the view of december days

12 shelly buttons, 11 pages remaining,

10 happy articles, 9 copper worms

8 tiny pots, 7 tiny pine cones, 6 copper buttons,

5 thrift store elves,

4 tiny coins, 3 gigantic acorns, 2 little birds

and a lovely etsy handspun yarn! 

today

 today the high fire glaze test pieces were taken from the kiln giving me more to ponder in my glazing directions for my high fire clays.  2060 degrees seems to be as high as my tiny kiln will go these days.  broken element or something else?  wanting to get back to my porcelain capabilities but for the moment i feel satisfied.  such a blessing is my kiln capabilities.  i will adapt to whatever will be.

soap for our winter storage is drying/curing and almost ready for use.  i decorated it's top this time with these beautiful dried calendula flowers.  orange and yellow blooms seem happy and warm for the winter ahead.

i am cleaning my messy doll's house.  putting away the layers of collected ingredients that don't match the season.  so many layers of tiny collected things from travels and so many years.  
it had to move locations too, to make room for the christmas tree, and now the doll house living room windows look out into the fish tank next door...an aquarium view:)   the dolls are in wonder over the large gold fish swimming about out the windows..almost as though the house has sunken under water.  i love imagining their wonder and pretending it is my view.

half baked

 trying to get back to all the tiny details i love the best such as more tiny sew on tea service. but i have not found the time among the holiday details to paint each individually with 3 coats of glaze and overlay with silver. so many layers of love awaits my attention.  tiny experimental doll clothes buttons too wait for the tiny brush of glazes and silver. 

...as do the sew on copper worms and fairy coins.  polishing and patina-ing for them...they have been waiting patiently.  so much half baked in my creative wanderings makes me a little crazed.  i must tuck them all away so they are not my constant reminder and i can look only to the graceful sway in the seasonal holiday dance:)

ingredients

 my ceramic glazing experiments are out of the kiln

 the dyed woolen fleece i picked up yesterday at my favorite crafting thrift store looks like cotton candy:)yum!

and this...an ozark handspun wool yarn i found also near the cotton candy fleece.  such tiny worlds of possibility along every inch in his yarns.

views

in the neighborhood: tree droppings look like this...fantastic details.

at the window sill: tiny island gardens of carrot and parsnip tops i am watching unfold.

at my work table: spring wanderings of tiny fuzzy knitted blooms of wool for adornments upcoming.

in my library: the book i finished=love

at the table:  delicious luxury:)

she asked me all these really ponderous questions (maybe i made them so:) and i stalled a lot in my answers.  who am i really, what do i believe and how do i see?...was at the bottom of all the questions for me.  the post is here.

she is ashley and she is here and here  and i love connecting with creative grace in the world like this.  hand sewing, innocence, purity :) 

the internet feels vast and impersonal until you meet the reflection of pieces of your own self in that outer space.

i love her blog feature each friday.  i love reading of the unfoldings of the person inside the art and how it delightedly meets someone else.

gratitude!

bon appetite!

how to fit it all in these days?  between 1970's birthday dress up party for my son's birthday :) and home life manager...getting here to blogger to leave updates of the creative in my world seems impossible lately.

but i am here... posting of the world i love the best...tiny and earthen and giving new imaginings to things that may have been discarded or stepped on and lost forever.

a few new things along these lines will be in my shop this week.

sunset at asilomar, a california (coastal) state park and conference center with it's roots in the ywca.  i love the history there!  i took a few of my doll's house pets with me on my time away because i wanted to photograph them in the white of that landscape.  they love each other those colors :)  brutis (french bull dog) and foofy (french poodle) loved their time away by the sea too!

gosh the weather was miraculous!  sunny and warm for all the days of my visit.  such grace in that holiday away!

everything seems possible when i am away, detached from the "not enough time or space" i feel when i am in my own realm. inspiration seeps in big crashing waves at the beach and i am under a temporary spell.

i am home now and back to all.

my tiny fairy forks  and coins of copper are almost completed as are a few more acorn nut boxes for hiding secret messages.  i love those boxes and i feel them the best thing i have ever made.  so natural with no glue or impure parts.  i could leave them in the wilds and they would join the earth quite comfortably.   

today's explorations

tiny copper forks for tiny acorn cap plates, and the use of a new to me product called "i dye" which i can't decide if i like.   lots of reasons to love it...local, modern and recyclable  lovely packaging and no dusty dye powder to mess with.  oh but the color results and the fact that i have to use the whole package even though i have such a small amount to process.  i need smaller amounts.  once you wet it there is no turning back.  dharma trading is still my most economical for dyes and predictable for outcomes.  for me it matters.  gun metal gray should be gray not blue and ecru should be natural not deep tan.  things have a way of working out though if i decide not to be so controlling:)

last year we went to disneyland for halloween/my son's 13th birthday/trick or treating.  it was fabulous there.  no streets to cross or cars to dodge.  fabulous changes in lighting and atmosphere to the park and surprising entertainment and "THE" haunted mansion:).  such a special place to celebrate that holiday.

so...for that event i was making him a felted woolen pinocchio hat last year at this time as well as his little reddish orange velveteen lederhosen (from a vintage textile piece) complete with large wooden buttons and cute brown trim.  i am glad we took pictures:)

he is growing up... and this year he requests a disco afro for his interest in dressing in 1970's disco garb.  a thrifting we will go this week as his request is to be a disco family.  my daughter has already found her ensemble and it is an amazing expression of a very peculiar era:)  i was there and it all seemed so normal at the time if not a bit daring too!

this was my meditation this morning...arranging tiny natural ingredients into a balanced artful form.  when i found these little, beautifully formed pieces of of kelp driftwood last april this has been their asking.  ikebana they say! :)and so it is!

we tent:) camped in the woods, behind the dunes, at the sea this past weekend.  it was wet and drippy with storm and all night long we heard the sounds of huge crashing waves from the high seas.  natural settings strain me but invigorate and remind me of how tiny i am in this world no matter how tall i try to stand.  

the tiny places of my friday.  i could spend all day everyday with tiny natural details:)

now that summer has passed, the seasonal shift is happening in me. with that i feel myself shifting and slowing in productivity.  i accomplished all creatively that i set out to do this past summer, and then some:)  vintage repurposed textiles i procured a year ago, i finally found the courage to cut deeply into with no turning back.  they are so so precious and to turn them into pieces and scraps without knowing the end results hurts me somehow.  always wondering if it is the right direction to set them in a new direction.  they are fully lined capes now and a weskit for dress up and play.  they were a labor of love, so many hours of hand sewing and tailoring details.  i am happy.  

there is so much else waiting in the wings that i wish to be/see in the world but i must be off to school with my kids.  spanish, meteorology, geography/geology and museum visits are our vision for this year.  it continues to be amazing to me how much my kids learn and discover on their own without my prompting or direction.  i love to learn alongside them, i am more interested now than i ever was in school.  there are so many more interesting and diverse opportunities outside school walls, i feel lucky everyday i think of our paths as home learners.  we can be slow and patient and gentle with ourselves outside of timed and tested activity.  and we can look in any direction that we are moved to see and explore.  i love it here on this path:)

the weekend

lots of laundry catching up.  towering and gigantic so i retreat to my mini world of natural ingredients and paper flowers in between.  such a meditation for me shrinking myself down to such a small scale visually while i wait on the washer and/or dryer.

whilst my daughter was looking for snaps today, for a vintage style dress closure, in our large tin of buttons, she reminded me of these favorites (pictured).  the ones i used when barbie and i used to play bakeshop.  these were the baked treats she sold to her dolly customers.  these buttons from my great grandmothers tin of buttons were so delicious looking to me.  miniature vision has always been with me for as long as i have been playing:)

small things

still mingling with smaller creative possibilities.  the natural world is a wonder to me in all it's tiniest details:)

this week in my world

tiny teacup pin cushions will be listed to my etsy shop this week. 

my good friend "a" will visit and we will have a brunch of potato cakes and salad and fresh garden produce and maybe head to a rugged northern coast beach?  it will be such a good getaway for moi who tends to bury her head too much in her creative work.

more photography this week...trying to capture the loving nature of our work is the trickiest of my creative pursuits.

accordion festival, kite festival, custom drapery help, family dinners, etsy  photography and listing of miniature things.  so little space in between things recently that i resort to miniature creativity for the small spaces in between life's happenings:)

tyrus wong  today:)beautiful in every dimension!
including a view of him.  born in 1910...at 102 he is smiling inside and out:)

woven magic

not that i needed anymore but i picked up a few bits of woven magic on a recent stay in san francisco.  not my regular affordable textile indulgences:) but honest and true natural fibers where my art work feels most inspired to play. 

i have been searching for a natural sheer for acorn pouches to meet their eartheness....hmm i think i may have found it. 

  

silken things for dress up. some old some new.

sweet woven trims of pure dyeable cottons

and pure beautiful silks. swing, float, drape, hand, sheen, what's not to love:)

love

feeling so grateful for the textiles that grace my path. dress up of vintage textiles delights my world of creative study.
5 more skirts finally made their way to my etsy shop today.  5 more ideas are waiting in the wings.  next week i begin again:)

summer views

 paella is happening often on the grill.

5 little cups of etsy has arrived.  affirming that paper and packaging matters to my hearts place...

 ...and these cute french parents who look out at me so adoringly...

and remind me to practice my french:)

...as jane eyre is practicing with her pupil miss adela at the moment in my read along with my daughter these summer months.