Returning to Our Desert Home

Newly acquired old distressed Mexican hutch

Perfect for our liquor cabinet

Score at a yard sale ~ entire contents $4

Ink-credible!

And the case ~ $5!

Much too heavy to carry but good for storage.

Picked up some more of these piloncillo molds

used to form Mexican brown sugar into cone shapes.

(not to be confused with pine cones)

The price was right on these vintage baby clothes patterns

(not that I plan on doing any sewing but they were so cute)

The images in these baby crochet and knitting pattern books are choice.

I love vintage catalogs. I recognize quite a few items from our grade school supplies.

Not sure what the year is on this  CRE-ART catalog is.

 Making the big shift moving from our Alaskan home to our Arizona home this last week.

We made it out in the nick of time. There was a rain storm in the forecast hours after our flight out of Fairbanks. I had an Artisan Expo at the Museum of the North in Fairbanks the day before our flight out which meant that I had to pack for a two day show and a 6 month  winter away from our Alaskan home. Both the plane and the Expo were 100 miles from our home so there was not turning back and no room for forgetfulness.

I'm happy to report that the Expo was a success even though sparsely attended and some of my new encaustics and altered pieces sold which was a nice confidence boost. The museum bought some of my higher end jewelry outright at the end of the show which was quite the bonus for me.

 Our late night flight left  the ground just  hours before the rain that turned to ice crippled the city of Fairbanks for days. An inch of ice ( 2.5 cm) coated everything. Schools were closed, people were advised to stay home from work. Impossible to walk on let alone drive on. I saw videos of folks skating on a flat road and careening in their cars on hills with numbers of them in ditches. We were lucky to get out. Then arriving in Seattle before dawn I was thinking it was a foggy day as it got light outside. Then I realized that I was looking at a snowstorm! It snowed like crazy during our 6 hour layover but we were able to take off  for Tucson even though they were down to one open runway. I heard that that close an hour after we took off after a cargo jet slid off of the runway. We were lucky indeed.

 Although temperatures had cooled in the desert when we arrived in Tucson were were happy to see the sunshine and enjoy the dry roads on our 2 hour trip to Bisbee.

I'm still settling in as we had to immediately drive north to Scottsdale for a family Thanksgiving. I'm glad to finally be home now to get back in the groove of exercise and making art. I left my entire inventory of finished pieces  back in Alaska so anything I may want to sell here has to be freshly made. Now I just need to find the key to my workroom!

 I'm pretty sure the gal that looks after our place while we're gone must have it and I need to wait for her return from a Mexican vacation.

We hit our favorite antique store and thrift store right off the bat and a nice yard sale on top of that  because I just can't seem to resist some of the deals here.

My life has changed here as well because I'm overjoyed to have high speed internet after 7 months of dismal dial-up. I feel as though I have some catching up to do now.

It's so much fun to revisit all of my stashes of supplies and ephemera that I've collected down here because as you must imagine I can't pack it with me back and forth each time. 

We have to save that space for coolers full of moose, salmon, blueberries and cranberries for  our southern freezer!