Source: artocrat.blogspot.com via Talia on Pinterest I grew up in Canada, a nation of tea drinkers. After I moved to the States, I drifted away from tea, and at age 40 took up with coffee(a late bloomer). But a few months ago I started making tea for myself in the morning as a way [...]
A to Z Challenge 2012: Q is for Quantum Theology and Renaissance Woman Michelle Francl-Donnay
April 19, 2012 By 4 Comments
I met Michelle Francl-Donnay, writer of Quantum Theology, in 2008, when she came to one of our craft shows. She was my first “from blog to real life” encounter. Michelle found Stratoz’s blog, because she too was going to Wernersville Jesuit Center for a silent retreat, and they began commenting on each other’s blogs. She [...]
A to Z Challenge 2012: L is for Levels and Loving Them!
April 13, 2012 By 9 Comments
I dig levels in mosaic. The pieces of many heights catch the light and enliven the surface, and I love that. I also dig them literally, since grouting buries the lower pieces and I go on an archaeological dig to find them. People are often surprised by the levels, and intrigued. Once a young [...]
A Celtic Cross Finds The One It Was Meant For
March 30, 2012 By 8 Comments
There are moments when something I’ve made becomes something made for someone. A man named Kevin McAleese came into my booth, and was drawn to the small crosses with mother of pearl, and as he ran his fingers over them, he told me he liked touching them because it reminded him of how God [...]
About Nutmeg Designs: Our Mission in Progress
February 29, 2012 By 8 Comments
We are Nutmeg Designs: Margaret Almon and Wayne Stratz. Catching the eye; delighting the soul. We speak to the heart with our glass art from a one-bedroom-two-studio-rowhouse. Our clients say we create work that is joyful, spirited, and full of hope. We incarnate gifts that brings beauty, color and meaning for gifts which bear the [...]
Margaret O’Rorke(b. 1938): Incorporating Light and Water Into Clay
January 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Source: louhallceramics.blogspot.com via Margaret on Pinterest Source: google.com via Margaret on Pinterest Source: culturame.it via Margaret on Pinterest Margaret O’Rorke describes sitting in her garden and showing a friend a vessel she had made, holding it up to the light, and being struck by the beauty of the translucence, and wanting to pursue [...]
Smiling Blue Skies: Susan Beber and the Human/Animal Bond
January 2, 2012 By 1 Comment
2011 brought the delightful Suzi Beber, founder of Smiling Blue Skies Cancer Fund for curing canine cancer, into our world here at Nutmeg Designs. As she writes eloquently in the Story of Blues, Blues was a canine guardian angel as Suzi recovered from brain injury, a companion who could look into her eyes and [...]
Little Christmas Eve and The Festival of Christmas by Mary Hinderlie, Edna Hong and Floy Dalton: Mid Century Advent
December 23, 2011 By 2 Comments
When I was 7 or8, our next door neighbor, Mrs. Firth, gave me a booklet called The Festival of Christmas: A Book of Days, written by Mary Hinderlie and Edna Hong and illustrated by Floy Dalton in 1954. Every year I would get it out at the beginning of advent to follow day by day, [...]
Stephanie Kwolek and her Bullet Proof Fiber in Honor of Ada Lovelace Day, 2011
October 13, 2011 By 5 Comments
October 7th is Ada Lovelace Day, and the Finding Ada Project. Ada Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage on an Analytical Engine in 1842, and Lovelace wrote something akin to the first programs for this forerunner of the modern computer. Ada Lovelace Day was founded in 2009 by Suw Charman-Anderson, a social technologist, journalist and writer [...]
Words Engraved in my Heart: The Goodness of Friends, Commissions, Art and Spirit
October 4, 2011 By 11 Comments
Friends and clients Suzanne and Gary Halstead commissioned me and Stratoz to turn the 9 Fruits of the Spirit into mosaic signs. In April, 2011, all four of us gathered in our basement to pick out sheets of glass, and talk colors. Wayne Stratz designed the lettering, cut out the letters, ground the edges. [...]
