Moonpulse Workshop

One of my recent completed displays featuring a pair of magicicadas (found naturally) on a bed of preserved moss with bok choy and cucumber blooms from my backyard and garden.

This piece started out as a thrifted 80's Seiko clock with a wonderful bubble glass frame. I sanded it down and stained the wood selectively with neon green and blue water based paints.

A couple closeups of my lycosid (wolf spider) display. I found both of these big beauties already passed in my garage. The one on the bottom was very damaged, and both of them were absolutely covered in lint and cobwebs. I gave the bottom one some prosthetic legs with sterling silver findings with a chunk of amethyst crystal cluster for a new abdomen.

The majority of my pieces use thrifted finds, the frame, vintage fabric backing, and some of the dried floral bits were picked up from my favorite local craft reuse shop here in Nashville, Smart Art. The amethyst cluster is also from a local rock shop, Jae's Gem Mine (right next door to the craft reuse).

The moss was pried from a dear friend's shady driveway and preserved, the ranunculus, marigold, roses, flax, dandelion, lavender, ground ivy, and caladium are from my own garden. The same moss friend gifted me a vintage Victorian dollhouse wallpaper book ages ago, so I used a page from it to line the shadowbox spacers.

A few of my most recent settings using all naturally deceased insects that I've found everywhere from my own yard to an Aldi automatic door entrance. The Polistes carolina wasp and Cylisticus sp. isopod have already made their way to new homes :D.

I create these with vintage thrifted finds, reused jars, pieces that I've collected and preserved from my own yard and garden, and pieces that I've found at my favorite craft re-use store.

Top L to R: Horned Passalus Beetle (Odontotaenius disjunctus, Clylisticidae isopod

Middle L to R: Green June Beetle (Cotinus Nitida), Giant Leaf-footed Bug (Acanthocephala declivis), Lycosidae Wolf Spiders

This little plaque is my recent favorite thing that I've made. I've got a deep love for cicadas, they've always been incredibly nostalgic to me and I spend all spring waiting for the screams of my bois. This year, though, it was freaking magical. So many screams, you could hardly hear yourself think. I'd never witnessed a periodical emergence and was smack dab in the middle of The Great Southern Brood (Brood XIX) when everyone woke up and decided to party.

As a result, I ended up with many, many naturally deceased magicicadas and not all of them were in good enough shape to use whole. So, I saved and dried their wings (which always seem to be the one thing left behind after the rest of them has been munched on) and placed their abdomens back into the yard for the critters to enjoy or for them to decay back into the soil they waited for so many years in.

My favorite round friend, Gengar! Lately, I've made an embroidered patch with Gengar surrounded by plants and a vinyl sticker with more of their ghost Pokemon buddies.