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In Adventures/ Make Something

Old Dog, New Tricks

I’m so excited to be venturing into something new!  For Christmas, the handsome Mr.Byrne gifted me Pottery Lessons with Danielle Sawada of Thrown Together Pottery. I start on Tuesday and I can hardly wait.

My pottery experience is very limited.  As in, a handful.  I’m sure I did clay projects in school, as a child, and I can’t say when my desire to learn and create with clay truly got started.  Some of you may remember back a few years ago when I took a Raku workshop in Cape Breton with the amazing Tim Issac. You can read posts on it HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.  { As a side note, the people from that workshop are still among my favourite Cape Bretoners!!! Thankful for FB to stay connected! }

Then, my friend, Denise Lynch, built a pottery studio and invited me to come over and play for an afternoon.  She let me use the wheel…..I was in my glory.   pottery

This is the bowl I made.  Second attempt…..the first didn’t work so well…..but I’m still so excited!  I can’t wait to get back there and play again!

I had started a Pottery Board on Pinterest and have been adding to it regularly.  I want to go into the class with ideas of what I want to make.  And I love seeing what people can create with clay.  I think I’ll have to do lots of work to learn all I want to learn and make all I want to make!  But it is exciting to be learning something new, something I have wanted to learn for years.

I’m sure I’ll be taking some snapshots on my phone during class to share with you.  It’s all so exciting and inspiring!  To be learning a new creative skill, especially one that I never thought I’d get to learn, makes me get all wired and yes, I’ll over share purely due to my excitement!  I think I have officially overused the word excited, exciting and excitement in the post so far…. But, guys!!!  I GET TO LEARN POTTERY!!

Coasters, tiny houses, jewelry and probably lots of bowls and hopefully a mug….and and and – I want to make so much! Bring on the clay!  Bring on the messy!  Bring on the creativity and undoubtedly, the failures!  But if it is all chalked up to learning the processes and the ways of the clay, I’m game.

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These are a few things that have caught my eye while perusing Pinterest.   { 1. Source 2. Source 3. Source } I’m noticing that I like clean lines and simple finishes.  Nothing too overdone or wild.  I like the form to be the main focus, not some fancy technique or elaborate design.  Simple may also be within my ability, too…. 😉

I’m off to do laundry and pin more things on Pinterest!  Enjoy your Saturday!

To be continued,

Lori

 

In Adventures

The Goods of the Mail Me Art Swap

I finally got around to gathering my goods from the Mail Me Art Swap into one place with my camera! So, now I can show you what I received from three gals in the Maritimes.  { You can see what I sent out here }

The first to arrive was a mug cozy.  I will admit I thought it was a doll bonnet when I first saw it.  Then one day when I was scrolling through the feed on the Facebook event, I saw that my doll bonnet was in a picture, wrapped around a mug!!  Well, that’s a much better use for me than a doll bonnet!!

Mail Me Art Swap

Next to arrive was this letter ‘L’, made especially for me!! It’s got that steampunk vibe to it – the collected, pieced together look that I love!  I’ll have to find a frame and add it my collection of goods to hang on my wall.

Mail Me Art Swap

The last item to arrive didn’t come alone.  It came along with a nice note plus a tea bag!  It was a hand-stitched mug rug from PEI.

Mail Me Art Swap

I so enjoyed the Mail Me Art Swap!  I would do it again in a heart beat!  I am all set for a lovely cup of tea now!!

To be continued,

Lori

2 In Adventures/ Make Something

Mail Me Art Swap

So, my friend, Sylvia, encouraged me to join an art swap.  Now, I’ve never been a part of something like this before, except maybe way back when I was a kid and we did a sticker swap or something.  I wasn’t going to do it, I know that I am creative but I don’t consider myself an artist.  But, with Sylvia’s encouragement, I decided to take part.  I had no idea what I was going to make but I knew I’d find something, I was committed now, I HAD to find something.

Lena had been studying Mixed Media at Art Lessons, so I took some inspiration from that.  I also knew that what ever I made would have to been mailed and the people taking part were from all over the world.  So I figured my base would be a canvas and I would build from there.  Of course, I also looked on Pinterest for some ideas, too.

From there I added layers of crumpled tissue paper, glued down with ModgePodge.  The tissue paper was some that I bought at a scrapbooking store in Antigonish quite a few years back and have been hoarding it in my stash of cool-things-to-make-stuff-with.  It’s got a fairly tan background and black lettering and graphics so I knew I wanted to tone that down.  To achieve that I did a wash of watered down Fusion Paint, leftover from a sample that Rosemary gave me from Onslow Historic Lumber.

Mail Me Art Swap

Now, for me, that was the easy part.  Now I had to decorate the canvases.  Hmmmmm, so hard to do!!  I had a kit from Stampin’ Up! that I’ve had for some time that I’ve been saving for just the right time.  And I figured this just might it!  Paper doilies and feathers seemed to be just the thing.  I did two with that and then I did one with a crumpled paper heart.

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Once all that was attached and dried, then I added some Miss Mustard Seed Antiquing Wax to add some depth to the texture of the crumpled tissue paper.  Then I got to add some other little accents, like jute ribbon, buttons and mesh.

Then, TA-DA, they were ready!!

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I added a little note on the back, wrapped them up and tucked them into their envelopes, all ready to be mailed out.

The lady who organized it did a great job as I will be mailing my pieces within the Maritimes, so I’m not mailing anything too far.  One of the things about mailing my pieces within the Maritimes is that the people receiving my pieces are people I could potentially met, which is cool to me, too.  (I may have been stalking them on Facebook to see if I can sleuth a little bit about them, too.)

Mail Me Art Swap

When I went to drop them off at the Post Office, the debit machine wasn’t working.  So, the lovely Post Office Lady asked if I would mind dropping in another time with cash, she took my envelopes and gave me a copy of my receipt and sent me on my merry way and the packages off on their way.  This is just one of the many benefits of living in a small community.  I’m there enough, she knows me and she knows I’ll be back.  I love it here – have I mentioned that?

I’m so happy I took part in this Mail Me Art Swap.  It challenged me to step out of my comfort zone and outside the safe circle of what I think I am capable of.  It made me question my talents and made me appreciate that I do have an artistic side, even if I consider myself more of a crafter, not an artist.  But, I think that might be a blog post for another time!

When I get my three pieces in the mail, I’ll be sure to share them with you!  I already have one and a funny story to go with it!  Thank goodness for pictures on Facebook!! 😉

To be continued,

Lori

In Adventures/ Clear Day Farm/ Country Life/ Life/ Our Family

Clean Slate Snowshoe

Tonight, enough was enough.  The sun was setting, the shadows were lengthening and the clean field was calling.  We strapped on our snowshoes and headed for the barren wasteland known as ‘The Mailbox Field’.

The wasteland that stretched out in front of us has been begging to be explored.  No human footsteps could be seen as far as the eye could see…until the snowplow ridge…but whatever.  The girls had been eyeing this expanse for a few days.  They wanted to explore the other day, but they needed a guide to ensure their safety on the exploration mission.snowshoesnowshoesnowshoesnowshoesnowshoesnowshoe

Exploration completed.  There were coyotes heard, so they replied with their own howls.  The clean snowscape was marred and games were played.   Toes and noses got cold so the mission was drawn to a close.  And the debriefing took place over mugs of hot chocolate, as any good winter mission is ended with.

To be continued,

Lori

In Adventures/ Life

Bittersweet – PTES

Yesterday we WALKed.  If you’ve been around the blog, or lived near me, you know all about the WALK.  Coldest Night of the Year.  What a day!!  The day we hit the streets to support those who are homeless, hurting and hungry and raise money for The LifeShelter.

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But let me back up to Friday night, the day before the WALK when we hit 100% of our goal.  What a moment!!!  As an organizer, it is so sweet to know you’ve meet the goal and that everything else is gravy, so to speak.  That totally took the stress off me.  That and I knew I had an incredible team of people to work with on it.

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When we started planning for this year, we set our sights on $30,000 with 25 Teams hitting the streets with 125 walkers.  What actually happened was that we raised (unofficially) over $43,000 with 35 Teams with close 300 walkers.  Whoa.  Completely blew it out of the water!  We had such support from the people around the county!  Volunteers, walkers, people who donated, companies who sponsored the event…..the list is long!!

I’ve enjoyed the role of Event Director so much!  I got to meet so many amazing people along the way. People who give so much.  People who expect nothing in return.  People who go the extra mile to see what more they can do for the shelter and the people who use it.  I love being a part of something so amazing, of being behind the scenes and planning.

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I worked with Keith Hazzard, the Executive Director of The LifeShelter, on Coldest Night.  Our weekly meetings were usually filled with getting off topic, laughter and obviously some planning.  But always coffee.  Seeing how passionate he is about helping others and filling the needs without our county has been a huge blessing to me.

The Team Captains in place for the event were fantastic.  When people say the quote about ‘many hands’, they aren’t kidding.  Knowing we had experienced people in place to head up things like Registration, Food and the Route…..what a relief.   And then the volunteers who helped out these Captains were amazing as well!  I feel like we ran like a well-oiled machine….but that might just be me!  A special shout out to Christine of Wonkyeye Photography (and Dave!) for capturing all the moments!  I know that I’ll look back over these for years to come and remember the awesomeness of CNOY2015!

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It was awesome to have my girls there.  They have seen how hard I worked for this and were there to walk beside me.  They have big hearts and did a great job with their fundraising efforts.  I think one of them could easily take over next year and rock it!! Plus, they’re cute.  That always helps!

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There were so many little things that meant so much to me.  The bracelet that one of the Team Captains presented me, his team figured they’d raise about $300, they raised over $1300 selling grilled cheese sandwiches and bracelets at their high school.  The hugs from so many people, the comments from volunteers who already offered to help next year, the yummy seafood chowder, and the conversations that took place during the night.  The photo booth was a riot, too – so glad to see so many other people thought so, too!  I was surrounded by so many of my friends, new and old and my family.  How could it not be wonderful?

All in all, it was awesome!  Today is strange, though.  I’m a little lost and a lot tired.  I’m so thrilled with how it went, but I’m sad its over.  Bittersweet.  I’m suffering from PTES – Post Traumatic Event Syndrome…..

When do we start planning for 2016?

To be continued,

Lori

All the photos in this post are from Christine, you can view more HERE