"Stuck" in the Studio!

finished piece on the carpet

so after a long preparation (shopping, taking samples home, taking samples back, taking different samples home, packing boxes, moving furniture, etc. etc....) our new carpet finally arrived yesterday!  after a quick overview with the workers about how they were going to proceed to accomplish the job, it was obvious that they wanted us to disappear.  stu and muffy took off in the truck and i opted to hang out in my little studio.

family room during carpet installation

wow.  there i was with time to myself and all my stuff laid out before me in a halfway organized manner.  it was just a slight bit mind-boggling.  i mean it wasn't like i had had a chance to think about what i would actually DO.  kinda scary and exhilarating at the same time.

work in progress

one of the really cool things that we did at unfurl in october was to each bring a kind of artsy "goody bag" to swap with each other.  so i had a fabulous compilation of 13 goody-bags worth of stuff and had not yet had a chance to go through it.  here was the perfect opportunity!  i grabbed a small canvas and started playing around with some of the awesome papers and other fascinating doo-dads.  fun, fun, fun and even more special because of where each little piece came from!  the only part not from manzanita is the heart.  i try to include at least some little element of a photo i have taken in each piece.  the heart is cut from a photo of a bougainvillea right here in my yard.

 the other piece is a photo of a lighthouse in my home state of michigan that i applied some "altering" techniques to, similar of those that lisa shared with us at unfurl.  it's a work in progress.... not sure where it will end up, but i'm enjoying the process.  and i thought it would be fitting to photograph them with the carpet as the background!

so much of my life has been, of necessity, about home improvement lately.... it felt GREAT to just engage some creative play!!!