Rose Parade floats

Every year since my Hubby & I moved to L.A., I've gone to see the Rose Parade floats, either at the parade or at the after-parade viewing.  This year was no exception.  I love being able to see them up close and see what materials were used and the detail in the arrangement of the various seeds, barks, fruits, etc.

My husband and I have been lucky enough to have helped decorate floats a number of times (I think I've done it five times now.  It's FUN -- a gigantic craft project that millions of people will see!   It's also a lot of hard work, involving getting dirty and sticky from glue for long hours in a cold warehouse or tent.  On taller floats, I've had to climb rafters and get into precarious positions to glue seeds or what-have-you in tight places.  It's wonderful helping on the last day when all the fresh flowers are attached.  All the floats really come to life with the vibrant petals and sweet scents.  Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to volunteer in the last five years or so, but it would be fun to do it again someday. 

Here's a few photos of this year's floats:

There are a few more float photos in my Flickr photostream.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

I've been keeping so busy, that I haven't gotten around to posting anything here.  I added a few Autumn-themed items to my Etsy shop, however.  I haven't gotten much further on the mandala purse, but I'm hoping to work on it this Saturday.  I made some Autumn-themed inchies for the Greater Los Angeles Polymer Clay Guild's swap.  Can't wait to see what everyone else made.

I spent last Fri-Sun in San Francisco at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  It's held in Golden Gate Park and has six stages of bluegrass and other music.  There were legendary players and new (to me) groups.  Robert Plant (here, with Patty Griffin), Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Gillian Welch, and others all put on excellent sets.  And I was happy to be introduced to DeVotchKa -- what fun music!  The weather was absolutely gorgeous all weekend (surprisingly).


All around, there were young bands of bluegrass musicians playing unofficially for whoever would listen.  I heard these three later that evening with their other band members; and, yes, that's a washtub bass the guy on the right is carrying.  It was great to see so many new bluegrass bands and so many younger people playing banjo, mandolin, violin, etc. 

 To top it all off, there was a hand-cranked penny machine with two HSB designs.  I'm a card-carrying member of The Elongated Collectors, so this was a very happy surprise for me.  One of the designs was from last year--those weren't being given out, but the operator let me squish a few of those when he saw how into squished pennies I was.  Yay!
 
By Sunday night, Carl and I were both completely exhausted.  I'm only now-on Wed-feeling somewhat rested.  It was totally worth it!

Catching up - Part 2: Gourd Fairy

I was determined to enter something new into the California Gourd Society competitions at the Welburn Gourd Festival.  My original idea hadn't panned out as I envisioned, so with a week until the festival, I took another look at the competition categories and saw one of them was "Fairies."  That was it!  I'd make a little fairy out of jewelry gourds and whatever I had in my craft stash.  I finally found a use for some beads I had bought over 15 years ago!  They were strung on wire to become her arms and legs.  A couple of $1 scarves I picked up at a flea market set the color scheme and served as her skirt layers.  The only thing I went out of my way to buy was the hair.

Front view

 Here she is!  Her head, torso, hands and feet are made from four gourds.  

Back view

Her wings, wreath, and wand tip are polymer clay.
   

At Welburn with her ribbon!

She won second place in the Fairies category!   Not bad for something I finished at 3am the night before the entries were due.  :-D