Sources Of Inspiration

 When the snow flies and the sun sets much too early, even I have a hard time remembering the many colors leaves can be. I'm sure I could find a few people who can recall walking with me in the Fall, and wondering why I would suddenly stop short and lunge for the ground! Did I trip? Was I having a seizure? No, I would spot a beautifully colored leaf and would grab it for later reference! Unfortunately, leaf colors don't keep past a day or two. BUT, (Reason number 87 as to why I love digital cameras...!) with my camera, I can freeze the diverse leaf colors in time and refer to them whenever I want!

I discovered most of these leaves last weekend, when the wind was gusting to 50 miles an hour and I had a yard full of leaves from trees that were probably miles away - that's why most of these are under plastic. I wanted to take the pics in the daylight, when the colors would be truer, but they were trying to take off!

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The most colorful and diverse tree in my yard has to be this Japanese Maple - I was disappointed when I first bought it - it had been mismarked and the leaves turned out a plain green in the summer and I wanted a red one. But once it matured, I discovered that its Fall color was breathtaking! The five leaves below all came from this one tree.

The two oval leaves are from a "Burning Bush " (Euonymus). Proof that I can paint a leaf PINK and it will still be realistic!

The underside of a waterlily pad...

Even a shot of my red Castor Bean...

And.... a couple of "my" leaves inspired by my Autumn finds!

Happy Earth Day!

I'm sure this is not big news to you all - it's all over the place! - but today is the 40th celebration of Earth Day!

And here's my Earth Day message: You don't have to recycle, and compost, and drive a hybrid, and garden organic, and use rechargeable batteries, and reuse 'gray' water, and use flourescent lightbulbs,and plant a tree, and conserve energy and gasolene usage all at the same time - just do SOME of those things! That's the problem. Some of us are really trying, but many more don't do ANYTHING! And the scariest part is, they don't CARE! Well, they should- especially if they've had children - they may not care, but their descendants might, don't you think?! If every one of us would just do whatever they could towards conservation, it could really make a difference. And if you're reading my blog, it's more likely than not that you already feel the same way, so today, I think we should all find one or more of those "uncaring" folks and try (tactfully) to convince them a little that, like it or not, we're in this together!

Peace!

Nature Bling?

I have always been a "nature girl" who loves plants, animals, the sun,flowers, etc., and being away from the not-so-natural, manmade world.

The soft greens, browns, blue and white skies, just make me happy and content.

Then there's the other me, who loves bling! Not as in 'expensive jewelry' - I just love glitter, sparkles, spangles, mirrors (diamonds are still OK, though!) - anything that reflects the light. I always describe myself as a little monkey, because they like to collect sparkly things. My husband, on the other hand, describes me as a"crow" (well, because they do the same thing - I like MY description better, however!It'd be too easy to throw the word "old" in front of "crow")!

Of course, glitter can be found in the natural world - the evening sunlight on water, the sun coming out right after a fresh snowfall (or an ice storm!), the stars on a clear night, dewdrops on a Lotus leaf,even flakes of quartz in stones scattered on the ground...

So, these days, even as I create my concrete leaves, and want to use the muted colors of Nature, part of me wants to stick just a little bit of flash on them! I have attached clear glass "raindrops" to the Lotus leaves, added a touch of metallic colors on others, pearls and glass beads on the Hibiscus stamens and am now putting tiny iridescent"dewdrops" on the leaf pendants......

And of course, my Fun-Gi, with their metallic impressions and jewels and copper stems, are an outlet for the "wild" side of my imagination, so not TOO much bling ends up on the leaves!

Back To Beadin'

As I was beading the other day (yes, I still work on jewelry - I love doing it, and I have oh, probably tens of thousands of beads [millions, if you'd count each SEED bead!] all over in my house - gotta do SOMETHING with 'em! ), I realized I really wanted to incorporate the jewelry aspect of my art with the garden side of it.

(NOTE: Don't mention to my husband what a great love I have for beading - he has another side to it! Basically, he just says quietly," I can hear you cussing over there - must be beading again, huh? " I have no idea what he's talkin' about...)


I still do have the cast leaf pendants, but I also have a LOT of what I would call "natural" or "organic" beads - coral, bone, semi precious (garnet, turquoise, pearls), Job's Tears (which I grow myself) - even manmade materials, but still closer to what occurs in Nature - copper, silver, terra cotta, etc. I guess I could even slide by with glass, since it does occur naturally sometimes (near volcanoes!) I have already opened an Etsy shop, but decided to open up a separate store, just for this jewelry, so I now have "Nanci's Organic Jewelry Creations"! I will post the link soon, but since I only have 3 items in there at the moment, it's not too exciting right now!

..Just a fraction of all the beads I really have!

 I'm also making some "Pseudo Pandora" bracelets, just because they're so popular (AND so expensive!). It IS a nice idea, a high quality fashion accessory in which you can add different components or beads to follow seasons, or holidays, or just how you feel that day- and they ARE pretty! But $35 -$45 dollar per BEAD? Seriously? There are websites where you can build yourself a virtual Pandora bracelet online, I tried it out and none of my bracelets came in under $1000.00! So much for that.

..So I decided to make my own, using the many beads I have collected thru years of shopping in bead catalogs, bead stores, craft shops, thrift stores, parents' and grandparents' jewelry boxes - noo, they're not interchangeable like the Pandoras, but I

figure I can make oh, maybe 40 of these for what one of THOSE would cost me! A bead for different holidays? How about a whole bracelet for each holiday!