Quartzsite, Arizona

I spent last weekend in the craziness of Quartzsite, Arizona. It is always amazing to go and see what treasures are there in the outdoor swap meets each year. I particularly enjoy all the gigantic fossils from Morocco and the Amethyst and Citrine geodes from Brazil.

I made sure to visit one of my favorite artists, Gary Andruss of The Stoneworks in Hood River, Oregon. He hand cuts beads and pendants from gorgeous stones. He also sells quality uncut stones for the Lapidary enthusiast. Gary has no website, but can be contacted at Stone22@charter.net.

I could not resist getting my picture taken with these amazing fossil fish and table full of beautiful fossil ammonites.

Moxie's how-to: needle felted finger puppet

The amazing Moxie has created a great photo tutorial on how to make a needle-felted finger puppet. Be sure to check out all of her fantastic finger puppet monsters.

Knit Rib-And-Cable-Mitts

I have been working on the knit Rib-And-Cable-Mitts pattern from the spring’06 Interweave Knits. It is my first attempt at doing cables. It was a bit challenging at first and I had to frog a couple of times, but then I had the ‘a-ha’ moment.

I am using Berroco Ultra Alpaca yarn in 6285, Oceanic Mix, and 6205, Dark Chocolate. I adore this teal/brown color combo. The yarn is a bit thicker than the recommended so these are coming out a bit larger and chunkier.

Solid Perfume

I really enjoy the smell of essential oils. My two particular favorites right now, which my acupuncturist first used on me, are Geranium and Neroli. I like to wear them as perfume, but because they are not created to be a perfume, they evaporate very quickly leaving me scentless. I have been mixing them with vitamin e oil when I wear them, which helps them last the day. Unfortunately, oily wrists and neck are not so good for the clothes. Luckily, Instructables came up with this tutorial on making solid perfume. It is basicly the same as making lip balm which I wrote about here.

Outdoor design at Joshua Tree National Park

I spent the New Year’s weekend away in Joshua Tree National Park. It was gorgeous, but a bit chilly at night since the sun went down around 4:30pm at our campsite. I saw some fabulous outdoor sculpture and patio furniture at the Western entrance visitor center. I may need to consider some of it for future projects.

There was this gorgeous weather vane at the entrance.


Outside on the patio there were these cast concrete benches and tables. I particularly like how they made the surface look like stone. You can also see that the table bases were cast from paper sonotubes.


Another thing I really enjoyed were these concrete posts (perfect for potted plants) and the metal siding of the building.



Finally, I really liked this wooden gate that pivots around the rusty metal pipe.