New. On Facebook.

Hey all you Western Mass Crafters!

Join us!


A group on facebook, just for us in the 4.1.3.
Meet up, schmooze, swap, rent studios.

Western Mass Crafters on Facebook

What are you waiting for?

reason for absence this time

The Japanese Art of Stone Appreciation: Suiseki

I was looking around to see how hard it is to grow bonsai from seed, and found another amazing miniature Japanese obsession: Japanese suiseki.

It truly is the "Japanese Art of Stone Appreciation." Rocks are sought after that mimic larger natural landscapes, like buttes, and mountains. Teeny weeny mountains.

Browse this book online:

The Japanese Art of Stone Appreciation

By Vincent T. Covello, Yuji Yoshimura

Preview this book

Offers aesthetic guidance and practical advice for the delicate art of miniature landscape creation. More details The Japanese Art of Stone Appreciation: Suiseki and Its Use with Bonsai By Vincent T. Covello, Yuji Yoshimura Contributor Yuji Yoshimura Edition: reprint, illustrated Published by Tuttle Publishing, 1996 ISBN 0804820473, 9780804820479 166 pages

We're moving!

We've been looking for a new place for a while now. This is partly why I haven't been posting. We currently live in a 350 square foot apartment. That means that our kitchen/living room is about 15 x 10, there is a bathroom in between that and the 10 x 12 bedroom. For two people, two packrats with computer obsessions. At its worst, only one person could be upright and standing/moving at a time. Seriously. It was most recently at its worst.
So, finally, we got a sweet gorgeous apartment.
I'll be blogging more about it coming up. Since it is sooo spacious, we'll have room to actually sort through and sell off/donate stuff. Awesome stuff.

Here are some photos:

First, the view out the back of the mountain range.

The kitchen, off of the back porch,
with the bathroom through the door on the right,
and the main bedroom to the left.

The largest living room, there are two, with the main
bedroom on the left, and the kitchen on the right.

Back second bedroom:

Main living room, viewing second living room :

Main bedroom:

The wood floors are stunning, and we're within a 5 minute walk to everything.
There is also another bedroom in the front, off of the front living room.

Live Auction Goodies - First Come First Served

Two years ago bf and I started attending local live auctions to look for items to sell on ebay. I was hoping to make a killing, and have a part-time income. Bf's mother is a Powerseller on ebay. If his 60-something mom can rake it in, how hard could it be? Turns out it's not hard if your auctions are in New Hampshire where the bids on quality goods are at least half what they are in Massachusetts. Jump to today, someone has boxes of auction goodies that didn't sell on ebay, or wouldn't sell for enough to make a profit. Vintage treasures that one usually sees in antique stores, but now are a dime a dozen online. We are moving soon (yay! hallelujah!), and I don't want to trudge these boxes from place to place.

I was going to give these away free, not including shipping. I've since decided to ask for donations, if anyone wants any of the items I posted below. I will show better pictures asap.  The donations will go to my new local charity: Westfield Homeless Cat Project. I'm donating all of my ebay stuff to them for their giant indoor tag sale on February 7 and 8 at St. Rocco's Club at 300 Elm St. in Westfield MA. They are still accepting donations of items, too, so if anyone has any stuff they'd like to donate, I'll bring it to them.

My new apartment allows at least one cat, so I might try to get my cat from this wonderful woman's nonprofit. I guess then I'll become a crazy cat blogger.

This was my previous offer: Here's my offer: every day I'll post one (*maybe more*) auction treasure. The first commenter who describes their favorite teeny.tiny.cute craft or object (not mine, necessarily) and puts a link to my blog on your blog will get the treasure, free. I will post your link, too, of course.

Please have paypal, and I will post the approximate shipping costs that you will have to pay. In the US, I usually ship via the Post Office's Priority Mail, and they have flat rate boxes/envelopes for approximately $9.60 or so. This is almost always cheaper than the weighed and measured First Class rate.

Here's a sneak peek:





"Westfield Homeless Cat Project:
We will be having a TAG SALE on February 7th & 8th to raise funds for the Westfield Homeless Cat Project.....A no kill cat and kitten rescue located in Westfield MA. It will be held at St. Rocco's
Club at 300 Elm St. in Westfield MA. If you or anyone you know would  like to donate items please contact us Thank you for all you do for the animals."

too cute to eat

Recently went out to eat with bf, his coworker friend, and his friend's fiance. The thai place had gluten-free food, yum, but the presentation was too kawaii. Sorry for the grainy dark iphone pics.

Look at the tiny mushroom radish!

Just look at it! I dare you to eat it!

siam square thai restaurant

Long Time No See

[12.6.08 gah, I just reread this post with my boyfriend. I guess I must have been in some pain,, in my HEAD! What a load of errors! ]
I've finally recovered from my cold. Speaking of cold, it's freezing here in Massachusetts. My knees and elbows are not happy. So, instead of hearing them complain all winter, I made some knee warmers. (Hang on there elbows, yours are coming.) I cut one of my bf's old socks in two, snipped the toe off, and had two useful knee warmers. You can also see my mis-matched socks: I wear his old socks when I wear my boots, so the boot tops don't rub against my calves. No one's going to see them, so I don't care what they look like. The knee warmers feel so soft and toasty, I even went outside with my jeans on and felt comfy as a kitten in a sweater sleeve.*


















*edited to remove blindingly pale thighs, credit to goma and ichc