Halloween Party Ideas

I know it has been about 100 years since I wrote a blog post.

My garden is still plugging along and getting a bit refreshed in the Texas 2nd growing season...I have lots of little red peppers, arugula and a couple of little Fairy Tale eggplant, plus so many happy herbs.

Also, I have continued with my art and craft projects, especially creating and posting lots of stuff to my Zazzle store. I am totally unprepared, but a lot of people seem to be getting ready for Christmas already, and are buying their cards and ornaments, especially popular have been the international Santas, like the Paris, Rome and London cards and ornaments.

But here lately, I have to admit, I have been a bit preoccupied by Halloween. You see, my daughter, who has a mid-October birthday, has decided that she wants to have a Halloween costume birthday party at home. ! What, you mean I have to clean and organize my house?? Actually, I love the idea, and we have been brain-storming lots of cool decorations, foods and spooky activities.

Today, I made this "SPOOKY" Halloween banner, using scrapbooking paper, card stock, a scalloped paper punch, a great font, Elementary Gothic Bookhand, and small black fabric ribbon. Here it is hanging from our antique (past its prime) piano.

I had wanted to make another banner that I found as a free printable on line. I think this person did such a good job in designing this banner, but I just couldn't get it to print right, after selecting landscape a few times, and other options that should make that work with my printer...even tried it with another computer. Alas.

I do have about 2/3s of it printed out  and cut out, so I will ask my computer expert to help me with this.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time today soaking, scraping and scrubbing labels off of various "potion" and "poison" bottles for beverages. Here are some cool sites and resources for printable Halloween bottle labels. The 1st is one of 2 I found at the Graphics Fairy site.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglMbPxI8tg8C0h0AnyIU9vHShyphenhyphen6OVeVU1DRL_b1qgXWi1XFmjXqBL6g3AsSmFr7kQmJVlIDacHCy_IZPeK9RET_XfIwvSKFjJy6nPwFItiuctAqhgX20_3zQFqpegRGaWmzqgTuMBSUb0/s1600/potions+copy.jpg

These are going to be awesome beverage labels for my daughter's party.

Also, I found out the most awesome thing online...but unfortunately, I do not remember what site it was on. If you add a little tonic water to a beverage, then it will glow in a black light. (I'm really excited about this one!)

Well, that is what is going on with us this season. Maybe, I'll post party pictures later. And after that is all over, maybe I will even get around to painting again.

Chilling Yet Personable Dystopian Novel "When She Woke"

I have almost finished When She Woke by Hillary Jordan, a re-imagining of "The Scarlet Letter" set in the not too distant future, and reminding me a lot at times of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" and often as disturbing. The reminders the reader gets that the novel is set in the future in our country, such as technological advances and gadgets, do not seem very far fetched at all, and the changes in policy, attitude and law that have pushed society to the situation in the book seem chillingly likely and address many present day political and social concerns. That the book is set mainly in Plano and Dallas, with mentions of familiar places like Oak Lawn, Mockingbird Station, SMU and Garland, only serves to bring it home more strongly to me, a lifelong resident of Dallas-Fort Worth who grew up in Garland. The main character, Hannah Payne, obviously a more modern day sounding nod to Hester Prynne, a young woman who grew up in a loving but very limiting, extremely Christian family and environment, is easy to care about and her emotions, predicament and realizations are very easy to identify with. The book addresses some pretty thorny topics, and I needed to take a little break from my growing apprehension as I approach the end, but it is also well written and engaging. I recommend it.


Hillary Jourdan is the author of Mudbound (2006), a prize-winning, New York Times bestseller. (Which I have not read, but I mean to remedy that soon.).

Thanks to Michelle Rhea for the gift of the book. (I hope you got one for yourself too!)

Fused Glass and Arts Goggle Festival

It's time for spring Arts Goggle in Fort Worth's cool near Southside neighborhood tomorrow afternoon and evening. One of the things I have been doing this week to get ready is creating a few more fused glass suncatchers. (Starting in the morning before it's too hot to run the kiln!)

A few of the older suncatchers, available on Etsy

Paris Eiffel Tower suncatcher

Backlit with some sun shining through

Experiments with wire-wrapping, copper inclusion

Since I will have a space outside this time around instead of the large room and wall space I have had for some previous shows, I will be showing mostly jewelry, these suncatchers and a few smaller pieces of art.

I'll be at 300 South Main Plaza Saturday May 19th from 4-10.

May Day Poem and History

Happy Mayday!

Today I thought I'd share a May poem from about 12 years ago. The daughter in question is now a beautiful young woman who will be turning 24 later this month.



My Daughter in Baptist Youth
for Brenna, age 12


Sometimes I throw out words,
casual, not an issue,
words like Maia, Athena, Mara,
names of goddesses.
Words like myth and story
when we speak of these old tales
and dictums, histories of magic
and supernatural cruelties,
campsite tips - things we are
told to live our lives by.

Sometimes, her faith
held tight in her young heart,
she balks, challenges,
walks away, hurt and tearing.
And so I keep it easy, thrown in,
aside. The myths an option,
all the other stories - tidbits,
tastes of all belief,
the names sprinkled in like salt.

Sometimes, on a spring night,
we come together, blissful,
around a leaping fire,
roast marshmallows and
admire the flowers resurrected
after winter.
Celebrate Beltane, her birthmonth,
bring in the May.


by Anita M. Barnard
published in Above Us Only Sky
Incarnate Muse Press 2003





This is also Beltaine. The Celtic festival "Beltine (or Beltaine) was celebrated on 1 May, a spring-time festival of optimism. Fertility ritual again was important, in part perhaps connecting with the waxing power of the sun, symbolized by the lighting of fires through which livestock were driven, and around which the people danced in a sunwise direction."  -Nora Chadwick (from Wikipedia, where you can read more). We love a festival involving fires and often make a fire in the fire pit on this evening...it also makes a good excuse for roasting vegetables (or marshmallows) over the wood fire.

May 1st is also Labor Day in many countries.

The vintage Maypole image is from the Graphics Fairy.

Designing Pillows —- Digital Art for Zazzle

Sometime in January I posted in a Zazzle forum calling for ideas for new products how cool it would be if independent designers (me, for instance) could design throw pillows to be produced by Zazzle. I was pretty excited on February 7th when I found out that they now have that in place, and I quickly designed 3 pillows on GIMP. A really nice thing about these pillows and the other housewares products that came out at that time, is that they are being manufactured by a company that "sustainably employs" and supports single mothers.

Here are the three pillow designs that have sold from my store so far. You can see a theme emerging as far as what is popular. (I also see that with my iPhone cases and cards.) Two of these have a digitally collaged background of  vintage Parisian and French ephemera, including an old invoice, receipt, handwritten letter, the handwritten manuscript of Madame Bovary, lovely typography and old stamps, with a number of the vintage images from Karen at the Graphics Fairy.

Vintage Blue Hydrangea French Ephemera Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

Paris Eiffel Tower Butterfly Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

Vintage Paris French Ephemera Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

Three of my other pillow designs were featured products on Zazzle, wining Today's Best Awards.

Vintage Chandelier Gladiola Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

Sunflower Ancient Rome Italian Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

And just a couple of days ago:

Vintage French Floral Dress Forms Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

I have actually designed 49  pillows that are available in my store.

If you are a Zazzle designer who has sold any pillows, add a comment to my post with a link to your best selling pillow design.

 

Fonts Are Cool

I love fonts. I have just been on a shopping binge for fonts. I am so excited by the ones I got!

My new fonts

I got these at FontRiver. There are thousands of fonts there...and thousands I haven't even seen Yet.  I am really glad these people offer FREE fonts and amazed by the people who design all the wonderful fonts and then offer them for free. Yesterday after lusting after some great fonts for a while, with some help from Edward I learned how to unzip and install the fonts to my font folder. ("Font folder" I had no idea, and I can honestly say I had never been in my Control Panel before.)

I have no idea how I would ever use the magical unicorn font, but it was too fun to pass up. I love the Jane Austen one that is based on her handwriting.

I used the Adine Kirnberg font on this Shakespeare themed pillow cover I made.

Shakespeare Romeo loves Juliet Pillow

And the very pretty Chopin font for this one, that isn't sewn yet.

Imagine Peace Pillow

My brain is pretty worked up imagining all the things I can do with these fonts. I am offering personalized pillow covers using a choice from five of these fonts in my etsy home decor shop.

Christmas Digital Art

Just these, and then I'll quit. Really. Well, I do have another one sort of designed in my head, but I also have a million other things do to get ready for Christmas.

Vintage Deer with Holly Christmas Card by 13MoonshineDesigns

Fellow followers of the Graphics Fairy blog will probably recognize some of these vintage images that I have combined and manipulated for the deer art I made this morning.

Vintage Deer Seasons Greetings Christmas Card by 13MoonshineDesigns

I also put together this vintage typewriter "CREATE" card and mousepad since my last post. I really have a thing for old manual typewriters.

Vintage Typewriter Card by 13MoonshineDesigns
Shop for cards at zazzle

Vintage Typewriter CREATE Mousepad by 13MoonshineDesigns
Learn ways to make money as an artist on Zazzle.

The most popular holiday image by far has been this "Santa over Paris" Eiffel Tower picture—on cards, ceramic ornaments and as a print.

Vintage Santa over Paris Christmas Card by 13MoonshineDesigns
create cards online at zazzle