stones

Hand Painted Alaskan Beach Stones

After a full day of hiking and exploring, I have enjoyed spending my evenings making these painted beach stones.

Creating With Nature

Do you have things from nature that you like to collect? Maybe pretty stones, pine cones or seashells? I certainly do. I have so many of these little collections that our nature table no longer holds it all. I have pretty stones, and feathers tucked all over the house. I don’t know what draws me to these things or why I feel that I should hold on to them. However, I do know that these little treasures make me smile & that is reason enough for me.

This summer I want to focus some time on discovering ways to bring natural elements into my artwork. I have decided to make a challenge for myself experimenting with nature in fiber art. I’m really excited and my mind is swimming with ideas. To keep myself organized, I am breaking this challenge down into 5 categories. My first thought was to spend 1 week looking at each of the 5 categories, but upon further thought I decided not to put a time a limit on them. It is summer after all, and I really don’t want to feel pressured to squeeze everything into a week. So I’ll be taking as much, or as little time as I need to explore ways of creating with nature.

I’d love to have you join me!

Beach Stones, Driftwood, Blue Skies

In my studio recently, I have found myself being drawn to raw, natural fibers that are sturdy, strong, and coarse. My hands have been reaching for hemp, silk, and fibrous handmade papers. Inspiration has been drawing from my beach stones, drift wood, and bright blue skies.

It’s April, my children are on Spring Break, and the weather has been warming.

In response to these early stirrings of spring, we packed up for the day and drove to my most favorite place on this Earth – the Lake!

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I love coming to this place anytime of year. The summer, of coarse, is fantastic with the soft, sandy beaches, and cool water. The cooler weather of fall makes hiking the sand dunes MUCH more enjoyable, and in the winter, there are amazing ice flows. Springtime, however, has come to surprise me. In recent years, I have found myself spending more and more time here in the spring. The beaches are,for the most part, empty of human beings. There is sand EVERYWHERE. Every year, I am amazed at the amount of sand that the winter winds bring. If you come early enough in the year, the park is almost unrecognizable and half buried in sand. It is this phenomenon that I can’t get enough of, because along with the sand comes all sorts of treasures. I could spend days combing the beach for colorful stones, driftwood, beach glass, and bones.

As I walk the shores, my mind just swims with ideas of things to make. “This could be an awesome necklace”, “These should be tied into a dream catcher”, “This is so straight, it could be added to a weaving”. I collected quite a pile of colorful goodies before my kids were done.

Their hungry bellies were grumbling, and they informed me, the beach just isn’t fun if you can not go swimming. So after 4 hrs of beach combing, we went to go hike the dunes. I guess 4 hrs is long enough. Although, I am secretly plotting another trip someday soon while these guys are in school. shhh! 4 hrs is not really enough for this momma.