Here is a closer look at the smaller button and the texture:

Yesterday, I started a larger project. I got the idea from Somersett Home. I’m creating a wall hanging of my grandma’s homes. Ultimately, there will be four images of her homes attached to the tapestry I found. I’ll decorate with some great trim, buttons, maybe some old keys and attach to a dowel that will allow them all to be connected and hang like little houses on the wall. These are works in progress, but I’ll post anyhow. The photo on the left is the house Grandma lived in in Long Lane, MO. The one on the right is when my grandma visited the house a few years ago just before it was torn down. I love the fact that she got to see it one last time. Obviously, time took its toll on the house!

I also went to the art store and got fabric paper to print family photos on. I’m hoping to make some wall art out of the photos. I have a lot of photos from women in my family; I have every grandmother for at least four generations. I’m lucky, and I think they are watching over me every day, so it’s fitting that my art room be decorated with their images.

Now, I just need a digital camera. Yes, not only is blogging new to me, but the entire technological world is new to me! I still use a film SLR camera. I love it, and am having difficulty giving it up. Photography was my first love–had my own black and white darkroom, etc., and as I look at the point and shoot digital cameras out there, I’m very disappointed in what they can do. I looked at a couple of really nice digital SLR cameras, but they are well over $700. On a teacher’s salary, with a kid leaving for college, that’s simply not doable, so I’m trying to decide how to handle this. But, for now, I’m tracking the progress of my new room with film, which I’ll upload later–just a lot of extra steps involved.

At the antique malls today, I found hundreds of family photos that were being sold. As an avid collector of my own family photos, I was so sad to see all of the unnamed photos in the boxes. I can’t imagine a family selling them at an auction or estate sale. I kept wondering if any of them belonged to my family members. Even though I have a lot of photos, there are still many I don’t have, and I’d love to know what their faces looked like. I looked at each one that was taken in Missouri, hoping something looked familiar in the way they smiled, or stood, but there was nothing. Names would be so helpful. So many don’t label their photos. If there is one thing I can say today it’s that you must label your photos. At the least write the first and last name of each person on the back of the photo. It’s so easy to think that we’ll remember them, and we might, but in a hundred years, how will they be identified? Name your photos just in case someone down the line sells them at an auction–a box full for a few dollars, and then someone like me comes across them, and sits for hours looking, hoping, and finds the one named, the one they’ve been looking for for years….