Sew much fun creating....

Groovy Whooty

Absolutely love the crazy eyebrows

It's a perfectly beautiful, spring day in Las Vegas.
The kind of day you want to be outside soaking up the sun or putting all of your energy into creating something as beautiful as the day. I'm taking advantage of the sunlight that is bathing my office right now and working on my new Whooty owl spring collection...

Some of the flowers are just beginning to bloom; filling the desert with a palette of color. My new owls all have very distinct personalities and fun, bright fabrics.

Finished up a little design session and have some fun new wing patterns in the works...

 Michael's had a good sale yesterday so I got a package of Cork tiles to post all of my ideas, fabrics, and projects...

Just one of many over ambitious projects to complete before our company arrives. This chandelier has been sitting in my office, taking up space for a couple months now. Nothing like a tight deadline to kick you into full gear... I scored this rusty, old chandelier at a garage sale for 5 bucks. Matt hasn't liked it from day one but I am hoping a nice coat of paint will turn him around....  I was thinking of hanging it over my desk. I'll post pics of how it turns out:)

Burrowing Ground Owl

I took a short break to walk the puppies and I finally took a decent picture of our ground owl friend. I was lucky to get even this grainy picture because about two seconds later he flew off followed by the hound dog... I will have to make a trip out there solo to get a good picture next time. At least you can finally see our little friend. Pretty soon there will be babies:)

My creative partner in crime and I have come up with a great new gift idea! Now you can order customized memory blocks to mark a special day or occasion. We can even make customized owls to match..

Mining Division Updates-Prepping for the Gold Show

                              This trip was all work and no play... 

We made a big decision to be vendors in the upcoming Annual Gold Show here in Las Vegas. The show will be hosted by the South Point Casino on April 21st and 22nd and be sponsored by the GPAA.  We will have our own booth to display our PayDirt bags, mining artifacts, desert specimens, and of course Poobird's Rarities... We are super excited to be vendors but we have lots of work to do before April gets here...feel free to come by and visit us at the show!

Matt getting his shovel on while I eat up all the desert floor...

Nice little picker waiting millions of years just for me

The last few trips we have been working wash #2 and have been chasing the gold as we continue down the wash. This trip we hit a nice pocket of bedrock where I was seeing gold flakes pretty consistently while vacuuming. Matt calls my job, "the glory job", although I don't agree. Hunched over on my hands and knees vacuuming the bedrock, tearing it up and then polishing it with a bristle brush to make sure every last particle of gold is in my bucket. Most of the time you don't see any gold while your working the bedrock but when you do it's hard not to chirp with joy. That's the part he likes!  Every time I find one I holler for Matt and he comes running to see.

A gorgeous gold specimen... Matt thinks it looks like state of NC but I think it looks like a guitar or CB... You be the judge. Feel free to post what your opinion is...

 This particular stretch I found was so good, that about the time he would get back to the dry washer and start running another bucket I would be yelling for him again. To put it in perspective this little section was only about 2 feet.  That two feet did offer up some nice pickers though.  In these desert washes the gold is all over but it sort of congregates in little clumpings. As I went along the flakes seemed to get a little bigger and finally we unearthed a beautiful picker!

Not only did we find one but as I started to work around it  I pulled back a sheet of rock only to find another sizeable picker! Matt and I have been gold prospecting for around 5 years now and these were our largest gold specimens to date... What a way to start our trip...

 

Glamping on our Gold Claim

We made it back from the claim with a little more gold, a lot more bruises, and completely exhausted... We got back around midnight on Friday and I spent Saturday night in a coma. Even the dogs need to recuperate from this  stretch of 10 days...

Hot coffee, summer sausage, and eggs in a basket

 Going down to the claim is like coming home. It was so nice to see our white wall tent shining back at us when we drove over the hill.  We love it down there so much we are considering living on the claim part time.

It's so calming to the soul, even though you never have a moment to sit down and rest. It's still a refreshing escape from the city.

  I mean how many places can you be using your outdoor restroom and be bird watching or see shooting stars... Not too mention the shenanigans the military base runs at night... Very cool

Enjoying my cute enamel coffee cup!

You're constantly working while you're there but it forces you to focus on the moment and task at hand so you're never stressed about tomorrow... Honestly, you are just too tired at the end of each day to care. Every meal tastes amazing because you are so hungry and even a military cot feels like a Serta sleeper after a hard day of hauling 70lbs buckets of rocks around. You think I exaggerate but trust me it's the truth! We actually weighed one of our concentrate buckets when we got home. Who needs a gym when you own a gold claim. I may have jacked up hands but I have nice biceps and calves. 

Our setup... After 3 popped air mattresses we decided to use old school military cots. Pain in the butt to assemble but it gets you off the ground where the scorpions and tarantulas lurk. While it's cold we have two feather duvets on there too. Who said roughing it had to be uncomfortable...  That would be what you call glamping...

Happy Valentine's Day Gold Nugget

Super excited over our first nugget of the day...

Two days in Vegas was barely enough time to get all our laundry washed and repacked, groceries purchased and prepped, and all of our items shipped. In fact, I was shipping stuff the morning we left. Thank goodness there is a coffee shop by my shipping store. We were in such a rush to get back to our claim we left right after Matt got off work. I packed us up the best I could the night before and the next morning we loaded up all of our gear and I drove us down. It wasn't until we stopped at the coffee shop to fuel up our tummies for the journey ahead that I looked down at the paper and realized it was Valentine's Day. I think the most we have ever done for this holiday is a late brunch but this year was very special for us. How many women get to dig up there own gold on Valentine's Day? 

I let out a shriek of pure joy when this beauty appeared

Eventually, we will take some of our gold and have it forged into our wedding bands. It's true love when you're willing to spend all day looking for a little fleck of gold for your wedding bands. 

When we moved out here 3 years ago we drove across country and Matt wanted so bad to stop at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. How cool would that be to dig up all your own gold and even a diamond to make your own wedding rings! Work screwed up our leisurely schedule and we had to cut out a few stops along the way:( 
I don't need a diamond anyway. I'm thinking a special wedding band forged of our own gold will be just perfect.

What a perfect plant to see in full bloom on Valentine's Day... This is a Fairy Duster... First bloom of the season.

Hope all of my Whooty Valentine customers LOVED their owls!

Buckets of Buttons

If your ever passing through Arizona take a moment to visit a little town called Wickenburg. It has an old school charm, with some excellent food and amazing thrift store shopping... Not to mention it's nestled away in the beautiful Sonoran desert. It's like a scene out of the Roadrunner cartoons in some places out their...  

I think the first time I stepped foot in this store a chirp of pure joy escaped my lips! Seriously, how many places do you visit that actually have a treasure chest full of vintage buttons... 

I could have spent hours playing in that chest of buttons like a little kid... And just around the corner is another chest of cream, white, and glass buttons... 

This is only a small sampling of a much larger collection from a very sweet woman. I call her the button lady because they seem to find her. She has thousands at her home in her own private collection and what she sells in the store are just the extras.

 The building is an old brothel, much of it original. It sits right at the entrance to the downtown and I am sure was once  the place to visit for a drink and a good time. You gotta love the southwest mining towns and their rich history...

If I had only known when I was little how hard it would be to find skeleton keys one day... My grandparents owned an old Victorian home so I spent many a afternoons exploring every nook and cranny of the beautiful old house and I always loved the skeleton keys my Grandmother left in the furniture...  I couldn't help but pick out a few from this little plate of trinkets... Wait till you see what we have planned for these little guys in our Etsy store!

My stash of treasures after an hour of perusing my favorite store ever So I discovered all kinds of little trinkets that I am excited to repurpose... I absolutely LOVE my enamel coffee cup with the little flowers and blue trim... That is going to be a perfect way to start my day on the claim. Of course I stocked up on buttons, they go so fast and I can't wait to use the key holes and old skeleton keys... My girlfriend and I have some fun ideas for those...

 I saw this and thought what a cool southwest decor piece! It's so easy to make yourself and absolutely unique... I will definitely be on the hunt for old stirrups when I am out garage sale shopping now.

I love the old crates as shelving too. Matt and I do something similar only we use old ammo crates and explosive boxes as furniture... An antique missile box as your coffee table makes a great conversation piece! In fact we bought it from this shop. The owner's husband found it in an old mine and brought it home. As soon as I saw it I thought how cool would that be in our living room babe! Matt thought I was nuts at first but soon loved the idea of ammunition boxes as our furniture... 

The wood on these old boxes is just beautiful.

Full Moon on the Gold Claim

It feels like I haven't posted anything for a month now.... Just before we left I was busy sewing up an order of Valentine Owls and packing for our trip. This month we are going down to the claim twice. 4 days down, 2 back in Vegas and then another 4 on the claim... Talk about gold fever...

We just got back to Vegas late last night from our first 4 day stint. The days were long, dirty, and hard but at the end of each day you feel like you've done something.

Our mornings start off with the  chatter of birds around 6am, followed by a 70lbs furry blanket of kisses, begging to go greet the new day.  While the puppies are exploring the campsite for any intruders during the night I start on the fire and breakfast... My favorite breakfast food out here is definitely french toast and summer sausage bites. The french toast cooks up real easy on a cookie sheet turned upside down over the fire grate and while that's cooking I fry up a little summer sausage in my cast iron skillet. Pair that with a nice cup of coffee and the smell of sweet cholla wood burning and you have yourself a beautiful way to start your day... It doesn't hurt when Matt finds a little color in our concentrate bucket to get us motivated for the day either...

Spring has already begun in the Sonoran desert... The birds are taking up residence in any available cacti, a blanket of green covers the rocky ground, and brilliant orange poppy's are popping up through the rough terrain. 

We even have a resident owl that sings us to sleep at night. On our way out we managed to get a glimpse of him before he took off. 

A wise old jackrabbit spends the morning and evening teasing poor Hitch while he snacks on all the fresh grass sprouting up. He comes right up to camp the brave little thing...

We haven't seen too many jackrabbits surprisingly. Our neighbor tells us that's because over by their claim a 200lbs mountain lion is lurking around at night.  As soon as Matt heard that he made sure I had my gun with me at all times... That's a BIG kitty.










This trip we were lucky to get a full moon each night... Absolutely beautiful with the Saguaro cacti guarding the hilltops. We've also learned a thing or two about desert wood... The only decent wood around here to burn for a long hot fire is mesquite. It burns nice and hot and has a mild sweet smell. But the best wood for tender is the Cholla cactus. They grow like trees out here so there is always some old dead cholla laying around. It's actually beautiful wood so I collect the good specimens and the rest I pile by the fire for tender. It produces the sweetest smoke ever. It's really a wonderful scent, it's kinda like my desert perfume now:) 

So we worked wash #2 pretty hard in this section and it's time for us to start moving down... That means shoveling off a few feet of overburden. Matt is a shoveling master thankfully... First you have to move all the smaller rocks and boulders out of the way and then the back breaking shoveling begins. When we first started all of this I could barely  move our 200lbs generator. I had to do it in steps with him. Now I can dead lift the sucker. Who needs a gym when you own a gold claim:)


We found a layer of false bedrock and in between the false layer and the bedrock were some nice gold flake specimens... Not much in the way of consistent gold but the flakes were worth all of the effort to break apart the rocks. We figure if a root can work it's way down so can the gold....

 Just that little section took the better part of our morning to do...

A little farther down from this the wash narrows and bends into another main wash. We are working our way down to the intersection of the two washes... The next four days we hope to move through some serious material... Hopefully we will find some good color in this part of the wash for our PayDirt bags on eBay...

Jenn worked this section hard hoping to find a nice picker under that rock...

Mining Division Updates

Jenn's thrift store desert fashion...
And we found a nice piece of old wood to
use as a shelf. Excited to hang it up...
We call that a desertique :)

When we aren't living it up on the claim pioneer style we are devoting all our time and energy into our new business. Matt and I are just bubbling with excitement over all the possibilities.Even when we are out walking the dogs we are brainstorming ideas and I always have my faithful journal to jot down random thoughts while he is driving. You just never know when you might think of it again. 

I think in the month of February we are going to go down and work the claim at least two trips. We have company coming towards the end of the month so at some point we'll have to sit still and get the house ready. I have so many house projects I have put on the back burner... I still need to reupholster our bar stools that I got for 3 bucks at a garage sale. Solid wood, retro bar stools! They came from an old bar here in Vegas; if only they could talk.  I will definitely have to add that to my to do list for the month... Oh and garage sales/ estate sales are where it's at! We buy almost everything that way now. You never know what little treasure you might find cast off into the dark abyss of a garage...

The mining division has really taken off. Over the last two days we have sold over 6 bags of our panning concentrate on eBay. We do everything ourselves from digging up the dirt, processing the material, then we bring it all back to Vegas to sew up the bags and get them packaged. I really like the way our gold bags have turned out... The logo took some serious time but I think it's the perfect mix of Matt and I.

On our last trip down to the gold claim we were in a race against a storm front so we were vacuuming up dirt as fast as we could in an effort to move through some material. You can't hear much of anything with the generator running and the shop vacs right in your ear so Matt when you hear him yelling it's either gold or for me to grab a gun...I always wear my Sig .22 just in case and there is always a shotgun within reach but this time it was definitely gold. He swore up and down he had just sucked up a big gold flake. We didn't have time to check it out that moment but boy was he right on the nugget!

Our .22gram golden fish nugget

Today we were shipping bags of dirt and Matt likes to run a couple scoops through the gold wheel to make sure people are still getting some color.  while we were doing a couple scoops  this beautiful nugget appeared.I could hear him yelling from the garage he was so excited. Makes us wonder what we have been giving away! 

It really is amazing how beautiful and intricate this little gold nugget is. It looks just like a little, golden fish and it weighs .22grams.

We can't wait to get back down to the gold claim and dig up all the gold nuggets! Boy do we have gold fever bad:)

Matt playing with the new scale...

Our new Mining Division investment, a gold scale.  Matt found this cool website called, Old Will Knott Scales... Try and say that five times fast:)  They have an old timey feel and great customer service. We ordered our scale Sunday night and it was delivered Tuesday morning! Literally, just after Matt pulled out our new golden fish nugget. Now we can sell each individual gold nugget on eBay too.

It's so exciting to know that we are the first people to ever see this little nugget. It's been hiding for millions of years and we found it!

Taking Time To Climb Some Rocks

Beautiful views from the Thrust Fault Trail....

We have been so busy working on our business we hadn't even been out to RedRock yet this year. Some of our good friends are back in Sin City for 3 months. So we had to take them out  to stretch their legs after their two day drive and we were overdue ourselves. 

Hitch the hound dog LOVES this place. He has chased countless jackrabbits, bayed at the burros, rocked mountain sheep, tracked mule deer, bouldered most every trail out there, nibbled on sweet grass in the spring, splashed through cool springs, bulldozed through fresh snowfall, and along the way met some pretty cool pups.

On our way through the scenic drive Hitch flew from one window to another baying the entire way... He didn't want to miss a thing and he let everyone now he was back...

If it wasn't for this beautiful place we might not have settled in Las Vegas. Sunday was a day to unwind, get away from people, and enjoy nature...  Although, RedRock was packed... So we didn't get too far from people but nonetheless it was a perfect day with friends. 

If your visiting Vegas I recommend making the time to check out RedRock Canyon. The Willow Springs Area and Calico Basin are our favorites. Great places to see petroglyphs, mountain sheep, and natural springs. You can take the trail less traveled and before you know it feel like your the only person out there.   It's truly a beautiful place...