Grandma's Garden

My grandma was great at documenting the existence of her grandchildren.  She was very proud of all of us and loved us a lot.  Here she has an old stool that she made in her later years; this is not something that was part of my childhood, but this is one of the pieces she painted that I think she was really proud of--partly because it include almost all of her grandchildren (one is missing) and also because it took a lot of effort for her to complete.  By the time she painted this, her hands were giving her difficulties, and she couldn't paint as well as she liked.  

In chronological order:

Grandchildren: Shannon, Aaron, Dawn, Heather, Jesse

Great-grandchildren: Paige, Brittani, Raine, Sofia, Braydon, Maya, Ben, Blake (the only name absent; I think the yellow flower is his). 

You light up my life...

 


My grandma was an artist.  I mostly identified her as a painter, though she was a gifted writer, could sew, crochet, and was just all around creative as heck.  

These lamps were part of her home for as long as I can remember; she worked at a ceramics shop and was able to get figurines and whatnot and paint them.  Some of my favorite things are figurines that she painted, and these lamps are included.  She also had Blue Boy & Pinkie lamps, but I don't know what happened to them--or if she even painted them.  I think we had them at our house for awhile, when I was growing up. 

Figurines as lamps is such a grandma thing, but I think it's cool.