Sunset, mountains and ice- photo post

The Seward Highway out of town is considered a scenic byway. Of course, most of our highways are scenic. But heading out to the Valley, there aren't places to turn out so you can gawk at the scenery between Anchorage and Eagle River. Between Anchorage and Girdwood on the Seward Highway, there are lots of turnouts. You go through part of the Chugach National Park. I've posted photos in the past of some of the scenery in summer. Last night my husband took me out specifically to get photos of the sunset and of the mountains in winter for you.
Click on the images for larger versions. I resized them to 50% for quicker loading.

This highway has railroad tracks and the inlet on one side, and one the other, you butted up against mountains and cliffs. There can be avalanches sometimes, but the state posts advisories if they think it might be a problem.

During the summer, those cliffs have little water run offs and climbers. Now I'm going to be quiet. So you can just enjoy the scenery.

Hope you enjoyed these photos! 

Friendship pins and ice sculptures

First- I posted instructions for these cute little square stitch pins at Beadwork at BellaOnline. You can find the article *here*.

 The rest of the photos can be clicked for larger versions.

Ice ice ice! Recently I was sent a game to review. It's a very complicated and interesting game, so I asked a friend for help with the review. We decided to meet at a friendly locally owned coffee shop that has a big enough table for playing. When we got downtown, I stopped to take some photos of a few of the ice sculptures in town square.

I only took photos of a few sculptures. Because it was COLD! The other reason is that like a lot of places, our town square has a fountain, lots of trees, steps, path, a paved area for shows and other events. During the summer there is occasionally roller derby there. As well as lots of fairs and other things. In the winter? That paved area, with it's small curb all around is an ice rink. Not figuratively. Literally. There are skating nights there. TG crossed it to look at the rest of the sculptures happily. I looked at it, and decided that I wanted to stay on my feet.
The peacock above has a puntastic name.

I told my friend Sam, who occasionally writes on Tuesday Afternoon (not a craft blog!) that I was going to take some close up photos for all of you.

He said, and I agreed, the peacock should have more colored lights!

It was an ice sculpture that inspired yesterday's triple trinity knot.

See that bit of ice on the left hand side? It was part of the same sculpture and set perpendicular to the knot.

I love mandalas!

The close up shows the tool work.
Also on that side, were a pair of Mickey and Minnie sculptures, with holes in the faces for photographs. I tried to talk him into posing, and he said he was absolutely NOT going to put his face in the ice. At that point, TG rejoined us, and did so happily.

My husband, quite sensibly, was in the coffee shop, happily enjoying a nice hot mocha while we were looking at ice and freezing. The game play was fun. We didn't finish a game but had the chance to at least start learning the rules.
Today it's below 0 here in Anchorage. Hopefully you are all staying warm!

Shamrock Tea Box and coloring page

The tea box is in 300 ppi, and the coloring page is in 100 ppi. For the first time, I also put the art in my Etsy shop as a digital stamp at the original 8x8 300 ppi size. So if you love my coloring pages and want to use them for your own digital creations but at a higher quality than I post the coloring pages at, digital stamps are perfect. I chose the 1.60 price point which is the same price as most of my blank box templates.

As usual, the coloring page can be used for all sorts of crafty purposes.

The fills for the box were taken from close up shots of ice sculptures that I took last month. These are the images at 25%. I just thought they were so neat looking! I mirrored sections then recolored them for the box. Click on the images for a larger view.