Around town

Last Friday, I went to the St. Paul art crawl with a couple friends. It is always fun to go around visiting the artists' studios, and finding some great art. Our favorite artist discovery was Mary Barrett. She had a large printmaking studio filled with many landscapes, primarily woodblock, but also intaglio, collage, and pigment paintings. Mary was very willing to talk with us at length about her work. She used to teach printmaking at UW River Falls. I'm sure she inspired many students!

Tomorrow, I'm going to go to a meet and greet with the CEO of Etsy! She's in town, and there's going to be an event over at Nye's. I'm very excited... will report back this weekend.

Welcome to MN Maria!

My new plants

Finally, time for my garden post... to share my newly planted perennials, and hopes for them all to come back strong and healthy in the spring. Unfortunately, my garden joy is tempered by a bout of very early snow :( We had near a half inch when we woke up Saturday morning. It melted off, and today it snowed for about 8 hrs or more straight. Much of that has melted as well, but more snow is predicted Wed. through Fri. It is really hard to enjoy your fall when there is already snow!

Here are some pics, possibly with the right name under them, and a few more names without pics.First off, in this little garden we made under the birch tree...

Meadow buttercup

Centurea Montana

Forget me nots

Valerian (Red Valerian?)

Lambs ear (which I have a tendency to call elephant ear!)
Also, daisies, and probably a couple other things.

Over by the mailbox I planted peonies and a trumpet vine. In front of the house are a purple coneflower and black-eyed susans.

Under the bay window we have hostas along with red and yellow creeping sedum.

And in the corner of the walkway, a Nishiki willow bush- very similar to the Flamingo willows we had at our last place and loved. The leaves change colors depending on how long they've been out of the bud. It is very interesting to watch.
Then on to the back yard. The perennials in the back are along the fence, to the right of the evergreen in this picture. I had to put a short fence around them, because my dog Toby thought I was making a obstacle course for him to roll his ball in, and Sasha thought I was making a bed for her.
Black-eyed Susan

Columbine (Honeysuckle)

Gooseneck Loosestrife

False Dragonhead - this one had a few flowers still on it, and the bees found it within minutes of being planted. They were just small enough to climb down inside each flower and suck out the nectar.

Monarda (Bee Balm), also Joe Pye Weed, Veronica, Liatris, Queen Anne's Lace

Many of these plants I had never heard of until the day I bought them. I am very excited to have plants ready to go for next summer already.

Additionally, we planted apple and plum trees, a couple maples, a weeping willow, raspberries and blueberries. If everything works out, we should have lots of exciting things going on in our yard next summer!

New treasury

I finally caught the treasury when it was open. I had a great selection of abstract art in my poster sketch, but yesterday, I went to check on the items, since I saw the treasury would open after not too long, and they were all blank. So instead I made another circus themed treasury, and I'll have to collect the art ones again for next time. To visit this treasury, click here.

Front page!

It turns out you can miss a lot when you are crazy busy. I was checking in on my google analytics today for my Etsy shops, and I saw a huge spike in views from September 21. I went over to Craft Cult, and searched through the front page treasuries from that day, and wah lah! My pastel piece The Thicket made it on the front page!
Thanks StudioElan!

(I was also an alternate in this front page treasury October 4. It's been an exciting week for me!)

Treasuries!

What a treat when I logged in to Etsy today... Two of my shops are featured in treasuries simultaneously! First up is a pine cone treasury by CaitlinSainio featuring a photograph from TholeImagery.etsy.com. Click here to visit this treasury.


Next up is a national parks treasury by dayinthepark, featuring one of my Yellowstone drawings from SarahThole.etsy.com. Click here to visit this treasury.

busy busy...

Wow, the month of September has been so busy for me. In addition to my day job, I helped photograph a wedding, have been working on processing those photos, had a family event, hosted a large event, babysat several times, and did a lot of landscaping at our new house! I'm pretty exhausted. I hope October is slower. I want to share some photos of the perennials I planted, but they'll have to wait another week, until I'm done with these wedding photos.

September here was exceptionally warm and dry the first few weeks. It was lovely. Today, the weather changed. It was cool, really windy, with rain coming and going, alternating with patches of sun. The wind was so strong, we were afraid our birch tree was going to go right over.

I hope everyone else is having a lovely fall!

Treasury

FuriousDreams has included me in a treasury with some other great artists on Etsy! Click here to visit and get a closer look!