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Don’t you love finding things that are so uniquely full of surprises? I found just that when I came across this special creative through Oh my! Handmade Goodness by Jessika Hepburn. (A fantabulous blog, by the way, that you should really check out for more of your homemade goodies.)

Now this particular product from Lea Redmond of Leafcutter Designs that I’m about to share with you is such an extremely cute and clever idea! Lea describes her products as “curious whimsical goods,” and you can’t pin the description closer to the truth than that. The items in her shop range from Matchbox Theater Kits to the World’s Smallest Postal Service. Are you curious yet? Well, I don’t want to spoil anymore fun surprises so go visit her shop to see all the other nifty fun-made things that Lea has to offer!

But this item is my absolute favorite — the Tiny Stationary Mail Kit. This is perfect to give as a gift during the holidays or to use for your own personal mailings of the tiniest letters and packages. How much fun would it be to receive a tiny package full of something sweet or a little thoughtful note? This kit has everything you need to make mini mail. View it in the vid below.

World’s Smallest Post Service Kit – An Introduction from Leafcutter Designs on Vimeo.

To learn more about Lea and her work visit the Leafcutter Design blog. Thank you, Lea, for making something different and happy in this world!

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I’d call it ironic or God’s given path that when I was at the age of six, a close family friend came to visit my family in Washington and brought along two presents for me and my older brother. Our friend did the delightful task of bringing us presents. It wasn’t shocking that I received the giant book titled Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, while my brother was given the book called Dinotopia. The Beauty and the Beast book had a story that was entirely familiar to me with vibrant full-page illustrations with recognizable scenes. While I could decently read at the time, I would usually skip the words to look at every inch of the drawings. But when I eventually sat down with my brother’s new book, it became a different experience entirely, as would any first time experience. Again, I’d ignore the words while I studied all of the detailed illustrations. The imagination and new world that Dinotopia had/has to offer was completely captivating to my little mind. I didn’t have a clue that someday I’d be looking up to James Gurney‘s abundance of talent, and drawing on him as my inspiration to start illustrating.

No words can bring Dinotopia justice. For that, I have to show you.

In a post from Mr. Gurney’s blog, he talks about the mentoring relationship he had under the imagination master, Frank Frazetta. It was Mr. Frazetta who opened the doors for Gurney’s journey into fantasy. As quoted from Mr. Gurney:

Working with Frank Frazetta gave me my first real exposure to fantasy as a genre of art and storytelling. As a result of seeing Frazetta’s paperback covers, I started to think about covers as a career option, which had never occurred to me in art school. When the movie work finished, I began illustrating covers for science fiction and fantasy novels.

Sometimes it’s only that one little spark we need to get the fire going, whether it’s a day, month, or even years later. But it’s still interesting to me how even a master of fantasy like Mr. Gurney, still had his moment of time of revelation and inspiration to lead him down the path where he is today (which is basically a highly esteemed illustrator of fantasy of many other books, covers, and character design). It didn’t just necessarily happen to him magicly, but he was given a situation to grow and learn through. Aside from already starting out as an amazing artist, Mr. Gurney turned into a master illustrator as well.

Little did I know when I was a wee little person, that Mr. Gurney’s work would be what some might consider my first “real exposure” to the art of fantasy. That is a memory I’ll always carry with me through my own little art journey.

What kind of spark did it take to get you moving in the direction you are today? I’d love to hear your story!

All images of Dinotopia are © and ™ James Gurney 1992-2011. All rights reserved. Please read the stated Permissions Use at the bottom of the sidebar on James Gurney’s Blog.

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Well, the first month, I must say, was a surprisingly easy transition compared to ones I’ve experience in the past.  Moving back in with the folks and seven siblings wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.  With the largest bedroom in the basement, we’ve managed to fit both John Robert’s and my work spaces, plus our living space.

After the move, and getting other things in order, I set to work organizing our items for storage, throw out, giveaway, and keeps.  Of course, the organizing won’t be completely settled until we have the 5th wheel, but our little corner of the farm house is livable for us. We’re definitely making this work.

One of the most important factors for our first month was saving up for the 5th wheel, which between both of John’s and my day jobs, we were able to exceed our savings goal for this month!  Woohoo!  While the ultimate goal is to be here max twelve months, we are looking at ten.  That means only nine months to go!

Since we’ve been here, I realized that I’m not only grateful for a family who was willing to share their lives with us for a year, but that I have an opportunity to see them a lot more.  Once John and I start traveling, we won’t be in the area.   This time with them has meant a lot to both of us, and I’m treasuring every moment of it.

Now in celebration of this new direction of John Robert’s and my life, I have made a whole section of my blog, Contribute for Art, for anyone who has the heart to help us toward our goal and contribute toward our 5th wheel and truck fund.  To anyone who contributes, I am giving away my art as gifts to you.  Shipping is on us!  Please, visit the pages and check out the details on how to contribute.  If you are led to contribute, we will love you forever and never stop saying thank you!!! …unless you ask.  But you’ll always have our gift of art to remind you of our utmost gratitude.

On an artists’ note…
Below you can see pics of how I fit all of my art materials from my previous studio in Lorton, and past apartment art space, into our bedroom.  It’s nothing extravagant, but I used the space we had and made it work.  I’ll be talking in the next post on ways to organize your art space while in a cramped environment.

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Originally starting off as a wedding and portrait photographer, my husband, John, thought that his love for people, family, and friends meant that people was what he loved to photograph the most. But along the journey, John realized that memories from his childhood and interests that he developed played a greater part in his photography.

Mountain climbing, biking, camping, and many other outdoor activities he participated in with his family, were parts of John’s life puzzle pieces that God is putting together. We’re slowly recognizing the bigger picture, and still far from figuring it out. In this past year, John became aware of the influence that the vanishing moments of the world around us had on his photography. And this last summer he decided to take a step toward this interest. Through it he found out more about himself as well as the what he wanted in front of his lens. Click here to view his most recent work. He’s not going back.

This new direction not only excited John, but it inspired him.  Change can be scary at first. How is he going to make a career out of it? How will he carry on the business side? We’ve had some feedback on how the landscape photography world is saturated with too many photographers and there’s no way to make it. Isn’t that with anything? Some people even think there’s too many people in the world! But too many photographers in the market to make a living? That should never be the determining factor for anyone, and we made sure it wasn’t for John.

But we’ve all been there, right? How many times have you figured out that there was something loved to do but didn’t enjoy what you were doing with it? A vocalist who sings in theater but really wants to sing in a rock band. An engineer who works for a company but what’s to be head of their own firm. A culinary artist who owns their own business but wants to be world’s next top chef. Or how about an artist who painted portraiture and wants to be an illustrationist. We’re all out there. Some make steps to fulfill their calling. Others don’t. What steps are you taking? What best reasons are there for you not to make that change?

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Before I met John I was a straight up poultry fish person.  If I had to pick meat it would be from those categories. Well, John is a red meat person. That was a popular meal item growing up in his family. They introduced me to the idea that steak can be tasty.  Well, I was indefinitely sold to the idea when John made ribeye the other evening on our day off.

He started by marinating the meat the night before in a mixture of seasonings, garlic, minced onions, butter, oil, and worchestire sauce. The sauce was light and in the end didn’t over power the taste of the steak which was a perfect blend.  Between the skillet and oven, John cooked the most tender, buttery, flavorful ribeye I’ve ever had. Now we’ve both tried some great steaks from Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab in Las Vegas, as well as Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse which were delicious, but the steak he made was the best home-made ribeye (and I’d say it was even better, juicier than many of the chain restaurants’ ribeyes also) that I have ever tasted in my life. Cheers to you, John!

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Lately, I’ve been doing some reading about Michelangelo.  Apart from being one or the world’s greatest genius artist -as a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, poet- and  other than his immense sense of detail, form, figures, proportion, anatomy, composition, lighting, structure, and deep meaning behind each work, what else can we learn from Michelangelo?

I’d like to draw your attention to his innate sense of materials.  He was such a perfectionist, and that started with his materials.  He would spend 6 to 8 months in the quarries picking out the perfect pieces of marble before he started any of sculpting.   Could you imagine spending almost a year before you even start the art application process!  You’re just trying to get the materials.  The right materials.

He especially learned how important  the right materials are when he was working on a sculpture and a black vein came through across the face of  the Rebellious Slave.   From that he realized that the marble slab he picked wasn’t large enough to work with and far from perfect.  Usually he would carve and carve to mold the form, but with the slave, he ran out of room. What he learned from this he also applied to all of the huge projects he undertook later on, like the Tomb of Pope Julius II.

Also, with his  first version of Christ Carrying the Cross, he discovered a black vein  in the marble and quickly left it to start working on a new.  He was nearly completed with the first Christ, but found the impurity and left it with no hesitancy.  He did an entirely  new marble statue because the first one had a large blemish!

So how does this apply to contemporary day artists?  How often is it easy to just pick up a canvas and start painting?  Do we even learn about what kind of linen, canvas, or paper that we’re using?  Would we spend 8 months trying to make our materials perfect and lasting? Yes, it costs money.  Yes, it takes time.   I’m even wonder how much it even means to clients.  Do installations and contemporary art have to be a good quality?  Not really.   Rotten vegetables, feces, old mattresses… come on… why do you have to really put energy and effort into your materials?

Um, maybe because it lasts… No one is going to remember your name unless you actually have work with your name on it.  Seriously, why not use good quality materials and go through lengthy process to make sure that your artwork doesn’t dissolve into a million pieces or lose color or warp or crack.  How important is it?  Hmmm….

We live in this instant age.  We want to create now. We want art now.  Does it even matter how much time we put into our work?

You could say that it comes down to the branding of your art, not necessarily the quality.  But for some people, like Michelangelo, his branding was his style and quality of art.  He was known and will forever be known as the best.  From the materials to the finished work, he gave every bit of his attention to the creation process.  Instant art didn’t exist then, does it now? Should it?

Shout out your feelings and let me know your thoughts

Peace of cake.

Grace