Spring Craft Shows in Eugene and Oregon

Bliss Monkey Studio AND Bliss Forest friends will be at the first Meet Your Maker show of 2009.

Meet Your Maker April, is the first Friday evening, 5-8, at the Broadway Winebar downtown. A fun and lively venue! Come supply yourself with Easter bunnies. You may be lucky enough to snag a Neen Jah Buhn Nee, if you get there early! Those hot ninja girls are hot!

21 Bun Salute! Or at least a four bun salute... almost as good....

April 3 is the MYM show.
April 4th is my birthday!!!! YEY.
April 5th is the Crafty Wonderland show and I hope to pop up to Portland and attend if I can. It's a huge craft fair with special things going on. See flyer below.


Information from Crafty Wonderland:

This is a special show for two reasons: it's our 3rd birthday so we'll have some surprises...and that weekend is the Portland premier of Handmade Nation, the indie craft documentary, at the Museum of Contemporary Craft!

Faythe Levine (the filmmaker) will be at Crafty Wonderland to meet visitors and sign/sell copies of her book, also titled Handmade Nation. And we're having a special Handmade Nation themed DIY Table project! Some of the crafters featured in her film/book are going to be there as well! Read more about the film here: http://indiecraftdocumentary.blogspot.com/

Get tickets to see the film and find out about the other cool things happening at the museum that weekend here: http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/hmn/tickets.html.

Crafty Wonderland
Sunday April 5, 2009
11 am - 4 pm
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E. Burnside
Portland, OR

My wee snail garden near the front door.

Sunny Morning

The sunshine lured me out of bed this morning. I thought my sniffles could do with a bit of fresh air and surprise sunshine (it's been so grey and rainy here this week) so I wandered out to the back garden.

I stood, mesmerized by the blossoming plum trees, when I heard a low "a-hem" behind me. A little green clad gnome stood on the bamboo pot, smiling up at me.

"Hi, I'm Edvin", he offered. "I've been collecting mushroom in your garden." And he held a big one up for me to see.

I attempted to get over my surprise quickly. Regaining my manners, I also introduced myself. Soon, I was making tea for the two of us, and enjoying Edvin's tales. He sure is a talker!




He told me all about his traveling adventures hunting mushrooms, and his wish to live in a human house. Maybe you would like to have Edvin come to your house? He will bring his fancy mushroom as an ornament for you!




Edvin jumps!!!

Happy Irish Day!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Irish Day!!!

I have to put off the big party plans till this weekend because I caught a cold. So, when is it ever a good time to be sick? I do love being Irish though. Very proud of my roots. I have been to Ireland twice and dearly enjoyed the people I met, the hiking and adventures I had. The only place on earth (not that I've visited that much of this earth yet...) that I have felt safe hitch hiking. That's right, I hitched all over Ireland. Met fantastic folks along the way, who kept calling me a "Holiday Maker", and would invite me into their cars even after I was soaked with the rain and my shoes has met several sheep patties.

I visited many off the map stone circles. I followed old pilgrimage routes to sacred wells, where people mark their wishes with a strip of fabric tied to the tree there. Watches dolphins play in the Dingle Bay. Got lost in the clouds hiking towards the Paps of Danu. What an adventure that was, with only curious sheep to keep me company as I tramped through mud, jumped streams, hiking up and up till I lost my way in the cloud cover on the mountain. Never did find the "Paps", but had a great experience walking past a mountainy rural cabin full of children peeking at me, shyly greeting and wanting to follow me back down.

I stayed in the Youth Hostels most of the time, meeting wonderful people from all over the world. I walked during the daylight, wrote in the cafes in the afternoons, and sought the pubs were the locals went at night. The music! I loved the live music, the evening company, the beer, the chat, and the way the whole pub would go silent when someone would be moved enough to stand, eyes shut, to sing a solo tune.

My heart must be GREEN today..............



I named this little guy Grassy cause he's the same neon color as easter basket grass. Would be fun to name him Gassy, but............

Vampire Bunny Alert!

I was about to post some pics of our ski trip when the alert came in. These photos are the only ones to be captured of these creatures recently sighted in the North West! Vampire bunnies have been sucking the stuffing out of the other Easter Bunnies in training!

Front view at sunset.....


Rear view with blood red heart tail, and icky little bat wings!

New Designs in Pandora Style European Beads

Greetings! Have a look at some of the new charm bead designs in my Charmish etsy store. I'm so in love with European Bead charm bracelets, and the beads are so much fun for me to design. I'm proud to offer fresh, modern, FUN designs in solid sterling, heirloom quality, handcrafted sterling.

This one is Circus Tent. Wouldn't that be fun for a circus fan, urban circus performer, or Burning Man Festi?


I give the size in MM, but here's a clearer idea of how much detail is involved with such a tiny bead.


Rocket!


This is the cutest Scooter! I almost have to have one for my bracelet even though I don't RIDE a scooter!!

Sterling bracelets coming to my shop next week.


Lazer Blaster! This cracks me up. Goes with the Rocket and Robot series.

Neen Jah the Buhn Nee

Here she comes, right on cue, swinging her way down to meet everyone! Welcome Neen Jah the Buhn Nee!


She coils her grapling hook and rope expertly, and poses for the picture.....


Here she is on her first day here, already escaping from the studio window, crusing down the bamboo to the ground. I'm happy to say three Ninja bunnies have already gone out into the world: one as far as Calgary Canada, and one to England! They LOVE adventures. And all their sisters back at home are plotting their very own missions of such excitment. Claim yours here.



Neen Jah Buhn Nee DOES especially like to play hide and seek! She'll count up to twelve in Japanese before hopping to find you.... better hide quick.

Happy Spring!

New Porch

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of construction on our house. We've owned here for two years now, and were very excited to get to the "new windows and a patio cover" phase of improvements.

Cassie of Spiralworks doing the framing. Now this is the open-air patio walkway between the dining room and the art studio. It's had my sweet little herb garden and a tree, which we had to take out.

We did as much of the work as we could, like sanding and oiling all the boards ourselves, digging the post holes and jackhammering. Yowsa!

We used locally made, GREEN oil for the wood. Really lovely stuff and good for the enviornment. UV protective covering plastic.


Finished! Check out that grey Oregon sky!

The patio cover is angled for wind, and higher than the roofs to allow for future roof and gutter cleaning/repairs, as well as air circulation so we don't create a green house effect in summer.

This is right off the kitchen/dining room so we like to put a cute little table out here and sip tea and dine all summer (as well as our dining spot in the garden). There are many times when it's raining out but not very cold, and will be lovely to have the porch to sit on. The dog and cats are already enjoying it.


View to the art studio. Look, there's a monkey on my roof!!!

The day following the porch's grand opening, it rained! We all ran outside in our slippers to "test" it.


Mud, rubble and the rest of the path to jackhammer up! We'll be re-routing the pathway from the gate in a more open and curve, with big stepping stones (not those you see) and nice rock. I am looking forward to adding lots of pretty potted plants, including my herbs, and hanging bird feeders. I received a gorgeous, hand blown glass hummingbird feeder for xmas. Did you know the Oregon hummers are already out and mating?? I'll post a pic of the feeder this weekend.

Check out the new sliding door and energy efficient windows!!!! The house is amazingly warmer. In Oregon, we get a zero interest loan from the energy company to install energy saving, healthy windows! Saves everyone money and energy waste.

It's a good time to get some work done on your house. Doing our part to stimulate the economy by hiring two local, small, awesome contracting compaines (one for windows, one for porch). :-)

next big project might be painting the house.... what do you suggest?

cheers