feeling a bit rattled...

literally. a little while ago there was an earthquake here. not a big one. but big enough to scare me. i was here in my little studio working when all of the sudden I heard a loud rumbling and the whole house started shaking. my first impulse was to run outside, but the dog ran straight for the cellar so decided to follow him. animals are really smart about these things. it only lasted a moment or two, but still very scary. i feel a bit calmer now that i've spoken to my husband and all of the schools have called to say the kids are ok. amazingly, nothing fell off my shelves, but then i remembered...it's because of my Quake Hold! which i purchased years ago. not because of earthquakes. because i've never actually experienced one before today. i purchased it to safeguard against my own little earthquakes (otherwise known as toddlers). and it never really got tested until today. it works.

what can i say...

...last week was a non-stop flurry of shopping for school supplies, clothes, shoes, doctors, dentists, haircuts... but this morning, they all got on the bus and here i am, all alone. but don't be sad for me. a new year has begun - time to dust off some goals and get working. only 124 days until christmas...

you hold the key...

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.


-Jiddu Krishnamurti-

i've got rocks on my brain...

i woke up thinking about rocks today. strange, i know. so, the only thing to do was to go to my studio and pull out my bag of rocks. and yes, i really do have a bag of rocks. rocks collected from the shores of Lake Ontario. when my kids were young and we still lived in NY, we went there every year. now we are seasoned travelers. we have been to all sorts of beaches and oceans. nice sandy beaches with warm water. but still, there is a place in my heart that misses the rocky shores and the ice cold water of Lake Ontario. i'm not sure if i really miss that beach. more likely, i am missing that time in my life when my kids were so tiny. when they couldn't wipe out a couple hundred dollars worth of groceries in three days. so anyway, i saw the idea for this little picture holder in my most recent issue of Country Living magazine and i whipped one up to hold my favorite postcard. kind of cute huh?

sweet sixteen...

hard to believe it's been sixteen years...it went by in a blink.

spiderbox...

what is a spiderbox you ask? why, it's a sweet pink box filled with precious, pearly spiders, of course...

paper play...

i'm really loving all kinds of paper lately...experimenting with new ways to use old books, making mysterious envelopes with wrinkly brown paper, still folding lots of cranes - the ones pictured here are teeny tiny, getting some collages ready to list in my shop and finally, cutting a couple dozen masks for my "fun friday" project this week...