photographing just finished nut boxes today...the tiny ones from the beached nuts in the pacific.  they are the last of my collection...only 5 left feels a little sad... not knowing if i will ever travel to that particular far away location of warmth and sand again.

we put candles on our christmas tree this year...via vintage candle clips i bought on etsy.  so pretty and old world in celebration. i love this light in the dark time of the year.

loving this very large, champion, center of a dried chamomile blossom.  i had to set it aside...it is truly an anomaly:)

our tiniest bunny, who has been not so well, has loved...well no..been crazed for chamomile this whole time of illness.  he runs in circles for the crinkling bag and the scent.  little does he know i have the champion of all chamomile blossoms in my collection of tiny celebrations:)

he is better, our tiniest bunny, with acupuncture and holistic supplements, thanks to vets who believe in such things. feeling so grateful to all who have helped and loved and believed. 

finally...:)  more ceramic acorns finding their way out into the wider world after swimming creatively in me for so long.

the sun has been behind clouds here and then out again.  photography has been tricky these days for capture in an even narrower window as light is lessening.  but i am so happy to capture the diversity of acorn shapes and imaginings and see them here in a tangible way after cooking them so long in my imagination.

Magical, visual land of contrasts, a visual celebration. My time for renewal was here and many places where the iron curtain was pulled open and berlin wall pulled down 25 years ago.  So much to think of.  We are so shielded here in the states and much of history feels like make believe until you stand in wounded places and see the monuments to injustice and then liberty.  It is remarkable what has grown up in only 25 years and what has been preserved and restored architecturally. So grand, so old. Feeling so grateful for the possibility of travel and the new places created in me.

i am inspired!

20 days since my last post.  Such a full month of fresh flowers and foraged wild things and fretting over bunny illness and just the daily life of food and home keeping and family attentions.  Currently 24 acorn cap boxes in the works.  Perhaps by December they will be ready for etsy.  Giving myself a month of holiday in November to renew and prepare for filling my shop again.

I am so very grateful for my recent etsy appreciations and sales.  It has truly helped me afford unexpected expenses.  Gracefully heaven sent:)

Next up...my son's 15th birthday.  October 31.  Ricotta gnocchi from the original moosewood cookbook of my childhood...served with marinara and/or pesto, Caesar salad, steamed broccoli...and chocolate decadence with candles.  All made right here.  A food celebration and family love:)

the raising of a giant parachute for a wedding (where we will do flowers) in the weeks to come...beautiful, fluid, giant and magical. i love the rich creative thought and local/community cultivated event that this will be.  

please let me have at least one home grown orange dahlia to use in all our flowering for the celebration...!  

so many things here.  an unwell bunny:(  and worry over that.  flower/foraged plans for a wedding next weekend and worry over that. another dress in the makings, and worry over that...so much easier to buy ones clothes i decided:)  and new clay acorns will enter the kiln tomorrow, so excited over that.  a white clay so the acorns will be less dark and maybe more camel in color. hoping to have them all done prior to when my shop goes on vacation for most of the month of november.

seeing changes in color everywhere=love and trying to see free gifts in all experience. but this part of fall feels looming of collapse and endings and i feel fearful in those feelings.  the unknowns of change and shift is hard for one so into preparedness and knowingness.

collecting

my growing thrift store slotted spoon collection.

such a useful size in my kitchen wanderings.

finally finishing a set of six pouches that i have been working toward for a month or more. these are empty and waiting to be filled with tiny treasures of ones own making.

savoring the fabric all over again from the dress i recently made.  i love brown and dots:)

currently...my 4 directions:)...but at my heart's center...will always be flowers.

photos are taken and they have started migrating into the etsy shop for the new listings of all the previously mentioned and pictured. 

i went a little thrifting today and added another slotted spoon to my growing collection.  i love the patterns cut into the spoons the most.  i will picture them soon.  i love tiny cooking utensils for my work in my world.

i also picked up an unused enameled cast iron braising pan.  not le creuset... and no lid... but in beautiful brown...my favorite color in the whole wide world:) 

trying truly....but surrendering instead.  so sorry to not have things going from here to there.  faith knowing it will when other primary commitments allow...but for now balancing family and friends  and county callings and then I can return to my own innermost.

i said they would be listed in my etsy shop...but the end of the week has come and gone.  i made a dress this week for myself instead...for a bridal shower I attended today.  wrap dresses are unpredictable in outdoor breezes but i was not expecting an outdoorsy day for some reason:). it was empowering and connected to wear something i actually put together.  such an adventure.  it has been too long!  helping me set out on a sewing path again for myown wardrobe needs...i have lots...i don't afford myself this luxury when family needs direct me otherwise.

i have 6 more patterns now waiting in the wings.  i love knowing that all the instructions for getting through the process are there and I don't have to think it through...no creative masterminding...only surrendering to written ideas:)

jury duty next week...so i can no longer plan for new listing days. when?...floats in me...keeping me unsettled and feeling underachieved.  but there is a greater plan which I must heed and it is out of my hands truly...making friends with surrender today.

here...and soon to be there

the acornish things have finally emerged:)  nature inspired, hollow, glazed clay acorns with real caps for hiding tiny messages or secret treasures.  soon to be in my etsy shop.

tiny woodland gardens sprouting within empty nut boxes.

arrangements in my current favorite etsy shop offering...the woodland trinket dishes. 

all will find their way slowly to the land of etsy by the end of the week. 

acornish clay things spent all day in the kiln and I can hardly wait to pair them with the caps I polished for them.  More treasure boxes or secret message containers emerging soon.   changes always... to do the same again....I cannot...must be on to new visions from that higher place.  change is a new discovery always...inventive newness is my innermost.

added more scented plants to shake hands with in the garden today and transplanted some pineapple sage that I picked up from a nursery on the nor. cal. coast ("sea ranch".... my favorite ca. coordinates of late).  my hands smell of earth and siam basil and pineapple sage and lemon verbena:) my heart longs for that view along unspoiled bluffs of open waters and grey skies.

getting ready to cook brown clay acornish things in my kiln and cut more walnuts apart...no easy task.  the walnuts require more than one hour of me just to cut cleanly and tidy up the inside of one walnut for even beginning a box...but the boxes hold a dear place in my heart so i continue the vision that comes to me from some place higher:) 

tiny forms

elevating tiny forms again and pondering their ever-nesting within the larger.

today

finally, after many months of imagining, the nut boxes are finding their way to my etsy shop.

upholstering nutbox interiors with a vintage jacquard. smoother than the wool felt i created with previous boxes and more accepting of jewelry and my wooden books without snagging on the woolen fibers.  the fabric and shells love each other.  i can tell because they are smiling at me:)  

cut and paste

my kids and i have been busy cutting and pasting clues for a birthday surprise for the hubby/dad. this is how it looked...

the surprise....a bicycle trip, just the 4 of us, around angel island in the san francisco bay...and new wheels ie. a bicycle built for 2. (the tango:)

so hard to keep secrets from the one you love and share so much with but we did it and we are all in love with our new ride. such a letting go of control and finding trust with each other when paired on a tandem. it feels big and important to find myself in that place.  i feel a bit of a child in that back seat.  

first, lots of practice riding together before embarking on our angel island visit...:)

listening

listening to this and feeling at home here.

doing

Tiny books have been on my list of explorations for my etsy shop for too long.  Today I am finishing up a few made from natural weathered droppings I have found on my daily walks.  So many free gifts available to me if I chose to see it that way.  I have been sitting on these weathered findings for years now,  tucked away in my tiny book making materials box.  Such a relief to finally move forward in this way.

Same innards as the tiny leather ones but these are tree covered with magnolia pod wooden buttons I crafted, semi precious stone bead and hemp tie cord for securing the book closed.  They will all fit within the walnuts I am about to embark upon and will be sold as a tiny team for one's own imaginary wanderings or secret messaging.

tea

planning for more nut boxes...so today i am tea staining silken ribbon. rooibos, black and very berry zinger are part of my morning cup:)

Tiny Books

finishing up some tiny accordion style books. cotton paper,vintage book end papers, antique repurposed leather, hand cast bronze button and silk ribbon wrap for closure. Was intending them for inside walnut boxes instead of scrolls but I am rethinking that.  Will be listing these tiny treasures by the end of the week.

currently reading

published in 1927.  so clearly written and simple. 

published in 1911.  so much to savor here.  so rich and complex.

still finding such peace and delight in old children's books. they will be my "go to" for summer reading.

leftover piroshki dough with exhausted yeast made a fine pizza last week.  cheddar cheese, tomato, chicken, scallions and garlic dill compound butter.  The crust tasted remarkably of those cheese crackers shaped like little fish. very crackery.

golden forks and spoons not the way i planned so i will return to bronze with no overlay paste. no need to gild the lily anyways. bronze is good and so ancient.  it meets the tiny tree dropping better with a more natural feel. 

today

our getaway today:)

heaven on earth:)55 acres.

i admire plants so very much!

and how they are organized here, truly magic.

floating gardens.

and very fragrant ones...yes,smelling of pineapples:)

and then after... "peter pan" the walt disney classic, in the theater here

"think of the happiest thing...it's the same as having wings"

we can fly :)