Ahhh photography. I would love to do ANIMAL photography. Yep...sure would!

Eagle, that's a Murphy Bed...right?

JJ, who is JESSE????? You would make a perfect Poncho model as the color of this one is a dark rust color with white edging. Its a challenge, so keep your fingers crossed I end up with something nice and worth sharing when it done.

I love photography too, flowers and still life but yee-gads that gets to expensive for my single lady pocketbook these days.

Like Eagle, the room situation here is less than sufficient for any added hobby stuff.

My ex BIL use to walk up and down the miles and miles of Indiana Dunes with a cart and collect old pieces of useless drift wood, then he'd bring it home to his workshop in his garage and make the most beautiful lamps from it and he'd give them as gifts or sell them at the Swap Meets.

So many people here at the resort make crafts and we have a huge sale once a year that lots of people look forward to.

JJ, I wish I were closer to you too for many, many reasons...

There's a very very long list of artsy/crafty activities in my past. As far as what I haven't done, that I'd love to learn well if I ever had a spare million hours -- computer graphics, like the ones in sci-fi movies. I always felt that if I went to art school 20 years later, this would've been my major.

I also love blown glass but am too afraid of fire. And it would be neat to build a house from the ground up, but that's not happening in this lifetime.

Jess is Dotsie's daughter.

Meredith, I've watched a documentary one night on blown glass. Boy was it ever interesting. And to build a house from the ground up. That would be so cool. I have always wanted to learn how to pour concrete. I suppose I could start with something small.

I have a girlfriend who built a treehouse for her grandson. It was amazing.

Very interesting stuff that your friend does in his stained glass works, Eagle.

I took a stained glassmaking course years ago and did create a large 24x36 inch piece with real,thick heavy lead channels and plaster grout. We were required to as part of our class project. Class was 14 wks. long. My piece was a water lily blooming in ice blue cave of water under a wave-like ceiling. I had even christened it "Spring Thaw".

I threw the whole piece away in garbage when I had to pack and move my home to a different provine. It was so heavy and dangerous to deal with. Heavy stained glass requires serious safe hangers from ceiling and anyway my lead channels were warped from my amateur hands.

I just have photos of that piece.

I know what you mean jaw-jaw. That's why I've taken evening art courses in a scattered way over last 20 years. No real path right now that I'm on and I'm wondering if I should put myself on a path to discpline myself to become better.

Right now, it's lack of large chunks of Muse time after work.

Yes, if I had all the time world to do creative stuff, it would be more of what I did try in past:

*painting and mixed media
*Western calligraphy... I'm losing my precision touch. this is calligraphy where you do NOT dip steel nip in inkpot. You paint the nib for even ink coating and then execute the letters with flourish..
*marbling/papermaking
*all of the above media/techniques into central works

No, computer graphics actually doesn't turn me on. I see it as more linear in process and technical. Yes, I know you can do calligraphic fonts with computer software, but honest, the tactile pressure of pen and ink flow to get nuanced shaded lines, thick and thin is more spontaneous and freeing than computer tools.

I guess I see it way too tied to my jobs where I've forced my arts,y English literature major mind to think more technically to create research databases, to troubleshoot technica problesm for user and with computer IT department folks. I love this aspect of my job but have learned that the computer and software restructures my brain to be less spontaneous ..otherwise I spend minutes/hrs. resolving a technical tiny problem to make something work or "look" good to me.

Locally at a craft centre a man does blown glass items.They are "witches balls" where a teardrop shape ball has an inner little compartment.Then you put perfumed oil to warm in the sun.Its hang above a door.Witches dont have reflections..so when opening the door you must look and check if there is a likeness..
so the story goes.
I have one..above my bed..!!!
a good friend had a stained glass workshop.she does commisions for churches and homes.Her smaller works are beautiful too She does angels as brooches.She is willing to let me work there as a learning process.I aim that this happens.
I make earrings..just constructing pretty beads.Some antique with additions.Also in colours to suit outfits.I did safety pin brooches a time ago..adding all sorts of things.Lovely to accessorise big cardigans..I obtained pins with loops to attatch the notions..these were fun..all my friends enjoyed them.My daughter had to say she had enough..she passed the surplus on to colleages.
I am for more creativity.
Mountain ash

I would also like to learn how to make beautiful bows for packaging. Sounds a little silly, I guess, but don't you love to get packages that have interesting and pretty bows on them?

This is really interesting...everytime someone mentions something they'd like to learn how to do, I think, yeah, I'd enjoy learning that too. After a couple of years of inability to be interested in anything, I'm enjoying this new burst of curiosity in all things possible!

JJ, I used to enjoy putting a lot of creative energy into wrapping gifts. But I never learned how to make bows and had to resort to using store-bought. Nowadays, I'd like to get creative about figuring out reusable options for wrapping and topping gifts...I've used tea-towels in the past, but I'm sure there must be other stuff out there that would make innovative and useful gift wrappers/toppers.

Last Christmas, I topped my granddaughter's gifts with an assortment of ornaments, but the one topper she enjoyed the most was a pair of fuzzy purple gloves.

One of the prettiest trees I saw one year was a woman who went the local grocery store and talked the butcher out of a long roll of white butcher paper, the kind they wrap the meat in. She had three trees. In one room, the tree was small but the gifts under it were all wrapped in the white paper but colored on the outside by her grandchildren. The woman made the bows out of different things and they were darling.

The second tree was a bit larger and had things decoupaged (is that how you spell it?) on the paper and a coat of some sort of spray sealant over it. Again...so cute...and she made bows appropriat to the theme of the tree.

The third room looked like an entire village. She had a train going around the tree, all the gifts were in white with decorative GOLD bows, with a variety of different objects on the packages (glued to them) like tiny baby pine cones, berries...remember ALL is spray painted GOLD. It was beautiful! The tree was gold and white with decorations the same colors. BEAUTIFUL!