Mystery Monday Winner Revealed! And New Contest

Our first winner of the mystery photo contest is Arlene Harrison! Congratulations Arlene, please select which of the four prizes offered ( see below) and email me with your choice as well as your snail mail address and I'll get it right out to you next mailing!

Thanks to all that participated. Now what was that thing? First let me tell you about how I came to take that picture. Sitting by my bay window which is full of many plants (I love the natural air cleaning they do!) and working on the computer I looked up and saw this just hanging there. I thought it was too interesting not to photograph so grabbed my camera and took a few shots. When I uploaded them (I almost said developed them!) I noticed that it looked a bit like the head of a praying mantis. After going through many photos for this contest I thought this would be a good one to start with, especially in the cold of winter.

Arlene's guess - It appears to be to be the seed pod left when a lily blooms. I can't identify the specific type of lily but hope this is specific enough. Cool idea!

Arlene has a great eye, that's exactly what it is! It is a seed pod from one of my spider plants. The spider plant is part of the lily family and doesn't only make 'babies' but also produces flowers that turn into seed pods. The babies are borne on what is called a runner and is similar to that of a strawberry plant. This type of method of reproduction is called asexual. Both my large spider plants had many babies hanging down so I decided to trim them up a bit. If you've ever had a spider plant bought from a nursery or garden center you probably didn't realize that it is not one plant but usually a grouping of many babies that have continued to grow together. This is what I've done to now create another large hanging pot, planted about 6-7 babies all together in one pot. I also have a smaller pot with three and another smaller pot with just one. FREE PLANTS!
Then there's this one that couldn't decide which way it wanted to grow and I couldn't plant it in soil yet so have it growing in a little punch glass of water. I used the stone to put some gentle pressure on the center to train it to have the roots grow down and the leave more in an upward manner so I can later plant in soil. You can see the new roots growing since I put it in there about two weeks ago.

Prizes offered in First week Mystery Monday


I hope those participating found this interesting. Those whose names did not get drawn but had a similarly correct answer will be entered in the next weeks drawing too as per the rules here!

Now for this weeks Mystery Photo. Here it is.


Rules:
1. Study the photograph
2. You have until the following Sunday night at 9pm EST to identify what the picture is and get your entry in.
3. Enter the drawing by emailing me your guess ( make as detailed as possible), see my profile for email. LEAVE A COMMENT THAT YOU ARE PARTICIPATING BUT NOT WITH YOUR GUESS! Please send the guess to my email. :)
4. 1 Winner will be drawn from all the entries. Winner will be announced the following Monday with the new Mystery Monday Photo.

Please read this post for more detailed instructions about how you can get more than one entry.

Prize: Your Choice, Purple Fairy Flower Copper Filigree Ring or Blue Lotus Earrings with Chinese Turquoise.


Note about Animal, Vegetable or Mineral. I'm sorry I had to postpone that post. I will be working on it throughout the week and post it this coming Friday, I'm sure you'll find it an interesting read! There will also be a new feature starting this weekend called Wildlife Weekend update where I will share some of the comic antics that happen outside my window .

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Great Artists and Contest Results

Remember my telling you about a treasury I had made at the beginning of this month? Black and White and Blue over you? It was my first treasury in about a month and I dedicated it to Jazmine. I found this wonderful print from a Canadian Artist and out of every Dalmatian listing I went through (and I went through them all) this one reminded me of Jazz. It had 'The Look' she would have when laying down and looking up at me when I talked to her, but mostly when I was talking about her. She was very intelligent and astute and understood more than the average dog of about 500 words, she also understood two other languages and spelling!
Anyway, I showed my husband the treasury and when he saw it he started to tear up and then told me I had to get that print. So I did. I waited for 'Cedric' to arrive, the name on the listing.

And last week he came.

I know you have heard of special etsy sellers and some of you who have followed me for awhile remember Pointy Paws. Well this is a story of another special etsy seller. Her name is Pey and her shop is called Peylu and she also has another one called folkartvision , both are well worth exploring. She does her paintings on clay and then has prints made of them so many can share her beautiful works of art.

She is a member of the EFA - Artists Helping Animals , and her current animal family consists of a Rottweiler and a dwarf bunny, which is interesting because I've owned both, just not at the same time. The Rotty I had was pre-named Bear and my bunny was a Siamese Dwarf named Mr Peabody. So as you can see even though her shop has mainly paintings of chairs (which I also love and have had quite an extensive collection of chairs) she is an animal lover like myself and it sure showed up with this etsy transaction she made with me.

When I received my print, done on very good quality paper I might add, it was accompanied by a lovely note card with a picture of a loon, something I fell in love with when visiting Canada years ago, with very kind and encouraging words. Also accompanying the print was a lovely bookmark business card that I shall use and think of this wonderful artist every time I see it. And then there was Cedric, who looked 'in person' more like Jazz and made me cry. It took awhile to gather myself together and open the little burlap wrapped package I also found in the parcel.

I unwrapped it and found that sweet little heart necklace you see in all the pictures. It was handmade by Pey. On one side it has Jazmines name accompanied by lots of spots and the other side has 'Je taime', which for those who don't speak French means, I love you. If seeing the print of Cedric started the waterworks this brought on a flood. She told me that she had made one for a beloved pet she had lost and made this one for me for Jazz. I can't tell you how deeply touched I was from this great act of kindness from a complete stranger but I do know that though we are separated by many miles and in different countrys even that I will never forget her kindness along with her great ability to capture my heart like no other piece of art ever has.

You really should take a bit of time and explore her shops and read about her here. One thing I found very 'Twilight zone" was that she was born on August 14th, that was the day that Jazmine died. Strange how life works, isn't it?

Anyway I wanted to tell you about this when I announced the winner. Monday Sept. 14th I was supposed to make the announcement. Monday was the first month anniversary of Jazmines passing. It was harder than I expected and I had to postpone it until Tuesday but I needed to go out yesterday and do some shopping and was too tired when I got home. So I apologize for the delay but I have been working on this all afternoon. So here are the results of the 'contest'.

I had 24 entries over the course of a week of getting back to posting, including the post I made last night/early this morning. I thank each and everyone of you that took the time to read my posts, I know that they weren't the most peppy and uplifting I've done and I do so appreciate you sticking with me and all your kind words of encouragement and sympathy, may your kindness be returned to you a hundred fold.

I counted each comment as an entry so those who commented more than once got an entry for each one. I assigned each entry a number in order from the first to the last and used a random number generator to pick a winner. That number that came up was 20. :)

So that means that the winner is M.E.!

Congratulations!

If you would just email me your snail mail address I will get your prize out to you ASAP (organicodysseys@gmail.com).

The Prize? The Bluebirds of Happiness earrings. If for some reason you don't have pierced ears please let me know and I will make them clip on's or I can make it into a necklace for you! Just let me know what you'd like!

Thank you all again for participating and please keep coming back, I promise my posts will get a bit lighter! :)

Hope you all are having a great week!



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