UMC World Bazaar and Benefit

Thanks to all those who came out to the UMC World Bazaar and Benefit in Niceville on Saturday and to the organizers. I was swamped for a little while there. Turned out to be a great show.

Featured Artist: Julie of Julieandco

carousel ribbons

I discovered the traditional Japanese art of temari several years ago and have always wanted to try it, but never found the time. It is an art with a rich history and great decorative appeal. Julie, a team mate of mine from the Christian Artist Street Team (CAST) on Etsy, makes and sells temari in her shop. I encourage you to visit julieandco on Etsy to see more.

Julie

I purchased a temari from Julie and I just want to show you how well it looks in my home on the fireplace mantel.

Julie has these in many different colors and patterns and even makes Christmas ornaments (I have one Julie made that was given to me as a gift). She does custom work as well.

cocoa and sage duet

petals

If you would like to learn more about Julie and the art of temari read this on-line article in which Julie was recently featured.

Christmas Break Activity

When you have a kid home from school for Christmas break it helps to have some activities planned. Today my eight year old son Caleb and I sat down and painted these ornaments. I had actually meant to purchase some from Dunkdesigns shop on Etsy, but she finished for the season before I got around to it.

Emperor penguin ornament I painted for my son. He's really into penguins.

Snowman and Santa ornament my son painted

Caleb's favorite animal--the tapir. Not just everyone has a tapir ornament!

snowflake ornament by Caleb

Our tree

Merry Christmas!

Come Visit Me

I'll be at the Sun City Aliante Craft Fair next Saturday, October 24. I'll be at indoor booth #63. There will be 100 vendors present so come on out and do some Christmas shopping.

Sun City
7395 Aliante Parkway in North Las Vegas, NV
next to the Aliante Station casino at Aliante Parkway and 215
9am to 5pm

Also, visit my website and print a coupon good for a FREE pair of copper earrings with your purchase of $75 or more.

Peru: Calabazas

I'm taking a break from writing about our trip to tell you about calabazas in Peru.

What is a calabaza?

It's a gourd or squash or pumpkin. In Peru they dry them, carve them and decorate them and they are fabulous. They are definitely my favorite thing to buy in Peru. They sell them everywhere from high-end gift shops to on the street. I have seen them in gift shops in the states and even purchased them here, but they sell for much less in Peru. The price depends on how good you are at haggling in the market and how much work went into each one.

some calabazas we purchased and brought home--yes, we did have to explain to Customs that they were decorative and we weren't planning on cracking them open and planting any seeds, but they didn't seem too worried

I think this was at the market at Pisac

We paid as little as less than $1 for the small cuy (guinea pigs) in the last photo to as much as $9-11 for the largest one below and the very intricate smaller one. It's hard to say exactly as it's better if you pick out several and then make the vendor an offer for the group. They are very strong and light and therefore easy to pack. Some are cut open forming a "box" with a lid.

We were fortunate enough to be able to see an exhibit of outstanding examples at Qoricancha in Cuzco while we were there, but couldn't take photos.

Above: the largest one we purchased is about eight inches high

This man has been decorating calabazas all his life. He demonstrated his skill for us in the market at Chinchero. The largest calabaza in the previous photo is his work. I'm sure we would have purchased more from him if we had had more than five minutes before our tour van left. I love buying directly from the artist. He actually does carve them upside down like he is demonstrating. Below he is explaining (in Spanish, of course) the intricate iconography.

Most examples have pictures of the sun and moon and a puma, serpent and condor--the most important images in Inca cosmology. They also often have images of people working at various tasks such as farming, pottery making, animal husbandry, images of mountains, Machu Picchu, Inca sites and more. Some are long shapes and used as maracas as the seeds rattle inside the dried gourd.

Cuy (guinea pigs) are raised like rabbits and eaten on special occasions in Peru. I had to get these little guys which are about 3 and a half inches long. Owls and Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) are also popular motifs on calabazas.

I'm not much of a shopper, but once again, I am kicking myself for not buying a couple of bigger, more intricate examples. What was I thinking? So if any of you go to Peru and discover that I've saved you lots of time and money by posting all these tips on my blog, you'd better bring me one back!

Sue

Copyright 2009 text and photos. All rights reserved

Peru: Our first day in Arequipa

This is the second installment of Peru blog posts. There will be quite a few more as we have around 3000 photos! Keep checking back.

We flew into Lima, Peru late and spent one night. We can't tell you much about Lima except that it is a big, bustling, capitol city on the coast. We were up early the next morning to fly to Arequipa. Arequipa is a Spanish colonial city in the south and is Peru's second largest city. It is surrounded by volcanoes and is at an elevation of approximately 8000 ft.

I think we would all have to say that is was our favorite city that we visited. It is an excellent place to spend a couple of days beginning to adjust to the altitude before proceeding to Puno or Cuzco which are at 12,500 ft and 10,500 ft respectively or even to the nearby Colca canyon were you go over a pass that is at nearly 15,000 ft. Arequipa is not visited by nearly as many tourist as Cuzco and Machu Picchu so prices for hotels, food and shopping are lower.

El Misti volcano from the airplane flying into Arequipa

After settling into our centrally located hotel, we were met in the lobby by a local guide for a city walking tour. Arequipa is often called the "White City" for various reasons, one of which is the widespread use of silar, the white volcanic rock, as a building material. We walked through narrow, charming, colonial streets to the Convent of Santa Caterina de Siena where one other tourist joined us for our tour.

us at the Convent of Santa Caterina de Siena

The convent is a photographer's dream. It is still residence to about 20 nuns, so the only way you can see it is with a guide. The guides work only for tips. Our tour took about an hour and was certainly intriguing.

Caleb demonstrating how to fill clay basins with water at the colonial "laundry" in the convent.

Arequipa has the most fascinating doors opening onto intriguing courtyards. This door at the convent was worm eaten, and very beautiful.

Some places in the convent the silar stone was painted in traditional colors that just glowed in the high altitude light of this city.

Caleb and the light from a stained glass window at the convent

After the convent we walked to some colonial houses in the city which were built around courtyards. Everywhere in Peru they used stones set in concrete in patterns as a paving material. I really want to do this at a home of my own someday. From there we proceeded to a monastery and church and then to the cathedral.

facade details at a monastery in Arequipa

Little girl feeding pigeons (palomas) at the Plaza de Armas in Arequipa

Plaza de Armas (main plaza) in front of the cathedral in Arequipa

inside of the cathedral

carved cedar pulpit in the cathedral

cathedral in Arequipa

We happened to be in Arequipa for the August 15th founder's day festival and parade so we ended up in the middle of it on our walking tour!

The chicha (corn beer) queen

The chicha king

At the end of our tour we visited a place with llamas and alplacas and demonstrations of traditional wool processing and weaving.

In the evening we walked on our own over to the city center and found a rooftop restaurant on the street directly behind the cathedral, which is lit up in the evening, for a candlelight dinner. Dan ordered an alpaca steak. The southern part of Peru is altiplano (high desert) so they don't raise cattle. Alpaca is the standard red meat that is served whenever you order anything con carne. As is often the case, we had a couple of musicians playing Andrean pan pipes and guitars entertaining us at dinner for tips and the chance to sell their CD. I really can't tell you how many times we heard El Condor Pasa while we were in Peru or how many Simon and Garfunkle songs we heard on pan pipes.

We went to bed that night to the sounds of exuberant merry making at the Founders' Day festival and woke in the morning to roosters crowing.

Check in again soon for my post on Colca Canyon and watching the condors fly!

Sue

text and photos Copyright 2009 All rights reserved

My studio is being featured!

Liz of Fray Baby Bibs and More is doing a series of craft room/studio features on her blog this week. Today she is featuring My Studio. I love looking at other artists' and crafters' creative spaces.

Also, take a look at Liz's shop on Etsy. She has great items including reuseable fabric snack bags that are perfect for tucking into lunch boxes!

Gift Bags / Pillow Cases ?

I love items that have multiple uses and are eco-friendly. I grew up in house where gift wrap was often made from a cereal box and the comics section of the newspaper. For years I have been using inexpensive fabrics to make my own re-usable gift bags. My family loves my gift bags too because they make it so fast and easy to wrap gifts and wrapping odd shaped items is no problem.


My son, Caleb had his 8th birthday party the other day. He picked fabric from my stash of oriental print cotton fabrics that I purchased when we lived in South Korea. I whipped up these travel size pillow cases that double as goodie bags for his party.


Each child took one of these home filled with some toys and goodies and they can use them again as gift bags or put a travel sized pillow inside for car trips or sleepovers. When I make bags that do not double as pillow cases, I sew satin ribbon right into the seam to use to tie the bag closed and sometimes also sew gussets into the bottom corners so the bag has a flat bottom.


These also worked well for when the kids broke open the pinatas my son made. There was plenty of room in the bags that the kids could stuff their candy treasures inside.


Above: These are the pinatas that my son made for his party. The small one is a Malayan tapir (Caleb's favorite animal). The spider was fun as a pinata as it lost an eye or a leg with every good whack, which the kids liked. It looked cool hanging from its string upside down.