Rohling Studios

Faun and The Red Button Tree

Ok all my knitting friends get ready to drool!  Meet Faun from The Red Button Tree who spins this wonderful yarn!  It looks like an ice cream sunday or cotton candy!...Eye candy for the knitter!

She says she, "Would like to go to school sometime but right now she just makes stuff."  Wow she makes the best stuff!  I would like to go to school at her house and take lessons from her!  I think spinning yarn would be such a cool thing to do. Faun has too many talents to list!  Drop over and see her blog or visit her etsy shop to see what she has for sale.

Somedays I Just Have to Laugh at Myself!

I have to start this blog entry with my sketches of sheepish and grinning pumpkin faces. I designed these a few years ago but sometimes they remind me of the expressions on my own face!  Somedays all you can do is look back and laugh at yourself!  Today was a mixture of good things and a few of those silly moments.  I had some stimulating conversation at work, always a good thing.  After work I met my S&B friends (Stitch and Bitch friends).  Maureen had made plans for us to do something different that the usual get together to catch up and stitch.  We met at Dinner By Design.  Now that might sound like we went out for dinner but actually I came home with a freezer full of entrees!  It is a wonderful concept!  There are several locations  popping up here in the Midwest.  Dinner By Design is a home meal prep kitchen, designed to help folks save time so they can create, bring home and enjoy healthy, delicious dinners in the comfort of their own home.  All the ingredients and the recipes are provided.  We chatted while we put our entrees together and the staff cleaned up the messy dishes as we progressed from one station to another!  All the right measurements of everything, no waste, very quick, I made things I never would have made for myself!  Each entree is completed by putting a sticker on it with cooking instructions!  All I had to do was find my blooming keys when we were all done...that was the hardest part...Really it was!  Don't you hate that!?  I not only misplaced my keys but my cell phone as well.  I'm lucky to have friends who look out for me!  We found both the keys and the cell phone...guess how...yep...they called my cell phone which led me to both!  (*SIGH* they were in the back pocket of my purse which I never used until tonight!)  So that was my adventure for the day.  Now I will have to have someone over for dinner!  Good Night All!

Palmer Cox and The Brownies

I promised to show you a little bit about  Palmer Cox  (who is one of my very favorite illustrators).  I fell in love with his drawings sitting on the floor of the children's library when I was in grade school.  I loved going to the library after school.  School ended at 3:15 p.m.  The bell rang and I couldn't wait to get to the cloak room.  There I would grab my little plaid coat and be off to the library.  It was only a block from the school.  That meant I had almost an hour and a half before I walked to where my father worked to catch a ride home.  I sat in the tall stacks and poured over a new stack of books every day.  I loved the picture books the best!  I fell in love with the Brownies in the Palmer Cox books! 

What I loved the most about the Brownies is that they always stuck together. They got into a fair share of trouble but you always saw them pitch in and try to work things out.  I studied their little faces and the way they ran to help each other.  (I was on the school safety patrol and I liked helping!  I took it very seriously.)

It always seemed that through thick and thin they were there for each other.

They worked together...and.....

They knew how to play together!

They shared my love for fireworks!  (Ooooooooooo I loved sparklers and I still do.)

 

I was finally able to find some of The Palmer Cox books on Ebay.  I was thrilled to get this one.  The binding is torn so that the covers don't hold together.  The copyright simply reads, "Copyright 1887, by The Century Co.  I take good care of it and I love having all the brownies sitting on my shelf in my art/computer room.  Now, I don't have to sit cross legged on the hard library floor...and....I don't even have to wear a skirt because I am not squeezing in time after school to read it!  Here's the cover of my book.

I have been lucky to get several of Palmer Cox's books since then.  A few of these pictures were taken from Another Brownie Book by Palmer Cox.  This book was originally published by the Centrury Company in 1890.  My book is Published by Dover Publications, Inc. in 1966.  The first hardcover publication of the Dover Edition is by McGraw-Hill Book Company in 1967. 

It is really late!  I did get this out to you tonight as I promised.  I hope you enjoy meeting or getting to know Palmer Cox and his Brownies a lot better.  You can read about the Brownie Castle here. Imagine that!  He did what he loved and he got to build a castle too!  You can get downloadable images here.

Bye for now!

John Martin Magazine~1918

OOOOOOOOOOOOO!  Look what I found at an antique store! 

I wasn't able to find much information about these books.  Does anyone know much about John Martin?  As you can see these came from 1918.  I had to share just a couple of the illustrations with you!  They are so fun!  Each one deserves a frame of it's own, don't you agree? 

Aren't they just the sweetest little illustrations? 

The stories are adorable too.  This one kind of reminds me of my Palmer Cox books.  I will share a few of those later tonight with you.  He is one of my favorite illustrators.  So....anyhow....does anyone know anything about these John Martin Books.  If so be sure to let me know.  Hope you enjoy these pics as much as I do.  Have a really nice day!

Claudia

Illustration Friday...Speed

This week's topic for Illustration Friday is "Speed".  I couldn't help but think of a photo I just took and played with in photoshop.  We were looking for a restaurant to stop at and the driver kept speeding by everything that looked interesting.  I finally got my camera out to play with and this came about.  I liked the lighting and it was already slightly blurred by the motion of the car.

Rohling Studios History Album...Friends

Time for another entry from the Rohling Studios History Album.  I have decided to target this idea for an real update so keep watching for it!  This piece was one of our best sellers for years.  I know...it's a little dated now but I still had to share it...as well as a recent story about the saying (which I wrote).  I was at work one day when my daughter called me sounding very excited.  "Mom!..."she said,"You are not going to believe what happened!  I bought a new Gooseberry Patch cookbook and I was relaxing and reading through it.  There was a quote from Walt Whitman on one page and Mark Twain on another and then I turned the page and there was a quote that said,"A good friend, like an apron is comfortable, protecting and, always appreciated a lot."  And then it said..."Claudia Rohling".  Mom, I couldn't believe my eyes!"  I, of course, had to laugh really hard.  I was so happy that the folks over at Gooseberry Patch had made me look good to my daughter!  There is no one else in the world that I would want to impress more than my children!  But, that's not the end of the story...this piece also became a cross stitch pattern for Leisure Arts in their Autumn Celebrations publication in 1990.

   

The point of this whole entry is to say my good friends mean all of this and so much more to me.  Life is all about the people you love and people who give you their friendship.  You know who you are....you helped me when I needed help, you supported me when I needed to be nudged along, you sang to me when my heart needed a song, you painted, refinished, and stitched with me, you gave everything you could to my parents when they needed it, you looked at the stars and the moon with me in the middle of the night, you let your children be a part of my family and mine a part of yours, you cried with me when life was hard and you laughed with me when we did funny unspeakable things, you studied with me when I thought I would never understand, you let me drive when you really wanted to, you made fudge with me and we sat by the lake until we had eaten it all, you worked beside me when the going was tough, you came to my first art show, you jumped in the cold water with me when I told you it wasn't so bad, you understand the ways I am just a little silly, you called me when I was down and you pushed me back up, you keep in touch when it isn't easy, you are the fabric of my life and, you are woven into every bit of my being.  I will always love you, my friends.  Although we sometimes don't talk for years you flash through my mind and the times we have shared together feeds my soul!  Thank you! 

OH NO!

Oh..........Last night I had this big long entry all typed out.  It was almost finished and then my computer went down!  FROZE UP!  ALL GONE!  So, I went to bed!  I read a good book for awhile and chilled out!  I am not the most computer savy or the most patient of folks!  But I am tenacious!  :-)  So here I am again!  I wanted to share a couple of folks I have met thru the blogging.  First I just love these little needle felted bears that Jenn Docherty makes! 

I think they are just adorable!  She lives in NJ and reports that they are waiting for spring to happen there just like we are in WI!

Look at this cute little Chick!  It makes you feel like spring will come!  I'm afraid, here in WI, we have had a very gray winter with lots of rain!  It has been cold again and that makes it hard for the grass to green up.  I did see a rather large mama robin today.  That's an encouraging sign...plus some of my daylilies are starting to pop up!  Nothing much else just yet!  The first warm day everything will be ready to explode, my dogs will love to be outside and I will have to be there too!  I am going to do shorter blogs after my last experience.  I have more people I have met that I would like to share with you...but....one at a time!  LOL!  Have a good Saturday!

Playing in The Studio

The dogs and I have been very content to stay home and play with stuff this weekend!  It has been raining and fairly cold but you wouldn't know it in here!  It feels cozy and I know spring is around the corner. I was trying to figure out what I can do combining my beads and ribbons.  I came up with some fun little kitschy alphabet pieces.  What do you think? 

I am also hear to dispel the idea that studios are neat and tidy!  After this project I had to spend a bit of time cleaning up all the beads that didn't stick to my hands!  They want to roll everywhere! 

Coffee or Latte anyone?  It will be fun to see what direction these take.  Sometimes I just have to put down my pen to play!  Have a great week everyone.

The Ferry Building Marketplace

  While, on my trip to California, I discovered the most wonderful Shops at the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco.  I could virtually shop here forever!)   Sur La Table  carries everything you can imagine for creative entertaining.  My eyes were wide and my "Gimme Gimme" thoughts ran rampant!  Unfortunately my checkbook didn't allow any impulse buying genes to kick into gear!  Their window featured an adorable Hand Painted Family of Rabbits from the Keepsake Collection and a two tiered wrought iron Easter egg stand complete with hand-painted bunnies and chicks. 

  A colorful display of Anodized Ice Cream Bowls  also caught my eye.   

  Other shops:

Far West Fungi carries a wide selection of culinary mushrooms both fresh and dried.

The Cowgirl Creamery  is an Artisan Cheese Shop.

Kingdom of Herbs  specializes in an array of botanical products.

Tsar Nicolai Caviar is a concept I have never seen before...a  "caviar café".

Frog Hollow Farm sells a variety of fresh-from-the-farm organic seasonal fruits.

Miette  is a dainty little pastry shop, inspired by the patisseries of Paris. Check out their cake gallery!  They have the cutest little "Princess Cake" which is always pale green with a pink rose!

And many many more.  (For a list of the all the unique shops in the building click  here.  Have FUN!  I did!