Why do I love you?

Farmor made this for my Farfar when they were first together over 50 years ago. She wrote the poem and painted the water color love birds. 

A Prayer Stone for Farmor

My middle name is Charlotte, and I am very proud to be named after my grandmother. My Farmor, my father and I are all cut from the same mold, so the name fits me so well. When I found out she was seriously ill, I wanted to find a way that she could know that I was loving and supporting her, even if I was a state and six hours away. 

When we were kids, my grandfather (Farfar) taught us about worry stones, a pebble with an indentation that fits your thumb. As you hold the stone, your thumb rubs in a circle, and the stone takes up your troubles. 

I made this a prayer stone out of polymer for my Farmor to hold onto in this difficult time. The stone fits naturally in the hand if a couple different orientations so that it is easy to use. The body is covered with a granny square patterned cane. Her wedding present to Henry and me was a granny square afghan with yarn left over from sweaters she had made for family members over the years. This was my way to give back from that gift. The yellow flowers are to look like Gullvivan (Primula veris), the swedish flower that Farmor's Vasa childrens dance group was named after. The blue flowers are Forget Me Nots (Myosotis) which adds to the blå och gul theme of the stone. 

A Masque Ball

This summer since our birthday's are so close together, Char and I decided to throw a party together. We came up with the idea of a Masque Ball, everyone had to have some sort of facial covering (this was liberally interpreted).  I did an experiment, and made mine and Henry's masks out of polymer. To get the form right, I started with paper maches casts of our faces (Henry's I made to fit over his glasses).  It was a very warm night, so in this picture, we are little droopy with the humidity, but it was a good night, and the masks were a fun touch. 

Push pins done the fun way

I needed to make myself some pushpins to dress up my new office at work. I have wanted to try copying some of my favorite artists' work and used this as an opportunity to try to emulate some of their styles. I didn't come close to doing them justice, but it was a fun try. I really want to be as creative as joojoo and create such simple beauty as Eva Thissen. The peacock turned out the best, and was based on this tutorial. 

Happy things.

Kittens in boxes,

and kittens on couches.

Surprises of flowers

and the boy that gave them.

My vanilla vine,

my teddy,

and a nice glass of wine.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes me happy. Also a fair amount about follow-through, so I decided to do a quick exercise tonight to practice both of these things. I took a few minutes, and photographed a few of my favorite things, things that bring a smile to my face.

Ginkgo and Sunflower Box

I've come up with a pretty successful method of making boxes, and made this ginkgo and sunflower box for my parents for christmas. I used dried ginkgo leaves as stamps and layered them over a mokume gane box leaving the mokume gane texture visible on the inside. I wanted the leaves to look like they had fallen from the tree, so I brushed powdered pastels on top to dirty them up. Each petal of the sunflower used a skinner blend to add interest. 

Salt and Pepper Shakers

I started my new job, and my brain is working on catching up with the changes in my life. I'm hoping that my more "normal" schedule will allow me to have more time to work on clay. I've been really busy with swing stuff (btw, check out our new blog!), but maybe I'll have more down time as things even out. In the mean time, I'll get around to a series of posts of Christmas gifts I made. These were an experiment to see what BotanyBoeh salt and pepper shakers would look like. Henry's step-mom collects salt and pepper shakers, so I made them for her for Christmas. I'd love to do more of these down the road, any takers?