A fun end of the month. March was busy!

Hi! If you are a subscriber, I hope that you did not mind the wait! HAPPY SPRING!
I am happy to share some of what has been going on here lately.
Adding in a few pictures here and there for fun.

Knitting again this week after a long break.
I knitted the above from embroidery wool that I tied together. All of the pictures in this post are courtesy of a cell phone.
So that explains the noticeable graininess and lack of clarity.

That heart shape at the tip of the nose makes me laugh.

Some wear theirs on their sleeve! Mine is right there in front of my face!

Must be the Venusian in me.

I took these pics of myself back in 2007 during a ride through the lower east side. (Manhattan NYC). DH's new car was so rudely taken the end of Feb. and found last week- totally stripped down. So that ends the chapter of owning a sports car.

Personally I am glad that it is gone. As nice as it was, I did not enjoy having such a luxury item parked out on the street.

Sadly though, the lucky ducks who committed the grand theft, now have or have disposed of hundreds of dollars of personal property and some sentimental items. Things can be replaced.

Life goes on.

I joined a Spring swap hosted by Heather S. B. and although I have not yet taken pictures of everything that I got, I did take pictures of two of the pieces on display. The little duckie was made by "Speckled Egg" it is sitting on the top of the letter "I" in imagine pictured below.

I LOVE IT! I will post the link to the artists' sites next weekend if I can.

(((The "Margie" card is for Margaret Fenney. I etched a piece of copper for her last week and inked out her name on a piece of matboard for fun. She got me started in the art form of etching.)))

And then there is the little tri flag banner draped from my Hotel de ville de Paris chalk board/clock.

The two roly poly characters on either end are vintage/antique German blown glass. LOVE them!

I FINALLY got a new sewing machine!

I am SO EXCITED!!!

I had to give up a *lot* of extras in my life to afford it right now, but it is so worth it!

This is a very good thing!

Alma if you are reading this, I got the free form foot, so I can doodle!
The past week has been pretty good.

To be sure, ETSY will be seeing more of me in April and May and I hope you will enjoy seeing what I make!

DH bought me a beautiful bouquet of long stems- yellow roses with a sunset trim on the outer petals. SO LOVELY and they smell SO luscious! I trimmed the stems down and arranged them in a glass.

Here he is standing still for me in the cold as I snap the picture taken today. We had a fun time playing each other at Mrs. PacMan which we both played a lot of when we were a LOT younger! Like 26 years ago! A local spot that has had a race car arcade game of one style or another for the last 10 years replaced it for the relic.

There were several glitches in the game that added moments of surprise and prompts for a good laugh!

After that we walked up to the factory to collect rusty bezels for Sue.

Right now I am listening to music from the 20s and 30s. The lyrics are hilarious. At the moment an orchestral piece called Hallelujah I'm a Bum Again is playing -1932 the Al Jolson version. The music from that era is just beautiful. The tunes are catchy, fun, light, bouncy and airy!

I love listening to 90.7 FM.

SO! I signed up for the Gleaner zine swap with my zine friend Christi Miller of Material Zine fame.

ONLY FOR HER! (ONLY for you Christi)

I am in the process of designing a mini zine so that she can swap them out.
I have no interest in the swap at this time otherwise, as I am backlogged as it is... I think I just want one of hers badly enough!

If you are into zines, hers are fun to watch for.

Below, are two pictures taken through a chain link fence at the factory where I dig for the rusty bezels.

Technically, I bring a dowel and poke through the gate and drag out rusty bits. Some of them are actually in the dirt (off to the side from what you see in the pictures) so I do dig them out.

I cannot even begin to tell you how much FUN working with these rusty and tarnished bezels is! Don't worry, I know what I am doing and I do not handle the pieces without treating them and sealing them first.

The trades that I have gotten for them are amazing.

Mija Marie sent me a gorgeous assortment of goodies that I have stashed away to use in the warmer weather out doors.

Pati Woodard just traded me one of her cool sterling silver soda cap bracelets.

I will post pictures at a later date.
If you are interested in trading for some, let me know!

It is not easy to glean these pieces through the gate with a dowel in usable shape as many are bent and flattened so it takes me several weeks to collect a good 40 of them. Still trying to find an easier way of collecting them. The rotweiler, factory guard dog, is my friend so he leaves me alone when I am there poking through the fence.

If you want a lot, you will have to be prepared to wait a while for them.

They are not for sale, only trades.

HAVE A FUN APRIL!

~*Amber*~

Sharing my world... I LOVE COLOR!

~*~*~*~*~

This is a peek at my hippity hop swap Ring in Spring trade. She is so cute.
She is a vintage paper doll restored and altered a bit in Photoshop. I then printed, snipped out and pasted her to a little bell shaped piece that I cut from a Christmas garland. I then stuck a real silver bell inside to help her ring with style.
I made the flower from hand dyed silk ribbon by, Grace Brunelle, tulle, ombre ribbon, Swarovski crystal rhinestones and hand made stamens.

This was a fun swap!
Thank you to the ladies in the GREEN group.

I already opened all of mine while standing out in the sunlight the morning I got them and a bit of snow crystals sprinkled down on me while I was standing there (Snow was not in our forecast!) It paired well with the glittery goodness on the lovely art pieces.
I guess some will consider me a bit of a cheater since we were supposed to open one a day. What can I say? I could have waited, but it all looked so lovely I didn't want to wait!
THANK YOU LADIES! I adore my gifts.(March 14th)
I will post my pictures here in April



Well....
Here are some pictures of a corner in my studio.
Notice the serger that Sweet Carlotta sent me!

The flower pot by Sonji is inverted with a classic handmade porcelain lamp on it. I got that lamp and the frame around my cork board from an estate for free (free cycle).
There are swaps and gifts on the board.