Storyteller Figures

These are some shots of my Art Club when they were creating their interpretations of Navajo Storyteller figures.


They were to personalize the clay figures.



I love how they are all different

and could tell their own stories.

I felt like this last week

which made me feel a wee bit homesick. So I drove down to south eastern Virginia to visit my Aunt. She's the one whose yard flooded the other week. Thankfully, though the water came up high in her garage, it didn't quite get to the floor boards under the house.

Anyway, I had a great time with my Aunt. We did some crafting, some visiting neighbors, and some beachcombing. Then today I had a relaxing drive back to the suburbs of DC. Instead of taking my life in my hands on I95, I took the scenic route up the coast. This is what it looks like where I'm from:

My sister lives near here. I stopped in to see her, but they were on their way to the urgent care/emergency room. My (grown) nephew fell off a makeshift ladder and elbowed through a window. When I got home I found out he faired pretty well when it was all said and done, but this crowd is blood phobic, and they had the major queezies.


Lots of beautiful little churches back there from the 1700's.



Crossing the Rappahannock River.

Hornes! Junk shop/souvenir shop extraordinaire! You've gotta love these old places on the back roads. They've got the most interesting junk you'll ever find. I'm guessing there were a lot of places like this before the interstates were built.

And look at this kickin' hand drier in their bathroom.

I wondered if it was going to blow the flesh right off my bones.
(The laughter was that of an elderly woman who thought it was funny I was filming that in the bathroom.)

Crossing the Potomac from Virginia into Maryland.





Crossing the Potomac again from Maryland back into Virginia. DC is in the distance.


Back to the land of a million overpasses and interstate exchanges.


Home. Always a wonderful sight to see, but I did enjoy my minivacation away.

Did I Mention that I Got My First Pair of Glasses Today?

Yup.  This morning I got my first pair of prescription glasses ever. 

I think they are glorified reading glasses, but at least with these I can walk around and see normally through one section of the glass. Before, when I walked around looking through my reading glasses, I'd trip over things...fall down stairs....stuff like that. 

Tonight I'm home alone and just playing on the computer.    There are always new things to explore.  Tonight I'm playing with PhotoBooth.  That's where these lovely shots came from.

Workin' on Photos

I'm still trying to figure out how to take photos of my work.  I came close to buying a light tent on eBay tonight, but I forgot to go back and bid on it until a few seconds before the auction ended.  Being exceedingly frugal I  will try to figure out how to do something on my own before I relent and buy the thing I should have bought from the beginning.  Wonder how long it will take before I give up and buy a photo tent.

Matryoshka

 Friday night.  I'm in my favorite fluffy robe and slippers down in Snippyville.  It's after 10, which is my equivalent for "burning the midnight oil."  I'm living large here.  (...wink...)  But this is how I love spending a Friday night.

I was contemplating doing something with the idea of a matryoska doll.  You know, those stacking dolls from Russia.  Evidently, they were all the rage in the crafty world a year or so ago.  I'm late to the matryoshka doll party.  Still trying to figure out this year's Christmas card, I thought that this may be the direction in which I go.   Anyway, cutting these was how I spent an enjoyable Friday night.

Hurricanes and Home

Growing up in Coastal Virginia, I had a big connection to the Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab.  Some of my best childhood memories center around the water and crabbing.  To me, the crab represents home.  I have been thinking about home a lot today.

I was thinking about all the places I have considered home near the Chesapeake Bay.  The same Bay communities that had catastrophic flooding during Hurricane Isabel are flooding today.   An Aunt whose home was destroyed during that storm, has already evacuated her home in this one.  Before she left, her trash cans had already floated away.  My sister said that the water was beginning to creep in around her house as well.  I feel a little sick in my stomach remembering what all those folks back home went through last time, and will say many prayers for them tonight.

Fat Fairies

scherenschnitte

Most days I feel as though the fat fairies are hovering over my head at every moment, sprinkling down their sugary sweet fairy dust upon my head.  I mean, where else are all those calories coming from?????

I hate those evil doers, but I'm not fond of the wrinkle, double chin, or reading glasses fairies either.

Advice for My Teacher Tweeps

The originator of our Art Education 2.0 Ning group , Craig Roland,  is a university professor at the University of Florida and he writes a column for School Arts magazine.  When he recently asked on Twitter for words of advice for first year art teachers, I sent a couple of tweets.  I was tickled pink to see one of them included in School Arts magazine this month.

School_Marm.  That's my Twitter name.

This is one of those "do as I say, not as I do" kinds of advice.  Truth be known, I eat lunch in my classroom as I clean, grade, and prepare for the next bunch of kiddies.  When I have actually followed this advice, I have benefitted from it, but being an introvert, I am happy puttering around in my room and in my own head.

Just Like Daddy

Many days, I do not have any inspiration for snipping.  Eventually, though, an idea will come up and smack me in the head.

This one was inspired by watching the two little boys next door.  Their parents are cops.  Dad is a hulking muscle man.  Mom is minute.  I giggled several times this week watching the parents cutting grass and the boys pretending to cut grass behind them.   The boys bend down low to the ground and hold onto the sides of their big dump trucks.  Their little behinds stick way up in the air. Then the boys run that way.  How on God's green earth they can run like that, I have no clue.  But I get tickled every time I see it.  And they can do it for hours.

Fiddlin' Around

I've been back from Fall Break for four work days now.  Funny how two weeks off from work totally renders you a weakling when you return.  I'm rather pooped.

I've had little inspiration for snipping lately, so I just fiddled around a bit with this.  It's a flowery hat on the head of a boy.  Maybe the plants are like ideas sprouting from his brain.

Personally, I could use some idea sprouting as well.