This is the frame I made for a co-worker's daughter's painting. It was a lot of fun to make as I could incorporate tiles with dragonfly stamps as well as a couple of tiny dragonfly beads. The picture was 16"x20" and I could vary my tile colors to match the variety of colors in it while not drawing the eye too far from the painting itself.

In other news, I decided to seek other work about a month ago, found a great job at another civil engineering firm and just began training my replacement at the current job. I'm really a pretty silent person and 8 hours of transferring my knowledge was way more talking than I'd done in recent past. Colleen is a very capable replacement and I hope we can continue to be friends.

My niece Allison graduated from high school this year and her family had a family & friends get-together last weekend. She has a Serbian boyfriend and they are leaving tomorrow for 2 months in Belgrade. They assure us that there is no more trouble over there and they'll be ok. I hope so.

I made this picture frame for her as she has lots of photos of the two of them needing framing.

I bought 2 new roses last week and actually got them into the ground before they died, often the result of a spur-of-the-moment purchase.

Well I guess that's all for today.

I just received my registration packet today for Art & Soul 2006. The theme is "Paris in My Soul" and they've included a white wool beret to decorate. I'd like to say I have an actual creative process, but with years of making my own clothes, I sort of let a project float around in my head for a while until I visualize a direction.

The mask here was made for 2003 "Cirque du Soul". I started with a simple mask and attached a paper form to elongate the top of the mask. Then as I was wandering around the Josephine's fabric store in Portland, these gorgeous silk brocades jumped out at me. I had to get a minimum 1/4 yd-plenty left for future projects. I glued the fabric to the mask and stitched turquoise beads across the forehead and down the sides. Then I came across gold trim left over from some past Christmas decoration but I knew the top needed to be dramatic. I got a bag of multicolored feathers at Joann's. I have a compulsive sorting streak so I sorted all the feathers by color & put into plastic bags. Starting at the top of the mask, I attached the turquoise feathers, than overlay the burgundy and finished with the orange.

Back to the beret, I think I'll dye it light pink and then maybe add rose ribbon rosettes-maybe applicque some silk flowers and ribbon streamers. I'll have to let this project float some more.