End of Summer Care Package from Long Winter Farm

At Picnic this past weekend I swapped a pair of earrings for some lovely products from Amanda of Long Winter Farm.  I have been very curious to try her products for a while now, and it was my good luck to have a booth right across from her so I could quickly pop over and get some great stuff!  ANd then once I had made my selections I recognized a running theme throughout the products I had chosen.  I guess I am already feeling a little bit of summer nostalgia, since the scents I chose were Campfire, Beach Day, and Grass Stain.  So as much as I love using these guys now, I know when February rolls around I am going to be thrilled to roll on a little beach day scent, which is reminiscent of sunscreen and coconut and flowers.  I haven't tried the charcoal infused sea salt scrub yet, but I am in love with the look of the rich dark crystals.  Shh, don't tell, but I was thinking that this little selection might make great Christmas presents for my snowbound friends, come December.

A Whirlwind Trip To Picnic, Portland

I had a great time in Portland, even though my trip was cut 1 day short in order to flee from hurricane Irene.  Well I guess I fled from and to hurricane Irene, but at least I got to weather the storm from the comfort of home.  But even so, Picnic was lots of fun.  Cassie (that is all of her lovely jewelry along the back wall) and I managed to erect our tent (with the help of a kind stranger) and build out our booth mostly to our satisfaction.  Some streamlining is definitely necessary before our next show though, because it took us an additional hour over the allotted set up time, so we actually missed the first hour of the show.  Not so good.  But we sold some things, and made some new friends, and met some online friends in person too, which was great.  I was very sad not to get any leisure time in Portland though, and it was a real drag driving home in the pouring rain on Saturday night.  Stupid hurricane.  But we will get another chance to further hone our craft show skills in 3 weeks, at stART on the street, in Worcester, MA on September 18th!  I'm already brainstorming on how to build a pop-up display, and I'm taking suggestions.  And as my friend Holly always says, "there are no bad ideas in brainstorming," so please feel free to just shout em out!  (or maybe type them in the comments, cuz chances are I won't hear you shouting)  

The Aftermath

I just got back from a drive to town, which we took mostly to see if we could get to town after Irene blew through our area.  Yesterday we stayed up on our hill, and although we lost power, and it rained like hell, we had no idea how bad things had gotten in our area until late last night.  But before going to bed we saw a video of the covered bridge that leads to our friends Janessa and Burleigh's house just collapsing and washing down the river.  Rivers that usually run along the bottom of a gorge, 50 to 75 feet below bridges and roads, were washing away their bridges and roads and anything else in their path.  Many of the towns in our area have experienced crippling damage, and even a good chunk our little town was under water for a while.  This morning is calm and crisp and beautiful, but reports of the extent of the damage are still coming in.  We feel very lucky to have been spared all but the most minor damage, and that our road is still passable, although barely in some spots.  All the photos above are from our road, and the top one is our driveway.  I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the damage all turns out to be property rather than loss of life.  I can't bear to watch them anymore, but if you want to see videos of the raging waters click here, or here.  The second one is the same covered bridge featured in my recent post on Simon Pearce, where you can see how high above the water it usually was.

I'm Off. . .

Hope to see some of you there!  And for those of you not silly enough to head to the Atlantic coast for the weekend, please stay safe and dry weathering the storm!

Picnic Portland This Saturday!

I am very much looking forward to my trip to Portland, ME this Saturday, where I will be  selling both jewelry and fiddleheads work! Here is a little sampling of some of the other talented makers who will be selling their work in Lincoln Park, Portland, ME this coming Saturday from 11am to 6pm.  If you are in the area I hope you will swing by my tent and take a peek!  So far the weather forecast is sunny with a slight chance of hurricane. For more info about the show click here.

Follow the links below for more info about the beautiful work shown above!


1. 2 Fresh Threads
2. Ktaadn
3. idillard
4. Long Winter Farm
5. The illustrious Cassie from Shop Clementine, who I will be sharing a tent with.
6. The Merriweather Council
7. Shara Porter
8. Xenotees

My Booth at NYIGF

I was pretty happy with how my booth turned out at NYIGF.  I'm not very happy with the pictures I managed to take though.  For some reason it was very hard to photograph!  So please give me the benefit of the doubt and assume the booth looked better than these pictures show.  But here they are, for better or for worse.

This top picture was just the bones of the booth, before I put out any jewelry or accents.

I definitely think it was a big improvement over last time.  I love the colors, the giant photo, and the rug.  The little apples were a big hit too.  I do wish that I had decided to bring some neck stands, I think that would have helped illustrate what I was selling.  Buyers at NYIGF are so overwhelmed that you really need to make everything easy for them to see, which I'm not sure I did.  I also worry that the natural canvas covered boards did not show off the jewelry very well from a distance, but up close they looked great.  And I wish I had made more jewelry, even though I felt like I had a lot!  But 10x10 is a huge amount of space, especially for jewelry as tiny as mine.  The lighting turned out to be coming too much from directly overhead, so it created too many shadows.  The lighting on the tabletops was great, but on the wall panels it was too oblique.  Whew, so after saying al that it doesn't sound like I was all that happy with it, but I was!  It is just very easy to find fault in anything if you spend 5 straight days in a 10x10 space.  Overall the show was exhausting, but produced enough business to keep me busy for the fall, so that's the idea, right?! 

Early Macs

Things are feeling a little bittersweet to me this morning.  I am a bit sad to report that apple season has begun up here.  It is just the Early Macs, which ripen a good 3 weeks before the other varieties, but it is still a major harbinger of Fall, which is, of course, a harbinger of winter, and I'M NOT READY FOR WINTER!  It was 50 degrees last night, and we put Emmett in his new cool weather pj's.  50 degrees is awfully close to 49 degrees, which is genuinely chilly.

I do love fall though.  It is my favorite season, actually.  I love the crisp air, and harvesting all the vegetables.  And there are no bugs, so it is such a great time to be outside doing things.  But it is so darn short sometimes, and winter is so long, that it is hard not to project forward to masses of dark frozen snowiness.  Sigh.

Air Mail

When I returned home from New York I found this lovely envelope waiting for me with a check for a web order from a customer in China.  I thought the inside of the envelope was so pretty that I snapped a few pictures of it.  I wish our security envelopes looked like this!  It was also the first order for something in actual 14k I've had in ages.  Since the gold market went through the roof I have been working in mainly gold fill and sterling silver.  It felt good to work in gold again.  Fingers crossed that the gold market goes down again soon!

Brooklyn

Some pics from our recent time in Brooklyn.  Oh, Fairway, how I miss you!

Off to NYIGF!

I'll be taking a little blogging hiatus while I tend my booth at the New York International Gift Show.  I'll miss you!

Seriously Affordable Wedding Flowers from Hemingway Farms

How amazing are these flowers?  And they were all fresh cut on their farm that morning.  Each little arrangement comes in a little glass jar or galvanized bucket, and they cost $6 per arrangement.  How great would these look on wedding tables?  Or tables for any party?  And for $6 a pop, think how much money one could save.  Of course, you'd have to be one of those easy going brides or hostesses that would be ok with just grabbing whatever they had that day, which I aspire to be, but am really not.  But if you are one of those people (you lucky devil), and are getting married in the Vermont or New Hampshire area, this could be something to look into!  And maybe they would even be willing to put something specific together for you.  I didn't ask, but here's where to find them if you'd like to look into it: 


1815 Claremont Rd.
Charlestown, NH
(603)826-3336