Nathan and I have this new ritual where after work, we hop in the car and start driving in a random direction. The goal is to explore our surroundings… which are quite rural and green.
I say “random”, but I usually steer us towards Jordan lake because we didn’t grow up near water, so lakes are awesome! We take one windy country “church” road to another… passing churches from the 1800′s, ponds, donkeys, geese, deer and lots of tractors. But we usually end up at the lake :)
Here’s yesterday’s sunset over Jordan lake…
It had been raining and storming ALL day and the air was so thick, humid and steamy… I half-expected to see sparkling vampires and werewolves burst out of the bushes to duel while wearing lots of hair product and Abercrombie.
We also stumbled across this uber cool old general store. It’s called Bynum Front Porch where they play live local music every Friday. Pretty neat-o :)
I’ve been making jewelry to fill up this chandelier… alllmost time to reveal my masterpiece… but not quite yet ;) I’ve done new things with wire that I’ve never tried before… lots of twisting and wrapping…
When I want to say “hello” to someone… I don’t pick up my phone or a pen… I go to Facebook, send them an email or text message.
How forgettable.
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve gotten really lazy when it comes to connecting the proper way with the friends I care about. I hide behind the online social networks and say my hellos in bulk… or with a simple “thumbs up”. I need to be re-trained.
Not to mention that those online comments will be there for all time… so you better get it right! (The pressure!!!)
I own two large shoe boxes (A Van’s and a Doc Martin’s Box… thank you very much) FULL of little hand-folded, hand-written notes on notebook paper from all my friends in elementary, jr. high and high school. I treasure them. I served detention for a few of them. I EARNED them.
Do kids even pass notes anymore? (Maybe it’s a good thing they don’t, I dunno).
I got this crazy idea… this week… I’m going to not check in on Facebook. Instead, I’m going to send postcards and letters to my friends. Shocking, isn’t it?!?
I invited my Facebook friends to send me their snail mail addresses so I could do just that. I’ve only heard from one person so far, so… maybe my enthusiasm and idealism is creepy or something ;)
Care to join me in the throwback “week of ink” ? :)
I’ve got a stack of old postcards that were supposed to go out to friends & family while at the destinations where they were purchased. Better a decade or two late than never? Instead of “wish you were here!”, I can say… “wish we were both here!” :)
I’ve been making a lot of jewelry lately… and I’ve had this strange obsession to… fill up this chandelier with earrings and necklaces before I start selling them… (I’ve always wanted a gemstone chandelier!)
The chandelier has four sides… which is perfect…
One side for green/yellow… (tourmaline, peridot, green amethyst, sapphire, citrine, chalcedony and pearls…)
One side for red/pink… (garnet, tourmaline, pink quartz, chalcedony and pearls)
One side for purples… (amethyst, fluorite, quartz and ametrine)
One side for blues… (sapphire, iolite, London blue topaz, aquamarine, apatite and blue quartz)
2 more weeks… hopefully less… to fill it up. Then the *theory* is to sell the pieces… but… I don’t know… I think they want to stay here ;)
If there is a specific item you’d like to see go on a 99 cent auction listing, click “watch this item” in the top right corner. I determine which items will be sent to 99 cent auction by the number of people watching it… so cast your vote :)
We combine shipping, too!
Here are some items that are starting at 99 cents!
Click on any image to take you to that auction :) Happy bidding! :)
I’ll get the still pictures up later, but in the meantime, here’s a beautiful short movie Nathan shot with his new Canon T2i. This camera is amazing… the color, texture and detail… superb!
If you would like to see it full screen, and it’s so much better if you do, click on the little icon on the bottom right of the movie.
I revisited my love for sculpey and made these necklaces. They are characters from a Japanese candy called Puccho. They have flavors like strawberry, peach, melon and yogurt. I also got the inspiration from a very creative woman who made some puccho cupcakes, which are adorable!
The necklaces are about the size of bottlecaps. I sculpted them, baked them then painted them. So fun :)
Three little cupcakes with our friend Totoro and his two other little friends… I don’t know their names (I bet someone else out there does). These were a lot of fun to make… I especially like how the blue one is looking at the white one and they all seem to say “Why am I stuck in green icing?” :)
The inspiration… the soot spirits from another Hayao Miyazaki film, Spirited Away
This is a soot spirit, or Susuwatari. I thought he might like to hang out inside of a donut covered in his favorite food sprinklings. It dawned on me that taking a photo of a donut from straight on didn’t show the curves of the icing… oops. But there’s the front and the back looking… donut-like.
Hopefully there will be pictures from the event up, soon… there were a few pictures on facebook of the turtle race through the downtown Tokyo set. You know, like Godzilla, but with turtles. Wish I could have been there :)