"working" at The Big Crafty.

booth display improvements

Our booth display discussion last week culminated on July 4th as our family wandered around target looking for paper doilies or something else that would fit the idea I had in my head for displaying our designs. It was 8:30 at night, pouring rain, and we were biding time to see if the firework display would actually happen because the kids reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally wanted to see fireworks. Target is not the place to buy paper doilies if you were curious, but I found these melamine plates that with a bit of altering fit my vision perfectly. We flipped them around, drilled two holes at the top, and spray-painted them with white spray paint (the kind formulated for plastic.)

When they were dry I mounted my round prints in the center circle and pinned the plate up, and lastly I draped a necklace featuring the same design from the pins. I was really happy with the results. Here is how it looked at The Big Crafty this past weekend:

The Big Crafty was super fun as always. Thank you to everyone who came out to support us! 

p.s~ The Asheville fireworks show went on despite the downpour. Watching fireworks in the rain was certainly a first. The kids didn't mind a bit. To quote Lili "Best Day EVER!!!"

Forever rain...

I am sitting here drinking my morning coffee in a patch of sunshine. Every couple of minutes a cloud darkens the couch and I am reminded again just how soggy and gray this past week has been for western North Carolina. My friend has a rain barometer and she recorded over 10 inches of rain this past week! Our driveway is a ruty mess, and our raised bed filled with bean plants has looked like a swimming pool more often than not. 

But now a huge swatch of rain that was forecasted to bring even more rain and flooding seems to be narrowly missing us as it moves north. It looks like the Big Crafty show tomorrow might not be a wash-out after all! 

Hope you are having a nice weekend!

Doodles

Some doodles I drew tonight while Alex and I talked about booth display improvements. It seems to be a never ending discussion!

A-round here

Dish water

All the hoola hoops

We are busy getting ready for The summer Big Crafty this coming weekend. Jewelry to build & pour, price signs to make, displays to alter to fit our new jewelry cards, and lots of other little details. It's fun. 

Pre-show weeks used to feel stressful, but we have fallen into a nice routine, and I don't feel stressed (usually). It is fun to have a bit of extra time to think about superfluous details. 

Looking for art in all sorts of places...

I recently got an iPad for work stuff (and some play.) there are so many apps that I am loving, like the flipboard app, and instagram, and the NPR app, and my new drawing app "art studio". I am also smitten with the google earth app. It is 10 times better using it with a touch screen. I love loping around the earth looking at the lay of the land in different parts of the world. These are screenshots from somewhere in Mexico. I can only dream of making paintings half as beautiful as these...

undies! (sort-of)

As he is rounding the corner to 3 1/2 it seems like he is starting take the first steps toward using the toilet. Since Lili potty trained herself before she was two we are truly in uncharted territory. He went #2 on the big potty a few nights ago and we went next door to borrow some ice cream to celebrate. But it's been days with no repeat celebration. It is so hard to be patient. I know it's coming, it is just a tad bit slower than I would prefer.

ocean

First-off, I think this is the funniest photo ever. Look at the miniature Papa Dane in the sandcastle!

On a night walk on the beach last week I told Alex that one of the many things I love about being at the ocean is that it is timeless. Thousands of years ago the view of the water lit up by the moon would have looked much the same. It's something that comforts me.

a surprise visitor

Right next to our house this turtle mama decided to lay her eggs. It took her hours to dig the hole with her back feet then she tucked her head inside her shell and out came an oblong bright white egg. 5 eggs came out and then slowly moving her back legs she spent another few hours (at least, we went to sleep before she finished) covering them back up.

 See her head tucked in and the egg coming out??? Crazy!

Happy beginning of Summer!

Away

Have you missed me? :)

We are at the beach celebrating my grandparents 65th (65th!!!) wedding anniversary this week. I will be back here this weekend, but in the meantime I wanted to share  a part of the present that my sister and I made for my grandparents. Becca etched a glass candle holder with an inscription that said "the Loomers - 65 years." I painted river stones shades of blue and then painted the names of everyone in our family on them. We placed the stones on a platter with the candle holder in the middle. It looked really nice all together.

weekending with no agenda

tea party on a stump

Alex went on a canoe trip with a few guys this past weekend, and I got to have a kid weekend.
With Alex gone, the lack of plans and work schedule that seemed so limitless and exciting and I imediatly came up with a long list of forgotten projects and house chores that I thought I could get done in his absence. Obviously it makes no sense that I would get more done without him around; and it didn't take me long to throw out all my ideas of work and spend the weekend just being with the kids.
It had been a long time since I spent such focused time revolving the day around them and their idea of fun.

We had such a sweet, simple, few days.

applying to shows...

I have been working on some new photos this week for some of my fall show applications. Every photo shoot I do I learn something new. This time I was trying to focus on showing multiple items, and giving my work a softer feel than the stark and clean look of my plain white backgrounds.

finding inspiration

My senior year in college a class of mine went to visit a few artist's studios to talk with them about where and the way they work. One artist in particular stood out to me because of the way she worked. She told us that she worked a job-job 6 months out of the year and then spent the following 6 months in her studio working on her art. 

It seemed crazy to me that she could switch on and off her creative time like that. Go 6 months without painting??? It sounded so clinical and un-passionate to me at the time. 

But as the years pass and life with my family takes precedence, I have found myself falling into a pattern with my art that at one time I would have balked at. 

I don't know if you have noticed, but I haven't been painting paintings (aside from Seed & Sky illustrations) for quite some time. The short answer to why is that my life is full. And full in a good way, but full nonetheless. Lots of days with these two:

and lots of days in my studio working on Seed & Sky. And my down time is the few hours between when we hear the last murmurs of the little ones as they fall asleep and when I also turn off the lights. However, these are also the hours that I connect on my blog or facebook or pinterest.  

But these are excuses and the reality is that I have been falling into a pattern of short bursts of working and then months, even a year, passes between with barely any big paintings being born. It is a mystery as to why I can't seem to squeeze in an hour here, an hour there, but up to now, it hasn't been happening. 

I have a range of emotions about my lack of endless hours in my studio playing around. But I also know that sometime in the near future I will have a gap in our regular routine which allows me to have a burst of creativity. I just have to be patient and soak in the inspiration from my daily life in the meantime. 

xxx Kelcey

kids

still rocking his dinosaur pigtails long after his sister's pigtails came undone. 

He wants to be just like her.
He has a new habit of repeating what she says, even trying his hardest to talk in unison with her. She forges on with her sentences undeterred as he stumbles behind trying to guess which syllable comes next. Sometimes there are entire conversations that are parroted word for word~ It melts my heart and I am in awe of her patience.

Love this! A customer just sent me this photo of the necklace she framed. :)