Handmade Wooden Shadow Box Diorama - Si je me souviens, je suis

Just this afternoon Joe put the finishing touches on this pretty little creation, and tonight I added it to my Etsy holiday shop.

For the search engines, I've listed it as a "shadow box," but a more accurate term might be "memory box."  In fact, Joe named it Si je me souviens, je suis
(If I remember, I am) in honor of our long ago French ancestors.  Joe has traced his family back to the Isle of Jersey; I've found mine in the little village of Lessay in Normandy.

There's not really anything reminiscent of Jersey or Normandy in the little box though, just some birch bark that the wind scattered around our dooryard, a few teeny winkle shells and pieces of feldspar from the beach out front ... but these small natural things are after all "such stuff as dreams are made on."  Shadows of things remembered.

I'm sure for Joe these things bring memories of his boyhood in Southern Maine, where he spent many happy summers at his family's camp on the shores of Sebago Lake.  In those days, a boy could wander all day through the woods, picking up pretty stones and scraps of moss covered bark. One of Joe's happiest boyhood events was the canoe trip he took with his brother Bruce, paddling from Sebago up the Songo River, through the lochs to Brandy Pond and Long Lake, to the town of Harrison.

Alas, those days are gone forever ~ Sebago Lake and the little town of Raymond are year-round bedroom communities for Portland.  The camps that have not been torn down have been converted to "proper" houses with all the "conveniences" of the most up-to-date suburban developments.  Motor boats roar up and down the once peaceful lake.  During the summer season, traffic moves at a crawl; on one hot August afternoon, we spent over two hours covering five miles.

But here in Down East Maine, 150 miles up the coast from Joe's boyhood haunts, there are still woods to explore and little natural treasures to bring home and cherish.  Yes, the water outside our window is not the fresh water of Sebabo Lake but rather the briny stuff of the wide Atlantic.  No canoes here -- but plenty of kayaks, lobster boats and two-masted sailing ships.  On a clear night we can see the winking red of the Bass Harbor Light, and when the sea smoke descends like a dense white curtain we hear the warning boom of the fog horns.

Memory is a sweet, often bittersweet, thing.  Personally I prefer the present, which will someday itself become a memory in another little shadow box.

The Apprentice Jewlery Designer

Or maybe she's the designer and I'm the apprentice.  Hmmm ... bears watching.

I just can't get enough ...

... of watching our dooryard visitors. 

This little red guy (or gal) is a member of a clan large and chatty clan who own that fine old tree outside our workshop.

They know us so well after all these years, and understand that we mean them no harm, that they don't even scamper when we step out the door just a few feet from their home.  But oh, how they can scold us!!!  

You know, I think he's actually posing for his portrait!

Seven Facts, Seven People ...

The beautiful and talented Ngan of eNVe Designs has honored me with this award.

In accepting this award, I need to list 7 things about myself, then pass it on to 7 other bloggers.

But first, a bit out my lovely friend Ngan ...





Ngan creates versatile, one of a kind handmade jewelry, like A Walk Through the Woods Charm Necklace

and Swinging Moon Earrings

To see more of her beautiful designs, be sure to visit her Etsy Shop and her newest shop too!

Ngan is a member of Etsy Team Project Embrace and originator of Warm Hearts Around the World, sending one of her lovely necklaces on a fabulous world tour to raise funds for St. Jude Children's Hospital.

To learn more about Ngan, take a peek at her blog, http://envedesigns.blogspot.com.  But be warned -- you may just spend the day there exploring ... and smiling!


And now, 7 things you may (or may not) know about me:
1.)  My husband's first name is Walter, but to me he's my sweet "Joe."
2.)  I'm into genealogy -- so I can join the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.
3.)  My favorite food is Mexican (and *sigh* I'm living in Maine).
4.)  I flat out refuse to get on an airplane.
5.)  My all-time favorite movie star is Van Johnson.
6.)  I dislike molasses, V8 juice, herbal tea, loud noises (except the ones I make myself), and going to movies.
7.)  I could eat sea scallops and eggplant every day from now on and never tire of either.

Okay.  That's me.  And now, I'm passing the Beautiful Blogger Award on to these seven Beautiful Bloggers (in alphabetical order):

Cristina of My Precious Bits of Sunshine
Kanokwalee of kanokwalee
Karen of For the Love of Old Books
kathi of grindstone girl's daily
Rebecca of Knee Deep Studio
Sheva of The Lava Jewel
Trish of Jewels by Trish

Now, let's see what these bloggers have to say for themselves ... :)

Another visitor ...

... and another "grab the camera" moment!

Out the back door this time, looking in the same direction as before.

No turkeys today, just this cute little critter, whom we've named "Mister Chips"  (original, huh?) -- although this may just turn out to be "Mistress Chips".

Wonder what "Chips" has in those puffed out cheeks?

(Yes, that really is green grass in the foreground!)

Sunday Visitors

Here we are, Joe and I, sitting at the breakfast table yesterday, enjoying our oatmeal and coffee, when all of a sudden he says to me, "Look over your shoulder."

Now I know from long experience living in the wilds of Down East Maine that "Look over your shoulder" immediately translates to "Get the camera!" So without even stopping to glance where Joe was pointing, I galumphed to the study, grabbed the Canon, pointed it straight out the window by my desk and snapped away like a madwoman.  Most of our visitors had already gone a-gobblin' off into the woods by then, but I managed to get these shots.

Then back to b'fast, where my oatmeal hadn't even begun to cool.

I think there were about a dozen of our bird-brained visitors yesterday. Several years ago we counted 21 big ones in the driveway, and last spring a mother hen shepherded her fuzzy little brood across the dooryard. The day our sweet kitty cat Griselda left us in October of 2001, six big toms and seven hens dropped by to pay their respects.

The locals (which we'll never be, even after these 20 years here) tell us the wild turkeys taste much better than the supermarket variety. I don't doubt it, and we've thought that one of these autumns when bow hunting season rolls around, we might find out for ourselves. I was a pretty good archer (a Sagittarius, you know) as a teenager, so ...

But not now. Not with spring tiptoeing in, not with the sun shining on those smooth shiny feathers, not with the simple joy of seeing these majestic creatures (that Ben Franklin preferred over the eagle for our national bird) strutting their stuff across the lawn.  They were here before we came.  They'll be here after we've gone.

No, not now. Not ever.

The Big Wind Bloweth ... the Tree Man Cometh ...

In the middle of the night a few weeks ago, while hurricane force winds howled outside and rattled the shutters and the bulkhead door, one particular noise brought me straight up out of an already fitful sleep -- a horrendous groaning, cracking shriek.

The sound probably lasted for less than a second, but it seemed to go on for hours, followed by a resounding thud that brought the cat clawing and squirming into the bed, underneath the fitted sheet.  For some reason known only to Nature, I drifted off to sleep and -- as is the way with such things -- had no memory of that sound until Joe looked out the window at dawn and said, "We lost the big spruce."

The spruce.  The blue spruce.  I could have wept.  In fact, I think I did just a bit.

That blue spruce was the towering monument on our property.  When we moved here more than 20 years ago, it was already master of all it surveyed -- at least 75 feet tall with a trunk as thick as a whiskey barrel.  It was truly a noble creature, but that ocean-borne banshee wind was mightier.

The spruce.  There it lay, with the only thing to recommend its fall the fact that it went in the right direction, taking with it only a junior (40 feet tall) member of its species, the barren pear, and the western hemisphere of an ancient apple tree.

Had it fallen toward the east, we might have been crushed in our bed; to the north, it would have crashed into the neighbor's weather tower; farther south, it would have broken through the upstairs windows of our studio.








Ah, the stunning adaptability of human beings!  As the days passed, we began to see a few positive benefits to weigh against the loss.  We will have firewood for several winters to come, our vegetable garden will get more daylight during our all too brief growing season, there's plenty of wood left over for Joe's projects.

Fast forward to last week ... when Tobey, the lawn man-cum-landscaper-cum tree remover, arrived with one assistant, two chain saws, a shiny red pick-up, a calm and stolid black pooch, and a truck about the size of New Hampshire.  Within a couple of hours, the spruce was cut into manageable chunks, the firewood stacked, the lawn cleared, and the detritus hauled away for chipping.
 

And now only the stump is standing, 8 feet of crumbling bark and jagged raw splinters, to serve as a silent testimonial:  Even the mightiest must fall, by and by.  And for some reason I take comfort in that.

Just as I was wondering ...

... what to name my new bracelet ...

Looking north, I saw Herrick Bay waves dancing with seasmoke, distant spruce trees with their tips peeking over the mist, and cradling it all a glowing gray-white sky.

"Across the Bay" is 8" long, and combines moss agate, ocean jasper and copper.

Click here to visit my Etsy shop, http://RoughMagicCreations.etsy.com.

To view the bracelet click here.

Quick! Get the camera!

Just so you know ...

This isn't on the Road to Mandalay.  But tell ya what, sometimes the dawn comes up like thunder on the ocean cross the bay.

And once in a while, I'm awake enough to find the camera in time.


I took these the other morning from our breakfast room window.  

And they said, "Daylight!"

Okay, you gemstones.  Pipe down, I hear you!

This time when my beads started bossing me around, I didn't even think of not listening. I'm a quick study, you see.

So when they arranged themselves in a certain order, all I did was run them through with beading wire. And when the resulting bracelet said, "My name is Daylight" ... well ~ ~ ~ 

                  
To listen to this bracelet, please click here.

To listen to the entire noisy chorus, please visit my Etsy shop.


To give these beads credit where it's due, here is their self determined arrangement, from my copper toggle to the matching keeper ring, with petite vintage copper spacers alternating with the stones:

Hematite

Ditto

Garnet

Mookaite

Maine Tourmaline

Mookaite

More Tourmaline

Mookaite

Ditto

Watermelon Tourmaline

Ditto

Cazy Lace Agate

More Mookaite ...

... and finally, a pretty carved bell flower of Red Jasper (which isn't red at all, rather a pale creamy pink).

You know, I'm beginning to like listening to my beads.  That way they do 99% of the work.  But please don't tell them I said that!!!