lots of love.

***Song of the Moment: undertaker, by M. Ward***

Hi, friends!!  Dag Nabbit (channeling the grandaddy), I’ve missed you guys!!

I wanted to let you know that we’ll be in the shop this weekend!  We’ve had so many shows this month that I know several shoppers have popped by on Saturday only to find an empty shop.  But…NO MORE…well, at least for this weekend and next.  We’ll be here from noon to at least 4 tomorrow.

The shop is still on the up and up.  We plan on having a grand opening by the end of the summer (shwew!).  Little by little, my friends.  This weekend, we’re planning on finishing the miscellaneous drawer front counter wrap and the sliding door!  My design friends were in town last weekend and we took some huge steps forward.  We’ve been running with this white on white on white theme with rustic wood to offset it all.  Courtney called it Scandinavian.  When she said the words, my heart melted.  Some of my most favorite people in the world live there (or near there).

Come by and see us sweating through it all this weekend, say hello, drink a glass of wine, and shop your little hearts out.

big huge love.

-betsy

This one is available exclusively at Thea’s Interiors, vintage living, unless someone hasn’t already snatched it up!

Isaac and I plan on listing our new collaboration in our online shops soon.  Yowzers.  Also, I think I about owe you a new OOTD.  Look out for it all some time this week.

In the meantime, skip the song of the moment and go get the whole album; it’s off the heeeeezy.  wildly inspiring.  gets my fingers moving.

***Song of the Moment: Tightrope, by Janelle Monae***

To entice you:

proud new owner

I hope you’ll stop by the booth tomorrow and say hello!

Happy early Mother’s Day (especially to my sweet mama)!

xo~betsy

***Song of the Moment: Prehensile Dream, by The Bad Plus***

It’s supposed to be gorgeous here this weekend.  I NEED the sun.  should be perfect.

Have beautiful weekends!

xo~betsy

***Song of the Moment: Weeks of Rain, by Hauschka***

My sweet sis-in-law gave us 4 deliveries of fresh veggies, fresh eggs, fresh bread, fresh cheese and whatever other fresh goodness local Hood River Organic farm wanted to share with us.  I was GIDDY with excitement over this generous Christmas gift.  Every two weeks when the leafy-green box arrived, I practically knocked the deliveryman over when I jumped on him with jumbled gibberish non-sentence-forming enthusiasm.  We did things with vegetables we’d never done before.  ummmm…yeah.   This is totally PG, people.  Check out the sexy geometry.

root vegetable baked fries.  parsnip fries.  what?  yes, I said, parsnip fries.  root vegetable gibberish so satisfying yum.

crispy mushroomness pods.

beat filled beet bombastic bellies

What the!?  What IS it?  anything that looks this cool MUST be good for the soul.  a little food art dance in my belly.

What??  This is what:  I love veggies and fresh pregnant men!!

A big ol’ fresh Friday to you all.

~betsy

***Song of the Moment: Tonight , by Lovers***

]]> http://www.betsyandiya.com/blog/things-that-are-cool-on-friday-fresh-vegetables-and-pregnant-men/feed/ 2 http://www.betsyandiya.com/blog/random-pop-color-i-could-eat/ http://www.betsyandiya.com/blog/random-pop-color-i-could-eat/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:43:39 +0000 betsy http://www.betsyandiya.com/blog/?p=1714 Sunday was spontaneity at its finest.

Coffee.  Lady Bug.  Salvaged wood.  Record store.  Astral Weeks.  Rega Turntable.  Surprise-a-friend Sunday.  Saint Cupcake.

Dakota and the Humane Society.  Swedish meatballs.  New sheets, high thread count, mm.  Pictures in toy bins.  Colanders.  Frozen yogurt.  TJs and free coffee.  Good talks and reading.  Scrabble.

Silence.

I feel like I could live in these perfect creations by the inimitable Betsy Walton.   The colors and their combinations astound me.  I own a favorite shirt by the artist which was a gift from W (I think he purchased it at Crafty Wonderland…I’ll be there again for the spring show).  I didn’t put it all together until I started seeing her work more and more around town… and finally I realized she is in some of the sweet stores I also sell in.  It’s official:

I am smitten.  (Plus, she has a great first name…)

so, like me,  take this color and get through your Mondays!   ~betsy

***Song of the Moment:  Sweet Thing, by Van Morrison***

“If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with!  love the one you’re with!!”

what.  WHAT!? really.  I mean, really?  Reeeeeally, Stephen Stills?  I mean, I know Billy Preston was a hugely influential human being, but really?  Did you really mean that?

Those are the thoughts I had as a 7 year old, staring out the backseat windows, listening to car music and finding myself slipping into the catchy groove.  I would always start singing along and when I found myself there, I would stop and think—is that really what I want in my life–what I have to look forward to??  being the leftover choice?  and just going along with it?  And then I would have a mind protest.  Yes, this is what happened in the 80s, in my little developing brain, looking out the window on sunny Sundays after church.

I mean sure, that’s greeeat for the chooser, but the leftover—the leftover then truly gets the shaft, no?:

Chooser:  Man, I sure wish I could be with fill-in-the-blank.  Man, I miss fill-in-the-blank so much; my heart truly aches.

Leftover:  Wow, I sure do love being with Chooser.  I hope Chooser feels the same about me…goo goo.

Chooser:  Well, it’s too difficult to be with the one I really want to be with and oh…hey…look at this sweet little Leftover thing sitting next to me.  I guess it wouldn’t be too bad if I gave it a shot.  something is definitely better than nothing.

Leftover: Gosh, could it be love?

Chooser:  “hey, Leftover, do you wanna like really hang with me.  You’re cool.  I like you. ”

Leftover:  “YES!!  I really like you too!”

hmmmmm.  fishy.  And my little impressionable  imagination always expected I would be the Leftover.  ugh.  it hurt so much already, and I wasn’t even near the threshold of grown-up love.

While I still believe this whole idea is a bad one, in terms of relationships with human beings, I haaaave begun to embrace it where objects are concerned.

It works for that, I think.  This morning when I walked out of our tiny St. Johns condo, I had this mushy thought…”I love you, condo.”  The thought jumped out at me.  I couldn’t believe it!  I’ve spent months and months fighting this thought.  I mean, I’ve really put energy into it.  Ever since W and I merged our physical lives, I’ve struggled with our arrangements.

Yes, the condo is very very small.  It’s not in the neighborhood I would have opted to live in, had I been given the choice.  I don’t think the outside is the most charming.  Though this hasn’t happened much lately, we used to wake up to bar-closing drunken expletives trailing down the street.  And we’re still seeing completely annoying inartistic graffiti greet us on grumpy mornings before work.  and whiny whiny whine…But…

It’s so cozy inside.  It houses some of our lovely things, yes.  But it also houses us—keeps us warm, reminds us of funny things we said/did, holds our first 6 months of marriage, it’s sweet, it’s modest… and the neighborhood is actually one of the most beautiful in the city.  For me, Cathedral Park is competing for the top slot of the most beautiful parks in Portland, second only to the park we got married in.  The St. Johns community is exactly my favorite kind—non-pretentious, honest workers, trying to be the best it can be.  And recently I discovered, we actually do have friends who live up here.

picture from columbiariverimages.com

we have a place to call home.

with that alone, I have no problem loving the one I’m with.

***Song of the Moment: True or False, by Bishop Allen***

It comes out of that place of being slightly uncomfortable, but once it’s there, it just goes wild…

there it is.

and then it sort of takes off.

and once it’s going…

…it would be MORE awkward to turn it off…

…so we let it play out.

and see where it takes us…

The best is when we figure we can take a stab at those ridiculously unbecoming model poses.

hmmm…  it’s the face.  if the face is wrong, it throws the whole thing off.  The expression is key.  Look how I NAIL it in these last few pics.

yes.  if you hesitate, you’re in trouble.  it’s all about follow through, folks.  and then you’re smooth sailing—picking berries at prom.

Boots:  Portland Outdoor Store.

Textured Tights:  Nordstrom.

Vintage navy blue slip:  Folly.

Ocean Dress: Stewart & Brown.

Cowboy Shirt: Vintage shop in NY.

Glasses: Amy Sacks.

Sassy Hoops: betsy & iya.

I hope you all have colorful and productive Wednesdays in your own ridiculously awkwardly awesome model poses!  (If you choose to do any, please please take a pic and send it my way.)

***Song of the Moment: About Face, by Grizzly Bear***

It turns out that my Old Turns New line is super popular; I never even had the chance to add most of them to my online shop.  I have nearly sold out of the pieces I created for the Junk to Funk show and subsequent holiday events.  Radish was a HUGE champion of that work during the holidays and after…and I’m so thrilled by it all.  This line has shocked me out of ANYTHING ordinary—and i LOVE it.  I can’t wait to make more.

In the spirit of sustainability, I’d like to introduce two folks whose work embodies that idea.   Two folks who truly inspire me and who I’d like to collaborate with one day:

1) Isaac B. Watson and his amazing Focal Length Designs.I WILL own one of his rad cuffs one day.  I am awed by his creative, agile mind and his infectous, positive attitude.  Every time I see him, he makes me feel happy.  Isaac and I have already been cooking up some steamy yum ideas together.  (Remember that men’s jewelry line I mentioned…???)

speaking of collaboration…check out the amazing project he’s working on with Etsy and local art school PNCA:  I Heart Art, Portland.  I’m sad that I won’t be able to make the opening meet ‘n’ greet on February 26th, (because I’ll be at the OLYMPICS..what!?)…but YOU should definitely go!

2) Lindsay Jo from Maple XO.

For 5 years, Lindsay Jo (a super betty skateboarder), has transformed old, otherwise useless, skateboards into fine fine pieces of jewelry.  I looooove the bangles she makes!  We sat next to each other at the Radish Underground event, where we were making custom jewelry for Valentine’s Day and well…we sort of…fell in love (in a fellow-crafy-jewelry-maker-on-valentine’s kind of way).

I’m so excited about the possibility of working with these two geniuses one day.  I’ll definitely let you know when the magical meetings occur.

In the meantime…Happy Tuesday!

***Song of the Moment: The House with Two Front Doors, by The Finches***

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