Artisans Market Foundry Hall

TOMORROW is our farmers/artisans market from 3-6pm at FOUNDRY HALL IN SOUTH HAVEN MI~~ 
We have a great selection of handmade offerings!!  This week we will have: birdfeeders, herbal products, homemade soaps, beeswax candles, food gifts, cookies, baked goods, produce, glass ornaments, beautiful handcrafted jewelry, afghans, cards, woolen mittens, cutting boards, lamps, gift baskets, floral centerpieces and decorations, wreaths & swags, pine bouquets, painted wood signs, beaded earings, wax firestarters and more~  and we have live music from Joe Foster our most excellent karaoke guy!!! 
Hopefully it wont be raining as they are calling for rain tomorrow and thurs and last night it was 50 degrees outside!! 
hope yall have a wonderful day I am off to get baking at the kitchen!!  Lots of cookies to do today!! will share tonight!!
HUGS
Darlene

Here's a couple more pics from last weeks market

Inside this doorway is where I will be opening my handmade shop!!

And my brother Joey along with his job coach on left and my sweet dear wonderful mommy!! in black sweater. 

And a very dear friend of mine Sue with her new baby!!  Neville is such a doll, she rescued this little bundle of joy only a couple weeks ago and he is already very very attached to her!! and of cource she is to him too!! Such a doll!!

Nekked foccacia loaves

Carmelyzed onion topped foccacia

these are my popular black olive and sage baguettes!!  YUMMY!!

C YALL TOMORROW!

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Snowman projects and repurposing

Hey Yall!!!    My super super mom and I took my brother out shoppin yesterday.  We hit almost every thrift shop we could and came home with her car bursting at the seams!! LOL  I bought up 2 full bags of garlands with white lights and even extension cords for $4.00, (they will come in handy for our shop and then around the farmstand) 6 boxes of new white mini lights for get this.......$1.00 a box!! 100 count even!! That was a great deal!! We got some really nice new looking heavy sweaters for Joey for .........another deal..........$1.00 each!! Found some old clear big jars for snowmen projects for .20 cents each!!  oh and my favo of cource was 2 pair of kids double runner skates for $3.50 a pair!!  I always am on the hunt for those babies! they are difficult to find and before winter comes they are pretty reasonable.   AND we seen a ton of red berries along the way on beautiful branches so pretty we decided to stop along the road and snip a few!! they are gonna be wonderful in floral arrangements, on wreaths, and well maybe just a bunch of em in a vase with white twigs and silver glittery sticks!! 
I did also find a few very cool picture frames I just had to alter!!  I am a huge fan of Linda Albrecht and took her paperclay sculpted snowmen ideas to make a few of my own.  So with My Minds Eye wonderful glittery snow pack  and pieces n parts of all my stash I came up with these!!

These are the little glass tiles I used to make the alphabet pendants but love the look of em for this.  and the foam letters are just from a scrapbook store long ago. 

I did take apart some glittered flourishes to make the swirls on here too. 

Glittery snowflakes from Big Lots and some silver mesh wired ribbon from a thrift store, the eyes are black tiny glass beads and the nose was just a piece of a wooden skewer painted orange. 

The frame did require a bit of painting and sanding and dry brushing then antiquing but I think it fits perfectly. 

The snowman here has the snow stamped on his little banner.  Twig arms make all the difference.

I like this one best so far!!

And I finished up a couple more banners.  Inspire has some great ephemera on it.  I cut out some old milk caps that I scanned and printed so each letter has a different one on it, some little flowers, a mini word stamped on using Just Rite stamps, ribbon and I painted and sanded and stamped and antiqued the little chipboard frames I had in a stash pile. 

I am leaving this one seperate so you can hang them anywhere and anyhow your heart desires.    The chipboard letters are also painted, sanded and then I used a bit of Tim Holtz distressables on the edges. 

WISH is another banner done. 

 Another thrift store frame painted sanded and antiqued along with lots of Martha Stewart flaked glitter and of cource another rusty tiny bell on top the hat.  Hey this was up at the top part of post!! >???? dont know why it got moved down here or even how?  LOL

So that was it and now I am off to get more creative things made.  I have wayyyyyyyyy too many things to get finished!! always that way huh!!

Have a wonderful saturday!! Maybe my mom and brother want to hit a few more thrift stores in another town!! ROFL<<<<<,,,well I better use up some things before brining more projects to work on huh!! 

HUGS

Darlene

Spring banner

HAPPY WED YALL!!

Well it was raining when I let the boys outside and an hour later now it is realllllyyyy snowin!! the ground is all white again!!    I think I heard we may see just a couple of inches today.??  that is ok!!  we had so much rain and melting snow lately we dont need any more rain!!  In fact I will post pics of our road a couple of miles north of us, the southbound lane is completely gone!  there is a creek that runs under it and goes out to the lake well over the years the erosion has been so bad we been wondering when this might hapen and it did now.  I am glad noone got hurt the last time a couple of years ago we had some really bad storms and heavy heavy downpours that the whole road was gone in the middle of the night! 2 people lost their lives while  delivering the morning paper and didnt see or realyze the road was gone.  That was really horrific we felt so bad fo those people and their families.  Very tragic and so sad.   I am thankful this is just one lane and like I said noone was injured!!

I started out cutting out the circles from an old hymnal book and then distressed the edges and also inked the edges with some Tim Holtz's distressing ink in green.

The letters are cut with my cricut from some My Minds Eye green paper, they needed something a bit more so with Tim's green ink I stamped a flowery image over the letter.  It gives nice dimension to it. 

Then made little rosettes for the bottom of each one, added a flower and gem and some fibers.    I did distress each of the banner pieces with antiquing medium and also used a mini flourish stamp on the left corner of each one too.  

This was made for a friend and is on it's way to her now!

And here is our road situation.

I never tire of looking at this beautiful lake.  Each and every day it changes so much and the colors are so vivd around it.  Not too many icebergs left now so we are nearing spring!!  YEAH!! 

So hope yall have a wondeful wed and be safe!! 

I did want to take a minute to mention the FENNVILLE BLACKHAWKS boys basketball team and how incredibly proud we are of each and everyone of you guys!  GREAT JOB LAST NIGHT again another win!! WOO HOO!!  Great bunch of guys we have in our town!

GOOD LUCK on friday at another game!!

SATURDAY GLENN MARKET 9-2

at the Glenn Community Center  114th Ave

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Wild wed

Well another wild day almost over.   I started out the day by finishing up printing lables out, hauling some wood up to the wood barrell for the furnace, baked some new cookies, finished my gift to ME!! LOL, had to go get my feed order, pick up some ingredients,  get prescriptions and unload the feed.  WHEW!!!!!!!! and I worked on some new alphabet tile necklaces for tomorrow nights sale.  Everyday Peoples Cafe in Douglas has another artist/craft sale tomorrow night, it is the last one of the season. 

so onto the new cookies!!  These are so good~  I will share this recipe with yall!!    Mocha dipped wands.   After making the dough I put it in a pastry bag fitted wtih a med size star tip. 

The dough is sticky and thick.

 Each wand is piped out about 3-4 inches long, when piping this dough try to make it on the thick side since they will be dipped in chocolate. 

bake so they are nice and dark golden brown (trust me bake them long enough as I learned this if they arent crispy enough they will break apart when dipping)

Opps I couldnt move this pic down it is of my cranberry orange pecan cakes with a buttercream frosting.

Take a minute to toast your ground hazelnuts!! it makes all the difference in the taste of nuts.   I shelled my hazelnuts and put them thru my hand grater using the large holed grater.

After baking dip 3/4 of the way up the cookie wand then quickly dip in the nuts and let cool on wax paper. 

 I also made a few sweet tater casseroles with a brown sugar butter pecan streusel topping.

I love this blue thick fiber yarn, it has a bit of brown thru it.  This is becoming a scarf.

Here is my present to ME!!  LOL a new scarf.  I have a new winter jacket that is chocolate brown (told ya I am a chocoholic!!!) any wanted a nice warm scarf.  My mom taught me to crochet when I was a kid so after a bit of refreshing class from her I made this scarf.  I love all the fibers and fun yarns out there so am on a new mission to make scarves!! LOL   We found some great alpaca fibered yarn, some brushed bamboo fibers, and some great colors too!! they also had some wonderfully soft and thick wool yarns.  My mom is makin a scarf with grey, black, and a multi colored fiber yarn too.  

 After makin the scarf I then tied on alot of fun long ends on it for fun!! 

So that was my day I have to take pics of the new alphabet letter necklaces yet but am gettin ready to make supper.  Breakfast tonight!! we have some spiral ham so I thought I would make a nice omlet or maybe a hash brown bake with the ham and eggs and plenty of cheeses!! 

Have a wonderful wed night!! Survivor tonight!! YEAH YIPPEE!! 

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~