Etsy Nest Furniture for the Kitchen and Living Room

I came across some really amazing furniture lately so I wanted to share some recent favorites for the home:

Kitchen:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/53380453/pair-of-midcentury-modern-chairs-in

http://www.etsy.com/listing/85881960/white-1960s-small-saarinen-style-table

http://www.etsy.com/listing/80935893/kitchen-lighting-with-custom-fabric-drum

Philly Bikes, Reading Terminal Market

I'm going to start posting my newest Bikes of Philly photographs today and throughout the week. I'm leading up to my bike photo show at Fairmount Bicycles on Sunday April 17th from 2-6 pm, for the Arts Crawl in Fairmount. They are at 2014 Fairmount Ave. I'm also showing across the street at Wellpoint Oriental Medicine!

I decided to offer a free print if one of these bikes belongs to you! So far only one person contacted me about their Bike Love bicycles in Northern Liberties.

Check them out and tell me what you think. http://www.etsy.com/shop/allisonostertag

Windchimes in Ceramic Shop

Photos from the Bike Path

Succulent and Cactus Pots

New Painting Finished!

Weekend Garden Project

Today I finally got to this project, making a marker for my bed in the community garden, so I can be friendly with my neighbors who ask where is your bed? And this makes it easy to see. It reminds me of houses at the shore that have the cute names and signs.

I found a cement remnant in our rock pile that was about 8" tall and 6" across, cleaned the surface with a rag, and applied a layer of white acrylic paint, then went back over the edges with more white. I mixed blue, green and white together and painted a graduated fade from top to bottom.

The letters were harder to paint, so I painted the letters, then outlined them with a slightly darker green, then went back over the interior of each letter. I thinned out the paint to paint the flowers and it was much easier to work with. My garden has a huge lavender plant, so I wanted to make sure that was featured on my sign.

I dug a shallow trench for the bottom and back filled dirt behind the stone and stepped on it to firm it up so the rock doesn't fall over. You can see there's not much happening in the garden in terms of growth, so this is a bright happy reminder that all will be colorful again!

Paintings In the Works

Here's one of the new paintings I managed to get done over the holidays.



And here is the photo I took at the Woodford House in Fairmount Park that I used as a reference image.



Here's another painting when I was first laying out the shapes and the reference image I pulled from a magazine hanging from my bookshelf.



Here's the same painting almost done (no flooring).



Here's the finished one. I'm really excited to finally be working on these again after being away from them for longer than I can remember. I posted both of these on etsy and I'm going to try and get some small 5 x 7" paintings done before going back to work on Monday!

New Tote In Floral Fabric and Circles My mom said looked like the inside of the human body!

I decided to make a tote for myself for the summer and picked out the fabric, cut out the shapes, but had no working sewing machine, so I finally sewed it up last night when I visited my mom's house.

My mom said the inside looked like the inside of the human body, which it does kind of look like platelets and red blood cells, but it also reminds me of a watermelon with a green exterior and a pink interior.

Hopefully it will function well as a daily bag for work. I overdid it a bit buying fabric, so I could make about 20 in different colors, so I'll have plenty if I decid to make adjustments to the size or pockets...

"My Fairmount" Show at Rembrant's Restaurant

On the walk down to the gym this morning I had to stop and photograph the blossoms on the trees all up and down the block. I left Rembrant's to see the other art exhibits and found these amazing weavings at the Ukranian Social Club display. They had hand crafted wood carvings, embroidery, batiks, eggs, ceramics and paintings on glass that were intricate and beautiful.

All this month my work will be on display in the Z Cafe at Rembrant's Restaurant. There are 14 framed photographs, ranging from smaller 8" x 10" works to large 21" x 27" photo collages. The cafe opens at 8 am to serve coffee(espresso, etc.) and breakfast for folks waiting for the 48 or 7 bus at 23rd and Aspen Streets (like me) and has a really nice old wood bar to enjoy your coffee at while watching the flat screen to see when the bus is coming down the street (Bus Cam).

This is a nice neighborhood place in Philly.

The SHADFEST in Fishtown was great. I ran into many many Handmade Philly/Philly ETSY Teamers and local folks from garden, farm, library and design projects in the city. It's a wonderful park and being next to the water was great.

ETSY TREASURY

My orange and blue branches painting got included in this awesome treasury!

New gift wraps for my etsy shop: banana papers that are eco-friendly and pretty!

Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, PA

This weekend I visited Chanticleer with my family and we took a quick tour in the bright sunshine, but the garden is really wonderful. The gardeners are given the liberty to make changes to the beds and create furniture which includes painted pairs of Adirondack chairs to allow visitors a view down the hills.
View down the stairway into the tennis court garden.

The cutting garden and vegetable garden with two men talking on a bench at the end of the path.


Lilly pads on the pond.


Succulent plantings on the hill.


The ruins in the center offer great framing devices, creating windows onto the woods.


They'll only be open until Oct 31st when the season ends. They are on Church rd. in Wayne, PA.