Ruby Slippers

treasure holder

One summer at camp we were divided into teams and given a list of things to find.  The team who found everything first won the Treasure Hunt.  I found it very exciting to run around looking for special and unusal items and ever since then I have loved looking for and finding treasures.  I keep my eyes open when I visit the Thrift store and when I go for a walk I almost always come back with driftwood, a feather, a pinecone or some other nature treasure.  I decided to start making Treasure Holders to provide homes for some of my treasures.




The felt and fibres this Treasure Holder is made out of are all dyed with plant materials from my garden.

The Treasure Holder provides a home for some naturally dyed paper, bits of naturally dyed fabric as well as some Nature treasures.

treasure keeper and her little bag of treasures

At one of our Guild's stash days I picked up a small bag of soft brown fibre.  When I opened it last week I found it contained lovely soft dog fur.  I spun it up and had just enough to make a very small bag.  I stuffed the bag with nature treasures and made a little Treasure Keeper to guard the treasures.  There are many Treasure Keepers, the best known being dragons.  This little Treasure Keeper is much smaller and more gentle.  But just don't try to mess with her treasures...

 

I love making little beings and creatures.  Years ago I had a powerful dream where I witnessed a group of nomadic people travelling through a snowy forest on their magnificent horses.  They stopped to carry out a ceremony enacting a ritual birth.  At the end of the ceremony they stood in a line and passed a doll between their legs.  When the ceremony was completed an old woman, the elder of the tribe, carved a pattern in her leather saddle and coloured it in to record the enacting of this ritual birth.

The dream was very powerful and I wanted to do something to mark it and decided to make a dream bringing doll - the first little being I had made.  I looked among my fabrics and found one with stars to make her gown.  Amazingly, I also found some fabric with the same pattern that the woman had marked on her saddle.  I made it into a dream-bringing bag and filled it with gold stars and chamomile, hops and mugwort from my garden.

After the dream I wondered why they'd passed a doll through their legs and not a real baby.  It was only years later that I realized that this dream marked the beginning of a new joy in my life - making little beings and creatures.  For a few of the ones I've made you can check out my Flicker set of Little Beings and Creatures.