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).