Tag: weekly photo challenge

Frame for WPC

 

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With Zen Bead Embroidery, there is a ton of fairly relaxing (if you do it right) work, but it can sometimes leave you with just a pile of confusing colors and patterns.

Often, the “Frame” is what turns it into a piece of art…

I have to say that I loved doing the embroidery above but when it came to framing, I was clueless and had to go to professionals for help.

I was really happy with how they framed my pieces. (Please forgive the photography. That was definitely NOT professional.)

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Frame

Chosen Perspectives on Rare for WPC

The color is certainly not RARE but some of these Cobalt bottles are.

I’m an addicted collector so to me they are not unusual, but I am always on the lookout for that one truly rare piece.

I don’t really remember a time when I didn’t love blue. It’s more to me than just a favorite color. I am moved by blue; all shades but cobalt especially.

I still have my very first piece of cobalt glass. It was a prescription bottle that contained medicine for an eye infection. I was six years old. I was miserable but instantly calmed as that dangerous looking medicine box was opened to reveal this magical flash of color…a Cobalt bottle.

I was distracted from my awe for a moment when they told me what came next. Eye drops? I was to voluntarily hold my eyes open so that someone could drop unknown liquid into them? I don’t think so. But then the thoughtless threat from a tired parent…”Do you want to go BLIND?”

I looked at that intense colored, blue bottle, and took my medicine. I didn’t ever want to not be able to see that BLUE! I have collected blue glass ever since. I have a lot of it.

Much to the annoyance of my well intentioned friends and family, I surround myself in blue. My clothes are blue. Every room in my home has a blue theme. My car is blue. My oldest grandson’s eyes are a STUNNING blue!

If I were to lose my sight, blue might be what I would miss the most.

Blue affects me.

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Rare

Morning from ChosenPerspectives

Morning

Our task this week from the WordPress Photo Challenge was to post photographs showing Morning. I knew my ongoing favorite Morning place right away. Once a year we get to house, farm and animal sit for my “sister” and her husband who live in arguably the most beautiful place on the planet. Not that I have been to them all, but a visit to Friday Harbor, in the San Juan Islands will definitely have it competing for first place with your other top favorites!

We immerse ourselves in the non-tourist version of the Island lifestyle and spend our time writing, visiting various beaches, watching for whales, or gathering the day’s food from the garden.

The above shots are walking from the front door (top picture) around to side overlooking the pond.

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The deck where we sit to watch the sunrise every morning…

This is what we see looking out from our perfect spot on the porch.

and this……….

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We take care of the animals and water the Wild Bird Bamboo farm   ( http://www.wildbirdbamboo.com/ )

as well as vegetable and flower gardens so lush and gorgeous, they are on an international Garden Tour!

 

 

MORNING Heaven!

Narrow for WPC-ChosenPerspectives

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This might be a common response from those of us living in Washington State…I hear the word “narrow” and this is what immediately comes to mind. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

I have taken so many photos of this bridge over the years, way better photos than I show here…the towers disappearing into or poking out of thick fog, sunsets, etc. But these are my most recent ones, taken from Amtrak, on the wonderful train trip we took down the West Coast of the U.S.

This bridge symbolizes the unfortunate history of “narrow escapes” our state has experienced in so many ways. We have had more than our share of failed bridges, dropping cranes, falling overpasses, collapsed piers, crumbling tunnels and crashing tall-building elevators! So “Galloping Gertie” seems to fit right in with our local lore and legacy!

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/tnbhistory/connections/connections3.htm

But this particular bridge is also really quite a sight to see at certain times of the year, or of the day for that matter.

Narrow for WordPress Photo Challenge

“Last Detail” by ChosenPerspectives

Details

When my son was about 20, he picked up an old Porsche to rebuild. He worked on it for years, including finally finishing major parts of the body work while it was parked in his grandmother’s driveway. She forgot it was there, drove into her driveway late one night and totalled the car. He is 43 now and has hauled it around with him to every place he has lived…Nebraska, Arizona, and several places in Washington state.

At one point, in support of his project, I told him that though I didn’t much want to work on the car with him, I had a supportive parallel project going that was just about as time consuming, so I challenged him….a race to the finish line.

I won and I gave him MY project a few years ago.

That car now lives HERE at my home, along with my son and his two sons. He plans on the three of them finishing it together. I really hope so as now it has become a symbolic “principle” of the whole thing.

But I am thinking maybe I start a new parallel project and re-challenge him. What do you think?

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Made with beads and my son’s great-grandmother’s mostly glass buttons.

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I Live with SIX MEN!! Among them they have NINE CARS, two motorcycles, and five bicycles. There are piles and rooms and sections of my house and property that are filled with house-painting equipment, construction and carpentry tools, classic cars “projects” and giant workout equipment. This is how they would spend every weekend…

I don’t consider myself a sexist (in favor of either gender) but I cannot think of a female equivalent to the HUGE Mustang (Ford) Car Show I attended this last weekend, at least nothing with comparable sound effects! (I mean really! I needed EARPLUGS!! Every open hood meant these competitive THUNDEROUS revs! Would you need earplugs for a Quilting Show??)

So recently, to do some hormone balancing in my home (this is different than feng shui) I went into the only room in the house that is still completely MINE, my Group Therapy room and office.

I’ve had to do a lot of downsizing to make room for the newest male arrivals to my home (my son and his two sons), and in my culling, have come across a lot of saved bits and pieces from my Mom, Aunt, Great Aunts, Grandmother and Great Grandmother. So I took old lace tablecloths and made a backdrop to which I attached (with tiny white painted safety pins) all that feminine energy!

I can now sit in my pink swivel chair and look at the history of the women in my family through their hats, their hankies, their doilies, aprons, and their fabric, lace and ribbons.

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ChosenPerspectives on DETAILS for WPC

IMG_6919IMG_1423Details If you can get past their “alien horror movie” characteristics, up close my bugs have such amazing DETAILS!

Even more amazing is the DETAIL left behind after a molting!! Antennae, claws, legs, spikes, all perfectly hollowed out as this bug miraculously removes itself from its too-small skin.

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(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extatosoma_tiaratum)