Window Boxes and Sidewalk Planters

Window boxes around the neighborhood:

And planters on the sidewalk:

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...

Painting in Progress on Native Plants

I placed an order with Yellow Springs Nursery and I was so excited to see the plants I bought and to plan my garden at West Philly High School, I decided to make a painting of the plants we selected. The sketches came from looking at my garden in Spring Gardens and the Wildflower Guide helped me with the rest of them. I should be done by the end of the week!

The plants arrived today and we planted them in the beds!

Garden Update--Check out these tomatoes!

These are the same plants I bought from Happy Cat Organics that I posted about below. They are humongous now! I just hope they turn red someday!

Edible Schoolyard and Shopping Local

I just ordered Edible Schoolyard by Alice Waters from the Penn Book Center (not the bookstore, but the Indie bookstore on 34th and Sansom). I'm getting really excited about building a garden at West Philly High School this summer, so I am buying books on all the ways to prepare every vegetable under the sun and I figured I would buy Alice Water's book since she was the first person who got me thinking about gardens as food sources and community builders at public schools.

Thinking about buying locally, (not from the Penn Bookstore which is owned by Barnes & Noble), Sansom Street between 34th and 36th streets is a great local shopping enclave that is dissapearing as we speak. The Saturn Club will close its cafe in about a week and focus on Salon space. Bucks County Coffee closed its doors on this block about a year ago (and the other stores were bought by Saxby's), The Black Cat gift shop is closing its doors and has been selling off all their stock since Christmas and the White Dog Cafe has been bought out by the folks who run Moshulu.

On the upside, AVRIL 50 is still going strong after 25 years and has every magazine you love but is hard to find at the big box stores or CVSes (Bust, Ready Made, European magazines, every subject you can think of) and espresso drinks, teas and gourmet import chocolates. It really is a place you need to see to believe. Decorated with covers of Interview magazines from the early 90's, he also carries notecards, International newspapers, wrapping paper, black and white postcards, calenders and planners. Located at 3406 Sansom Street.

OMG! Ice Cream Posters You Will Love!

Share with a Buddy! I was walking down Spring Garden Street here in Philly when I came upon these signs in the window of Petrucci's Ice Cream at the corner of 18th street. I came back later and had to get a Mega Blend (their version of the Blizzard, an old favorite from high school when I worked next door to a ice cream place). I took some more pictures on my second trip and found out all of the signs were made by the girls who work at the shop. They must have been mightily inspired to come up with these super adorable signs. Check out the single scoops in cups and the Brownie Sundae girl in green.

Flag Fest at Betsy Ross House Photos

New Rustic Frames

Pidge of MWMDesigns.etsy.com

Handmade Philly Team Member Suelynne in the City

We had a lot of fun at the Flag Fest, despite the hard rain on Saturday and the slow sales.

Flag Fest at the Betsy Ross House This Weekend!

Flag Fest
at the Betsy Ross House
Saturday, June 13th 10-7
Sunday June 14th 10-5
239 Arch Street

I will be selling Philadelphia Landmark photographs and cards including Christ Church, Independence Hall, Second Bank, City Hall, Philadelphia Zoo, the Art Museum, Reading Terminal Market, Italian Market, Eastern State Penitentiary, Murals, Franklin Fountain and more!

This event should be lots of fun with all day traditional craft demonstrations, people in Victorian costume, food, games, jugglers, magic shows, Punch and Judy plays, ragtime music, Vaudeville performances, dancers, big-wheeled bicycles, fortune-tellers and prizes.

http://www.betsyrosshouse.org/prog_flag_festival/

Philly Photo Cards on Apartment Therapy.com

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/dc/etsy-find-philly-photographs-084317

Wow, I'm so psyched to be featured on apartmenttherapy.com! I really like this site, they have the coolest spaces to look at and get ideas from and they feature stuff you will want to have, or at least post pictures up of.

Spiffy Blog Features My Paintings

I'm so excited to be featured on spiffy, a blog by etsy seller flapperdoodle:

Click on the image to go to the article!

Happy Cat Organics Plant Sale and Flea Market at the Garden

Today I got to buy my peppers and tomatoes from Happy Cat Organics in my garden, Spring Gardens, and get them right in the ground (no schlepping them on the bus!) The selection was great and I got peach, white, red tomatoes and purple, red and green peppers. They carry heirloom tomatoes and unusual varieties that taste great and make good sauces and sliced sandwich goodies. They are at Head House (around 2nd and South Streets in Philly) every Saturday. Check out Tim's Blog for more info.

Interview on Manufactured Dissent Blog

Ruth from the handmade Philly Team was nice enough to interview me for her blog, www.manufactured-dissent.com and it's up right now. They were good questions and I really had to think about some of my answers. I was thinking later I should have said something about wanting to go more handmade and green in my craft sales, but I didn't think of it until later. I'm looking to use all handmade frames and recycled papers for my cards, and I may have even found a company that has "plastic" sleeves for cards made out of vegetable matter. It's going to be a slow process changing over, though, because of cost. I am looking to find a frame maker in town to create wood frames of different sizes.

Food Inc. Movie Premier and Eats & Beats

I went to the Food Inc. movie premier tonight (free tickets were given out to see it at the Ritz Borse) and it was much of the things I know from work, corporate food vs. local growers, but some new stuff: the companies that control the chicken, beef and pork, corn and soybean seeds.

There were the usual experts: Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan author of Omnivore's Dillema, but the best character in the movie is Joel Salatin
owner/farmer of Polyface Farms in Virginia, who feeds his livestock grass, and has the most matter of fact way of describing how scewed the food system has gotten when he describes how his cows eat grass.

I've been trying to wean myself off of plastics and this movie made me think more about cutting out traditional food products, esp. industrial meat. I've been shopping almost exclusively at Whole Foods, but I really don't know where the turkey I bought came from, or if the salmon is fed corn. And it makes me strongly consider buying the meat products at Farm Fresh Express or farmers markets. I knew about the industrial mechanization of the meat corporations, but I didn't think about the chemicals and poo and ecoli and where it comes from (even on spinach).

This is all connected with my work for the Urban Nutrition Initiative and I'm excited to go the the Eats & Beats dinner on Saturday night, 5:30-8:30 at 48th and Baltimore Ave. The high school farmers and chefs are doing the most of the cooking, but they also have donations from many local restaurants and farms. I took photographs of the garden they tend at University City Hish School, my garden at Spring Gardens Community Garden and at Reading Terminal Market at Iovine Brothers and Fair Food Farmstand and they will be on the silent auction tables, matted and in sets of cards.

Paper N Stitch Shop is Up and Running!

I really love this shop and I'm happy to be a part of it. The sellers have really nice looking stuff. Check out the shop and tell me what you think!

http://www.papernstitch.com/shop/allisons-paintings

Heart my shop if you like it. There is a prize for the shop with the most hearts!