SXSW

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I was ready for something completely different so I headed for Austin during the SXSW festival. At the same time my other longing was to bring my dog on a vacation trip instead of leaving him behind. I successfully accomplished both simultaneously and rate it as one of the best vacations ever. I live in Virginia so it's about 24 hours of driving in all. I think we saw about 50 or more Cracker Barrel restaurants on our route. It came in handy on the drive home. You can rent a book on tape and drop it off for a refund at another location. Sweet! The weather was terrific, the atmosphere of Austin was all and more than I imagined and the music was all over the place. We really only sampled a small taste of what was available that week. I have all the videos on my Youtube channel and they are marked SXSW in the title. One of our favorite surprises was the chance to see Roky Erickson of the 13th floor Elevators band from the sixties. (I appologize for the poor quality of the videos. I was short and could not see the screen on my camera.If I could do it over again it would be much better) Another treat was seeing Jessica Lea Mayfield at Waterloo Records. ( My exuse for her video is I had my dog on a leash while videoing and could not move up front and had to watch him because we were surrounded by people) I did not plan this trip in advance at all so we did not have wrist band or badge. There was still an excess of music that could be enjoyed without the official SXSW wristband/badge that we hardly knew we were missing out on anything. Here are some pictures of my week. I cant wait to go back again and again. Next time we will fly and get a wrist band for more access.

First Fridays Art Walk

I went to First Fridays Art walk yesterday. The weather was perfect for walking the streets and checking out the galleries. I took a poor quality video of Henry st. Gallery where I was looking to see the art of Georgia Meyers. Her paintings are the group of portraits in the video. She is going to make a copy of one of the portraits for me. I didnt get to enjoy all of the galleries because I chose to wear shoes that were cute to look at but very uncomfortable to walk in. I can't wait to go next month in the most comfortable clothes and shoes I can find. The music is by Boat Burning. I appologize for the shaking and poor quality. Our kodak camera has a better quality video and I will be using that from now on. Going to the galleries really inspires me to get busy creating things.

3 year old art

I am lucky enough to have some drawings I did when I was about 3 years old. I estimate the age from dates on the forms I was drawing on. My plan is to make a quilt with them as I did
here. I have lots of fabric scraps but I would like to dye my own fabric. Maybe I'll do some of each. I have made sketches of the general layout and next will make color sketches to get my colors figured out. And then I guess I'll experiment with dying some fabric. I will post updates as I go along.

Merry Christmas

Getting into the Christmas spirit.
Let me count my blessings with you. I had a surprise sale last night. Every sale is a surprise especially right before Christmas. I went to the post office this morning and was in and out in five minutes. I did'nt know you could do priority and delivery confirmation on the self service machine! The forcast calls for snow tonight and into tomorrow. How delightful! I hope all of you are finding peace, joy and love during this holiday season! Merry Christmas! ( the video is my Christmas tree)

Miny Me

Here is Teddy with his little felted miny likeness. We are delighted to have this adorable felted dog in our home. Teddy was very cooperative and did not try to eat or destroy his little friend. Of course he is kept out of reach when not being photographed. Big thanks again to Ben McFuzzy lugs for making and sending our tiny Teddy. Please go check out this Etsy shop and see Teddy hanging our there.

Lakeside Retail Merchants’ Holly Jolly Open House event Nov. 13th-14th

Attention Richmond Va. residents and those of you in the surrounding areas, I am happy to say I will be participating in the Lakeside retail merchants' Holly Jolly Open House. This will take place November 13th and 14th (Friday and Saturday) Friday offers trolly rides to select hot spots for great shopping. (the ad above is last year's so the dates are not correct for this year) Lakeside Avenue is probably less than 2 miles long but offers a great variety of unique shops and businesses. Thanks to Virginia Craft-n-istas a group of artists and crafters will be set up at the Lakeside Town Center 6114 Lakeside Ave. which is front and center of that great indoor outdoor mini shopping complex. Friday will take place 5pm to 9pm and Saturday will run from 10am to 3pm. I will only be there Saturday unfortunately.
I hope you can drop by and support local businesses and artists. Tell your friends or bring them with you.

I'm a winner!

Just a quick shout out to Skylar's Candy Clips [yummie hair goodies and accessories]. I entered the I Heart my dog giveaway contest and won the photo portion of the contest! I will receive a felted likeness of Teddy. I cant wait and will be sure to post it here. > Please go check out Ben McFuzzylugs on Etsy. Here's a sample photo of a felted dog. I'm looking forward to mine. The other photo is a very cute hair clip holder from Skylar's shop

This is my Saturday

I received my new business cards from Overnight Prints. 500 for $9.91. That's free except for the shipping charge. I think they look great.
We went to the 43rd Street Festival of the Arts And as ususal, plenty of great artist. I bought some great note cards from Steve Hedbert. The box of cards are prints of his painting of scenes around Richmond.
Jewelry by Bijou Graphique is wonderful. I've seen the art of Foust many times at many shows and I love it! And how about some amazing beadwork by Ingrid Bernhardt.
After the art show we made stop into Mongrel, a wonderful card and gift store. I picked up some cards and a reusable totebag by Envirosax. If you look at the link you will see which bag I picked. You can see all of the designs they offer also.
And last but not least a visit to Ellwood Thompsons organic market. I snapped a picture on the way in because I love the mural on the outside. Painting by Ed Trask. I'm feeling so gratful to be living here. How was your day?

I Heart My Dog

Since I have'nt posted for a long time I thought I would help spread the word about Skylar's Candy Clips contest giveaway. Two winners will be selected. One for photo and the other for comment entry. Please become a follower of her blog and joint in on the contest.
I'll use this as my comment entry. Before I adopted Teddy from the Henrico Humane Society I has some cosmic gravitational pull to find a dog. I was at the SPCA one day and saw a funny little white dog with huge ears but fairly small in size. The lable on the kennel was "cattle dog". I did not know what that was but that was all I wanted from that point on. I searched the on line pet adoption sites and saw Teddy. I went to the location they set up for the adoptions had to wait for him to arrive. There was as similar dog that was smaller and very cute already there. Once Teddy arrived I spend a long while just hanging around with him. I thought about the other dog but I had come for Teddy and I brought him home that day. Teddy makes us laugh every day and fills my life with many challenges. I'll never tire of his cuteness. Here's two pictures of him. The pumkin hat picture is my favorite and the pin cushion picture shows him into mischief.
PS I found the original photo from the web site adoption. It's the very top photo. What a cutie pie he was!

Twitter Mosaic

picked this up from The Pink Samurai

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