home from Portland

i'm back, did you miss me? i know i've gone a few days without posting - how unlike me!

considering i left on tuesday and got home on friday, i managed to pack in a lot of things to do in 3 days. my friend, Amy Hollands, picked me up from the airport and then we quickly dropped my stuff off at the hotel and picked up my bud, Pam. i only took a few pictures since i had so very little time.

we decided to eat first since i was, as usual, starving! we had a nice lunch, just in time to work up an appetite to go shopping. our first stop, was Amy new venture, Found on Fremont (no website yet). Amy use to own Poppy & Ivy, but due to economics had to make some decisions about how to proceed with her business. she and 3 other girls, went in together on renting a building (2 floors), which is working well for all of them. they can split the costs, not work all the time; giving them more flexibility and freedom. so we stopped there first and found some fun goodies. next we hit Scrap, which is such a cool place. it is all about recycling and anyone can drop off items to be recycled there - items that can be resold that is. so we picked up a few things there. next we hit a thrift store where amy found some awesome vintage Christmas table cloths and i found a darling wool jacket for my niece that i will pimp up with a cool brooch. a quick stop into Fred Meyer for a few items i needed for class and then it was back to the hotel for happy hour.

the next day i taught my spoon class and it was fun. it was really cool to watch the students being timid with the dremel, drills and then watch them transform as they got the hang of it. all the projects turned out great and what was most rewarding was their appreciation and thanks for sharing all my knowledge with them.

for lunch that day, our limo driver, Amy, returned for us so that we could hit "Noun, a persons place for things" and have cupcakes at Saint Cupcakes. talk about the most delicious cupcakes ever! pam and i were quite annoyed with ourselves for not getting more to eat later. next time we will have to hit, Voodoo donuts. i've decided Portland is the type of place that i must go to every 6 months!

that evening, Pam and i went to visit our dear friend, Allegra and her husband, Barry. Hadn't seen Allegra since last year and she hasn't been feeling well - so it was a must on the list to do. we had a lovely visit with her, chatting, snacking, chatting, chatting, some wine, more chatting, a studio tour (unbelievable is her studio!) and then more chatting! finally exhaustion caught up to me and we had to say our goodbyes. i practically dove into my bed when we got back.

the next day was my class on taking a wood heart and turning it into a piece of jewelry. we also had a great time in that class. we got the conference room with the really big comfy chairs which we thought was quite cool for us. hit happy hour again that night and then Pam and I headed over to Powell's books (a block long!) where we saw Jesse Reno upstairs hanging about. i took a pic of him, but only on my camera phone as i was trying to be discreet. jesse reno is an artist in portland and pam is taking classes with him at Artfest next spring. we had a lovely dinner at a brewery down the street and then headed back to the hotel for me to pack and get ready to leave early in the am. boo hoo!

so now i am preparing and almost ready to leave for Connecticut, Art-is-you, on Wednesday!

what will $20 buy you?

it started in the garden when i found some wisteria growing under a bench. (my neighbor has the biggest, oldest wisteria tree in her yard and it sends seeds to our yard). it was a really long piece of wisteria; about 6 feet long. i looked at it thought, wow, this would be cool to wrap around something. so i didn't whack it, cut it or pull it. it's continued to grow and grow until recently when i mentioned this project to my husband. so we dug out these two free columns that we pilfered from a dumpster. they've been sitting under our deck waiting to be called into service. last week at the New Egypt flea market, i saw in the scrap yard, tons of metal stuff; so i dragged jeff there yesterday and we bought 2 pieces of salvaged metal railings for $20. i thought one of them would be the perfect thing to run between the 2 columns and then wind the wisteria through. so what do you think?