fire and glass

In our neighborhood we are lucky enough to have the historic ruins of one of the oldest Catholic missions here in California..the La Purisma Mission. We enjoyed a self-guided tour over the weekend. Some of the areas seemed a little over bearing to me and so seemed to hold a somber saddened tone, but it is undeniably an amazing area here in California and I imagine that there have been many many photographers that have thrilled to spend hours shooting here. The play of light and shadow within the adobe walls of the many buildings is outstanding..there are so many shots here that will go into my resource file for when the watercolors come out again..Lovely~ What an amazing spot! ~here are some of the photos taken Saturday. Above, my husband within the walls of the cemetery.. an area that held hundreds of bodies of Chumash Indians as well as the Spaniards. There is only one cross to mark this as a burial ground. and a few inside shots Outside communal basin for bathing and washing clothe

I come by a love of stones naturally..my grandmother was a rock hound who carefully tumbled and polished and set some of her favorite found stones into pendants and key chains. I can remember poring over the ground with my mother every walk or beach visit and have brought home many a wishing stone to sit on my dresser over the years. This year the travels were a little further from home and I slipped some tiny treasures from the shores of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea as well as Boston and Piney Point in Maryland into each Christmas gift. I have accumulated quite a few pebbles and shells and pressed leaves [still need to get scrapbooking :-)] Great karma must come from Earth dna wouldn't you say? Anyway. I love stones... since my sabbatical from glass has moved me toward other materials for a time, I've begun perusing the gem sites and noticing stones of the semi-precious variety...actually I noticed these for the first time at the Santa Barbara Gem faire last week

I have a few new pieces to debut soon on SweetwaterDesigns. . Stay tuned!

Cold connections is the term used when you need to join a metal to a metal [or any object really] and are going to do that with out a torch. So no soldering. Rivets are a common join.. also, small hinges.. eyelets.. and of course, wire-wrapping is considered a cold join. Very few tools are needed to make cold connections..thus the popularity I suspect. If you have a mallet, a steel block and a small drill you're pretty much set, to at least begin experimenting. Perfect. if you are..say, stuck in a small hotel room. I lack the small drill..I'll need that to make rivets and I'm wanting to make some rivets now..:-) Hopefully any hammering that I'm doing is not bothering anyone around me. yikes.. I've cushioned it on a small leather pillow on the carpeted floor and really its not necessary to hammer too much. I'm not forging horse shoes after all. Anyway.. thankfully, there have been no complaints. I made this the other day.. after a few links it reminded me of

California. ohmy~ I love my Peace country in British Columbia, but I truly don't know that I've seen anything prettier than the country side here in Santa Barbara county..it knocks my socks off daily. Every morning I wake up to clear blue skies ~I think there have been maybe 3 or 4 days of rain total since we got here in early December..which may not bode well in the long range scheme of things..hopefully we will see the rainy season soon or it will be a very very dry summer. Meanwhile its sweaters and flip flops and this girl from northern Canada is in bliss ..

You can now. Those guys at Etsy are a hard working bunch I have to say..look at this nifty feature for all of us entrepreneurs trying to sell our wares. A down-loadable catalog of our shop in pdf format. Sweet, yes?

Take a look at my brand new web site~