New Cookbooks for the New Year!

I just found out I have a cousin who works at Powell's Books in Portland and I was so excited I asked for a gift card from there for the holidays. While most of the books are going to be for school, yesterday I ordered tons of cookbooks!  I found one great new book on making jams, pickles, sauces and crackers, then I browsed all the low priced used cookbooks and found book after book under $1:

I LOVE INDIE PA!

I am so excited about this new site IndiePA.com.  They contacted me last week about this new website they put together featuring artists, makers and musicians from all over the state, making it easy to find homegrown goodies wherever you go! 

Matt and Darice explain it this way: "As Pennsylvania residents, creatives and explorers, we have a special love for PA originals – and we wanted to share that love with the world. While traveling around our great state, we tend to collect arts related information. Slowly, our tiny collection became a stack, and eventually the stack became a mountain (not to mention the long list of bookmarked sites on our computer!) We decided something had to be done. That’s when the idea for IndiePA was born.*

I applied and now I see I'm on the front page!



New Room Painting in Progress

I'm not-so hard at work on a new painting

                                                  from a magazine image of a nice little room
                                                         with a big comfy chair and a desk.

Windchimes in Ceramic Shop

Artist to Watch: Bonnie Macallister

I recently found this blog for a fellow Handmade Philly member, Bonnie Macallister. It was amazing to see all of the shows and arts orgs. in Philly she is connected with, people I'd never heard of before. Where is the Germ Bookstore?

Almost Live from Swap O Rama Rama

Here we are walking into the Urban Outfitters storage building for the Swap O Rama Rama!

What an amazing space: ferns, fish, native plant garden outside, giant crochet vases, fun.

Setting up supplies for the Handmade Philly table Monster Pins wokshop.

The fabric table. Wow.

The cafe!

Come join us from 12-5 pm today at the Navy Yard. Drive down Broad street till you see the Navy Yard sign past the last Broad Street Line stop. Keep driving straight until the river is straight ahaead and take a right! Minutes from downtown. Nice bike ride too.

New Painting Finished!

FREE 8 x 10 PHOTOGRAPH GIVEAWAY!

I'm giving away one free 8 x 10 Photograph of your choice, and you can choose from any image in my etsy shop that is 8 x 10 or larger! All it takes to enter is to leave a comment someplace here on my blog (any posting)! When you leave your comment, be sure to mention you'd like to be included in the giveaway! The drawing will be in two weeks and I will notify the winner by e-mail.

Mummers Parade 2010

Here are a couple of my pictures from the Mummers parade yesterday. I love the mummers and I did a research paper on them in college for my art history class on masks. I really appreciate how authentic it is in Philly, not a lot of polish or commercialism, just some folks working together, families and friends making costumes, raising money, painting backdrops, and doing their own choreography, music and working all year to put it together. Congrats Mummers! Thanks for all of the hard work!

So Here is the Result!

I picked up my first print from Silicon Gallery and I was really happy. Here's the Blue and Black Branches painting on the Hahnemühle Photo Rag Luster 308 (a mistake they gave me). The regular paper print, more matte and smooth, went out to the client who purchased it.

I stopped by the art supply store at 2nd and Market, Artist and Craftsman Supply and picked up this simple white snap frame a couple of days later and it is perfect. If you haven't been downstairs in the shop, you've missed out on the treasury of wood panels to paint on and frames for all sizes of artwork. This is where I get my wood panels because they have every size under the sun, multiple profile depths to choose from and the prices are cheaper than anywhere else in town.

Square Peg Artery & Salvage Holiday Shop In Liberty Place at 17th Street

Suare Peg Artery & Salvage has a second shop open for the holidays

in Liberty Place! The entrance is on 17th street between Market and Chestnut streets

next to the Westin Hotel entrance (or you can walk through the mall toward the 17th street exit).

They have lots of cute clothes (I think I spotted a cute screenprinted button up for a guy friend), jewlery, cards (like mine above!), candles, soaps and wall art including some cool square paintings/thread collages and my photos!

See, that's the Westin drive through in the background of my Love Park photo.
Stop by and buy local! I went here today, then strolled up to 13th street between Walnut and Pine where there are some awesome little shops with many cute gifts, flowers, cards, wrapping paper, housewares, ornaments, furniture and you pass Blick art supply and West Elm on the way! I had no money, but I'm window shopping for the future.

Black and Blue Branches Print in the Works!

I'm headed to Silicon Gallery on Tuesday to check out the first proof of one of my paintings, the Black and Blue Branches painting in my etsy shop, http://www.allisonspaintings.etsy.com/.

I'm so excited! I had a customer purchase the print and another painting last week and I get to go pick out the finish and paper. I know it's going to be beautiful. Silicon does the scanning and burns cd's and then prints the image. The scans are really high resolution and you can see every fiber of the original.

West Philly and Black Friday thru Cyber Monday Sales

BIG SALE!

Buy Two Get One FREE
on Any items in my shop:

Card Sets, Photos, Matted Images

Here are some of the new photos I took in West Philly last weekend that are included in the sale. I wandered far and wide through the neighborhoods and found lots of colorful signs, homes, graffiti, shops, though I couldn't find the sign on Lancaster Ave. that says "The Hollywood Blvd. of Philadelphia" or was it Wilshire Blvd?