Have You Met Mary Jane?

Click HERE to meet Mary Jane. You'll be charmed I'm sure.

This is what was in my email waiting for me...I love the Mary Jane newsletters. Did I ever tell you I was raised on a farm? Did I ever tell you that when I was a kid all I dreamed of was leaving that farm that was in a one horse midwest town? Yup! That's right, I was moving to San Francisco and I was going to be an architect or a lawyer.... It took me 25 years and I only got it about half right....Did I ever tell you that NOW...all I can think about is having my own little farm in the loveliest place on earth!! Click on the pic to go to the Mary Jane's Project of the Week page.

Project of the Week

Make Your Own Seed Starters
What you’ll need:

• Used newspaper

• A tin can

Creating starter pots from newspaper is cheap, easy, and environmentally savvy. Just take a sheet of newspaper and fold it so that it’s about the height of a can of veggies. Then roll your can in the paper. Slip the paper a couple of inches down off the bottom of the can, and fold it in against the can as you would a roll of coins. Fill with potting soil and sow your seeds. When the seedlings sprout, you can plant the whole thing in the garden, where the newspaper will decompose!

I'm dreaming of spring and knee deep in a nine point promise to God while I'm trying to get back on my feet again...

I hope your day was abundantly blessed!

XO Keke

Is that a Cherry or an Apple?

I was in the book store about three weeks ago and I found this awesome magazine from the U.K. I can not tell you how many times I've poured over the pages of this magazine...like a sloppy bucket of crazy I am simply mad for it!!

Unlike a lot of other DIY magazines on the market, for some reason, this one just speaks to me. My favorite thing about this magazine is the term 'maker'.

I spent the first twenty years of my life designing and making folk art, dolls, primitives, etc... yet I always had a hard time calling myself a 'folk artist'. Never mind the fact that my designs were taken to show in Chicago and other places around the country,I had a pretty sturdy following and received calls almost daily from prominent folk art stores for my wares... I didn't have the confidence to define myself.

I think I was hung up on the term 'artist'...It felt presumptuous to call myself as such. All these years later, although I dibble in this and that and no longer sell for profit I still struggle by the same definition, until now. It's taken 27 yrs to know how to describe myself or what I do... I am indeed a 'Maker'. I love that term!! There is no pressure to claim to be an artist, as if the word 'artist' by definition demands some type of approval or credibility. I'm simply a 'Maker'. No less no more. I also absolutely adore that this mag is called 'Making'.
I couldn't wait to try a pattern, and since I've seem to have forgotten how to crochet, which totally blows my mind since I use to crochet like a mad woman when I was a teenager, here I am trying to remember...trying to retrain myself, and we won't even discuss how my attempt to learn knitting is coming along... I read the pattern, of course I can do this, easy peasy, hands down. And when I was all done....

THIS!

Is what my attempt to make THIS turned out like... ughhh...sighhhhh... Is it an apple or a cherry? None the less since it's the size of a ping pong ball I'm most likely not going to be wearing it proudly on my sweater any day soon!! Practice is as practice does...I shan't give up, only take a deep breath and try try again. In the meantime, if you want to have a better look at this awesome magazine go HERE.

Until tomorrow...

May your day be filled with rainbows!

XO Keke

aka: 'A Maker

Bunnies and Lambs are Dancing in my Head!

I know Easters a little late this year but bunnies and lambs and all kinds of things are jumping around in my head!! Check out the pic below and tell me that's not the cutest funniest little cookies you ever saw.

How adorable are these cookies? Apparently all you have to do is dip a cookie in melted white chocolate candy coating and cover with miniature marshmallows. Dip chocolate m&m's in a bit of the melted chocolate to add for hoofs. Using more melted chocolate add a cookie for the head, mini marshmallow eyes with mini chips for the pupil. Squish mini mallows for the ears and attach. As soon as I'm back on my feet I'm going to try these and show you how they turned out. In the meantime if you click on the pic it should take you to the complete instructions from Southern Living.Com along with a lot of other amazing ideas for spring.

I hope you had an abundant day today flooded with rivers of blessings.

I heart U.
Keke

La Vie En Rose

One of the best things you can do when the world is storming around you is to pause.

-Mitch Thrower

Pink makes me happy.

I hope it makes you happy too.

Click on the pictures to take you to happy places.

Give yourself permission to pause...if only for a moment.

XO Keke

Steampunk

Steampunk?

This wasn't the original post I'd planned on sharing today. I'm actually working on a tutorial for things I made with that cute little 'Old Mac Donald' wrapping paper from

"Waddlin' Onion Designs" that I shared with you on this post for

"The ShelbyR Foundation."

Unfortunately, I was a little under the weather today, coupled with a trip to the doctor's office that took most of the day...needless to say I've spent the rest of the day surfing in my nest.

Which brings us to this.... I've been noticing a lot of 'Makers' (I'll explain that term in a future post I have planned.) have been advertising certain items they've been making or selling as Steampunk. The researcher in me, (you can take a puppy off the porch but you can't keep her from running back home...) forced me to dive head first into the land of Steampunk.

I'm curiously excited to tell you it's been an awesome visit. Some where between past and future in an alternate universe you land in Steampunk. Just in case your wondering...YES, OH YES! I would wear this dress in the most beautiful place on earth...and just in case you want to, you can find it HERE. They call it a two piece traveling suit, and since I'm trying to travel back to the most beautiful place on earth I must have this! Besides, AH has long called me Ms. Poppins so it's very fitting.

I've found a myriad of Steampunk art in every form imaginable. I can tell you for certain that if I show AH that pocket watch he will want it for himself! I on the other hand want the necklace! They call it 'The Duellist Cantosonic Wave Gun', and while I'm dreaming of wanting...I so want that Steampunk lap top pictured above!

After all of my research on this topic today I think I love it because it embraces the past with wonder and curiosity wiliest giving birth to all magical futuristic possibility.

Have you ever heard of Dr. Who?

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television program produced by the BBC which began filming in 1963. The program depicts the adventures of a mysterious and eccentric time lord known as the 'Doctor' who travels through time and space in his time machine, the TARDIS (an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space), which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s British police box. In any case, I read today that Dr. Who was Steampunk before the term or this counter culture existed.

I also have to say, (sorry William Hartnell) the 'Doctors' have improved with the passing episodes.


Do you know that Amazon.com offers 44 Steampunk Art Books? Who knew.

Would you wear these glasses? While I don't exactly fit the 'Wiki' definition of Steampunk...

I think I've been a Steampunker for a very long time, and the above images remind me of so many childhood illustrations from the story books I remember reading. I guess I just discovered one more layer of self defined.

I also found the work most makers describe as Steampunk does not fit into Steampunk in the classic sense as defined. But then again, can one ever define art? Is not art that burning deep inside... so deep inside you that words can not define?



Could you be a 'Steampunker'?

XO Keke