Kleas

mosaic monday-in support of the artist

For today's Mosaic Monday I thought I'd post some of my favorite Etsy finds.  Like many of you I fully support all of you artists and love to buy some of the beautiful handmade creations that come out of your homes.  Below are links to the above artists' shops.  Please link over and take a look.  (All photo credits belong to the individual shop owners)

kaunoinen

Jennifer Davis

Ingrid Jansen

painted fish studio

Jeanne McGee

Jacqueline Basham

Clay Town Ceramics

Mount Royal Mint

Mimi Kirchner

Victoria Gertenbach 

Red2White

Creative Kismet

I also want to encourage anyone reading this who also likes to support artists to take a peek at this video of a dear friend of mine who I've know since high school.  He is trying to produce a new music album and needs help raising money to do so.  The best part is, with just about any contribution, you get a gift (a really nice gift) in return.  For more details click on this link.  If nothing else, watch the video...it is very quirky and funny.

 

Also...Marce just published a children's book that he wrote and illustrated called Everyone Sleeps. Here's the promo video.

 

nesting

I've been quiet here this past week.  There is a post that weighs heavy on my mind that I can't seem to write, yet it stops me from moving forward on other posts...does that ever happen to you?  

Maybe tomorrow...

...but for today...

Here's a project we did at the preschool last month.  I've been getting inquiries about what these were for.  I crocheted twenty little baskets with long handles for hanging out of hemp cord for this project. The kids each chose a little basket to fill with nest building materials for the birds.  I did this project once before at the preschool (wow! four years ago already!), click here for the details.  As we've had quite a lot of snow so late in spring, I thought it would be a great idea to give the birds a little help.  We talked about why birds build nests and what they use to make them and why it would be important for the nests to be filled with soft materials.

I try to trick the kids by adding a tray of pincones and shells to the mix, but I didn't fool anyone, they are all so smart and know they wouldn't make a very soft bed.

I love the flurry of excitment as the children eagerly fill their little baskets.

Some of them looked so fancy in the end several parents mentioned they couldn't stand to hang them outside and wanted to hang them in their homes.

Julen placed his on these branches outside his bedroom window and it's been such a joy watching the birds fly away with new findings.  Watching the bits of yarn fly up to the nests in the gutters was especially thrilling...we're planning to climb up there and take a peek once the nests have been vacated.

legwarmers for Julen

These finally came off the sticks last week.  Julen has been waiting since his birthday for this gift.  I just found this project incredibly hard to work on.  (Round and round and round and round).  As one friend said, it's hard to make two of anything and I have to agree.  The first one went pretty quickly, but the second?  Weeks.  In fact I was getting a little worried that the first one would wear out before I finished both as Julen was so excited about the one, he started using it immediately.

Julen picked out the yarn colors and then colored in the sketch of the legwarmers I drew to give me an idea of what he wanted.  He loved that he designed these on his own.  

Details:

I used 3 skeins of Plymouth Select Merino Superwash yarn (what I had left is pictured above)

The pattern came from Ursula in the comments section of this post (thanks Ursula!!).  I had reached out looking for a legwarmer pattern and she answered my call...don't you just love this crafty blog world?

I used #4 DPNs and cast on 50 stitches.  Despite my challenges of finishing this one, I sure love how they turned out.  

Julen loves how they turned out too...he wears them all.the.time.  He often wears them on his arms too, you know, when he's playing ninja warrior (or something).

Now that I'm free to pick up a new project, I'm not sure where to go.  I keep thinking blanket.  Maybe this one?  or this?  Any suggestions out there?  I'd love to hear about them.  xx

Adrienne Ségur

We decided it was time to make room on the bookshelf in the boys bedroom so we packed up the entire collection of Papa's story books from when he was a boy.  It was tough.  I have such wonderful memories of watching my boys sitting on their papa's lap as he read aloud to them...listening to the oh-so-familiar tales of my youth being told in Spanish.  The books are mostly traditional fairy tales but are filled with the beautiful illustrations by the very talented Adrienne Ségur.  Here is just a sample... 

(see more of her illustraions here)

mosaic monday-in need of some color

1. Embroidered K, 2. Baby Barres, 3. Pinocchio, 4. color dots, 5. Untitled, 6. Grappes de cerises et chamalows, 7. punchwork diamonds detail large, 8. Blue Petals detail, 9. 02, 10. Mid Century Fish, 11. orange_pompoms, 12. IMG_5421

In Minnesota, we are over with winter, but winter doesn't seem to want to let go of us quite yet.  The snow just keeps on coming...we are in much need of some color and I thought these Flickr favs might help lift my spirits a bit.  

I'm on the mend from a weekend of fever and I'm ready to get out of the house.  Happy Monday.

on my work table

I've been prepping for a little preschool project the kids will be working on this week.  I've been crocheting these little hanging baskets into the wee hours using rough hemp cord.  Love the way it smells and love the look of the texture, but it's tough on my hands.  Only nine more to go...

monday mosaic-little boxes, little boxes...

1. house 2, 2. Tiny houses, 3. Untitled, 4. hill- close-up, 5. Suburb, 6. Lino Block Print - Houses, 7. Rainbow Toddler House Blocks, 8. Untitled, 9. always a work in progress, 10. Town, 11. Untitled, 12. Colorful clay houses set no1

I've got houses on my mind.  I think just because we spent waaaaay too much time in ours this weekend. I hate to drone on about the weather, but we are still looking at more snow this week.  I know we are not alone in having crazy and unseasonable weather, but enough already!  I really am trying to embrace whatever comes our way, but it is hard.  There are only so many hours of playing indoor soccer upstairs that I can tolerate.

more eye-catching houses:

Driftwood Houses by Kirsty Elson

build your own house with sets from Play from Scratch 

cardboard houses

and I love these Little Ceramic Houses found at Clay Town Ceramics Etsy shop

Happy Monday!!

What we did at the preschool this week

We weren't expecting to be making snowmen at the preschool this week, but there it was...all that snow that was promised to us.  One of the the good things about working with young children is that they just see the joy in the snow, it doesn't bother them that last year we began hanging our coats on the fence in the middle of March. This is one of the reasons I do love blogging these adventures...so I can see what was going on a year ago.  So I had to document these April snow days and see, who knows?  what next year will bring.

So inside the kids had a picnic and built a castle and made block mosaics.  And we sang songs of spring, and blooming flowers and birdies building nests.

Happy weekend!!

handprinted fabric swap

I was going to put off posting the fabric I printed for my third round of Leslie's swap until I had received all of mine, but with two still to arrive, I decided I couldn't wait.  (round one+round two)

I used Martha Stewart satin ink on 100% linen in the color choices requested by my swappers.  I used a repeat pattern of circles which my boys call "bubbles"...I kind of like that.

Somewhere in this process I stumbled across, and became very inspired by the wonderful blog of Jeanne McGee.  This artist designs and prints her own fabric (I'm so in love with "lines"!) which she uses to make fun and colorful lampshades. And following her to her Etsy shop, I discovered we live in the same city.

I'll be sure and post the fabric made by my partners once it all arrives.  

We are bracing ourselves for a possible 6-12 inches of snow through the night!  Just look at what we were doing a year ago!!

thrifted

 

There was an apparent bird theme in my finds at the thrift store today.  I think it just has to do with the call of springtime...spring so wants to come to Minnesota.  As my boy says, he thinks King Winter is really having a battle with Mother Spring and is not sure who is going to win.  I'm not so sure either. We are having winter storm warnings through tomorrow...believe me, I'd rather be in my garden at this time of year instead of shoveling!