Spooky Things

If you came here by one of the invitations I leave with every Ebay or Etsy purchase, you will soon see where the item you bought, came from. It's a wonderful place and like one person recently told me, it is like working at a park. Yeah, I guess it is, but it is a park with mystery. I have many stories to tell about the poltergeist activities that I experience here, and this is one of them.

Every morning, I must unlock this massive and old house and walk through the kitchen to get the cash box for the day, since I need it for running the antique shop that is in the barn. Being an old house, it has doors between every room and hallway. I imagine, years ago before central heating, it was hard to keep such a house warm, so they must have closed doors and lived in smaller areas. When I walk into the kitchen, believe it or not, there are 6 doors that all go to different places. One door is to a laundry room, one goes to the back stairway that leads the the scary double door basement, one goes to a pantry, the next to a stairway to the heart of the cellar, the next goes upstairs and then we have the door to a passage room that eventually leads to the dinning room. It's extremely odd. Every day I walk in, I check the two doors that are always closed. One of those is to the upstairs and the other is to the basement. I know they are closed and I am the only one here through out the entire week, so if one door is opened even slightly, I will rush out respectfully but quick. This particular day was like the others, very routine and without a hitch, Yeah, I checked those two closed doors as I rushed to the drawer with the cash-box. I go inside from time to time to use the bathroom and such and all was well and quite normal. At the end of the day, I needed to go in and replace the cash-box into it's proper place and as I opened the kitchen door, I glanced over to the doors, and the door to the basement was wide open! I scooted ever so quickly across the kitchen and replace the box and scooted right back out, but before I left the kitchen, I reached over, with goose bumped arms and hair standing on end, to the basement door and slowly closed it and LOCKED it!

I would have gotten a picture of the opened door (the one on the right) but I was just too spooked to do it.

Ghost Stories of Harmonie Hall

I remain employed by the family who owns this fabulous and historical place called Harmonie Hall. I haven't been completely spooked out yet. Since I have begun working here, I have remained curious about it's history. While going about my daily routines, I often think about the people who built it and the history. I have the keys to this multi-roomed home and I am left to my own devices while manning the antique barn. The barn has no bathroom facilities, but the house does, thankfully. One afternoon I needed to use the bathroom, so I unlocked the side door and made my way through the labyrinth of rooms and hallways to the bathroom. Once I got there and closed the door, I began thinking about the house and I wondered about the people who once walked this labyrinth the way I just did, when I heard a dull thud which came from the center room. The electricity in the air was on the increase and I dreaded leaving the bathroom, but I still made note of the noise and tried to find it's source. As I made my way towards the sound, I noticed a framed paper that was once propped up against the wall, that was now leaning precariously against a desk item on the top of a bookcase. With the sense of something of mystery occurring, I went to prop it back into it's place and noticed it was a paper about the original owner of Harmonie Hall!




It seems as if the spirits of this place are beaconing me to know it's history somehow. I proceeded to read this fascinating true tale and learned many things. The house was built somewhere between the late 1700's to the early 1800's and was originally a very large farm. It became the "model farm" for all of NY. It consisted of hundreds of acres and was the kind of farm everyone dreamed of. I imagine it was lots of work for the family and it brought them fame and fortune. The man in the paper I saw was actually the son of the original owner and builder of this home, but he became the second owner and worked hard to make this farm house and farm estate one of the best in the country. He and his family are now buried in the cemetery that is located out back. I quickly propped the frame back into position and made a hasty retreat out the kitchen door.



Since I have been "invited" by the spirits of this place to learn about them, I have decided to visit the graves of those who worked and lived at the farm. One day after I closed up the shop, I walked to the front gate of the cemetery. You see, the family plots are so historical that they are fenced in with chain link, and gated. It is quite a walk to get to them. You must go to the front iron gates and open them, then walk all the way back in till you get to the stone wall. The stone wall is the same height all the way around and the only way in, is over the steps that go up the wall and then back down into the abyss of the graveyard. It is one of the most strangest graveyards I have visited. I truly felt odd, yet welcomed into this place. It seems so secret, yet so well seen from the outside. I now know where they rest and it is where they wanted to be for their final resting place, I am sure.

Please Don't Tempt Me

The other day at "The Hall", the carpenter came to repair the side steps. I usually use these steps to get into the house, but today they were gone. The carpenter took them away, so I had to use the back door. This back door opens up to a back storage room. On one side, a short set of stairs go up to the door to the kitchen. One the other side are 3 steps going down to a doorway. How could I stop myself from exploring a basement! I knew this must be the destination of this passageway.

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I cautiously approached the door and with a bit of force, popped it open. Instead of seeing a basement, I saw a narrow short dark passage with another door just like the other. I felt as if I was in a Twilight Zone episode, going down a tunnel that never ends. When I opened the second door, I expected to see another door, but I didn't. I saw a brightly lit basement room. The basement, as I discovered, was a series of rooms, all of them dusty with cobwebs as you would expect. The rooms got darker and scarier as I proceeded to explore. I really felt uncomfortable in there, since it isn't my house and all, but I love old dusty basements. They are the cornerstone of any house and the first thing built, so they always fascinate me. You could feel the spirit of the house down there. I didn't want to stay long for obvious reasons, so I grabbed my trusty camera and took some shots for you to see.

In between those 2 odd doors, I saw an opening, like a dark hole crawl space. I could not really see into this secret space, but my camera could. I got my camera into position and mustered up enough courage to stick my arm into this hole and took this picture. I think there is a secret passageway through there. I can kind of make it out and would love to crawl into this secret passage, but I am chicken. I have heard stories about the underground railroad and about some people who once rented this house and found a passage way that actually lead to the barn. Maybe this is it.

Ghostly Adventures at Harmonie Hall

Even the name Harmonie Hall conjures up images of historical mysteries. I have been very fortunate to land a job at this very old place, selling off many antiques that pass through the massive doors of the barn. Last week we had so many nice pieces of furniture come in, that the floors are covered and we have no place left for another piece. We even have to stack them sometimes, but they will sell.

One type of item we do sell that is not an antique, but more of an art, are these hand painted signs done by the Amish. They say all types of things. Sayings of faith, Americana as well as humorous. We have a big variety of signs. I like to set them up to represent an image, for example, I found an old cement sitting dog with a very worried face, and an eagle flying with it's talons out. I put the two together as if the eagle is attacking the poor little dog, with the sign in front of it saying, "Why Worry When You Can Pray". It just amuses me to do this kind of thing. This is all leading up to my true experience with the spirits of the barn. One night as I was closing up, I was all alone and in the back of the barn when I heard something that sounded like a plank falling. I went over to the room to investigate. There, in the middle of the floor as if it fell from the sky, was a 3' long plank. Very puzzled, I picked it up to see what it was. It was one of those signs and I heard a voice inside saying, "read it.". It said, "Welcome To Our Barn". I knew right then, I was welcomed. The electricity was in the air and it would not go away till I got out of there, and get out I did! I was okay with it, but it still gives me an unsettling feeling.

My New Job/Back in the Saddle Again

I haven't added to my blog in a while, but now, I find that I can take the time to fill you in on all my new adventures. After being "retired", once I sold off my antique business three years ago, I felt like I was out of the loop and missing it. I have remained in the antique business online, but have been doing this from my house. Even though it was a pleasure to be able to relax and garden, sit on my deck and watch the world go by, I really missed being out with all the people that I have made friends and acquaintances with all those years while I managed my shop. So here I am, back in the saddle again.

This place I am now working at is a wonderful place to be. The shop is in an old carriage house in Bainbridge, NY and it is called Harmonie Hall. The House that came with the carriage house is probably over 200 years old and was once a 200+ acre farm owned by the Bush family in the very early 1800's. The family cemetery is located out back and the spirits still dwell inside the carriage house and the house itself. I have been here for only 2 weeks and already have some ghostly stories to tell.

The people who now own this beautiful estate are very kind and I love working for them. The only problem I see with this situation, is that the barn or carriage house is very large and drafty and so, being upstate NY, in the winter time, I am going to freeze! The barn is filled with treasures from old estates and the owner brings in a new load every week. We have loads of early furniture and the prices are so inexpensive, that I can not help but to purchase a piece now and again. GRRR.... like I really have room for that!

iOffer is not an Auction

In order to continue my crafting fun, I must sell the items I so happily create. I not only sell on Etsy, I sell on Ebay, DeWanda and on ioffer. Clicking on the banner will send you there. If you haven't checked it out before, it is time you did. I believe it is turning into a fun place to buy from. Many people on iOffer are selling on Ebay as well but instead of playing the "biddem up" game, you may purchase or make an offer on what you see and like. Go ahead a take a peek and let me know what you think.

Embarking or barking up a new tree

Anyone who knows me, knows I can't stick with one thing too long. Or is it that there are just too many interesting things to do?? I don't know which it is but it makes me crazy.
The glass studio has been really nice and still is, but there was all this space on the opposite side of the basement. My aunt Lynn and I have been weavers and we both own floor looms. Hers was safely in storage and use to belong to her aunt. Her aunt bought it in the 1930's and it is a nice primitive 2 harness. My loom is a 4 harness LeClerc Floor loom that I disassembled years ago for lack of room, and had stored it in the garage, when 2 years ago, we had a very major flood and it was covered in muddy disgusting contaminated river water for nearly a week before the water receded. Well, here was my chance at dragging out the pieces of hard rock maple LeClerc goodness out of that garage and into the tub for a good scrub, and to reassemble it back to it's grandeur. Between her and I we finally got our babies back to workable condition and we are so excited to have the chance to bring them back to life and produce some runners, rugs, fabrics and other goodies. I am so grateful the LeClerc was made so rugged from that hard rock maple. It would have never survived otherwise.

Uglying up NYS

I live in beautiful rural Upstate, NY where a private commercial company has decided to take it upon themselves to build these huge high voltage transmission line towers standing 120 feet tall just to pull power from Utica to NYC. This will pass through 190 miles of beautiful scenic forests and waterways, all the way down through the Delaware River Water Gap area, some of the most scenic areas in the Northeast, just to feed NYC's growing energy needs. They already take our water, now they will take our beautiful scenery, hindering tourism in our already depressed area, and take our health with the effects of these high voltage lines.
The 1,200-megawatt line would cross 154 streams or rivers, 155 mapped wetlands, 65 miles of farmland, seven counties, one city, seven villages and 30 towns.

Yesterday while driving to Binghamton, I saw a sign in the rear window of a passing car. It said, "Conserve Electricity. Turn Off Time Square" This was in protest to the transmission line project, called the New York Regional Interconnection, N.Y.R.I. To read more about it, just Google.

One of My Favorite Arts-Concrete

Spring is just around the corner and one thing I am looking forward to is creating my outdoor art. I have a passion for concrete and I sculpt and mold items from hypertufa. Hypertufa is a mix made from portland cement and other aggregates. I love to experiment with different formulas and make up my own recipes for tufa. I try to make my hypertufa as light and as strong as possible. Someday I plan to work on a formula for hypertufa that will remain strong in high heat so it can be used for outdoor ovens and barbecues.

There is a concrete art that has fascinated me for years. It is a technic called Faux Bois, French for fake wood. With this process, you can create fantasy items that look exactly like wood. I belong to the Garden Art Forum and it has many creative concrete artists there. One of those artist is a very talented faux bois artist. You can find his blog here.
http://fauxboisinconcrete.blogspot.com/

The Joys of Cats

Yes, bloggers block does happen and it did hit me for the past couple of weeks. Lots have happened. We lost our "fat boy" cat Charlie this week to a bad throat tumor, but Tippy, our other cat is so happy to have the house to herself. She was not very happy living with another cat. Fat Boy was the only cat that could even be in the same room with her. She is an "only cat" type feline, and has never before tolerated the company of any other animal. You see, Tippy use to live at the antique mall that I use to manage and own, and one day a pit bull came into the opened front door. Must have wandered off from the neighborhood somewhere. When Tippy laid eyes on that dog, she flew off the front counter like "supergirl" and latched all fours around the dogs head and rode him out the door with fur flying, dog legs flailing, and us screaming! Poor dog. Didn't stand a chance.

We all miss our Fat Boy, but we were happy to end his suffering. We can sometimes still hear his breathing and glimpse a black shadow on the back of the chair or on the cat tree, but it is slowly fading away. RIP Charley.

My Newest Passion, Needle Felting

Find more photos like this on Indiepublic


These are a few of the animals I have felted. I just love to make them and I sell them on Etsy and on Ebay.

Come an visit me on Indiepublic.

Following the Art Trail

As I sit here all cold winter with nothing to do but to eat and put on weight, (grrr...) I get to do a lot of internet surfing. This winter I really got involved with my artsy side and joined Etsy which is fun and I have learned much from it. From Etsy, I learned about DaWanda and joined DaWanda and began listing my items there, then from DaWanda I learned about Indiepublic which is like an artist's colony in the cyber world. I love it. Made a bunch of friends and I am having fun there. I feel like I am following a bread crumb trail somehow.

With the way the economy is, it is getting increasingly difficult to make a living out in the art/craft market. Ebay has gone to the dogs in this department and is slowly sinking in others. Etsy is Ok but not outstanding but I feel like with good management it will improve. I love the idea of a market for arts and antiques. They go together so beautifully and always has. Some sellers on Etsy don't seem to agree, but I don't care.

What else did I do today? Today was my DH's Birthday so I took him out to an indian Tapas restaurant near us. The food was as excellent as always. I can eat Indian food every day. It is my favorite cuisine. My daughter and I made birthday cupcakes this morning. emmm More food to get fat on. I have started on needle felting a white ferret. I dragged down a big bag of raw wool I had in the loft of the garage and pulled a handful of greasy wool out. I washed it and put in hair conditioner. This wool is so soft and white, it is unbelievable. I will enjoy working with it. My hands still smell like lanolin. Now I need to get some koolaid so I can dye it. I can't wait!

Taco the donkey

Here is my little guy I needle felted. I have him on Ebay right now and he is about to live in a new home. He is my first donkey, but not the last. There may be more to follow.

Who's your favorite Candidate?

Are you wondering about how other people feel about the presidential candidates? MTV and Myspace just had Clinton, Obama, Huckabee and my favorite candidate, Ron Paul on (guess the others were too busy or didn't care) and took questions from people off the internet and had a live internet poll on Myspace. It was very interesting. Here are the results.

The Best Kept Secret on the Internet

If you love buying on line. If you love antiques and collectibles. If you love handmade art, jewelry, food, and jewelry supplies, you will love this website. For some odd reason, it is the best kept secret and many people have not discovered it yet. It has thousands of unique items for sale and many artists and crafts people sell here. They are all so very talented and I know, I get drewl on my computer screen whenever I browse. If you haven't been there, you need to. Go to http://www.etsy.com/index.php and have a peek around. It is the best kept secret, but not for long. Due to the changes in Ebay policy, hundreds of new people are signing up every day.
Etsy has no desire to advertise. They leave all promotion up to the sellers themselves to keep the costs down. I really don't know if this is a good approach or not. I love having the small listing fees and all, but sometimes spending a little extra to bring in sales, pays off.

Ebay = Fail

Now Ebay has really shot itself in the foot. If you haven't heard the news, you're not an Ebayer. They announced yesterday a reduction in fees. Well, I thought this was not like them, and I was right. After the lower listing fee announcement, they hit you with a big increase in final value fee. Shocking.... I am not sure how I feel about this since I have 3 antique booths that take nearly 100% of my income due to the weakening economy and high gas prices. Maybe I can still be OK on Ebay, but now they are also controlling the searches. Items being sold by Powersellers with 100% feedbacks will be shown first, then 99%, etc. By the time you get to see what the small people have, you will just become bored with the whole thing and give up. This isn't the only stupid Ebay idea that will be in play soon, they are also making it impossible to leave a bad buyer negative feedback unless you file a nonpaying bidder complaint. Well, this isn't a very fair playing field. Imagine all the negatives the sellers will be getting for every little thing the buyer finds wrong? No more worries about the seller returning the negative. They could use this new power to hold it over the seller's heads to get free shipping, discounts and whatever tricks they can come up with. Most buyers are very nice people in my line of sales, but with other types of merchandise, it gets quite dicey. This is very irritating.

Puking Rainbows

What a day I had. My poor Aunt Lynn was so sick. (oh, you know what's coming) She has a bad flu bug and a fever of 101.5. My poor Uncle, who has his blogspot at http://thewigeon.blogspot.com/, could not handle the care and clean-up required, so I ending up being the nurse for the day. I used the Rainbow vacuum they had, for clean up. It's is big bulky thing, with arms of tubing and confusing attachments, but functional for wet cleanup. It works like a baby shop vac. It's a lot of dough just to have a fancy shop vac, but ok... I needed it and used it. I would have preferred to use my Little Green Machine. It would have done a much better job and would not have been such a hulk to set up and drag around. My poor uncle had to wrestled it to the ground to put the top back on the thing. It would not seat properly and had all these clips, and who knows in which direction it goes in? After 1/2 hour of the wrestling match, we finally got it back in order. Takes up half the closet once put away. If you need a good cleaner, please go with the Little Green Machine. I really appreciated the ease of use and the small amount of space it takes. It's a very powerful machine and it will spray out the cleaning solution from the same nozzle as it sucks up the dirt.
So I got all the bedding washed and Aunt Lynn got filled with fluids and started feeling a tiny bit better. I was able to fire up some glass in the studio as well, so I feel like I accomplished a lot today.

Productive? or Crap

Had one of my usual days. Packed items I sold to go to the Post Office, sewed up gift bags that I pack my items in, stamped "thank you/handmade by" cards, played with BeeBee my quaker parrot and listed a bunch of stuff on Ebay and Etsy. Yes I am a busy person, but I just don't know it. I sell on Ebay under "antiqdealr" and Etsy under "glassandfiber" and "oldthings". I like my old stuff too and will sell anything that is not tied down. My house, back room and garage is a warehouse of stuff to sell. I would love to have it all cleared out, but then, what would I sell? I have 3 booths stuffed to the top at 3 different antique shops. Am I crazy? How did I accumulate all this crap? My van is a rolling storage shed. I can't understand how anyone in this country can be lacking. Crap is everywhere. The problem is finding the proper home for the crap and I spend way too much time in crap management. I live in a big two story victorian home and every room is full of crap. I laugh at Simple Magazine. How can it remain Simple when you know you have to collect every issue. By the end of the year, you have 12 Simple Magazines and no simple way to store them. Well, maybe they can be listed on Ebay.

Fingerless Gloves

My newest item is the fingerless glove. I have been wanting these for a long time. My hands get really cold in the winter, typing on the computer, but I needed my fingers. This was the perfect solution. I looked at them and thought to myself, geeeeze I know how to crochet! I haven't crocheted in years and really felt a need to dust off the old crochet hook and go through my large variety of yarns I seem to collect. I was in shock when I opened the old wooden trunk to discover rolls and wads of fancy yarns! I had such a great time twisting and twirling that crochet hook around the warm softness of the yarns. I never use a pattern, I just let the stitches follow the shape I want and it always comes out perfect. It seems my grandmother was so good at crocheting without a pattern, that when she would see a doily in a store window, she would study it for a few minutes, go home and crochet the same one. I seemed to inherit this talent from her.

My newly crocheted fingerless gloves can be found on Etsy.
http://www.glassandfiber.etsy.com/

Come on in and browse my shop. Coffee is on and I baked cookies!

Etsy Buy Handmade glassandfiber

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Adventures of an A.D.D. Artist

It's quite possible that creativity and attention deficit disorder go together.  Seems like every creative person I know can not stick with one thing at a time.  They are all over the map with ideas and usually work on many projects at once.  This is me.  I will move from developing some fused glass to hypertufa to needle felting.  I need to know it all and do it all.  I guess it is OK.  I am enjoying the ride and as I run out of gas on one project, I become geared up for something new.

My Aunt and I meet in my glass studio twice a week.  It is set up in her large heated basement, which is wonderful, but since it is so roomy down there, we decided to set up our floor looms.  We are bouncing from glass to fiber and back again.  Soon we will be working on our looms.  One loom is a 2 harness from the 1930's and my loom is a Leclerc 4 harness.  It is probably from the 1950's and was used a a school somewhere near Syracuse, NY.  Now you know why I am "Glass and Fiber".