While waiting for my son to finish his soccer practice I took a few pictures of Lake Michigan at sunset. Beautiful lake it is!
This place is called Montrose beach at Lake Michigan.
They have a small space designeted as a nature area with birds and insects one will not see in other places.
Flowers come in different shapes and colors. The diversity of nature always inspires me. This time I've decided to make a felted flower brooch that will look like a water lily.
First of all I hand felted a large number of purple colored wool pieces in shapes of flower petals. I tried to make my petals long and somewhat narrow. At first I planned on making two-colored flower brooch and hand felted pieces of white wool as well. Later I changed my mind and created a purple colored brooch adding a few white shiny beads instead.
After my wool petals dried up I started arranging them into different patterns to find the one I liked the most. It's easy to do it while they are not yet attached and turned into an actual brooch. It's always fun to lay out different designs with different pieces of felted wool.
After a while I figured out what exactly I wanted to do with my wool. I attached all my numerous purple colored felted wool pieces to a hand crocheted base. To accent the color I added tiny white beads that look like small flower stamen.
The brooch is ready to wear now!
I keep experimenting with hand dyeing. It's such a rewarding and inspiring process. So many new ideas come to life when one starts mixing colors. The end result is always a surprise and the whole process is much fun!
I hand felted many many wool petals for my flower brooches and dyed them in my freshest color mix. The final dye color is more like a burgundy with hints of red and even yellow. It's such an interesting color that is not eye popping bright but rather stylish and elegant.
I've assembled my petals into a flower brooch with a hand crocheted jute base that I had made earlier. The brooch looks like a flower and will no doubt decorate any outfit. It will go well with any office neutral colors especially the ones with hues of light green, dusty pink and pale blue.
I love taking pictures of flowers. Most of the flowers are so exquisite, tender and glamorous! Even if they are not flowers still somehow radiate positive energy and happiness. Clematis with its wide range of purple, violet and pink hues definitely deserves to be noticed. A unique shape of the flower's petals and stamens makes it a great object for macro photography.
As a result I've got a number of abstract images of clematis colored mulberry, orchid, pale pink, purple and white. All the curves and twists add sophistication to the images.
The flowers could be a great inspiration for artists and craftsmen. Their tender color mixes and delicate lines could inspire jewelry makers, felting artists and many other wonderful members of hand making community to produce unique and stylishly colored pieces.
There are over 200 pieces of Clematis that comes in a wide variety of shapes and colors. The plant is relatively easy to grow. It doesn’t take too much space. Clematis is a climbing plant that could be grown into a beautiful fence in your yard.
I saw those beautiful flowers on a bush near my house. The bush has just started to bloom and is covered with lavender violet colored tender and fragile flowers. It's such a short period when all those flowers are out to make us happy. I try to carry my camera with me all the time.
Flowers inspire me to create earrings, necklaces and bracelets. I like to work with silver plated wire as it enables me to make twisted designs reminiscent of beautiful vintage smith craft and metalwork that one still occasionally come by at an antique shows nowadays.
Flowers are beautiful. They are so fragile and exquisite! Every flower is different and there is no way one can find two similar ones! They come in different colors and shapes. It's amazing how creative nature can be! My favorite Fall flower colors this season are lilac, purple and yellow. 
Fall colors tend to be warm.
They remind us of the last sunny days before winter strikes. This feast of colors is our last chance to picture all these yellow, purple, red shades and hues before we enter a monochrome world of winter.
Don't forget about animals, insects and birds of the sunny Summer and Fall days! Some of them are as vivid as any flower or brightly colored Fall leaf. Some damselflies, dragonflies and butterflies remind us of flowers and some look more like exotic aliens from different planets but they all add beauty to our everyday life.
I've recently started twining bracelets of 100 percent wool and wire. They turn out to be elegant, stylish and very comfy. Apparently wool has some healing characteristics and is very good for a tired and over worked wrist. It adds softness and nice, unique feel. Bright bracelets will definitely add color to any dress and make our summer colorful and cheerful!
As you probably know "Virginia is for lovers". The state is amazingly beautiful in the spring and early summer with all these wonderful fresh rose, purple, pink and white flowers and bushes in bloom all over Richmond, Williamsburg, Charlottesville and all other small and big cities and towns of Virginia. On a rainy day I took my camera for a quick walk around our Fan neighborhood in Richmond.
I found a few amazing rose flowers covered with tiny rain drops, a few purple and white irises in full bloom and many other nice and fresh flowers I had difficulty identifying. 
Red roses and irises of all shades of yellow, purple and white are the main flowers in the Fan gardens. I believe people like them for their intensive bloom, exquisite scent and exquisite beauty.
With all these inspiring and fresh flowers blooming around us it's easy to understand why "Virginia is for lovers".
It's rainy and gray outside and I felt like looking at things that are not bold and bright but rather elegant, pale and exquisite. Apparently there are so many amazing items in shades of amethyst created by talented artists from all over the world!!!
I've included amazing items by the following artists: CityCrochet, herbolution, TwistedCrystals, Arctida, EdenInvitations, papermoth, MyWayToSay, JaneBoFelt, bumblestore, embellishedbytiffany, NeroliHandmade, BreezewayArts, galafilc, lightkeeping, OlgaAlmond, VitalTemptation
