Arts and Crafts Open House

There will be an open house at my house on October 17th and 18th!! Featuring a handful of local artists with items such as jewelry, beads, prints and paintings, handmade cards, screen printed shirts and purses, lip balms and other bath items, HOLIDAY GIFTS GALORE!! :)

Please comment or email me if you would like any more information, or if you would like to book a home show yourself!

Fall Open House

I am planning on having an open house at my house October 17 and 18! Right now I am working on finding people who sell things other than jewelry to participate :)

New Etsy Listings!

I listed all these earrings on etsy tonight:







As well as updated a few images on other earrings! Whew!

What I'm working on!

Tonight I'll get started on these ornaments.

I'm using a Styrofoam ball and wrapping it in the ribbon, whereas in this book they use a wooden bead. I'm making "jumbo" versions. We'll see how it goes!

Middleton Good Neighbor Festival Pics

Here's a couple pictures of our booth from last weekend!

Saturday it was so cold we were wearing our winter coats and huddling under blankets! We tied our tent down with 40lb bags of salt on two corners, and there were very few moments of chasing our things that have blown away, though the wind was brutal!


Sunday it was warmer because the sun was out. It was less windy, but still chilly. After the parade there were lots of people shopping, and I did pretty well. My displays this time were satisfactory, though I don't know if I'll ever be compeltely happy with them!!! (The artist is her worst critic...) We were getting lots of compliments on how nice our booth looked.

All in all it was a decent show. The weather could have been nicer, but there were still enough sales to make it worthwhile! :)

Hello readers!

Just wanted to post an update about what shows I will be at this year.

So far I have only scheduled two home shows, one on Sept 12th in Bloomington, IL, and one in Joliet, IL on Sept 13. If you are interested in attending either of these please leave a comment and I will get you the info.

October, November, and December shows will be scheduled this week in the greater Madison, WI area. Stay tuned!!

Fusing Plastic Bags

So I saw this video on youtube from the etsy how-to series!



I like how she says at the end "I gotta warn you, you're gonna mess up a lot!"

Well ain't that the truth!! I have yet to master this technique, but I'll admit, I gave up after only about 7 tries.

Can I get a heat setting?? I tried at first on the hottest setting, and ended up with a frighteningly-fast-shriveling effect. Down a few notches and kept on trying until I'd tried it all and I still end up with either an overly shriveled piece, or the layers are not sticking together.

I came to the conclusion that my problem is the bags I'm using. They must be too "good," and I can't find any cheaper crappier ones to test it out on.

My friend Margo got it to work and even was able to make a bag by fusing the edges together, too. I was planning on sewing on mine and making little zippy pouches kind of like the sample in the video. I need to ask her what the secret is.

Just wanted to share this and wish any of you who want to try this better luck than I had!!!