Crowns for The Sampler

Crowns
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

Marie at The Sampler was kind enough to feature part of my October contribution--these crowns, on her homepage. Go Marie, Go Sampler!

I've made a HUGE 200+ item contribution for November. Still looking out for my October Sampler to arrive-- should happen anytime now.

Coming to a gallery near you: verdant green flowers

verdant green flowers
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

Just finished this piece for the Small Works Show at the Courthouse Gallery in Ellsworth-- coming up soon. All my Holiday show info is below--more info to come on the shows page of my website. Check back...

Fern House Studio Holiday Shows

•Small Works Show, Oct. 26th-Dec.1st 2006,
The Courthouse Gallery, Ellsworth, Me. info: 667.6611

•The Gifted Hand: Fine Art, Craft & Gift Show
(to benefit DTA Center for Learning & Growing)
Saturday Nov. 18th 10am-5pm, Maine Grind Coffee Bar,
Main Street Downtown Ellsworth, Me. info: 667.6783

•The Bayschool Winter Faire, Saturday Dec. 2nd
9am-5pm at the Bay School, Blue Hill, Me. info: 374.2187

Shop online: www.FernHouseStudio.com
• Cards or Puppets at • ShoeGazer (Ellsworth) •
• Island Artisans (Bar Harbor) • Bella Colore (Blue Hill) •
• The Blossom Studio (Brooklin) •

New Card: Peaceful Crane

cranecard
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

This card is the newest to the Fern House Studio card line. Get it on the card page. The cool blues have a nice, wintry feel. Makes a lovely holiday card int he winter season...Christmas, Solstice or New Year.

Calendar Girl

appleinbowl
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

Great news! My artwork (Apple in a Bowl) is featured in the 2007 Women Artists Datebook published by Syracuse Cultural Workers. It's a real honor to be among the handful of artists (32) choosen for this calendar.

This wonderful appointment book/ calendar has all these features: Full color/glossy art pages • poetry pages • Quotations by women • Flat opening, spiral-bound • Beautiful smudge-free stock for notations • Lunar cycles, 13 native moons • Convenient, portable 5x7 size • Year-at-a-glance section • Holidays for many faiths • Printed in the USA on stock containing 20-100% postconsumer recycled paper

I find mine very useful to carry in my handbag because of the portable size. It's truly a lovely calendar!
I have a limited amount of copies for sale at my website. You can find them, here


• I'm also carrying new postcards from Syracuse Cultural Workers at my website. So far I have a fun new Dancing Frogs postcard for sale, and more new postcards coming soon, including some new Holiday designs. I'm planning to add a couple of new cards of my own design for the Holiday season as well... keep checking back

New at my Etsy shoppe

stawberry wallet
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

This strawberry wallet made of 100% wool felt and lovely vintage strawberry cards from a 70's Swiss memory game is for sale at my etsy shoppe.

Cool Easter News

Have you seen the Bunny-a-long Blog? It's got all kinds of funny bunny pics on it. Makes a nice pre-Easter web surf.

Speaking of pre-Easter-- you can find these nifty fingerpuppets at my site. Fun for the Easter basket!

Thuya Doors

thuya doors 2
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

These carved wooden doors are up in the spring, summer & fall at Thuya Gardens in Northeast Harbor, Maine. I think they are beautiful and took photos to inspire future paintings. This owl will definately inspire a painting!

Update -- new stuff at my site

runninggirlwallet1
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

This lovely running girl wallet is for sale at my site. Memory card is vintage--from a 70's german/swiss memory game. Oops...sewed the card on a bit crooked (only my second attempt at machine sewing anything). I thought the flower button worked well. 100% wool felt.

These other nifty things are new, too:

Open winged owl finger puppet-- a new design (see post below).
Chick finger puppet-- a new character perfect for spring.
Bunny Finger puppets are back in stock...for your favorite person's Easter or May Day basket.
100% Wool felt Vintage Card Foxy Wallet (pictured in a post below)
And kits to sew your own cool vintage memory card wallets:
100% Wool Felt Vintage Sparrow Card Wallet Kit
100% Wool Felt Vintage Lemon Card Wallet Kit
100% Wool Felt Vintage Butterfly Card Wallet Kit

Happy shopping! I hope your enjoy browsing my site. Let me know what you think.

Interviewed on Crafty Synergy

Fern House Studio was interviewed for Crafty Synergy. You can read the whole interviewhere

Here's an excerpt:
"My name came from an episode of Ira Glass' fabulous show "This American Life" on National Public radio. He was doing an interview with a sociologist who studied where children went during the day when they were alone back in the 1970's. That was back in the days when kids hung out alone and didn't have a million activities booked for them all the time (my childhood!). Anyway, what he discovered was that children all had secret places... kind of clubhouses, but they didn't have to be houses. They were places kids could go and be alone or with a group of friends and get away from the pressures of everyday life, be imaginative and creative and just play. One group of children had a special place in the woods they called "The Fern House". He described it as very beautiful... just sort of an outline of twigs and branches that created the agreed upon walls and windows, and then these beds of ferns that the children would create fresh every day with new ferns. So this idea intrigued me very much. I want my studio to always be a place where I can go, create, escape the pressures of everyday life and be inventive and play, so I adopted the name Fern House for my studio..."

new puppets coming

openwingedowl
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

This openwinged owl is a new fingerpuppet design, among many, coming soon to my website or one of the galleries carrying my work.

Look what I made!

Foxywallet1
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

Look! One of my first sewing projects--a nifty changepurse/pouch. I even lined it with creme colored duponi silk. A memory game card adorns the front (a card from a memory game I used to play as a kid.) Vintage button. 100% wool felt.

I'm quite proud, though the sewing isn't perfect, it's a fun start. Think I should sell these on my website? I could also sell kits to make them--let me know what you think.

Illustration Friday: Chair

These are pics of a rocking chair I painted a couple of years ago for The Maine Discovery Museum in an auction/ benefit they were doing. It has a happy home now. Features all kinds of my animals and goes from water to land to sky.

Sew & Sew

I got a new sewing machine! I'm so excited! I'm just learning how to machine sew and got this basic $149 machine from Pfaff, which looks great for beginners. And I get 5 hours of free classes and lots of other perks from the (locally owned) store where I bought it.



So maybe you won't hear from me for awhile, as I'll be busy playing with my new machine. Then suddenly one day, all kinds of posts of wonderful sewn things will appear here. I have lots of cool ideas in mind.

Speaking of sewing, here's a new puppet body--this one's gonna be a crocodile:

The pattern of the fabric reminds me of this:, which is a piece from an old memory game from the 70's that my sister and I used to play with my grandma. I'm going to be using some of these memory pieces ( I hope) in some very cool sewn pouches/ change purses that I have planned. One of the sewing machine projects. I'll post them when I have some done. There are all kinds of retro designs on those memory pieces that I love; including a very neat fox, and a couple of inspiring owl designs. They have a very European design style-- this game came from Switzerland and was made by Ravensburger, who is still in the game/hobby business in Europe. As far as I can tell, though, this memory game is out of print.

lastly, I got the nifty chicken measuring tape at the fabric store. Pull on the egg and the tape measure comes out.

Featured Again!

Thanks to Hip Picks.com for featuring my prints. Just a reminder, my print sale is going on until Feb. 28th, supplies are dwindling, so visit soon.

Hatching a Plan...

Oh...I'd love to get my website featured in Daily Candy. Do you have a secret side that likes scheming and plotting? Well, maybe you'd enjoy helping me.

First of all, Daily Candy is a daily email that is sent to probably tens of thousand of people, maybe more--by request only (it's NOT spam). They feature a different website every day that might have things, services etc. of interest to people. Ok this is a bad description, so if anyone can do better, do so by adding a clarifying comment below.

Anyway, apparently Daily Candy is awesome press for small businesses. And they actually feature you free, which is becoming more and more unusual in our world of advertising and product placement. It's just really tough to "get in".

So here's where my plan comes in. I want to be featured on Daily Candy. If you really like my work and my website, you can help by going here:
Daily Candy's submission page and choosing story ideas & tips from the popdown menu. Then suggest my website, www.fernhousestudio.com (not this blog, of course). Then post a comment here letting me know you did just that.

I'll be overjoyed! Then, if this works, and enough people suggest me, perhaps they will feature me. If they feature me, I'll send someone who posted here as suggesting me a free sample pack of Fern House Studio cards. The winner will be picked at random. It is just a small thank you for taking the time to bother to mention my website. I really, truly appreciate any and everybody's efforts! And I always appreciate everyone's kind comments and encouragement of my work. That's really the point, putting my work out there to make people smile and enjoy.

Coming soon

Polar Bear Puppet
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

This polar bear puppet will be appearing on the handmade page of my site next week. A chilly sweetie that will warm your heart. The body sports a light blue square/dot pattern that is reminiscent of ice cubes, with light blue velvet trim and a light blue velvet blanket stitched bear tail in back. He's still in season, though we've had a warm winter here by Maine Standards.

He's up! You can find him here.

I'm working on many new hand and finger puppets for spring. I'l be updating my website frequently during late March thru June, so check in often. There will be lot sof sneak peeks here as my creations are completed.

25 handpuppets are in the works, including two new owls, several new kitty designs, and an alligator with a super cool body.

I'm very excited about the new work, despite that fact that today I am sleepy and not very motivated. My birthday is Monday, and maybe I'm not so thrilled about turning a year older. On the other hand, I should be happy to be alive! Enough of this rambling, off to important business: I'm going to take a nap.

Endangered Kitty Puppet...HELP!

Asian Print Kitty
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

Oh my gosh! Uplifting Arts has used one of my kitty puppets to make a handbag. Save the Kitty Puppets, Eat Tofu...Peace,love... and puppets!


Seriously, speaking of Uplifting Arts, look at these cool buttons there! I love these and am tempted to get some to embellish my puppets with. The turtles are very cool, and there are some cool owl ones, too. The koi are my favorites, but are sold out.

Illustration Friday: Cats

This catty post is a detail from a larger painting of mine called Twilight Time. Do you think the cat knows the bird is there?

One of the Wild Women

lady3
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

As per popular request, here's a closer look at one of the colored pencil drawings above the window of my studio. You can see a few more at my Flickr page. Unfortunately, they are a bit too big for my scanner, and I don't have a digital camera (can you believe it!?-- also no cell phone--I'm crazy enough without that crap). Anyway, here's a taste and I'll try to get my hands on my boyfriend's digital camera to get some more shots in the future.

I've been saving these Ladies...I've got quite a few of them. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them-- probably I'll end up incorporating them into some other creative project, though they are quite lovely on their own. Another thought I had was to dry mount them on foamcore and frame them somehow. They have sort of a paper doll feel. Any more ideas?

studio friday: i spy...

studio 2
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

i spy a UFO out the window (OK, its really the relfection of the lamp, but humor me!)

Illustration Friday: E is for Elemental

atomic circles 1
Originally uploaded by Fern House Studio.

This little Space Age Painting in gouache, colored pencil and mixed media is elemental in so many ways--it works with the elements of design (shape, color, line), and there's something very elemental about getting out your art supplies and going for it to create something full of life and energy.

Atomic Circles by Christina Heiniger
[warning, blatant self-promotion] E is also for Etsy, these are fer sale at my etsy shop.

...And The Winner Is...

The winner of the card drawing from all of you wonderful people who posted your favorite for my next card design is...

Dawn Anderson of Lark Studio.

Congratulations, Dawn!

And thanks, everyone, for your help.

And the card design with the most votes was Kiss from Above. So that will be the next Fern House Studio card. Look out for it.

I'll be posting more giveways at random, so check back in at my blog now & then.

Help me chose my next card design

You can WIN a free pack of Fern House Studio cards by helping me choose my next new card design for spring. Just post a comment below as to which design you think I should use for my next card. On January 9th I'll choose a winner at random from all those who posted.



Kiss from Above

or



Golden Kiss

I've already got one new card for Valentine's Day up at my website. So if you're looking for that special card for your sweetie, check it out.

I'm looking forward to getting your feedback, and good luck in the drawing.