Craigslist Rental Scam Alert

Our house was listed on Craigslist.org as a rental by scam artists from out of the country. I'm told they are probably based in Nigeria.

They just took the pictures and description from the real estate ad and listed the house for a ridiculously low rental price including utilities.

They email the interested parties with a story about how the owners are out of the country working on some charity and need to rent their beautiful home for 4+ years. They tell the people to come and look in my windows and that if they like it, they can have it, just mail the deposit and they will mail the keys. The people never get the keys.

My friend Mary's son sent $1000 for a waterfront condo that was another scam. The police said there was nothing they could do because he sent the money out of the country.

I feel so bad for the excited people coming to look at our house, thinking their dreams will come true, that they can lease a house in this desirable neighborhood for a low rent.

They even used my husbands name for the return email.

Here is an email they sent to someone interested in renting our house who recognized it as a scam and alerted us.:

Hello

Thanks for your keen interest in occupying my house,You should count yourself lucky to meet with this offer.Please note there's compulsory security deposit to move in and i need someone that is ready to take
good care of my house, the rent includes utilities(Water and sewer including
electricity, cable tv) and all amenities inside(Refrigerator, laundry,washer and dryer, ready for internet connection)..You can get back to me if you are truly interested.Just want to let you know that i
will be here for 4years and i have an intention of buying another home when i return but that should be in the nearest future. I intended selling the house but had to rethink that is the reason i looking for
a good tenant my self so i will not regret renting it. There is nobody there to walk you through the property that is reason i sent you the physical address in my first email so you will go see the house
from the outside and let me know if you truly love it so we
will discuss further. It is in a nice and secured neighborhood.
Rent $900
Security Deposit: $500
MONTH TO MONTH OR YEARLY IS ACCEPTABLE.
Below are the specifications: How ready are you to secure the house now? you know some others are interested but if you are ready to secure it then the screening will count. The house is available for you to
move in, so you need fill out this application for quick rental arrangement. As soon as i accept you as my tenant then we will discuss on the rent.
Kindly confirm your interest by filling the form below:
TENANT RENT APPLICATION

It goes on to ask for personal details from the applicant.

In Lion's Bay, British Columbia

I'm with two of my dearest friends, Sharon and Verna, in Lion's Bay. We are here enjoying a 9 day home exchange in one of the most beautiful areas of the world. This picture is of my friends at a viewpoint on the way back from Whistler. We have done some sightseeing, but mostly we have have been playing mexican train and drinking cosmos. Tomorrow, we might take a ferry to Gibsons.

Our House For Sale

This is why I am late with the prints, I've been whipping my house into shape to get it ready for sale.

Here are pics I took:

Behind on prints...

We are listing our house for sale today and I have been so obsessed with getting it ready, I have missed a week+ of prints. I will catch up, because I have a couple days of vacation now and I plan on drawing like crazy.

Tomorrow I will post another designer's chair, and Wednesday I will post some pics of my house all scrubbed and fluffed and as good as I can make it look.

I Designed An Adirondack Chair For Kathy Peterson!

Here is my chair! I hope you like it as much as me and Asher do!

The unwelcoming bird
Asher likes it!

Another unwelcoming bird
Foxglove, one of my favorite flowers
A magnolia and that scary bird!



Spiders!

A few weeks ago, I got a very interesting email, inviting me to participate with 4 other stellar designers to design a chair for Kathy Peterson and the Cedar Store.
I was excited about the prospect and when my chair arrived, all ready to paint, I was even MORE excited! This chair is made of cypress and when my husband put it together, he was amazed at how well it was made. And it did not even need any sanding!

I thought about my design for several days ( I had so many good ideas!) and then a friend said, "you should paint what you love" That is always good advice. So of course it was going to be birds and flowers. I laid down an underpainting of red paint, on a sunny day when everyone else was building us a new deck... and then I sketched in my birds and flowers.
Here is the chair in progress:

I painted over the red with my favorite blue and left bits of it showing. On the arms, I painted two of my favorite birds... they look kind of mad, which I find funny, like my chair is saying don't sit here! Which means I will get to sit there, because I painted the birds and they don't fool me. I also added a couple of spiders, to make sure my chair is available when I want to sit in it. By the way, the birds are from an amazing Taiwanese photographer, Sushyue Liao, I paint using his photos as reference by permission, but if you don't want to find your own amazing photographer, you could find some bird and flower images to decoupage on to your chair. You could start by using the red underpainting, then glue on your images, then paint around them with your favorite color, leaving a bit of the red showing through.

Please stay tuned for the other designers chairs every tuesday for the next three weeks.

8/3 Margot Potter http://margotpottertheimpatientcrafter.blogspot.com/

8/10 Kathy Cano-Murillo: http://thecraftychica.blogspot.com/

8/17 Julianna Hudgins: http://www.juliannaproductions.com/blog/

Here is Pat Sloan's chair from last week: http://patsloan.typepad.com/pat_sloans_corner/2010/07/im-a-design-my-adirondack-designer-.html

And CLICK HERE to Kathy's blog for sneak peeks and info!

And here is the Cedar Store website where you can buy your own wonderful cypress chair to paint!

Thank you, Kathy, for giving me this amazing opportunity. I loved every minute of it!

New print Week 13 print project "Looking for a Nest"

I have not been able to paint this week. But I just realized I could use this bird from the chair I painted for Kathy Peterson's Design My Adirondack for my print. This bird looks how I feel.

I have been working on getting the house ready for sale and my studio is so clean it hurts. I am being ruthless about getting rid of stuff. And hopefully soon, I will be finding a new nest.

Next tuesday I will be showing the chair I designed for Kathy Peterson.

As usual, the bird image is thanks to my Taiwan friend, Sushyue Liao

Camping At The Gorge

It was really hot. We camped at Wanapum State Park. It was windy. It was crazy windy. I did not go to the concert, but I had more fun this weekend than I've had in a year. It was fun because of these kids. They lift me up. They heal my heart.
Jakah
Chelsey
Micah and Flight after Jamie took her swimming
Micah
Dave, Zoe, Chelsey and Jakah
Niki
Jamie
Amie

Here's a picture of most of them with Dave and the dogs down at the lake.

Bryce, April, Chelsey, Coco, Dave, Zoe and Flight, Jakah, Niki, Amie, missing is Chris T, but not forgotten. He was out buying me some gin.

If this doesn't break your heart...

For all the children who love their mothers out there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhEz-KhcQfs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHrHY5WCKLY&feature=related

I was so moved by the "Fix You" Travis Wall piece on SYTYCD. It's one of my all time favorite songs, Allison one of my all time favorite dancers, and it's about trying to fix your mother. It killed me.
I can't find the 3rd one that shows the judges comments.

Week 12 Print, Portrait Of A Bear With Very Dark Thoughts

I have been painting myself silly on the project for Kathy Peterson, it is due on monday and since we are going to The Gorge, I needed to get it done today, and I did. Whew! I also painted this little bear today. He has issues.

Don't ask me to tell you what his thoughts are, you don't want to know. Really.

He's on Etsy here

Sunday Night

I am working on a secret project with Kathy Peterson. She is also having a giveaway here. You should go check it out.

I have to get it done this week, as we are going to Columbia Gorge to see Kings Of Leon. Or maybe not, I might chicken out about going to the concert, but we are going camping for sure, so I will be working on my project this week to get it done before the deadline. I'm quite excited about it.

I also will be posting the print on Tuesdays from now on. I'm pretty sure this week's print will be a bear.

I have not mailed giveaway prints yet, for last week, but I will do that tomorrow also.

Here is a random bird painting that I ended up painting over, but I loved that bird, the big one on the left. I don't think I've posted it yet, but if I have, forgive me. I hate doing a post without a picture.

Their Mother Waits For The Garden Week 11

I did add a new picture just now. Much better and cropped right.

We had a busy weekend and we are still hopping. Here's the listing for the $2 print on etsy

Giveaway winners and late print

The winners are comments number 15,11,27 13. I used the random number generator to be fair. I'm too tired to figure out who that is, but if you want, you can count the posts and figure out if you are a winner. I appreciate all the love, you sweeties! If you are one of the winners, please email me at Juliefillo @hotmail.com and give me your mailing address, and your 8x10- will be on it's way.
I am going to be late with the print, it will probably be tomorrow, this deck build has kept me hopping! The new print will be titled, "Their mother waits for the garden" It's sort of a self portrait. I have made so much food this weekend and I have been cleaning cupboards and closets getting ready to list our house for sale... I have not had much time for painting, but it's almost done.
Today, our son, Ryan and Niki and Jamie and their dog, Wrigley came and worked on the deck. Here are some pics. Seriously, if these kids had not come in and worked so hard on screwing in screws, Dave would have been doing it until November. And Ryan, he works so hard. Thank you, darling son.
Jamie
Niki
Ryan, such a sweet, good son.
Wrigley. He dances like a Lippizanner Stallion.

Deck Build July 3, 2010

Wonderful friends and our son and daughter in law and son in law came and helped Dave rebuild our deck. I made food and watched and took some pictures. This deck has needed to be replaced ever since we bought the house, 7 years ago. Our son knew someone who was tearing a new deck off a house and got us the wood. It's not done, we still need to make the railing and we are planning to put a grape arbor in along the long side, but we can walk on it and the dogs can go out the back door again to go potty. It's been torn off since Wednesday. We are so grateful for the help, we could have never done it without them.
Ed Dent, his parents, Michelle and David and our DIL, Kim, eating dinner during a break in the work.
Trixy, Aishi and Bryce's arm and legs.
Our son, Ryan and Bryce with his butt in the air
My husband Dave, in the overalls screwing in a temporary support for grape arbor.
Ed on the far end explaining how to lay out the boards so it will look straight...

Our son, Ryan, our SIL, Bryce, and David Dent.
The darling Aishi

A giveaway! 8x10 print

I am going to give away 4- 8x10 prints. Just because it's summer and I appreciate my readers and I am terribly bad about answering comments. They can be any the 4 winners choose from my etsy store. Just leave a comment here and I will add your name to the bowl. The drawing will be on Sunday.

Week 10 Print, SS Sleepytime, A Whale, a Full Moon a Sailboat and a Lighthouse

Here is my new print. I painted it a few months ago, but I wanted to portray the moon and the whale 'communicating' and I had these bubbles going between them. It just didn't work. I finally decided to paint them out and I liked it a lot better.

The Boat is the Sailing Ship, SS Sleepytime. The moon has a wry smile and the whale is kind of sassy. The original is 18x24 on canvas and is for sale for $200. The print is $2 for a 5x7 on etsy and if you are interested in the original just email me at juliefillo@hotmail.com

week 9 print, "And Then A Twig Snapped"

11x14 on hardboard. I might tweak this a bit before I print, but it's available on etsy here, now.

Late with the print this week

I'm going to be late with my print this week, probably tomorrow. I had my grandson all weekend and no time for painting.

Week 8 Print, With Cherries

I hurt my back, I think from swinging my grandson a little too much. (might still have been worth it to hear him laugh) We went to two weddings yesterday, saw old friends and family and 2 beautiful brides.

This weeks print is a match for last weeks, but it has cherries, as promised. It's here

Thank you for all the love and comments. I appreciate them all and as soon as I can I will visit your blog and say something to you. :)

Week 7 print 3 Pears

This painting was originally painted in 2008. It has had at least 3 backgrounds, and I never felt good about it until this incarnation. There is another painting that goes with it that has cherries!

I finished reading Andrew Wyeth, A Secret Life. Gosh, what a story! I highly recommend the book if you are interested in how an artist makes decisions. I remember when the Helga paintings came out, all the speculation about what was going on. It is fascinating to read the family's official stand on that. This book was written while he was still alive and with his blessing.

Here is the Wiki article about him.