Happy 2009!

I hope everyone had a great holiday. I was absent from blogland as I was working on keeping my booth stocked at the Blue Genie Art Bazaar, and spending time with the fam. There were a lot of really fantastic artists at Blue Genie this year, and despite the current economy, sales were strong. Rose & Duke sold a decent amount of items, but I was expecting to sell way more and so now I have a lot of stock to fill my site and some local shops. That is what I will be spending the next few weeks doing; photographing items, uploading them, and taking samples around. I am super bad about updating my webshop, and my 2009 resolution is to make time to keep it current.

In crafty news, I had a fun time doing an ornament swap with some great bloggers. It was called the "Los Locos Calicos" swap, and I'll post a link to the flickr group as soon as more folks have uploaded their photos (hint hint ladies). I received the cutest ever Christmas bunny pom pom ornament from Frizz. It came inside a hand-pained wooden box which I now keep my barrettes in. I'm linking you to her photos of the critter, because she took really great ones. I ended up sending out two ornaments. The one that I made for the swap is this one:
I hand embroidered sliver thread onto blue wool felt . It wasn't that easy to remove the stabilizer, let me tell you.

I ended up making a batch of these birdie and vintage millinery flower ornaments. I had a box of vintage wooden thread spools in a drawer and the inspiration just hit me. I ended up including one in the swap.

Sorry for the overexposed photo. My other 2009 resolution is to take better photos. I end up rushing a lot and the results are not always pretty.

Guess what awesome thing happened chez Dunlap? Our ruby grapefruit tree gave us the sweetest grapefruit ever! A hail storm knocked off all but one, and here she is:


We also had a Christmas visit from my mother, and she and Harlan made a gingerbread house together:
Please note the Playmobil midevil guards out front. Somebody put them there to ensure that no one else tried to eat the house. This, after receiving the Jen Corace Illustrated Hansel and Gretel from Sanata. It's the loveliest rendition of the story I have ever read.

Holiday Secrets Revealed!

Warning: If you are involved in a holiday ornament swap with me- do not scroll down unless you want to ruin your surprise.

This week I completed my 9 ornaments for one swap and sent them out. Here they are posing for you before I wraped 'em up:



Some of you MSL readers may recognize the deer. Some of you Superbuzzy fans may recognize the background fabric. I bought it to make Harlan a Christmas pillow and duvet top with.

This next ornament is going out to Emily, my swap partner for the Holiday Traditions swap (see sidebar for more info). I got the embroidery pattern from Hilary and can't wait to make more of these for myself and others for next year. I promise not to mess up the mouse head again. The sides of the ornament are hand stitched with vintage silver thread. You can't tell in the photo, but it really pulls the whole thing together.


In other holiday surprise news, my good pal since high school Lindsay gave birth to her second daughter, Tatiana. I'm posting this photo of Tatiana and older sister Natalia mostly for friends and family of mine who have known Lindsay all these years, although who doesn't enjoy seeing snuggly baby photos?


In yet EVEN MORE holiday surprise news, I keep forgetting to tell everyone that I chopped all the old hair off the noggin a couple of months ago. I came across a recent photos of Katie Holmes whose new haircut is supposed to be a rip off of Posh Spice (it's not even close in my opinion) and said to myself, Now that I can live with. I'm going to be really pissed if they print a photo of me saying I am also trying to rip off Posh because anyone can see right here that it's actually Katie whom I'm biting. I brought the photo in to Stacie (my friend and resident hair cutter) and as usual she gave me exactly what I asked for. Here are photos of me and Harlan taken earlier today at the park:

Button swap and new bird in town

We just flew in from Fresno CA this afternoon and I have a busy week ahead but felt the need for a little checking in. Above is another bird made from a Tiffany felt and some red wool felt and red floss. One of my two most favorite color combos is this blue and dark red so I had to do it. I gave the little guy a kerchief and some wire feet to boot.

In the mail last week I received some great stuff from Charlotte in France through the Shim & Son's button swap pt. deux. Charlotte sent me amazing buttons that are totally me along with a hand crocheted album with felt pages, some wooden beads and beautiful bookmarks she made from photos that she took (she's a professional photographer). I scored!


I'll have to tell you later about my Kinokunia adventures, but I have a few orders to place this week for Bun Bun Babythreads.