New members of the arsenal

New mini business cards from moo.com. You can upload straight from your flickr page and get twenty different photos if you want. They come in a hot little box too, that I'm totally going to re-use a million times. I feel a little guilty knowing they came all the way from the UK, however. Forgive me Earth. Next time I'll at least buy more!


Fiddle heads
And a willow tree named Xavier:

The Boys are back in town

New wares for the fellas. Is it wrong for me to want more boys entering my booth??
I love the message on this sailor photo:

To Ruth-
With love and deep respect.
Charlie BSN
1932

New Stuff!!!!!!!

I've been super busy these days!!!! Here's what I've been up to:











See more photos on my flickr page!

Because doing my taxes always means...

Making my room look like this!! Granted, I'm also making more things for the Brooklyn Flea, but taxes always = mess!
Digging through piles of quilts to get to my files, gathering receipts from all my little hiding spaces, figuring how much $$ I even make!!!

Ah but it's done so back to making!!

How Cats Shrink

My roommate got this cute book of cat cartoons by Jeffrey Brown. This one is my favorite!!

More Brooklyn Flea!!

I almost forgot to share my finds from last weekend! Next time I'm hoping to trade more....






These Earrings are vintage metal sequins

Coffee, yum!! These kids were the hardest working booth... running back and forth to their hot water source in order to provide people with free tstes of their great....fair...beans. I got two pounds!!

Brookly Flea #1

Dudes, how awesome was the Brooklyn Flea! I had so much fun meeting neighbors and other vendors. It was a weeeee bit chilly, but we survived. Thanks to all the people who bought my stuff and for those of you who didn't make it out... see you next week!!



Aren't Anne's creatures wonderful?!!!!








These gals were great! SO cute!! On spring break from Florida and buying gifts for all their friends... super nice.

Proud Kimmie

I'm officially the proudest babysitter. I love 'my' kids so much... and their parents too of course. They make me feel so loved and valued! I am one lucky ducky.

So the deal is that I had a birthday a few days my birthday and when I picked up the kids from school it was their teacher who wished me a happy birthday first. "They've been talking about it all day, " she said. Proud moment # 1. Well, I guess it's not so much proud as feeling loved. I was just astonished that they would be talking about me at school and had to squeeze them enthusiastically as a result.

Then, it became apparent that something else was up. I had been told not to make dinner and then Luke said, "Kimmie, I gotta tell you something." He always starts sentences that way. I love it. He's just gotta tell me something. "Today, Mom is going to pick me up and then we're all going to my house and then I can't tell you anymore because it's a secret." Ok kiddo. The jig was up. I kind of suspected a little event when I was told not to make dinner, but then of course in their excitement to keep a secret, the kiddos pretty much told me the secret straight off the bat. How precious are they? There was much crying and arguing in the car every time someone got a bit too close to the secret. I played along and pretended not to know.

At the end of the day I was surprised with a lovely meal with both families made by Luke's Mom Elizabeth who also made the most scrumptious cake of life! A three layer lemon cake with mixed berries inside and lemon frosting. It was great! Ummm, yeah, I totally I had some for breakfast the next day, in case you were wondering.

The best part though was the two beaming children handing me their homemade cards. So proud... and having completed them all by themselves!

Luke's envelope portrays the game that he and Eleanor had been playing earlier in which one person got trapped in a string. In the foreground is another guy, cut/pasted from a separate piece of paper, who's coming to let the trapped person out.

Luke's relationship to drawing really interests me. The other day we were drawing on little ripped bits of paper, discarded from the project Eleanor had gotten frustrated with, and he seemed perfectly content just watching me for a while. He was very engaged though, asking questions at each step and even directing me a bit. On one that looked like a triangle I drew a pizza slice and on another I drew an apartment building because the rectangular shape looked like a Brooklyn Brownstone. When I finished coloring the flowers in the window boxes he turned it over and said, "Now you can draw the back yard here, cause that's where it should go."

I was totally amazed and and just looked at him for a moment. "Wow Luke," I said, " I never would have thought of that! You're so inventive." Then we had a nice long discussion about what it means to be inventive and innovative, which was equally fascinating.

As I've sat with this... I feel like it may just be a big clue into his view of the world, or at least drawing/art. I feel like the supplies (paper, crayons, paints) maybe very real and tangible to him, more so than I tend to think of them. When I sit down to draw I know I'm making a representation or just something beautiful. For him the building was real enough to flip over and imagine a back yard there. His envelope drawing (above) was very real too, like a diagram of the exact event that had happened earlier. What does this mean???? Whatever it is, he's super cool and I'm going to spy on him more to see if I can figure it out!

I was also impressed that Luke had just learned to spell my name. He made this neat little drawing and folded it into his envelope. He said it was him and me.

Then we have Miss Eleanor's card... starting with one GIANT googley eye...

and on the inside her sweet note that nearly made me cry...

The thing that gets me is that she knew what she wanted to say and just wrote it down. She's been reading and writing on her own for a bit now, just sounding things out. Her interest and nonchalance is so awesome. What broke my heart is this awakening ability to communicate in a whole new way. She has a thought and transforms it into words in her mind and then turns it into marks on paper that mean something to all of us. It's just so cool.

Both of my gifts from the kids are really all about them growing and developing and becoming thinkers and makers...my two favorite things. I just stress how awesome it is to witness and be a part of. I love you guys!!!

New Items in my Etsy Shop!!!

The other day I combined the two things I love most ( well a lot at least!) tiny drawings and making jewelry...and this tree necklace came out! I made a bunch of other drawing necklaces which I will post soon. I'm preparing for the Brooklyn Flea and an up coming paper themed Poppytalk Handmade.
In the process of taking photos, with myself as the only model, I completely missed the necklace... but I kinda like this photo anyway...

This is the new guy

Last night

Since I'm not one for idle hands, reading has never been my strong suit. Page turning, while usually enjoyable and inspiring, is unfortunately not as tempting to me as the knitting. But every now and then I exhaust my 'making' options or energy and pick up a book instead. Last night was just one of these nights so I started reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

I'm probably way behind the curve on this one. The back mentions a Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize and heralds it at the most "American of American Classics." I'm sure you've probably read it.

I don't know too much about this time period, the thirties, except that I sometimes consider the idea of wearing a cotton house dress. I also would like to think that I posses the spirit, strength resourcefulness of a woman of the Great Depression.

It occurs to me now, that my grandparents and their siblings were born out of this time period and so it'll be very interesting to read an account of it. My great Aunt Wilma, the oldest of her sisters, took care of me whenever my mom needed a baby sitter. She didn't have a car and walked every where. She always did the dishes and had a habit of moving things on the table and then moving them again three seconds later back to where they had just been. I always thought it strange that she would maybe use a tissue more than once, or fill up the tub with only an inch of water. If I was staying over at her house, she would save that one inch of my cold bathwater and just add a little more hot for herself. I always just took these as personality quirks, but now I'm beginning to imagine more and more, a different story.

Because she was the oldest, she probably grew up with the most awareness of the Great Depression and most likely had to take care of all her younger siblings. She must have learned at a young age, these little saving methods that became ingrained regardless of the actual need for them. I wish I could sit and talk to her about it now.

I'm excited about this book. In the first paragraph he describes the fields before the dust storms:

"The last rains lifted the corn quickly..." and "The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves..."

How beautiful are those images? I can't wait to read more.