things to make after a storm

A couple of weeks ago here in the PNW, the clouds opened up and dumped eight to ten inches of snow on us, for the second time this season. It's simply unheard of in our area to get that amount of snow, and especially to have it last for more than a couple of days.

By midwest standards, I know this is laughable; I think most of us were in on the joke until an ice storm followed the heavy snowfall and started breaking stuff. Branches, limbs, and whole trees fell. Houses and cars were crushed. Streets were closed down. Pipes cracked or burst. Power was out in some areas here for several days. And even so, I know it never got as bad here as it did in, say, Slovenia the same week.

Still, though the temperatures have risen to the mid-50s this past week and we've returned to a rainy winter instead of a snowy one, signs of the storm remain. There are the lingering piles of snow in parking lots plowed in the wake of the storm. There are the rivers and lakes swollen and brown like coffee-with-milk. And there are, everywhere, still fallen branches and limbs and trees that Public Works crews and private tree services haven't gotten to yet. If I called it backlog, would the pun be out of place?

Anyway, I've collected here for you, readers, who may be similarly living in areas where trees have become sidewalk hurdles, a list of things to make and do with fallen timber. There should be no shortage of it for some of us for awhile to come.

* Log Stump Side Tables:
Oh Lovely Day
Ruffles and Truffles
Etsy - Sosikian Furniture

* Log Stump Stools:
Remodelista
Martha Stewart
Shelterness

* Branch Clothing Rack:
Convoluted State of Mind
The Art of Simple
Sugar and Cloth

* Branch Buttons:
Shrimp Salad Circus
Design*Sponge
Etsy - The Hickory Tree

* Tree Branch and Twig Trellises and Arbors:
Tara Dillard
Better Homes and Gardens
Vegetable Gardener

* Doll Furniture
One Inch World
Apartment Therapy
An Every Day Story

* Building Blocks
I Can Teach My Child
Everyday Art
Natural Pod.com

p.s. you can make any of these photos larger by clicking, but maybe you knew that already?

hey paul, paul bunyan

In Portland's Kenton neighborhood is a 31-foot Paul Bunyan statue that I've mentioned before here. Inspired by our travels this past year, I decided to start a new series of kitchen towel calendars based on landmarks and attractions of Oregon, and I picked the Portland Paul Bunyan as the 2014 feature.

I worked the design in several parts on watercolor paper using watercolor pencils, then combined the images in Photoshop and finished up the layout and typography in Illustrator.

I was so excited when the fabric arrived from Spoonflower. I'd never ordered their linen / cotton canvas before; I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the fabric and the printing. Perfect for this year's Christmas boxes.

I finished off the backs with some grosgrain ribbon corner hangers and a 3/8-inch hem.

I'm really happy with how the towel calendars (or "towelendars") turned out, and I'll definitely be planning the next in the series for 2015. 

Here's one in its pretty wrapper (printed on brown paper sack that I've inked with a wood grain pattern).

If you're interested in having one of your own, you can order the fabric from my Spoonflower shop whenever you're ready. One towel prints to a 1/4 yard of linen / cotton canvas, or get a full yard for four towels. I'll update here, too, when I get these listed ready-made in my Etsy shop.

Update: now available in my Etsy shop!

Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas!

snow!

You may have heard: we got a truckload of snow in my neck of the woods: close to eight inches, and record-low temperatures. So. Cold.

Day one, with snow falling hard:

Out for a walk. These days I always wonder, "will he remember this?" He's at that age. Snow melts, but memories start to stick.

The strangest thing about the snow is the way light acts in the middle of the night. I took this photo at 10 p.m. Everything is reflected. (That's another way the snow is like little kids, by the way.)

Thanks for reading.