Recycled Arts Festival 2011

The 6th Annual Recycled Arts Festival is going on this weekend in Vancouver, WA.  Here are some photos of my booth this year! 

Above you will see a new product - vinyl record chokers!  

This is another new product - suncatchers made from colored vinyl 45s.  (Chuck makes these!)  We are selling them this weekend at the festival for $10 per strand of 5 - or buy 2, get one free. 

I'm so glad my sweetie came and hung out with me all day!  Isn't he cute in his new Flipside Hat?

A customer came by and said he had seen my items in today's issue of the Oregonian.  I had to send Chuck on a mission to find the paper and sure enough --- (wow!):

 Here are some little keychains I made for fun.  They are drawn with a Sharpie and painted with watercolors.

I made business cards out of images found on the backs of album jackets.

 

News from the band

This is a collection of some of my favorite photos taken of Dartgun & the Vignettes over the last few months.

Please check us out on facebook and become a fan! We're currently #17 on the Reverbnation Rock Charts for Portland. We also have some videos you can enjoy on youtube, and as always, you can be our friend on myspace!

In case you're wondering, I used picnik to edit these photos.

Our next show is this Friday night, February 12, at Kelly's Olympian, 426 SW Washington St. Hope you can make it.

Tangereen's 15th birthday

Our daughter Tangereen Velveteen turned 15 on Sunday! We drove downtown. We went to Powell's. She got a Calculus textbook.

We went to Sushi Land. Chuck and Tangereen are crazy about sushi. I'm not too crazy about it, and I feel self-conscious because I have never bothered to learn how to use chopsticks. Isn't that stupid? I'm sure my friend Phoebe, who is currently in Seoul, would have something to say about that! Well, sorry. I've just gone through life using a fork. However, Sushi Land was fun anyway. I like how the dishes go around on a conveyor belt and you can select whatever you want. I guess Tangereen had a chopstick epiphany that day, but it slipped past me. I tried to grab things that looked like acceptable finger food. Chuck said not to worry. "This is Portland," he said.

Here we are on the MAX. We rode it and the Portland Streetcar to the cinemas on the very top floor of Pioneer Place. We saw the new Harry Potter movie! It was great. I loved it.

When we got home we had some delightful cupcakes topped with huge thick roses made of pure sweet frosting. Tangereen got the orange one.

I mean, these were huge cupcakes. None of us could finish ours.

(Tangereen got some on her nose.)

I got her that Rolling Stones shirt in New York!

I can't believe my baby girl is 15! Happy birthday, Tangereen!

Our Summer Vacation

We took a fabulous family yurt-camping vacation at the Oregon Coast for the Fourth of July. Here are some selected photos of our adventures! Above is the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. We took the tour and climbed to the top!

Julius celebrated his 13th birthday on our first night there. We picked up a chocolate cake and he enjoyed it with his squirrel collection. So, now I can say, "I have two teenagers."

Camp breakfasts are the best with Chuck around!

Our friends Chad and Anna (Chad being the bass player for Dartgun) came down and camped for two nights with their two cute little puppies. Here's Julius petting them:

And here's Chadwick:
We walked a lot - there are lovely trails in the woods all around the campground, and long walks through the dunes to get to the beach.









Our favorite spot was this bench that sits on top of a hill overlooking the park:









On the Glorious Fourth, we hung out with some of Chuck's old friends from high school, one of whom lives in a private beach community just down the road from the campground. We also watched fireworks on the beach that night.



These pictures are from the private beach. It was a very misty, moisty day.

Our friend Mark and his son Traver, after reeling in the kite:

View from Chris's beach house:

Chris and Mark barbecuing while Chuck grins insanely:



I hope people in the neighborhood liked our groovy car!











We had a wonderful time!

Check out my pictures from last year's summer yurt adventure if you like - click here.