Bags and Beads

In Sioux Falls I visited the Old Courthouse Museum because they had a vintage purse exhibit.  I love vintage purses.  I really loved all of these metal mesh bags from the 1800's:

This little embroidered bag was sweet.  

 I also really liked this little Italian beaded baggage:

The rest wasn't very noteworthy, especially anything from the 1970's.

There was also a Native American bead exhibit that the museum reception guy told me about.  

Beaded pouches...

 And this was some sort of smoking bag, I think, but how pretty!

 And this sweet little dolly:

 I also loved this bit of beadwork:

How long do you suppose it took to get all those beads like that?  More time than I have, I bet.

Roadside Giants

My mother got so excited when I told her that I'd be driving to Sioux Falls, SD and she immediately looked up all the roadside attractions that I would be able to see.

The Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, MN.  I missed him on my drive there, but took the Interstate all the way home.  

Um, yeah, that fella is sixty feet tall.

My mom was trying to tell me that this would be a great road trip to take the kiddos.  I don't know, I mean, he's kind of creepy...don't you think;

That's some creepy face right there.

And then there was the large Land O' Lakes cow, which is in Sioux Falls.

She did not, however, share with me any information about Mr. Bendo and I had to discover this dude on my own.

He's at a muffler shop in Sioux Falls.  I heard that a number of years back, a driver plowed into him and knocked him down, but they fixed him up.

Painting!

I signed up for one of those "drink wine and paint this" classes at Creative Spirits.  I almost didn't go, because I'd had a really hard day at work, got home at 6pm, and the class was at 6:30.  There was a small group of participants:  a group of work friends, a couple, and me.  The work friends showed up and made a stink about how the person who had picked the painting du jour was absent and they wanted to choose a new painting.  They wanted to go from the fall forest theme to an abstract/graffiti piece that said "Vino."  Lame.  In the end, we stuck with the original painting.

So here's the advertised painting:

And here's my version:

Hah!  What do you think?  Should I turn pro or what?  I've never painted before, so I was (am) a little proud of my painting.  Now I want to go paint more things, but do I really need another hobby with more accessories when I'm already busting out of my craft room as it is.

Close up, because you love it so much:

If they ever post pictures from that night, they'll be here on their facebook page, but they haven't yet and it's been a week.

And the entire time I was painting, I kept remembering that Disney video about the four artists painting the same tree.