Photo Round-up For The Third Week of June

All these pictures were taken on my iphone and processed with instagram. You can follow me if you want too! My user name is redherringjeff.

Have you seen "The Avengers" yet? Mrs Handmade went the other nite for our twelfth anniversary, and it was awesome! Here's Olive posing as Captain America on one of our morning trips to Target. It's the only place open after we drop Amy off for work, so we usually go and hang out for a bit and get a start on our errands before heading to the park, or wherever.  

 

This is our Simmer-Down chair. Sometimes the kids just need a minute to catch their breath and think about the decisions they're making...Sometimes I need a place to put them while I think about what to say to them. Something I've noticed is that the days they seem to be the neediest are the days that I just don't have anything to give them. 

I bought some costume glasses at a Deals that's going out of business. They're super cheap, but the girls look so cute in them! I showed this picture to Abby, and she said "Awww, it looks just like you!" Ha-ha-ha! It's awesome having conversations with her. She's so funny, and smart, and I never know what she's going to say.

 Last week we took some of our capes and artwork to a new shop in O'Fallon, Illinois. The shop is super cute, and carries a good variety of awesome local handmade goods. If you're in the area, you should definitely stop by and check them out. They're located at 311 South Lincoln in O'fallon, IL 62269.

 I finally managed to get the first four Doctor Who peg people painted. I'm pretty happy overall with how they turned out. From left to right, there's the Empty Child, Rose Tyler, the Tenth Doctor, and a Cyberman. I've got a couple of others started, and am pretty excited about them all.

 

 We set up shop at the Soulard Market Arts and Crafts fair this weekend. The market is pretty awesome! It's an indoor Farmers Market, so it's open year round and was really busy. We had a great time hanging out with our crafty friends, and meeting new ones. The response to our work was really positive and encouraging too, which is always an added bonus that sure helps get you through the heat of the day when things start to slow down a bit.

 I added this little shelf to our display this week, and am so glad I did! It adds a little hight to the items on the table, and gives us an extra three feet of display room! It takes so little to get us excited these days, ha-ha-ha!

Thanks for stopping in! Until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend,

Jeffrey

Some things I'm into right now,

Adventure Time: it's like Spongebob times 10. Totally inappropriate and awesome, it's about a boy named Finn and his magic dog Jake and the adventures they have. Basically the kinds of things I daydreamed about as a kid...or last week. Like I said it's totally inappropriate for kids, but despite that the girls are a little obsessed with it. 

Fairy Tales: I've started working on the 2013 Handmade Family calendar, and the theme is fairy tales. I'm thinking that there will also be a companion sketch book as well. The idea is pretty ambitious, but I'm really excited about it. Are there any fairy tales that you'd like to see included? Let us know in the comments! 

Photo Roundup For The First Week Of June

Busy, busy beginning of summer here getting the yard work done, summer craft shows, artwork, and of course playing with the girls. So here's this weeks photo roundup, all these pictures were taken on my iphone and processed with instagram. You can follow me if you want too! My user name is redherringjeff.

One of our goals for Handmade Family this year was to do a show a month, in May we ended up doing three.  It was a hectic month for Mrs Handmade and me. Memorial day was Gypsy Caravan, an annual craftshow and flea market benefiting the Saint Louis Symphony. We were expecting heat and thunderstorms, but got a pretty mild, windy day. It was really pretty nice. This is our booth neighbor Melissa of Villa Design through the window formed by our displays. 

This book shelf, built inside of a door frame is awesome. One of the really awesome things I saw in the vendors stalls around the show. If only I was a little richer...and earlier. At 7:30 it had already sold.

 

This is my first "successful" attempt to braid Abby's hair. It's not the prettiest braid in the world, but if ponytails are any indication, it'll get better. 

We're always making things around here, and imaginative role-playing is a pretty big game with the kids. Really, we do a lot of back to basics stuff around here. Which isn't to say that we never watch TV or play computer games, there's plenty of that too, but we like to shoot for a balance.  Abby found this box the other day and wanted me to cut a robot face out of it. She was walking around saying "I am a robot...I talk like a robot..." for quite awhile. The other side has just one big square cut out of it, so she can be a talking TV head.  Ha-ha-ha!

So I'm sitting on the couch reading, and Abby decides to climb up on my shoulders and start wrigling around and dancing. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a good metaphor for our lives with children. I know I'll miss these days when they're gone.

 

The leeks I planted in our garden last summer bloomed this week.  They are huge and beautiful, Amy smelled them and was surprised to find that they smell like onions.  Ha-ha-ha! I said it made sense to me. This is one of the really cool things about having a garden. Even if (for what ever reason) not everything you plant gets eaten, there's nothing like seeing where things come from and where they go. Nature's pretty darn amazing.

 

The beginning stages of a Cthulhu peg-person. I've been having a lot of fun working on these guys a little bit at a time, lately.

 

A sketch I did for my friend Rob over at SpaceMonkeyX. He's a freelance writer, and all around pretty awesome guy.  You should go check him out!

Well, that's it for this week! Until next time then, take care and be good!

Your friend,

Jeffrey

Photo Roundup For the Second Week Of May

 All these pictures were taken on my iphone and processed with instagram. You can follow me if you want too! My user name is redherringjeff.

 

This is the most hilarious side effect of owning a Mr Potato Head.  I think at one point or other, all kids try on the glasses, don't they? Olive will put them on and then come and tell me either "glasses" or "eyes" depending on her mood. 

 

A couple of weeks ago, I went and did a presentation about being a freelance Graphic Designer and Illustrator to a high school graphic design class. Remembering my speech classes in college, I was worried that I'd talk for about 5 minutes and then run out of things to say. What I forgot is that I really like to talk about what I do. I think blogging for the last 10 years or so has really made that easier, because I know what it is that I WANT to say now, ha-ha-ha! The other day I got this thank you note from the class. I think my favorite is "Thanks Jeff, you're pretty legit. props"  Ha-ha-ha! how awesome is that?

 

The other day, Abby came out of her room wearing one of the super hero masks that Mrs Handmade made for her...and a GIANT sombrero.  "Who is this masked amiga?" said Amy as she took a picture. 

 

A second later, Olive comes out wearing princess shoes and this smaller, straw sombrero. Ha-ha-ha! The perfect sidekick for her Quixotic sister!

 

The view from my chair at this weekend's farmers market down at Tower Groves in Saint Louis.  We couldn't have asked for a better day, 74 degrees and sunny. There was a good crowd, and we had great neighbors. 

 

Speaking of our great neighbors, here's Beqi and Lauren B. Both do awesome work, and are fun, funny and just generally pretty great. All day, Lauren was just GUSHING about corgis. I think Beqi was getting a little tired of it by the end of the show, but of course it didn't stop. Ha-ha-ha!

Until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend,

Jeffrey

Becoming a Handmade Family Part 2: Strange Folk

I think I mentioned in my last post, that one of the changes that we've made in the last year, by forming Handmade Family and joining the local independent craft community, we've made a lot of new friends (and continue to make new friends all the time). We're edging up to the precipice of starting to do shows now, and that kind of makes us nervous. Part of preparing for it for us is that we go to different shows to meet people, and also to get a feel for what different ones are like. We've been to some okay ones, and some good ones...


This weekend, we went to the Strange Folk Festival in O'fallon Illinois. It was AWESOME. Everything about it, from the general atmosphere to the variety of artists made it feel like it would be a very good fit for us next year.

We got to see several of our friends there, and the girls got some fresh air, probably the BEST cupcake I've ever had, and before we left they got to play on the playground.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera :( so I didn't actually get any photos myself, and I would love to give a shout-out to all our friends, but there's just not room. I would like to mention our friend Andrea of Zenbot Baby though, because her husband (who I'm friends with on google+, and who I narrowly missed meeting in person today) DID take a picture of this super cool upright bass made out of an upcycled bicycle. When I saw this thing I was just floored by how cool it is.

There was some part of us that wasn't really sure about the whole show aspect of this business/life, but I think we both came away from this event inspired.
Until next time, take care and be good!
Your friend,
Mr. Handmade