As you can see, I'm a Susan who likes to hide that fact behind her alias. I never much liked my name, and the only nickname I care for is "Susy", and nobody can spell that correctly. (I mean, Suzie? Cheerleader, much?)  Not to mention the problem that in any given place, there are bound to be a half dozen Susans, all of whom are twice my age. So I go by Meri. Short, sweet, and, most of all, different. The uniqueness fits me.

    I got the name "Meri" from a roleplay character I had years ago who was an Elbit (half elf/half hobbit)- her full name was Merily Thranduiliell, but while I often keep the "Merily", "Thranduiliell" was way too much of a mouthful (ie, no one, myself included, could spell it), so it got shortened to "Greenleaf". No, I'm not a Legolas fangirl. nor was I ever; my friends and I just had characters that were his half-sisters (ah, the crazy LotR obsessed teenagers we were). Anyway, I later had two Dungeons and Dragons halflings named Merily (a Brandybuck and a Gamgee, for lack of more creative last names), but this was all years ago, and I've long since dropped the roleplaying. But the name "Meri Greenleaf" stuck, and since I love the sound of it (as a cheerful tree-hugger), I never bothered to try to be known as anything else. This story is also how I came up with my shop names: Elbit, as mentioned earlier, and Elfling, short for "small elf" or elf/halfling.

As for a little bit about me, I'm 25 and live in Exton, PA (a suburb of Philadelphia) with my fiancé and our cat. Those two are my muses and I love them with all my heart; my fiancé, Josh, is supporting me while I make art (and start grad school someday in the near future), and our cat, Clarabell, keeps me company everyday and "helps" me with my art by taking over my lap while I'm trying to crochet. As you can tell from the picture, she is the cutest cat in the universe.

    I'm very much a cat person, although I love dogs almost as much, and I long to one day own a house in the middle of nowhere, where I can have a huge plot of land with room for lots of cats, dogs, and a horse, as well as a garden. I also love to garden (ie. play in the dirt), but since I live in an apartment, I can only have lots of potted plants. Not quite the same thing. Way back when, I wanted to be a veterinarian since I love animals (more than most people, actually), but I was never good enough at science; now my goal is to one day be a professor of British Literature (preferably, the Renaissance), since literature is something I am good at and enjoy very much (heck, I have a collection of over 400 books). I'm currently teaching myself Old English, since it's a language I've wanted to learn for quite some time.

    I love all things Celtic and Irish; my favorite genre of music is Celtic rock, and one day I really would love to visit Ireland (I'm very much Irish). Sort of connected to this are probably two of my biggest loves- Renaissance faires and Dungeons and Dragons. I love dressing up in costume and wandering the faire grounds and seeing the shows. I've only been to the PA Renfaire so far, but I'd love to visit more (Jersey and Maryland both have faires I want to visit). I'd also love to one day sell my art at a faire- I have a whole bunch of stuff planned that would be awesome for a faire (horns, dreadfalls, pouches, corsets...).

(My fiancé, me, and one of my best friends at the faire last year)

I think I have more Renfaire costumes than any sane person should own: My favorite (to the left)- pirate Queen of Valdemar (a cosplay from the Heralds of Valdemar books) Merry Brandybuck (my hobbit costume) A Renaissance witch A Sorceress (yes, different from the witch) An autumn faerie And another pirate costume in the works (just got a black chemise for Christmas, and I'm longing to buy a red corset) And these aren't counting my cosplay/Halloween costume pictured above, of Susan Sto Helit from the Discworld books. As you can probably tell, I love dressing up.

      To get back into the art, I make pretty much anything if I can get my hands on the supplies, but crochet, sculpting, and jewelry making are my three favorites. I've always been artistically-inclined; in school I took as many art classes as I was allowed, and eventually found my niche in pottery. However, college (and being poor after college) got in the way of that, and it wasn't until recently that I was able to buy my own pottery wheel. I'm hoping to get a kiln in the near future (it'll probably have to wait until I can get a house, though), but until then, I'm just practicing with oven-dry and air-dry clay. I've come into using polymer clay late in life, but I'm having a blast mixing in powders and sculpting. I love making runestones, and I've been practicing making polymer clay beads and pendants, too.

    I've been making jewelry pretty much all my life, starting with those plastic beads I made into necklaces for my sister and mom when I was a kid. I've only gotten really into jewelry making  recently, though, so I'm learning how to work wire as I go along. Chainmalle is next up for me to learn; at the moment I only know the most basic weave.

    And as for crocheting, it's only been about two years since I was taught the single stitch (by a lefty, which was interesting!). I've been teaching myself other stitches from books and experimenting, and I like to add my own flair to crochet by painting stuff on squares of fabric and sewing that onto the crochet.

    And... I think that's everything. I may add more later, but that's pretty much Meri in a nutshell. A rather rambling nutshell, but a nutshell.

All images and content on this site © Susan Logue (aka Meri Greenleaf)