Sleeping Dogs Studio

One of the things I like about living where we do is the number of people who are pet-lovers here, and the great ways they have found to have fun with them.

Our local paper highlighted an annual event coming up this week, known as “Drool in the Pool”.  After one of the local pools closes for the year to “humans”, it always opens for at least one evening of play just for the dogs of the town.  And they have FUN!

• biggest splash
• dog/owner look-alike
• pet tricks 
• cutest dog (how on EARTH do they pick that one?!?  Aren’t they all cute?!)

Trophies are then given to the winners of each contest and a grand prize winner will receive a year’s supply of dog food from PMI nutrition and a doggy glamour shot from Puparazzi here in town.

“Dogs must be at least 6 months of age, and their owners much show written proof from a veterinarian that their dog has a current rabies vaccination,” a statement about the upcoming event clarified. “Dogs without written proof, or with only a rabies vaccination tag, will not be allowed into the event.”

And yes, there will be lifeguards on duty.  You can pick them out by their bright red shirts with “Dog Guard” in large letters on the back.

“The fun doesn’t end with Drool in the Pool,” the statement continued. “Friday, Sept. 3, the movie ‘Hotel for Dogs’ will show on the big screen in Bryan Park at 9 p.m., with free admission for everyone, human and canine.”

For those of you who live in Bloomington, Drool in the Pool will take place at Bryan Park Pool on Weds. and Thurs. of this week from 5 – 8 p.m.

Now that our Artfire shop is up and running, I’ve done the same with our Etsy site.  Thus, you can once again shop for Sleeping Dogs Studio items at   http://www.etsy.com/shop/sleepingdogsstudio.  Bear with me as I add more products over the next several days! 

At our customers’ requests, I have included a few coordinated sets of earring holders, frames and boxes – by purchasing these, you can save over buying these items individually.  While the pieces are not identical, they provide a set of items that look great together!

Haiku Coordinated Set

Check out Etsy’s store to see more!

School is back in session, and senior year soccer is underway.  And my son is in his element – he loves this game.

They play again tomorrow night…so my husband and I will be there in our Cougar maroon and gold cheering them on. 

What could be better than seeing someone you love do something they enjoy so much?

Did you know that August is actually a prime time for hummingbirds to nest?  I would have imagined that they would be on their way south near the end of August – but in fact, many are just getting their families started.

We’ve seen this for ourselves when we decided to jump on the hummingbird band wagon.  As it turns out, both of our neighbors have fed them for years, so we’ve seen the little “hummers” buzzing from one house to another for the last couple of years.  This year, we decided to make ourselves a stop along the way.

We started with one feeder early in the spring – and as the number of hummingbirds increased, it quickly became clear that if we were going to avoid civil war, we needed to add another – I literally counted ten trying to drink from the same one last night. 

So this a.m., we put up another one, and I tried to get some photos of them in action.

Unfortunately, it turns out that ours are more active in the evening, so I’m going to have to try again to get the “mass” of numbers we had yesterday.  Another challenge is obviously going to be simply trying to capture that 40- 80 wing beats per second even with a good camera! 

As you can see, despite zoom lenses, lots of natural light, and a pretty quick finger on the trigger, it’s just hard to catch those beating wings without getting lots of blur!

SO – here’s a glimpse of the hummingbird highway on Day One…and I’ll try again to see if I can’t get a photo of the huge numbers of them seen previously.  Keep your eyes peeled…

I am a fan of the Lifetime TV Show “Project Runway”, particularly when they are required to make clothing out of crazy ingredients, like flowers, party supplies, etc.  It’s amazing how inspirational it is to our own artwork, and how many great ideas I come away with each week.

As a result, when I first heard about this Blog, I was instantly hooked:

http://newdressaday.wordpress.com

From the author, Marisa:  “So here’s the deal friends, I’m going to be spending the entire year without doing an ounce of traditional clothing shopping.  I did want to do something that would get my creative juices flowing everyday.  And then the aha moment came to me. 

I love finding vintage goodies that may not fit me perfectly or translate well with the current state of fashion and then make them work on me (thank you Tim Gunn – “make it work” has become my mantra)! I get out my trusty sewing machine to change hems, cut sleeves and tweak to transform a low-budget piece that had its’ moment back in 1976 and give it another shot today, decades later. 

365 days. 365 items of clothing. 365 dollars. And the blogging begins…”

This blog is worth visiting for inspiration too, trust me – here are some of my favorite “Before” and “Afters”:

 From this….                                                   To this!

And this schlumpy dress becomes…      This adorable jacket/shrug!

 I think this might be my favorite – from caftan/mumu to super-cool tunic.

Check out the site – it’s pretty amazing what Marisa can do with some scissors, a sewing machine, and RIT dye!  And you just might come away with your own 365 days of inspiration…