Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins

What Are They Thinking?

Leave a comment with your take on what they might be thinking

and win a card with a funny animal picture!

Volunteer at your Local Urban Farm!



I visited Farm 51 for their workday today and fell in love with their space, a diverse mix of raised beds of vegetables, chicken coops, nice people and good food.

What Are They Thinking?

The caption contest is back!

Add a caption in your comment and win a free card with a funny animal picture!

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.

Bike Art and Woods and Nature Photography at Fairmout Arts Crawl

The Arts Crawl in Fairmount is Sunday, April 17th, from 2-6 pm and I will be at 2014 and 2015 Fairmount Ave. with two shows: one of Philly Street Bikes at Fairmount Bicycles and the other, Walk into the Woods at Wellpoint Oriental Medicine. The whole exent is amazing with street performances, artist demos, bike rentals, free food and drinks, free Thai massage and Acupuncture demos. The whole hood is filled with art, over 70 artists and all the shops are open. It's a great neighborhood atmosphere.

Take the 33 bus from downtown and get off right at 20th and Fairmount or ride your bike over and get a tune-up while you are there!

Orange Bike and Shadow, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia

Greyhound Station, Chinatown, Philadelphia

Red and Blue Bikes, Chinatown, Philadelphia

Philadelphia Seed Swap

The Seed Swap at Earth Cup Cafe, 45th and Pine Streets

Yummy Squash, Bean and Eggplant Seeds

Sorting the seeds into catagories

Mira and Joel, Co-Coordinators of the Philly Seed Exchange Mira is also involved with the Blue Red Yellow project growing plants in the city to make natural dyes. She was featured in Grid Magazine and had a demo table at Swap O Rama Rama last year.

The Philadelphia Seed Savers are holding seed swaps across the city this spring so be sure to check out this link to see when the next ones will be held!

Philly Bikes, Center City South

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

Philly Flower Show

Matisse-themed garden

Mouse Cookies: Cutest Ever!

I found this Dita Von Teese recipe in Instyle magazine last month just before a potluck and knew I had to make them. The recipe called for almond slivers, but I was only able to find pumpkin seeds at the co-op, so I went with those. They were very easy to make and I was having fun rolling them up in my hands and adding their little currant eyes, ears and noodle-tails while listening to Kids Corner on wxpn. They were a hit at the potluck and I got lots of comments afterward.

Vivian Maier's Found Photography

Vivian Maier

A photographer whos work was only found after her death. Amazing video on the website.

Mariposa Cop Valentine Craft Sale Saturday 10-4

Snow Day in Fairmount

Comparing Composters for the Garden

I stopped by the garden today to drop off some food scraps to compost and I started looking around at all of the composters in our community garden. Because of the blanket of snow, it's easy to spot the different designs and I thought it would be interesting to hear from the gardeners what they think of the type they selected.

The Earth Machine was given away for free to residents who attended a compost workshop with the city. Not sure if it is still going on. Many of the garden members have these.

Windchimes in Ceramic Shop

Photos from the Bike Path

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?

SWAPTASTIC HOLIDAY

I made it a goal to swap as many gifts as I could this year because there's just no need to be broke the whole month because you overdid it on the gift giving. I asked my friends to go easy on the gifts as well.

So I started by asking Etsy sellers who had items that my familyand friends would like if they would be up for a swap. AMAZINGLY, three different sellers I've never talked with before said YES!

One was James Steeno who runs jsteeno on Etsy. I saw the listing for the cards below and asked him if I could get an 8 x 10 of just the cardinal, my sister's favorite bird. He said sure and after checking out my shop selected my bike cards as a trade.

James is an illustrator and watercolor painter in Milwaukee, WI and in addition to the bird paintings, I really like his Milwaukee Skyline painting. He was super nice and matted the cardinal print and got it in the mail with plenty of time for the holidays!

Another seller, Brenda Gartman with the shop Bgartman is a Handmade Philly member with me and when I asked her about her dichronic glass necklaces and swapping, she said she has a certain family member who is into biking who might like one of my bicycle prints. When I shared the site with my mom, she of couse picked out the most expensive necklace

I also found this cute necklace for my sister who really loves owls:

Brenda was great about the swap and selected two other pieces from my ceramics shop to trade, a balloon pot and one of my new succulent planters. Today I'm headed off to Media, PA to meet her and swap the gifts (a huge help sinde ceramics can be expensive to ship!)

Finally, Tara of Sewtara, agreed to swap for this awesome coffee cuff:

She made it fun by saying she wanted a surprise! "Something cool in Philadelphia" so I looked through my print drawer and picked out one I thought wasn't too obvious but was awesome.

Her coffee cuffs are hysterical, like this Hello My Name is...

I'm still waiting on this one, but Tara's in Toronto, which is not too far away, but mail from Canada to the US seems to take forever!