That big harvest moon the other night had me dreaming of giant pumpkins, and I was inspired to needle felt this wool wall hanging of a pumpkin patch on a full harvest moon night. I made one similar to this that I traded with a crafty friend a couple of years ago for a beautiful sweater she knit for my newborn niece. When I was working on this piece, the wild, witchy woman out in the filed ...
Art
DIY Barbed Wire Trellis
The rose bush in the front flower bed was beginning to fall over with the weight of all the new growth these past weeks, and was in serious need of a trellis. Rather than buy a trellis, I felt up to the task of making one myself. One of my favorite approaches to the creative process of garden art is looking around my sheds to see what is on hand that could be re-purposed. In this case, we had been ...
DIY Garden Flags
I have always enjoyed hanging flags out in my garden, and it was time for some new ones after the Tibetan prayer flags we put up around the garden fence for housewarming finally disintegrated this winter. I discovered Pinterest not too long ago, and got some great ideas looking through garden art pins to make my own flags out of old ratty fabric and quilt scraps. I have to be honest that I am not ...
Upcycled Throw Pillow Project and Some Thoughts on Re-Purposed Art
There is a lot of fun to be had in re-purposing something old into something new. I may not be a great seamstress, but I have enough basic sewing skills to act upon my creative ideas when I see just the right something. I found this quilted calico appliqued wall hanging stretched on a hoop at a second hand store, and immediately re-imagined it as a homestead-themed throw pillow. It was so easy ...
The Fruits of Her Labor
It's a good feeling when you put a lot of hard work into something and reach a point where you can finally enjoy the fruits of your labor. I recently felted this wool wall hanging with just that feeling in mind. I have been putting a lot of energy over the past year into revitalizing Mountain Hearth Handcrafts. It started out as a home craft business when I was a full time mother and homesteader, ...
Through Another Lens
Sometimes, it's refreshing to get a glimpse of our life through someone else's lens. We had some friends come down to visit from Portland last month, and they had some photographic fun with our homestead and weekend adventures. I take all of the pictures on this blog with an old Olympus digital camera from 2001, and tend to focus in close-up on aspects of our life, so seeing the sweeping "bigger ...
Make Your Own Glassware Garden Art
Sometimes you just need to look at an old object in a new way, and sometimes you just need a reason to go thrift shopping. I'm always looking for ways to spruce up my garden in the winter when there isn't much to be doing with seeds, vegetables and flowers. My winter gardening skills are still a work in progress, and we haven't had time to build that recycled window greenhouse yet. There is always ...
Fairy House Follies
If gardening isn't fun, then you are doing something wrong. While this may not always be true, like those times that hard work out in the garden is more rewarding and good for you than it is fun, I still do my best. I subscribe to the "play as hard as you work" philosophy in life, and lately I have been taking advantage of any fair winter day that comes along and "working" on building fairy houses ...
It Was a Faire Week
Another year, and another Oregon Country Faire has come and gone. I never get tired of my favorite art, music and food extravaganza every July on the banks of the Long Tom River, but this year was special because I got to camp out overnight for the first time as a volunteer. I even got my partner to dress up in a lime green polyester leisure suit to celebrate the occasion. (Photo by Marc ...
Scenes from Seattle
Last weekend, I travelled to Seattle for the Northwest Chocolate Festival. One of the many hats I wear these days is working with my friend's business, Chocolate Alchemy, and we were giving a demo on roasting cocoa beans. This classified the excursion as a business trip in a sense, which just tickles me, because I had always been intrigued by business trips and this one ...