Blog entry

An Artisan Handmade Christmas - Gift Ideas - Week 4

'

Week 4 of the Countdown to Christmas quickly came and went . . . and a wide variety of wonderful artisan handmade items were left in its wake.  According to the ever ticking Christmas clock, there is only 70 days until Christmas is here - once again - too early. Now is the perfect time and this is the perfect place to start your holiday shopping.  Follow this motto: SHOP EARLY, SHOP OFTEN! And, most of all, SHOP HANDMADE!

Autumn Beauties - Artisan Handmade Three for Thursday

“Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower” . . . Albert Camus

Even though it still is getting into the low 90’s here in the Desert Southwest, the mornings have begun to fill with the glorious tentacles of autumn.  Everyone I know wants to linger as long as they can outside, sipping their coffee or tea, reading the newspaper, or, like me, just sitting and taking it all in.  Not as many hummingbirds are practicing gluttony at the hummingbird feeders. Am assuming many are winging their way further south for the coming winter. I’ll miss them - a bittersweet goodbye.  Fall is just around the corner.

Spring Colors! - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!   Sitting Bull

With spring definitely here in the Borderlands, I have been thinking about colors quite a bit as the brown of the desert bursts into so many glorious shades of green.  The white and pink fruit trees have pretty much quit blooming, so the various shrubs, hardy trees, ocotillo, cactus and poppies will add their beautiful spring colors: yellow, pinks, oranges, reds, purples and others all against the huge dark blue sky.  My soul revives!

Eclipse Blues - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday

Yesterday, I was flying back home from Dallas right as the eclipse was happening in far West Texas.  Unfortunately, the sun was right above the plane, so I couldn’t see any of it.  But I was able to see the ground (something like 40,000 feet below) slowly growing darker.  Although since the eclipse was only about 65% in my area of the world, it didn’t get anywhere as dark as a full eclipse.  But what was interesting was watching the sky as the sun dimmed and then grew brighter - what beautiful shades of deep, rich blues showed up and then slowly dissolved into the more normal paler sky blues.  The colors looked almost velvety if you could just reach out and touch them!  

The photo above is the one and only photo I took yesterday towards the end of the eclipse. I just pointed my old iPhone at the sun and clicked, hoping the sun wouldn't fry the lense. Not a great photo by any means - the sun doesn't even look like it is eclipsing with all the "light leakage." It wasn't until I downoaded the photo on the computer that I noticed the lense flare with a clear eclipse shape in it, which is what the sun actually looked like at that time. Yay! But look at the sky . . . what an amazing color!