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Blog entry
The Sky is Already Purple - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
"The sky is already purple; the first few stars have appeared, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a handful of silver across the edge of the world."
I have always loved this quote from Alice Hoffman’s novel, Here on Earth. It is so very evocative of watching the sky turn dark here in the Desert Southwest during this glorious time of the year. When the sky is transformed for a few minutes into a magical velvety bluish-purple color, a multitude of stars come out to to play, twinkling away. Then the sky will finally slip into a depthless black and even more stars will appear . . . and, hopefully, a shooting star will streak across the sky. Another reason autumn is my favorite time of the year.
Make It a Handmade Christmas - Countdown - Week 4
Do you hear the tick, tick, tick of the Christmas clock? As we are all probably aware, Christmas will be here before we know it. According to the ever ticking clock, there are only 75 days (when this blog was posted) until the day of gift giving and merry making.
With the approaching gift buying and gift giving season in mind, Julie and Blu of Blue Morning Expressions are hosting a twelve-week Countdown to Christmas 2017 of artisan handmade items on their The Blu Print blog. The twelve week time period was chosen to correspond with the Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Week 4 has come and gone on Julie and Blu's "Countdown to Christmas 2017." In its wake, a wonderful assortment of handmade items were shared. They included all styles of beautiful jewelry, lovely crocheted and knitted items for many members of the family, breathtaking photography, eye catching original art, glowing lampwork glass beads, dog bandanas, cute holiday stickers . . . all these and more creative beauties were shared.
Make It a Handmade Christmas - Countdown - Week 3
Week 3 of the Countdown to Christmas sharing of artisan items has ended. Where did the week go? As we are all probably aware, Christmas will be here before we know it. According to the Christmas Clock shows that there are only 82 days left until the jolly man dressed in red shows up to leave gifts . . . or a lump of coal depending on if you were good or not.
With the approaching gift giving season in mind, Julie and Blu of Blue Morning Expressions are hosting a twelve-week Countdown to Christmas 2017 of artisan handmade items on their The Blu Print blog. The twelve week time period was chosen to correspond with the Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas.” As was mentioned above, week 3 has come and gone on Julie and Blu's "Countdown to Christmas 2017." In its wake, a wonderful assortment of handmade items were shared: from all styles of jewelry to crocheted and knitted items; from photography to wooden clocks; from original art to lampwork glass beads; from dog bandanas to ACEOs; and many, many more creative beauties!
Make It a Handmade Christmas - Countdown - Week 2
Tick, tock, tick, tock . . . the Christmas Clock shows that there are only 89 days left until the Jolly Man in red arrives.
With the approaching gift giving season in mind, Julie and Blu of BlueMorningExpressions are hosting a twelve-week Countdown to Christmas 2017 of artisan handmade items on their BluPrint blog. The twelve week time period was chosen to correspond with the Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Week 2 has come and gone on Julie and Blu's "Countdown to Christmas 2017." In its wake, a wonderful assortment of handmade items were shared: from jewelry to crocheted and knitted items; from lampwork glass beads to wooden Christmas ornaments; from photography to original art, and many, many more creative beauties!
Make It a Handmade Christmas - Countdown - Week 1
WOW, wasn't last Christmas like . . . last month? Yikes! According to the Christmas clock, there is only 96 days, 20 hours, 54 minutes and those rapidly descending seconds until Christmas is here . . . once again! And it's even closer by the time your read this!
Autumn Inspired Handmade Beauties
The cooler temperatures of autumn have arrived here in our area of the Desert Southwest. It still gets into the high 80’s or low 90’s during the day but drops down into the high 60’s at night. The monsoon season has pretty much ended, the horrid humidity mostly gone, and our drier air has been welcomed back by everyone. It is so nice to turn off the air conditioner (at least until early afternoon) and open windows and doors to allow fresh desert air to blow through. While I don’t see any trees changing colors yet, the desert is extremely green after the above average rainfall we received the last two months. Maximillian sunflowers can be found all over, as well as masses of small yellow, purple and terracotta colored wildflowers that I don't know the name of but enjoy immensely nonetheless. My favorite time of the year!
Second Category, Third Item - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
The Franciscan Festival of Fine Arts at the Holy Cross Retreat Center is this Labor Day weekend, Saturday and Sunday. The Retreat Center has been operational for 60 years. However, some of the buildings in the compound are over 100 years old. It's so peaceful there and feels like you step back in time, especially when you see Father Tom walking around in his full cassock with a large, wooden rosary tied around his waist, chatting with as many people as he can. The juried festival itself has been held yearly for almost 20 years and is a “go to” festival for local people and the many who might drive from Tucson, Albuquerque or beyond to buy beautiful artisan handcrafted items. If you are in the Las Cruces, NM or El Paso, TX area, please stop by - I will be selling my jewelry there. For more information, here is a link: Franciscan Festival of Fine Arts.
New Jewelry at Shadow Dog Designs - Handmade Beauties
Seven new handmade jewelry creations have been listed in my Shadow Dog Designs shop: four new necklaces and three new pairs of earrings. All are very different in design, ranging from fun and funky boho to classic meditative designs. The seven new beauties, perfect gift ideas for women who love one of a kind, artisan jewelry, are featured below. To round out the count to an even ten pieces, two pairs of earrings and one necklace that are still looking for a new home are also included. If a piece of jewelry catches your eye, either click on the photo or the live link below the photo to be taken to the item for more information and photographs.
An Explosion of Flowers! - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade
Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. Luther Burbank
Since we there has been quite a long string of triple digit days here in the Desert Southwest, most of my outdoor potted plants have quite blooming, with the exception of a vibrant fuchsia colored geranium that makes me smile every time I look at it. Now gardening pretty much consists of watering and deadheading the spent blossoms. Hopefully the monsoons will soon show up (they are a bit late this year) and bring much needed rain and cooler temperatures. Until then, I’ll dream about masses of colorful flowers.
Shadow Dog Designs - New Handmade Jewelry
The past two weeks have been very busy . . . not so much with making new jewelry and listing new pieces . . . but with life itself. It seems I find myself coming and going at the same time. Thank heavens for yoga classes and the bits and pieces of meditation I can do. They definitely help center my life, to look at what life throws my way with empathy, caring and a sense of humor (or at least I hope!).
