Earth Day, Earth Art

All natural materials (including an improvised blue jay feather pen) found in a Catskill Park meadow.

Fire pit charcoal from a bonfire. The lovely red in the corner was scratched through a wild strawberry leaf using my trusty jay feather.

May your earth day be filled with (earth-friendly) color and creativity.

Forcing sounds so violent

So when I bring naked branches indoors in early March I prefer to think of the treatment they get as “encouraging.”

I’ve read plenty of complex directions for forcing branches, but, honestly, all I do is stick them in water, add clean water as necessary, and wait.  I’ve been encouraging these to bloom for the past few days, and they’re shyly beginning to open up.

Our forsythia is still weedy and leggy as it recovers from a brush with the snow plow a few years ago, but there are lots of other things to force . . . er . . . I mean encourage.

Azaleas respond beautifully:

And a few branches of peach blossoms are coming along nicely, even though it’s rather dim in the bathroom. They are in, by the way, my favorite vase, which was apparently made by an eager kindergartner, and for which I paid $2 at a tag sale.  It’s lopsided and misshapen and it leaks a little through its unglazed bottom, and I love the wabi sabi heart of  it.

Some cherry and apple blooms are being somewhat recalcitrant, but there are also a few volunteers in the yard right now.  Second Child brought in this lovely vase of sqills, and these blossomed all on their own, without even being asked.

On not making books

Finally got a chance over the weekend to sit down and make some things. Not, of course, the things I had planned to make–I pulled out some lovely sturdy paper and my box of bookmaking tools and a slim (blank) text block I stitched together a few months back, but on the way to my very lovely studio (aka the kitchen table) to combine these elements into some kind of pleasing whole, my eye lit on another box on a different shelf, and I got detoured into spending a few good hours carving stamps and doing a little printing.

First I carved a little stamp and made some prints from it–a single stamp and a row of them:

I stamped the windows on some stiff paper (one side of an old file folder) and cut them out so I could use them as a stencil for laying down a solid (or not) color block the same size as the windows (so I can do single windows or a whole set of them in a row), and began puttering with that:

I piddled with this a while, and have more plans for this shape (which, in the spirit of full disclosure, I saw somewhere a year or two ago–I think in a Japanese stamp book, though I’m not sure–and sketched into my little ideas book, forgetting, alas, to write down where I saw it).  It has distinct possibilities.

Somehow that took me back to the tea bowls I painted and painted last spring, so I carved a stamp of a single bowl and then put it in a simple setting. That reminded me of a series of sketches I did a few months ago of different kinds of tea, different kinds of tea cups and glasses, so I worked off one of those and did another, very different  tea scene to go with it.  I stamped up some copies of these two on some ivory colored scrap paper that was on the table and liked the look of them.

Then I remembered I had some tiny (the window is 3 x 2-1/2″) faux-grained wooden picture frames I bought at least 10 years ago sitting around in a drawer,  and here they are:

Two tips for cheap frugal artists:

Master Carve, which I dearly love to use because it’s so easy to carve, but which could be somewhat sturdier (the stamps tend to crumble after many uses) is also thick enough that you can carve on both sides of it. The two tea pictures above are carved on opposite sides of the same blank, and I have some pieces on which I’ve carved on 4 sides.

Second, I do an awful lot of work with shorts–sets of uniformly sized odd cuts of paper left over from projects print shops do.  My local shop shrink wraps these little sets (of usually more than 100 sheets each) and sells them for around $1, sometimes less.  It’s also a great way to recycle.  I’ve amassed quite a collection of these small nice papers in all colors, weights, sizes, and finishes, and used them for notepapers, greeting cards, printed bookmarks, origami, and even for the pages of small hand-bound books. It’s definitely worth phoning up your local printing establishment to see if they sell shorts.

(Then ask them whether they have Prince Albert in the can.)

A sobering tea moment

It’s sort of been a tea day.

First there was the giant anonymous gift box of tea that the FedEx truck dropped off. Packet after packet of tea. Lots of tea. Wonderful tea.

From whom? As it turned out, after several attempts to unravel the mystery, from a publisher for whom I do a little work. They must know me better than I thought. Thank you!

But then I harnessed up the reindeer and made a trip out in the snow to lay in some provissions. Orange juice, apples, dinner fixings, and–of course–tea. The woman who rang up my purchases patted the can of tea and said, “I hope you won’t be offended by this, but this makes me think. I was at a friend’s house yesterday and his dog had died and the vet had returned the dog’s ashes to him in a tin just like this.”

She waited to see whether I was going to be offended.

I wasn’t.

“Actually,”  I said, “I drink enough of this stuff that it might be fitting to have my ashes end up in a tin like this one of these days. Hmm. I think I’ll suggest this to my family. Makes a lot of sense, really.”

Oy.  How long until spring?

A tea break

We are all feeling somewhat more human today, though we’re still laying pretty low around here.  Nobody’s very hungry (though it is not a stomach bug) but we’re consuming such vast quantities of juices and hot cocoa and tea that we keep running out of clean glasses and cups.

But we’re sort of housebound, so it’s just the chance I’ve been waiting for to try out my new tea stuff. I am one of those people who never wins anything, but two weeks ago, I did (I did!).  Ana, over at her wonderful blog Tea Spot, was giving away a nifty Numi tea set to a random commenter, and I turned out to be . . . hmm . . . most random?

[Second Child’s frequent comment on my ideas or behavior: “Mom. That’s so random.”]

The set contains a pretty little glass teapot just big enough for one very large or two rather small cups of tea. And a huge assortment of flowering teas–little bundles of different kinds of tea leaves artfully tied in such a way (remember the paper flowers you used to get at carnivals that “bloomed” when you got them home and dripped water on them?) that they unfurl into amazing shapes within just a few moments.

Here’s the before picture. See that unprepossessing little pod on the left? Looking–sorry–sort of like a bagworm cocoon? That’s the tea, a variety they call Black Beauty.

Add the hot water and the magic begins:

It’s hard to see, but at this point the little alien bud is gracefully unfolding, silvered with minute air bubbles clinging to its leaves.  The other amazing thing is that as the tea begins to bloom, it floats to the surface of the water, then slowly rights itself and settles at the bottom of the pot. A few minutes more and you have this:

It’s tea–it’s topiary–it’s underwater foliage–it’s a science project. It’s lovely. Tasty, too.  I think I’ll try the Jasmine pearls next. Thanks, Ana!

Wooly fruits

Shhh . . . don’t tell. These are a gift for someone’s birthday and I’m only posting here because she doesn’t really pop in very often. I think I’m safe.

Definite last-minute panic here. I’ve actually planned this for some time, but then the calendar snuck up on me so I’ve only  just now got things done.

First, the lunch bag set. This is a slightly modified version of the lunch bags I made for my book group picnic back in September.  Instead of leaves I’ve gone for a pomegranate thing here. I stitched up the little bag from fabric I printed using the freezer paper stencil method.  Let me tell you, all those little seeds were a royal pain somewhat challenging to manage. I think they came out well, though. Then I sewed up a nice big napkin (reversible) and added a little reusable container for fruit or salad, and a set of biodegradable cutlery. Going for eco-chic here–did I make it?

The recipient plays bridge now and then with a group of women at the senior center; they all bring their own sandwiches and sodas, so I’m hoping this will come in handy.

I haven’t got the light adjusted quite right, so my little fabric tag that says floating ink on it has completely vanished; it’s over on the left side and if you could see it, it would look like this:

I may yet get around to selling some version of this (etsy, perhaps?) and I’ve been working up a hang tag to use then. I think this is the version I like best:

Anyway, on to the next part of the present, with which I have to say I’m rather pleased:

Little needle felted fruits in a knitted and then hand-felted basket. Here’s another view:

I forgot (I always forget) to add something to the photo to illustrate scale, but the apple and the pomegranate (I think I’m on a pomegranate kick; I’m not actually mad about eating them, but they are so wonderfully graphic) are each about the size of a half dollar. The pear is a tiny bit taller.

So anyway, don’t give the secret away before Friday. Tomorrow I’ve got to pop them in the overnight mail. I do always seem to be behind the 8-ball on these gift-giving holidays, but I think it will work out.

Dear Sierra Club . . .

Dear Sierra Club,

Thank you so much for caring about the earth. Thank you for taking the time to put together marketing indicating that I, too, probably care about the earth and wouldn’t mind too awfully much being on your mailing list.

Thank you for pointing out on the mail I received from you today that you are “Preserving America’s Natural Heritage.”

I wonder, though, how taking care of our natural heritage requires you to send me a mailing that contains, by actual count, TWELVE separate sheets of paper. Isn’t that, like, you know, half a forest’s worth?

Next time I’d be happier to get a postcard.

Or an email.

Kisses,
Nancy