A visit of rainbow orbs....

After weeks.....but what seems an eternity to me..... the sun broke through the grey rain filled clouds.......and brought dancing rainbow orbs of beauty to my heart and soul.

I share these magic blessings with you.......

One World One Heart Begins......

I love this event! Not only is it a wonderful way to meet new people, not only does it create our experience of the world as a close-knit community, not only does it provide hours of inspiration, but it allows me to go into my studio and chose bits and pieces of what I find inspiring and share that with some unknown person, somewhere in the world. It is magic, I think.

So this is what I have chosen to gift away.....

A multi-page illustrated newspaper labeled

"Journal Artistique & Pralique de Travaux Feminins" dated 1904. I found it in a small

fleamarket in the south of France. Great illustrations and ads.

Also......3 postcards, purchased in France. One is a Claude Monet, one is a Toulouse-Lautrec and one is of four figures from the Regne de Louis XVI period.

Also...a postcard, from Paris...handwritten and dated ( I think ) 1881.

Also.....a real butterfly! An irridescent glass butterfly! A gathering of fine gold thread.....

A brown button with a ribbon and small spool of thread ....and 3 pieces of antique beadwork.

To win, you need only post your comment on my blog, leaving me your email address so I can contact you, if you are the winner. The winner will be chosen by a random counter and the event ends on Feb 15th.

Click on the side bar One World One Heart Logo to be taken to

the main site for this event where you will see a list with all the people who are participating. It is a Magic Carpet Ride for sure!!

Welcome Aboard!!

My shadow found me......

Today my shadow found me working on my mushroom. It had been cold and grey, but I bundled up and went out to apply some more glass....... and out popped the sun!

It glittered and glistened on my glass and I am in love with the way this mushroom is turning out! The lumps and bumps that are caused by the underlying oyster shells and cement add a wonderful movement to the surface.

But I am all too familiar with this stage of falling in love with a project. It happens most of the time. I begin a piece of art work and I can literally feel the moment and the sensation of tumbling into love. It becomes the best piece I've ever done! I'm sure it's worth a million dollars!

And then......then I complete it....... and I hate it.

And then after a couple of days my eyes can see the truth of the piece and most often I like it a lot but I am well aware of it's value. LOL

So with my mushroom, after being very frustrated with my attempts, I am happy to report that I am in love. However, this mosaic of glass is to be grouted....which can change....and will change the whole affect.

But that's part of the fun of creating.

Balancing on the edge of love and hate. :)

Do you ever feel that way about a creation?

The ongoing saga of my mushroom....

I've been so unhappy with my big mushroom in the garden outside of my cottage.
Originally it was planted and was supposed to bloom....which it never did. I tried fake plants and that didn't work. Then I got the idea to mosaic it with clam shells....well, that looked horrible!
Then I thought I would make big clay hydragenia flowers on it but soon realized that would take too much time and energy.... and I was bored after the third one.
So.......my mushroom has been sitting, ugly, staring at me everytime I go into the door.
And then....inspiration arrived. Since I'm so enamored with using tempered glass for mosaic work,
I thought I would try covering the entire mushroom with this effect. I've gotten about a third of it done and I think....I hope....this is going to work! It's hard to tell now because after I apply the tempered glass I have to grout and that does change the look, but I'm kind of liking it.
Since I had put clam shells on it and had used cement to embed them, the surface is very lumpy, but laying the glass on this lumpy surface looks like of cool. We shall see.......I hope to have this done in the next day or two. In these photos you can see half done with the clam shells and half with the ungrouted tempered glass.

I'm back.....!

I've been struggling with how to begin to blog again.
It feels like I've been gone so long...
After starting and deleting post after post, I began to visit my list of blogs that I had been following and I see that so many of those bloggers have also been "on vacation". I guess the holidays just require too much of our energy. But anyway, I feel better knowing that I'm not the only one missing in action. :)

What has brought me back to posting is the announcement that the "One World One Heart" blog event is to begin January 25th. This is such a great way to discover new blogs and new friends.
You can click on the ad just to the left of this post to find out all about it and how to join the Magic Carpet Ride. It's really quite an amazing way to travel the world and to let the winds of inspiration be your guide.
Here is the site:
http://awhimsicalbohemian.typepad.com/a_whimsical_bohemian/one-world-one-heart.html

I've been creating more pieces using the tempered glass technique and I think for my give away for
the One World, One Heart event, I will create something using that technique. It's just so magical.
Here is a photo of a piece I did where I took a piece of heavy bark from an oak tree and lined the inside with color, glitter and a Reiki healing symbol and then laid the tempered glass over it.

The saga of my large ugly mushroom continues and I am starting to lay the tempered glass effect on that too. I think it just may work.
Stay tuned for photo updates!