Good Things in Spring.....

I snapped this picture tonight of my asparagus! It's peeking through the soil. Yah! Love this stuff roasted. I have two beds of it, one green and the other purple. Another good thing of spring......Easter Bread from St. Anthony's in Youngstown, Ohio. Oh this sweet bread is so yummy toasted and the glaze on top with the sprinkles is de-lish!

Two new spring pendants............. SING, SING, SING of SPRING........

Soon the little humming birds will be returning. This pendant celebrates their tiny tenacity!

Better weather is coming our way, it's going to be 75 degrees on Friday! Here comes spring, finally!

Kindess Matters......Leather.....Muse.....Toodee

Does kindness matter? Yes it does. Today I had a conversation with a colleague in which he told me that a mother and grandmother were telling their 3rd grade son/grandson that if he didn't behave in school he was going to grow up and go to prison. My colleague heard this and told them that they shouldn't say that to him because we often become what others say or think about us, in essence, a self-fulfilling prophecy. He told them that they should tell the little boy that he needs to behave so that he can learn, graduate high school and get a good job or go on to college. The mother looked ashamed and said, "you're right". My colleague knows that kindnesss.....it matters.

I've known many kind people in my life. Strangers that have become good friends just through their kindness and friends that have gone above and beyond with their acts of kindness. I hope to remember them all for as long as I live. I've learned a lot from them and I they've made me a better person. Recently I've had the opportunity to observe the kindness of a new found friend. I think she lives by the mantra "what comes around, goes around". When I see her I think of the word "kind". She was the inspiration for this spoon pendant. Yes, kindness does matters.

I suppose "love" goes with kindness because without one, you really can't have the other, right? Just another spoon pendant.

For the past few months my creative "muse" has left me. I haven't done much altered art or jewelry. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the time of year, maybe it was a lack of fiber.....whatever the case, inspiration was not there. But, over the weekend I started to get the creative spark. My muse has returned on gossamer wings! I started this leather bracelet last night and finished it tonight.

Now you are probably wondering, how in the heck did she do that? Meet my deconstructed leather jacket, circa 1994. The other night I was dancing around my studio (yes, I dance when I do art...I rarely sit) when my eyes landed on this jacket slated to go in the Goodwill bag. BOOM! Inspiration struck.....I said to myself , "self go get the big ass scissors and the seam ripper"!

This is really soft leather, so it was easy to cut into flower and leaf shapes. Next I painted them with Lumiere paint (3 coats) and trimmed them out with the Neopaque black paint. I love this paint! I then sewed the flowers and leaves to the leather band which I stained and painted with tendrills.

I made a few pink ones which I'm thinking about using in a necklace.

Lastly, I'm leaving you with a shot of Toodee the Studio Monster. He got into the gin again.....what more can I say other than he get's stupid when he drinks the gin!

Hey, I hope you all are having a great week, tomorrow is hump-day....yeah! Half way to the weekend.

Happy St. Pat's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! To all my blogland friends here's my favorite Irish toast to you:

"Always remember to forgot those that have been untrue,

but never forget to remember those that have stood by you".

I'm thinking about flowers already! I made these for a friend for her birthday tomorrow. I hope she likes them. I made these to go with my green sweater that I'm going to wear tomorrow.
May you smile a thousand smiles today!

Random Weekend Thoughts........

I painted these Bunny Pots today for my dear friend Audrea. They are for her grand kids. I've painted so many of these over the years that I'm sick of them although they really are cute filled with grass and Easter goodies..........I finally got to finish a page in my art journal. It's my homage to the human spirit. "Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall". That saying reminds me of the other saying "tough times never last but tough people do".

If you're a follower of this blog, you've heard me mention the Let It Bead Shop. Well, these are the Let It Bead girls. From your left to right is Kris- the owner of bead shop, Danielle, Me and Allison. We are "Unofficial Employees"! We laugh a lot on Saturdays, so much so that my face kind of hurts by Saturday night.

I hope you all had a great weekend. All of the snow has melted here and it looks like spring has finally arrived.

Magical Maple Syrup Time

Well it's that time of year.......sap collecting time! I know that spring is just around the corner when I see the trees tapped and sap flowing. These old buckets have such character. The one bucket was overflowing so I tasted it and it had an almost indiscernable sweet taste. Gary and I always go out to this one grove of trees by Pymatuning Lake and take pictures of the trees.

I have this thing about taking pictures of these buckets. I just love the look of the texture of tree bark and the old fashioned look of these metal buckets.

I'm thinking that someday you won't see metal buckets as a lot of people tap trees with clear rubber tubing and running it into plastic bags.

A grove of maple trees tapped for sap!


Oh look, a big sap standing beside a tree!

Isn't this an interesting looking tree?

Another interesting tree.....

Maple Syrup 101: Facts to know just incase you get on Jeopardy!

1. There are three versions of Grade A maple syrup, including Light Amber, Medium Amber and Dark Amber. The lighter the color, the more subtle the flavor. There is also a Grade B.

2. It takes 40 to 50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of pure maple sugar.

3. The outbuilding where the sap is boiled is known as "The Sugar Shack" or "Sugarhouse".

4. The sap flows for about 6 weeks.

5. The tap that is inserted into the tree is called a "spile".

6. Maple Sugar evaporators are designed to boil-off hundreds of gallons of water so that the syrup becomes concentrated.

7. Pure Maple Syrup is heart healthy as it contains natural antioxidants, zinc and manganese.

8. It is 3 times sweeter than cane sugar but has fewer calories.

9. One tap per tree 18 to 20 inches in diameter; 2 taps in trees in trees 19 to 25 inches in diameter.

10. On average one tree will produce 6 to 10 gallons of sap.

I hope all my friends in Blogland had a great weekend. I know we certainly enjoyed the sun here in Western, Pa. We've only had 6 days of sun in the past 30 days!

A Winter Poem

Well, my snow day plan did not work last night!!!!! I'm not sure what I did wrong! We're getting hit with the white stuff tonight though!

Here is a beautiful little poem about at the joys of winter in Pennsylvania:

Winter in PA

It's winter in Pennsylvania
And the gentle breezes blow,
70 miles per hour at 25 below!
Oh, how I love Pennsylvania
When the snow's up to your butt;
You take a breath of winter air
And your nose is frozen shut.
Yes, the weather here is wonderful,I guess I'll hang around.
I could never leave Pennsylvania ,
'Cause I'm frozen to the ground.

Snow Day?????

The red flannel jammies are securely on my body backwards.......I just flushed 3 ice cubes down the toilet and now I'm off to eat a cup of frozen blue berries.......with all this preparation, I think I'm guaranteed a snow day tomorrow!!!!!

Lavender Memories

I created this pendant from a tiny silver spoon which I cut, filed the edges, flipped over into a bale, collaged the inside and then sealed it with resin.

I originally had two lavender glass flower charms on each side of the spoon but they kept falling in front of the spoon and obscuring the collage, so I took them off and drilled a hole in the bottom of the spoon (love my drill press). I like this set up much better. I'm going to have a class on how to make these coming up soon in March or April. I just have get more spoons for the class!

Nothing Good Happens After 8 PM....

When I was in high school, I had a curfew of midnight because my mom and dad said "nothing good happens after midnight", well this can also be true in crafting.......I say "nothing good happens with my crafting after 8:00 PM"!!!!

My friend Kris and I were discussing this premise yesterday at her bead shop. She showed me a few pieces of jewelry that she worked on the other night, the first 3 were fabulous but the 4th piece did not look the same as the others. She said she was tired but wanted to get the 4th one done and it was after 8:00 PM, and as a result of it being late and her being tired, the 4th was not the same as the 1st. I too had this happen to me the other night. It was after 8:00 PM and I had just spent about an hour wire wrapping a pendant and wrapping beads into it when I stole a fleeting glance at the clock and noticed that it was coming up on 8:00 PM. Knowing that I was about to lose focus at any moment, I rushed through wrapping the bale........I cut the wire.....the clock struck 8:00 PM.......I dropped the pliers.......the wire bent the wrong way......I swore......I muscled the wire into a loop.....I swore again.....oh no, it was now 8:04............

This is the pathetic result of crafting after 8:00 PM............a craptastic wrapped bale!

On a positive note, the big thaw has started here in Western Pennsylvania. Thanks goodness! It was 43 degrees today! I'm hoping for more warm weather this week.
We had a tremendous amount of ice built up in the gutter out front and it's slowly melting.

This is the first times I've seen the rocks around the side of the house in months!

My wonderful husband even washed my car for me. Thanks honey!

Just look at my pots sitting there with their snowy hats on......they're just waiting to be planted this spring. I've been buying seeds and planning what to put in my pots and beds. I'm also excited to start to think about planting the garden boxes too.
Hey I hope you all had a great weekend and you accomplished everything you needed to do before 8 PM!

And the winner is..........

Drum roll please! Using the random.org number generator I picked the winners this morning.
The winner of the Pinkology Fairy is Sassypackrat. The winner of the wool felted rings is Leslie from My Life and Times.blogspot.com

Congrats ladies and when I get your address, I'll send your goodies right out!
Thanks to everybody who entered and who also became followers!
Smiles-
Melissa

Think Pink and Think Spring

Hey! There's only 2 days left to sail from blog to blog to enter into the giveaways for the One World One Heart Magic carpet ride so if you want to enter into my drawing scroll down to the January 24th post and leave a comment.

PINK! I'm trying to fight the winter blues by thinking pink! This is a new batch of pendants I made and you can find them over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry. You can also find these pendants at the Let It Bead Bead Shop in Greenville, Pa.

I'm so ready for spring! How about you?!?!?!

Shades of Blue............

A small collaged pendant........

A tiny felt charm.........
A steampunk inspired pendant........

Remember, we don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.

So, whenever you get the opportunity.....PLAY!

Inspiration in the cold, snowy grip........

So my gooooooooooooood friend Tracey (Glitterbug Studios) called me tonight and said "make a new blog post, I'm getting sick of looking at the current one!" So to appease my sista, here it is!

The past week I've been feeling the effects of this craptastic weather. You know how the winter starts to wear on your nerves toward the middle of February (thank goodness it's a short month!)?????

So you must find some thing, even if it is a tiny thing, to bring you joy and inspire you each day. So I went looking for tiny bits of inspiration and here's what I've come up with so far......

COLOR inspires me. I bought this 6 X 6 little brick of glittery paper in glitteriffic colors. The colors make my brain smile.

Silvery seed beads, vintage photos and antique demitasse silver spoons inspire me.

Cool blue seed beads with a mat finish remind me of the water in summer and that makes me happy. By the way, I got these at Let It Bead in Greenville, Pa. (this place inspires me too).

Organization both inspires and makes me happy...........

If you follow my blog you know that I draw inspiration from nature in both my art and my life (I took this picture this past Sunday when I went snowshoeing with Buddy the Wonder Dog, see my snowshoe tracks.....they're pretty erratic....no I was not drinking!).

Louis Prima's music inspires me. When I'm feeling blue, I just crank up Louis and Keely (she was his 4th wife) and I can't help but start feeling upbeat. If you are a real swingin' cool cat, you'll dig their music daddo!(how about that cool jazzy-lounge talk, eh?)

This is one of my favorite Louis Prima CDs. It's the Capital Records Collectors Series and has 23 swinging songs on it. Now that's a bargain!!!!!!

Warm feet make me very happy. These Wigwam Ski socks keep your tootsies very warm and dry.

Ok, I'll continue to search bits of inspiration and happiness in this cold snowy grip that old man winter has on me but I want to hear what inspires you during these February days so leave me a comment.

Whoot-Whoot-Whoot!!!!! This just in.............SNOWDAYS MAKE ME CRAZY HAPPY and INSPIRE ME TO DO THE DANCE OF JOY WITH MY JAMMIES ON BACKWARDS!!!!!!!