Blog

Well May was pretty much taken up with me stretching my birthday celebration out as long as possible.  I had a birthday treasure hunt for my customers and from what I hear, everyone had fun. Congratulations to Bonnie Seubert who was the grand prize winner! Bonnie won a custom made story bag on which she is going to tell the story of her family.  The other two winners were Luann Apperson and Jenny Kocher who each received a $51.00 gift certificate!  Way to go ladies!  

And here we are at the beginning of June.  It feels like summer is already here.  Memorial day brought a splurge of summer delicacies.  BLT, sweetcorn and watermelon. I say delicacies because I don't usually ENJOY bacon or white bread but I wanted to greet summer properly! 

I have been busy at work with a couple of new creations.  Here they are if you missed them. 

I have also finished up a couple of wall sculptures.  With summer's arrival and me watching the volunteer sunflower growing like crazy in my garden, I got inspired to create a couple of sunflower sculptures. They are molded just like my masks are only these are in the shapes of sunflowers and made to hang on the wall.

There is the molded portion but the fun part was the leaves and the color.  When I dried the leather I laid out eucalyptus leaf stems.  As the leather dried the leaves absorbed the color and made an imprint that was lighter than the leather.  I then burned some veins into the leaves and added natural pigments to enhance the shape of the flowers. And these are in yellow and natural to bring out the colors of the sun of course! 

I have said before that my customers provide my inspiration....in one way or another.  This week one of my customers lost her little parakeet.  It had been with her for many years.  I just felt compelled to send her a little memorial bag. I was amazed at the end result because it looked so much like her little bird. The tuft of green leather really set it off.  This was my inspiration this week. 

Because I do custom orders I have an opportunity to talk to people about their ideas.  It is not uncommon for me to see beautiful drawings of the ideas that they have been carrying around in their heads for years. And it is a magical thing when it comes to life for them.  If you are one of these people and would like to see your idea come to life, feel free to send me a drawing.  If I use your image for a future creation I will give you a gift certificate to my shop. My customers steer my business and I want to create for you so show me what you've got! 

Sometimes I end my blog with a deep thought of the day.  Today that thought is "green".  Right now Mother Earth is just green everywhere, the sun hasn't baked the grass yet, the leaves have reached their full size, the woods are thick and everything is heavy with....green!  Just take a moment to enjoy it.  Before we know it Autumn will be approaching and we will wish we had a few more days of green.  

Until next time - go green!  Julie