Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Ribbon Bags Ahoy!

I finished the ribbon bags last night, and I am pleased with the way they turned out. It also means I have completed two big projects this week, and have a nice feeling of accomplishment.


Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Clean Studio!

Hooray! I finished cleaning and organizing the studio yesterday morning, and wanted to share pictures of the results. It is kind of a tour of the space as you walk in to the room and turn around clockwise.



After the cleaning was done, I spent the rest of the day working on the ribbon bags, drinking tea, and enjoying the room.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

In the Works . . .

School is out! June 11th was my last day teaching after-school classes for the year, and as much as I enjoy teaching, I am really excited to have a little more time and not have to spend my evenings planning for the next class. It has only been a little over a week so far, but here are the projects I have been working on:

I have an order of several ribbon bags for a wedding party. I have finished weaving the ribbons and am now working on the bag construction. Here are a few in process photos.


The puppet show is my biggest project of the summer. I don't have any exciting pictures yet, but I did get the puppet blog all set up and ready to go. You can check out the design now, and I will let you know when the first post goes up.

The other thing I am working on is FINALLY getting our little studio all unpacked and organized. The story here is that we had a HUGE studio space before, but we moved out in Dec. because the building needed lots of repair that the landlord couldn't/wouldn't take care of. We decided the best choice for now was to move our studio into our spare room, which is pretty small. Lot of stuff + small space + no free time = still not all unpacked. I am determined to get it done in the next few days though.

Here is a picture of the room at the start of the day yesterday. I should have thought to take a picture at the beginning of the week so you could see how disorganized it was to start.


Here is a picture now- it is getting better everyday. I will post again when it is all done and beautiful, and maybe have a little party for myself when it is finished!

Monday, June 14, 2010

First Strawberries of the Season

Here they are- the first ripe berries of the season and the first thing to come from the garden this year!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Cactus News!

So, this is my last week of teaching for the school year and I am really excited because that means I am going to have a lot more time to devote to my big summer project- a puppet show! My husband and I are putting on a puppet production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin in August, and it is our first full scale we are doing all ourselves as CactusHead Puppets. I will finally be getting my puppet blog up and going soon, and I will share pictures of the puppet building process and anything else related to the show there.

In other cactus related news, I went to a good friend's bridal shower last weekend and made her this knit cactus as a gift. I have a few I made for myself, and they are a lot of fun to knit, and of course very low maintenance house plants.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The garden is planted! (finally)

Hooray! My garden is planted and that means (to me) that it is officially summer. This year I did things a little differently and did not start any of the seeds inside, because lots of the plants seemed to struggle after being transplanted last year. This year it was all seeds straight in the ground or older seedlings from the nursery. I also planted more of each kind of seed but fewer different kinds. I had hoped to plant a couple weeks ago, but every time I was free to plant it poured rain. Hopefully all the plants will do well despite the delay.

The strawberries I planted last year are doing better this year, and it looks like we will actually have some to eat! I also sprinkled a few zinnia seeds in the corners of the strawberry bed, after the strawberries are done for the season I will have big bright zinnias to enjoy.



These are my tomato plants. I have three varieties of regular tomatoes and then a Roma tomato and grape tomato plant. I love grape and Roma tomatoes, so I am hoping for tons of tomatoes in a few months.

I bought two pepper plants this year, since last year's peppers that I started from seed never really went anywhere. The bigger one is a yellow bell pepper (it already has a bloom!) and the
other is a bell pepper that is supposed to grow both red and green peppers.



















I planted a whole row of peas this year, and they are already up! My nephew helped plant these and there is a random mix of regular and sugar peas.



The other seeds aren't up yet, but I planted a row of radishes, a row of romaine lettuce, a row of green beans, two rows of loose leaf lettuce, a row of cucumber hills, one watermelon hill, a row of zucchini, some chamomile, some aster seeds, and cilantro, chives and catnip planted in pots. I can't wait to post pictures of everything as it comes up!