Beautiful weekend on the home turf.

Often it's the objects that have been discarded & left behind that catch my interest.
A beauty that has only been achieved through the weathering of time,
the rusting of metal or the frayed edges of life.

On our walk today down a mossy creek bed in Cherry Valley we just happened upon this beauty:

For real life?

{as my 7 year old niece would put it}

Yep, for real life.
A rusty old record player!

How incredibly rad is that?

The making of things...

Getting ready for this weekend's City of the Hills Art Festival in Oneonta:

Summer days....

Amidst packing, purging, sorting & moving I managed to find
some time to color my little bird in finally.

The Listening Bird 

And here are some of the ways I've been keeping cool this summer:

Exploring local creek beds. 

 There seems to be an endless supply of them in upstate NY.

Summer Evening

Work in Progress

LISTENING BIRD 

Drew the likeness of this little fellow recently. 

I have plans to transfer this design onto fabric soon.

Have you heard of the new sun printing dye by Lumi ?

You really should.

 (I will post some pictures of my experimentation & progress as I go!)

Rejuvenation

For a few days this week, Mr. Ryan & I went camping in the Adirondaks.  Deemed Land of a Thousand Lakes, by the Native Iroquois Indians, and only a couple hours away in the car, it truly is a magical place.  Last year we discovered a beautiful area, down a long dirt, on a branch of the Sacandaga River, with a secluded camping spot under long needle pines.

And this past week we went back to find it again. 

A much needed de-stresser for me. I could feel the calm returning to my

body while resting on the forest floor, tucked in our tent, far away from the computer 

& the buzz of humanity.

We arrived at Mud Lake, just as a storm was about to roll in. 

But it was a much welcomed shower with the heat & high humidity.