Food was the theme of Hiekkaoliivi's Saturday Surprise challenge this week. I found this big bowl of cherries from a magazine and got instantly hungry. I had to settle for dried cranberries, but the boys in my atc are gonna have a feast.
So here they finally are, ready for sending. I really haven't posted any pictures of my crafts for a long time, so I wanted to show these. Even if there's the risk of someone seeing them too early.. I mean someone who's gonna receive one of my cards.
But oh boy, I had so much fun making them.
It's been raining the last couple of days. All the snow is gone, days are dark and going out is very depressing. Right now there's absolutely no feeling of christmas, or even winter for that matter! So today I've stayed inside the house drinking tea in candle light and watching The Jewel in the Crown from tv.
Well, to be honest, I have made some christmas crafts today. I even wrapped some gifts! But the main project is getting the christmas cards done in time. I'm quite late with them this year. I'm planning on using some vintage photos and scrap papers in the cards, but they are still in progress...
I've been so busy with work that I haven't had time for crafting, and thats pretty sad. But I have all kinds of plans, and I even ordered some lovely new papers from Paperikierre. You see..
...can't wait to get my hands on these beauties. Well, if I bare to cut them at all! Maybe I'll just look at them and dream. Would that be a bit pathetic...
I just read a wonderful book called "Pöytä kahdelle -ikkunan ääreltä" (Table for two -by the window) unfortunately it's not yet translated to other languages. Anna Kortelainen, an art historian and her husband Hannu Mäkelä, a writer, share their favorite art pieces and thoughts about them. First of all, it's an inspiring book about how you can form a very intimate relationship with an art piece, even if it hangs on a museum wall and is seen by hundreds of people every day. Secondly, there were some extremely interesting pieces, like these assemblages by Joseph Cornell.
Here's some more of Cornells work
and here are links to some other wonderful assemblage artists of today:
Stephanie
Dale Copeland
Frank Turek
Anu Tuominen
just to mention a few..
Traces in a fresh snow make me want to play sherlock holmes. Which animal left them? Or shoe prints... what kind of sneakers did he/she wear, did he run or walk slowly, and where did he go? What a delicious mystery to think about during an ordinary walk on a grey and damp sunday.
Someone was getting slightly bored while I took pictures of every single trace on the ground. He preferred sniffing them.
Oh, the dark november days... wish I could just stay in bed. It's nice to wait for christmas though and light candles in the evenings. I've been listening to PJ Harvey's new album White Chalk. It's beautiful but quite melancholic for this time of the year.
Things I've been doing to amuse myself after work:
-playing mahjong in internet (I'm really hooked on this)
-drinking lots of tea
-knitting colorful socks
-reading crime novels in bed (a macabre way to get amused)
-taking long baths
I should be doing art and crafts! But right now I'm too lazy. Maybe tomorrow.
Knitting socks... that's what I've been doing. I absolutely love this multicolor striped yarn, you get a pair of striped socks ready in no time. It's maybe even too easy, and there's not too many choices to make with the color combinations. But on the other hand, then you can just concentrate on the pure joy of knitting without having to think too hard. That's fun!
I've kept a lot of diaries, but somehow they all end before the last page. Well, is it a bad thing even? I don't know. A certain period of life comes to an end and so does a diary. Then there are times when I don't keep any record of my life what so ever.
My art journal project has started very slowly. I got a little frustrated because my cheap note book has so crappy pages that I can't use much paint on them. That is a serious limit. So I just had to order a real moleskine!!
Two years ago I kept a dream diary quite actively. I wrote down my dreams almost every morning, if I was able to remember them. Sometimes I made quick drawings to get all the ridiculous details before I'd forget them. This is one of those drawings, a hotel with three very small rooms and a luxus room with four doors. Very interesting dream it was.
