This Christmas Eve we had our first EVER blizzard warning for Tulsa. The night before I took these photos it was snowing and blowing between 35 and 50 mph. Oklahoma City had 14 inches of snow and they were closing highways!
Was out on the patio to shoot some jewelry with the natural light on the northside when along came one of the patriotic birds again. This time I was much closer with the camera and the bird was not afraid.
Putting the new kiln to work! This is what the glass looks like before it's fused. The kiln fires to about 1425 degrees and the special paper just turns to powder but it works its magic and keeps the glass from sticking.
A wonderful little flock of Robins. Yes, our lawn is still green from all of the rain we've had.
Believe it or not, this was one of the last roses of this year's season, and it was so beautiful. I planted this rose bush in a large flower pot on the front patio, it really didn't do much this summer and then voila! A perfect rose. Hybrid Tea 'Tiffany' and it is fragrant, too!
OK, you know the cute little bunny rabbits... they chewed all the branches off of my 'Arapahoe' thornless blackberry bush. One of my gardening books said that blackberries grow only on two year old branches, so probably no berries next spring, but I tried to rescue the bush -- transplanted it with a little fish fertilizer, and put a tomato cage with fenced barricade -- ah, yes, woman vs. nature just to get a few berries !
We just had this art show. Lucked out on the weather. It had been raining for three weeks -- like a son of a gun -- but that Saturday was sunny. We got stuck on a side street at the end, but we had a good time and sold some things. The first two sold were beaded pendant and earring sets. I have plans to make more of those - a lot of fun.
What I'm finding out is that glass jewelry is much more difficult to photograph than pottery. Especially the dichroic glass. The reflections can just kill the colors. I've been trying north light outdoors and I have plans to try the lightbox again to see if that will improve. Still learning. I take many different shots and try different backgrounds, then Photoshop a few for the online store. I'm using a Nikon D60.
I try to keep track of how many hits the blog and website get, and I noticed a spike in hits on October 1st. It was like, hello (with an English accent), what happened? With the help of Google Analytics I found out that a nice blog had featured one of my kitchen pottery spoon rests.
This was my first 'real' test firing in the new kiln. The first one said just to fire it without anything to break in the heating elements. Notice the cross -- for blessings, I hope!!
This rose bush is fantastic. 'Carefree Beauty' is no delicate plant. I don't spray roses with chemicals, so they need to be hardy. This blooms all through the season, except for a heat wave over 100F, but as soon as the weather gets reasonable it continues on blooming its heart out. Now it is covered in large rose hips. I'm going to harvest and try to dry them to make some rose hip tea. Here is a great website for more info on this rose. Plus they have a database and photos of almost any rose you can think of. http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=974
After over two weeks of rain, we hit a beautiful day. Sunny around 80F.
There were a lot of folks out walking their dogs at the art show. A church group set up a doggy watering booth and had large bowls of water for the dogs, and they gave them free doggy biscuits. Nice!
A lady and her mother came by and had a stroller full of Papillon dogs. They wore little pink tutus to match their stoller. Oh boy, now there's a dogs life!!
This 'CelosiaCristata' came up from last year's seed that had fallen in the ground. This flower is large, about 6" x 8". They are very stunning and easy to grow.
Sneak Peak: I will be adding a new line from "D.L.O. Design" for the Prairie Coast Art Gallery. I'll give you a hint... It is also fired in a kiln but NOT pottery! I have been designing fused glass jewelry. These are going to be online and also for sale in the upcoming art festival shows this fall.
More info coming soon, so please check back in to the blog.
Seems like that our wild rabbits are not running away immediately but kind of hanging to see if you walk towards them. This was a zoom in and cropped in Photoshop.