This candle holder is made by Northwest Artist and a cartographer at IRL in Seattle, Washington, Maria Jam Brown. I love the quality of nature Maria Jam Brown has captured in the Polymer clay with ink colored translucent Cernit.

From Maria's post,

"Today's project: translucent Cernit and mica gold mixed with alcohol inks to create an amber, gold, and rosy quartz candle holder. It looks a bit like it was carved from Himalayan salt! (I had to test it out with a tea light before giving it as a gift tomorrow. ☺)"

Here is Maria's on line studio with pieces she makes, tutorials, and info at her page at Blonde Crow Studio.

http://www.blondecrowstudio.com

Florida, lovely Florida!

I like it here, the weather is perfect...today!
This is the most amazing sky. The colors are almost unreal.
It seems as if you can reach out and touch these clouds.
So grateful to be here now!
Florida, lovely Florida!!

My first winner OWOH- Debbi from Diamond Grove

Debbi from the blog Diamond Grove http://diamondgrove.blogspot.com/ is my first winner and this is her Angel. She loves fall and anything to do with fall.

She wanted an angel and is an angel from what I can see on her blog and the small amount I have talked to her.

She calls her children "Diamonds in the rough" and posts on thursdays something she calls "thankful thursdays" (How beautiful is this? I love it) .

She loves to craft and is happily married with 3 little angels in training.

Debbi also plays with the clay and I am so happy this little angel is going home to her. Her angel is filled with inspiration to aid her in her love of crafts, home, and gratitude.

Check out Debbi, my 1st angel (I mean my 1st OWOH winner) and her blog Diamond Grove - Debbi says "where I am surrounded by people and things that help me shine".

Debbi's angel is adorned with a crown of acorns, has a heart and wings hand sculpted of antique gold cernit washed in black ne-opaque paint to bring out the details, the face is molded from my own mold made from one of my original sculpts and is gold cernit washed in black ne-opaque for definition, and the angel also sports the hand sculpted fall harvest symbols with a one off scarecrow to chase away any fears that Debbi may find. It is made with gun metal 16 gauge artistic wire and the hand sculpted Cernit pieces are attached with 24 gauge artistic wire.

I too, adore a fun fall piece and this was a pleasure to make. I hope you like it Debbi.

Sky before the Storm

These are pictures from the night before the big storm.

This is one of the most beautiful skies and I have been seeing them for days.

The fronts when they come in bring beautiful skies and maybe threats of rain.

Having painted for a good many years, when I see a sky like this I say "boy, that looks just like a painting"

But what I mean to say is,

This sky right here would make a beautiful painting.

No artist I know has anything on Mother Nature, some are very close though.

We are so blessed in her beauty every day.

We have had very liquid sunshine for days; my laundry room is flooded,

there was a tornado watch today, weird.

I am so glad I took a picture of these, they are not doing too well after slashing rain and winds yesterday and today.

They smell divine.

Stay warm and dry with love in your hearts.

Another Liberty

I was enamored of this guys murals and wanted to share, his name is Eric Grohe.

You can visit him here,

http://www.ericgrohemurals.com/index.html

This is the wall before.

Beautifying America through art!!