Patina Moon

Hi Friends!  I hope everyone's had a great summer!   I've been working on some mixed-media pieces lately, and one of  the things that recently inspired me again, is this dragonfly. Isn't she pretty?  My new neighbor, Camille has only known me for a short time, but she  knew me enough to know that when she found this poor little dragonfly  in her garage, that I might appreciate it too.  I'd say she was right!  I'm not sure I can work the dragonfly into one of my mixed-media pieces  without damaging it, so I might just continue to photograph it as a  botanical piece...this is a start.  So, after the dragonfly, I started  to get out the paint, paper and my pressed flowers and leaves again. My desk continues to be a mess. I picked out a fern leaf from our garden,  and some hydrangea petals I pressed last year for this piece.  ...

Just dropping in to wish you a Happy Easter! Here it is the night before, and I'm playing at my desk  decorating some eggs, while my sweetie has a leg of lamb roasting  in the oven.  Smells so good!  Beautiful weather is expected here the next few days so  I'm looking forward to spending some time outdoors around the house.   We have new neighbor's moving into the house next door.  This is the little bird house in their garden and they have already  put a lovely wooden bench under this magnolia tree. (I'll have to shoot that later to show you.)  We're looking forward to getting to know them.  So many blessings this Easter!  Wishing you a lovely weekend!  Becca 

Hi Friends!   You might remember my POST  about the beautiful Dogwood Tree in  our garden.  Well, to my delight September has decorated this Dogwood with  lovely cherry like berries!  After doing a bit of research I discovered the name of the Dogwood is  Kousa Dogwood   or sometimes referred to as "Japanese Dogwood." It seems the berries are edible, however I haven't tried one yet... I might just leave it up to the birds and squirrels to enjoy.  This year, I decided to decorate with some of the  beautiful grasses that are at the nurseries.  Just a couple of plants in containers on the deck that can be seen  from inside, and when the sun shines on them they  give off that breezy, autumn feeling.  So, the dogwood berries were new this year, and so was this  sunflower in the garden!  Ok, I know it's a big...

Hi friends!   Well, I said I'd be back with some crochet stuff I've been working on,  I just didn't think it would take me so long.  So, I found this cute coaster pattern on line that uses "jute"  and yarn. They were easy to make, and the yarn adds so much to them,  don't you think?   Look at the back, I think even the back looks interesting!  Click  HERE  for the link if you want to make these.  I've been working on this afghan for a while now.  I love it because the squares have been pretty  easy to make even while watching TV.  The colors remind me of the blue hydrangeas I love so much!  Finally, I've been going nuts about adding crocheted edgings on things.  I made a couple of tea towels for gifts, and I'm still  working on more of these.  Don't you just love ticking fabric?  Well, there ya ha...

Beautiful Words... "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." L.M. Montgomery I've been working on another collage on canvas with teabags and leaves. You might remember this one below, that I did a couple of years ago  before we moved to Seattle. This collage has special meaning to me.   I remember picking up this larger than my hand, maple leaf  while visiting Seattle on business and trying frantically to  get it back home to Las Vegas without it getting squished on the plane... because, "we might not get the job and  get to move to Washington, and I won't get to experience  this kind of autumn again for a really long time."  Yea...silly huh, but that's what I was thinking. Anyway...I digress... When you're a kid from the desert, you get excited about  stuff like this.  So, here we are almost 2 years later, and I'm living in  ...

October. My favorite month.  Even when I lived in the Nevada desert I loved October.  It's when things started to cool down from the hot summers.  Now, even more than ever,  I love this season/month!  This year, I made an autumn wreath for our front door.  I am REALLY excited about decorating for fall.  Even two of our cats fit into the colors of fall.  There's been a lot of squirrel watching lately,  ...and bird watching,  when it's not nap time. ...and burning beeswax candles and incense  when it's damp and rainy outside.  Even though today was beautiful and sunny, you can just feel it in the air  that the colder, rainy weather is just around the corner.  I hear that November is the wettest month around these parts.  So, until then, I shall soak up the sun and play in the dirt  when I have t...

Hi Everyone!  I just wanted to drop in to say a quick hello before I  take a little break and unplug for a few days.  The hubs and I are taking a little trip over to the Olympic Peninsula  to celebrate our 7th year wedding anniversary! So, before we hit the road, I wanted to share this fun little  project I tried. One misty, rainy day last week, I gathered up  some flowers and leaves from around the yard, and  experimented making prints of them on  paper and fabric. The above photo is of a print I made from a  lace leaf maple leaf onto a piece of watercolor paper.  I had so much fun picking up little flowers to try on my print.   The photos below, I used a piece of canvas fabric, or  duck cloth I believe it's called.  Some of the flower pieces were easy to remove,  others left a heavier stain.  When I get home I...

One of the things I've been trying to do lately is come up  with ideas for the doilies I make.  This of course is not a doily, but a little crocheted motif I made  with linen thread and then  I hand stitched it onto a piece of linen fabric.  I think hand-stitching is so relaxing, I don't know why I don't do  it more often. I made 3 little pin cushions/lavender sachets with the linen  thread I already have in my stash.  You can use any kind of crochet thread...   you know I'm just crazy about the linen stuff, right? :-) It was fun digging into my linen scrap pile  to find pieces of fabric to work with.  Finding the remnants of linen at the fabric store is the way to go  for little projects like this. So, that's one way I can use crochet pieces,  but here's another "long-term" project  I'm working on....