Cuttin It Up in Snippyville

This paper cutting

is a portrait of me, but it was not done by me.

When I opened the email attachment with this snip inside, I about fell out laughing. It illustrates a adventurous tale of winter that I wrote about the other day. The one where I fall in the snow and can't get up again? What a great treat to see this! It really captures the spirit of the story.

It was snipped by scherenschnitte artist, Melissa Clark. Here is her blog: Cuttin It Up Amongst the Sagebrush: An Adventure in Papercutting. Check it out.

My favorite pieces of her work, besides the one of me, are her fairytale snips.

Hansel and Gretel


Maid Maleen


Robin Hood


She also snips professional pieces


as well as writes books.



Quite impressive. I was honored to have her snip an illustration of me.

Thanks, Melissa!

The Fat Fairy Dreams of Spring

The Fat Fairy is oh so ready for spring. (Did I mention that the DC area is now in its THIRD blizzard in the last 6 weeks?????)


The Fat Fairy is probably my alter ego of sorts, so if she is ready for spring, I guess that means that I am ready for spring.

Before Christmas I took down all the 3D papercuts that were hanging over the desk in my studio. They had become invisible to me, they'd been up there so long. I didn't want them up there any more. I'm rather missing them now though. This will be the first snip to replace them.

Scherenschnitte 3D 4" x 6"

Survival Mystery a la Snowmagedon

Well, well. Take a guess at what happened here.


I'll lead you through this one. I wanted to go up the hill in the backyard to see how many limbs broke off the white pine.

You can't walk easily in the yard because with each step you take you just post hole down two feet. So I strapped on the snowshoes.


I tried trekking straight up the hill but my feet kept landing sideways in the snow. I probably went up about a foot per minute. My heartbeat went aerobic in just a few steps.


I realized that I needed to walk diagonally up the hill.


Somewhere along the way I lost my hat. I didn't know at the time because I had on a face mask under the hat and didn't feel it when it flew off.


Walking on the level ground on the top of the hill was so easy, I left the trekking poles behind. I wanted to photograph the tree and these were in the way.


I got a few shots of the tree...and then....


TIMBER!!! Yeah, me, not the tree. I fell down.


For about 30 seconds I thought it was funny. I took these shots to show my predicament. Little did I know.

At this point I didn't realize that I had lost my cute little pink hat that I knitted my very own self.
I thought I'd be popping right back up after this shot.

Let me just say that what followed was not a pretty sight. Every time that I tried to push myself off the "ground" to get up, my arm sank two feet down in the snow. Having left the trekking poles 20 feet away, getting up was no easy task. The word "wallow" comes to mind.

I figured the best I could do was to take off the snowshoes and post hole my way back to the house. Unfortunately, I could barely maneuver my feet around with these giant planks on my feet. I had to contort myself just to reach the clasps. Then I discovered that the clasps were all frozen.

I didn't get to the point of crying, but gnawing off my legs at the knee seemed like an option. I looked around to see if any neighbors were looking. They weren't. YEA! but then again...there was no one around to rescue me.

I was envisioning the episodes I'd seen of "Survivorman" in the arctic, to see if I could recall what he might do in this situation. All I could remember was that maybe he found some dead moose carcus to gnaw on to keep him alive. That didn't seem applicable.

Eventually I contorted myself enough to wiggle my feet out. I have no idea how long it took to accomplish this, but it really felt like forever.


I post holed my way across the yard and down the hill; gathered my lost and discarded gear; and walked defeated back into the house.

Alive. = )

Snowpocalypse? Snowmageddon?

Snowmageddon. I think that's what the President called it. We got 24 inches of snow in our suburb of Washington, DC.

My truck is buried under here somewhere.


It was beautiful, yes indeedy, but after countless hours of shoveling snow, I'm DONE with the stuff.


Lord only knows when we'll be back at school. They aren't even sending in folks to try and shovel up the place tomorrow. And we get another 5" snow coming this Tuesday night.

This shot is of my foot.....waaaaaaaaaaay down in a hole. If you walk around my yard, and not in the trenches we have already tamped down, you will end up falling into what feels like the center of the earth.

M is down in the trench by the truck. You can't even see him anymore.


I'm hoping to get some snipping done tomorrow and maybe finish up some knitting. Maybe I should pace myself though. I might be home all week. = (