and the lucky winner is . . .
February 5, 2011 | Filed Under royal buffet | 1 Comment
sarah yacoviello of comment number 23! thanks so much to everyone who entered. and if you aren’t sarah yacoviello, then there’s always next year, right? providing my hands don’t give out.
fog streamers
January 13, 2011 | Filed Under ordinary, royal buffet | 5 Comments
i made this blossom mobile for a baby here in greenville. they were inspired by the van goh painting of almond blossoms so i drew out some shapes of the blossoms from the painting, had the good luck to find a vintage book with the colors that the family chose using the color collective blog (i love that resource), and used the last of the curly willow that i was mistakenly given after my sister-in-law’s wedding a couple of years ago (she wanted it back, but no one knew this and it’s quite a bit too late now that i’ve made a half dozen mobiles out of it. sorry, gracen.). it was fun to make and i hope they really enjoy and love it. custom mobiles are hard for me because i want them to be perfect, but it’s hard to translate custom orders into a kind of perfect that suits everyone.
today i’m very grateful for instant netflix that come in through the blue ray player and over the computer. we’ve been in the house since sunday night and after a couple of hours out in the snow and after the schoolwork i’m witchily keeping on the schedule (even though the traditionally schooled kids are out for the week), old lone ranger movies and documentaries on creepy creatures are becoming fast friends with all of us. there are only so many re-runs on pbs and episodes of sponge bob squarepants that a body can take.
weekending
November 8, 2010 | Filed Under royal buffet, weekending | Leave a Comment
my weekend started out with an estate sale of wondrous proportions. most of me wishes i’d had my camera along, but there is a terrified part of me that can only imagine what the loud and grumpy estate sale expert would have shouted at me had i been snapping pictures. the house is a house of dreams: deep wrap around porch, vintage mural wallpaper in the entry hall, fireplaces in every room, rooms for a library, living rooms, sunny dining room with beveled glass cabinetry (and, again, a fireplace!), an upstairs hallway as wide as a living room, a rolling yard with old woman flower beds and gnarled old trees. i don’t think i’d even care that there is a very active railroad track right across the street from the house, i really don’t think i would. i love snooping in houses i’ve admired from the street.
after the estate sale, where we came home with rugs and a wooden camel and cloth napkins and a sturdy metal strainer, lola and i did a little thrifting and ran the usual errands. and then we came home and got the rest of the family to go to some of the open studios.
i love this kind of thing, seeing everybody with their work, in the places that they usually do the work. i came home really inspired to make some new things in new ways, to think about christmas, and also to clean my house, which was easier to do since we turned the heat on friday night. it’s hard to be motivated to clean when it’s too cold.
after visiting some studios on pendleton, we went up to kent ambler’s studio at the edge of paris mountain. he lives in an amazing mid-century house with a rope swing and a concrete swimming pool and a little goldfish pond and three black dogs and a fireplace in his studio and a view of the world through trees that would maybe be enough for me to give up coffee if i woke up to see it each morning. he and his wife peggy have an incredible collection of art all over the place and i can’t wait to go back and look more closely at all of it. really, really inspiring. if you’re in greenville you have to put his studio at the top of your list next open studios.
this week i’m working in the house, raking thousands of golden leaves with the kids, baking bread, running in the cold and dark with max, sewing some things, making a christmas list, and working on my shrimp and grits skills. is it true that thanksgiving is nearly here? (more weekending pics can be seen here)
rain-swollen river
October 20, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary, royal buffet | Leave a Comment
this golden stitchery bird garland will be in the shop today.
every time i go into the garden to look for a few tomatoes i always find some. i like this kind of surprise and amazement. halloween air and garden tomatoes are sometimes friends, it seems.
rain through the windows this morning, cold and slow. henry woke up before the rest of us to ride his bike in small circles up hills and around trees in the backyard. he came in with his his hair wet and curling. there is a place by the door smeared muddy, still-wet boots in a pile.
now there is a pale sun in a slant over the trees, the clouds holding rain over a glorious blue. the dog is crazy in the yard for the wet grass, the chipmunks, the neighbor dog sniffing at the fence.
one way, or another
October 13, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary, royal buffet | 3 Comments
i made this paper antelope for a diy post on design sponge and the post is now live! give it a whirl, they’re really fun to make.
i am hoping to make one or two other creatures for open studios in november but i do feel a wee bit full of ordinary life right now. the kind of full that if i were to sip it, it wouldn’t spill, but if i try to carry it anywhere it will splash out all over the place, you know that kind? so we will see. i’ve been enjoying evenings of campfires and musicals and a paper-clipping-free night on the couch and i (guiltily) don’t feel like getting myself into a royal buffet frenzy right now. my house is also remarkably clean and i’m liking it this way: a few orders here and there to fill, dinner in full swing, plans for the weekend, the laundry caught up, the watch and wait for the weather to finally drop below 70 degrees and stay in those parts, the time to have for activities and lollygagging that we want instead of only such things as are needful.
rocks, hands
October 5, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary, royal buffet | Leave a Comment
a word about the new pieces in the shop: the tags and ornaments are all one-of-a-kind and will not be recreated, so if you love them, you’d best get them sooner rather than later! the reindeer, dogs, horses, and birds i have many of, but may not be making them again this year after they run out as i’ve got some holiday things happening around these parts for which i must prepare.
in the early evenings the last few days, it’s dark, the boys run with sticks over the grass, up the hill, into the garden. all the afternoon they beat at old stalks of okra with their sticks in the garden, their feet the colors of the dirt. i wish for good days of wind and comradery, days just like yesterday, the day before. i shouldn’t forget what these feel like, everyone playing happily, working well together, the sky in blues and whites and even grays, the wind blown stronger than ever it came in summer. i shouldn’t forget but i often do.
it seems as though the leaves will go from green to dead. the air is cold but everything is still very green, only some of the trees burned a little brown along the edges.
weekending
October 4, 2010 | Filed Under royal buffet, weekending | 2 Comments
the show was pretty and a success. i like how my mobiles looked with kevin isgett’s paintings. the show is still at art & light through the month of october if you missed the opening!
this weekend we worked in the house, had movie night and homemade pizza night simultaneously, trudged through sunday carless as our car is broken, listed new things on etsy (and reopened the shop), and started working on a really fun paper mache project. making a figure out of wire is patience testing and i’m glad i had the foresight to use gloves because i am not all that coordinated and there was a little blood involved in spite of the gloves.
ernie had a wedding. when he goes away for so long a day it does sort of put an ugly dent in the weekend but we managed all the same. it helps to let the boys play outside until after dark, to let lola skip the nap and go to bed early, to give baths the long, hot way, to leave the dishes and have a work to do that you love.
underground parties
September 30, 2010 | Filed Under royal buffet | Leave a Comment
tomorrow! if you’re local and you know me i would be happy if you came. see, its a joint show with the amazing kevin isgett who teaches at bob jones and has probably required all of his students to attend. and next door there’s kent ambler with his beautiful woodcuts. and then down the way there’s cory godbey with his brilliant alice show and his wife erin’s rainbow cake. so it would be nice if someone came because they wanted to see my humble mobiles hanging from the ceiling. even my kids only care about the cake and cory. so if you were on the fence, perhaps the all star cast all around the building will compel you to come after all.
where: art & light gallery (map: here)
when: tomorrow, october 1, from 6-9
when she goes she’s gone
September 21, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary, royal buffet | 4 Comments
this is part of a mobile i’ve made for the october 1st show at art & light. there are vintage arrows and leaping horses involved. i kind of want to keep it. the arrows were an etsy splurge that thankfully turned out to work in a mobile. i need more corners and hooks in this house. maybe some deep stairwells and places with railings. also, if you didn’t get a butterfly mobile at the indie craft parade but you wanted one (i’m talking to you, handsome older gentleman who came back to find them all sold!), i’ve got a bumper crop for the show.
september, standing on the front step of winter, she’s still holding a green bowl of summer, balancing it like a baby on her hip. i kind of like it when she goes and i can make soup and wear sweaters again without regret.
the gold ring
September 16, 2010 | Filed Under familial, ordinary, royal buffet | 5 Comments
i made this carousel mobile and took it to the indie craft parade. there were many admirers but no takers, so i brought it home again. i think that people don’t realize how much time it takes to cut all of these things by hand and assemble them by hand. especially the people who loudly whispered to each other, “we can totally make that!” please, friends, be my guest. lola thought that i had made it for her, so i’m going to go ahead and give it to her, hang it on the hook in her room for her own horse shadows to spin in half circles over her head.
i’ve been feeling guilty for not making more things for my kids, especially things that they’ve asked me to make. it seems that i spend all of my creative energies on royal buffet and don’t have anything left for afternoons of sewing costumes or gluing and painting with them. i’m not sure where to take these feelings. they may be in the air, and they may be because i’m very tired. but i do know that there are some things i want to do and some things i need to do, and the heaps of paper mess are sometimes too deep to wade through.
there is always a wind now, a wind for trees and the stirring of air. we’ve got some good kites that need flying and these are the days for just that, kites pulling strings and a running child behind. fall is here. lola will be three soon. she wants a swing in the back tree for her birthday, a swing long in the ropes to swing wide across the yard.