Cockroach love, letterpress cards, and poison ivy

Yesterday I found a shortcut into Sunnybrook Park, which is 147 acre wooded area in North York. It's scenic and relaxing, with a river and picnic areas and trails through the forest.

And poison ivy! I've made a note to wear long pants if I plan to explore the more heavily wooded areas. I walked about 5.5 km (over 3 miles) yesterday. I took my lunch with me in a backpack, along with some bottled water; the whole walk took just over an hour.

Sunnybrook Park is a maze of trails. I'm embarrassed that I haven't been doing more walking (and running) in the park, considering it's just a 15-20 minute walk away. The area connects a number of smaller parks as well as hooking up with the Sunnybrook Stables and Edward Gardens.



I've been gradually adding some new items to my Etsy shop, for those interested. One is the charming porcelain spoon rest / dish above, which is titled "Cockroach Love."

The piece (measures about 4" across) is made of porcelain clay, thrown on a wheel and trimmed by my friend Luisa. After it was shaped, Luisa gave it to me so I could hand-paint it. Then I gave it back to her so she could fire it in a kiln, glaze it, then fire it once more. We sent the piece back and forth via our husbands, who meet weekly for gaming. :-)



I'm also offering my new Letterpress cards for sale on Etsy! You can buy them individually or as a set (or mix and match). I only have about six of each available at present; I need to order more.

Each of these letterpress cards has one of my designs. The cards themselves are printed by a couple in North Wales (who found me via my Flickr pics), and they've commissioned eight more of my illustrations for the card line.

Each card is hand fed into a Victorian printing press where the inked image and handset type is pressed deep into the cream-colored paper. The cards were launched at the Spring Fair in Birmingham and apparently got a great response, yay! They're now being sold in places in Canada, U.S., Japan and the UK.

You can find out more about my card line on the Blush publishing site.



Above and below: I've added some more vampire creatures to my Menagerie in Etsy.





And mini pin-back buttons!



I've put some of these on one of my backpacks. :-)



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