Posts

Showing posts from April, 2015

More Surprises on our Big Bend Road Trip

Image
                                                                      The scenery is mostly flat after leaving Big Bend Natl Park and we almost missed the sign and entrance to Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Botanical Gardens located in the Fort Davis area. http://www.cdri.org/   There were paths to explore and we chose the one to the cactus greenhouse where almost everything was in bloom.  I could have stayed a day just looking and examining those varied blossoms.  I love cacti and am always astounded at the beauty of the flowers.  Outside the headquarters rocks were grouped illustrating the ages of the earth.  The exhibit wrapped around the building and was one of the most interesting exhibits of its kind I've seen. On the way home we stopped at the Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona and camped by a stream in a campground.  There has been lots of  water damage along the river and two campgrounds were close

Leaving Time for Surprises

Image
We just returned from an 8 day road trip to Big Bend Texas where we saw spectacular country and the best wildflower show in 30 years.  One could almost OD on nature’s beauty…  The Texas Bluebonnets were 3 ft deep each side of the road and went on for miles.  The sides of the mountains and hills were blue and yellow with white dotted here and there.  I wanted to stop (which we did often) and just sit in the middle of the blue.  We planned the trip with time to stop every so often as I needed to walk and keep my new knee limber.  That let us explore along the way stopping for short walks, looking at birds and flowers, discovering rocks and finding places we might like to visit again.  Golden -breasted Woodpecker Texas Bluebonnet It took 2 ½ days to get to our destination and 2 ½ days to get home.  That left 3 days to explore Big Bend and 4 days to decide where to car camp while traveling.  We were able to find secluded campsites as well as a campsit

Cinco de Mayo Necklace

Image
 In my last post, I shared my adventure of making a complex polymer cane using fabric as an inspiration and the design in the fabric was inspired from Mexican tile.  I decided to make a necklace to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, (May 5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo and use some of the canes as beads. It was fun to give the beads dimension by curing 2 halves, assembling the halves into a whole bead and creating a way to hang them.  . Focal Bead Front of Focul Bead The focal bead looks like a pillow with the two convex squares over the four sides of skinny ovals The mobius bead above the focal pillow bead is attached to the necklace with a lobster claw. Each large bead is decorated front and back to give a finished interesting look to the necklace.  Polymer beads are lightweight and durable.  The back of the beads shown in the first photo above. Margaritas, mariachis, chips and salsa and a colorful one of a kind necklace should