Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Olde Town Christmas Craft Fair & Holiday Lights Parade

If you are looking for a unique gift or two or three this holiday season, set your sights on attending the Olde Town Christmas Craft Fair December 2 – 3 at the Dottie Lynn Recreation Center. Shop on Friday from noon – 7 pm and on Saturday from 10 am – 3 pm. I will be back as a vendor for the second year with items from both of my online shops, EDCCollective and EclecticSkeptic, and more. There is also still time to come by and talk with me about creating a custom item for that perfect, one of a kind gift.

More festive, holiday fun can be found Saturday night, December 3 in downtown Arlington. Come out and watch Arlington’s Holiday Lights Parade. A local, independently run team of Etsy shop owners, Etsy817, will be walking next to their parade entry to let you know how you can get your hands on even more great handmade or vintage goodies at their Handmade Holidays – Arts, Crafts & Vintage Marketplace, December 9 – 10. (I am a member of this great team.) After the parade you can watch the lighting of the Christmas tree at City Hall and/or get your picture taken with Santa at the Levitt Pavilion.

Here’s to having plenty of fun and enjoying the festivities of the season with the ones you love. Happy Holidays!

Friday, November 25, 2011

38th Annual Ladybug’s Christmas Collection

Last year I discovered a great little holiday store tucked into a workshop behind an artist’s home in Arlington, TX. I was really enamored with the whimsical polymer clay creations of one artisan in particular. Some artists/crafters that have their work on display at Ladybugs Christmas Collection have been there all 38 years and some like me, will be debuting their wares this year. Items from over 25 artists are expected this year.

I will be sending an assortment of my zipper pulls, gathering pins, matted photographic art prints, bookmarks, cards, CD clocks and wood items to add to the wonderful handcrafted gifts that will be on display. Exclusively during December, Eclectic Design Choices' zipper pulls, cards and matted prints featuring ladybugs will be found here.

A special opening night reception with light refreshments kicks off this year’s show from 6 – 9 pm, Thursday, December 1, 2011. The remainder of the show runs December 2 – 11 with store hours Monday – Saturday from 10 am – 6 pm and Sunday from 1 pm – 5 pm. Mark your calendars and be sure to make it in before closing on Sunday, December 11 before this holiday pop up shop shutters its doors for another year.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Alcon Holiday Craft Fair

I’m excited that I get to share with you, over the next four weeks, four different opportunities local to the DFW area where you will be able to see my work in person. I’ll have the chance to wish you happy holidays at three of them if you get a chance to stop by and say hi. (Look for my Eclectic Design Choices banner.)

The first of these four opportunities will be Alcon's 11th annual Holiday Craft Fair. It will be held on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 from 9 am - 6 pm at the Crowne Plaza Hotel across from Alcon in Fort Worth.

I will be limiting what I bring to this show to my photographic art items. I will have various sized matted prints, a few framed prints, note cards, holiday cards, gift tags, bookmarks and clocks that feature my photographic art. You can see a preview of some of the photographic art items that I will have with me in my shops EDCCollective and EclecticSkeptic.

(Design This update: I had planned on writing part two of my recent Necklace to Match Bracelet post today, but I have found that I need to postpone writing it until after the holidays in order to have the time to do it justice.)

Friday, November 11, 2011

Garden Pond Clean Out

After almost a year of concentrated work on clearing out the plants that I will never recommend that anyone plant in their garden pond, ever, we had most of them pulled out of the pond. (See my previous blog post so that you can learn from my mistake.) In addition, the water lilies that had been growing for about nine years needed thinning so over this past Labor Day three day weekend and finally finishing the following weekend, the three of us tackled a major pond clean out and restoration project.

With most of the water clover and dwarf horsetail removed we could tell that either the 19 degree low of last winter, the plant overcrowding, some combination thereof or the fishing skills of the herons or raccoons finally did away with all of our goldfish. We still had several hundred mosquito fish that would need to be removed in order to drain and clean out the pond. We also anticipated a good deal of silt build up after nine years and lots of root mats created by the plants that I will never plant again. There had been a lot of silt that we had to remove from the waterfall “bucket” when we did the leak repair on the spillway about two years ago and the pond is hundreds of times larger than that, so this was no small undertaking.

Day one entailed removing the remaining “evil” plants as well as the water lilies and some other plants that I wanted to keep. We had many more water lilies than I would need to replant and a friend with a large natural pond that wanted them, so we meticulously cleaned the water lily tubers and roots so no stray “evil” plants would make the trip to his pond. These were stored in large buckets filled with the pond water and I had a bucket for my plant keepers as well as snails and a host of tadpoles that had just hatched.

Day two started with filling another large bucket with pond water and beginning the great mosquito fish harvest. We also began draining the pond with our pond vacuum and removing rocks so that they could be cleaned and silt could be removed from the liner. I had really wanted to be able to put the mosquito fish back in the pond by the end of the day so we continued to work by shop light on the first level of pebbles before we called it quits on day two. By then we had a bucket full of hundreds of mosquito fish, many of the rocks removed, cleaned and some replaced but lots of works still ahead as can be seen in the second photo taken before work started on day three.

You will find part two of the clean out saga by clicking here. (Images enlarge when clicked.)

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Thanks for the Treasuries - October 2011

Four different Etsians let me know that they had featured one or more of my items in a treasury during October. Three October treasuries, that treasury makers let me know about, included one of my items. One additional treasury included an item from each of my shops. You can see a collage below of my items from EDCCollective and EclecticSkeptic that were featured during October. (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 shops 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.

IntoTheLight
This jewelry artisan creates beautiful fused glass jewelry and accessories.

LoveStar1
This crafter makes handmade banners and bunting, including custom requests for your decorating needs.

MarasFabric
Fabulous fabric yo-yo embellishments and quilt squares abound in this shop.

OliveBranchOrganics
Find organic coconut wax massage candles & body butter at this shop.