Things I found

:: I'm making Smitten Kitchen's Carnitas again for dinner tonight. They are one of the great food discoveries in recent history for our family. So easy and so good. 

:: Little Home Blessings just posted about her sons' making fruits and vegetables inspired by my simple wood carving tutorials.  They made an amazing assortment of veggies! 

:: This sweet crocheted dress by Sophie at Piquerat makes me wish for a moment that I had a girl to make it for and also that I knew how to crochet. 

:: Yesterday was balmy and Michael and I worked outside, cleaning out the gutters (him) and moving firewood (me). Inspired by Laura's series of Winter Rainbows, I found a firewood rainbow of sorts- 

Ash, Black Walnut, Locust, Ash (x2), Tree of Heaven (x2). 

January color 3

rose hips, shelf fungus, horse nettle berries, fern frond, pebbles

Something Different

The New Year has been a busy one so far, and my family has faced some challenges. My parents' holiday visit to Kentucky was extended by my mom's two-week hospital stay. I rushed to meet a tight book deadline. And after homeshooling for several years, my boys started attending school for the first time. 

I am so happy to say that my mom is well and heading back to Pennsylvania today. I met the deadline, though not entirely on time. And my boys are doing great in school. 

My thought process on the switch to school from homeschool was a pretty rapid one, I just knew our current way of being was not working for me or them at all. So I figured we needed to make a change. It was a bit scary, but many friends offered helpful counsel and we spent December preparing the boys for school.  I am so happy to say that the teachers and staff at their school have been unbelieveably accomodating and kind. My fourth-grader and kindergartener are both enjoying school, learning new things every day and coming home happy. I am so pleased and honestly a bit surprised about how good this change has been for our family.

And I have more time and mental space than I have had since before I had kids. Quiet hours in the studio used to be Saturday afternoons when my husband would take the boys for a hike, or late at night, working in my dimly-lit space. But now, I'm sitting here, with only my lazy dog for company, working on new projects in my clean and sun-lit space. 

I feel rich and very blessed. I'm taking a couple days off from slipper designing and book work and working on something new and making a big mess. It's really fun. 

Generosity

This summer, at the Quilt Extravaganza market in our little town, my friend Carol Ann had a great booth of vintage craft supplies, quilt tops and fabric. I bought a couple quilt tops from her and also picked out some vintage buckles. 

I think they were .35 cents each. While I am focusing most of my creative energy on the book, shoe and leatherwork thoughts are percolating in my free time. I used a buckle recently to make a belt (more on that another day), and have big ideas for jewelry or more belts. But I only had a few and since they were precious, I wasn't really using them. 

Then, this week my friend Teresa pressed a large ziploc bag into my hands. It was full of vintage buckles- 

an unreal assortment of beautiful things! 

Here's a closer look at the colorful ones.

I have so many favorites. Like this one- 

and this-

and this-

and this- 

I look forward to using them. Sometimes I struggle with using special things, prefering to just "have" them, tucked away in my studio. But I'm determined to work them into some of my new projects. Also, I was so moved by Teresa's generous gesture, I'm planning to pass it on to another creative friend soon. 

Rainbow Wrapped Candles

Shortly after making the rainbow wreath, I came across my candle decorating wax -very appealing thin sheets of brightly colored wax. I’ve never been happy with my attempts to use this stuff so it had languished-unused and uninspired. I figured if little stripes of color made such an impact on a wreath why not on candles as well? I'm keeping things simple for myself these days. Candle decorating wax can be found here. One box of wax will allow you to decorate many candles using this method-especially if you use tapers rather than pillars.

You will need: a ruler-a grided ruler makes it very easy to cut the wax, a x-acto knife, candles, candle decorating wax:

Choose the colors you want for your stripes. I’ve done several variations of a rainbow, of course, and stripes of several different yellows and oranges look great as well.

Use the x-acto knife and grided ruler to cut ¼ inch strips from a long side of the sheets of wax:

Wrap the first strip of wax around the candle and press it in place. The warmth and pressure of your fingers fixes the wax to the candle:

When you get back to where you started, use the x-acto knife to trim off excess wax:

Use the remaining wax for the second candle. Continue adding strips of wax. For these candles I stacked the strips, I’ve also spaced them an inch or so apart down the length of the candle.