Hugs to all my Photo Challenge Friends!

Today is the last day of the November Photo a Day Challenge. It’s been fun, frustrating, exhausting, exhilarating and most of all educational.
Thank you all for playing. I have had such a great time getting to know you better through your photographs, blog entries, layouts and kind comments on my blog.


I was reading about snow globes on Mandy’s blog and it made me think. Okay, you know me by now; everything makes me think in the most unusual directions. But I was pondering why people love snow globes.
It occurred to me I personally love them, because I love the idea of a tidy, self contained world. But the downside of living inside a snow globe, of course, would be the random shaking followed by glittery storms.
It seems whoever has their hands on my snow globe knows just when I get to settled and comfortable and shakes things up a bit. I wish I was a steadfast as the tiny people inside all the snow globes I see displayed on shelves. But alas, the shaking leaves me dizzy most of the time.
Last night I practiced photographing the village under our Christmas tree. David’s grandmother had the most spectacular Christmas village, you know the kind that take up half the living room, and involves three weeks of setup. I don’t know if anyone ever took photographs of her complete set. She worked for years to collect it, and after she died the pieces went to various family members. We have one ceramic tavern from her collection under our tree.
We also have a collection hailing back to my mother’s fascination with tiny houses. She tells me she made her first collection of toy houses when she was about five and someone gave her a pack of construction paper. After my older sisters were born, she designed a spectacular playhouse for us, and commissioned a family friend to make small scale furniture.
After we were in school, Mom went back to work as a high school art teacher. By the time I was a teenager; we had a ceramic kiln in our garage, along with a collection of molds, paints and craft tables. The car sat outside. To darn bad about the 20 degrees below zero, the girls gotta craft!
One year we made ceramic cottages. I still have most of them under my tree. A few years ago Mom sent me some more tiny houses for our village. These were made out of plastic mesh, sewn together and decorated with yarn.
Last year I found a few more ceramic pieces at a bargain at the local five and dime, so three more houses were added to the town.
My village is sadly out of scale, the people tower over the doors, they couldn’t fit in with a shoehorn. But I’m afraid I have the tiny house bug. I love setting up the funky little village under the tree. I guess it entertains the little girl in my soul.