treasures

Long walks on the beach uncovered this...

To keep myself from bringing home the entire beach I set a few parameters for myself.

My treasure hunt consisted of collecting:

1. beach glass
2. interesting rocks with holes in them
3. pink rocks (although these looked a whole lot pinker when they were wet!)
4. flat rocks (for painting on)

Our long weekend on the beach was great. We stayed at Jalama Beach which is about an hour or so north of Santa Barbara. It's way off the beaten path. Standing on the beach you don't see a single multi-complex development or black-paved parking lot. Just cliffs, sand, water and some fog banks that roll in over the hills. It's a bit windy. The water is a little too cold for diving into without a wetsuit. But the stars are magnificent at night. And the sand is clean. No cigarette butts, candy wrappers or empty beer cans here. At least none that I saw anyway.

I'd like to do some more beach camping this summer. Maybe next time we'll bum it and tent camp (this time we slept in the luxury of my parents' camper trailer). Dust off the old camp stove I remember mom cooking pancakes on when I was a kid. Bury the ice chest in the sand to keep the ice from melting. Shower outside wearing a swimsuit. I'll never forget camping on Kauai several years back. Nothing says aloha more than hearing those morning showers sprinkle down overhead on your tent...hoping the wind doesn't just rip the tarp off leaving you soaked through.

Going to see what I can make from my little beach treasures.

Jewelery from the beach glass?

Paintings on the flat rocks?

String the rocks with holes on some string?

Let's see what I can do...

sand everywhere

back from the beach!

more later...once the car is unpacked

kitsch worship

my altar of kitsch
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For a while now we've been picking up little knick knacks here and there when we travel. And when my husband travels on business, it's his job to seek out the tackiest souveniers possible to bring home. It was our 5 year wedding anniversary in January. In tradition (5th anniversary being wood) my husband gave me this shelf by an artist from Dallas. It was the *perfect* place for displaying our loveable junk. We did have quite a few more treasures at one time - but our then just over a year old son reached out for the shelf before I had the chance to hang it and probably more than 50% of the little items broke when the whole thing came crashing to the floor. Oh well...just gives us more incentive to fill the shelf (or, "altar") up! I'm considering putting a metal panel on the back so we could hang magnets there. Airports always have the tackiest magnets!

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color me pink!

~vintage wallpaper find~

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Now that we have our new digital camera I'm happy to be shooting things to share here in my posts. This is a picture of our bathroom along with the vintage wallpaper I got on ebay. Need to find out what kind of wall prep I need to do before putting the paper up...but isn't it snazzy? It'll work nice because the tile, the tub and the toilet are all pink. So the pink wallpaper will make it all a little more coordinated. And since both the light fixture and the medicine cabinet/shelf above the sink are throw-back I think the mood of this wallpaper will definately make the bathroom appear *vintage* rather than *old*. The bottom picture is a sea urchin candle holder my mother-in-law gave me for Mother's Day. How perfect would that look in the bathroom next to this wallpaper? The floors also need replacing so I'm considering a black and white checkerboard in linoleum. (another attempt at that throw-back look)

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Stay tuned for the "after" pictures!

little nothings

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Working on little insects now. Hmmm...first imaginary flying animals...then whimsical plants...now bugs. My head is definately in the bog. Made this little bead for fun. My "little nothing" bead. Know those gnats that just swirl around and don't really appear to have any real purpose? Little nothings.

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hawaiian history lesson of the day

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Polihale is the last beach you can access by land on the East side of Kauai. This begins the Na Pali coastline on the North shore. Na Pali in hawaiian literally translates to "the cliffs". So, all cliffs mean no cars! Polihale roughly means "home of the spirits".

It is believed that ancient hawaiians would jump from the tops of these cliffs into the ocean to die. Doing so would unite them with their aumakua, a family diety. Each family's aumakua was unique to that family, but they were all creatures from the ocean. Shark, green sea turtle, whale, dolphin. It was thought that when a member of your family dies, their spirit lives on in the form of one of these sea creatures and continues to protect the family. To jump from Na Pali would be an act of joining your ancestors for the continual protection of your family.

I LOVE hawaiian mythology!

Access to this beach is difficult. Just south of here is the location of the Pacific Missle Range Facility. Surfing is supposed to be excellent at Barking Sands (at the PMRF), but most roads that cross through the military base to get there have been blocked off since 9/11. The road to Polihale is very bumpy and sandy in spots (crosses through some sand dunes)...it's good to have 4WD. But it's worth it.

In contrast to the spirit of the ancient hawaiian mythology at this site is the activity of the PMRF. I believe they've stopped (I hope I'm right), but they used to launch underwater test missles here. The sound of these launches was known to be hazardous to the whales. Pods of whales would swim into bays to seek protection. I recall being underwater on the beach and actually being able to hear the whales singing. This was in January when the whales are in Hawaiian waters. It was so amazing. To think that mankind would do anything to hurt these fantastic creatures makes me sick. Wish we, today, had the same respect for the land, the sea and the animals that the Hawaiians did centuries ago.

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green things

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experimenting with vegetation in abstract

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I've been pouring through websites, gardening books and magazines for plants with interesting shapes...but not so out of the ordinary that they'd be unrecognizable to most non-gardening types. In fact, I think weeds often have very nice shapes. I'm usually so busy pulling them in disgust that most of the time I fail to appreciate their beauty. After we got all that rain here in Southern California a few months back, I was just amazed at all the freeway flowers. And they were all just weeds, but my...what a sight! All that yellow! Now they're all brown (back to typical California roadsid growth). Well, it was nice while it lasted!

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oh bother!

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Looks like our digital camera is dead.

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BUMMER!

from sunday's new york times styles mag

where i want to vacation next...



"In the summer, you can leave London after work and come here and have a beer on the beach, and it's still light out"

article here

jumpstart that creativity

~completed the design of all my critters~

(That pig was really driving me up a wall, but I think I'm finally happy with him.)

It's been hard getting back in gear after a week of living in hawaiian time.

I think about how motivated I was several months ago - anxious to create this little world around my drawings - the energy and excitement that being super involved in a project can make me feel.

So I'm going to start working on this again.

Try to carve out that time.

Stop spending ALL my time marvelling at the creativity of others...

spend more time encouraging MY creativity.

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Need to buy a new battery for our digital camera. Hopefully that will fix it. Hopefully it isn't permanently broken. It just died while we were in Hawaii. Couldn't handle the beauty, I guess. Since I was sans still camera, though, I was forced to take a lot of video footage. Last week I put together a little movie with lots of Hawaiian music using Roxio Videowave. I took video of us driving through my favorite place in the entire world, Hanalei, and it makes me feel like we're right back there. So that was the little silver lining in our camera malfunctions. Don't know that I would have used the digital video camera as much otherwise.

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Time to put the right side of my brain to good use!

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aloha

back to reality

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So we're back from a wonderful week stay on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. I'm in that mode now where it all just seems like a dream that we were ever there. I hate that. I'm starting to think that one week simply isn't enough. I need to stay there longer, need to be good and ready to come home...maybe that would make the leaving a little less painful. But I don't know, maybe that's impossible.

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Anyway, we went to this BEauTIful garden called Allerton Gardens (part of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens). It was amazing. This shot of bamboo was taken there. I'm totally inspired to start gardening again. The philosophy behind Allerton Gardens was to create different outdoor "rooms" that were accented with different water features and unique tropical plants. I'd like to create some comfortable outdoor spaces that inspire different and unique moods.

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A Hui Ho

(until we meet again)

aloha

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Ack...I haven't been posting or doing a single crafty thing for the past couple weeks. Just catching up on stuff around the house and getting ready for our trip to Hawaii (just a couple days away now!). And the little one was sick, so that was a big adventure. At least it happened before our trip and not during. Now my time is all about packing and preparing for the trip. Toys, videos, snacks, beach toys, swim stuff...you get the idea. Also, trying to imagine every and any possible senario and preparing for it. Baby Tylenol, hand wipes, anti-bacterial wipes, bandaids, sunscreen, insect repellent, grown-up Tylenol...you get the idea. Eventually I'll have to just admit to myself that it's not like we're going to a remote island where we couldn't go pick something up if I forgot to bring it. Kauai has a grocery store for heaven's sake...so stop stressing. And there's the house and pets to be squared away. I always have to clean the house before we leave for a trip. I need the peace of mind that a clean house gives me while we're gone. Need to know we have a clean home to return to when that dreaded return arrives. I know, I'm crazy.

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Big question now is, what little crafty project shall I bring along? Used to be that one entire bag would be filled to the brim with multiple projects to keep me busy on the plane/train/automobile. During our last trip to Kauai I busied myself by stitching palm trees on the beach while my husband read and we downed several mai tais. But now with little baby boy I know it's foolish to bring too much. Most of our time will be spent with him. But hopefully there will be a few moments where he's either napping or otherwise occupied, so I need to figure out what it is I want to work on during those moments. Maybe I should just bring my sketch book and consider myself lucky if I have any time at all just to doodle.

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Well, time for me to put the little one down for a nap. He just fell asleep right here on the floor! Poor thing. Hopefully he'll be back at 100% by Saturday. Ah, I just imagined that feeling of driving up to the North shore on that rain slicked road...lush green hills...sun peaking out just as you reach the beach...warm air...smell of plumeria.

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Aloha!

sketching swine

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Last week I did absolutely nothing, and yet I got so much done. Make sense? What I mean is...I didn't really do anything I *wanted* to do but did nearly everything I *needed* to do. I have my long list of boring chores in my head that I've been avoiding for weeks. I finally checked off several of those menial tasks last week. Very good. But didn't do hardly anything creative. So I need to make up for lost time this week.

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Trying to get the last of my Buzzing Bog characters created. The pig is turning out to be a lot harder than any of the others. There was something that just easily flowed with the elephant, the giraffe, the cat and the rabbit. But that pig snout has me a little perplexed. It's just not flowing yet. Well, I'll keep at it. As soon as I get it, I'll know it.

here's *something* anyway

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I'm afraid the creative juices just haven't been flowing like they should. Well, yesterday was catch-up day...laundry, house cleaning, laundry, laundry, laundry. Need to get myself back in the game. Need to burn some screens of my new characters (including this little giraffe) so that I can be silkscreening by week's end. I really want fabric! *My* silkscreened fabric so we can start to make some truly unique pillows and blankets and bags and such. I just have one more little animal to perfect...the pig. I just haven't liked any of my sketches yet. In my grand scheme I pictured an elephant, a cat, a rabbit, a giraffe and a pig. The elephant and giraffe I envisioned as good schemes for boys. The cat and rabbit for girls. The pig for either. I don't want to stick entirely to the pink=girls, blue=boys color palette...but I think I will do some stuff that way because whenever I don't (thinking, oh I'm sure there are people like me out there who wouldn't dress their little girl in ALL pink & lace) I always get requests for it. People love to bath baby girls in pink. So I'll do some pink.

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booties!

I'm finally starting to photograph some of the baby clothing items my mom makes to add to our website. Mom and I work hand in hand. I do my thing, she does hers. Hers happens to be some delicate stitch work...beautiful baby booties and hats made from some alpaca wool she acquired during our trip up north to the Washington/Oregon border last fall.

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I'm trying to add things in as timely a fashion as I can. I've still got photographs of some wonderful fleece blankets (also crafted by my mom, Laurie) that I need to post to the site. These blankets are the magic blankets that are instrumental in getting my little one to sleep. We're also anxious to start silkscreening some fabric with my little "Buzzing Bog" characters. From this we hope to make quilts, valences, wall hangings, crib bumpers and what ever else strikes our fancy. So much to do...so little time!

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