Treasury Thursday: The Cottage

By the time this post is up, I will well on my way to Michigan, to visit the cottage we go to every summer (my husband's great, great grandfather built it before the turn of the last century).  It is the best vacation ever, full of quiet lounging, long swims, walks on the dunes, trips to the local antique stores and to the White Duck market for bottles of Dog'n'Suds Orange and Cream soda.  I cannot wait.

'The Cottage' by cursiveart

Every summer I go to my husband's family's ancient cottage on Lake Michigan and it is absolutely the most peaceful week of the year, full of swimming, board games, starwatching and scenery.

1930s - Vintage Michig... StoriesDivinat... $21.00	summer half off sale //... bluebutterflyv... $7.00	Vintage 1950s Lovely Wa... ragsfeathers $88.00
Chinese Checkers siamcollection $13.95	Handmade Leather Journa... WeeBindery $32.00	On SALE Mountain Lake S... bythewayside $25.50
PRINT - Flowers LIGHT B... thebigharumph $22.00	Basket, Gourd, Pine Nee... midnightcoiler $33.00	The Red Barn - 24 x 30 ... thePaintedSky $360.00
Stained Glass Owl sunca... Glasserie $22.00	The Perfect Mug / Wheel... patspottery $24.00	Gone for a Sail 4 X 5&q... SarahNiebankHo... $3.50
Clawfoot Tub Necklace BathtubJungle $40.00	BOMBSHELL Vintage 1950s... PinkyAGoGo $95.00	Mental Floss jdoozedesigns $60.00
Custom Constellation Ke... Eviltwinpixie $25.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Stuff I Love (And My In-laws Love More): My Dog, Luca

I though I would do something a little different and rather than writing about art or cards or marketing or Etsy today, write about a little adventure I had yesterday. 


My in-laws live just a street over from us and my dude-in-law has grown an amazing garden this summer in his front yard (not enough sunlight in the back).  It's barely gotten going and already they spent all spring eating fresh lettuce and are just getting started on squash on just-ripening tomatoes.   He just discovered his green beans are going wild, so heavy on the plant there's no way he and my mother-in-law can eat them all before they rot off the vine.  So around three yesterday I walked over there to go pick some with my fluffy little puppy, Luca.

This is Luca's super-hungry-cute face.

 As soon as I arrive over there, pup-in-tow, they spend their usual ten minutes oohing and aaahing over how adorable their grandpuppy is, and then announce we're going to SuperBigChainMart.  For what?  A kiddie pool for Luca, who is apparently just so hot in her fur coat that she is begging to go for a swim.  (She tells her grandparents a lot of things she neglects to tell me and my husband, like that she needs steak, pork, treats and even more toys than she already has).   So we went to the store and bought her a ten dollar kiddie pool (Luca is, very conveniently toddler-sized).

She loved it...sort of.

It was more the hose spraying in it, she really loved.

It was worth the cost to see her running in circles around the pool, trying to get the hose, occasionally splashing through it.  My dude-in-law remarked that if they had a full size pool, he knows she'd swim in it.  I wonder how long before they build one for the dog.

If this is how they spoil our dog, I wonder what's going to happen when we have children.

Art in the Family

Today is going to be an awesome day, in spite of the fact that I am probably going to get no art work done, not a scratch, not a sketch, not a print. 

All of my aunts and uncles on my mom's side are in-town for my grandfather's 80th birthday, some of which I have not seen in over a decade, and very few of which I have seen at the same time in the nearly seventeen years since we moved from the West Coast, where most of them live.

It's a great, crazy wonderful family.  My mom is who I inherited my artistic abilities from, and there is a bit of it among the rest.  My Uncle Fred, for example, is a fabulous photographer who has managed to make a living off his work (he's a stock photographer, not a fine art photographer, but nonetheless, he takes beautiful pictures).  

My husband has met only the one uncle and aunt who live here in town.  I also, admittedly, delight in the idea that he's going to be bombarded with my family all at once.  And after all that happens, he is going to have a busy evening himself.  

One of his short films, "Exit Interview," is being shown in a Filmmaker's Showcase by the local film and photgraphy society, the Light Factory.  If you are curious about my husband's work, you can find out the most about it here at the website for his production company (really, it's a one-man show, but a very talented one-man show).  If you check out anything, check out his demo reels.  It's a great way to see his capability and understand better what goes into post-production (if you care a wit about film).  

I guess art is just in my family, by marriage and by blood.