Sand Dancing..

Dh hauled me to the computer one day, and told me I had to see something...

This guy in New Zealand, who makes sand art..

Using a rake and a stick, and no other tools..

And comes out with this incredible art, in perfect scale and proportion..

He creates them at low tide, every week..

And watches them disappear again as the tide rolls in..

His nickname is the Sand Dancer, and honestly, seeing the graceful swirls, loops, and curves, I think it is extremely fitting..

Seriously, how the heck do you do THAT with a stick and a rake????

Or THAT without a giant calibrating tool of some sort??

He's been doing it 13 years or so, and has created over a thousand works of art. I hope he continues making many more.

You can see an awesome vid about him, by filmmaker Valerie Reid, here:

And read a cool interview with Valerie herself here. 

Credits:

1. Stan4dSteph 

2. {Amy_Jane} 

3. adiemus 

4, 9. My Healing Kitchen 

5. KobreGuide 

6. Impact Lab 

7, 8. curiousphotos

10.  Harriet and Spare Cat 

Hail, hail, all hail the rain..

This here? This is ice. From the sky. In Hawaii. In March, which is practically summer. In marble to golf ball sizes. I currently have frozen feet from walking in it trying to lay yoga mats and blankets over the windshields and the paint on the cars. At 6am. After waking from a dead sleep. You know, I live in Hawaii so I *don't* get frozen feet. Ever.

It was supposed to be a bumper crop of mangoes this year, too. The flowers and fruit were holding out against the winds for weeks. I guess they were actually supposed to DIE, so the hail came down and cleaned off the trees. Wah.

Make a much prettier magnetic pincushion..

I love the concept of magnetic pincushions...using them while sewing on the machine, I pull the pins out and throw them in the general direction of that ubiquitous blue donut thing without slowing down, and it grabs them from almost midair and keeps them safe from landing under my feet. I love it. Not so much, the blob of blue plastic in my sewing room.

So, I decided to make my own, using a little porcelain dish I loved. And cause I could, I took pictures while doing it, and you can make your own, too. I promise you, you'll love it SO much more! :D

Needed:

Dish you like, not too thick, otherwise the magnets can't hold well through it

Strong magnets..I got mine from eBay, but you can find similar at any decent craft supply store

Strong glue that will hold both surfaces..I used Gorilla Glue

First, spread your glue on the spot you want the magnet (or on the magnet itself...I had a slight curve to my surface, so I wanted to make sure it was well filled with the glue so it would hold)..

Decide how many magnets you need for your particular dish (I needed three stacked together to be strong enough...other dishes might need more or less...test your one out), gluing together layers if need be..

Attach to the dish (like I said, I needed to stack mine up...if you have a wider, flatter dish, you might need to spread them around a little, to cover the surface to make it workable)..

And if you have a glue like mine that needs to be held firmly together while drying, put a weight on the magnets to keep it together.

And that's it. You now have your gorgeous little magnetic pincushion, ready to hold those pins in place without having to stop and stab them in, or leaving piles next to the machine while you work, and then the next time you rotate the garment to sew another seam, you sweep the whole mess onto the floor. Gah. It's like having a superhero working next to you. Seriously. I am in love. Hope you love yours just as much. :D

Orange and purple and greens..

I was browsing through my Pinterest folder of colors..I noticed a trend...

Oranges, and purples, and greens...

I feel so predictable right now, lol...

Credits:

1. SunSurfer 

2. XenaBitesBack

3. WishFlowers 

4. BlackBirdExperience 

5. Desert-Dreamer 

6. SundayInBed 

7. AdorableLife 

8. Zsaj 

9. Tenneal 

Twisted..

Garnet briolettes and teeny, tiny peridots, all twisted up on silver hoops. Now dd wants me to make HER a pair...gonna have to be different colors, though..I never did get into the matchy-matchy..so not my thing. :p

Playing along at:

Moonrise..

I took a walk tonight, at moonrise..

Kids of Yesterday..

Currently extremely obsessed with this song..

Chinoiserie..

Loving these works by Kathe Fraga...the colors just make me happy..


Credit:

All images found via Kathe Fraga, who I found on Pinterest..

Breathtaking..

It's insane, her voice..

And if you are like me and can't get enough of it, try her taking on Lady Antebellum (accompanied by Hootie of Blowfish fame, and cheered on by Lady A themselves..)



..or kissing off her ex:



'Scuze me...gotta go hit replay again..


Edit: Good grief...all I see in the Google reader is blank space with ads and some text...is that what you all see, too?? When the heck did they change to that??

That looks...interesting..

It seems to be fig season here in Hawaii. I know this because I was handed a large bag of ripe right now figs, overflow from their tree that they couldn't keep up with. Since I seem to be the only one in the house who like fresh figs, I am now trying to come up with ways to use them up..which leads me to the next question...who the heck has heard of fig soup? Not as a dessert, either...as a main meal item. The people who gave them to me said they have been making it a lot, and that it was an Asian thing. I dunno...I can be adventurous in my palate, but my mind is boggling about this...has anyone had or heard of that before? 

And, what else can I do with these sitting on my counter in dire need of using up??

White Blank Page..

Still a massive fan of these guys..

(Holy macaroni, my last post was in MARCH!! I totally fell off the wagon!! Sorry, folks! Won't happen (much) again! :D )

Fantasy world..

Nearly died when I first saw Sveta Dorosheva's work over on DudeCraft...I just want to live in her world. Isn't she A-MAZ-ING???? You can find her here. SO worth a click over and seeing her pictures in their entirety...she is illustrating books, and by that I mean, the whole thing, text and all. A-MAZ-ING.

Credit:
Sveta Dorosheva

A learning experience..

This here is a last glimpse of my most recent learning experience. I learned how to make ball headpins, using sterling wire and a propane torch (AWESOME!!! :D ). I learned to not just wrap at will, and pay attention, or you will end up uneven. I learned a photo will show you that it WASN'T your imagination, and something def was askew. And I learned I need to be more aware of earrings in my ear, even if they are so extremely comfortable, or I will never know when one disappears, and won't even know where to begin to look for it, esp if I went out all day, and then again all evening, wearing them. :(

They sure were pretty, though, weren't they? :)

  

Sister Sister Sunday

Stylin'..

It's sooooo lovely to open your inbox and see that someone loves your work enough to give you an award!! :D And I got this one twice!! :happydance:

The first one is from Audrey, at A Day With a Domestic Engineer (love the name...I was a domestic engineer for years, lol!)..She has all kinds of cool projects, furniture remakes, etc. Check it out! :D

The second came from Tru, at Tru Tales Feats. Super talented in many different arts, and very understated about how she seems to be able to just do anything! :D

So, the rules...

1. Thank the givers. DONE.
2. Share seven things about myself.
3. Pass it on to 15 newly discovered bloggers (who the heck comes up with *15* as a number? Obviously not someone who has had to actually do that. :p We'll see how I go, lol. )
4. Contact them and tell them about it.

So. Seven things. Um.

1. I live in Hawaii. But I was also born here, and spent enough time in early childhood here before beginning my world roaming, to set my preferences. This temperature is what the world should be, imo. :D The water in the ocean should also be like this. When I was growing up, and swimming in various other oceans and lakes, this water is what I would dream about, cause this is "right". :P And I like the food here.

2. I like to dabble. I call myself a Jill of All Trades, cause I know a little bit of everything, but can't call myself an expert on anything. The closest thing I could say would be sewing, but even then, at this point, I am not even close. I need more large chunks of time to just immerse myself in figuring out how the heck to do this or that, and I rarely get that.

3. I am a salty over sweet kind of person. I don't mind sweets, but if I had to choose, I would choose savory over sweet anytime. It's my total downfall every time. The only exception would be cheesecake. Baked. Like my SIL made last night, and I am currently drooling over this morning. Scuze me while I go raid the fridge.

Okay, back. Let's continue. :D

4. I have never been farther east than Michigan. One day I am going to make it to NY. My ds shares that dream, and will murder me if I go without him. :p Of course, Europe is on the cards, and I will go with SIL...we are mutually agreed that we are not taking the Stick In the Mud..aka, dh. He would hate every min of being dragged all over every nook and cranny, and we would hate to have him complaining as we try to fit this and this and this in. :p

5. I like to have tabs open in my browser. A lot of them. Like, I had 73 open at one point. Drives dh, and pretty much everyone else who sees them, bonkers. But it's the only way I remember to ever get back to them and do what I planned on doing with whatever is on that page. God bless whoever invented tabs. Cause it used to be windows. One window open for every site. Talk about driving dh bonkers! :p

6. I like hot drinks. Even on hot days. I always get a hot latte, no matter what the temp is outside.

7. I am a laundry freak. I wash EVERYTHING. All the time. My laundry pile is generally out of control, cause I also line dry, and between limited drying hours, and Hawaii's propensity to rain randomly all the time (even on sunny days....there's a reason this is the Rainbow State), I can't dry fast enough to clear out everything in the pile before I add more. Too bad I loathe folding and putting away, though. THAT pile is also out of control. :p


There ya go. Seven random facts, showing off my weirdness. :D I know, I am a lost cause.


Okay, on to the *15* new to me blogs. Let's see how many I can do. :p

1. DIY Home Sweet Home Projects. Projects, ideas, style. Love it.

2. Attempting Aloha. Cool projects, neat ideas, oh, and she lives on my Island, so she understands the unique position of living in a crafting wasteland, and the shifts you need to go to to make things work. :p

3. The Tattered Tag. Awesome linkie party, and lots of cool ideas and projects. (Anyone notice a theme? I love places that give me ideas. :p I am not one of those people who read many blogs that just talk about life. You gotta be showing me something at the same time. lol )

4. DudeCraft. I have no idea if he would even care about receiving this award, but I found his blog recently, and it is sooo inspiring! :D

5. Amy's Show and Tell. Okay, I only found her last night, via my Sitemeter, which showed a click through from there, but what I found was awesome. Not the least cause she made a bench using my tut, and it is SO CUTE!!! :D

(Oh, man, only up to five, and I have to go out soon!)

6. Keeping It Simple. Tutorials, man. I'm all about the tutorials.

7. Welcome to the Good Life. There are two of them, Hawaii is involved, and she is fearless with her clothes remakes. :D

8. Girl In Air. Not sure there is anything this girl can't do, and luckily for us, she tells *us* how to do it, too.



Well, look at that...I got all the way to eight! :D Way to go me! :D

Okay, I am collapsing at the end of the day, my eyes are closing on me, and my computer is being weird, so I am packing it in. I'll tell all those guys they are here when I get up tomorrow. :P

I hope you all love the people I listed as much as I do! ::D

Where are my links??

Anyone having a problem with linkies in Blogger? I have been adding buttons for all these linkie parties I have been joining, but looking down the list, I have all these blank gaps, with nothing in there, and I have been seeing over the last couple of days, a button will go blank, even though the link is still there..now those ones seem to be gone? What is UP??