Something Different

This is a waterfall coming out of our hillside. We don't always have a waterfall, but when you get over 6 inches of rain in 3 days this is what happens. Wouldn't it be cool to have a waterfall like that year round? Even though we didn't see the sun for almost 6 days, I am thankful that now we won't have to be so careful with our well water this year. We have had so much drought that many people locally had their wells go dry.

Rainy days make good creative days.

Sometimes I want to branch out and do something a little different. I had bought these shadow box frames a couple of years ago and hadn't really come up with a use for them until now. I was inspired by the shadow box creations of Stephanie Rubiano on her site: So I Gathered. The first one is my mom when she was little. I am not implying that she was a "smarty pants" but it just seemed to go with the school theme.

The next one is some long forgotten ancestor whose photo I found in my aunts photo collection. I have no idea who she was, but I hope that her expression was only temporary and not how she looked all of the time.

Gifts and Play Days

Some days I love my mailbox...the days when it is not all bills and junk mail. I love it when I pull surprise packages out with beautiful necklaces like the one that Steph (vladthebat) sent to me. She makes such wonderfully smooth and colorful polymer clay beads. Check out her blog. There is always something interesting.


Another thing that is exciting to me is to get to spend the day creating with another artist. On Wednesday, I went to Silo Studio to hang out with my friend Shawn and let our imaginations have a play day. We had no agenda other than to have fun and create. The weather threatened to cancel our plans, but I was determined to go. What's a little sleet and snow, when there is creating to be done.
It took a little while to figure out what we wanted to do, but we ended up with two projects each that took shape by the end of the afternoon. Here are photos of mine:

This is a very large belt buckle. I will have to find a belt to go with it.

This is an art doll made of a vintage metal jello mold, wooden spindles, old license plate number, wooden doll coat hanger, paint brush, beads, and a dog head picture. The dog head was inspired by the fact that we were surrounded by dogs in the studio. Two were so small, you could hold them in your two hands, and one was gigantic. Shawn has three of her own dogs and is a dog foster parent, so there are usually extras there. There are always plenty of wagging tails around.
Here are Shawn's pictures that she just emailed to me:

The buckles are made with metal buckle blanks, paper, beads, a vintage earring, and resin.