Enjoy
*** FREE SHIPPING ***
(USPS Ground Advantage - U.S. only)
Blog entry
Winter White - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
Tomorrow officially ushers in the Winter Solstice, first day of winter, at 9:28 a.m. here in Central Mountain Time. Wintery weather has already frigid cold, ice and snow to many parts of the United States, with more predicted that will probably affect some Christmas travel. We actually had an unexpected snowfall here in the Desert Southwest on December 7! What started out as light rain turned into big, beautiful snowflakes falling out of the sky. But by the late afternoon, most of the snow had already melted with the exception of the highest peaks of the Franklin Mountains.
Christmas Stocking Stuffer Gift Ideas - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
Christmas will soon be here, less than two weeks away. The ever ticking Christmas clock says there are only 11 days left! But fear not! If you have waited to the last minute to buy stocking stuffers and/or gifts, I have pulled together a collection of wonderful artisan handmade ideas, any of which Santa would be proud to deliver. Please browse the items below.
Make it a HANDMADE CHRISTMAS this year!
Christmas Green - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
Green and red are colors that have been closely associated with Christmas for centuries.. Last week I shared how red became a Christmas color. You can read that post here: Christmas Red. This week, green, the other Christmas color, is explored mainly through the symbolism of holly, mistletoe and evergreen trees.
CyberMonday Twitter Tree - Handmade - November 27, 2017
Please share your tweets and link ups with the host blog: CHRISTIE COTTAGE
Earthy Black Friday Finds! - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
Black Friday will soon be upon us, the official start of the holiday shopping season. To help you make that Christmas shopping gift list, I have pulled together artisan handmade items in beautiful earthy colors, most flaunting warm shades of brown as the main color. To give a gift that was truly made from the heart, shop HANDMADE this year and support small artisan businesses. I hope you enjoy the earthy lovelies featured below:
A Spooky Halloween / Samhain! - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
Halloween will soon be here, a time for pumpkin carvings, dressing in costumes, trick or treating and parties Halloween has been around for over 200 years - how did it evolve? To answer those questions (and refresh my memory), I decided to share a short history of Halloween, dealing more with its ancient traditions.
Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts lived about 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France and celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest. It also marked the beginning of the dark, cold winter, the time of year that was most associated with death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, Samhain was celebrated when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
Caribbean Blue - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
Usually when I’m working on a blog post or listing an item in my Indiemade shop, my Pandora station is palying on my computer. My stream has a great blend (at least to me) of classic rock, some more modern rock, some folk music and a big dose of Celtic inspired music - that's the Scots-Irish coming out in me. Yesterday, as I was finishing up another blog, the song “Caribbean Blue” by Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin (better known as Enya) came on. Even though Enya sings many Celtic folk songs, some in Gaelic, with her usually heavily synthesized backdrops and multiple layers of her own voice, she is more of a New Age musician, in my humble opinion. "Caribbean Blue" was a mega-hit for her, and rightly so. I find her music very relaxing and always pause and enjoy the minutes when songs of hers show up in the Pandora rotation. Sometimes I'll even plug in one of her CDs and totally bliss out. To see the amazingly beautiful video of the song click here: CARIBBEAN BLUE
Autumn Inspired Handmade Beauties
The cooler temperatures of autumn have arrived here in our area of the Desert Southwest. It still gets into the high 80’s or low 90’s during the day but drops down into the high 60’s at night. The monsoon season has pretty much ended, the horrid humidity mostly gone, and our drier air has been welcomed back by everyone. It is so nice to turn off the air conditioner (at least until early afternoon) and open windows and doors to allow fresh desert air to blow through. While I don’t see any trees changing colors yet, the desert is extremely green after the above average rainfall we received the last two months. Maximillian sunflowers can be found all over, as well as masses of small yellow, purple and terracotta colored wildflowers that I don't know the name of but enjoy immensely nonetheless. My favorite time of the year!
Flora and Fauna - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
I have always admired Walter Cronkite on so many levels, but mostly as an intelligent and reliable newsman and as a vital, moral human being. Even though he died in 2009, I still remember his plain spoken grace in delivering the news, from moonwalks to war, assassinations to peace treaties and thusands of other topics. A favorite quote of his, made 2005 (but still oh so relevant today), is this one:
“I am joining the hundreds of thousands who shall be marching in the Virtual March on Washington to Stop Global Warming in order to demonstrate the concern that we all hold for the future of our planet and all the living things — flora, fauna, human and animal — that exist upon it. The governments of the world have tarried long enough, and the United States is scarcely without doubt the greatest culprit among them. We the people have the strength to bring our country from our weak-kneed stumbling gait in the last ranks of reason to the leadership of the great march to environmental victory.”
Autumn Art Fest, Saturday, September 23, El Paso, Texas
On Saturday, September 23, people who love great, home grown art festivals will make their way to the house of Rachel and Michael Davis to browse and (hopefully buy) a wide variety of artisan handmade items, amny of which are one of a kind pieces. The Autumn Art Fest will be held on a large, tree shaded lawn during the prettiest time of the year in the Texas / New Mexico borderlands area. To be able to take part in the festival was by invitation only and eighteen artists accepted. So you know the quality of the handmade pieces for sale is extraordinary.
Date: September 23
Time: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Admission: Free
Address: 5737 Montoya (in the Upper Valley)
