Busy Summer

I don't know why I always think every year that summer will be less busy than the rest of the year. I've been so busy that the time is flying too fast. My favorite time of year is going by in the blink of an eye. There's never a dull moment though.

After getting back from our trip, I painted a mural at church for the children's classroom area. There is a stage with windows where there will be puppets that is supposed to look like a ticket window for a subway or train and a guy just hanging out by the phone booth reading a newspaper.


Gardening takes up a bit of the time too. We have tomatoes, squashes, cucumbers, chard, corn, okra, beans, peppers, and lettuce. Also, we have some fruit. Our blackberries are ready to get ripe and one of our paw paw trees is loaded with fruit. So you've never seen a paw paw before? Here they are. They taste a bit like banana pudding when they are ripe. The trees were a gift from my very generous sister. :-)


I've been making jewelry when I get a chance. A bit here, and a bit there, mostly commissions for local people. Here are a few pieces that I made for a friend who brought me some pearls and leather to make into necklaces and earrings for her.

I've been entertaining nieces also for the last two weeks. Last week, we picked up one of our nieces who was homesick at camp and brought her home with us for 3 days until my mom could come and get her and take her to her parents. This week I had a niece and a great niece for three days also. It was like Camp Stillwaters for all of those days. We did art, played pool, and fished and swam. It was great to get to spend some time with them.

I was surprised when I went to the mailbox one day to find a package from Steph in Belgium with this beautiful necklace and other goodies. She always sends such wonderful surprises. Please check out her blog and Etsy shop to see more beautiful jewelry.

Well... now for a relaxing weekend...I hope.

Busy Busy Days

Long time, no blog. I have been blessedly busy for the past two weeks. I just finished painting a mural of sorts for some people from our church. They have built a new house and put a prayer room in it. They framed out an area on one wall for a triptych and asked me to paint it. They had pictures that they wanted duplicated for it so I didn't do anything original. I just took the pictures that they gave me and changed them from a horizontal format to a vertical one and combined some of the images. It was such a stretch for me to paint people, but they are pleased so Hallelujah!

I have also been busy making jewelry. Shawn at Silo Studios asked me if I wanted to bring some for her next open studio sale and so I worked up some new pieces and gathered some that hadn't sold yet at other places and took them to her house yesterday. I also took some of my daughter-in-law's jewelry to sell too. Here is one of the necklaces that I made. It incorporates a vintage watch bezel with one of my little winged people inside and has brass wire and words, sterling silver wire, fresh water pearls, and glass pearls. The message is one of my favorite ones, "Time flies, be happy." I have a couple more watches that I am going to make some similar ones with. This is one of those that I was tempted to keep. I did a couple of bracelets in a similar style but forgot to take pictures of them.


I finally get to stay home today and create and work in my garden. The weather is warm and breezy. Heaven!

Not By Bread Alone

It's finally finished! I have been working on this painting for about a month and a half, off and on. It is to hang in the Community Outreach building at our church. We have a food bank there and feed from 60 to 100 families there each week. The building is kind of blank, so they asked me if I would paint a mural. They have been known to redecorate frequently at the church, so I decided that if I painted it on canvas, it could easily be removed when someone decides to do something different. The size is 6'x6' and this photo was taken from the landing at the top of our stairs. I'm noticing that the lettering is slightly crooked. I have a hard time being consistent when I'm doing lettering. I also think that the holes were probably in Yahshua's wrists rather than his hands, but that is the traditional view so for art's sake that is the way I painted them, even though I tend to not be very traditional. The fan is blowing on it because the paint was not quite dry and I am impatient (I need a little work on that character trait.) I plan to take it into town today and deliver it.
It's kind of ironic that the quote is about bread. A lot of our food that we give away is from the local grocery stores and they always seem to have a lot of bread that is ready to go out of date that they give us. Usually, when I help out, my post is at the bread table and I always have to persuade the people that they need 4 or 5 loaves, just to try to get rid of it all. A majority of them are coming to the service that we have before the food bank doors open so they are getting fed the Word also.