Happy Holidays Gift Market Vendor Applications

Earlier this year, I shared a post with you about how I was planning on helping promote the Arts in my area through 817ArtsAlliance. In addition to the listings and announcements that I described in that post, I am pleased to let you know that 817ArtsAlliance will be sponsoring a handcrafted and vintage holiday show this coming December.

Vendor applications are currently being accepted for Happy Holidays Gift Market (HHGM). Completed applications received by Sept. 9, 2012 and juried into the show will receive a discount on their booth fee.

HHGM will be held at the Maverick Activities Center (MAC), 500 W. Nedderman Dr., UTA, Arlington, TX on Friday and Saturday, December 7 - 8, 2012. The show will be open to the public on Friday from noon - 7 pm and Saturday from 10 am - 4 pm.

Information about Happy Holidays Gift Market, including the vendor FAQ, is found on the 817ArtsAlliance site. If you have any questions after reading the FAQ, please use the contact form on the 817ArtsAlliance site to ask your questions. After carefully reading the vendor FAQ, you will find a button to take you to the vendor application at the bottom of the page.

If you know anyone in the DFW area who might benefit from participating in this show, please share this post with them.

Veggie Garden Pests – Tomato & Tobacco Hornworms

Even though hornworm caterpillars can grow up to 6 inches in length, they are adept at hiding in your garden until they have chewed their way through a lot of foliage or even fruit. They feed primarily on plants in the nightshade family. In your garden that usually means tomato plants, although they love my pepper plants too. They may even munch your eggplant and potato plantings.

I have found that a good way to watch out for these pests is to look for their black frass (poop pellets). I often find these easier to spot than the camouflaged caterpillars. If you don’t notice the frass or the caterpillars soon enough you could be confronted with stems stripped of leaves (or even completely missing stems) and chewed or missing fruits.

Now before you go and reach for something to spray your plants with, remember that you want to eat the fruits of these plants, plus I find their adult stage to be very interesting. The sphinx moths of both of these caterpillars often make me do a double take because they look a lot like hummingbirds in flight. Therefore, I always handpick the hornworm caterpillars and fling them into my pasture where they can munch the purple and silverleaf nightshades that they find there. If you must spray, Bt is a natural control of these and other caterpillars.

(Click on images to see larger views.)

Thanks for the Treasuries - July 2012

Four different Etsians let me know that they had featured one or more of my items in a treasury during July. Nine July Etsy treasuries, that treasury makers let me know about, included one of my items. My Rainbow of Colors Zipper Pull was even featured twice. You can see a collage below of my items from EDCCollective and EclecticSkeptic that were featured during July. (Click on the collage to see a larger view.)

I really appreciate being featured by the treasury makers. To thank them, I have listed below (in alphabetical order) links to the 4 Etsy sellers that let me know that they featured at least one of my items, as well as an item from their shop that I like.

Enjoy window shopping and please click on the shop links of anything that catches your eye.

AustinLeighDesigns
Get gorgeous gemstone jewelry in a variety of styles and colors from this talented jewelry artisan.

CorkyCraftsCorkycrafts' unique wine cork wreathes and cork crafts make the perfect gift for the wine lover.



HotDogCrafts
Items in Hot Dog Crafts such as Fridge Magnets, Pocket Mirrors, Buttons, and Keychains may also be able to be customized.

FoiledEfforts
Organic, modern stained glass art.

Wolves in the Garden

Or at least spiders that hunt like wolves by running down their prey. I have seen individuals of these large brown spiders for many years around my garden and pasture. Late last summer a momma and hundreds of her babies hung out in one corner of my pond circulation pump box. Just this week I disturbed one of these spiders while I was weeding. It wasn’t the spider that I noticed first however. At first I thought that I was seeing part of a hatched robin’s egg. Then I realized that this turquoise or robin’s egg blue object was being dragged by a large brown spiders of the type that I see frequently. Once I realized that this object was attached to the spider’s abdomen, I surmised that it was an egg sac with hundreds of tiny spiders in it. This was intriguing so I got my camera and decided that I would research these spiders further for this week’s blog post. (This female spider froze in an attempt to blend into the background once I stopped weeding.)

It turns out that these spiders are a variety of wolf spider, the Texas Rabid Wolf Spider (Rabidosa rabida). While the name sounds intimidating, I have found them to be shy and nonaggressive when I come across them. A couple of sources disagreed with my observations but most agreed that they are not aggressive unless handled roughly or cornered. The wolf spider is nomadic, hunting during the day. While I haven’t witnessed it yet, they are said to wait or stalk their prey before running it down. They are not afraid to take on prey larger than they are. Their bite is venomous to their prey, insects and sometimes other spiders, but it is not considered harmful to humans, dogs or cats, although some people wrote that their bite feels like a bee sting. Females are larger than the males with their body reaching up to 2 inches in length and a leg span easily reaching 4 inches.

After the female with the egg sac that I photographed decided that she wasn’t in danger, she proceeded to tuck herself under some mulch and leaf litter in my garden. I plan to leave that little patch undisturbed long enough for the babies to hatch. After they hatch, the mother will carry them on her back until they can fend for themselves.

I hope that next time you see a large brown striped spider that makes you think of a tarantula, that you will be able to recognize it from my photos and let it be. (The dangerous brown recluse spider is only as big as a quarter and it isn't hairy like the wolf spider.) It can help you take out hungry grasshoppers and other insects that would otherwise take out your plants.

Design This – Retirement Gift

One of my son’s former and really awesome teachers retired earlier this year. My dilemma was trying to decide what she might enjoy and use post retirement. She was very involved with Math – Science competitions as a teacher, but it didn’t feel right to contemplate gifting math or science geek jewelry as she was leaving teaching. I decided to contact a friend of hers to see what some of her favorite things were so that I could put together something that would fit with her post teaching likes.

I was told that this teacher loved all things related to the ocean and that purple iris were her favorite flower. I also remembered that she had purchased a pearl and amethyst bracelet from me a few years earlier. I pondered what to do with this information as I looked through my jewelry supplies and photos that I had taken.

I found two images of purple iris in my photos. A couple of days later while at another friend’s house, I saw that she had two different purple iris blooming. I asked if I could come back and take some photos for a project that I was working on. I came back later that afternoon and took several shots of each type of purple iris. That gave me four different types of purple iris to work with, perfect for a set of note cards. These flower images were a delight to work with and I came up with one image of each type of purple iris for each card of a four card set. While working with the images I also came up with a wide variety of digital variations that I will be printing and matting as photographic art.

During the process of developing the iris note card set, I found some great double sided seahorse charms while I was at a trade show. I already had some spherical amethyst beads and pearls that I paired with the seahorses to make a pair of earrings to go along with the purple theme and this teacher’s love of the ocean.

If you need a special gift for someone on a special occasion, I’d be happy to brainstorm a custom solution for your gifting needs.

What’s in Bloom – July 2012

As the weather dries out and the heat kicks in for summer, it can be a challenge to find plants that are willing to bloom in these conditions. Two perennials native to some of the U.S. that take the heat and keep on blooming are blackfoot daisy and butterflyweed.

Blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum, makes rounded mounds full of white flowers with yellow centers. These plants are very drought tolerant. In fact, you can kill them by overwatering them or planting them in soil that does not drain well. They really don’t like “wet feet”.

Butterflyweed, Asclepias tuberosa, is also a waterwise plant. I find that it can tolerate a bit more water than blackfoot daisy. It produces clusters of small orange flowers sporadically throughout the summer. This is also an important butterfly caterpillar host plant. It can take being chewed on, so if you spot some caterpillars on your plants, leave them be.

You can find other native and adapted waterwise plants in my Texas Stars photo album.

Thanks for the Treasuries - June 2012

Three different Etsians let me know that they had featured one or more of my items in a treasury during June. Nine June Etsy treasuries, that treasury makers let me know about, included one of my items. My Peacock n White Feather Earrings were even featured twice. You can see a collage below of my items from EDCCollective and EclecticSkeptic that were featured during June. (Click on the collage to see a larger view.)

I really appreciate being featured by the treasury makers. To thank them, I have listed below (in alphabetical order) links to the 3 Etsy sellers that let me know that they featured at least one of my items, as well as an item from their shop that I like.

Enjoy window shopping and please click on the shop links of anything that catches your eye.

AustinLeighDesigns
Get gorgeous gemstone jewelry in a variety of styles and colors from this talented jewelry artisan.

CocoCocoa
Colorful knit and crochet items in a variety of fun designs can be found in this shop.

HotDogCrafts
Items in Hot Dog Crafts such as Fridge Magnets, Pocket Mirrors, Buttons, and Keychains may also be able to be customized.