later!)

* And today : A long awaited family day of going out to lunch and getting our tree! 

short hair & our cyber Monday sale!

The littlest one hates - and I mean HATES- having his hair cut. The last time we gave him a haircut  it ended with Alex holding him down while I desperately tried to not cut his ear off with the scissors, him screaming his head off the whole time. Terrible...
So we decided to give the electric hair trimmer a shot yesterday. I wouldn't call the experience a breeze, but it was certainly less traumatic (for him)  than with scissors. I will admit however, that I am a tad bit traumatized with the baby of our family looking so much older, but I will adjust.

Just look at those to-die-for highlights.... *sigh*

At least his still has his sweet baby fur on his shoulders and arms... ♥

 Also, I forgot to tell you about our Black Friday / Small Business Saturday / Cyber Monday Sale happening RIGHT NOW! Our Holiday 20% off sale ends tomorrow night~ so if you are thinking about getting a Seed & Sky gift this season, now is the time!

xxx
Kelcey

It's a skunk!

Skunk Art for Seed & Sky Jewelry. Skunk Jewelry

bee art

Honey Bee art Design for Seed & Sky Jewelry

I made two new designs for Seed & Sky this past week. This little honey bee is one of them. I have a lot of friends who care for bees~ and I hope to someday join the ranks of beekeepers... but for now I will have to settle for bee artwork. :)
There is so much to love about bees, and this one goes out to all those bee lovers out there. I am all set up to work on turning it into some jewelry this evening! If you aren't already, make sure to join our facebook page to keep up to date when new designs are released in my shop!
Also, stay tuned for my other new design tomorrow. I will give you 3 hints as to what it is:

1. It is the primary primary predator of the honeybee.
2. They are also known as American Polecats.
3. They have terrible eyesight but excellent hearing.

Can you guess what it is? 

my sister's baby shower

Alex made carrot cake cupcakes (or pupcakes as Lil calls them no matter how many times we tell her they are called Cupcakes) with the BEST cream cheese frosting. I made little flags out of toothpicks and washi tape for them~ super easy and cute!

 Everyone brought favorite books for the new baby's library. A lot of great classic children's books from the 70's and 80's showed up. :)

 Kristi made rosemary infused lemonade. 

 Scones, tea sandwiches, and soups (roasted squash and sweet potato & cream of cauliflower.) Those pink and red flowers are the very last stragglers from my garden. I had purchase the yellow ones to supplement them. I am going to miss our fresh flowers so!

It couldn't have been a prettier day here in western North Carolina. The baby shower went really well much to my relief. Throwing or hosting parties is not my strong suit, so thankfully our friends Kristi & Jeff and Alex were able to help co-host it and make it fun, super tasty, and extra pretty. My sister and Dave are really humble and shy about people focusing too much on them, so it was fun to have a reason to celebrate them and their new life. It would be impossible to explain how thrilled and excited I am for my new little niece to arrive at the end of this year!

little bird nest

 Little Bird Nest

Kelcey Loomer

6" x 6"

paper, acrylic, pen, glue, mica

The kids and I celebrating our friend Lucas with a picnic next to where his ashes are. It had been too long... ♥

all that we are

Kelcey Loomer

All That We Are

6" x 6" 

2012

I saw the most amazing shooting star a few nights ago. It was low, bright, and had a long tail that sparked like a sparkler as is fizzled into the night. It was so magical. I have been feeling extra grateful for all that we have this week, and my heart goes out to all those effected by the hurricane in the Northeast.  (((hugs)))

plaster!

We moved in to our home in December of 2006 when it was too cold to plaster the exterior (You can't plaster in extreme cold or extreme heat). So we stapled house-wrap on the exterior and vowed we would do it first thing in the spring. umm.... welll, that didn't happen. And didn't happen that next fall because we were busy having our first baby. Anddddddddd it didn't happen the next spring, and so on...

In previous years during high winds like we are having tonight the house-wrap would break off and flap in the wind. It would tap against the window and scare me. So this fall it feels good knowing things are tight and secure and even more importantly, we knocked one more thing off our mile long to-do-list.

shift

This morning Seo was running around outside with only in his pj bottoms on, his toddler belly hanging out. We had all the windows wide open as we rearranged our house into "winter mode", pulling the furniture away from the wood-stove in anticipation of the cold snap that was due.
Then midday the shift happened. Rain and cold erased the cheerfulness of the morning weather. At dusk a white full moon rose over the half barren trees, and mountaintops, and the sky was crisp and windy from the hurricane churning off the coast.
We lit the first fire of the season right on cue tonight. And I sat in front of it thinking about my family and friends that will be in the path of the storm. Thankfully, there is something soothing and peaceful about a woodstove. 

reflections of the leaf festival

We are recovering from two weekend shows back to back. Both were located at Lake Eden- a gorgeous location to be. The fall colors were so pretty reflected on the lake.

 The view looking out from our vendor booth.

 Big puppets marching by in the parade!

 Our kids (and their little friends) watching the parade.

 A peek at our organized stock behind the display. 

 We camped (that's our tent with the maroon top) right behind our vendor booth. All weekend long family and friends came by to visit around the fire bowl. 

 And we all kept warm by the fire at night and made s'mores.

On Saturday night the boys drove home to sleep and Lili and I camped out. We stayed up dancing and watching the fire show way past her bedtime. We took a long walk to look at the stars and take silly photos of ourselves. We cuddled to keep warm in our sleepbags... It was such a treat to get some quality one on one time with my girl!

In the morning we watched the steam rise off the lake and drank hot drinks to stay warm (coffee for me, hot coco for the Lil). 

We were all dirty, exhausted, and overstimulated by the time we packed up all of our camping stuff & all of our art stuff and drove home on Sunday. We met some wonderful people, heard some great music (mostly from our booth while we worked, but it still sounded great!)  The Be Good Tanyas, Tinariwen (what a treat), The Mickey Hart Band, to name just a few. We reveled in the vendor comradeship that happens at a longer show...

It will be a few weeks before we open up our vendor display, whew!