Ode to the Lake

Last weekend, our extraordinary friends and neighbors, Jan and Connor, lent us their newly purchased lake house for the weekend. It is at Lake of the Ozarks, a sprawling resort area in central Missouri. Lake of the Ozarks was created when the Osage River was dammed, resulting in a large reservoir. Over the years, it has been heavily developed, with many high-end hotels, upscale homes and condominium complexes springing up. But that is not the Lake of the Ozarks we experienced.
Jan and Connor's lake house is a charming little cottage with red sideboards, butter-colored shutters and window boxes full of flowers. It sits on a sleepy cove with neighbors who are mostly year-round residents. From the deck, the sun glinting off the lake's surface looks like a million paparazzi's flash bulbs. The water is warm, the sun is hot and the occupants of the occasional boat wandering into our little corner of the Lake wave hello. Birds rustle busily in the trees overhead, and at night insects play their buzzing song.



 




BAGNELL DAM STRIP
Within walking distance is the Bagnell Dam strip. Full of arcades, tourist shops and ice cream stands, it is a throwback to an earlier era. My husband Michael, who spent his summers on the Lake many years ago, was astounded by how little it had changed. At night, it is a spectacle of neon lights, garish signs and strange, giant statues of Indian chiefs and lumberjacks. I couldn't wait to snap some photos. Click for a larger view:
Bumper cars and Skee ball


Glowing man

50 cent baseball

Dogpatch Arcade

Zamperla



Your weight and horoscope

Rebel Arcade

Thanks, Jan and Connor. We can't wait to go back.
Sharon 

Books Are Dead! Long Live Books!

Secret Leaves' Book Spine gift boxes have been getting a lot of play on Etsy recently. They have been featured in three different treasuries in the past few weeks. Click on any Treasury for a larger view:

The full Treasury with links to all items can be found here.

Click on Treasury for larger view:
The full Treasury with links to all items can be found here. 

Click on Treasury for a larger view: Link to the full Treasury and all items here.

Lined with cotton batting, these are perfect for necklaces, bracelets, earrings, a book mark, fancy cigar, vintage fountain pen…use your imagination. I only have four in stock. Grab one for the book lover in your life.

Sharon

A steampunk-ish journal with some history and romance

Years ago, I purchased a pair of 1930s leather motorcycle pants at an estate sale. They were jodhpur style with canvas-lined pockets and they laced up at the waist like football pants. The leather was a rich, warm brown, beautifully weathered and worn. They were wonderful. For a long time now, I have been wanting to make a leather journal out of them and I finally did. The journal/sketchbook was given as a thank you gift to a friend of mine who is an artist.



The journal fits down inside a canvas bag fashioned from one of the pants pockets.

 
The journal's wraparound cover is cut from one of the pant legs. I believe the fore-edge of the wrap is the hem of the pant leg.
 


I added a metal stud where the stitching on the leather terminates.
 


The rawhide tied around the journal is the lacing out of the pants. Click for a larger view to see the wires wrapping around the ends of the rawhide lacing. This is an original detail.
 



The book has three signatures, each wrapped in a piece of handwritten sheet music from an Italian-American Marine band composer. I got two boxes full of his hand-written musical scores at an estate sale on The Hill, the Italian neighborhood of St. Louis.
 


The book is bound with a long stitch, or more
accurately, running stitch.
 

It's got kind of a steampunk feel, don't you think?
I hope he enjoys it.

Sharon

Scrap Journals in the Etsy shop

I just listed two Scrap Journals in the Etsy store. For those of you not familiar with the Scrap Journal, it is a hand-bound, recycled journal with bits of vintage ephemera for its pages. It is a relatively petite book at 4 1/2 x 6 inches.
The first one has a lovely color scheme, which is echoed throughout the interior pages. The graphics on the old sheet music cover are pretty fantastic too. Be sure to click on images for a larger view:




 

I love the swirling pattern on the cover of the second one. It reminded me of Spring rain, so I found an image to decoupage on the front of a girl dressed in flower petals and carrying an umbrella to shield her from Spring showers:







Available here and here.
Sharon

Around the studio today

Here are some photos from around the studio today. No beauty shots, just some snaps of how it looks right now.

Wide shot of the studio. Click to view larger.

Bookcase full of old books. Some I will keep and some will be made into journals or other projects. That's the leg of my tripod extending into the picture.

Top of the bookcase with two small collages, one completed and one in progress. I found the two small polka dotted feathers on a walk yesterday afternoon.

Bulletin board

 

Recent purchases.

Piano rolls.

Three shoe boxes full of dirty old postcards from a railroad company in the early 1900s. I use these for the Vintage Index Card gift tag sets. (The boxes are cool too.) 

Vintage sewing patterns

Office supplies, vintage and otherwise. Many thanks to my sister for the thumb tacks, brads, etc. in the cool vintage boxes.

Stack of old ledgers from the turn of the century. From a dry goods company down South.  These are 10" x 14" each and very thick, filled with beautiful handwriting.

French titles.

Stack of old atlases, photo albums and a bundle of letters from Cecil Quackenbush to his mother. He was a rounder and a rambler--traveled around the West and Southwest picking up jobs as a movie extra in early silent Westerns, a ranch hand and a laborer. He wrote faithfully to his mother in Indiana wherever his ramblings took him.

And finally, Ellie, the (other) love of my life.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour. A memento of my life and studio at a singular moment in time.

Sharon