I Love Sand Dunes. May 19, 2008

Yay! I got a new camera as an early birthday present and was able to plug in my old memory card into this camera so my pictures on my broken camera were not lost! Sadly, I was not able to take pictures for several weeks so those would be photos will never be shared. Oh well. In celebration I am posting pictures of the Great Sand Dunes taken just moments before the old camera bit the dust, so to say.

The Sand Dunes literally leave me speechless every time I visit. Part of this is due to the fact that climbing them is very difficult and I can’t talk, but part is due to their extreme and ancient beauty. The Sand Dunes formed because our Valley has very sandy soil (because it used to be a giant lake), is very windy, and is surrounded by mountains. The sand is swept away in the wind and ends up right here, against the base of the Sangre de Christo Mountain range.
These are the tallest Sand Dunes in North America. They are so surreal you feel like you are in another part of the world, or even another planet. During the spring months the snow melt-off from the mountains leaves a little creek at the base of the Dunes that you have to pass through before reaching them. No one knows how old they are but there is evidence of humans in the Dunes dates more than 11,000 years ago.

We didn’t make it all the way to the top but I was pretty impressed with my parents’ endurance considering they had come from Missouri with an elevation of 740 feet to the valley with an elevation of about 7,500 feet.

Its hard to capture the size of these dunes in photos but here is one of my mom taking a picture from afar for a bit of reference. She isn’t even standing in front of the tallest dune. Anyhow, I am happy to be able to share these photos that were at one point stuck on the broken camera. I have learned my lesson and will never bring my camera to the dunes in the future so enjoy the pictures here. Thats all you get.

Zapata and Rock Stacking March 31, 2008

This weekend I went hiking to Zapata Falls on Mt. Blanca. We walked right into the rocks on the frozen creek leading up the the falls which made me kind of nervous about falling in but the ice was so frozen this was not a problem. Once we are at the falls I found a part of the ice that was broken off and you could see that it was five or six inches solid. Still you could hear the water running underneath which was a little disconcerting. The little crack between the two cliffs is where we walked through to get to the falls.

The falls were still frozen which was really cool.

On our way back we discovered some rock stacking art and felt inspired to add to it. The top three rocks are our addition.

Then we made a couple of our own.

They are amateur of course and nowhere near as amazing as our inspiration at Team Sandtastic or Bill Dan.

Finally, My Eggs! March 28, 2008

For those of you who read my post earlier in the week about Pysanky, or batiked eggs I am now following up on my promise to post photos of the eggs I made. Again I want to reiterate that my eggs look nothing at all like the eggs that I posted. Unfortunately they are not nearly as well done. I have only made four so far and am still learning but am making progress I think. We have run into a few snags in the egg decorating process. One of which are these pesky smears or dots that show up on the eggs. We thought it might have had to do with the way we were letting the eggs dry so we started wiping the wet dye off the eggs with soft, clean flannel. Or perhaps we wondered, if it was the oil from our hands that was causing the marks so we started wearing rubber gloves. We also thought maybe it was the fact that after the vinegar pre-soak we did, we didn’t rinse the eggs with water. There were various other theories that I can’t think of right now. It turns out none of our tested theories are the culprit because the marks still keep occurring. After seeing some friends dyed eggs that don’t have the mark we have a new yet to be tested theory, the type of egg makes the difference. Turkey eggs don’t seem to have marks on them.

Anyhow now you know why there seem to be weird smudges, spots, or marks on the eggs. Let’s home the next batch is mark free!

Another lesson I have personally learned is to take it easy on the number of colors used. At first I wanted to have a very colorful egg with a lot going on. I think that the best egg designs (unless you are an amazing artist-see Eve Butterly below) are the ones with fewer colors. It seems that when mixing colors some mixtures come out better than others. Next time I will stick with two or three colors per egg.

First is the onion skin egg. As I explained before we wrapped yellow onion skins around the egg and then hard boiled them in water and vinegar.

Next is my tree with roots. There is another tree on the other side and the roots are connected at the bottom. I like this one.

Next is the floral sunburst. This one was supposed to have purple and blue petals/rays as well but they didn’t show up as nicely as the pink and red.

Next is my traditional floral design. Again the purples didnt seem to stand out as well as the warmer colors. Good to remember for next time.

And last is another floral design.

Etsy Shopping Trip March 8, 2008

So I have been wondering why my etsy shop has been so slow and thought that perhaps it was because I had no feedback rating. I know this would be a deterrent for me. I like to know that the person I am buying from or selling from has a good previous record and is going to actually come through with the money/product. Unfortunately, the way to improve feedback is to sell stuff. Kind of a catch-22. The other way is to buy… So I went shopping…

From ChainFlower I bought the blue birds nest pendant that I thought was so cute…

And from Indulgent Creations I bought this Tea Tree Oil Soap.

Hopefully they will give me positive feedback and buyers will be more likely to take a chance on me.