The Garden of Pink Shadows

New things in my shop!

New things in my shop!, originally uploaded by melissamh.

I just added a bunch of new things to my etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=8352

Beautiful springtime sheets of Victorian scraps - flowers, roses, letters ad doves. Two more original mixed media bird collages. A tiny wreath I made of vintage wallpapers cut into butterfly shapes. And some fun old bird dominoes!

Go visit my shop and check it all out!

I love Selvedge magazine... Have you ever seen it? It's from the UK, a beautiful small heavyweight magazine on textile and textile design. Full of beautiful photos like the one above - even the ads are beautiful. But.. it's $20 an issue! I pretty much draw the line at the $8 British or French home design magazines! (Ok, occasionally I'll spring for one of the Somerset $14 special issues..)

You used to be able to download a pdf of the current issue of Selvedge online, but they no longer seem to do that. However, I see now there is a new service (Exacteditions) where you can subscribe to an online edition of Selvedge. It's still not cheap - about $48 - but subscription gives you access to a whole year of back issues and if you click on THIS you can see a free trial issue. The current issue with the green cover is even more beautiful. So, if you don't want to spring for the $48 online subscription (or $90 paper subscription) you can do what I do - leaf thru a copy while sipping a latte at the bookstore cafe (try not to drool however!)

thoughts and creations

Yesterday was such a beautiful day (today is shaping up to be just as nice!) and though it isn't easy to work on a laptop outside, I was sitting out on the back porch writing a nice long post to my blog. I thought - uh oh, I better save the draft as I go along (tho I was nearly done by the time I thought this) but as soon as I hit the button I realized my mistake! I didn't have wireless connection out on the porch! And the whole thing was lost.. sigh...

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about this series of collages I've been working on - inspired by the beautiful bird song I hear every day, and the lovely pink blossoming apple tree outside my studio window - and a wonderful collection of vintage wallpaper I recently purchased from Donna of Under the Red Roof Etsy shop. Donna was so sweet to send me some lovely patterns of small flowers and graphics which I love to cut up and use in bits and pieces in collage.

These are made on canvas board (I've covered the back with patterned paper or fabric) but I think I may order some of those blocky square canvases as well.

So.. I was musing about this in what I was writing yesterday.. I've been thinking for a long time of doing a special issue of my zine (or just a similar small publication) of my art only - pages from my art journal, perhaps some older work I have never shared, and several step by step pieces showing the progress of how I create a piece like these ones and maybe some more 3d pieces like my shadow boxes &/or more craft stuff. What do you think? Would anyone be interested in something like this?

I have thought of either printing it up just like my zine (5x8", full color, 32 pages approx.) - or of having it printed up by one of those publication services - or maybe not as a printed publication, maybe as a downloadable pdf?

Anyway.. I'd love to hear some feedback on this idea! What do you think?

 

May Flowers

Oh no.. I just wrote a long post then lost it! Boo hoo! Well, I need to run out now so I'll try again later. I'll leave you with this (if I do say so myself!) lovely image of one of my new Little Mayflower Wreaths - just one of the new items I added to my Etsy shop today.

I will write more later! Lots of news to share!

Meliscellania is ReOpened!

Happy May Day! I have just completed updated my Etsy Shop, Meliscellania, with new items, old favorites, and several original mixed media collages made by me - like this lovely Blue Jay above singing in a fantasy tree of vintage wallpaper, paint, flowers and hand drawn details.

Also available are some of my favorite 1930's bird guide illustrations - I use these often in my work. Each page has two lovely illustrations and text. There are many other goodies - so go take a peek for yourself!

Etsy Shop Re-Opening Tomorrow!

I will be reopening my Etsy shop - Meliscellania - tomorrow, May 1st! Here are a few little peeks at what will be in store.. Lace Shelf Edging from Taiwan, vintage school phrases and letter tiles to use in collage, tiny glass chickens filled with pink and white goodies, beautifully illustrated pages from antique bird guides - and several pieces of original, springy art by me!

Please stop by my shop tomorrow - everything should be up by noon, eastern time.

What I've been up to..

Hi everyone! I feel like I've been gone from my "online life" for so long. It's been nice to take a break but I feel disconnected. I intended to re open my Etsy shop May 1st, and I think I'll still do so, but I really haven't geared up for it. To tell you the truth, I thought that as I cleaned out my studio I'd find lots and lots of stuff to package up and sell as collage packets, etc - but I really didn't find much! I threw out a lot of stuff, and organized a lot of stuff - and I still have more to go - but there have been no big windfalls of buried treasures! Mostly just junk unfortunately..

I did come across one thing I'd forgotten about - a whole tin of old school "phrases" so I thought I'd bundle up some of these and offer them in the shop. They are cute little "captions" for collages, aren't they? I love the old typewriter font.. I'm so sad I no longer have my old Smith Corolla electric typewriter which typed pretty much exactly like what's on those phrase cards. I used to type poetry on it when I was a teenager.. I can't remember now if it died and I got rid of it, or if in some move when I just had too much stuff I let it go.. (I do tend to purge sometimes!) but now I regret it!!

Probably from being overwhelmed by all the junk, I've been craving simplicity. I made a few little hanging collage like the one at top ("twisp!") from a sweet old children's book of birds - some are quite simple like that one with a bit of seagrass wallpaper, a couple are more complicated like the one above with bits of vintage wallpaper and flowers and buttons on small painted canvases. I'll be offering these up for sale as well as postcards of the images. I had a lot of fun with these!

You can also see from my studio cupboard how much I've been simplifying and clearing out - well, if you remember what it looked like before you can! This lousy flash photo doesn't really do it justice - without the garish flash it looks very sweet and clean - unlike the other side of the room which still needs some work! I'll show more, and hopefully better photos when I'm done!

So.. I have not accomplished all I hoped to but boy have I been enjoying these beautiful days we've been having. Even the rainy days like today have been so pretty with everything greening up and coming into bloom. Pretty soon our apple tree will be covered in pink white blossoms - then I may have to disappear for a while again!

hi..

Just wanted to write in and say "hi" to everyone. I have been enjoying time "off" this week with my daughter Emily who has the week off from school. Yesterday we drove down to Westport - where I used to live as a teenager and in my 20's, about 25 minutes away and on the coast. It was a really beautiful day, warm but not too warm (I really hate it when we go from winter to summer with no warmish-cool days in between). Luckily the beach was still open to the public (most of which were there!) so we drove around, parked, walked a bit then sat at a picnic table in the sun. I just closed my eyes and sat back, enjoying the wonderful air and beach smell. We laughed at the seagulls drifting back and forth on the water like ducks, so slow and steady in lines they looked lick the old fashioned duck shooting games at carnivals!

Em's foot is still badly bruised from the sprain and she's still wearing the boot, so we didn't walk much. We kept stopping, captivated by glittery mica rocks picking up one after another. I wish I had brought one home!

Then we went into town and had lunch. We were going to go to this sort of quiche / salad burger place that's been in the middle of downtown Westport for years, but it was gone - replaced by a barbeque place called Bobby Q's (cute...) We were looking at the menu when I man who'd just come out said - it's delicious - just go in - eat! haa.. so we did. It was fun. We had wraps. Em, I think, really wanted ribs which she loves but didn't want a huge meal.

Today I am back to revamping my studio. I am really wanting clean, simple and uncluttered these days, so that means a major de-cluttering in my studio. I'm throwing out bags and bags of stuff. I know I should probably give some of it away, but really most of it is junk I've had for years. If anyone really wants some of my "junk" tho, let me know and I'll fill a flat rate priority box for you and send it to you for the price of postage.

Oh.. I had a fun dream that.. Sarah Jessica Parker was my long lost best friend and had just opened this really cute little shop where everything was red and white and pale blue - ceramics and printed cotton and linen - and she wanted me to work there! I'm not a big SJP fan so I'm not sure where that came from but it was such a fun dream!

The picture above is something I took last week of my grandmother's ivory rose earrings and other jewelry on a linen book cover. Is anyone else out there craving linen, ivory and natural colored fibers? It must be spring but I'm on a "nature" binge..!

kitchen window

I thought you might like to see a picture of my kitchen window, taken today. I haven't got much of a view from the window (cars, the driveway, the house next door...) and being an old house, the screens are the old heavy weight kind, not so attractive. Also the windows face north so it's bright but not very sunny. I try to keep a perpetually changing arrangement of things to keep me happy while I'm washing dishes or cutting veg.

Right now I'm happy looking at Esther, a "head planter" made by Clayfairy on Etsy. Isn't she sweet? And I grabbed this bunch of pink  snapdragons at the grocery store - for $3.50 and put them in this little old ironstone jug.

So.. this is what I see, standing at the sink!

After..!!!

Ok.. here's the after! A lot shorter, huh? (and now that I look at the photo on my computer - a lot of fly aways! my hair and skin are so dry right now.. ugh..) And she didn't yell at me! Ha.. Actually, she thought my hair looked pretty good and couldn't believe it had been so long since I had been in..

I've been going to this place called Adam Broderick since it was a tiny little shop in, basically, a strip mall. Now it's super fancy. They just renovated it again and its really snazzy looking!

So Tuesday took a turn.. Em was fooling around in a playground with her friends (remember.. she's 16..) and they wanted to take a short cut out - but the fence was locked. So, they climbed up and jumped over.. and Em landed.. badly. She and Andy ended up at the ER for most of Tuesday late evening, and now she has a big velcro boot on - that makes her look like a Storm Trooper - on one foot. She has a bad sprain that turned a bit purple and puffy, but it's beginning to go down already. She has to wear Das Boot for about a week, and, amusingly the instructions were if it's not better by then to contact a Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Brookfield. If any of you watch CNN as much as we do, this would seem odd.. But I guess there is more than one Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the world!

So far my "month off" has not been very productive. I have not cleaned one closet, baked one cake, sewn anything, or carried on with my studio organization. Sigh..

Well - at least I got my hair cut. One thing off the list..