A friend of mine began her retirement this week. For months, she’s been sorting and donating and thinning her stash of worldly possessions, determined to lighten her load before this next phase of life. She mailed me a lovingly curated box of her odds and ends, with the note, “Hope[Read more]
My first Artist-in-Residence project for the new school year is teaching fourth and fifth graders at Camden Elementary to make their own sketchbooks. In previous years, students have used a composition notebook for this purpose, but the art teacher and I loved the idea of this lesson within a lesson (and it’s[Read more]
Cold weather has a way of inspiring tiny tweaks to our home. It’s a maker’s version of cabin fever, I suppose. I can’t do much – nothing that requires open windows or working on the back porch – but that just ups the ante. Last fall, my husband painted our[Read more]
During my visits to southern Illinois last month, my mother and I did some much needed sorting and organizing in her attic. I love that she trusts me with this task. My mother is the person who taught me to see potential in everything, so I know it’s hard for[Read more]
I’ve always thought I’d like to run an antique shop (and by “antique” I mean secondhand, previously loved, vintage, not actual antiques). In recent years, I’ve envisioned broadening that little shop to include a work space, where my husband and I could upcycle or repurpose odds and ends we found in[Read more]