Happy Belated Easter!

Thought we'd share our little pysanky-inspired pregnancy Easter photo with you.  She, of course, couldn't resist decorating her biggest "egg" yet!  We had a wonderful day full of family and laughs and now we eagerly await our next big day, welcoming a new baby into the fold!  Celena is expecting her second boy and is due May 14th.  Hope he likes eggs!

Leander High Craft Fair

Selah: The dust has just settled from doing our very first market booth show. We both had to devote most of our babies' sleeping hours to gearing up for this, and it basically went off without a hitch, so that was pretty gratifying.


It ended up as somewhat of a coming out party for our joint business of meandher. Prior to this, we each had our separate etsy shops; selahestelle and celenajustine. Celena had even done a booth for the Cherrywood Art Fair (with much success) under her old name. Once we both become stay at home mothers, it began to make much more sense to combine our efforts. Everyone seemed to be drawn in by the idea that we were just starting out and were very complimentary of our efforts.

We didn't make nearly as many sales as we would have liked, but we met so many kind people, have made a few sales since because of the exposure and were invited to some other shows in December, so it was very successful in the connections/networking sense.


I do want to send out a special thank you to all of our friends and family that took the time to come out and see our booth set up (which we worked very hard on). It really meant alot to see familiar faces and feel that support from everyone. We also received many compliments from the public that day which made us feel really great. It was wonderful to have everyone that commented seem to understand the time and love that goes into the things we make and not question their worth in the least.

We have been watching our dear friend, KatinkaPinka, be a success at various booth shows for years now and were really aiming high at creating an atmosphere within our 10 X 10 that was as inviting and pleasant as what she achieves. She is a wonderful role model and advisor on this venture and we can't thank her enough for her example and many tips.

Celena and I have different aesthetics, so setting up a booth atmosphere that made both of us happy was an interesting challenge. We grew up with a wonderful collection of children's books with amazing illustrations. Drawing from our childhood love of these images, we decided that our merchandise and both of our styles could be effectively presented using the amazing artist Trina Schart Hyman's work as inspiration. We also wanted a color scheme that would allow our ornaments to be the focus. The pictures don't really show it, but I think we were successful, mostly thanks to Celena's oddly extensive collection of furniture and decor that was the perfect fit. The only real investment we had to make was buying custom made letters for our shop sign from Mr. Woody (right here in Texas!), which was graciously put together by Celena's handy husband. Celena even had the perfect colors of paint in leftover samples from painting rooms in her home! Kismet!

I did contribute the two lace tablecloths, a vintage quilt and my grandfather's old trunk (which garnered some attention - though not as much as Celena's gorgeous carved wood dressing screen). We had to get creative in hanging our sign on the bleachers behind us, but that was the only adjustment to the space we had to make.

The helpers were so sweet even when the loading process got tough. Arranging everything into Celena's Honda Element was a bit of a puzzle, but it did all fit.
We've applied for another show on December 11th that seems like it might be a better demographic/atmosphere for our particular brand of craftiness, so hopefully we'll be able to report back with more good experiences!

new sketches

Selah: My wrist is crying out that it needs a respite from the long, tensed hours of work on tinies! I still wanted to make things though, so I decided to get started on repurposing some little wooden plaques I got at the goodwill. They had some horrible little wooden children glued to them and were painted an unfavorably bright yellow for my thinking, but already had little hangers and no problems that couldn't be fixed!

Because they are three of a kind, my mind got to thinking about inspirations. I wanted to do some more of my masked ladies because the only two I made have been purchased and with the show so close to Halloween, I thought they needed to make an appearance. After some thought and brainstorming with the husband, I remembered that I used musical names for my discreet femmes (the titles being Sonata and Minuet). I lit upon the idea of sisters and a 3 part harmony. Haven't quite worked out the naming specifics, but was able to get some solid sketching done, thinking about a family of beauties invited to a grand masked ball. Obviously still at the drawing pad, but thought I would let you all know where I'm at.

My wrist is still sore, but just leftover; the drawing is giving it some rest methinks. I've started taking some glucosamine, but it will be many weeks before I'm supposed to feel much difference. Pooh!

Pysanky Progress

Celena: My dearest husby Jack just finished making the dye hutch for my egging desk and I couldn't be happier with the finished product! I finally have enough room for all these Colorama dyes,there are over 50!

I am trying to squeeze out all the work time I can to get a good stock built up for our first show which is coming up really soon.

I decided to try a new strategy and am working on three eggs at once all of the same design. I thought my new Texas egg design was a good one to start with and I had a fair amount of the double yolk turkey eggs that I like to use for it. Turkey eggs come with dark brown speckles all over them so they require a bit of hand-sanding before they are suitable for dyeing. Even with thorough sanding they keep a slightly speckled appearance and I think it complements the classic Texas feel that I am striving for with this particular design.

I used SO many different shades of yellow for these roses, I can't wait to melt off the wax and see how they turn out! That is still my absolute favorite part of writing pysanky, melting all the wax off at the end by hand with a candle and slowly revealing the intricate colors beneath.

I still need to complete the blubonnets, some red striping, the navy background for those stars and a pale blue around the roses.

Here's hoping my son's nap remains long like it was today! :)