Halloween Welcome Sign

Last Christmas I received a beautiful handmade Welcome sign from my cousin Barbie Mully from Ta-Da Workshop! My family had a white elephant gift exchange, and it took plenty of trading/scheming/stealing to get it!

I hung the sign in my living room, and I loved the way it looked. I felt inspired, so I immediately made a goal to create some seasonal welcome signs of my own to decorate my house for different holidays. However, nine months later, this goal was still unfulfilled. Halloween is my favorite holiday for home decorating, so I finally gave myself a little kick in the butt and made my first seasonal welcome sign.

A little bit of moon light, a dash of glitter and a couple dozen bats later:

I like the finished product, classy and spooky. Hopefully I will stay inspired, and get a Thanksgiving/General Fall welcome sign made soon!

Needle Felted Pumpkin Ornaments for Sale

This morning I mailed out a set of my needle felted pumpkin ornaments. I love these adorable little miniatures. They take some time to create, but it's well worth it in the end. I know I've shown them off on my blog before, but here they are again - this time with packaging!

I have a limited amount of these available in my Etsy shop for the Fall season - so get 'em while you can! (Click here to see the listing)

Custom Toilet Sign

I mailed out a really fun custom order today. I'm sure this will hang in a spot of bathroom glory. It will soon belong to a man with the last name 'King'. The buyer was pretty clever - huh?

Are you in need of some toilet decor for your own restroom? CLICK HERE to check out what I have available, and remember you know the artist (me!) so if you'd like a custom sign just let me know!

Sleepy Little Hedgehog

This sleepy little hedgehog just hit the shelves of Tangents today! He would make a wonderful addition to anyone's office desktop decor (although he would also be an unfortunate reminder of the sleep you're missing out on.) We can't dock him any points for that, though - I mean just look at those adorable little 'ZZZ's'!

Leopold Racoon

I've been having an excessive amount of fun the last two days painting away on some more of my salvaged wood circles. I have tons of new woodland paintings ready for the upcoming (but still fairly far away) holiday season.

My new absolute favorite woodland critter painting is this cute little raccoon whom I have named Leopold. I normally think raccoons are pests, but this guy is adorable, and he's sorry about eating out of your trash can last night. I am never, ever selling him. However, I did paint Leopold 2 in his honor, and he (along with maybe Leopold 3 and 4?) will be hitting my Etsy shelves and some holiday craft shows in the near future. So look out world - I hope you can handle this gigantic amount of cute!

Tomato Rainbow and the Ultimate BLT

Hooray! I finally have some garden fresh tomatoes. I used the three pictured here to make a very festive BLT.

Speaking of BLTs - I don't want to brag, but I think I've discovered the ultimate BLT recipe (it's pretty simple, but it makes THE best sandwich in the history of the universe. seriously.) Since I'm such a kind and generous individual, I've decided to share my BLT recipe.

Ultimate BLT Recipe (tips and tricks from the ultimate BLT lover)

Ingredients:

• Toast - the cheapest white sandwich bread you can find (it's lighter and fluffier that way, because the bread is NOT the star of the sandwich), toasted to a nice light brown
• Mayo - real, fully-leaded (i.e. fattening) mayonnaise, preferably Hellmann's (I swear they're not paying me to type this, but they make the best mayo.) You're going to need to spread this medium thick on both pieces of toast (come on, you're eating a sandwich with bacon, don't pretend you're worried about a little extra fat.)
• Bacon - light and crispy (not crunchy), after much experimentation I have found the best way to cook bacon is to bake it in the oven (warning: don't try to fool yourself into thinking that baking bacon makes it healthier.) Lay it out on a cookie drying rack, put the rack on top of a cookie sheet to catch the fat and then bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for somewhere around 20 minutes. To get perfect bacon you have to remove it from the oven at exactly the right moment. It's an art form, bacon art, the best art in the world. 
• Tomato - preferably warm and fresh from the garden, I slice mine thin with a hand held Japanese mandoline
• Onion - a few extra thin slices, use that mandoline again
• Basil - use a few fresh basil leaves instead of lettuce, it adds the perfect flavor enhancement

Layer these ingredients up, and you've got the Ultimate BLT. I know they're fantastic, because I've already eaten 12 of them this week.

"BLTs for breakfast, lunch and dinner."  (My summer motto.)

Meet the River Critters Part 3

These are my last two River Critters (for now). Petey the Pallid Sturgeon is my absolute favorite. I love how strange and dinosaur-like pallid sturgeons are. Is there a river fish or animal that you feel is missing from my collection? Let me know - I'm always up for making new characters! I just chose my favorite eight to start with.

As a recap my current eight River Critters include: Cynthia the White Crappie, Basil the Snapping Turtle, Barry the Bullfrog, Lance the Largemouth Bass, Ramone the Channel Catfish, Albert the Spotted Gar, and my two newest additions that are being introduced today.