The Housing Project

It seems that every year when I visit my DD at Christmas, there is an involved Christmas project on the To-Do list.  This year....a dollhouse.  She found one on Craigslist that someone had started and then given up on...and after we saw the level of workmanship, we could understand why.  Think inches and inches of hot glue, wonky walls, kitty-wampus windows, and nothing painted or finished, which was ok by us.

 

So, the first step was to paint the house yellow, the trim white, and the roof grey.

 She had a friend cut the flat roof off, exposing the attic area.  We painted, and used scrapbook papers for the wall and area rug.  The attic was transformed into a playroom/classroom.

 Our only quibble with the size of the dollhouse was the depth...it was about 19" deep, and that's a long way for little arms to reach in.  But, we had lots of rooms to decorate and lots of fun deciding our color scheme.  We also put a base on caster wheels under the dollhouse so it would be easier to move around and easier to open.

 The left front of the house...

 The upstairs bedroom

 The living room, complete with fireplace (non-working, of course)

 The center rooms--bathroom and kitchen. 

 Love the black and white linoleum that she found. Our diner stools are wooden spools wrapped in aluminum foil, with painted bottle cap "seats". The sticker she found of the stove is perfect!

 The right side of the house, with the nursery area and a "study" behind the stairs.

 The nursery

 The study, which still needs some furniture

 We were rushed for time to get it finished, and weren't able to do everything she had in mind.  But a child's imagination is a MUCH better decorator than anything we could've done, and the girls were thrilled with their present.  Even 8-year old E wanted to play!  The girls spend HOURS playing with this; it is so much fun to listen in.

Underfoot

All that beauty underfoot....Nature's beautiful carpets.

Backlit

I love the way leaves become small stained glass windows when backlit by the sun.

What a fancy leaf, with the yellow veining, the yellow edges, and the orange interior!

Tucked In

Sweet Gum

I love sweet gum trees...being the very last trees to change, we often are treated to wonderful multi-color displays even in December.  My neighbor's tree is finally (yes finally, the first week of December) turning, and it stopped raining today, so I quickly grabbed some shots.  I like to think of sweet gums as Nature's Christmas decorations.

 Yellows, oranges, reds, burgundies, greens....all on the same tree.  What a treat!  I can just hear the Tree-Color Fairy  "Oh, I like all these colors!  I can't decide which one to use....let's just put them all on the same tree!"

Marbled Water

Have I mentioned before how much I love abstract reflections and color patterns on water?

 

A small pool of water, tucked under some trees, rippled by a breeze....the surface caught the light coming through the branches and foliage, and made beautiful abstract patterns as the water moved.

 I stepped about 2 feet to the right, where the light was almost completely filtered by a large fir tree...and the surface of the water and the "marbling" immediately showed the change.  Hard to believe that this is the same pool of water, under the same trees.  What a difference a change in position can make.

Symmetry

Too good to bypass....

Hobble Creek Gold

Golden water, golden leaves afloat down the stream...perfect!

 This part of the creek showed just a little bit of the one tree that still had some green on it.  I love the little inclusion of green amongst all the golds and yellows.

Utah Color

I visited Utah after peak color, but there was still enough color in the lower elevations to make me happy.  Hobble Creek Canyon was particularly delightful.

 Higher up, the slopes of the mountains were pretty much bare of leaves, and what was left was in faded tapestry tones rather than the vivid hues of earlier.  But there were still clumps of trees flaunting their sun-drenched autumn finery.

 The creek became gold-kissed as the aspens reflected on the water.  Liquid gold, indeed.

Leaflections

It was wet and rainy today, but all that rain turned the surface of the parking lot into a beautiful reflective surface.  Just had to hop out, brave the rain, and capture these sweet gum leaves and their reflections.  I love seeing the small treasures and pleasures that so often are overlooked.

Still There

It is cool, blustery and gusty today.  While running errands under the gunmetal gray sky, I happened to see this clump of sweet gum trees.  I love them---they are the very last trees to change, and each tree has the whole range of colors...yellows, oranges, reds, greens, burgundys, and shades in between.  The down side to these trees is that they are brittle, and when you combine late leaves, heavy rain or even snow, and you end up with broken branches and limbs all over the place. (I think they call that "self-pruning").  I was thrilled to see this variegated clump of color standing out against all the grey, and the green of the firs and pines on the hill behind.  What a visual treat!

Red Rocks Redux

Some more views of Kolob Canyon.  We got there just after a rain squall had moved through, so there were still some clouds hanging off the tops of the higher peaks.  It gave the canyon a slightly (more) otherworldly air.

 

I love the way the sun hit the formation on the lower left, and illuminated the natural arch and recess underneath it.  The natural columns along the left side, and the domed formation at the top, make me think of a castle or old mid-Eastern fort.

 More evidence of how the diagonal sheer of the earth created these formations.

 I love the contrast of the green and the red.

 The colors and textures and striations on this section of the canyon wall amazed me.  They were so vivid, even in shadow.  I would love to know what cause the horizontal and diagonal striations in the formation.  If this were a roadside, I would explain it away as marks from blasting and road machinery, but this was on a canyon wall, far from any road.

 More vivid tones, even in the shade.  The sun was just beginning to shine through the cleft between the two foreground formations.

 Rough and smooth...The rock in the foreground was pitted with these holes, almost like Swiss cheese, while the wall behind it was smooth and unmarked.  It is so easy to lose a sense of scale in this immense place, until you note the trees on the lower right, which give a little more perspective to the size of the holes in the rock.

Red Rocks, Blue Skies

Last month I was in Utah visiting friends, and we went down to St. George and then up to Cedar City to see "Les Miz" (which was FABULOUS!  Small theater, small but extremely talented cast--a wonderful experience)

 

I love love the red rocks of southern Utah.  They are so completely foreign to me, and to see that vivid color rising up out of (usually) faded sage and grasses amazes me every time I see it.  Heading north out of St. George we were early enough in the morning to still catch some nice shadowing going on across the folds and pleats in the mountains.  The contrast of the red rock against the grey mountains in the distance caught my eye, too.  "Quick!  Pull over!"  (yes, on the freeway; but my friend's DH is a photonut, too, so he is always willing to pull over.  It's so nice to be with someone who understands about grabbing the moment.)

 

 Before we got to Cedar City we took a side trip and went up (and back) in Kolob Canyon.  Going in we were early enough that a lot of the formations were still pretty shaded, but by the time we were on the way out we were able to see alot of them with the sun hitting them full on, bringing up the colors.  This formation fascinated me, because not only was there the red rocks, but it was capped off with a more sandstone colored formation.  It also show the diagonal uplift that helped form the canyon.

 The colors on this one amazed me....the red cliffs, the rim of white rock at the edge, and the sage-brown uplands.  This is Horse Ranch Mountain, which leads me to wonder if there really was a horse ranch waaaaay up there at one time.