so, here are daisy and misha... sorry for the close-up on daisy, and for the yellow-eyes on misha... i will get better pics later. daisy is a beagle-mix that we got from the spca, and misha is a shi-tzu/sheltie mix. isn't daisy a pretty girl... and misha is sooo cute!

greetings all!

i am in that kind of lull-space between thanksgiving and christmas... just after the start of the holiday season. we had a nice thanksgiving here... very quiet. we cooked a big to-do meal, but for a very small gathering, so it was pretty stress-free and quiet. then on saturday, some friends from california stopped over for a night, in between their family visit and their fly-fishing destinations. we had a wonderful visit... hopefully they did as well.

this is a nice time of year for me... not because of the obscenely over-commercialized holiday... but because the rhythm of things changes due to the distractions of the season. and, there is something about realizing that another year is coming to an end that makes me ease up a bit... kind of relax into the end of the year. yes... it is another end-of-the-year, isn't it?

my australian email friend, jane lean, has been busy. actually, jane is a bit of a superwoman... she sews, knits, mosaics... she is always creating something it seems. while i have not seen any of her sewing or knitting masterpieces, she has been generous enough to share her mosaic art with me.

here are a couple of her recent pieces. she has been cultivating her talent with mirror and van gogh glass, as can be seen on the bottle. as for the urn, i think that she did a beautiful job pulling it all together... this is a lovely piece... i think that the gold paint on the rim and handles really adds a lot!

enjoy!

a truly remarkable thing about the internet, and about having a website, is being able to meet people from all over the world. a few weeks ago, i had the good fortune to meet antoaneta stoimenova, from cyprus, via the internet, and we have remained in contact since. she is a new email pal. she is also a very talented mosaic artist. you can see some of her work at this link.

recently, she started dabbling with making jewelry, and she has a great talent for this artform as well. click on the first thumbnail to take a look at a sampling of her beautiful jewelry pieces.

click on the second thumbnail to see one of antoaneta's recent mosaics, titled couple. antoaneta is very creative in her use of natural materials... like the ammonite fossils in the heads of the figures... and i wonder what the red pebble-like material is... very nice!

enjoy!

the mirror has been completed! i think the frame works for it... do you? i am very happy with it. next year, perhaps, i will do another one... i will be more adventurous and try something more colorful! this will not be easy, as i tend to really like the rich, warm colors like i chose for this one. we will see...