Clay Mate

Clay Mate , circular clay bead.                                                                                                       Inez Dunn©2014

In my part of the world the days are getting shorter, colder, and darker. And that can only mean one thing: its time to start baking! No, I’m not talking cookies and bread; I’m talking about “CLAY”! Clay is ideal for this time of  year and for the simplest of reasons, working with clay requires long quite hours. It’s the perfect art project when waiting for the sun to come-up long after 8:30am!

(In the above photo) My inspiration for this necklace design began with the smaller golden (Lucite) bead. As I searched for a matching bead to complete my necklace I came-up dry, and that’s when I decided to stop looking, and make my own! I love this type of challenge and I challenge all of you “lovers of beads” to do just that, make your own!!!  Send me photos of your very best and I’ll include them in next months post.

Sunday Inspiration

Sunday Sunset                                                                         Inez Dunn©2013

Sunday Inspiration

Is Sunday the day for rest? Or is Sunday the day for gathering the week’s inspirations to create something new? Homemade soup, we wait all week for this, an idea inspired by late night TV. The commercial is cast in an artificial light depicting a stream of steaming liquid with shiny vegetables and fat soulful noodles. Weren’t we going to do that today? How about the package of thank you cards we have all purchased from time to time? Card stock in creamy velum painted with songbirds in colors of crimson. Birds singing words of praise printed neatly beneath their beaks. Today would have been a good day to do that.  We crafters on any Sunday, Palm or Easter have been known to place the weeks divine ideas and inspirational moments and toss them into a brown paper bag. Its like a metaphorical shake & bake, voila! Captured concepts, ideas completed and a resolution that rests peacefully. On other Sundays we wager a bit of hide and seek, a toggle between wait and see, fingers combing our hair; we hem and haw. Why? Because for this day, this one final day of the week we recognize the human need not just to create, but also to rejuvenate, and sometimes a day of rest is the best inspiration of all!