My Boys

I've been slowly reloading some pictures back onto my computer. When my hard drive crashed in February I had a lot of family pictures that I had scanned. It is a pain to have to scan them again, but it can be done. Luckily I have a disk of the wedding pictures and some were on Flickr.

I came across one of my favorite pictures of our boys that was taken 2 1/2 years ago when the oldest got married. All I can say is, what a nice looking group of guys!

Butterflies in the Garden

Since I have been making stained glass suncatchers, I have made some on copper stakes to put in my flower garden and pots. I have birds, flowers, rabbits and butterflies. Recently I made two 3D butterflies and listed them on Etsy. The blue butterfly is the most awesome shade of blue, like the sky on one of those absolutely crystal clear days. The other butterfly is orange with streaks of yellow that shows up beautifully in strong light. Plant stakes look especially nice in green plants. I keep some in my houseplants all winter.

Vegetable Garden

The garden is finally starting to look like a garden. I was checking the squash and cucumbers yesterday and there are quite a few that are about 2 inches long by now. There are a few eggplants that are about the size of a ping pong ball and we've already started picking some of the grape tomatoes. I planted extra tomato plants this year for fried green tomatoes. We'll have some tomatoes and bell peppers soon. The resident rabbit has stripped the broccoli, but it's just about too hot for it to produce now anyway.

Produce prices are ridiculous at the grocery store and the Farmer's Market is far enough away that it's not practical to go very often. I think at this rate our garden is going to get larger every year.

Smell that Mimosa!

Our Mimosa tree started blooming last weekend. Since the rain yesterday the blooms have really come out. We were sitting on the deck this evening and it smelled fantastic! It is right behind the patio beside the pool, so you smell it the whole time. My youngest son and I planted it in 1991. It was just a twig about a foot tall that I paid a dollar for. We never dreamed it would end up becoming such a beautiful tree.

Something Different

I've been bored with the same old same old stained glass patterns for awhile. I have been using a lot of bevels and just recently bought some glass roundels to experiment with. Some of the fusers in the Creative Glass Guild of Etsy were discussing pot melts in the forums and had been posting pictures of the results. Needless to say, I had to have pot melts to play with. Papernclay, a fellow CGGE and Glass Anarchy member, was nice enough to make some for me. Let me just say that photos do not do justice to them. They are gorgeous!

I have made a suncatcher with a pot melt and I am very happy with the way it turned out. I didn't use a pattern either, so this is definitely one of a kind. This sort of represents what the Glass Anarchy is all about - something different. All of us are just a bit out in left field and willing to try anything once.

Collaboration

Recently I was approached by a fellow Etsy and Creative Glass Guild member, Smokeylady54, who asked me to make a pendant for her so she could make a necklace out of it. Since I do stained glass, I was a bit hesitant at first, but I realized I could do something with some old screw back earrings from the 60's that I had found in a box of old costume jewelry. I used some scrap glass that had a pebbled texture to surround the earring disk. Smokey has quite an eye for matching colors. Her lampworked beads are breathtaking and the necklace is absolutely beautiful. Here is the link: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=12440653 see if you agree with me.