The Cricket's Song

Colorful Corn

2008-08-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

This is some of the most fun corn to grow. It is called Painted Mountain and is a colorful dry corn. We have been harvesting and husking it. We will hang it to dry around the house and it makes a beautiful fall decoration. Later we will take the kernels off the cob then grind it into corn flour. It makes pretty and delicious cornbread.

Heirloom Tomatoes

2008-08-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

Handmade Gifts

2008-08-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

I recently had a bridal shower. It was a fun time with special friends. I enjoyed the unique and handmade gifts I received.

These sweet hotpads were made by a special friend

My sister got me this lovely butter dish off Etsy from Sierra Clay Art

Sweet Bouquet

2008-06-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

This morning I made this little nosegay from flowers in the garden. I was experimenting to get ideas for my wedding flowers. I really like these flowers and colors. I am hoping to be able to get something similar.

Blue

2008-06-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

My wedding colors are green and blue. We have been getting ideas for decorating and flowers. We have been finding pretty blue glass vases and jars at thrift stores. I am also hoping to use blue delphinium in the bouquets. Here are some of our blue finds.

Green

2008-06-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

The other day I died some more wool with apricot leaves. It made a lovely spring green color. The picture is of: white, natural; pink, apricot bark; and green apricot leaves.

I can't wait to start using this fiber!

The Perfect Dress

2008-06-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

It has been a lot of trouble to find just the right wedding dress, one that is modest and beautiful and affordable. So I decided to make my own. That way it will be just the way I want it. It will be the perfect dress. I bought ten yards of matte satin fabric, a pattern, some trim, and thread. The pattern needs quite a bit of adjusting to make it right. I have started working on that and I made a mock-up bodice last night.

Garden Journal Entry One

2008-06-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

The garden is starting to grow... finally. It got a slow start. The weather got cool just after planting so the seeds didn't come up quickly. I got distracted for a few days and forgot to water my tomato starts. About half of them died. It has not been as successful as last years garden. But it is doing better now. The surviving tomatoes are doing well now and most of the seeds have sprouted. Now we just need to protect them from bugs and hopefully we will still get a good crop this year.

Wedding Plans

2008-05-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

Over the last several weeks we have been working on planning the my wedding. Deciding on a location, choosing the wedding party, looking at dresses, and designing the invitations. I have been having fun with the invitations, here are the ideas we like. Something like this would be the front and inside would be the text.

An Engagement

2008-05-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

The reason I haven't been posting very regularly is because I have been a little distracted the last few months. Now I am even more so. Last week a wonderful man proposed to me and I accepted. It was a very sweet and romantic proposal. We are planning the wedding for this fall. I'm sure I'll be busy! I am so happy and excited!!

Painting Project

2008-04-29T09:22:00.001-07:00

We have been working on repainting our whole house. It was all a dull gray before. Now The house is tan and the doors are red. We still need to paint the trim, it is going to be green. The red doors certainly add some color to the house!

Fresh Baby Greens...

2008-04-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

... and radishes.

Garden Planning

2008-04-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

The weather has been warm and sunny. I am itching to get the garden planted. We have big plans for the garden this year. The only problem is finding place to plant everything. Today we tilled up a large area for planting. We still need to put in some fences and make hills and rows, but it is coming along. My little seedlings are doing well out on the back porch. I will try to get some garden pictures to post soon. Melissa bought the lovely bleeding heart plant pictured above.

Bright and Cheerful

2008-04-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

Aren't these flowers cheery? I just love the color combination!

Wildflowers

2008-03-31T17:50:00.001-07:00

Yesterday after church a group of us went out to see the wildflowers. It was a beautiful day for the excursion. There were fields of blue, yellow and orange flowers. There were patches of small purple and white flowers also. We enjoyed exploring the hillsides and picking lovely bouquets.

Here are some of the flowers we saw. I only know the names of a few of them.

California poppies and a few lupines

Cheerful yellow flowers

These dainty blue flowers were some of my favorites.

California poppy

I Just Don't Feel Like Blogging

2008-03-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

I am having a hard time getting back into the routine of blogging. I have not been terribly busy but I guess I have been distracted by other things and I haven't been on the computer much.

My garden is slowly coming along. I have lots of little tomato, pepper and other vegetable sprouts out on the back porch. My spring salad garden is not doing as well. I was disappointed to find a huge hole that the dog had been digging when I came home from Oregon. Oh well, things are sprouting and staring to grow, so I think we will still get something.

I cooked up a large batch of pumpkins and made pumpkin butter. It has smelled delicious the last several days as it has cooked in the slow cooker!

I am hoping to get some sewing done, work in the garden some, and get a letter written today. That means it is time to get off the computer and get to work!

Lilac

2008-03-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

The first lilacs are blooming. I was playing around with the camera and liked the way this photo turned out.

New Cards

2008-03-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

I have two new cards in the shop. In a way both of these were inspired by some adorable fabric I picked up one day. I made the skirt card first for my sisters birthday. I liked it so much that I created another one to list on Etsy. The illustration card was inspired by the colors in the fabric and the beautiful blossoms that have been blooming around here. I made it as a wedding card to go along with the hotpads I posted about here. Again I was so pleased with the way it turned out that I made another to sell.

Blossom Illustration Card

Blossom Skirt Card

Inspiration!

An Explanation For The Silence

2008-03-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a while now since I have blogged about anything. I do have a good reason, really I do. Last weekend we traveled up to Oregon for a wedding. It was a crazy, busy, fun, and interesting trip! Since getting home Tuesday night I have been recovering from lack of sleep, unpacking, and getting back to normal. Besides that there just hasn't been anything I've felt like blogging about.

Today while outside I was watching this butterfly flutter around. It was very obliging and landed close by so I was able to take some pretty good pictures. Tizzy, Melissa's dog sat nearby watching me. Probably thinking I was crazy!

Seven Random Things about me...

2008-03-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by Sew Serious to do this. So here goes...

1. I love to go barefoot. All summer long I hardly ever wear shoes other than flip flops. Oh, and I almost always dance barefoot because my shoes never stay on!

2. I like to dance old fashioned dances like the Virginia Reel. Civil War style dancing, Scottish country dancing, it is so much fun!

3. I hardly ever read or follow instructions. It is a very bad habit. I tend to look at something, then try to figure it out myself. Only if I get stuck do I go back and read it :)

4. My favorite movies are usually about six hours long! I enjoy BBC adaptions of classic literature and they are often made as miniseries. Unfortunately that means I don't have the time to watch them very often :(

5. Someday I want to live on a farm and grow/raise most of my own food. I am able to do that a little now with a small garden and a few animals. I love living in the country and don't think I could ever live in the city.

6. If I could travel to one place in the world it would be Scotland. I'm not sure why. It just fascinates me. It must be because of some of the books I have read that take place there. Also some of my background is Scottish.

7. I was home schooled from second grade on and I loved it.

Well, that was fun! I hope you enjoyed it. I am not tagging anyone, but if you would like to do this consider yourself tagged.

Happy Birthday!

2008-03-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Melissa's birthday. We celebrated with coconut cupcakes and balloons.
I had fun baking and frosting the cupcakes while she was out having a shopping trip and lunch in town.

Still Having Too Much Fun!

2008-03-06T18:27:00.000-08:00

I haven't been doing anything very creative lately. Today we went with a group bowling and then out to ice cream. Tomorrow we are taking a day trip with more friends. It has just been one big party around here. It will be hard to get back to normal life :)

This morning I was able to prepare part of my garden for spring planting. I am excited about that. Now I need to go clean my room and pay bills.

All the trees in the orchard are blooming now. It is so beautiful. I had fun taking some photos of the blossoms with our new camera!

A Fun Week

2008-03-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

I am back after a crazy week of activity! I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday helping prepare and set up for the wedding. Friday was also the rehearsal. The wedding on Saturday was beautiful. The weather was perfect for an outdoor wedding. Several friends from out of state were here for the wedding. It was fun to spend time with them. Yesterday a whole group of us went over and spent the day at the beach. There was plenty to do. Some of the activities were football, frisbee, body boarding, walking, exploring tidepools, and just visiting. Nearly everyone has gone home now and things have settled down. Maybe I will be able to get back to blogging regularly.

A lovely spring day and a beautiful setting for an outdoor wedding!

Sunset after a fun filled day at the beach.

Busy

2008-02-28T21:46:00.000-08:00

A very dear friend is getting married on Saturday. I have barely been at home in the last three days! There are many last minute preparations that we have been helping with. So it may be a little quiet around here for a few more days.

In other news I was featured on the Kinichi River Designs blog!

An Ordinary Day

2008-02-25T18:43:00.000-08:00

I can't really think of anything to post today. Monday is not my favorite day of the week. It tends to be kind of a blah day. Today was one of those Mondays. It has been gray and rainy all weekend and I am longing for some sunshine. It did peek out briefly today, but it wasn't long enough. This morning we were completely out of hay for the horses and goats. So we had to run and get a couple bales to hold us over until we get a load delivered on Thursday. I drove the hay down to the shed and nearly got stuck in the mud! It was still a little too wet to be driving out there. I was also able to get outside and pull some old wire cages out of the ground where I want to make a garden and set a few gopher traps. I hope they work, we have a terrible gopher problem! Doesn't it sound like an exciting day?

I would like to share this stunning photo that Melissa took a few days ago.

Rainy Days Work

2008-02-22T19:33:00.000-08:00

Rainy days are so perfect for getting indoor projects done. The last few days I have been busy. Yesterday I spent all day organizing my room, especially my craft supplies. It wasn't particularly fun, but the results are satisfying. It is so convenient to have a place where everything belongs.
Today I took up the hem on a dress I am wearing to a wedding next weekend. It is a beautiful dress but was way too long on short little me :) Then I made patchwork hotpad tops for a gift for someone special. I will have to finish the hotpads soon. I am not a quilter at all. But I have been making quilted hotpads recently. It is more fun than I expected. When I get good enough at it maybe I will attempt a full size quilt.

A Few of My Favorites

2008-02-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

I created an Etsy treasury today. I am in the mood for spring!
To visit click here.

A New Green Coat

2008-02-20T13:52:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to be yesterdays post, but I didn't quite finish the job.
So here it is today!

I set aside yesterday afternoon for shearing Willow my Pygora goat. Her glossy white curls had grown quite long and if not cut soon could have become tangled and matted.
The first part is always easy. She loves jumping onto the stand to get her grain! Then I brush off any loose bits of hay from her coat and start clipping. This year I invested in some handy pet clippers. It was so much easier than the scissors I used last time! I was a little afraid that the buzzing would scare her more but it didn't, she was actually much calmer. Actually I was too because there wasn't as much risk of cutting her. She was still nervous about her legs and stomach though. I was able to get her mostly clipped when the battery died, so I had to let that charge overnight. This morning I finished her up. She looks a bit pathetic without her hair. I hope she doesn't feel too badly and that the other goats don't laugh at her too much. Just in case, I got her a fashionable green coat to wear:) Oh, it will also keep her warm now that she doesn't have her own coat. I think she rather likes it!

Cute and Practical

2008-02-18T18:04:00.000-08:00

Today I splurged and bought these very cute baskets and boxes. These should be helpful for my next project; organizing my many craft supplies. I think this will make it more fun! I am looking forward to the chore more than I normally would.

The Little Greenhouse

2008-02-15T15:18:00.000-08:00

I am so excited about my vegetable garden this year!! This year I am starting so many more seeds than last year.
The warm sunny days we've been having get me itching to plant things. I planted summer bulbs earlier this week. This afternoon I planted the first of my vegetable seeds. So far just broccoli and artichokes(I am growing a purple artichoke!). They are in seed starting trays. I like to leave them outside during the day and I bring them in at night when it gets too chilly.
It is a bit too early still to start the rest of my seeds like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. Just a few more weeks though!
I am also hoping to plant a spring garden very soon.

Happy Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T15:39:00.001-08:00

Love suffers long and is kind;
love does not envy;
love does not parade itself,
is not puffed up;
does not behave rudely,
does not seek its own,
is not provoked,
thinks no evil;
does not rejoice in iniquity,
but rejoices in the truth;
bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

The Secret Door

2008-02-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

This is a pencil drawing I did about a year ago for a friend. I have recently been working on an illustration based on it. I don't know how much I will do. This is it so far...

What is beyond the door...
I don't know, that is for you to imagine!

Valentine Sweets

2008-02-11T14:52:00.000-08:00

This morning I baked and decorated these sweet shortbread hearts.

Unintentional Inspiration

2008-02-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

The other night I had an idea inspired by a skirt I made for myself last summer. The skirt was an experiment using a pattern I made up. I was very pleased with the results. I thought why not make a card with the leftover fabric scraps? So I did. Somehow I didn't get the skirt quite centered on the card. Well I sat there wondering what to do about it when the brilliant idea to cut it into a square card came to me. Now I had this cute little 4.25"x4.25" card that I was happy with. The next thought was where will I find envelopes to fit? I quickly did some searching and soon found exactly the right size! I promptly ordered some. I may be listing some of these soon! A new fashion card line? Maybe.

Hand Spinning

2008-02-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been spinning the fiber from my Pygora goat, Willow. Well actually attempting to spin would be more accurate! I really have no clue what I am doing. I have a fun little drop spindle that I have been using and a book with instructions. So, I spun up quite a bit but somehow it just doesn't seem quite right :) It is very uneven and lumpy. Oh well, I just look at it as practice, someday I will probably be a wonderful expert :) I am planning on making some kind of funny hat or scarf out of the resulting yarn.

Looking Like Spring

2008-02-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

It is such a pretty sunny day outside. It is starting to look like spring. After the rain we had last week the hills are all tinted with soft green. These dainty Paperwhites are some of the first flowers to bloom in our yard. They look lovely sitting on our windowsill along with a blue glass bottle.

Mandolin, Tambourine & Willow

2008-02-05T19:39:00.000-08:00

Today has been a busy day. This morning I was out helping a family that is expecting twins and all afternoon I was shopping. So... this post isn't much. I am just going to introduce you to our three goats. Willow is the white curly one. She is a Pygora fiber goat. The pink dyed fiber in this post is hers. The brown one is Mandolin our Kinder milk doe. And the little one in the back is Tambourine her baby. I think they are pretty cute. And they are sweet and friendly, too.

Texture + Color

2008-02-04T13:23:00.000-08:00

We have new paper just in time for spring! We have been using Canson Mi-Tientes for all of our cards and just recently ordered some brighter colors. This paper is just beautiful. The colors are bright and it has a wonderful texture. We are adding new cards made from Melissa's photographs on this paper to our etsy shop nearly everyday!

Fascination

2008-01-31T13:59:00.000-08:00

Both my sister and I have a fascination(or should I call it an obsession?) with colorful vegetables. I guess it all started when we decided to plant a garden last year. We started looking at different seed websites and catalogs. There was such an amazing beautiful variety. Of course we couldn't just plant "normal" red tomatoes, we planted orange, purple, white, and green! The same went for everything else, the more unusual the better. So, we have started to plan the garden for this summer. When we started ordering seeds I said "We really need to just limit ourselves and not buy every possible color of tomatoes". Well somehow instead of the five tomato varieties we had last year, we ended up with twelve varieties! Twelve! It's crazy! But it sure is fun.
Our favorite place to order seeds is Baker Creek. It was fun to look at all the varieties they have and make our order. The most exciting part was when a large envelope stuffed with seeds arrived in the mail! We ended up getting so many that I am not quite sure just where to plant them all...
I was reminded of all this yesterday while shopping at a local specialty market and saw this purple cauliflower. How could I resist?

Fabric Inspiration

2008-01-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

I love new fabric!! It makes me want to sew up something fun. Here is my newest. Now the question is what to make? Oh, my there are so many ideas!

Pink and Brown

2008-01-29T16:03:00.001-08:00

In a previous post I mentioned some natural dyeing I have been doing. Well, here are some pictures of what I've done. The most recent dye I used was made from apricot bark that I saved after pruning the trees. It made such a pretty earthy pink color.I started by dyeing just a little bit of Pygora fiber, then a little more, and finally I did some wool yarn that I had. The brown yarn next to the pink yarn was dyed using oak leaves. I have also used eucalyptus leaves which made a rusty orange color. Natural dyeing is so fun. I love the subtle colors it creates.

And the Winner is...

2008-01-29T11:16:00.000-08:00

I would like to congratulate coco on winning my first blog giveaway!! I want to thank you all for participating. It was so much fun. Coco please leave a comment (comment moderation is on) or convo me at my etsy shop with your address within the next few days, and I will ship the cards as soon as possible.

Vellum Cards

2008-01-26T13:41:00.001-08:00

There are two new cards in the shop. This line of cards is made from my flower illustrations printed on transparent vellum. So pretty! I will continue to add more so keep checking back.

Mini Card Giveaway!!!

2008-01-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

To celebrate the opening of our shop and this new blog we are going to have a giveaway. All you have to do is post a comment on this post. The winner will be randomly selected. The winner will be posted in a follow up blog post, so keep checking back!

What are we giving away? I made this sweet little set of mini cards. Each card has a different flower illustration on it. There are six cards in the set. The cards measure 2"x3,5" and come with transparent vellum envelopes. These are the perfect size for attaching to gifts or bouquets or just for a fun little note.

My New Books

2008-01-24T12:46:00.000-08:00

I received two books for my birthday. The first is Wild Color by Jenny Dean. It is a wonderful book on making dyes from plants. So far I have tried three dyes. I will have to post pictures sometime. I have been wanting this book for a long time but it is out of print therefore hard to find(at least for a reasonable price). My sister was able to find it online and she got it for me. I have such a great sister.

The second book is The Rim of the Prairie by Bess Streeter Aldrich. It is a sweet, simple story that takes place in a small prairie town. It is beautifully written. The characters are so real. You feel like a part of their joys, heartache, laughter, and trials.

Cinderella's Carriage

2008-01-22T22:14:00.000-08:00

I grew some beautiful white Lumina pumpkins last summer. They have kept very well and I still have several left. They made some wonderful pies and baked goods. I recently decided to try carving an artistic design on one of them. This is the result. It reminds me of Cinderella's carriage.

The Cricket's Song Shop

2008-01-19T10:24:00.000-08:00

Recently my sister and I opened a shop on Etsy. Etsy is a place for people to sell all things handmade. I am really excited and hoping things will sell. We are starting off selling greeting cards made from some of my drawings and photographs, all natural soap, and a few fabric items. Eventually we are hoping to add more items such as handbags, felted items, and naturally dyed wool/yarn.
This is going to be the official Cricket's Song blog as well as a place to share our other projects and ideas.