There has been a lot of small stuff to take in and be grateful for this month. In the beginning of the month, my husband gifted me a beautiful refurbished chair, that according to the upholsterer dates back to the 1920s. {Oh wow! Super cool, We both thought!}. My husband picked it up off the side of the road over the summer and then had it recovered in lavender velvet and spruced up just for me knowing the color and softness would be just right. We originally thought it would be prefect for my studio, but when we got it home quickly realized that it was just too nice for that dusty space. So now it sits beside my bed and is where I have happily sat and written a bunch of tiny snippets, thoughts and stories about what’s been going on over the last few weeks. While it has been very nice, none of it has seemed to gel together to form something worth sharing even though I really wanted it to – until now.
I have shivered and donned many layers of scarves, sweaters and socks. Curled up underneath blankets. Drank many cups of tea and, sadly, not enough hot cocoa. I’ve crunched through the snow and slipped on the ice and watched the sunset wondering when my mojo would come back to me full blast. I have worked on more internal things than anything else. Spring still seems like a far off thing though others assure me that it truly is not. Slowly, I have worked to create a little bit of this and a little of that and I can’t go through this whole month of February {I always think of it as the month of love} and not share some of it with you. I sure am down to the wire on meeting my February deadline.
Walking through a local children’s toy store on one sunny but cold Saturday afternoon, I found myself transported back in time and strongly reminded about my love of small, tiny, little things. While stopping in quick to grab a gift for a birthday party my daughter was going to, I admired all the tiny little trinkets and small items in the store. I love collections of tiny things like… the little packages of lip gloss for girls that look like ice pops or the racks full of charm bracelets, the baskets of swirly colored bouncy balls, sweet little windup toys, wooden tops and colorful pencil sets. In one section my husband points out to me some quaint stuffed mouse dolls that come in what look like old match boxes that are supposed to be their beds. I tell my husband that I love them. He says our daughter might like one too. I say,” I don’t know about that.” (she is a bit of a tomboy) and then, “I would like one now, even as a grown up. I want one.” He says with a side smile, “I know”.
I have collections of small things throughout my house. From the kitchen windowsill to a shelf out in my studio; lots of precious tiny things that I have been collecting since I was a little girl. What can I say, I am a girl who loves small stuff. When I was young, I had a lovely doll house and instead of regular dolls I played with little mice dolls most likely because of this attraction to small things, a love of mice and also because I have never been a fan of baby or Barbie dolls.{I can almost say now as adult that I really can’t stand them}. I kept them in my dollhouse that I cared for carefully, making all sorts of things for it ranging from tiny curtains for the windows all the way to tiny sculptures for my mouse family’s entry hall. {Yes, they were very hip having a sculpture in their entry hall!} I even proudly made little magazines and books for their library by cutting out the small photos of popular books and magazines that used to come in newspaper circulars back when I was a kid. {Sometimes my parents would get these advertisements that had photos of the covers of all of these popular books and magazines that you could purchase for a penny if you signed up for the “club”. Does anyone else remember those?} But my love affair for small things didn’t end with my dollhouse… I have gathered all sorts of things over time… Tiny handmade teddy bears, little rubber duckies, minuscule puzzles, quite an array of things.
So it was no surprise to me recently when I felt pulled to start making some small animal friends in the studio this month. With spring around the corner {or so I am told} I have started out making some rabbit friends. It’s been yet another perfect endeavor to keep my creative flow going even though my mojo has been feeling a bit muffled lately. Making rabbits has helped put a spring in my step and 
reminded me {even though it’s quite hard to believe at the moment} that soon there will be green grass that I can see and feel, flowers to marvel at, warm breezes and lots of animal friends coming out of hibernation to visit. I am even thinking that my animal friends will bring more inspiration in clay. Who knows, maybe some clay foxes will be next! So my next round of work coming to the shop towards the end of March will be somewhat of an “ode to small things”. Not to worry if you were hoping for some more of what I have made in the past because there will also be a little bit of that too. Here’s to hoping that spring reaches all soon.