7th Annual Holiday Sale - Saturday November 12 only - 11 am to 4 pm

You’re invited to the Seventh Annual Holiday Sale, a new event for me. This one-day event takes place next Saturday, November 12 from 11 am to 4 pm at the Stark Realty building, located at the corner of High Point and Old Sauk Roads, Madison. Join us and enjoy complimentary coffee, wine, hot cider, appetizers and sweet treats while you shop in a relaxing atmosphere for family and friends (or find something wonderful just for yourself).

Here’s what our artistic gang has to share at this event, with most items priced under $25:

Jennifer Blassing Hand woven scarves, belts & bags in gorgeous jewel colors.

Rose Halik Texile designs that include quilted fabric bowls in batik fabrics, sling purses & bracelets.

Gail Gladding-Pullara Wonderful jams & chocolate hazelnut Kahlua sauce plus tiny bird cottages covered with seed for your feathered friends.

Linnea Phillips “Naystalgia” is whimsical pieces made with flea market finds; bird feeders from old ash trays, mittens from recycled sweaters, candles in antique tea cups & decoupage switch plate covers.

Narra Smith Cox Versatile & beautiful pottery vases, platters, bowls & wine coasters with unusual glazes.

Debby Royston-Statz Earrings, one-of-a-kind beaded table runners, holiday table decorations.

Amy Statz Cheerful and beautifully crafted all occasion greeting cards and gift enclosures.

Edna Kunkel Pastels and enhanced digital photography compositions on blank cards, hand-dyed marble coasters and trivets, gift boxes, sticky-note packs & more.

Bonnie Wanta Bonnie’s Cottage Boutique’s pretty & practical placemats, potholders, wine cozies, aprons, baby blankets and more, all with artists touches and gorgeous fabrics.

Kathleen Ward Aunty K crochets Guyz, whimsical & colorful yarn creatures with big personalities: googly eyes, freckles, kinky curls & hand-painted eyes, so they’re all unique.

Ray Weigand Blockhead solid wood bowls, candle sticks, coasters and trays are lovingly crafted from many unusual woods such as catalpa and exotic cherry, in linear and even basket patterns.

Kris Woestman Unique crocheted women’s hats, fingerless gloves, neckwarmers, children’s hats & more. She also makes a line of hand-made soaps, lotion bars, lip balms & scented body butter.

Heidi Miller Hand woven on an old sock loom, warm children’s to adults size socks in colorful designs.

Jennifer Zarrinnam “Twinkle Toes” handmade hair lovelies, jewelry fashioned from vintage collections.

Ed Lanerud Hand crafted rustic reindeer, bears & lamps.

Bonnie Lubet “Our Three Arts” Paoli, exquisite semi-precious stone jewelry.

Giving Back to the Community

We are hosting a “Share Your Strength Bake/Nut Sale” all proceeds going to provide meals for hungry children in our area. In the spirit of the holidays and good will, we would greatly appreciate if you can donate a non-perishable food item to the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry.

More Info

The street address is 702 North High Point Road, Madison, WI 53717 (see Google Map) and has FREE parking in the back of the building. This event features a single check-out process that accepts cash and checks only.

Note

I will not be at the From Our House to Yours event this year as a vendor, but have a number of friends there, so let me know if you need details about the event (occurs the weekend after this one). The next event notices you will see from me will take place in December in the Verona area.

Preparing for another in home tour...

...but this one's not in my home, so I can work on art like my latest ACEO Dalmation titled Waiting to Play instead of working on cleaning, shopping, cooking, and reorganizing!

This upcoming weekend is the annual From Our House to Yours event, one that brings a group of talented artists, artisans, and craftspeople together to share their wares in a lovely antique house in the hills of Madison.

I've been completing three new quadrivet sets, purse post-it packs, miniature hand-bound book/journals, and gathering some other articles from the home studio storage space, including earrings, coaster sets, and larger art journals. This year, I'll be taking along some ACEOs, to see whether there's interest in this wonderful form of minature art, along with some of my photographic pieces. Of course, I'll take some boxes of my original Christmas cards and coordinating gift tags. Since this was the best show I participated in last year, I'm hoping for similar (or even better) results this year.

And now, introducing the...

Quadrivet! "What's that?," you say. It's a combination set of 4 marble coasters stacked in a convenient tray that also serves as a "trivet." Ingenious! I doubt that you'll want to hide this in a drawer when it's not in use, but it's small enough to conveniently tuck into a kitchen drawer. I would instead keep it displayed on a table in my living room or den--so that the coasters might actually get used. Think of it as a multi-purpose surface protector!
There are versions that use relatively smooth tumbled marble tiles for the abstract coasters as shown in the blue-green version, but I have to admit a fondness for the decidedly pockmarked tiles. With the dying process that I use, the crevices take on a variety of colors in a faux geode appearance. It's a pleasure to integrate multi-dimensional colors into these tiles, albeit quite a messy process as the ink seeps through all the pores! Needless to say, I've got some tabletops here that have been inadvertently dyed, and I'm often seen with dyed fingernails (no, it is most definitely NOT nail polish).

Another day drenched in alcohol...

...alcohol ink, that is. Made two sets of 4 matching marble coasters, one set of 2, and 4 larger trivet size marble tiles, plus a bunch of 4x6 starting images, either for decorating boxes, books, or whatever else seems interesting at the time. I also applied a cover to a lovely little Moleskine journal, will need to do the final cutting and trim work after glue is completely dry tomorrow. Previously with "recovering" books, I've had some issues with page curl/crinkling from the moisture that seeps out from the glue. I decided that if I used a totally waterproof layer between the cover and the inner pages, the moisture would not be an issue, and it's not! Excellent.

The images in this blog show the set of matching earrings and necklace that I made for my friend Barb. Yes, I'll have to agree with her that making matched sets will likely increase the marketability of some of my individual pieces. For her lovely suggestion, she'll be getting 2 pairs of earrings--one with posts and one with earwires. Good suggestions should not go without reward!

Coasting to Indigo

I've finished the staining and finishing processes for my coaster sets, one of the first set of items I will be featuring in the gift shop of Indigo Coffee and Tea, a new coffeehouse here in Verona, WI. I'm quite pleased with the Procion MX dyes I used to stain the boxes. There's some color variations, but they add character, so all's good!

There are four sets, examples are shown throughout this blog. I've thoroughly enjoyed putting the final touches on these boxed sets of coasters--after fretting about a number of the details regarding the boxes. The container boxes that I selected for these sets have a recessed box top, perfect for display of the customer's favorite coaster right on top of the box. My biggest concerns for displaying these items in a store was that potential customers would want to open the boxes and see the coasters within, so I fashioned a "strapping tape" and fabric ribbon temporary closure.

As a last minute addition, I selected brass corners for all 8 of the corners on each box. I'm pleased with how the corners add a little more character and shine to these stained boxes, especially when all 4 coasters would be in use and the box empty.

Voila! Abstract Coasters a la Edna M. Kunkel. : )

All Boxed Up

Today I resumed experimenting with dyes, this time with Procion MX dyes as stains for my wooden boxes. The experiments went so well that they will be used as the containers for my abstract marble coasters (see coaster image at left), and I'll continue using this staining technique on other wood projects. I'll do the finish work on the boxes tomorrow, and take photos of the boxed sets for posting tomorrow.

I also found out that the salt resist technique with my alcohol inks and PrintWorks Ultra Glossy Photo paper (the only type of photo paper I've found with a surface that will crackle) will actually exacerbate the crackling process, and will allow me to control how much. Cool! I recently stocked up on this paper, which has become increasingly difficult to find (only one online vendor actually had the paper in stock). I guess that these Crackle Boxes will be limited edition boxes, based on the fact that that this photo paper has a bad reputation for long dry times (which for my crackling process is actually a benefit).