Start with an item from the thrift store....

...like this goofy little shadow box frame with some shells in it. Probably adorned someone's bathroom. I picked it up for a mere dollar. When tearing it apart I broke the glass and almost forgot to take a "before" picture (you may notice where the shells were already ripped off the paper underneath).




After a light sanding, Jalen helps me Gesso the pieces. That's been one of the best parts about "thing-a-day" so far. The two younger kiddos are right there with me, wanting to be involved in what I'm doing and experimenting with their own art too. This is why I don't like having my art corner in the garage during winter weather! We tend to neglect having materials available but "thing-a-day" inspired us to move it to a more comfortable location.





A little bit of acrylic paint is added.




The cubbies begin to get filled in.




A whole new look for the thrift store find!
Upper left corner contains a snakeskin from Milton Florida and a bone found at White Sands National Monument in Alamagordo NM. Upper right corner contains a deer vertabrae and sand dollar from Busby Island Alaska, in the Prince William Sound. Lower left are shells from the Pensacola Beach area (somewhere on Santa Rosa Island) and lower right is a bird nest from FL, some blue jay and various other feathers and a wooden egg that was my Mums. The paper that lines each box are leaf rubbings from leaves gathered one sunny day in Pensacola as I traipsed the streets with Izzy and Jalen. Oh, and the bundle of plants on the right is some creosote and mesquite from the NM desert that my friend Karin Curtain brought to the very first Live and Learn conference. It still smells wonderful.

I later drilled a few holes in the bottom to add some dangly bits...another day.




Then we moved on to the firepit project. After mixing some mortar and leveling our circle the kids helped me place a few stones.



I figured out that I really stink at mortaring uneven stones together. It's more solid than it was before....but I can't say it's any prettier.;)



While I was finishing up with the rough mortar job, Sierra started digging up some wild onions that grow prolifically in our yard this time of year and well into spring. You can see them to her right in a toy dump truck.




Inside, the bread we had made while art projecting, was cooling off.



Sierra and I chopped the wild onions into a stir fry and some sauteed mushrooms. A meal fit for a queen. An earthy queen anyway. We're using up the last of the wild blackberry jam made last summer. It makes me sad to see it going, but more determined to put up a lot more jam this year. It was a productive day, but you wouldn't know it by the mess I am surrounded by in the basement now. That's part of the trade off for doing what we prefer.....the things we don't prefer seem to sneak up on us.

All the busyness of today gave me more to blog about, which is good since the next two days will be a challenge. I'm leaving town for work training and Jalen needs to see the dentist first thing in the morning for an absessed tooth. Lotsa fun eh? I'll be lucky to get a pot of soup made tomorrow....