Beets! Free Food!

I stopped by the community garden today and I was planning to drop off compost and look around, but sad the season is ending, but when I got there I saw the beets! They were huge and there were these 4 ready to pick and scores of other ones will be ready now that these biggins are out of the way! And I was at the store this morning trying to decide what root veggie to roast and luckily I didn't get beets. I totally forgot I was growing them. I picked some thyme and lemon balm while I was there and I was feeling so happy I have a garden and I can get free food when I need it from the garden. Of course, I'll be tired of beets after I eat these, but it's still cool.

I've been thinking about ways to make the community garden more friendly and functional and fun and today I was thinking we should name each block of beds so people can say where their plot is. I was thinking letters, but you could also name the blocks after cities or states and you could name the paths. Like you could have the block Los Angeles and Rodeo Drive and New Orleans and St. Charles Ave. We have a fantastic community garden (18th and Wallace Streets),.

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

Next weekend (Nov. 8th) I'll be at the The Philadelphia Independent Craft Market with these new items:

Philadelphia Zoo

Pre-Halloween Weekend at the Zoo: I'm working on a book of the zoo's creatures and I shot some more last weekend. Each page of the book will have a collage of images of the same animal to show their behaviors. I'm going to start selling them at the Book Paper Scissors Artists Book Fair November 22 at the Free Library. I'll have several books if I get busy working (Art Cars, Art Teacher).

Penguin in the Lagoon

Mr. Gorilla Checks Out the People

Mr. Polar Bear Takes a Nap

First Frost

I hustled over to the garden before work to take some pictures of frost on the plants, but I only found a few ground covers with frost on them.



Lettuces

I did get some nice images of the turning leaves.

ETSY.com Philly Artist Treasury with My LOVE photo

My Promos Are Done!

Here are the upcycled mini card sets I made for the free tote bags the Philly Etsy team will be giving away at the Swap-O-Rama-Rama on Saturday.

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.

Arts By the River East Falls

I showed my photographs at the Inn Yard Park today and it was really nice! The weather was beauuu-ti-ful and everyone was really cool! My friend Carrie came and helped my run the table expertly and I had a collector of my bird paintings show up to sweep four more paintings off to her home and I got lots of good advice for new places to take photos! Thanks! I'll be out there shooting soon! There were alot of dogs out with their people.
This set up was my most involved so far, but I like the look of it. It took a good hour to put together, though.
Carrie has such good sales instincts, she put the postcards in front and the cards in the lid of the box. We made the best of the time by making upcycled photo cards for the Design Philadelphia show and the Swap-O-Rama-Rama give aways.
Meeting all of the people and having fun made it all worth it! I also scored 4 vases made by kids in the Claymobile program for the Clay Studio. I love coil built ceramics and I can't pass them up! See you all in 2 weeks at 906 Christian for Design Philadelphia (Oct. 18, 10-4)!

Etsy Painting Treasury With My Side Table Painting

Autumn ETSy Treasury

BioPond at Penn

Stopped at the BioPond on Penn's campus during lunch on Friday. Here's sedum with a bee.

Pink Flowers

Bright Green Leaves

Ruins in the Ferns


Wrinkly leaves

Whole Foods Local Thursday

I was selling at the Whole Foods Local event this Thursday, and even though people weren't buying, I got to enjoy Funk Harp music, meet some other vendors, chat with shoppers and do lots of planning for the October 18th Craftadelphia sale and reception for Design Philadelphia at Mew Gallery.
I'm going to be printing photos of New Orleans in soy ink on recycled paper and working with a woodworking class to make frames from reclaimed wood. Part of the proceeds will go the the Green Project in New Orleans, where I used to work. They reclaim building materials of all sorts, toilets, claw foot tubs, doors, windows, lumber and lots and lots of paint to keep it out of landfills and they sell it cheap to homeowners rebuilding after Katrina.
I was also working out what I'm going to give away at the Swap-A-Rama-Rama in the free Etsy Team Philly tote bags. I decided I'm going to make mini picture cards on recycled paper from my office, but I'm cutting circles out of old pictures on the card front. Then last night, I was liking how the pictures full of holes were looking, and talking to my friend on the phone and he suggested I re-assemble the background and put different circles back in so I started making the images above, glued to a Urban Outfitters frame paper. I really like them. I pulled some pictures I liked as covers to mini notebooks/cards, so I'm getting at least 3 projects out of these pictures that have just been sitting in a box under my bed for a year. So it was a productive slow show. I'm psyched about Swap-A-Rama-Rama, I keep telling people about it.

Etsy Treasury

Here's a recent Etsy.com treasury I was included in. That's my tree branch painting on the right. I've been included in three this week, one of elephant pictures, one of architecture and this one. I still haven't mastered the treasury tool yet.

Thinks to Do and See In Italian Market 'hood (besides the Italian Market)

I was walking down to Mew Gallery today and stopped to take pictures at a couple of my favorite places. First, I stopped at Spool and Loop, the new fabric and yarn shops on South St. Check out www.spoolsewing.com
I bought some beautiful fabric, even though I don't need any, but they were too hard to pass up.









Then I stopped by the block long flower garden at Kater St. (1 block south of South) between 16th and 17th. The pictures don't do the space justice, but it's a neighbor maintained greenspace on the back of a huge hospital and parking complex. There are water gardens and a huge array of plants of different colors and textures, for sun and shade, so if you like to garden, you'll get lots of ideas for your own urban plot.






I passed the Jamaican Jerk Hut at Broad and South (see the movie "In Her Shoes") where I had a great dinner a couple of months ago. Then I passed Isiah Zagar's outrageous mosaic museum/house at 11th and South, which was open! but I had no time to stop.








I cut down 10th and passed Morning Glory, the breakfast restaurant with the fantastic frittatas at 10th and Fitzwater, and up Christian past Sabrina's to the Mew.

You could make a day of walking up or down South St. in the quieter sections (below 10th), since now there are great shops/markets like Pumpkin's new local/organic market and restaurant and cafe, Spool and Loop's twin stores and the Kater St. garden. Last weekend I kept walking down to St. Alban's St., the one that has a garden running down the middle instead of a road and it was so peaceful and quiet for a city street and the houses are beautiful. It's below South St. between 23rd and 24th. The I backtracked up 23rd to Pine and turned down Pine to the public park/recreation center/tennis courts/community garden at around 27th and Pine. The park was huge for a city park, had so much to do, and their community garden was so organized and beautiful! The sign said as long as the gate was unlocked, visitors were welcome, so I was able to walk around inside and admire their cold frame system and composting structures and potting bench. It was a really relaxing walk past some beautiful sights in Philly and plenty of places to eat, get a drink or coffee, and sit down and relax.

Mew Gallery Etsy Sewing Day for Design Philadelphia

The Philly ETSY Team folks and I were sewing tote bags again today for our big give-away at the Swap-A-Rama-Rama on October 19th at the Old Pine Community Center at 401 Lombard from 12-5. It's where you bring some old clothes or fabrics, throw them in a bin, pick out items you like, and embellish/deconstruct them. Check out the link http://sorrphilly.wordpress.com/
Philly Etsy will be giving away tote bags filled with free handmades from our team members. So far we have about 50 totebags, but we're hoping to make as many as 300.

T. Storm Hanna

It's been raining since 11:00 here and the street is starting to fill up with water. I couldn't stand being inside any more so I went out on the porch to start shooting magnets and matted prints for my etsy shop, allisonostertag.etsy.com. It's been good since I finally finished my scrapbook of pictures from my trip to the Everglades last March, and I at least got out picture frames, if not hung them on the walls yet. I keep buying landscape photographs from other Etsy.com sellers, but then they never get hung up 'cause I'm not happy with the frame, or I have to re-paint the hallway where they're going to go...but today I will hang at least one picture.