Halloween has always been a fun holiday in our house, one that the girls enjoy celebrating. Not just the treats (but let's be honest ... those do matter) ... but really they enjoy the chance to dress up and have a little fun scaring each other.
My youngest (aka, the bead girl) was very interested this year in the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muetos, or Day of the Dead. A tradition of remembering those loved ones who have died. It is a custom that dates back hundreds of years to the Aztecs.
When we were in Mexico earlier in the year she helped me paint a sugar skull (with Luis), which my husband has since claimed as his own souvenir from the trip? Not sure how that happened exactly, but it did. Anne and I had a lot of fun just scouring the local village for other variations and colors of skulls and paintings.
So for Halloween 'trick or treating' this year (which might be her last time? .... so sad for me) she decide to dress in the Mexican custom. She got very in to it with face paint and skeleton attire. Check out her finger-less skeleton gloves and socks! She set her alarm early this morning so she could get up and apply all that face paint before heading off to school today. So glad I got pics before she left tonight as the rain set in and the paint is now running down her face. No worries ... we're all sorting out the candy and claiming a few. Sugar comma is imminent.
A few months back, Hope Smitherman who works with ZnetShows ask a few of us if we'd be interested in doing some Fall designs for the new Fall issue of Creative Spark. The themes were 'inspired by Fall' or using 'upcycled materials' in our pieces.
Well, I knew immediately that the upcycled one was for me. I had in mind that I was going to use an old key that I found up in our camp in the Adirondacks. I was thinking about leather and grey pearls for a dress-up Boho look.
Now I know a few of you (Christine in particular) who are going to laugh at this next bit of information. I saw the grey pearls and thought perfect! .... um yeah, and when they arrived they were not just large, they were huge. Well at least based on what was in my mind. Yep, didn't pay any attention to the diameter size ... because that is what I do.
So plan B was in order. I did actually like these grey pearls, but they needed a more substantial idea that made them the star. But now I needed something else upcycled for my theme. I remembered that I had some old basting tape I scavenged from one of the drawers in my mom's desk sewing machine. I liked this option as it was more rustic looking than pulling out the expected silk ribbon. I created a chain between the pearls and hammered out a piece of silver for the focal. I was finally happy with this one.
On to the next. One of the items I got from Znet Shows was some leaf chain. I really love this stuff. It is fun, a bit whimsical and very Fall. Nice combo in my opinion. I had been holding on to some acorns for about a year. The Bead Girl (aka Anne, my apprentice) started collecting these last Fall. Every few days she'd come home and pull out a few from her pocket. We stuffed them in can as she collected them, and forgot about them. I pulled them out last August to find a fine film of mildew on them .... oh gees, these are real and I should have dried them. Note to self. So we buffed off the mold and laid them out for about 2 weeks. Worked perfectly. I made a little copper loop and a coil bead cap. Then glued it right on top of the acorn. And now I had acorn beads! My kids tease me all the time saying that I think everything is a bead. Well maybe not eeeeverything, but lots of things.
This post is feeling like a list of true confessions today. So one of the other things I ordered from Znet Shows was some jasper polished stones. And guess what happened? Yep the opposite of the pearls. When they arrived they were much smaller than I thought and I could not get my cording through them. Seriously, I need to pay attention to the bead sizes. I had in mind that I was going to use them with these pretty copper filigree charms. I decided to just make some simple earrings using a pretty champaign quartz briolettes. So I have some jasper stones I need to get to work on and think of a more delicate design with my stones. I am hopeless when it comes to bead sizes.
One of the favorite things my daughters and I like to do is paint. We will paint pretty much anything. So what's one of the activities while on vacation? Why paint pottery, poolside of course.
We hung out with Luis (pictured right) who would patiently wait for people to finish their painted pieces. There were distracted parents who dropped their kids off, spoiled rambunctious young kids, bored teenagers, and a few helicopter moms who would finish their kid's pottery for them. You see it all when you travel.
Honestly, it really didn't matter much if you could paint .... Luis would 'fix' it. I saw several pieces that the paint was just globbed on, and he'd change up the colors, put in black lines around the images and add in accents. Basically you'd come back to pick up your piece and you'd be stunned by how amazing your Luis' work was!
The pieces you see here were painted by us Luis. I did the two dishes with lids, and Kate did the bowl with the waves. Anne did a series of flowered candle holders, which we discovered later are simply for decoration since the finishing coat burns and turns black when you try to really use them. Opps! Good thing we were standing right there and blew the candle out in a hurry!
I did some online research to see if I could identify what style of pottery this represents. What I believe is that this is influenced by Talavera style which uses bright colors, thick graphics and dominant boarders around the patterns. Talavera was introduced to Mexico by Spanish guild artisans during the Colonial period (1650-1810). In Spain, the style is call 'Majolica.' What makes this method different from others is that the base pottery is already fired clay which is covered with an opaque glaze base. Then the pottery is covered with an opaque glaze and decorated with metallic oxide glaze colors, which are fired together. This blends the colors that overlap and form other colors. The result is brightly colored, glossy surface that maintains and enhances the lines and colors. While our pieces did not follow this process exactly, you can definitely see the influences of the style.
One of my favorite things I did when we were down in Mexico was to spend some time walking through the local vendors to see what kind of beading and jewelry I could find.
What I found was an astonishing amount of handmade beadwork pretty much everywhere I looked. And the colors were vibrant!
There is a culture of beadwork throughout Mexico, and the more prominent work comes from the Huichol. The Huichol are indigenous people of Mexico who live in the Sierra Madre Occidental range. They refer to themselves as Wixaritari, or "the people" in their native language. The bags shown here (made entirely from beads) are a common item that the Huichol make, but they are known for their bead sculpture. One group even beaded an entire car. I cannot even image how it takes to bead a car?
Huichol art dates back millennia and represents their spiritual connection to their gods and ancestors. Their art is full of symbols that have been encode into their stories. They use vibrant colored beads, yarn and wood in their imaginative work with each piece carrying heavy symbolism. In Huichol culture, art and religion are inextricable; each piece is personal and holds the deep spiritual beliefs of its creator.
Two primary figures are the Jicuri (the peyote plant) which is considered the plant of life and promotes harmonious relations with the gods. And the other is the serpent, which is highly revered for its protection of peyote by eating the pests that would harm the harvest.
At the core of their religion is a pilgrimage of 600 miles (round trip) to re-enter the sacred land of the Wirikuta desert. During their trip they perform a series of rituals and ceremonies to transform themselves into deities. When properly performed the peyote will be found, and 'slain' with a bow and arrow. Everyone is given a slice of the peyote to have their own personal visions. This moment of sharing the peyote is fulfilling their quest: to travel to paradise and transform themselves into deities and commune with the gods.
Since we were not near the Sierra Madre range, I can't be sure that what we were looking at was from the Huichol, but they do seem to be a beading superpower in Mexico!
At one shop there were just tables and tables of beaded bracelets. I pulled out a few of them to take individual pictures. I love how they use basic stitches and play on variation, after variation. I got a bit 'click happy' taking pictures of all these pieces to use as inspiration. And so now it is a matter of actually giving them a try.
One of the things that my oldest daughter Kate had on her bucket list of things she wanted to do was to drink from a coconut. I think after all those episodes of Survivor, it just seemed like a cool thing to do.
When we were in Mexico last winter; she got her chance. Her sister was right there with her and game to give it a try as well. At our hotel we saw a few people walking around with their very own coconut, and we thought 'oh, I guess you just order one from the bar.' But surprisingly no one seemed to know what we were talking about when we tried that?
But then one of the staff suggested we find a gardener who could whack one down from one of the trees on the property. And so now I had both my girls hunting around the grounds looking for a guy with a machete. Not exactly what a mom wants to hear. But we did find a very nice gardener who was more than willing to help the girls out. They had a bit of trouble trying to drink from the hacked opening, but a straw was a quick solve so they could enjoy their drink with lunch.
Between the four of us, we had something like 200+ pictures from our day at Mystic Seaport. I thought I'd add two more of my favorites.
One of my photographer, Kate. And another picture of the seaport framed in shadow and with Kate having a look out over the water. It was a peaceful day.
One exhibit I wanted to mention was of the Gerda III, which was a Danish workboat during WWII. In 1943 it was used to ferry Jewish refuges from occupied Denmark to neutral Sweden. The refuges were smuggled aboard and hidden in the cargo hold of this small boat. Although it was regularly boarded and inspected by German soldiers, they were never discovered.
The Gerda III rescued approximately 300 Jews taking 10 - 15 people at a time to safety. The boat was part of a spontaneous effort by Danes who rescued roughly 7000 Jews --- nearly the entire Danish Jewish population were saved from the hands of the Germans. Now that is an amazing story!
We moved back East over 10 years ago, and live about an hour from historic Mystic Seaport, but we'd never been until a few weeks ago. We decided to do a day trip and spend the afternoon walking around the still working shipyard.
I hadn't realized that it was essentially a similar type of open air museum as you'd find at Colonial Williamsburg complete with demonstrations on how to properly set the sails or to rescue a distressed ship at sea.
Many of the original buildings are still standing and open for you to step in and speak to the merchants; grocery, watch maker, maps, blacksmith .... all showing items from the 1700s and 1800s.
The maps show the tracks of whaling ships, and we stopped into the watch shop where all the pieces are still running including a large grandfather's clock from the 1700s. There are exhibits of small sailing boats and early racers called Cat Boats as the area became famous for competitive sailing.
The ship shown at the beginning of this post is called the Charles W Morgan (built in 1841), which is the oldest commercial ship still afloat. It sailed for over 200 years as part of the American whaling fleet. This ship was built for durability, not speed and navigated all over the world from the Arctic, to around Cape Horn. We went on board to tour the cramped quarters below deck where the officers and men lived.
I loved that this was a 'working' port and that the blacksmith was pounding away, the grocer was weighing items on the old scales and there was real salt cod drying (pictured above). Drying food is one of the world's oldest known preservation methods. Here the salted cod is dried by the wind and sun laying on wood racks. Many people think drying cod this way makes it tastier. Might be all the salt? I'm just say'n.
A quick shout out to my oldest daughter who has been into photography for the last few years. She took the vast majority of these pictures, and I'm really loving how she captured the light from inside the buildings to let the doors and windows frame the seaport. This is definitely worth stopping for an afternoon walking tour around the seaport if you're in the neighborhood.
Janet from Honey from the Bee asked a couple of us back in July if we'd be up for a challenge to create with a wooden wheel.
I'm always up for a challenge, but I admit when I saw the wheel I was more than a little stumped. I had originally thought I might create something nautical like a ships' wheel, but I just could not get my mind around how to create that as a necklace.
So on to plan B. It did just look like a wagon wheel to me, and I wanted to leave it that way. So off to the art store with my daughters who helped me pick out a few things like a shadow box, tiny hay bales and a cute little watering can to use as a planter.
Anne, my apprentice, was right by my side as I started to play around with the shadow box. She painted each individual board on the barn (aka Popsicle sticks), and helped me out with craft paper for the field. There was much gluing to bring this to life! She also picked out the miniature weather vane.
Once everything was dry we stained the shadow box (note to self; stain it before you start assembling). I had to re-paint much of it due to the wood stain seeping into everything.
When it was finally done we headed out to the yard to find a Japanese Maple seedling to plant in our little watering can. I have absolutely no idea how to tend to Bonsai, but that didn't stop us. I had in mind that we would be gifting this to a friend Melinda Orr, who said the moment she saw it that it looked just like her barn. I knew that, LOL. The little tree did not make the first round. We had to grab a second by the time we were off to Bead Fest where we were meeting up with Melinda. Anne was so excited to gift this to her and immediately started showing her all the tiny features. I'm hoping that Melinda has a knack for Bonsai. Although I have a yard full of spare seedlings just in case.
Please check out all the other artist's creations: Janet (our host), Christine, Bobbie, Therese, Sally and Hope
