Artisan's Fair - a few favorites

This is the season of craft fairs - nearly every weekend there are churches and community groups offering the chance to shop for unique hand made items for holiday gifts.  I went to a local fair recently and saw lots of wonderful items.  I left with my wallet a lot lighter and my mind spinning with inspiration.

 
One of my favorite things about shopping at craft fairs is meeting the artists and learning about their creative process.  I have met some lovely and wildly imaginative people and it is always fun to talk to people who love what they do!

In the very first room I was charmed by the delightful work of Barbara and Arnold Goodrich of Carriage House Crafts.  Barbara was a fashion illustrator for many years and now creates whimsical art with a witty twist.  I bought a stack of notecards - here are photos of a few to give you an idea of their style.

Some of the themes of the illustrations are cats and dogs, nursery rhymes and fairy tales, holidays and witty phrases.  The Carriage House Crafts website is HERE and there are dozens of designs to choose from.  The notecards are very reasonably priced and the wooden plaques would make great gifts.  

Downstairs at the fair I met Rick and Roxanne O'Neal of Quillusions.  They do several types of paper art - quilling, paper jewelery and scherenscnitte.  They specialize in framing and decorating photos and invitations for gifts.  Roxanne does her paper cutting without a machine - she is very handy with the exacto knife!

photo from Quillusions website

Here is an example of one of the beautiful paper creations they sell.  They will do mail orders and you can contact them through their website HERE.

 
Across from the O'Neal's booth was Al Wheeler who makes wonderful wooden items with his scroll saw.  The baskets look like they are woven but the are actually built up in layers with rings of wood cut in wavy shapes.  Al doesn't have a website but will do special orders, email him at blue631 (at) verizon.net (written this way to prevent spam - put in the @ sign to email).

Here are some of the ornaments Al makes with his scroll saw.  I think he said he can cut five layers at a time.  If you have never seen scroll saw cuts, do a search for scroll saw patterns and you will find many large collections of files - some for sale and some free.  You can use these files to create cutting files for a Cameo or other computer controlled cutting machine.  I'll share a few examples soon.

This fair was in a church and the booths were spread out through many rooms.  In the last room I visited, I found Rebecca Schreiber and her amazing Paper Confections.  Rebecca creates wonderful original artwork by making iris folded paper designs.  She uses beautiful handmade papers and makes her designs reflect the shape of the natural objects rather then using the iris as a focal point.

You can read a brief description of her technique above (click on the image to enlarge it).  The original designs are scanned and used to create super high quality printed images on cards.

The notecards are printed on lovely textured 100% cotton paper and the images seem to leap off the surface of the card. 

This close up of the gecko shows the clarity of the image - it looks like you could tuck your finger under one of the iris-folded sections.

In addition to the relatively flat iris folded designs, Rebecca makes some that are puffy like the red one in the shadow box frame on the left.  You can see more examples of her work on the Paper Confections website HERE.   In addition to stationery and invitations, they also offer designs printed on marble as coasters and trivets and a variety of linens and baby items printed on organic cotton.

I had a wonderful time at the show and I hope you enjoyed seeing a few of the things I found particularly interesting.  I like to support small businesses and local craftspeople by shopping the fairs.  There is a pretty good chance that no one else will buy the same thing to give as a gift and while gift cards are nice
I like to give actual objects as well (sometimes with a card tucked inside).

Do you shop at craft fairs?  Do you make things and sell them at fairs?  What is the most unusual hand made item you've ever seen at a fair?  Even though I like to do lots of crafts, I still buy many items at these shows.  A few years ago I saw a great sign in a booth - it said "Sure you could make it yourself - but will you?!"

I hope you have some nice plans for the weekend.  I just looked at the calendar and realized that Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away - Yikes!

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Designs in the Details

It started raining Thursday night and I don't think it has stopped.  The forecast is for rain all weekend - so it will be a good time to get things done around the house.  I have a few more photos of interesting things I saw in Italy to share.  This doorknocker is a little odd, in a charming sort of way.  I like the beaded background octagon and I think it would make a great frame.  I have a lot of photos of doorknockers that I have taken over the years and I am thinking about making them into a poster to frame.

This letter slot also has an attractive frame and some interesting swirls.  It was set into a large rock wall with nice colors and textures.

 

The most elaborate frame by far is this "Farmacia" sign.  The shape would be easy to recreate but the dragon-like creatures at the top are much more complicated.  Look around as you are out and about - I am always surprised at how many design ideas are right under our noses.

Between laundry and other chores on Friday, I spent a little time in my craftroom and made this test cut of another stencil design from a Dover image collection.  I altered the shape a little to make it fit on a 5 x 7 card.

I cut the card with my Cameo and used a double cut on this thick shimmer cardstock.  The cut was nearly perfect but a few spots needed to be "encouraged" to separate.  I think it may be time to change the blade on my machine (I am still using the original blade and I have cut many projects).   I'll show the finished card and more details soon.

A little enabling...

This weekend is the last chance to buy the Artiste cartridge and get both the Stamp of the Month and It's Your Day, the special double stamp set for National Stamping Month pictured above (until September 30th).  You can get the cartridge bundle with the chipboard and the three included stamp sets for $99 and add the extra sets for just $10 more ($5 each) for a total of $108 plus tax and shipping.  This bundle can only be purchased through a CTMH consultant and my friend Melanie Brown would be happy to help you with any questions.  All of the details are on Melanie's blog HERE and you'll find the bundle on her Close to My Heart website  HERE.

A little more enabling...



Dollar Days are back at Lettering Delights.  This is a great time to stock up on their digital products at a bargain price.  They are also running a sweepstakes to win a Bind-it-All prize package worth over $100.  The contest is on Facebook HERE. Just click the image above to start shopping!  There are some special codes to help you save even more.  You can save 30% off a $20 or more purchase with the coupon code: SaveBushel and save 40% off your $50 purchase with the coupon code: Save Barrel.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

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Back from Italy

Happy Friday - have you missed me?  After nearly four years of daily posts - I took a break for a week!  As I posted last week, we took a quick weekend trip to Italy for a reunion with some friends and former work colleagues.  This group has met every two years since we left England 12 years ago.

Our American friends live in a lovely part of Tuscany, near the old city of Lucca.  The scenery is wonderful and we were fortunate to have good weather while we were there.

Lucca is a walled city as you can see on this street map.  It is one of the few that still has a full intact wall from the Renaissance era.  If you look near the top center of the yellow area, you can see the oval area that is the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro.

The Piazza is surrounded by buildings that form an oval shape with shops, apartments and lots of cafes in the center.

While we were in the Piazza, a bride and groom were having some photos taken - her gown was beautiful.

We were in the Anfiteatro to meet the Segway rental company.  We had an adventure with six Segways and a special bicycle cab that is built for six!

We rode from the Piazza up to the wall and then drove all the way around the city. Riding the bike is a little tricky - only the people in the four corners can pedal and, even though there are two steering wheels, the one on the left is the only one that controls the cab.

From the wall you have a view over the city and on to the surrounding hills (more like small mountains!).

There are many, many churches within the walls - I have forgotten the exact number but it seems disproportionately high for the size of the city.

Some of the churches have very elaborate facades.

The stones used for the arches alternate in color for a checkerboard effect.  I love to see all of the architectural details and often can find ideas for paper cutting designs from buildings.

The stones and ironwork are fascinating to see and of course I took lots of photos to help me remember some of the ideas.

There are many examples of intricate iron work - this is the base of a lamp post on the wall.

Here is the top of the lamp post with all sorts of fanciful animals set into the curves and swirls.

The wide paved area on the top of the wall was perfect for riding the Segways.  It was the first time most of us had tried this and it was a lot of fun after about a ten minute learning curve.  I definitely want to try it again - maybe in Boston.

I had to laugh when I saw the name of the cycle rental company - I checked a translator and it does have the same meaning as the English word bizarre!

There is always so much to see when you are in another country.  I think the glass holders around the window are for candles but I am not sure when they would be lighted (I am guessing that it would be in connection with some sort of religious festival).  The fleur-de-lis ironwork also caught my eye.

The site in the shop windows are also intriguing - look at all of the yummy flavors of gelato...

I don't know how anyone could walk on the cobblestone streets in these shoes but I am sure that some people try!

The shops have lovely displays and in this one the merchandise spills out from the building into the piazza.

I have taken many photos of the ironwork in the arches over the doors on previous trips so I only took a few this time.  I thought the reflection of the other buildings was very pretty in this photo.

When we returned to the States, I had a fairly major bout of jet lag and I decided the best way to get over it was to take it easy for a few days.  Some packages arrived while I was gone and today I will be trying out some of these recent purchases, including lots of punches.

So what's new with you?  What sort of projects are you working on?  Do you decorate for Halloween - a little or a lot?  Do you send Halloween cards (I make them but hardly ever send them!).

I have a few surprises planned for next week.  I hope you have a great weekend!


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Design Inspiration from Italy

I have been making some progress on my plans to sort out my digital photo files and do some scrapbook pages.  The first step in the process is to review and edit photos to get them ready to print (or to use in digital pages).

I decided to start on a group of photos from our trip to Italy a couple of years ago.  I realized as I was working my way through the files that I take many photos that are meant to be used for design inspiration.  I thought I'd share some images from a church in Lucca.  Many of these are drastic crops of photos so the clarity isn't perfect but they serve as good references for future projects.

I liked the swirling floral border on this medallion but it was very high above me when I took the photo.

Here is the original photo...

 

...and a closer view of the top section - notice the chevron border at the very top.

Chevron designs are so popular now - everything old becomes new again!

Here is a circular version of the chevron design.

This alternating floral border is also quite lovely.

These simple designs would be nice borders for cards or pages.

My favorites tend to be the geometric designs, whether they are square...

...or circular.  There are more chevrons here - like washi tape, they are everywhere in the crafting world recently.  I wonder what old design will be the next "new" trend!

I hope you are having a great weekend - the weather is fabulous here and we took some time to go out and enjoy it today!

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