My boy came to visit

family
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I never get enough time with my son.  He lives in North Carolina, and our visits are too far apart.  And the last few times he has been here, our house needed a major repair.  Which was lucky for us that he can rebuild foundations, redo soffits, replace joists, but it does keep us tied to home repairs instead of just hanging out.

We are a family that isn’t scared of pitching in to do hard work, but on this visit, he was recovering from an injury and we spent the entire week being lazy, eating in restaurants, and going to explore some spots in KC.  Like Atlas 9, where we saw this, whatever it is.  Oh, and celebrating Sugarwings turning TWENTY.

I never figured out the game the venue was based on, but I loved joining in and playing along.

The space was intriguing.

And fun to explore as secret agents.

One day, we visited Prairie Fire Museum, and got to design our own Dinos.  The beasts then appeared on the giant screen in the atrium, where we could attempt to pet them.

They move slowly, so you have some time to get to know them.

That museum was a regular hangout for the kiddos and I back in the day, but my boy hadn’t been there.  It was a weekday, so not everything was open, but still a nice stop after checking out the community college that Sugarwings was getting ready to attend.

There was a full week of easy going days of ambling downtown, trying some restaurants, and being together.  What a great lil vacation.

 

(oh, and he wasn’t off Scott free, he did fix a chandelier that I’d knocked loose from the ceiling with over zealous cleaning.)

A short, but sweet visit

Food and Drink, guncles
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We had such a nice visit with Guncle Randy and our pal, Karen.
When you get any of the Nathan’s together, good meals become a big part of the get togethers.  Same here, and I barely needed to do anything myself.

 It was Good Juju weekend, and I was working.  Our thoughtful guests made most of the food for us, and it was delicious.

Karen treated us to a concoction of edible flowers and cherry blossom syrup in prosecco with the meal.

It had been years since we’d had a chance to visit, and it was a delight to have Karen here at the cottage.

After resting up from my busy work days, we had a relaxing studio day to create.

I love my studio even more when I can fill it with friends.

The two of them came to visit me at the store while I was working too.  Guncle Randy tried to look angelic by trying on my wings, but I doubt if he fooled anyone.

The time passed way too quickly, but we enjoyed every moment.  The only thing missing was Guncle Kevin.  Hopefully, we will see him next time!

It’s mostly but not all spooky

Good JuJu, holiday decor
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Not every bit of my booth is dedicated to Halloween.  There is a large section designated for my jewelry boutique at the front of the room (sorry, no pics).  And this hutch is more fall, than fright.

See, full of vintage pretties!

Including this to die for alabaster lamp. (Oops, I went a little dark with my phrasing there)

But on top of the cabinet? Ghoulella is reigning over the room from her black, vintage wicker chair.

I don’t have her before photos.  Probably because they were ugly and I don’t want to embarrass this queenly beauty, garbed in vintage lace by showing you what a hideous guy she used to be.

But wait, I was saying that my spot at Good Juju wasn’t all gothic or ghoulish.

See?

Even though there is a plethora of black and white, it’s not all scary.  Like that cute pitcher with the kitty handle.

This shelf is witchy, but not scary, right?

I give up trying to find non spooky pictures.  I’ll leave you with the rest of the closeups I have of the booth.

Some spooky season crafts I’ve added to my booth for Good Juju this weekend

Good JuJu, Halloween treats, holiday decor
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There were so many ideas flapping around in my head like bats in my belfry, that could barely contain myself while planning my kick off to spooky season at Good Juju. Starting with vintage dolls, or just parts, painted ghoulishly.   And tiny notebooks dressed up like grimmories, complete with eyeballs on the cover.

I have poison toadstools, ghost fairies,

painted cat figures, more altered books,

a baby witch,

cake toppers for ghost brides,

ghosts with teeny pumpkins,

and brooms.

My broom salesperson is wearing a hand dyed wedding gown.

Oh, did I mention pumpkins from vintage fabrics?

And pumpkin paintings too.  And glittered crows with crowns, a ghoul queen, and on and on.

I have made myself stop.  Time to go hog wild on Christmas decor now that my space is set and ready to welcome shoppers for September and October’s First Friday Weekends in the Historic West Bottoms of KC.

But I still hear teensy, glittered skellies calling my name.  I think more of them wanted to be ballerinas.  I might just have to help them out.

Honey’s new job with Loving Paws

dogs
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Our Honey is earning her vest as a therapy dog.  This was her first trial run and it was a doozy.  After an hour and a half of nonstop lovin from almost 400 new college freshman at KU, this dog still wasn’t satisfied with how much petting she got.  She could’ve done another session easily.  That girl cannot get enough attention.

At first, she did not believe her luck and was happily greeting each guest, trying to make her way through the crowd to get to each one.  Eventually, she learned that the line of willing petters would come to her.  So she regally leaned back and waited for her entourage to take turns telling her how soft and beautiful she was, and soaking up all the cuddles.

There was a group of four doggies at the event, and the students made their way around the room, visiting each one.  They told us stories about their own babies at home, who they missed so much already in just the first week of college.

Earlier in the day, we visited the library and watched while kids read books to the dogs.  This was our “shadowing” visit and we didn’t have Honey with us.  (We needed training ourselves)  She will get to go the next time.  I think those visits will be my fave, it was so adorable to see the toddlers hug their new  friends and the bigger kids seriously reading the story books to the furry audience.

We will also visit nursing homes, more venues at KU, and plenty of other places.  There are up to four possibilities each week that we can sign up to take our girl to.

The first step in this adventure was for Honey to earn her AKC Good Citizen ribbon by passing a series of tests that included staying with strangers after being told to sit as we left the room for three minutes.  She had to greet but ignore other dogs on leashes, not pull or jump, then accept the sounds of pans banging.  She needed to not be afraid of walkers or crutches and be happy to meet people, beyond just the normal commands of sitting, staying, etc.

She passed with flying colors.

After that, she had to pass a similar test with the local organization, Loving Paws.  Once again, she did great.

If a dog doesn’t do well on the tests, a six week class is required for each.  Which I would have enjoyed doing, I love dog training classes.  Which is why Honey probably did okay in the first place.

Although, I doubt if any of our other dogs would be suitable to join the organization.   Molly can be too needy, Sugar only likes people, not dogs she doesn’t know, and Dorothy is so enamored of Rich, she can’t stop staring at him or demanding that she gets to be on his lap.   But Honey?  This is right up her alley.  She was born for this gig.

A Summerween Birthday

celebrations, Food and Drink, Sugarwings, We're having a party
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Sugrwings celebrated the BIG TWO-O with a Summerween birthday bash.  While the decor was all ghosts and skellies, the mocktails were an edible flower topped, sweet concoction of sprite, lemonade, and cherry blossom syrup.   Not spooky at all.

The food made up for the eeriness that the drinks didn’t have.

 It was build your own pizza night in the kitchen, then we carried our plates upstairs to the den to fill up with fruit and snacks and watch a scary movie.

Sugarwings put a lot of attention to details,  the carrots are were cut like pumpkins.

The tangerines matched.

Even the ping pong balls got faces.

We had spooky lighting everywhere, and I couldn’t even tell you how many tissue paper ghosts haunted the room.  There were dozens hanging from the ceiling.  I don’t know what was the best part and most fun for the kiddo, crafting ghosts and decorating for a week or having a happy night with loved ones.

It was all pretty special to me.

A quick fix on a torn watercolor but still bad marketing

paintings
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After the July juju sale, I saw that this painting was torn at the top.   Each month, there are various damages I find – jewelry with stones missing, chipped glass, broken pottery.  Often they are hidden under something.

Or possibly they were just knocked off and rolled underneath?  I’ll give people the benefit of the doubt, it’s easy to break fragile items in a crowded space.

In the case of this cow, I know how it must’ve happened.  I clip the paintings to a string with a clothespin and the wooden pin probably just tore the paper when someone took it down to look at it.

Luckily, it was an easy fix, I still had more pages in the chapter of the book I’d used to paint this.  The heading at the top of the page is “Old England” which might not really seem right for a cattle picture, but this is a Guernsey cow and her breed is from Britain.

I try to make the heading relate to the art.  Often it’s the words that inspire the work, but often, it’s kinda generic.  Like using a book about nature to paint any type of animal I want.  Or this geography book with a chapter on England to paint a gurnsey.

For this, I scraped off the raggedy bits of paper, and tore off a matching scrap from a new page, glued it down, let it dry, and repainted it to match the background.  It’s not perfect, but if you don’t inspect too closely, it worked.

But the biggest problem with my painting?  I thought cows would be a good fit for Kansas City.  Which, yes, it is an ideal subject.   So… why did I think an English title would be better than using a page about prairies, the west, or something actually about Kansas or Missouri?  Hmm, just bad marketing, huh?

Silicone mold crafts

Uncategorized
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I have discovered how ugh fun it is to create embellishments with silicone molds, and am sticking them everywhere.

See what I mean?

I particularly like how they look on books.  First, I glue the pages shut, then paint the cover. When dry, I add the molded bits with more silicone used as glue and let that dry.

It takes most of the day to dry enough to paint over, so it’s not a fast process.

The embellishments get painted, the whole piece is glazed, then sprayed with a clear coat and other goodies are added if I want to.

These take days to make because of all the dry time needed between each phase.  So that can be irritating.  But worth the wait.  Now, I want to make more.

Part two of summer’s last stand in my booth at Good Juju

Good JuJu
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Previously, I mentioned that my booth is mostly still set in summertime.

I’d kept a corner of beachy goods, and another wall of floral-garden partyish things (oops, no photos).

There is a hutch full of ironstone and white goods.  Which could be displayed any time of year.

And jewelry galore.

So much jewelry.

I made some new crowns.

Plus brought in the purse charms that I’d made in Indiana while visiting family.

And I like to always have a mushroom area, they still sell for me.  I brought in a few witchy boots filled with arrangements too.   These are more autumn than Halloween, next month I’ll do the more spooky ones.

There is a chance that I’ve missed the mark on what customers are looking for by not having my All Hallow’s Eve gear out, or not hitting the Autumn notes as hard as I should.  But I did have a great time setting it all up and have fingers crossed that my shoppers will like it too.

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