(Inside A Black Apple)

I Don't Wanna Get Over You

We got to see Magnetic Fields last night!

It was funny. It was dour. It was lush and lovely and maudlin and dear, just like one would hope. I had never seen them live, so I hadn't heard the great string arrangements of their live shows...it was so fun to see how synth-dance songs sound modified for cello, ukulele, piano, and guitar. I was dazzled at how full and sweeping some of the arrangements were.

When a band you like has hundreds of songs, it's silly to get your hopes up for particular songs, but they played a few of my/Josiah's very favorites. My heart felt so full and happy.

They played about half of their new record, Realism, which is mostly very dainty and sweet and full of ukulele and toy piano. I was so happy the other day when I hit play and heard track one, which is a perfectly wry, cheeky, catchy jingle - no more, no less. That's one of the things I find most comforting about Stephin Merritt's songs...they're content to be clever or catchy or pretty. And there was lots of clever, catchy, prettiness last night.

They gave Land gallery a little shout out at the encore, which was cute. It is a great store/space...plus, I have a show there coming up in June, and I was very tickled. 

Go Magnetic Fields!

Sea Monster Specimen

Thanks so much for all the fantastic comments on the book gift-away. Your "handmade present" stories/thoughts were so much fun to read through - and so sweet! The winning four commenters are Terry, Maria Isabel, Moonfairy, and Penny. Congratulations, you guys...I hope the book is fun and helpful for you!

I mentioned I received a wonderful handmade present on my birthday last week:

 

I was speaking of this little fella that Sadie + Amy made for me.  I saw the larger original over at their house, and completely flipped. A week later, I had my own dear little sea monster specimen!

I think he's right at home up there sitting with some of my other preserved creatures.

The specimen label just kills me.

This is such a clever way to display any creature (imaginary or otherwise) that a person captures in their drawings or on their expeditions. My little sister had a creature-friend when we were little who she called "Urs-Purs" (sp?). She was a fairy, I think, but she manifested herself as a speck of silver star-shaped glitter. I wish so badly that we had a specimen box for Urs Purs somewhere (complete with scientific label, of course).

Happy Monday! I hope the week is off to a nice start.

Handmade Marketplace + Giveaway!

I'm double...no, triple excited to share this new book with you, The Handmade Marketplace, by Kari Chapin.

One: because I illustrated and lettered the cover, as well as the book's section openers!

 

Two (and far more important and interesting):
The book really is an honest-to-goodness, exhaustive handbook on selling handmade - gathering good advice from certifiably smart cookies I like very much, such as  Ashley, Amy and Matt from Etsy (and lots more). It addresses an impressive breadth of questions and concerns, both general and  specific. The topics range from the creative/making/ideas side of things to the nitty-gritty/nuts + bolts business-running aspect. The way all of this information is gathered in one place, I must admit to being a little jealous of the lucky folks just coming into the crafty business world. With wonderful guides like this popping up, one can learn so very much in one helpful, handy fell swoop, rather than fumbling around, figuring things out the sometimes-long and sometimes-hard way.

I feel so happy to have something so thorough to direct people to in the future when I get that question: "Do you have any advice for someone starting a art/craft business online?"

And Three: I've got a little stack of four copies waiting to give away to you lovely readers!

EDIT: Comments are now closed and the winners have been notified - just waiting to verify all four!
Thanks so much for all of your lovely, thoughtful comments!

Just leave a comment below (maybe telling about the best handmade gift you've received, but of course anything you'd like will do). PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE EMAIL ADDRESS provided with your comment is working and current. 

I'll close the comments on the 19th, and let the RNG do its work! Best of luck!

Sweets From The Sweet

I had plenty of sweet things to eat for my birthday - even a proper birthday cake from Ms. A! We share similar tastes in birthday cake/yellow cake, and are always searching for a recipe with a texture like box-cake, without the taste of a box-cake. This little cake was so very good - Amy filled it with a layer of meyer lemon curd and just a dusting of powdered sugar.

 

Thank you, friend! It was the sweetest birthday cake, and an excellent breakfast/treat for days after. If I had a penny for every time I find myself nibbling on some leftover sweet something for breakfast and think "Thank you, Amy!", I would have quite the jingling pocket.

 

My darlin' made a special order for a box of my favorite macarons from Pix, and we picked them on my birthday on our way to an evening out. How thoughtful that fella is. He made sure my birthday was so wonderful...but he makes every regular ol' day wonderful, too.

My birthday also held surprise mysterious packages left at my door from other sweet peas, a big stack of amazing books (which deserve their own post), and one of the very best handmade presents I've ever received (which also deserves its own post).

Happy Tuesday!

Hello on President's Day!

Thank you so much for all the birthday well-wishings and kind words about the new painting.

Updates on both:
-My birthday was absolutely wonderful (lots of good food and shenanigans)
-And I just made the painting available for sale in ye olde shoppe!

I have some photos of my pretty birthday edibles and things, but I'll get to those soon. In the meantime, I dug up this funny little sketchbook doodle from last year, when I had an Emily + Abe combo birthday party on February 12th:

And for today, we say happy President's day to my fellow United Statesians, and Happy Monday to everyone else!

Early Morning Car Ride with a Gentleman Squirrel

For the last few weeks, we had a new roommate living with us. Not an invited one, for he caused a great deal of ruckus and noise and grief.

This roommate wasn't even a person, but a squirrel. 

We have lost whole days to lack of sleep from this rascal, Josiah has many a splinter from attempting to squirrel-proof our attic, and everything we read about eradicating a squirrel-roommate (or two, or three) seemed very daunting. For weeks, we tried everything in the book to deter the little pests, and shored up any places they might be using as a door. But one little roommate still remained.

Until early the other morning, when we awoke to clanging and distressed chittering, and knew we finally caught the little fella. We loaded him up in the car, and the three of us drove away...

 

The little squirrel was very shaken up, but, oddly, he seemed calmer when we were talking to him. So we drove along, in the pretty, rainy Oregon morning.

Aw. He's still nibbling on his peanut butter in that photo.
We had been so mad at him for so long, but when we actually saw him, it was hard to still be grumpy.

 

We found a beautiful forest for the squirrel to call home...it glowed with moss.

But our former roommate seemed to have developed pretty significant Stockholm syndrome, and as you can see here, it took a while for him to wise up and bolt from his cage.

 

He finally did (bolt from the cage),

 

and off he scampered into the trees of the mossy, fairy-inhabited forest.
And I was a little jealous.

But mostly, I am just happy we've gotten some good nights of sleep without loud squirrel-partying carrying on overhead.