Old Friends, New Friends, Good Times and New Work

It's been quite a weekend here!

After a rather boring start with Friday night's annual vacuum cleaner purchase (with five fur-kids, this has become an AT LEAST annual event, *sigh*) things began looking up Saturday morning when I headed off to Lancaster to pick up fellow EHAG and PFATT member Pam of Soft in the Head. Actually, there are so many of us who are members of both groups we've taken to calling ourselves the PFATT (silent P) Hags, teehee....Not far from the truth in my case, but I digress...

With Pam riding shotgun in the Beetle, we hit the road bright and early and began our tour of architectural salvage stores, with an Amish toymaker thrown in for good measure. And I'm happy to report, we scored some real treasures. I won't share Pam's finds (although trust me, you don't want to miss the goodies she has in store for the Ghoultide Gathering) but I will share a couple of mine - a plant stand, not shown, a set of old wooden bowls...


and several children's chairs, hand made by aforementioned Amish toymakers, and shown here, in progress...


Pretty cool, yes? I'm picturing it either sitting by a hearth or used to display a favorite Halloween doll or collectible. :)

After our treasure hunt we headed over to Jen's house, where we were all joined by Joanne of Disgusted Cats. What a wonderful evening! Our guys were there too, and everyone hit it off as though we'd known each other for years (well, OK, Jen and I have, but that's another story, hehe)...Great Mexican food, a tour of Jen's beautiful gardens, and many, many glasses of Sangria later, John took this photo. can you tell we were just a wee bit tipsy? Hehe...

Left to right are Joanne, Me (hiding in the back), Pam and Jen. :)

It was such a great time, we're already planning the next get-together.

Feeling a little fuzzy the next day, I did a wee bit of basecoating and some sketching, but saved the detail work for today. Which is GORGEOUS, by the way. Sunny and 65, koi pond waterfall babbling outside the studio, flowering crabapple in full bloom...

As uncertain as self employment can be, I feel truly blessed to "work" at home.

Speaking of which, I should get back to just that. I'll leave you with the last piece I completed, listed now on eBay - a star fairy trinket box. I so love painting faces...


That's about it for now. Oh - wait a minute, no it's NOT, haha....

I have to tell you about the latest EHAG challenge - "Black and White Fright"!

Participating artists will be challenging themselves to create a piece of Halloween art with a black and white palette. Methinks it's time to drag out the pen and ink again. Stay tuned - we'll be listing our pieces the first week of May...

In the meantime, I'm off to work on an illutration project and hopefully finish that chair today.

Thanks so much for visiting - I'll be back very soon. :)

♥ Carolee