Handcrafted paper greeting cards

Hand painted ceramic tiles

Hand painted glassware

Cedar log cabin bird houses & feeders

Textile creations

A few years ago my husband and I built a home on a small wooded acreage. Using his trusty chainsaw, my husband cleared the trees for the construction site and salvaged all of the timber for use either in the fireplace or in a variety of rustic landscaping projects.

We cut and trimmed small cedar logs to frame and roof the pergola which you see in the background. We defined the boundaries of our flower beds and vegetable garden with either cedar logs or cedar pieces. We created pathways through and around the garden made of pie sized slices of cedar. The three tiered criss-cross fence that stretches 400 feet along the property's front border is made of small cedar logs painstakingly tied together with baling wire.

As one of my passions is recycling and I am always looking for ways of re-using wood rather than buying new wood, I had collected a number of old doors and windows and we used some of them in the pergola. We placed a variety of worn or little used household items such as cast iron pots and lids, broken garden implements, large reed encased wine bottles, broken pottery, etc amongst the flower beds.

One day I realized how different and how eklectic our property looked in comparison to other homes and so I began calling it "my eklectic place" and my eklectic nature is reflected in the different ways that I express my creativity: mediums such as pottery, a variety of textile creations, plastic jewelry, enamel on copper, glass painting, mosaic tiling, pyrographic (wood burning) images, handcrafted paper greeting cards, and my current favorite, concrete garden sculpture.

My leaf castings, stepping stones, tree trunk and other concrete works have a very "rustic" look and are based on the plant life found in Eastern Ontario. I like that it looks different and I experiment to reach the desired look. I mix my concrete by hand, design my supports, make molds out of sand and whatever else I can find which guarantees a unique product.

I hope you enjoy your tour of "My Eklectic Place" as much I have enjoyed building it and if ever you are in the South Mountain area, pick up the phone and come visit.

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