Aew324

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, studio tours 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.

Favorite entertainment: Podcasts. Re-watchable favorite television shows: Versailles, Outlander, Madmen.

Currently watching: season one of The Gilded Age. Just finished season one of Marie Antoinette (PBS).

🪻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 or download what is available at the moment through my library app. I support Little Free Libraries. I write professionally.

Reading goals:

• Agatha Christie. Trying to read chronologically through her oeuvre. I own the complete vintage, Sussex blue, Agatha Christie Mystery Collection/Bantam set. [Related goal: sew fabric book sleeves for these and other books in my collection — DONE! 10/24]

• Want to do Sue Grafton A to Y. [5/25 On G.]

• Working my way through The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron. [Morning pages are such a drag; and alone time I got, more solo artists dates are not super enriching either. Not sure if the program is for me.]

Currently reading: Alla Prima by Richard Schmid.

Favorite author: Todd Noy ;)

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.

Labyrinth on tubi on loop.

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. I enjoy resale shopping to find treasures from previous eras and lucky finds.

ART

I collect pins, stickers, postcards, pencils and tote bags from the museums/ interesting places I visit. I usually travel plein air/urban sketching ready. [4/2025, PleinAirpril -- Just returned from museum-hopping in Chicago.🏛️ This summer plan to see Sargent in Paris at the Met in NYC.]

--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

Pencils: vintage, drawing, Blackwing, Musgrave, 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 supply releases, example: Yuko Higuchi and Rebecca Green sets for Holbein.

A solvent/toxic-free oil practice *Oil painting is my current main thing.

Gouache, traditional and acryla

Paint brushes and painting tools.

Soft pastels. Elizabeth Mowry, Alain Picard. *I love pastel more than all other mediums. It is just difficult to preserve finished works.

Sketchbooks, putting gesso on objects to paint

Brooklyn Sketchbook Library

Plein Air

Paint by number

Favorite color: I love all colors. Fond of earth tones.

All Stationery, Jetpens-type Japanese pens and stationery items.

Washi tape

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

Artist Trading Cards

I recently inherited a huge stamp collection.

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 on a bookshelf.

I have 2 Ashford spinning wheels, a single and double drive – I am a novice. I make ugly yarn. Hate "wasting" roving to make ugly yarn; therefore, never going to get better because I don't practice.

I just bought a Kyra table loom that was converted to floor and a Windhaven Fiber Accordion loom.

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. Ooak.

THIS AND THAT

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

Vintage post office, anything mail related

1950s kitchen, old/historic homes, vintage office/typewriter, vintage camping/vw buses

Nancy Drew, classic children's literature

Libraries, Museums

Versailles, Marie Antoinette

The Golden Age of Ornamental Penmanship/American Penmanship

Art History

National Parks. Junior Ranger Program.

Metal detecting, Geocaching. Path tags.

Rucking

Enamel pins

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

Ipsy pouches

Coffee * I am teaching myself how to do latte art

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

Woodland deer/fawn

Hygge, Scandinavian design

Clarinet

Monster High

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

Subscriptions: RIP Artsnacks. I am taking a break from Trade (coffee). Creativebug (which I forget to watch), Stickii (which I hoard because it is just too well-curated and adorable--2025, I am skipping months. Will only get if I really, really love a month's theme. I should cancel, but it is always so cute).

On my long-range to-do list:

• Oil Painting, Alla prima/direct, daily painting

• Linocut -- I want to buy a press. I have the one I want picked out, but I have three expensive things on my current shopping list: a table loom (purchased 4/25) a crank etching press, and the pvolve starter set--yikes, this is a thousand dollar sentence!!

• 1,000 paper cranes

• Polymer Clay (kawaii charms)

• Stained glass

• Diamond painting

• Rerooting a fashion doll, repainting a face

• Book binding [Completed -- took a class, made a bound journal. Would like to make watercolor sketchbooks using old books.]

• Make a zine [Completed]

2023 Craft Resolutions:

Learn how to play D&D [got as far as listening to Dungeons and Daddies]; Read from an art book every day.

2024 Craft Resolutions:

Make my own holiday wrapping paper. Learn procreate [10/24 Purchased an ipad!! It's pink! Doing online tutorials, having fun! ]

2025 INTENTIONS, not resolutions:

Choose Patreon artists to sponsor for tutorials.

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! Tuxedo cat kit! Forever roses! [Update 4/2025, I finally built some flowers!]

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

Save the Pink House, artist landmark on the way to Plum Island, MA. -- Sad news, the pink house was demolished March 2025.

Did not do NaNo 2024 (because of the AI controversy)....more sad news, RIP NaNo. I started with nanowrimo when it was tiny. I, like many others, fell away when Chris Baty left and the emphasis became near totally on the youth program.

THANK YOU!!