Celebrating Heart Connections

It's February and a time to celebrate the special connections we have with those we hold close to our hearts. We've been enjoying this wintry weather by spending time in our studio, making some unique heart-shaped jewelry out of silver, bronze, copper, and red jasper stone. All of our jewelry is available for purchase at our online store. Hope those of you in the winter storm zone are staying warm and toasty!


Now time to go and shovel more snow...!

A Series of Moments....

Aaahh, January... a month of reading, reflecting, and dreaming after a busy fall and holiday season. Before Christmas, a friend introduced us to a 7 kilometer walking trail around the Floradale dam. When temperatures rose to above 11 degrees C yesterday, we decided to enjoy the spring-like weather and return there for an afternoon hike. We quickly fell into a happy silence, leaving each other to our own thoughts, occasionally interrupted by the honks of the geese overhead, the squishing of our boots as we tramped through the mud, or the click of the camera as we found an interesting detail of nature to capture.

As I walked along, I thought about the joy of "being in the moment" Looking for images to capture with my camera helped me to stay in the present and look for artful details in nature that might produce an interesting image.

Little droplets of water trapped under a thin layer of ice on the edge of a corn field...

The soft and muted shapes and colours of dried cornstalks....

Silhouetted shapes against the sky...

The startling patches of bright green moss amidst the forest undergrowth...

Seed pods pretending to be little birds on a branch....

The rushing sound of a waterfall as we ended our 2 hour trail loop. 

We returned to the car and although we were tired (and our legs a little stiff), we were happy to have had some time be part of a more open and spacious landscape...a reminder that life is simply a series of moments....

"THE HOLIDAY ISSUE"!

We are thrilled to be included in this year’s holiday issue of the 

GRAND MAGAZINE in the “HANDWORKS” feature 

titled, “Artisans at Work”.

Special thanks to Diane Shantz for her graphic artistry.

Thanks also to Matthew McCarthy for his photographic wizardry.

Mary Allen Studio Tour begins TODAY!

Today is the start of the Mary Allen Studio Tour and Sale.  

We hope to see you wandering around the streets of Waterloo visiting the many talented artists on the tour.

Hope you drop in...we're stop "K" on the map!!!

Mary Allen Studio Tour THIS weekend!

We're extremely excited about this upcoming weekend as it is time again for the Mary Allen Studio Tour!  

Hours this year will be... 

Saturday, September 29th, from 10 am - 5 pm and

Sunday, September 30th, from 12 pm -5 pm.

(Fingers crossed for a sunny weekend!)

We've been spending LONG but ENJOYABLE hours in the studio getting ready for the tour and experimenting with some new design ideas.  It's been such fun.  Once again however, thumbnails are  worn down to the skin as they just don't make it through all the filing and polishing! Ah, the trials and tribulations of being jewelry artisans!

Here's a "peak" at some of the jewelry we'll have available during the Studio Tour.

 As for fused glass art, we've enjoyed making some new pieces for this Studio Tour as well...

This weekend is also special in that Sunday, September 30th, is my birthday.  I always loved that my birthday was in the fall...I remember many a birthday party spent raking up a huge pile of leaves under the big maple tree and everyone jumping into it over and over and over again! September 29th was also my Dad's birthday and it was always so much fun to share a birthday cake together and celebrate "our" weekend.

 So this year instead of raking up a big pile of leaves to jump into, we'll open up the doors and welcome all you art aficionados in to share with you our newest creations, some stories, some laughs, and some smiles.

Happy Birthday, Angie!

Summing Up Summer

Maybe it's because I have been a teacher (or a student) for so many years, but Labour Day weekend always seems to signal the end of summer, even though technically there are still three weeks left! It is a time of transition and new beginnings. It often feels more like the "new year" than January 1st does. It's been quiet on the blogging front for a while, so I thought I would squeeze in a blog about our summer just hours before the Labour Day weekend is officially here!

We enjoyed July and August with a few special events like the garden wedding of my brother Paul, to Jane, in July just outside of Ottawa.

It was a beautiful event and we enjoyed meeting Jane's family and friends as well as spending a few days at a picturesque resort with Paul, Jane, my nieces Emily and Meredith, Meredith's husband Daniel, and their cute kids, Eli and Hazel. Eli, age three, was always entertaining, and sweet Hazel, six weeks old, was a delight to cuddle and hold.

We enjoyed hosting friends in our garden...

and a getaway to the cottage....

We've also been working hard "behind the scenes" in the studio this summer. It was definitely time to purge, clean, and re-organize the studio. You know, face the facts that if we hadn't figured out how to use that special little "doodad" we found or created six years ago, that it was probably time to let it go! It was a goal to actually create a system to put similar things together and label them instead of squirreling them away in a myriad of little boxes and containers. Although the process was time-consuming, what a sense of accomplishment to now be able to quickly find whatever we need for any given project. O.K...there are still gremlins in the studio that hide things on us...but not nearly as often!!!

Another big project undertaken this summer was figuring out how stay cool in the creative zone! With record breaking temperatures this summer, we knew we needed to do something to make the studio a functional and comfortable space. The studio has always baked in the hot summer afternoons with west facing skylights and windows. We finally got blinds for the skylights, (a step up from the aluminum foil I taped up there) and a roller blind for the west facing "tree" door. We love the way the tree is still silhouetted through the blind while shielding the studio from the afternoon sun.

The biggest challenge was figuring out how to get air conditioning into the studio. Angie saved the day by watching a YouTube video on how to take out a casement window, and succeeded in taking it out! The two of us were then able to install a beautiful little air conditioner in the end window. What a sense of accomplishment (and relief) when we could welcome summer workshop participants to a cool studio and could spend afternoons ourselves creating in comfort.

So now that we have an organized (mostly) and cool studio, we have retreated into the creative zone to get ready for our fall events! We have been having fun experimenting with some new materials and can hardly wait to show you our creations. We'll be spending much of September getting ready for the 24th annual Mary Allen Studio Tour which will feature 29 Waterloo artists this year. It takes place on Saturday, September 29th and Sunday, September 30th.

We'll fill you in on all the details and give you a sneak preview of some of our creations in the coming weeks. In the meantime, embrace and enjoy the last long week-end of the summer!