abby try again

life lately

tasting: sprouted grain bagels and persian cucumbers

feeling: warm sunshine and fluttering movements from Baby T

smelling: anything and everything, my nose is on high alert always (blame the pregnancy)

seeing: my cacti sprouting new growth, pretty architecture details in downtown Austin

wanting to make: this simple salad

reading: Pushed

getting ready for: a weekend trip to San Antonio. It's our fist time, any suggestions?

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Every year I hold a birthday sale in my big cartel shop. This year it will run tomorrow until my birthday on the 16th of April. I've been adding more prints lately and today hope to add more cards and bookmarks. More details in tomorrow's post.

* * * *

What's going on in your life lately?

(p.s. these are not my usual film shots-but from my camera phone instead. Developing film has not been my forte this month!)

 

four eyed fun

Hello out there!

Happy Monday.

Aren't these paper glasses fun?

They are made by the ladies of MAKEatx.

Kristen and Eve are two friends and architects who dreamed up a pretty fantastic idea-they want to create a workshop here in Austin where creative types can make things happen. Their vision is to have and actual space with a number of tools;sewing machines, design software, routers, laser cutters-available to the members of the group. When MAKEatx is able to get up and started, I know it will be fantastic!

You can read more about the project at their website here. For now, the pair is selling beautiful laser cut wares in their etsy shop to help raise funds for their dream. They are also taking donations here.

I love all of their cards and paper goods-but can I just say what cute party favors I think these glasses would make?

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you all have a lovely Monday.

happy

How can you not be happy during spring?

I am a sucker for tiny vegetables, the first strawberries, eggs of all kinds, blossoms and bulbs. I love it when the rain is pouring down one day and the sun shines the next. I adore the look and smell of new green grass and the feel of it beneath bare feet.

One year ago today I posted this from Portland-and here I am (totally unintentionally) posting about colored eggs again! What can I say...I like what I like.

I bought these here in Austin for less than $2. They are cascarones. I think these were actually left over from a big Mardi Gras rush...but they are also perfect for Easter and spring time. Rachel made some very gorgeous ones a couple years back.

What are your favorite things about spring?

Hope you all have a lovely day!

good things

Last week was a heavy one...so I thought today I'd just do a small post about some good things.

-lunch outside is always great, lately I'm loving sandwiches from FoodHeads and Torchy's Tacos

-meeting up with friends old and new (especially great meeting this fellow!)

-finding new to me photoblogs like this gorgeous one

-stumbling upon interesting recipes-like this zuchinni olive oil cake

Hope you are enjoying something good today.

Thanks for stopping by!

thank you

Hello friends.

Thanks you so much for the great response to this last post.

So far you have helped me raise well over $100 to go toward relief efforts. Again, I know this is a small drop in a big bucket-but it does feel good to give! 

I've extended the fund raising until 3/22. So if you are still interested $8 (more than 100% of the profits) of the sale of this print will be donating directly to the Red Cross and 20% of all my etsy sales until 3/22.

* * * * * * *

I thought I'd mention these two other fundraisers that I think are especially great:

-Corter Leather bracelets, 100% of proceeds are donated (found via Forestbound blog)

-Sakura Bloom sling raffle here(found via Marvelous Kiddo)

* * * *

Well, I hope you all have a lovely day...and yes, the photos above have nothing to do with this post. Just some random snaps I don't think I've shared before.

 

 

a little something

Hello out there.

Like many of you I was deeply saddened to hear and see the events in Japan this past weekend.

My heart goes out to all of those affected. 

I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a part of such a terrible tragedy. 

I think, at least for me anyway, it's easy to feel a little paralyzed in such situations-to wish that there was something tangible we could do to help.

I know this is a small drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things...but I've put a print in my etsy shop and $8 from each sale will go directly to the American Red Cross relief efforts. The print is here. Also, 20% of sales from my etsy shop made from now until Sunday 3/20 will be donated to the American Red Cross, too.

You can donate directly to them by visiting their main website right here.

Thanks for reading.

* a special thanks to Sammi-who encouraged me to do this in my shop! Thanks, Sammi.

wide open

When James and I found out we were moving from Portland, Oregon down to Austin, Texas last year-we decided to sell and get rid of as much as possible before we made the big move.

That was a big deal, I come from a long line of "collectors" (you can see some of my Mom's collections here). At the time, I thought I was getting rid of so much and to be honest, it felt really good to just let go. Let go of those unfinished craft projects, those clothes I wasn't skinny enough to wear, those cake pans that were beautiful but that I never used. It was a very liberating experience.

Now that baby t is on the way, we've decided to move to a safer place. I love East Austin, but where we are at is too rough around the edges for a baby. We need a place with a washer and dryer and maybe a park nearby....?

Anyway, I'm purging my things once more. I'm astonished at some of the stuff we lugged from Portland. Some of those "too skinny for me to wear" clothes sneaked in as well as some of those "oh I'll fix that camera someday"s. We kept way too many books that we will not read again and more records than I'd care to admit. 

So here's to big purge number two. And here's to not acquiring more junk...super inspired by what this woman has done with her household. (found this link via twitter-can't remember who-but thank you!)

random tuesday morning

 

-washing my dishes

-a failed baking attempt from last summer (don't try to bake in a kitchen with no air when it's 100 degrees)

-a page from this lovely book

-sunset after a day of swimming with my nephews

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Thanks for the kind comments yesterday. Feels good to back to regularly scheduled blogging. Later on today...a post over at baby t blog.

Happy Tuesday.

California Dreaming

Happy Monday.

Here are some shots I took at the Central Coast of California. 

I'm hoping to get back to daily blogging here. This is my small start.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Back tomorrow with more.
 
 

Pop Up recap

 

Hello out there!

Well, long time, no blog, huh?

I've been meaning to write a recap of The Pop Up shop...but sad thing is-I took not one photo! So thankfully, Casey let me use the top four photos and West Elm sent me over the bottom two taken by Aimee Wenske. I do wish I had my own to share-but you can definitely get a "feel" for the event from these.

First of all, I'd like to give a huge thank you to all of you Austinites (and others) who came out to support the event on Saturday! For almost all of the five hours we had a pretty packed house. I could not believe the overwhelming, positive response. I feel so lucky to have moved to this new place that accepts artists with open arms. And thanks to you readers who showed up and introduced yourselves! It was so fun to meet and connect. Sometimes I feel as though I'm just sending these posts out to nowhere, so to meet real people who read feels so nice :)

Secondly-another huge thank you to all of the vendors who participated. I know first hand how much prep work these events take and I feel honored and pleased at the job you all did! The goods looked fantastic, thank you so much!

Lastly, a big huge-enormous thank you to the folks from West Elm. I am going to be completely honest, I got my first job at age 15 and since then I have mainly worked for small, independant businesses. I am fiercely supportive of local whenever I can be, so I was a bit apprenhensive about partnering with a national corporation. But I must tell you, the more I learned about West Elm, the more confident I became that this would be a good partnership. First off, unlike some other big name retailers-West Elm does not rip off work from artists-they support them. They often issue special editions in their stores from artists, have a vibrant relationship with Etsy and feature small makers in their catalogs. I completely admire them for this. Also, I was in no way pressuered into blogging about them, advertising for them, tweeting about them-nothing. Anything I've said here about them is completely from me, I admire that they didn't pressure me into linking to them or sending my readers their way. And the logisitics of the event were flawless! The day of the market staffers were there to help the artists set up and take down. I have never been a part of an event that was so professional and well planned. Thank you, West Elm!

If you are interested in learning more about the vendors, here they are in no particular order:

Salt & Time - http://www.saltandtime.com/

Leah Duncan - http://www.etsy.com/shop/leahduncan

MissNatalie - http://www.etsy.com/shop/MissNatalie

Paloma's Nest - http://www.etsy.com/shop/palomasnest

Vertallee Letterpress - http://www.etsy.com/shop/vertallee

Linda Ketelhut - http://www.etsy.com/shop/lindaketelhut

MAKEatx - http://www.etsy.com/shop/MAKEatx

Besem Natural Scents - http://www.etsy.com/shop/BesemNaturalScents

letterpress delicacies- http://www.etsy.com/shop/letterpress

Spruce Home - http://www.etsy.com/shop/sprucehome

Kimball Prints - http://www.etsy.com/shop/KimballPrints

paper and twine - http://www.etsy.com/shop/paperandtwine

Abby Try Again - http://www.etsy.com/shop/abbytrysagain

 

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this such a success!