floors part 2 - the living room!

imagine, cheap, dirty carpet in a boring beige.  That was our livingroom prior to the the new floor

Looks soooooo go now! 

 

More to be thankful for new floors

So in November, we started working on the floors .  As you can see it was needed - though I admit the hole in the kitchen floor was hidden underneath the tiling - we are lucky our fridge never fell through the floor! 

This shot shows the kitchen mostly done, without the trim up .

the gaint hole were the fridge lives

fixing the hole - laying a new board on it!

that looks much better doesn't it?? 

Purple trim seems appropriate since the decor is NBC!  (Nightmare Before Christmas ) 

More to come!  
 

More Nightmare in my house

For those care, more NBC or Nightmare Before Christmas artwork in my kitchen and dining room! 

This quilt was made by my very talented Sister as a Christmas present some 4 ? years ago.  It now proudly hangs in my diningroom.  

This wonderful print is my my Niece Ame Barron, another talented artist in my family.

 This is an original painting Ame did for me featuring my favorite character Sally.

I'm so grateful I have the space to display the wonderful artwork from my family! 

Public Art

 I've been in a bunch of waiting rooms lately, here is a picture of the art in one of them.  It's a bunch of circles in  grey-white-black, done to different depths.  

Deceptively simple.  Endlessly fascinating.  I stared at this for 15 minutes or more, coming up with different scenarios.

Raindrops.  Atoms.  Checkers.

enjoy 

revisiting a favorite necklace

 Recently A customer broke the drop crystal on a piece she bought a couple of years ago.  She really wanted it fixed, so of course I did.  It's lovely to revisit a piece like this.. I had so much fun making it, it's a old book mark with clock gears.  

It's it's such a pick me up to know how much she treasured this necklace.  I hate that the crystal broke, but crystals are fragile and if you drop it on concrete it's probably gonna break.

I really struggle sometimes on the materials I use in my jewelry.  I have some really kewl vintage stuff that I am afraid to use, just because they are so fragile or easily broken.  And yet the jewelry I could make using them!!! 

I've wanted to use some old Art Deco shoe clips for awhile, but the rhinestones just pop out sometimes if you breathe hard on them.  I've experimented with covering them with resin but that kills the sparkle - or at least it did when I tried it.  Maybe I should try again using less resin, more of a gloss? 

I could purposely break them all out and re-glue them, but that doesn't always work well either, and if the crystals are foil-backed, which they often are on these pieces, that looks crappy.

I'll keep experimenting.  I'm sort of in a bling mood anyway! 

mermaid pendant

I made this last summer, but I'm still trying to catch up on my photo files.  It's funny, I have a customer who is nuts for Mermaids, and I made this half way thinking, hey maybe she needs another mermaid necklace! 

I literally sold it to another customer just before she came by the booth! 

So what did I learn? Mermaids are popular! I really need to make more mermaid stuff.

This weekend I finally have nothing going on, so maybe I'll dig out a Mermaid and see if it talks to me.

If not?  There are always dragons to play with..... 

 

A closer look at my jewelry at The Picker Knows

Here is my case! 810.  Located at 1208 Grand Ave, The Picker Knows

some of the earrings you can find, assuming they didn't sell yet.  All made with wonderful bits of vintage watch parts

I love this necklace! It's made with buttons ranging from 100 + years old to the 1960's.  I picked glass buttons in the black to gun-metal range, and matched it with both modern and vintage jet crystals.  Yummy! A statement piece you can wear with jeans or dress up for!

Fun hair stuff! Affordable as well!

This is made in my Mom's favorite color, Lavender!  All new - old stock Austrian crystals!  

 

I have a new home at Pickers!

I'm so grateful!!! Allison at The Picker Knows called me and told me I could get a better case spot, instead of the in the very back row I'm now in one of the front cases ! Whee!  My vendor # will still be 215 but now I'm in Case 810, which is immediately to your right as you walk in to Pickers and 6 cases in.  

Jerry and I moved everything yesterday evening.  I also rotated some jewelry, and I rotated out the old quilts and such and moved in clock parts, watch parts etc... steampunk supplies! I have so much I really need to destash, and honestly some of the kewlest pieces are too big for jewelry.  My Momma always taught me to share! 

anyway, come out and see the new stuff and my spiffy new location! 

 

Farmer's Market 2022!

Heck - another thing to be grateful for! I just finished my application for  Des Moines Downtown Farmer's Market for this summer! WOOT!

Jerry and I decided a few years ago that it was ok to slow down on the jewelry business and doing shows - and that was before COVID hit and messed up everything.  

To be truthful, we were tired, especially me.  Shows are incredibly active situations.  You have to pack the car, you have to unload everything, set everything up, and then tear it down again at the end of the day.  You stand in place alot, walk alot to bathrooms food etc.  You have to be "on" 100% of the time for the customers.  You sit alot in crappy chairs.  

I don't mean to say I don't enjoy shows but they take alot out of me, and I just don't have as much to give as I used to.

The last few years before COVID, doing shows would wear me out.  I would be fatigued for a few days after, especially for 2-3 day shows that we have to drive to.  We would have to get a hotel for multiple day shows, and honestly I would eat supper and then keel over in bed.  I would be so tired I couldn't move.  It seemed like I would always get sick after a specially hard working show.  My asthma control was worse, and that was causing problems at my day job.   Honestly I worried that something was wrong with me.  Yeah, I"m getting older, but should it hit me so hard? 

I was right to be worried.  

Turns out, I have a serious health condition that got diagnosed just last year. One of the major side effects is fatigue.  It's not like I was a poster of health anyway, with all my other issues.

I to sum it up, I need to take care of myself better.  It's not just eating better, exercise, sleep, etc.

I need to pace myself.  I am trying to accept that I'll never do everything that I want to, it's just not physically possible anymore.  I doubt Jerry and I will ever do more than 1 days shows going forward, and I'm not sure we will travel much for shows either.

I need to avoid stress as well.  Stress isn't good for anyone, but it can be downright deadly to me now. 

Farmer's Markets are perfect for that.  With set up and take down, it's only a 7 hour commitment.  

 I get to choose what days I"m available, so I can space them out as well.  Farmer's Market picks only from those days for my slots.  Even if they give me every slot I ask for, it won't be more than I can handle.  

We do well selling at Farmer's Market.  It's about 4 miles away, so no long trips are involved.

I have to get up really early in the morning, but we are done and home by 1pm.  I can take a nap if I need too.  And Jerry and I have the rest of the weekend to do stuff, like game days or just relax.

While I love and enjoy my many years of doing Farmer's Market, I'm so very grateful that we have them now!  I'm getting more limited in what I can do, but i can still do them! 

I love making my jewelry, I adore selling it to the right person and making their day as well as mine!   And Farmer's Market will allow me to keep doing that, hopefully for years to come.  

let there be light

Yep I'm still doing Gratitude here at Mightnight Kat Productions.

We have a plan to completely fix up the house and pay it off in a shorter time frame than what the loan is.  We started with a 20 year loan, and last spring since the rates were soooo good, we refinanced and got a few bucks back to advance the time table on the fixin' and on the paying off,  We are paying at least $150 each month extra on the principle and a few months we kick in more, depending on what's left over at the end of the months' bills. Oh, and this loan is 15 years - which means even if we are only paying the extra $150 we are on track to pay off in 11 odd years.

So I am very grateful Jerry and I are in such a very good spot financially.  We are lucky to have such good jobs, and Jerry's especially is very secure.   

One of the top ticket items on the Must do list was updating the electricity on the house.  Since our house started in 1913 ( and kept growing with additions) the wiring needed a thorough check and overhaul.

In addition, we needed more light in places.

So now we have updated, up to code wiring and new lights where we wanted them.  Finally - the studio has enough light for a studio, over 40,000 lumens! 

The pic is the new light sets in the kitchen, featuring handmade glass shades which I think are yum! 

I also now have a dedicated circuit for my studio!  So i can run the kiln, power tools and keep the lights on, without anything going poof! 

 No more power outages cause we ran the microwave and the air fryer at the same time!  Heck, no more power outages cause we want to turn all the lights on in the living-room at the same time as running the microwave and my computer!  

 I am so very very grateful we moved to this house, and we can actually afford the updates it needs and we want!    We still need to do a few more updates, but if all goes well we will have the house paid off and everything fixed in 10 years or less.  

I love Nightmare

As in Nightmare Before Christmas that is.  In my family I just call it Nightmare, but in fandom it's NBC.  

One of my goals is to completely redo my kitchen and dining room into a NBC theme -- and over the last couple of years I've added touches when and where I can.  Above is a light switch plate I added about a year ago-- As I find designs I like ( and have the spare $$) I'll get them all replaced, as well as the visible plug ins.  

Another touch I added last year is padded window seat in the dining room.   ( in a lovely purple which is of course of one the main NBC colors! ) 

The window seat came with the house of course, but it was bare wood and it's original to the house, or near so.  ( My house started in 1913, and it's been added to at least 3 times, maybe 4?  It's kind of a Frankenstein house which is yet another reason I adore it) 

This change I think adds much to my dining room.  I bought the pillow shams, and then pillows for them.  The padding is just chunks of foam cut to fit, and I found extra long pillow sheets to use as the covers-- making it an affordable house upgrade.  Since the pillow sheets can be washed as needed, easy to clean as well. I believe this cost me around $120 total.  It's comfy as well!

The cats adore it! during daytime hours you will find one or 2 of them snuggled up in the sunlight.  

 I'm hoping in another year or 2, we can redo the cabinetry in the kitchen to fit my theme.  As it is, I have several of my favorite Nightmare toys on display in the dining room and kitchen.

I really love my home, and I'm so grateful I can add and subtract things to make it special!  

Stillwell Freedom Rock

I'm still working on catching up my picture files from last year-- and I'm still reflecting on the GOOD stuff of 2021.

Jerry's Dad is a fan of the Freedom Rocks.  If you live in Iowa, you already know about them, if you don't or - your living under a rock in Iowa - I put the link for you.

So Early last spring we went and visited the Stillwell Rock with Larry (The dad) and Jerry's sisters.  

We had a good time and spent some quality time with the Miller side of the family.  If in these times of Covid, and frankly you are looking for a mini -trip, go check out one or more of the rocks.  

Here is me, Jerry, Baby and Larry

 

Hell of a year....

So 2021 is done and I say good!  I don't want to dwell on the negative, so here is one of the GOOD things about 2021 -- we found and bought this incredible buffet, which we call, affectionately, The Dragons.  This wonderful piece we got at a steal! It's oak, and the dragons are hand made... look at the top picture, you can see the elegant curve of the wood and how it'a all one piece, and not attached to the botttom drawers.  

For now, it houses the family art supplies, and such family activities as puzzles and games.  

 While we didn't need it I am so glad we bought it, and every time I look at The Dragons, I fall in love all over again with it.

I am so grateful to have a house where I can randomly buy something like this and immediately find a place for it.  I am so grateful that Jerry and I have decent jobs that paid for it and our house.

I'm so grateful that all 3 of us got through 2021 if not exactly intact, we made it and all of us are still here.  We will have family art days again in the future, with the supplies that live in The Dragons.  

Happy New Year's folks, and let's all look for the things to be grateful for, as it's the only way we get through this life.