As little Evelina - my new granddaughter - was born on a Saturday, I didn't have any photos to include in my "bird in the hand" blog post when I mentioned her as she had just literally been born when I wrote the blog post...so a few of you have asked to see her piccies. So here she is!
I get to see her this week!!!! Doesn't she look fabulous! So excited, happy, and jiggly in the above photo and so pensive and thoughtful in the one below.
Excuse the indulgence of grandchildren photos two days running, but I think new grandmothers are allowed such things - especially when two grandchildren are born within 11 days of each other. ;-)
This week's things I am grateful for - my bird in the hand - is a short list of one. And that is Maxwell. He is my new grandson - born to Adam and Alexa. He was born January 25th, weighing 7lbs and 4 oz.
He was born 11 days after my granddaughter Evelina. Two babes in two weeks! How great is that! When Adam phoned shortly after Maxwell was born, I could hear little Max making gurgling noises down the phone! Our first hello! My heart melted right there and then :-D
We fly back to England on Wednesday - so obviously we are going to have a wonderful time over there, cuddling with two new grandchildren! How lucky are we?
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I needed to do some more stained glass window necklaces for Grace cathedral, so I finished them off today.
Three of them are utilizing the scenes from the St Matthew window in the Chapel of Grace, and the fourth - the largest - is from one of the more contemporary style windows in the nave of the church.
I will take them to the shop at Grace on Sunday when I sing there.
They vary quite a bit in different lights. I like that aspect as when you wear it, you see different colors and suddenly, the vibrance shines through....but then you turn and it looks different again.
Hope you like them - and I appreciated your comments on the bangles. Thanks for that.
My jewelry is selling well at Grace Cathedral and so I made a few new bangles this week.
They were made from the St Matthew Window in the Chapel of Grace.The window was created by Charles Connick and is the first window as you enter the chapel.
Connick's chapel of Grace window designs, like the chapel architecture, were inspired by the famed and still-surviving Sainte-Chapelle - a private chapel attached to the royal palace in Paris. This chapel is considered one of the highest achievements of Gothic architecture - and is somewhere I would love to visit one day........
The new bangles feature both the full length St Matthew window and also just small vignettes. I like the one shown above on the left as it has bunches of grapes on it...merlot?
I need to make some more necklaces too, so I'll show you those when I'm done.
Rain! Finally we have rain. We've probably only had about 3 or 4 days of rain since spring last year - but hopefully we will now get enough - however much that is.
Hearing news/updates and seeing photos of our lovely new little grand daughter Evelina - a week old today :-D
Singing.
Going for a long walk with lunch in the middle - and avoiding most of the rain. We walked to Kenwood and back today - probably nearly 8 miles.
Spending a lot of the week at home working on my computer and learning lots of new things.
Keeping up with my walking program
Revisiting a restaurant we hadn't been to in ages and really enjoying it.
Seeing a covey of nearly 100 quails
Watching the ducks on the pond
Having a week off from making jewelry
I hope you've had a good - and maybe different - week this week.
This week's bird in the hand - the things I am grateful for - is wonderful news. We just heard this morning that Craig (John's son) and Chui have had a little girl - Evelina! She was born this morning at around 9.30am (UK time), weighing in at 7lb 4 oz!
They had a long, busy couple of days - but mum, dad and babe are all doing well now and hoping to sleep!
Chui and Evelina will come home from the hospital tommorow.
So now I'm a granny :-D Exciting times ahead.
Sending all our love to the new family xxxxxxxxxxx
I took some of my 'stained glass' aluminum jewelry down to Grace Cathedral this week for them to sell in their gift shop. I was delighted that they wanted to stock it.
The jewelry is all based on the stained glass windows in the cathedral (yes, I have permission to use it). The colors are so vibrant, which is why I chose to call the series "Vibrance and Grace".
It'll be interesting if I see any of the congregation wearing it when I go down to sing on Sunday.
I heard that they went on sale on Tuesday and two pieces sold straight away! How encouraging is that.
Now I'm working on some new windows - and it looks like I need to get working!
Here is this week's Bird in the Hand - the things I am grateful for:
WWI Carrier pigeon
My nephew Matt. It was his 17th birthday yesterday. Seems difficult to believe - but he's still as cute as ever ;-D
Achieving my 10,000 steps a day goal every day this week - totalling walking more than 40 miles.
My new walking shoes!
The fun of learning new things. I'm busy building a new website for my Health Coaching business but as many things have changed since I built my Birdland Creations site, there is quite a learning curve. I often feel I haven't much to show for a day's work, but I am getting there - and enjoying the challenge of it all.
All this wonderful sunny weather here in California. We've had practically no rain at all since the beginning of December - only 1 day I think - and this is supposed to be our rainy season! I'm thinking it'll all catch up soon enough - but for now, I'm enjoying the 65 degree sunny afternoons and frosty mornings.
The support of fellow artists and family when I had an unreasonable customer to deal with.
Getting back to singing after a week off over New Year.
Time with friends.
I hope you've had a good week too. What was the highlight for you?
I love this month. Jewelry sales are typically slow after a busy December so I like to focus on the business side of Birdland Creations - what I've done, what I want to do, where I'm going, strategies, etc - and not on creating and selling jewelry.
To this end, I'll not be blogging much this month, but will be coming up with new ideas. I'll share these with you soon.
Hope January is a good month for reflecting for you too.
Here is a slideshow of all the birds that were created as part of the bird a week challenge.
We started the year with 33 members, many of whom had never even made a single bird before. Not everyone managed to complete a different bird each week, but every bird included was a delight to see.
There are, I think, four of us who did make a different bird each week for the whole year: myself, Joy, Linda and Riet.
It was the first time I had organized anything like this and I'll definitely want to do it again. I had never met any of the people who joined me in the challenge, but over the year, I feel we've become friends and now know each other's work well.
There are some new challenges starting next year, but I'm going to take it a little easy to begin the year, and just continue with the bird theme - but only one a month. I know Joy is doing this too, plus another challenge, so we will see how the year transpires.
Thanks for following along with all our birdies and their journeys. Time to fly now!
Yesterday I finished my 52nd bird of 2011! They were all part of my "bird a week challenge". If truth be told, I made more than 52 birds in the year, but for the challenge, we only counted those that were a new design, and some of my extras were repeats of designs that I'd done before.
Looking back at them, I used 17 different materials to make the 52 birds. Here are the main media:
18 were made from silver
12 were made from aluminum
5 were made from steel
3 were made from food items
11 of the 17 media I used, I had never tried before, so it was a big learning year. The new media included encaustics, printing from zinc plates, plaster wrap, wax, and plasticine illustrations.
Most of the birds were "generic" but there were 9 specific species that I made, as follows:
1 eagle
2 bluebirds
2 herons
2 quail
1 robin
3 penguins
1 owl
1 parrot and
1 kingfisher
If I were to choose two techniques that I now wish I'd explored a bit
more and tried more birds with, they would both be illustrations - one
was a pencil drawing and one was a illustration with plasticine.
Screaming Eagle - week 1
Great Blue Heron
I would really like to be able to illustrate and as I was lucky enough to get Adobe Illustrator for Christmas, I'm hoping that this is a skill that I can develop in 2012.
Here is a slideshow of all the 52 different birds. Tomorrow I'll let you know about the others who joined me in the challenge.
Gosh, the last week of the year and that means my 52nd bird of the year. Yes, this year I have made a different bird each week of the year for the "Bird a week challenge" that I started. To end the year, I wanted my piece to somehow take me into the New Year...and to be an inspiration for what the new year will bring.
And thus, here is: "Given wings, where might you fly?"
They are ear thread earrings of flying silver birds. Ear threads are my favorite style of earrings and of course, birds are my favorite subject, so it seemed fitting to end the year with favorites.
And the title I find inspiring as it intimates that we all have wings...all we need to do is decide where we want to fly to. The New Year is bringing lots of new things to my life - new opportunities, new challenges, new experiences - and so I'm going to spread my wings and fly!
It's been wonderful to do this challenge and have other artists join me on the way. I'll do some summary posts of the the whole challenge over the next couple of days, but in the meantime, click on the links below to see this week's birds.
Well, we definitely didn't get a White Christmas this year...and I don't know anyone who did. Maybe this will make up for it - my favorite Christmas cartoon! You've no doubt seen it before, but...
This blog tells you the stories behind my silver and aluminum creations - namely: why the design came to me; what inspired me; what story is connected to the piece; how the piece starts a new story etc. The stories add so much more to the piece and continue to develop as the piece goes to it's new owner.
I also tell you a little about my life in the wine country of Sonoma County, California and my husband writes once a month about what is happening in our vineyard that month.
I hope you'll come back regularly. I look forward to your comments.
Birdland Creations shop and gallery
Hand crafted silver jewelry - anthropomorphic and full of stories! Just click on "jump for joy"
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