Freeway art..

.. in New Mexico.

No, I'm not talking about those hideous plastic flower "art pieces" that adorn our SoCal freeways - I'm looking at you Caltrans.

What I'm talking about is the use of color and murals to anchor Interstate highways in the landscape and nothing says New Mexico like pinky beige and turquoise bridges.

Albuquerque I-40 to I-25 transition

Or turkeys..

Or rabbits..

Or quail..

Or bluebirds..

But my absolute favorite are the bridge murals that span the I-25 on the way to Santa Fe.  I wasn't able to find the translation of what is written on either bridge.

close up

But I love the graphic nature and color of the bridges.

close up

I think this sense of place is one of my favorite things about New Mexico.  So much of the country has become generic.  Same fast food, same stores, same everything.

When I travel I want new, I want different, I want something that I can't get at home.

New Mexico does that for me, starting with the freeway art.

Happy Wednesday :)

Shrinky..

Dinks!

I may be dating myself here somewhat, but when I was a kid way, way back in the 1970's I LOVED shrinky dinks.  I hadn't given them much thought lately until I saw some kits at Joanne's.

That got me thinking, and thinking can be dangerous, especially if you are planning a 1960's Groovy Girl Spring Camp for a Mother/Daughter group I am in with Sophia.

So I did a bit of research and came up with this super fun shrinky dink bracelet craft to do at camp.

I shopped around and found some Shrinky Dink brand blank plastic at my local Michael's.  I purchased the kind that is suitable for color pencils.  Make sure you check the package because there is a lot of different shrinky products out there now.

I cut the plastic into 1 1/2 inch squares, rounded the corners and punched them with a standard hole punch.  Then I let Daughter have at it and we ended up with this:

I followed the baking directions included with the shrinky plastic and used parchment paper to protect my cookie sheet.  Voila, a few minutes later we had shrunken shrinky dinks.

We strung the shrinkies along with some pony beads on thick elastic cording I found in the jewelry making supply section of Joannes.

This turned out to be a super easy project that would be great for spring break crafting or even a birthday party craft.  

The best part?  My boys loved it just as much.  They made dog tag style necklaces and back pack tags.

Happy Shrinking!

Crafted at Port of Los Angeles..

so I've been wanted to go try out the Crafted warehouse in POLA since I read an article about it in the Sunset Magazine a while back, today was the day.

Crafted

Although the name mentions Los Angeles, Crafted is located in the City of San Pedro.  I really enjoyed the drive out to San Pedro, it is fun to have some adult conversation in the front seat.  I remember the days when the kids couldn't eavesdrop, but those days are long gone. Spelling out words out has also passed, now we have to talk in coded double entendre.  We could be that couple in 'Americans' except for, well, almost everything in that show now that I think about it.

Anyhoo, San Pedro is an interesting place.  It isn't that easy to get to, but I love driving over the bridges (a steel truss bridge and a steel suspension bridge, no I don't know bridges, I asked Nadim :).  Once there, I'm reminded that a working port is really pretty ugly but fascinating.  The cargo ships are HUGE, the cranes bigger and the grime factor is surprising considering all the real estate is water front.  This isn't the OC.

So we cruised down Harbor Blvd past Ports Of Call and the Maritime Museum, until we hit Crafted.  The old warehouse looks pretty good with its new paint and they had an interesting garden with "art" in it.

garden filled with native plants

jeep as a garden art installation

Once inside it was a bit of a let down.  I would say that 60% of the booths are vacant.  The shops that were there were cute, but a bit expensive with lots of jewelry options and not much else.  Not much in the way of food either.

lots of empty store fronts

quilts!  finally something other than jewelry.

here are some people

There was a really cool industrial art fan, that Nadim pointed out.  It's hard to appreciate the scale in the picture, but it was really big.

ceiling fan

The kids found this art piece - a baby sculpture made out of metal mesh and filled with toys the artist found at the dump.  I found this to be both interesting and disturbing.

kids picking their favorite toys

close up of the discarded toys

I think this place has great potential, but it has a long, long way to go.  On the way home in the car I did some research and vendors there pay $500 a month rent.  I don't see how they sell enough product to make any kind of profit.

Crafted was summed up nicely by Son 1 "Mom, this place has lots of cool stuff, but it is really expensive!"  Indeed.