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‘Edith Head: Hollywood’s Costume Designer’ Exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Last week I had the pleasure of seeing the Edith Head exhibit at the OKC Museum of Art. The week before I went, I watched a few of her award winning movies, some for the first time and some re-watched, including A Place in the Sun, Roman Holiday, and Samson and Delilah. Fortunately I got to see costumes from these movies and many, many more. While perusing Head’s extensive list of movies, I discovered how much she accomplished in her life, and also realized there are so many classic movies I have not seen yet! One thing my friend and I noticed was how small the dresses were. Not only…
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Weekly Roundup: Woodland Wonders Crochet Along and Lotion Bars
Last weekend I went out of town for a show, and was a bit busy during the week, so I didn’t get to do a weekly roundup. As a result, this weekend I really needed some at-home time – I always do when I feel like I’ve been out too much. My daughter was on vacation this weekend, too, so we didn’t get to have our usual Sunday outing. So I spent the entire weekend at home cleaning, cooking, relaxing with my cats, and making things. This included testing out different recipes for homemade lotions bars, and in the process I learned that although it is really soft and moisturizing,…
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Weekly Roundup: Feels Like Summer Splendor
While it’s still officially spring, with 90-plus degree days it feels like summer here in Oklahoma. The garden is starting to fill out nicely, berries are ripening on the bushes, and swim season is upon us! Yes, the warm season at this time of year is splendorous. To encourage climbing for my moonflowers and heavenly blue morning blooming vines that I planted from seed, I added two trellises to my apartment garden, and their tendrils wrapped around them and started climbing within hours. My daughter’s boyfriend got me these cute, tropical solar lights for the garden on Mother’s Day and the plants are climbing them as well. Also, I’m really…
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A Magical Sunday at the Tulsa Botanic Garden
My daughter and I enjoyed a beautiful walk through the Tulsa Botanic Garden this weekend. Clouds were forming in the sky when we set out, and the weirdest thing happened on the way there. When we got to the road that leads to the gardens, we saw several tarantulas crossing the street. We slowed down to watch each one, careful not to run over any. We were amazed, but it was also a little creepy for me and once we got to the gardens I made sure to inspect my surroundings everywhere we went – now that I knew we were near tarantula town! But I didn’t see any tarantulas…
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Weekly Roundup: Bee-Inspired, Sea-Inspired, and Banyan Moon
This week I made a soy wax candle from some of those bee and honeycomb shaped wax embeds I recently made. I wanted to make it like a cupcake, but it was much more difficult than I remembered when I last made some cupcake candles about ten years ago. Piping the wax at just the right temperature was the hardest part, and at one point I poured the wax in the cake piping when it was too warm and it made a big mess all over the counter, which I had to scrape and scrape to get it all up. After a few messy tries I finally got it to…
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Back to the Piano Basics
Ever since I was twelve I have played the piano, and I have taken lessons from several great teachers, including a master teacher as an adult, and have even taught some lessons. But in the past few years I haven’t practiced or played much, until today. I wanted to jump back in with the basics, and reacquaint myself with proper piano techniques, because it’s always best to start a piano learning journey with good technique so you don’t have to unlearn bad practices later. Today I started with an exercise book that packs a lot of different elements of piano theory together into each exercise, including different dynamics and musical…
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Weekly Roundup: First Blossoms and Re-Reading
This week the first little blossoms of my potted balcony wildflower garden bloomed with a few delicate white petals, a peek of red, and drops of purple. It’s exciting to see this handful of seeds transform each week, and I’m surprised at all of the growth I already have! I just hope I didn’t overcrowd them! In other gardening news, against my better judgement, I planted some watermelon and strawberry plants in my shady apartment garden downstairs to see how they will grow. Sometimes that’s the best way to garden, plant what you want in the soil you’ve got, and see what grows. So far, so good. As for reading,…
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Claremore’s Belvidere Mansion
Today my friend and I took an outing to Claremore, Oklahoma to do some thrifting and have lunch at the Pink House in the Belvidere Mansion. The Mansion was built in 1907 by John Melville Bayless for his family. It later became apartments, then fell into disrepair, and was eventually deserted. But thanks to the Rogers County Historical Society (RCHS), it was restored and today visitors can dine in the first floor of the mansion in the Pink House, and explore the second and third floors. It was a full house today, and as you can see below, the first floor is adorned with intricate tiling, with touches of pink…
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Weekly Roundup: Sea-Inspired Crochet, Bee-autiful Wax Embeds, and Reading
This week I’ve started some new little projects, including making a sea-inspired blanket of my own design and some bee themed candles. I’ve also picked up something different to read, venturing into a genre I don’t read much of, sci-fi and fantasy. After participating in the “Postcards with Love” crochet-along a couple of years ago, I bought a lot of coral, aqua, blue, and cream yarn to start my own sea-inspired blanket, and have finally started on it this week. For the center, and after a lot of experimenting with the five sides, I made this pink starfish. The next part will be the trickiest part, getting this to fit…
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“Peaches” Oil Pastel Drawing
Recently I upgraded my oil pastels to Paul Rubens Oil Pastels and it has made a world of difference! I had basically started with the cheapest set I could find to practice with, but it felt like drawing with crayons, and now that I’ve switched, I can’t imagine going back! These oil pastels are so smooth and pliable, I just love them. I also found the most inspiring oil pastel artist who shares videos of her works and techniques, Misako Flodin, who does oil pastel drawings as well as oil paintings. I’ve just started watching her videos but I’ve already learned so much about layering colors and preparing for a…
