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The Charismatic Color of Copper - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

The first recorded use of copper as a color name in English was in 1594.  It is a charismatic reddish brown color that resembles the color of polished copper.  According to Wikipedia, however, there are about 25 different shades of “copper,” from a verdigris green (copper green) to a dark brown (dark copper).  It is a trendy color, found in everything from jewelry to clothing to household decoration and accents.  Beautiful with shades of green and blue (mint, teals, turquoise, navy), it actually works well with almost any color as this article in Lushome shows:  30 Modern Interior Designs.

Beautiful Firsts - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Looking for a handmade gift for a special someone, an item that was made from the heart?  Each of the Beautiful Firsts creations featured below are artisan handcrafted; many are one of a kind designs.  The unique items chosen are the first listing in each shop (as of this post) but there are many more beauties to be discovered if you stay awhile and browse.   Support handmade . . . support handmade artists!

Circles of Our Lives - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Sometimes the most mundane of things in life suddenly captures my imagination.  The other day, when I was outside with Seamus, the very handsome Shadow Dog, I started thinking about circles (yes, my brain does shoot off on a tangent sometimes!).  You see circles everywhere: most door knobs, most coins, the sun and moon, the pupil of most animal's eyes and the wheel, just to name a few.  Most people don't give them a second thought unless you're a mathematician, an architect or an artist.  As a gardener and an avid observer of nature, I daily feel the circle of life all around me on a more cosmological scale: day/night, phases of the moon, seasons, life/death.  And then I remembered a Wendell Berry poem, called "Circles of Our Lives", which I will share at the end of this post. This led me to do some reading about circles (inquiring minds want to know!) and copious note taking.

Botanical Beauties - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

BOTANICAL:  pertaining to plants

Many people think that the desert is nothing but prickly plants and blowing sand.  Believe me, there are plenty of prickly plants here in the Chihuahuan Desert, and, at times, plenty of blowing sand.  But there are a whole host of other plants that bloom beautifully and are much more friendly to the skin.  The Chihuahuan Desert is termed a "cold desert" since temperatures often drop below freezing during the winter with occasional snowfall.  It is, on average, higher in altitude (El Paso is at 3800 ft / 1200 m) than the neighboring “hot” Sonoran Desert around Tucson (2643 ft / 806 m) which rarely experiences freezing temperatures.  While Tucson and Phoenix bake for several months with triple digits, summer temperatures in the Chihuahuan desert are more moderate, our hottest month being June. Triple digits, yes, but for only a few weeks.  Rainfall averages less than 10" per year, most of that coming during the monsoon season, normally July through mid-September. Amazingly, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature has indicated that the Chihuahuan Desert may be the most biologically diverse desert in the world!  Our plants just tend to be built on a smaller scale than those found in the Sonoran Desert.