This is absolutely poetic. Tugs at the heart, but makes you smile too…

A Thousand Words from Ted Chung on Vimeo.

After mindlessly cropping and color correcting virtual piles of photos, it’s so easy to forget just how much fun Photoshop really is. It’s a brilliant tool. And using it for such menial tasks is like eating microwave pizza on Wedgewood. Quite nearly a crime. So after browsing through some shots I took last fall, I spent a little time playing around.

There is a wonderful section of the BBC where people submit their photos of Scotland. Sometimes it amazes me how incredibly beautiful these amateur pictures can be. Browsing the new postings each Friday has become one of my weekly rituals.

- photo by Drew Fisher of Kirkwood Farm near Strathaven, Scotland

- photo by Stevie Manson of Troon, Scotland

- photo by Donald Mackinnon of Harris, Scotland

These are from the 9 Jan – 16 Jan Gallery, but there are many others equally as beautiful in the other galleries.

Sometimes the oddest things can come off the spinning wheel.

Ingredients
A good length of dark brown wool roving from my own sheep
A few yards of hand dyed silk, torn into 1/4″ strips
Two spools of very shiny thread

Instructions
Spin it. Ply it back on itself in 3″ to 4″ sections. Tie off the ends.

Voila’! A very odd, but strangely beautiful fringe with absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Too thin to be a scarf, too bulky to be knit…. Maybe sewn around the edge of a pillow as trim? Or the hem for a very avant-garde dress? Drapery tie-backs? Funky belt?

Or maybe just piled in the center of a table as movable piece of fiber art…

I love these! The ultimate in recycling. They may be old news in the art world since they have been around for awhile, but I still think they’re wonderful. He captured the poses perfectly.

Telephone Sheep by Jean-Luc Cornec. Made of telephones & telephone cable. On display at the Museum for Communications in Frankfurt Main, Germany.

Well, not actually stone…earthenware to be exact. But really heavy, just the same. I made these ceramic books a little while back. The small one is about 1.5″ x 2″ and the larger about 4″ x 4″. They were kiln fired first, then pit-fired in an open flame to achieve the permanent black smoke markings. The blank pages are hand sewn using a linen and cotton thread. The picture doesn’t show it well, but there is a small leaf impression on the front cover of the larger book.

A knitted squid? Only in Japan.

I’m not sure I understand the clothes pins and cards and I can’t read Japanese, so I don’t know the artist’s name, but I linked the image to her website. She seems to just go by the initials TMK. Interesting.

These wonderful works of art are now mine.

“Simply swirled birch wood hair sticks with a warm walnut inlay. This set of hair sticks was hand carved from birch wood, are wonderfully light weight and are naturally a lovely cream color with a warm, chocolate walnut inlay.” -Beetnik505

So simple, yet so incredibly beautiful and useful. Of course I did have to invest hours watching You Tube tutorials and standing in front of a mirror practicing before I could actually use them.

I was also amazed to discover these little beauties inside the box. The most extraordinary packing material I’ve ever seen! Little hollow stars folded from recycled paper, and the hair sticks were lovingly sewn into an envelope made of magazine pages. I felt guilty just opening it up. What a wonderful surprise!

Now to figure out just what to do with the precious darlings. Thank you, Lori!

A quiet morning wishing for a set of hair sticks to tame my tresses. Took a trip over to Etsy and while falling in love with a pair of turned birch and walnut creations I stumbled across Beetnik505. This work of art is made of paper and is absolutely stunning.

“This piece is made from recycled magazine pages (Martha Stewart magazines are my favorite source). Each disc is cut, folded and meticulously coiled (kind of like quilling on crack) and then anchored to the wood backing using copper plated nails.” -Beetnik505

Her Etsy Profile and Shop