tahoe etsy finds: holiday

December 2, 2009
Art + Culture
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I love gift shopping on Etsy, and the holiday season just begs for more browsing. Using their GeoLocator, you can find artists close to home. Here are a few of my Tahoe favorites at the moment, clockwise from top left.

*custom initial necklace $30 from Lala Design Studio

*felted wool bird ornaments $12 for two from Squirrel’s Nest

*fushia hot shorts $10 from Pantyline Productions

*snowflake sugar cookies $39.95 for one dozen from Cakebox Cookies

*pete’s menu hoops $52 from Buchan Jewelry

*black walnut clipboard $28 from Windswept Studios

time to get festive

December 2, 2009
Art + Culture
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While you’re dusting those lights off (we just put ours up this weekend), getting the advent calendars filled and shopping shopping shopping, don’t forget to stop by Brickelltown Christmas, a weekly celebration through December 18 at Truckee’s most artsy hood. Vendors with unique handmade goods, carolers and even Santa will be there for photo ops at this Friday’s soiree.

Be there! Fridays from 4–8pm. 10382–10368 Donner Pass Road in Truckee

etsy labs is coming to town

December 1, 2009
Domesticity + Craft
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Yep, I’m pretty obsessed with Etsy (note button to your right), and always dream of one day making the time to attend an Etsy Lab craft session. This week’s lab is so close to home I just have to share it with you: San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Folk Art is hosting a quick and easy hat knitting project (pictured above) this Thursday December 3 from 6–8pm. It’s free, open to all skill levels and materials are provided!

All that and more! Felting demo with SF artist Jackie Huang, fiber store A Verb for Keeping Warm shares techniques for spinning yarn and locally brewed Trumer Pils to quench the thirst!

For those afar, a live demo project will be broadcasted via webcam in Etsy’s Virtual Labs at 1pm. To knit along, download the free pattern.

holiday craft fair bound

November 24, 2009
Domesticity + Craft
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[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=craft&iid=5228382″ src=”2/5/e/f/Christmas_trees_6227.jpg?imageId=5228382″ width=”234″ height=”179″ /]

Lengua Viva in Truckee is hosting a Holiday Arts and Crafts Gathering December 12 with goods by “undiscovered Tahoe artisans,” and guess who’s gonna be there? Yep, I’m totally undiscovered, and have committed to a booth. I’m currently hunting for others to flesh out my puny wares, so if you live in Tahoe, have a craft and are mysterious about it, then let me know. The more the merrier!

Shop the fair and enjoy live music and tasty treats there, from 4–8pm on December 12. 10070 Frates Lane (behind Ace Hardware)

{postcard of the week} greetings from bellingham

November 23, 2009
Postcards
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Ok, so scratch that whole “postcard of the month” idea. I have way too many postcards, and ones on the way thanks to my recent PostCrossing membership, to limit myself to one a month. I now bring you: weekly postcard viewings from my collection! This one is especially spectacular as it marks the first wooden postcard I have ever received.

TITLE: Penelope Pirate Owl

ARTIST: Night Owl Paper Goods of Homewood, Owlabama

SENDER: Lyndsey, who found this sustainably harvested wood postcard at an art walk in Bellingham, Washington.

DATE: November 2009

homemade holiday card class

November 22, 2009
Art + Culture
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[picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=happy+holiday+card&iid=3151404″ src=”b/6/1/7/6b.jpg? imageId=3151404″ width=”234″ height=”166″ /]

Get ready, the holidays are approaching fast! And to help you get your cards out in good, crafty fashion—and on time—Brickelltown Crafternoons is hosting a Holiday Card Making Class tomorrow, Monday November 23, 4:30–7:30 pm, at the Brickelltown compound in downtown Truckee. Linocut stamps, fabric and recycled paper are just a few of the items available to embellish cards, and the goal is for each person to make at least 15.

RSVP to truckeecrafternoons@gmail.com

thank you, quirk

November 21, 2009
General Me-ness
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a ray from my figurine collection (he's even traveled to mexico with me) and a smile i encountered on a boat

It rains gratitude around Thanksgiving, and rightly so. There’s just so much to give thanks to. My personal list is so long it would surely send you into a trypophane-like sleep.

Thus, for the purposes of being concise (and the ModCloth Thanksgiving Thank-a-Thon blog contest), I’m going to pick one thing today: quirk. You know those tidbits of uniqueness that make you smile? The oddities, the weirdness, the unexplainable attributes that make someone or something appealing, or perhaps appalling at the same time.

With out little quirks, what would we laugh about at home? What would our loved ones appreciate us for? What would we obsessively collect, or look at online? Cute Overload would cease to exist. Etsy’s wierdness category would be forever lost. Certainly, ModCloth’s items (like this Fresh Prints of Bel Air shirt) would be without their pop culture–inspired names.

I stumbled upon Spontaneous Smiley a few days ago and was amazed at the dorky simplicity of finding smiley faces in everyday items: bread, cookies, machinery, nature. Knowing that others also embark on silly adventures makes me happy. So thank you to all the strange things I do and collect, and to everyone else in the world who goes above and beyond normal!

[postcard of the month] greetings from tahoe

November 17, 2009
Postcards
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PHOTOGRAPHER: JB Budny of JB Photographic

PLACE: somewhere in Tahoe

SENDER: none, this one’s from my personal collection of “too pretty to send yet.” (maybe I’ll send it out in the great white sea of mail now since I’ve properly documented it)

DATE: circa 2006

*I’ve been collecting postcards for more than 10 years now, and I’ve always been thinking of a clever way to display them. Now, thanks to the wonderful world of WordPress blogging, you can enjoy them, too.