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This little angel is the reason I haven't been on in a few days. Isn't she fabulous?! Her name is Susie Q, she's a nine week old Borgie. That is a Welsh Corgie mixed with a Border Collie. We have her older brother and sister and they have such great personality, I am loving getting to know her.

Fancy Dress

Here's my postcard for Sunday Postcard Art. The theme was Mardi Gras, and since I have been wanting to do something with the stuff from our NOLA visit, this was a good start. It's my first attempt at a postcard, and with embossing, hence you can barely make out the fleur de lis stamp in the bottom left corner.

I repurposed one of those subscription postcards that always fall out of magazines, an idea I got from a craft book by Mark Montano. The girlie in her Carnival outfit is Laura from one of the most beautiful Creole Plantations outside of New Orleans.

Haven't quite figured out the scanner yet.

My desk

So I have recently commandeered the office in my grandmother's house to use as a craft room. It's not a perfect space and I'm definitely making some adjustments, but I just love having a "Room of one's own". All of my grandfather's Masonic certificates are hanging on the wall above the desk, and it's nice to think that he's with me while I'm creating. I am slowly but surely adding my own pictures to the walls, including my collage from an earlier post. I also want to put up my favorite Impressionist painting "Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877" by Caillebotte. When Nicole and I visited New Orleans last June we found this amazing artist named Jamie Hayes and a few of his pieces will go up on the wall. Lots of inspiration, so I can create!

Packing Her Lunch

This sweetie is in our front pasture. The other day when uncle Jim was feeding, she turned at the last minute and ended up with her dinner on her backside. We joked that she looks like she's packing her lunch!

Out of the Closet!

In 2004, I directed an all-girl production of Twelfth Night. It was a great time, with some very cool and intense girls. After the production was over I took the archive photos and made them into a photo collage on a framed canvas. We rehearsed in two weeks, and this collage definitely has that frenetic energy. I wish that I had done some painting onto the canvas before apply the pics, but I still love this.




The first photo is a detail of the top right corner. Below is the full collage. Someday I'll have a better camera and be able to take better pictures, but this is way too big for the scanner.

The cast: Samantha Muse as Viola

Brooke Aiello as Olivia, Sir Andrew, and others

Sarah Howell as Orsino, Sir Toby, and others

Erin Hoover as Sebastian, Maria

Jennifer Medford as Feste, Antonio

Kristin Crase (yes, me) as Malvolio and others

I think I will take this collage out of the closet and hang it over the counter that I have just commandeered to be my craft table.

old stuff and new

Last night, going through a junk drawer, I came across these old matchbooks that my grandparents gathered in their travels. I want to figure out something really cool to do with them. There is one here that is from the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco, I think it's from their honeymoon in 1946!


I was inspired today to take some pictures of the stuff in my store. Mostly because the colors were just making me crazy.

Everything seemed to be bubblegum and candy colored. Plus, all of the textures. I thought maybe I'd use these images as background for some artwork - collage maybe. But I also still have rubbings from the Water Meter covers in NOLA to use. Not quite sure what to do with those.

I am thankful, as always for my best friend. She gets my need to become more of an artist and she is the one who gave me my new mantra "My name is Kristin Crase and I can do anything." When my children's program started I knew that I would have to design the backgrounds, but I had no idea that I would be executing them almost entirely alone. Nicole helped me alot, but the initial design was mine. I want to share the pics here. They're not great photos, but you'll get the idea. It's the Jungle Book.

When we re-arranged the lay out of our store - without the boss' permission - I took some pictures. I thought this one turned out the coolest. You get no clear idea of the arrangement of our store, but I think you can definitely tell what kind of store we are.

After reading this month's Artful Blogging I decided I had to get in on the action. I hope that this can be a cool tool for me to use.