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Autumn 2023 Update: I have not been swapping, at all. But the end of the year holidays are a good time to get back into the habit. So, with luck, I will get some boos, thankful messages or happy holidays out to some of you, my swapping friends. 🎃 Anyone doing Inktober?

Hello swapping friends; welcome to my profile. I love everything crafty and hand-made. I spend entirely too much time on the internet looking at art and craft content and tutorials. I enjoy all arts-and-craft supplies and everything that goes along with living a creative life--there isn't a craft I won't attempt! I paint/draw/urban sketch, hand letter (not well ;), hand and garment sew, thrift, papercraft, decorate and renovate, try to spin, sometimes knit or crochet, embellish...cute, sparkly, trendy awesomeness is hard to resist.

Re-watchable favorite television shows: Versailles, Outlander. Favorite art programs: Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year/Landscape Artist of the Year, Fake or Fortune. Favorite YouTube: DIY Danie. Favorite podcasts: Stuff about Things and Three-point Perspective (both art), Criminal, 99PI. Freakonomics.

I like to read, and I read a lot. I generally get most of my books from the new fiction section of my local public library. I regularly use Little Free Libraries (the swapbot for books!). I prefer suspenseful fiction. Some authors I have enjoyed: Riley Sager (recommendation: The Only One Left), Tana French, Carol Goodman. I also like how-to books. Current reading area of interest: encouraging creativity every day. I keep up with home decorating/craft room organization/craft magazines; "Where Women Create" is a fav. Bag day at a library book sale is one of my favorite days! I miss blogs. I write professionally.

Currently reading: Strapless (about John Singer Sargent and Madame X) and The House Across the Lake (Riley Sager).

I like to listen to audiobooks, podcasts or recasts of Casey Kasem's top 40 while I am doing routine tasks around the house.

I like independent films and on-demand tv-type series about people and their unique stories or time in history. I enjoy interesting and offbeat documentaries. Truthfully, I watch content creators on YouTube more than anything else these days.

HOME

I live in a 200-year-old house. Merging the old with the new is more than a style choice, it is a daily necessity and a license to decorate quirky.

While I will always appreciate classic vintage, lately I am appreciating mid-century modern. I enjoy resale shopping to find treasures from previous eras and lucky-to-me cast-offs.

ART

I collect pins, stickers and postcards from the museums/interesting places I visit to put on my traveling art gear. I usually always travel plein air/urban sketching ready.

--Art interests--

I collect every kind of art supply, new and vintage. I enjoy creating with:

Fountain pens. Fountain Pen Day is the first Friday in November. I love ink samples and ink swatches.

Pointed pens, Nikko G nibs for hand lettering/Spencerian

I am pencil crazy: vintage, drawing, blackwing, advertisement—pencil point protectors, erasers, sharpeners, cases, pencil cups—the entire pencil lifestyle ;)

Colored pencils. All brands new and old.

All watercolor paint (especially Schmincke #1, Sennelier #2, anything in a fun/novelty palette #3)

Limited edition art sets, like yuko higuchi for holbein.

Paint brushes. Art "celebrities" are selling brush collections lately. It's a fad.

Holbein acryla gouache. Water soluble oil. acrylic.

Soft pastels. Elizabeth Mowry. Alain Picard.

Sketchbooks, putting gesso on objects to paint

Brooklyn Sketchbook Library

Plein Air

Paint by number

Favorite color: the rainbow. I love all colors

I am a stationery addict, particularly Japanese pens and stationery items. I appreciate washi tape samples.

I am always looking for fun and interesting ways to store and display my supplies. I am lucky to have a home studio, craft and office area that I enjoy decorating.

--For crafting--

To make collages, ATCs, art journal pages, junk journals, happy mail envies, mixed media, altered art, I collect:

• Decorative papers, book pages, classic ads/images, maps

• Ephemera, vintage/found images, flat items

• Postage stamps, old or new/canceled or unused

• Stationery sheets, writing sets, stickers

FIBER

I can hand and garment sew, embroider, knit, crochet, weave and spin.

Favorite Fabrics: Cotton (retro prints imported from Japan, Liberty), 100% wool felt

I do nearly all my machine sewing on a Bernina 240, but I also have a working Featherweight and 301 that I use occasionally. Would love to sew on a treadle. I have a collection of sewing machines that I have stopped adding to; the vintage mini toy ones are my favorite because they are easy to display.

I have 2 Ashford spinning wheels, a single and double drive – I am a novice. I make ugly yarn.

Some sewing likes: Costumery, vintage sewing stuff (patterns, notions, buttons, equipment, literature, advertising, tools, furniture), friendship bracelets, modern macramé, visible mending, make do and mend, Boho Embroidery, Zakka, Sashiko.

Fashion dolls: Rainbow High, classic and G3 Monster High, Eve After High, some O.M.G., (vintage) Holiday Barbie, Blythe customizing, ooak styling.

THIS AND THAT

Things that catch my eye and a random list of likes:

Vintage equipment (typewriters, dial phones, cameras, airplanes (vintage travel) etc.) Roller skates, cassette tapes.

Vintage post office, anything mail related

1950s kitchen, vintage housewife, vintage office, vintage camping (I own 2 VW buses and a 1969 Beetle: peace, love and vdub. And a yellow 1977 Datsun Z.)

Nancy Drew, classic children's literature

Libraries, Museums

Versailles, Marie Antoinette

The Golden Age of Ornamental Penmanship/American Penmanship

Art History.

Old home history.

Constellation illustrations/Galaxy, skies with beautiful clouds. National Parks.

Enamel pins

High-quality stickers, vinyl, die-cut, holographic, custom, etc.

Ipsy pouches.

Coffee.

My 2 rescue cats. They showed up and improved my life!

Metal detecting, Geocaching. Path tags

Woodland deer/fawn

Hygge, Scandinavian design

Favorite tea: Teeccino Dandelion Turmeric (best with good chocolate)

Subscriptions: I like but don't have artsnacks. I am taking a break from Trade (coffee). Creativebug, stickii

On my to-do list: * Alla prima, daily painting

• 1,000 paper cranes

• Polymer Clay (kawaii charms)

• Stained glass

• Rerooting a fashion doll

• Book binding [Completed -- took a class, made a bound journal. Would like to do more, though]

• Make a zine [Completed]

2023 Craft Resolutions:

Learn how to play D&D; Read from an art book every day.

Lego has created a line of art and design kits for adults. I want. I have never built anything with Lego in my life, not to mention Lego is $$$$, but I want!

POSTCARDS: Letterpress and postallove are favorites. October 1 is World Postcard Day. I postcross and penpal. I do not use Instagram or facebook. I do not scrapbook. I am a failure at journaling. I keep vowing to become a journaler, but it hasn't stuck.

THANK YOU!!