I'm in Tallahassee for a couple of days for work (at a really nice business hotel... do you think I can sneak that mattress out with me?) but the worst part is right before I left I couldn't find my digital camera. I'm in a huge panic that I've lost it....

For those of you local to me you may be interested in the Uncommon Thread Wearable Art Juried Show happening here in Baton Rouge. It ought to be an amazing show and is being juried by Suzanne Perron from New Orleans who makes the most divine custom wedding and debutante gowns and Susan Elizabeth Ryan, a well published Art Professor here at LSU. It's being sponsored by a who's who of local cultural organizations and the showing will be a fashion show, so entries need to be wearable.

Thanks so much to qbranchltd who featured me this week at their blog!

I'm so excited! I'm going to be published! My contributed pages to the etsyjournal project organized by stella and heather has been accepted for publication in the 1000 Artist's Journal Pages book to be published by Quarry Books!

Dawn Sokol is the author/curator of the book, and she runs a great blog called D'Blogala all about journaling.

Getting her email today almost made me forget about the crappiness of the rest of the week!

I just recently discovered leafletter and I may be in love!

If you haven't played with it- it's the neatest little widget program that lets you build brochures (or if you're an etsy fan, something like a cross between the etsymini and the treasury!) So I've been itching to try it out and was inspired today at work. As we drove the fields were filled with dragonflies, and they were swarming and all trying to defend their little space. It was amazing and surreal all at once, and for all I tired to capture it with my camera it wasn't working.

So here's my own little swarm for you!

Happy Fourth All!

I spent the evening down by the Mississippi River sitting on the levee and watching the fireworks. I took tons of photographs and got a few that were really good! The whole show was only about 20 minutes long but the crowds were amazing. I'm not sure I've ever seen that many people downtown. ever.

My personal life has been thrown for a bit a of a loop recently (and part of that is my fault), but the end result is I have the house to myself now. So the ex-boy is slowly moving his things out, and I'm gaining lots more space just for me. The perk is that I'm going to start planning dinner parties again! I haven't hosted one since I lived in Pennsylvania and we used to have them about once a week combined with a movie night.

So... I've been looking for fun dining things. I love the look of handthrown pottery, but the reality is as a graduate student being able to afford food is much more important than having an awesome bowl to eat ramen out of. Though I've ordered a few that were "seconds" but are going to be awesome! I'll take photos when they get here.

On that note I've been looking for some great table stuff that's reasonably inexpensive.

At the top right are some great recycled beer glass glasses (tongue twister!) that I think I'd like to try and make! the pair pictured were made Rachel Sudlow over at Sudlow Jewelry. She makes awesome stuff, and these look like loads of fun. I've been stockpiling printed beer bottles for a bit now... and I think I have enough to finally try it. I just need to dig out my glass equipment.

I also have been very into the table linens recently. I've been drooling over these matching place mats and napkins recently. They're the second photo down on the right. How cool are they? They're from MichelleBrusegaard and would look perfect on my dinner table. I've also been looking at the recycled silver spoon napkin rings from LTCreatesJewelry which would also be fabulous.