Beauty in Growth: Part 2

The growing season is here and I am joyfully watching as our yard is turning into a very interesting little ecosystem. These pictures are of a few of my favorite things that are growing without much attention from us at all.

This is one of the baby apples that is growing on our tree. We do not have very many of them, but I am excited to see how the ones we do have turn out later this season

Here is a baby strawberry that I found. Adam thought there were only weeds in our back garden until I found these. Who knows what else is secretly growing all around us.

According to other people, roses are really hard to grow. But according to our yard, all they need is some sun, rain, and neglect. I am very happy to have them since they are so beautiful and I hope they continue to grow and be happy without us having to do too much.

I still have to plant my tomatoes and other annuals that we got at the store. Hopefully all of my plants will like it here as much the old ones and we do.

Remodeling

Here are a few pictures of us and our friends remodeling our new house. It still has quite a bit of work left to do, especially with all the boxes everywhere from moving. We will get it done eventually. People keep telling us that home ownership is a never ending project but hopefully we will get the number of projects down to a reasonable level by the end of the summer.
Me scrapping wallpaper in the kitchen to reveal an ugly orange wall.

Sean scrapping wallpaper in the infamous airplane/guest room. The background of the airplane wallpaper used to be white.

Jack helping to clean off the walls in the airplane room. Jack has been an immense help throughout this whole process and I am very grateful for his help.

Amy licking the paint instead of putting it on the trim. Amy has helped provide a lot of comic relief as well as help. We are very happy we have reconnected with her.

Adam giving me his ever cheesy smile while painting the closet sized master bathroom.

John putting spackle on the places where the evil airplane wallpaper ripped off the wall covering.

Tyler helping rip out and carry away stained and nasty old carpet.

Skillet also helping rip out carpet. I think some days Skillet was more enthusiastic about working on our house than we were.

Buddy sleeping in his new backyard. Too many things to do, he wore himself out.

Beauty in Growth: Part 1

Spring has come and gone. Although summer has unofficially started I wanted to share these spring pictures of the apple blossoms from the tree in my new back yard. I need to get out there and take images of the baby apples that have started to form. I will have to keep taking pictures as the season goes on to show the transformation of growth over time. But for now I just hope you enjoy these beautiful blossoms.

Morning

So it is 6:15 in the morning and I cannot go back to sleep. Buddy is whining, Adam is sleeping, and the cats are exploring. Yesterday we moved into our new house. This house has been the biggest project I and Adam have ever worked on. I wish it was done but, as people keep telling me, home ownership is a never ending process. We need to unpack and settle in but we also need to finish painting walls and trim, packing and cleaning up the old apartment, and getting the 1001 other details done. Hopefully we are able to stay under budget and get all the things done that we would like to do. Unfortunately right now I am just exhausted, physically and mentally. I just want to take a mini vacation where I do not have to worry about all the things that should have already been done. Maybe I can find time today to do that since today is Memorial Day and thus a holiday off of work. Maybe i just need to take the time to watch a movie on our new big TV and forget about the boxes surrounding me. Wish me luck in de-stressing.

Su Blackwell

More beautiful things.

Altered books by Su Blackwell

This last one is not exactly in book form but it is still amazing and looks like it could be made of paper.

Hina Aoyama

Here are some of the most beautiful things I have seen lately.

Works of paper by Hina Aoyama
She also has a lot of butterflies but the words were what caught my attention.

Happy Dance Time

So I wanted to share two things. One: my application is officially submitted to the Graduate School and I handed in my CD of images and text documents to the secretary at the art department. *Happy Dance* Here is another one of my pieces that I submitted in my portfolio. The head of this poor birdie fell off but I was able to glue it back on for the shot before it fell off again. Adam spent several minutes trying to get the bow just perfect and the birdie going the correct direction. I am glad that he has his obsessive complusive behaviors sometimes, especially when it comes to my art.

Two: After who knows how many sketches and ideas, I finally figured out what I am going to do for my wearable art project that will not kill me over the next week and a half. I am going to make the dress on the Vogue Pattern on the far right. I love that dress and how it has a pointed train like a bird tail. I am going to use inspiration from the black Beth Teshome dress named Raven. I love how the entire skirt is covered in fabric feathers. I am going to use similar fabric feathers on the train of my dress to emphasize the bird tail idea. The colors I am using are based off of a bluebird. I am dying raw silk in a deep national blue for the outside of the dress. I am dying silk habotai, which is so smooth and wonderful against your skin, a golden yellow for the lining. I am not sure if I am going to use the silk habotai or silk organdy in the national blue for the feathers. I am going to have to do some tests. I am really excited that I will have a handmade, 100% silk dress, that will fit me perfectly, even if I do not currently have a place to wear it. I hope it turns out as beautiful as it looks in my head. I still have some reservations about how much time the feathers will take me. Wish me luck!