Design Sponge

My Geode Ornaments were included in Design Sponge's 2011 Gift Guide!!!

Tuesday Poetry Post

When You Are Old

by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

*I took this photo about a year or so ago during Meatfest at my parent's house. 

It was cold outside, but so warm by this fire, and my face was burning hot, 

and my Shine was in my belly. 

Inspiration

I put together a little collage of the objects that inspired my new handmade ornaments.

 

Process

Here are a few photos I took while making my limited edition Wooden Geode Ornaments. 

Limited Edition Ornaments

I have been working very hard on a new line of Christmas ornaments and I'm super excited to share them with you today!
Here are my handmade limited edition wooden geode ornaments.  They come in two different sizes and I have only made a handful of each style.  (They are like mini sculptures!)  On Sunday I'm going to give you a behind the scenes look at the process, including a few studio shots, and on Monday I'll  share with you the inspiration behind the ornaments.
To see the full line head on over to my website!

  

Sale!

I'm having a special sale for my blog readers!  Use the coupon code blogspecial during checkout on my Etsy site and get a 20% discount off your entire purchase!!!  Valid Black Friday-Cyber Monday (November 25-28)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year Thanksgiving is so special. I feel so lucky to have so much to be thankful for and I'm so excited for the holidays!  Ever since the thrill of Christmas started fading (when I became an adult) every year I thought to myself that the joy will come back when I have a child.  I'm feeling it.  Christmas with a little baby.  Does it get any better???  HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

*Norman Rockwell painting from here

Mmmm

I can't wait for pumpkin pie!

Tuesday Poetry Post

Dusting  by Marilyn Nelson   Thank you for these tiny particles of ocean salt, pearl-necklace viruses, winged protozoans: for the infinite, intricate shapes of submicroscopic living things. For algae spores and fungus spores, bonded by vital mutual genetic cooperation, spreading their inseparable lives from equator to pole. My hand, my arm, make sweeping circles. Dust climbs the ladder of light. For this infernal, endless chore, for these eternal seeds of rain: Thank you. For dust.
*image from here

Moon and Ash

  

Lately I've been loving on these collages by Beth Hoeckel. (Via Maquette)

Weak knees

Yesterday was a horrible day.  Our first ER visit with Shine.  She's absolutely fine and everything is ok.  But it was scary, and I'm not so sure I'm ok.  Funny how the body works.  I had the same physical reaction in my body that I experienced after I was mugged and also when I was attacked at gunpoint.  I think it's that darn PTSD that kicks in whenever I am put into a startling/scary situation.  I was trembling so bad yesterday I had to sit because I thought I might collapse.  Isn't the brain a strange thing?  I keep telling it that all is well, my baby is ok, everything is just fine, I feel it in my bones and believe it, but my brain is telling my body something else.  I still have that feeling in my stomach and my limbs.  It's this buzzing/jittery/nervous panic feeling that has my whole body on high alert.  Fight or flight I suppose.  I know it will fade, it will pass, and my brain will catch up and get the memo and tell the rest of my body to calm.  In the meantime, I need to ride the wave, so I'm taking a lot of deep breaths, and holding my baby close to me and kissing and hugging and snuggling and feeling thankful.

Weekly Shine

Sunday evening outside our bedroom window.

Purple and pink

Finger picking Meadowlarks,
big sitters,
tons of sun,
ruffle butt,
handmade quilt.

Oh my!

Free People! via here

Fish

by Corey Arnold

Friday Music Muse

King of Spain
by The Tallest Man on Earth

I never knew I was a lover,
Just cause I steal the things you hide,
Just cause I focus while we're dancing,
Just cause I offered you a ride.

Still I am not from Barcelona,
I am not even from Madrid.
I am a native of the North Pole
And that can mess up any kid.

Well if you could reinvent my name,
well if you could redirect my day,
I wanna be the King of Spain.

And I will settle in Pamplona
And I'll provoke the bulls with words
And then I'll send a man to meet them all
But he's fake, so I have heard.

And all the senoritas sighing,
Will be the fountain of my lies.
But while we're floating in siestas
You search for bottles and for knives.

Well if you could reinvent my name,
Well if you could redirect my day,
I wanna be the King of Spain.

And I wear my boots of Spanish leather
Oh while I'm tightening my crown.
I'll disappear in some flamenco
Perhaps I'll reach the other side.

Why are you stamping my illusion?
Just cause I stole some eagle's wings
Because you named me as your lover
Well, I thought I could be anything.

Well if you could reinvent my name,
well if you could redirect my day,
I wanna be the King of Spain.

*image by Bernat Armangue

Baby Wearin'

Cupcakes and Wilco

 Every morning for the past week and a half, while I work on solids with my little one, I put on One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend) by Wilco, which is a relatively long song, and Shine eats real human food (or just spits it out all over the place).  On weekends daddy feeds her.  So on Saturday while I was in the other room putting on makeup after a hot shower, I heard David feeding Shine, and he put some music on, and he chose the same song I've been feeding her to every day, and I smiled, and told him about this ritual, and he said it just seemed like the right song to play.  Then he said that's why we're in love.  And it made me think about when I was in grad school, and we had a little art exhibition with the pieces we had been working on that semester.  One of my classmate's projects involved all of us decorating cupcakes earlier that day.  When David saw all the cupcakes, I asked him if he could pick out the one I decorated, and he pointed to it immediately.  He picked mine out amongst all the other cakes.  And I smiled, and thought, that's why we're in love.

Rising Shine

They say having a baby changes everything.  Of course it does.  It especially changes relationships.  (For the better in my experience)  Moms, dads, siblings, husbands.  It's quite beautiful.  Nothing is the same.  Even my relationship to the sun has changed.  I had not seen too many rising suns prior to my Shine's arrival, but I stalked the big star when she was setting most nights.  The thing I love most about living high up in the sky is my view of the sun setting every night out the window.  It's like having a different piece of art on your wall each evening.  I like saying adios to the day.  Wrapping things up.  Slowing down.  Good night.

I recently discovered that greeting the sun is even more special.  It's like greeting hope each morning.  With the new sound of my baby's voice in the background.  I see how new light changes my surroundings.  Both lights.  The sun and Shine.

two fuels

Yesterday was the Hot Chocolate 15K.  As I watched the runners outside my window  I kept thinking maybe I sort of do miss racing after all.  I also thought of Seurat.  From a distance the racer's colorful clothes made me think of all the dots that make up his paintings.
Running and art.  My two fuels. 

Paintings from here and here

Dollar a day's worth

I've been working away in the studio, carving, drilling, photographing, sewing and working on some top secret projects, all while humming Bob Dylan songs to myself. (And nursing babies.  Well, just one baby)


"Well, I got a harmonica job, begun to play
Blowin’ my lungs out for a dollar a day
I blowed inside out and upside down
The man there said he loved m’ sound
He was ravin’ about how he loved m’ sound
Dollar a day’s worth"

Friday Music Muse

Still Looking for You
by Townes Van Zandt

Ain't much I ain't tried
fast livin' slow suicide
then a-runnin' in a place to hide
just looking for you


My friends they all agree
ain't many a fool like me
I just tell them wait and see
go looking for you


Looking low and looking high
looking far and looking wide
try to tell myself that I'm fine
but it just ain't true
it just ain't true
I'm still looking for you
still looking for you


From the shadow of the darkest pine
to the edge of the sweet sunshine
I keep looking till they make you mine
looking for you


When the curtain tumbles down
I'll be somewhere hanging round
with my heart laid on the ground
just looking for you


Looking low and looking high
looking far and looking wide
try to tell myself that I tried
but it just ain't true
it just won't do
I'm still looking for you
still looking for you

*image from Quest: Run for your Life

Buttermilk City

Sometimes I get annoyed with Chicago.  Sometimes I think, why aren't you more like New York?!  Then I read a quote like this and I shut my mouth.

 

"I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail."-- H. L. Mencken via here

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Sunrise is the new sunset