New Mantra

I have been reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. One task in week 7 uses the mantra, "Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong." The object of the task is to creatively post the mantra in a prominent location. I neatly wrote the mantra on a small, wet-on-wet watercolor I painted when teaching the fifth grade at a Waldorf School. Then, I gathered fallen twigs from our yard, scraped off the bark, sanded them, cut them to size, and conditioned them with a beeswax oil I had made specifically for wood. I used hemp string to tie them together and fashioned a small easel for the watercolor. It now sits on my bedside table along with the rocks I found for a task in week 5.

Amigurumi Jack-O-Lantern

Embracing the season, my second amigurumi project was a pumpkin. I used three colors of yarn, so I could make a jack-o-lantern face and a stem. I made it up and stuffed it as I went along. Like I wrote in my previous amigurumi post, pattern schmattern! It's much more fun to make it up as I go along. I think it allows the project to take on a life of its own and be what it is meant to be.