Merry Christmas Everybody!

Just finished watching "Die Hard" with Brandon, the pups, and Peter, my brother. Favorite Christmas movie of them, my second favorite after "White Christmas." Which, I believe, is playing ALL DAY on Amc on Christmas. Yay!

Us and the pups will be heading on over to my parents house for the last Christmas at the childhood home. I'm strangely excited about it, but then, I'm always excited for Christmas. Did a little Christmas shopping for myself today, I went on Ebay and got myself a couple new (okay, new to me, gently used) Dansko shoes. Both my faithful pairs are dying on me at the same time. The soles are practically gone on one pair, and the other pair is following. They have lost that super-comfortableness that makes danskos so great. Hence, the new pairs. I'm getting two pairs for like, 80 bucks! Which is under my $100 limit that I gave myself. Its a splurge, but well, not really being as I gotta be able to walk around all day, and these are the best for it!

Sorry for the rambling, I'm pretty tired, but Brandon just ran out the door to look at the stars with his constellation book, and so I thought I'd post a Christmas post while hes out there. Its eleven forty five on Christmas Eve, and all is well. And while cold, not a cloud in the sky, and so no snow this year! First time I've ever been happy there is no snow on Christmas! Usually, there is no snow and I am sad. I think last year's two week storm is gonna stay with me for a few more years, and then I will go back to being sad that there is no snow on Christmas.

Okay, enough rambling post! Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.
Maggie

Festival of the Last Minute

This week is the beginning of the end of the year for the Portland Saturday Market. The "festival of the last minute" starts Thursday and runs until Christmas Eve, when it ends at 3:30! I will be there for the weekend in my usual spot, and Tuesday the 22nd and Wednesday the 23rd in whatever spot I can get! The festival weekday hours are 11 to 6 pm. And my friends, 6 pm is DARK! But we've got lights, and Christmas lights, and its pretty, if kinda cold.

So come on down and support your local craftspeople!
Maggie

Christmas card Day!

Yesterday was our Idle Hands Ladies Auxiliary day. The day in which five of us crafty bitchez from the Saturday Market get together and make something unrelated to our work for a day. I know I've mentioned it before. Last month was embroidery (in which I snuck in some work, since I'm working on embroidery). So this month was Christmas cards!

I love Christmas card day, we get all my stamping stuff out, drink mimosas and coffee, and eat cookies! And the kids are old enough now (excepting baby Orson, but he was having a great time too) that they can entertain themselves with just minimal watching (and running to look every time we here either to much or not enough noise). Opal had a great time running around with Ayla and Micah (the kids). Marcus got overstimulated and had to take a nap (of course).

So here's some pictures, they are up on the Idle Handz blog. Here's Leah's pics. And here are Naomi's. Go check them out, you can see parts of my house, and adorable kids, and crafty cards!

Maggie

Tigerpup Embroidery Patterns!!

The first draft of Tigerpup Embroidery Patterns are finished! I've got six sets in all, and they will be making their debut at the Camp Cactus Holiday Sale (all weekend at the corner of 45th and NE Brazee, in the cute garage studio of Cactus Jane) This weekend! All the wrinkles have yet to be ironed out, I'm still figuring out the exact wording of the info sheet, and the cover design. Yadda Yadda, there is stuff to do, but they are ready to get into the hands of happy little embroiderers! Heck! This might be a good time to do a first ever Papaver Studio blog give away! Hmmm, next week I think I will make it up when I have time next week!

Here's a little sneak peek: The cover! In real life, it will be printed directly on the envelope, and get this: all my paper I will be using will be 100% recycled! Rad, huh? I love the brown paper bag envelopes, and hey, recycled! The white paper? why, thats recycled too! Sadly these mock ups are only like, 30% recycled. That's my Opal the original Tigerpup, as the spokespuppy/logo for the line. Cute no?

And the interior! Each set comes with at least two pages of designs! Yay! More stuff to choose from, or different sizes of the same thing.


And the carbon paper and instructions on how to transfer your images. key, pick a small ballpoint pen, and press evenly! Also, iron first, it helps.

And the whole set together for your viewing pleasure!

More designs to come, i have so many ideas I can't keep track of them!
Maggie

I love Craigslist!

As I mentioned before (above) I love the Craigslist! Its been particularly good to us lately. Last week we put the canopy from our old truck up, and a day later, sold it to a nice girl who had just bought (also on CL) a 79 toyota longbed pickup! Ours had been a 78, so I was really happy it went to a new old toyota. Brandon even installed it for her, we were super excited to get it the hell out of our driveway!

And then just yesterday, I found this beauty in the furniture section!
Isn't it great? Okay, so there are MUCH better leather couches out there in the world, but this one met my requirements of a) not looking like the cushions are melting (I hate those couches with the layers of flabby cushions) and b) being brown, and c) having arms and d) brandon can lay down on it, e) its comfy, and most of all f) the dogs can't make it smell all funky. Which our other couch had turned into the funky dog smell couch. To be fair, it was a fabric couch, and the dogs did alot of quality loungin' on it. But it smelled BAD. And I've been searching for a good leather replacement for a couple of years off and on on the CL. So happy are we! Its also our Christmas present from my parents, that we are getting paid back for (thanks mom and dad!)
From the other side. Good stuff. Our old couch we put out on the curb at 1 this afternoon, and by about 4 it was gone. Thanks again, Craigslist! And that one didn't even have any back cushions on it, and I advertised that it was kinda stinky. Hey, it has good bones, and you can clean it up. Hope they like it.

Since it was so pretty today I took on the job of yard cleanup. Cleaned out the coop, swept, and raked up all the pinecones and whatnot that falls in the yard. Thought I'd take a couple pictures of the ole' place while I was at it! The lovely orange fence (formerly to hold chickens) has been reused to keep the dogs out of the "lawn" I am growing. I am particularly excited that it started growing since I seeded it late October!
The girls out pecking around. Their feathers have grown back in mostly from the moult. Dear lord, i cleaned out some serious feathers from the coop today! Hope they are happy, ungrateful little birdies!

And Henrietta, looking all pretty and red. Shes a good lookin' bird!

Thats all, Happy Thanksgiving everybody! We will be celebrating our last one at my childhood home this year, My parents have officially sold theirs, and as of today, have had their offer accepted on another one all the way in the west hills! We'll never see them again, since it is well known that Eastsiders don't go that far West!

Holiday Sale!

I'm participating in the annual holiday sale on the corner of brazee and 45th in ne portland. This is the last time I'll be able to say its "on my parent's block" since they are in the process on closing the sale of their house and buying a new one (cross your fingers, the one they want has a hot tub and indoor pool!).

The sale is fun, and friday night is the night to go, cause there is wine and cheese and all the good stuff goes fast! Also, its cheery and bright in there, and I'll be debuting my embroidery pattern line if all goes as planned! So I guess I'd better get back in the studio and work on it some more!

Maggie

Beach Trip and Friend's Thanksgiving

Last week we went on a much needed vacation with my brother Peter. We took him (and the dogs) to La Playa, perhaps our favorite house at the beach. I blogged about it almost a year ago, when we went with our friends Senna, Val, Wilder and Christina right after Christmas. It is the ultimate in Seventies beach house chic. Just as much fun this time! We did all the usual things the Kearns family does at the beach: read, walk on the beach, read, Peter plays portable video games, I work on a craft (needle felting and embroidery), Brandon takes pictures of the beach. Oh, and some antique shopping. When I see the coffee table Peter got again, I will take pictures. I will do a blog on awesome coffee tables, because his is the second coolest coffee table, after my own. Which, if you are interested, has a twin in Rob Zombie's "house of 1000 corpses." No joke, haven't seen it, but I have in on good authority.

But back to the beach. It was perfect. Nice during the day (a few sprinkles, not much) and stormy at night, but somehow both nights before the storms it was clear, and you could go out and see the stars. And since there was no moon, man, there were STARS. And Peter's phone has a super rad (and handy) star chart that uses GPS to line up with the actual stars! What is the world coming to that your phone can tell you where the constellations are? Wacky. But fun!

Look! We are doing good, two pictures in a week with both of us in them! That is seriously a first in our 11 years together (oh, our anniversary is this week, yay us!)
And Me and Peter, for Mom and Dad. Someone thinks they will be getting this picture for Christmas...
My finished tea towel with my own embroidery patterns on it. Yep, I'm gonna pat myself on the back and say I'm pretty good at designing them. Gonna work on more today!
And the boys doing what the beach is for: Reading Stuff. Check out the brown carpet and rad wood paneled walls. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
And finally, some action shots of the dogs. They got the hang of playing fetch this week. I think it helps that they were playing alone, usually they play with Riley and Rosie, and Rosie is a world class fetcher. The rest of the dogs just have to run along, since they aren't gonna get the ball anyway. And if they do, they just drop it and she brings it back. Not this time, Opal had to learn to bring it back herself! Marcus only completed the circuit once. But hey, that ain't bad, cause he isn't a fetching dog. Look at the air Opal gets!
Doesn't Marcus look freaky running at you? We were lucky this week, hardly a person or dog on the beach the whole time we were there, so no one for him to scare. Not that he means to, cause he really doesn't. He's just happy to see you!
This is a double post, cause here is Friend's Thanksgiving! The day after we got back from the beach, we took off for the weekend to Iris and Forrest's house in the country for a 14 person thanksgiving. With Pot roast instead of Turkey. Mmmm, pot roast....

Here are the pups sitting for Roast. Left to right: Marcus, Rosie, Opal, and Riley. Poor Lukas was to short to be in this picture. That's Iris in the skull and rose apron. Me in the jeans and grey sweater.


Sorry for the yellow light, but the flash is icky in this room. Two big dining room tables stuck together to make one HUGE one. Perfect for all of us. That farm house they moved into is awesome for parties, a big living room/dining room combo, plus three extra bedrooms for guests. We claimed the first floor one for us, cause I like to be near a bathroom (I've got a teeny bladder, I know, to much information).After dinner came the games, That picture is of me, iris, and Wes playing cribbage. They tried to teach me, but well, math and the evenings makes me sleepy. I played one game, then broke out the embroidery and hung out. Next to me is Steven, he was playing Rummy or something with Dean and Roxanne. At the end of the table were the rest of the crew playing Poker. Wow, what a difference the years make, even a few years ago it would have been drinking games and dancing, now its card games and wine and crafts!

Okay, there was a little dancing. Brandon got it into his little wine-drunk head that he needed to dance, and he got Wes's boyfriend to dance with him. Awkwardly. It was hilarious, and somewhere there is video of the whole thing, with Wes's cackling laugh in the background. He was rolling on the floor with tears in his eyes, he was laughing so hard. Oh Brandon, you are so silly sometimes.
It was a great night, it ended with Wall-E and Bananagrams. The next morning was OPB and a breakfast bake. And coffee, lots and lots of coffee.