my Thursday mornings-week 13

This last week so great. We worked under the harvest moon which was still out (did I mention we start at 7am), hanging over the mountains, just before the sun was starting to come up. I so wish I had my camera that morning to post a photo.

The pottery you see this week is from Tasha Mckelvey. We met at the BMAC show in Aug. and did a little trade. I really love how precious her work is, but functional and durable. Her company is one that I really look up to as an emerging artist. Her work is carried nation wide in stores and galleries, she shows in great art/craft fairs and is willing to share some of her business experience and advise. Which, after doing shows for a few years now and talking to many artist, is not always the case. Some people are really hush hush about their business experience. 

The crop list for the week is: potatoes, tomatoes, more peppers (ahhh no more, I don't know what to do with them!) bell pepper, eggplant, collard greens with some kale (good for juicing), crazy colored carrots (purple, red, yellow oh and orange) more leeks,  onions, some thyme (which was left over from a previous harvest)

and the best treat, a pumpkin!

new work soon to be listed @ etsy

redefining the mission

As I stated earlier this week, I've been reading Tara Gentile' s e-book about blogging. The book has been informative about keywords and other blog info. In addition, she gives 52 topics to help you keep the blog writing inspiration going. The topic for week 1 is to talk about the mission statement for your blog.
I kind of touched on that a few weeks back, when I started putting more time into this blog, but I thought today I'd re-touch. I've been trying to deiced where to take this blog and I think I'm going to let it lead it's own path.
I want to use this as a place for people, customers, other artist and whomever to find out more about me, my art, my work, and what else I am and do. Megan Auman had a post on her blog a while back about this. She had always instructed her students to keep their blogs about business and not personal; but we're artist, what we do is personal. And she admitted that and has started to talk a little more about her personal life.
I also want to use this place for me too. I want this blog to be a place I too can refer back and see what was going on then. I want to use this as a place to talk openly about my business struggles, or what I've learned in my schooling, or what I pulled out of the garden last week.
So I guess that is the mission statement of this blog, a place for people to see what I'm up to, to see new and developing work, to find out my show schedule, to learn from my experiences, to see my eco efforts ( which is one reason I work at an organic farm) and some random stuff too I decide to post.  
Thanks for reading and let's see where the journey goes.

my Thursday mornings-week 12

With the crop from last week, I tried making Baba Ghanoush. But just ended up mixing it into some homemade hummus, as the eggplants were just a bit too small. I also blanched and froze the beans from the last two weeks. I'm going to try to braid the garlic!
I told my husband that I want to convert our houses craw space into a root cellar. I need some place to store the garlic, carrots, onions, potatoes and whatever else comes in the next few weeks.

The crop list is: winter squash, kohlrabi (does anyone know what to do with them?), cosmic mix, more carrots and garlic and potatoes, more peppers, fennel, leeks, and basil.
Cheers

getting schooled

After finishing up my summer shows I have decided it was time to put some energy into trying to expand my knowledge of business, marketing, blogging (all the stuff I feel I struggle with). I recently started the e-course Marketing for Makers taught by Megan Auman. We are a few weeks in and the lessons have been good, inspiring and a little over whelming.  
I have also started reading 52 Weeks of Blogging and will soon start Story Telling by Tara Gentile from Scoutie Girl.

In my quest for knowledge I'm starting to relize that A LOT of people are now offering professonal services and help ebooks and coaching; it just got me wondering a) how well equiped are all these people to give professional business help and b) how do you decide who to work with?

I like Megan and Tara's style and they both seem really well accompished in the area they are selling business services and products in. I have confidence in the products I have chosen, but what about you reader? What services/products have you tried, liked, disliked, recommend?
Thanks for reading!

new supplies listed

I have added some new felt baggies at my supply etsy store: rockymountainfibers.

 Be sure to check them out.

my Thursday mornings-week 11

Here's the photos from last week from the farm.
We had some excitement, one of the cows got out of the electronic fence and was running around the farm. He was just trying to have a little fun, can you blame him!
The crop list for the week is: eggplant, more peppers, red-leaf lettuce, collard greens, carrots, garlic, potatoes, green beans and sage.

my Thursay mornings- week 10

One thing I do that a lot of people don't know about is work at a CSA ( community supported agriculture) farm on Thursday mornings. It is part of a six month commitment as a work-share at the Cosmic Apple farm in Victor, ID. For 5 hours starting at 7am we weed, plant, hoe, harvest, cover, re-harvest, weed some more and whatever else needs done on the farm that day and as payment we get a share of the crop. We are currently on week 10 of the harvest time, about month 4 for the work-share portion. Here are some photos from the harvest on Sept 2.
The crop list is as follows: tomatoes, peppers: green, banana, jalapeno; eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, cosmic salad mix, kale, sunflowers, beans: green, yellow, flat; and basil. It was a good week.
The ceramic bowl and canister you see are by a potter out of Portland, OR, Laura Cooke.

one cool step-momma

From time to time, I consider myself a pretty cool step-mom. I made these guitar shaped cookies for my oldest step-son's birthday earlier this month. I think they turned out pretty cool.


I bought the cookie cutter for these from the punkrockkitchen website, for those that might like to rock out their own kitchen sometime.
I didn't use the receipy in the cookbook which came with the cookie cutter, but some store bought pre-made sugar cookie dough, which I think added to the misshaped guitars after baking. But I was happy with the results in the end.

In addition to the cookies, I have been traveling a lot this summer to various shows, trade shows and a creative entrepreneurs conference in Seattle. While there, I decided to make some changes to my business and one of those changes is to this blog. I have decided to change it from just updates about my business more about my life as a crafty-creative-maker-artist-designer-seamstress-gardener-reader-adventurer and anything else I feel so inclined to write about. I hope this will help both stimulate me to want to write more and to get more readers to my blog.
Hope you like what is to come.