Cool Plant Stand and Inchies

Last weekend we discovered a really cool consignment shop called Milo Milo (sadly they don't have a website) in Appleton, WI and found this really great plant stand. I am quite sure it is a one of a kind made from a variety of wrought iron pieces that have been welded together. The minute I saw it (and saw the reasonable price) I knew it had a place in my garden.

It is also Every Inchie Monday and I've posted two this week. I missed last week and the theme was imagine and all I could think of was John Lennon singing the song of the same name. So, here is a version of his self portrait in felt and thread. This weeks theme is change. My line changes color as well as goes from straight to curved. A bit lame but it's all I had this week!

Carol Eckert

I have been pondering several things lately, among them are what to make and what to write about. I am interested in retablos, small wooden boxes that have vignettes or iconography in them and highly deocrated, and so I was doing an Internet search. I came upon the work of Carol Eckert, who calls the sculptures she makes retablos, although they are not in the traditional sense. The wonderful bird and animal sculptures she makes are copper wire wrapped with DMC embroidery floss. I thought they were amazing. Follow this link to the Jane Sauer Gallery to see more of Carol's work.

Strength, Popeye Style

Once again it is Every Inchie Monday and I am back in the game. Today's theme is strength and I decided to make a strongman's arm. When I got it cut out I realized it wouldn't be complete without a Popeye style tattoo! So, here's to strength in all it's forms. To see many of those forms, go to Every Inchie Monday .

A Bit More of the Fishing Story

After I posted the story yesterday about going to the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame I got a note from my cousin. He remembered going with his dad and another of my uncles to take the rod and reel as well as some other things that belonged to my grandpa to the Hall of Fame. However, it seems it was never returned to family members and it has been lost. I went rooting around because I knew I had a photo of the fish and I turned up not only a photo of my grandpa, Victor B. Halls and one fish, but also a newspaper clipping of him between both of his giant fish. The date was 1941 and the fish was caught in Canada. After he returned home there was a fish feed held for the whole town of Ellsworth, Wisconsin. Of course, the town wasn't, nor is it now, very large, but what a great celebration for my grandpa!

Fishy Vacation

Our summer has been an unusual one but we did manage to get a vacation in. Because of my mom we didn't want to go far so we were gifted by old family friends with the use of their beautiful cabin in northern Wisconsin. We lounged, read, fished off the dock and took a few day trips. One of our trips was to the ultra-touristy town of Hayward, not usually a stop I would choose but I wanted to go to the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. The draw was my grandfather's old fishing pole. Long before I was born he caught two record sized muskies and his fishing pole had been housed there. Unfortunately we didn't find it and my dad thought it had been returned to a family member. But!!!!! We found very kitchy and cool giant fiberglass fish, the largest being a musky that you could walk into and look out at the grounds from inside the mouth.

There were also displays of fishing boats, motors, ice fishing equipment, rods, reels and lures, lots of lures. I was most fascinated by these because the collections were huge and the shapes, sizes and colors appealed to the artist in me. What is the kitchiest vacation spot you have come across?

Sunset

This weeks theme for Every Inchie Monday is Sunset. I knew immediately what I wanted to do because I used to teach fourth grade and we always did a sunset art project. To create the sunset, I would have the kids tear tissue paper into strips and overlap the edges and glue them down onto a piece of construction paper. Then with a piece of black paper they would cut out a landscape and always include a tree and that would be glued down on top of the tissue paper strips. They were always really colorful and looked great on the wall. So, I used a similar idea but instead of the tissue paper I took markers and colored a piece of felt and then cut the landscape from black felt and glued them together.