How He Has Grown

Awesome picture that Jim took of our boy! Four years old and getting so big - he is so adorable and is beginning to know it I think. Had to post this and brag of his cuteness.

Bathroom Vignette

This is a view of one of the walls in our tiny, tiny powder room right off the kitchen. All the pieces here have significance. Although the room is small, it is decked out in things that speak to me.

The paint color is "Stone" - I love the color and name. The shelf I painted myself years ago after we had the bathroom redone. I used green acrylic paint and wiped on some gold paint. To make a towel holder, I attached two hooks which you can't see well from this photo - but a gold beaded tassel hangs from one hook and the handtowel from the other.

The hanging clay piece of artwork has wheat sheaths embedded and pulled out to leave an impression. Jim and I bought this piece years ago at the Cedarburg Wine Harvest Festival - a yearly event for us. I love the naturalness of this piece. The topiary came from my brother in law many years ago at Christmas. He had it decorated in a holiday theme, but I dismantled it and attached many, many paper rose heads and leaves.

The wire basket includes a variety of pears made from natural items - not all of them identifiable to me. I think I bought them at Pier 1. The natural feel of this vignette in my bathroom is very calming to me. I'll have to post a picture of the leaf print/poster I made based on a project I saw in Martha Stewart Magazine years ago that hangs opposite of this vignette.

Paper Beads

It has been a long time since I posted anything here... but have been on a bit of a creative run. I tried out a "new" craft - paper beads. I read about them in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine I now get in addition to Somerset Studio, as well as saw a tutorial online at Go Make Something. Here is my first run - using a decorated paper of a neutral pattern and color. I added some glitter glue, stamp pad ink and some wire. I added a few extras as well.

Take a look at the bluish bead near the top center that is wrapped with turquoise wire. Do you see the blue bits of things that are embedded in the UTEE? These are fragments of a robin's egg that my kids and I found in our yard. I'll have to use this bead on a bird themed piece of my artwork.

Here is what the beads looked like before I used UTEE on them to make them "bead-like." Very easy to do this stage - and fun. I'm not as excited about adding the UTEE, because I was trying too hard to be perfect, and this medium does not allow it when you add many layers of the goopy stuff. Overall, a fun project and one I think I may use often to add a personal embellishment to my work.