Tag: tiny tuesday

Tiny Tuesday!

A new action figure from FCTRY has arrived at Houndstooth Hall.


It’s Mayor Pete!

Meanwhile, a question for Blue Sky Boy: Lurking in the background, is this the Katnip you were inquiring about in comments to the Sunday Sundries post?

ETA Wednesday morning: Tom: “Did you mean to put water in that vase?” Becky: “I wondered why those roses looked so sad last night.”

Explanation: One of the roses was broken, so at the same time I was starting a meal in the crockpot, I went to get that small silver vase from a cabinet, cut another rose to the same length, and put them with water in the silver vase. However, I forgot I’d never put water in the cobalt vase before I moved it to the table. When you are older, these are the moments that make you question, Is this the beginning of [dementia, Alzheimer’s, whatever]? And hope it’s just a sign of doing several things at one time.

Tiny Tuesday!

Because of something I wrote recently in the Neverending Saga, I repurposed another of the illustrations from my old 1981 calendar, coloring a kitten and a tiny chick hatching. Putting the page in my “coloring book” reminded me of an exchange in comments between Mark and me in which I talked about how Tom is always helping me figure out how to make ideas reality or find solutions for problems or projects I take to him.

It began with this oversized sketchbook I bought once at Ross. I don’t know why, because I don’t sketch. I’m not sure how artists use sketchbooks, but I assume after sketching, they tear out pages and do something with them (for example, I have a nephew who’s an artist, and sometimes he sketches when he’s in a restaurant or coffeehouse, and then gives the sketches to his servers, which I think is very cool).

Since I like to fill empty sketchbooks with my coloring pages, and many of my coloring books are oversized, I decided to use the large sketchbook for that purpose. I wanted it to have a more personalized cover, so I collaged it. The collage is full of things that reference memories, friendships, interests, and my fiction. Since the front cover of the sketchbook was of very thin card stock, I glued a sturdier sheet of cardboard on the inside front cover so the collage wouldn’t weigh it down and damage it.

I began to fill it up in 2022 and 2023 with the coloring I did. I used only the front pages, and when I came to the end of those in May of this year, I didn’t want to stop using the book. I still felt very attached to my collaged front cover. I decided to start at the end of the sketchbook and put new coloring pages on the back sides of every page until I got back to the beginning of the book. This is the last page in the book that I did when I was coloring up a storm–I mean, literally coloring pages during daylight hours when the storm knocked out our power for six days.

Here’s an example of how using the backs now provides two completed pages to view at once.


However, that flimsy front cover began tearing at the holes on the spiral binding. When I’d reinforced the cover in 2022, I hadn’t considered how the unreinforced holes would bear the increasing weight of the sketchbook.


So while the power was out, I showed Tom the problem, and as always, he devised a solution. He removed the front cover, cut another strip of the cardboard, glued it on the edge leaving extra space to punch holes, and put the front cover back on the spiral binding. I think this will hold until I finish filling the book. Maybe by then, I’ll have enough images to collage the front of another sketchbook–and when I do, I’ll pick one with a sturdier front cover.

Tiny Tuesday!

I was putting something away in the living room display cabinets when this caught my attention. A small silver box, in the shape of a star, that’s badly in need of polish. (I will take care of this.)

I had a vague recollection of its contents, so I pulled it out, opened it, and first found this disk, about the size of a quarter.

Not sure where I got this, although my friend Sarena, whose business had “serenity” in its name, could have given it to me. Trying to help people find serenity was a big part of both our businesses in the 1990s, and remains so for her. (Not that I wouldn’t still like to give people serenity, but I no longer operate a business for that purpose.) On the back side, the disk says Peace Of Mind.

I’m also not sure where I got the star box (Lynne?), but it did contain what I thought it did: this necklace.

The pendant on the right, containing a quartz crystal with amethyst and small bands of smoky quartz, has a little compartment on the top (with a tiny amethyst set in its top) that opens. I may have bought this in Yellow Springs, Ohio, on a family visit. I remembered there was once a note in the compartment. It’s still there, and it reads: Forever in my heart…Steve and Jeff. Steve is the first friend I lost to AIDS, in 1992.

The pendant on the left, with a small stone of either smoky quartz or topaz, also once contained three green tourmaline sticks. The sticks symbolized, to me, Steve, Jeff (who I met through Steve), and me. I was at work one day in 1995, looked down at the necklace, and realized one tourmaline was missing. This was when Jeff, from whom I was estranged (his choice), was really ill, and I felt like the missing crystal was a harbinger of bad news. People at work searched, with me, offices, the atrium, and other rooms I’d been in, but the crystal was never found. Not too many days later, our mutual friend Tim R called to give me the sad news that Jeff was gone. Several years later, I went with my friends Amy and Richard to the house that had been Jeff’s, where I’d spent so many happy times, and buried the remaining two tourmalines, which had been cleared then programmed with love and good energy, in one of Jeff’s flowerbeds.

I no longer remember where I got the middle pendant: an amethyst, with a unakite disk above it that has a small garnet in the middle. I’m sure it had significance connected to these friends–Steve, Jeff, Tim R, and John–but some memories remain more vivid than others.

The love, however, endures.

Tiny Tuesday!

nickel provided to show scale of small canvas

Mountain Man, acrylic on canvas, 2023/24

Another of my tiny bottle cap paintings. This cap is from the Wasatch Brewing Company and features the state shape of Utah. It’s the only one I have, likely given to me by David and/or Geri.

Today’s my brother David’s birthday. He has spent many decades of his life hiking, climbing, camping, and living among the mountain ranges of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada.

Happy birthday, David! Much love from all the humans and canines at Houndstooth Hall. Come see us–there’s always a brew in the fridge for you. (And birthday cake. Banana pudding. Or all of the above. Maybe not at the same time.)

Tiny Tuesday!

I’m not sure what possessed me to put not one, not two, but THREE Aries characters in the Neverending Saga. I guess because I well understand the Aries nature and its range of manifestations. In my experience, Aries + Aries either tend to attract or repel–there’s no middle ground. With my characters, one is on the cusp of Taurus, one shares my birthday, and one falls only a few days after my birthday. Those last two repel each other. The Aries/Taurus character has a mostly good relationship with both of them.

That wee painting (above) uses a Shiner Wicked Ram IPA bottle cap. I’ve only ever had one of those come to me, and naturally, I held on to it because: Aries. I would really enjoy creating some more bottle cap art (and continue to accept bottle caps if you have them). On future Tiny Tuesday posts, I’ll share some of my bottle caps that haven’t made it into art yet, and maybe even some more bottle cap art I’ve done. To get a better sense of how wee the one above is, here it is with a bit more of the wall art in the writing sanctuary.

Tiny Tuesday!

I guess Tiny Tuesday is a good occasion to offer a decent goodbye to this pencil that’s becoming too short for me to scribble notes to myself without discomfort (arthritis in my fingers). So long, Peewee, and thanks for your service. Notice I’m replacing you with another of your kind because you Ticonderoga Noir No. 2 Pencils are the BEST.

Tiny Tuesday!

Share, 2007

Just a wee 4×6-inch canvas, painted in acrylics in 2007. I was looking to see if I’d ever done a painting in the One Word Art series with a particular title, and I haven’t. But in looking at all my photos of old paintings, I see a lot that became part of other works and then disappeared into the unknown. I hope some of them found homes where they were wanted.

Every time we share any part of ourselves, whether it’s been channeled into visual arts, words, performing arts, confidences to people we trust, we take a risk. Sometimes we find affirmation. Sometimes we don’t.

However you present yourself–your feelings, your thoughts, your creativity, your dreams–it takes courage. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. People who make you feel small or weak are not your people.