Michelle Legler

Celebrating Frida Kahlo

Happy Birthday month to self-taught and celebrated Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo!! 7/6/1907-7/13/1954

I have much admiration for this woman. A woman who found art after a tragic injury left her bedridden and in a body cast for 3 months as a teenager. To kill the time and alleviate the pain, she started painting and finished her first self-portrait. That was the beginning! She once said “I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best”. ❤ Well, I do not paint self-portraits, but I can relate to the healing power of art and how it has helped me sort through my emotions from some of the darkest times of my life. I truly believe Art Saves.

My celebration of Frida, not only includes my mosaic art, but also the beginning of a new and fun thing I’m calling DRESS UP PHOTO SHOOTS 🙂

Living life in New Orleans, the city that celebrates EVERYTHING (including death), my costume collection continues to grow and grow. So, DRESS UP PHOTO SHOOTS just seems appropriate, Yes?? YES!!! 🙂 I can’t wait to share the next one with you. I’ve been working so hard on creating all kinds of pretties. This is going to be FUN!!!

In the meantime, check out my Frida cake

I paint flowers, so they will not die – Frida Kahlo

And a few Frida cupcakes

And I read that Frida once made a hummingbird necklace to wear to a special event. Her necklace included thorns. I left the thorns out lol!

And then I thought, we need cactus! I lived in the desert for over 20 years, not far from Mexico and I never created one cactus…..except on a necklace. Now I’m living in the swamp and I’ve made 3 lol!!!!

Btw, I made all of the wooden pots for my cacti from my scrap pile. I have to quickly gather the scraps and tuck them into my studio when Mike and I are working on a project, as he tries to throw them away. He tells me “you’re not going to make anything out of that”. Me: Clears throat……I beg to differ (BOOM!) Mmmmhmmm

Also, you know that styrofoam that electronics are packaged with? Well, that’s what these cacti are made from. That foam cannot be recycled, so that means more crap for the landfills. I cannot bear to put it in my garbage, so I save it (with a million others things…..ask my husband) (my poor kids when I die) and now I’ve made use of some of it 🙂 The San Pedro and Prickly Pear cacti are mosaic’d with broken dishes and other random doo-dads, including Mardi Gras beads (because a little Nola is always a good thang!) and Lite Brite game pieces for the thorns. The saguaro is mosaic’d with some leftover vitreous tile and rhinestone strings I had, plus a few Lite Brites and beads. Matter of fact, there are several yards of rhinestone strings on that little saguaro cactus. It sparkles 🙂 They all sparkle, because I used mirror in the other two cacti because I believe sparkle brings happiness 🙂 Am I wrong?

Anyway, thanks for stopping by to keep up with what I’m up to. I had plans of posting this last Friday, but hurricane (but was it?) Barry jacked up my plans for a few days. Sigh. AND, If you’re interested in owning any of the above items, click on STORE at the top of this page and get your Frida on! AND, stay tuned for my next DRESS UP PHOTO SHOOT!! Think party 🙂

Until next time,

Peace!

Michelle

Wear Costumes Daily

Good Morning!

So sorry to have missed a couple of weeks of posting here. Time just seemed to fly by me…..as usual.

Anyway, check out this cool sticker I received from Jenny Campbell from @nolacostumes. If you like costumes, then go follow her on Instagram. She comes up with and creates the most AMAZING costumes!!! Seriously mind blowing work! I get to see her costumes in real life, as she’s usually in most of the New Orleans parades.

Speaking of costumes……I LOVE wearing costumes! It’s most likely one of the many reasons that New Orleans spoke to me as the place where I belong. As a child, I really didn’t get to wear costumes (not even on Halloween) unless I could manage to find something in my parents closet that I could use to get creative with. Even then, meh. But when I became an adult, if there was an opportunity that called for a costume, I dove into my imagination and scrap bag of fabrics to create something INTERESTING! Ha! I once made a fried egg costume for myself and a sausage costume for the dude I was with at the time. Hilarious!! Then there was the time that me and my coworkers dressed as the California Raisins. We made our costumes from large trash bags and we wore Gigantic sunglasses lol!! Good times!!!

Then motherhood happened.

My first daughter was only 10 months old when Halloween rolled around and I dressed her as a clown. That was the beginning of MANY YEARS of costume creations for my four daughters.

Every year around September, I would take my girls to the fabric store and they would pour over the pattern books until they found a costume design that they wanted. Sometimes I bought the pattern, but most times I didn’t because I felt I could create something similar to the picture they liked. Then my sewing machine was on overdrive and I would be creating those costumes up to the very last minute of walking out the door for Halloween celebrations. I worked a full time job and I was the mother of 4, so finding a minute to sew was always a challenge, but somehow I did it and they all looked SO CUTE every year.

My 2nd daughter’s birthday is near Halloween, so every year we would have a Birthday/Halloween Party, and her sisters could invite their friends as well. These parties became quite the event!! Even into the teenage years! We always had several fun games and we even had a haunted house one year! That was the year that someone called the police because they heard screaming children. When the policeman came to the gate and I greeted him in a full on green face and big nose witch costume, he chuckled and said never mind, carry on lol!!! As the girls got older, I created scavenger hunts and even involved many neighbors!!! Oh man, lots of work, but so much FUN!!!

Fast forward to now……how could New Orleans not speak to me as home. It’s a city that celebrates EVERYTHING and costumes are as natural as putting on your everyday clothes. Do you feel like wearing a tiara to the grocery store today?? Then do it! Because nobody is gonna judge you on that. And if they do, they are gonna get side-eye by a bunch of folks. EVERYTHING about this city speaks to me. I feel like it’s everything I’ve always been about, but didn’t have the freedom to do. For the first time in my life, I feel like I fit in and it all just makes me so very HAPPY! TRULY!

So without further ado, a few of our costumes:

That’s just a handful y’all! And then we needed a costume closet, so we made one of our spare bedrooms into a regular closet/costume closet.

Awesome, right??!!!! ❤

So now you know why @nolacostumes sticker spoke to me

Wear Costumes Daily

It’s what I was born to do!

And I want to add that I feel very lucky to be married to someone who really never had the desire to costume, but has jumped in fully and completely with me ❤ Yay

Peace!

Michelle

I love random junk

I really love junk! So much so, that my husband whistles the Fred Sanford theme song to me on a regular lol!!! I have no idea where my love of junk comes from. Sometimes I think it has something to do with my need to “rescue” those things that are being abandoned…..IDK

Anyway………I’ve been so lucky over the years to be the recipient of gift boxes of junk arriving at my door. I just get giddy with excitement when opening the boxes to see what kind of treasures lie within. Sometimes it’s boxes of broken dishes, broken pottery, like a broken vase, leftover colorful tile, broken (or unbroken) jewelry, pieces of colorful broken bottles, clay projects gone wrong (LOVE THOSE!), doll heads, barbies, silverware, unwanted toys, marbles, etc, etc, etc. ❤ ❤ ❤ LOVE IT ALL!!!!!!!!! ❤ ❤ ❤

And then, the next best experience to happen with all of that junk, is when the perfect mosaic project calls for one or more of those random pieces to come together as one. The unwanted and abandoned, now united together with the like, to become one. One beautiful piece of art. One beautiful piece of happiness 🙂 It’s why I do what I do ❤

Here’s a box I got in the mail yesterday: 🙂

This is a current project I’m working on right now. Look how cool that green head looks! That is a piece I received in one of those boxes I was telling you about. LOVE IT!!!

So this post is my BIG THANKS to those of you who look at your junk and instead of sending it to our overflowing landfills or dropping it at your local thrift store, you think, maybe Michelle can do something with this! Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!

I promise, I appreciate it ❤

Have a good Sunday!

Peace,

Michelle

WINNER of SHINE ON

Thanks to all who have joined and followed my blog/website so far!!! I am just getting started here, but all kinds of exciting things are in process right now and I can’t wait to share with y’all!! Also, there will be more drawings because this has been a lot of FUN!!

ANYWAY…..

THE WINNER IS: Squidloyal

CONGRATS!!!!

Send me your mailing address and I will get SHINE ON packaged up and sent to you!!! You have 5 days to claim.

Thanks again everyone!!! And stay tuned for more FUN!!!

Peace,

Michelle

Happy Belated Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day………….not one of my favorite holidays, especially when I can’t spend it with my girls. They are scattered in 4 different states so it makes it difficult to get together, but I count myself lucky that I usually get to see them all at least once a year. Thank goodness for FaceTime and text messaging. A day doesn’t go by without a text exchange from one or more of them and FaceTime is awesome for chats that make you feel like they’re right there in the same room. It’s good for chats with the grandkids too!! But still……….it’s not the same as having them all gathered around the table, talking over each other, laughing loudly and making me feel like the luckiest mom in the world.

When my girls were young and still living at home, I enjoyed Mother’s Day. I loved getting the cute little handmade gifts that my kids made in school, along with the homemade cards. I have several pieces of pottery from their grade school days scattered throughout my home. They are beautiful pieces of Art and also sweet reminders of the past.

Three of my four girls are now parents themselves and I love seeing pics of the special moments they spend with their children each Mother’s Day and really, every day. It’s a gift to me to know they are being good mothers to their children. I always tell them to do better than I did as a mother. Learn from my mistakes. I didn’t have a very good role model in the mother arena and I feel like I made a lot of mistakes. However, I do know that I was and am, a better mother than my mother, and so I tell my kids to keep it going by being a better mother than me…….and they are.

I haven’t seen or spoken to my mother in over 20 plus years and I’ve made peace with that. My mother didn’t love me……and not just me. It took me years to figure that out. My first inclination was when I gave birth to my first daughter and was flooded with the almost overwhelming love I had for her. It truly shook me. I had no idea that kind of love existed and then I thought, my mother doesn’t love me like this. And believe me when I tell you that from my earliest memories, I tried so hard to make her love me. I wanted it so bad. I mean, doesn’t everyone want their mother to love them? I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, and like I said earlier, I’ve made peace with it. I’ve also made it my life mission to make sure that my children have absolutely no doubt, whatsoever, how much I LOVE THEM…….SO DEEPLY. They are EVERYTHING to me. We sometimes have our tangles, because that is life, but until my last breath, I will be the mother who loves them with everything I’ve got.

Okay, I know that was a lot and I thank you for hanging on this far. It’s a touchy subject and I don’t like to discuss it much, but when I’m missing my girls, my feelings kinda fall out.

And now, I’m going to blast you with some photos of my loves.

Aren’t they BEAUTIFUL??!!! ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

Peace,

Michelle

p.s. The drawing for SHINE ON is in just 2 more days!!!

Mosaic Necklaces

Hey y’all!

Mama has been working hard!! I just dropped 13 lucky mosaic necklaces into my shop.

Looking for a one of a kind statement piece?? Go check them out!

So much happening in the studio! I’ll keep y’all posted here. My next mosaic post, if it all works out, should be a hoot!!

Also, thanks to all of you who have followed so far! It’s a slow process of getting people to jump on board, but I’m going to keep trying to transition my art life over here. Maybe you know some peeps who might want to join our club?? Holla at them lol!

Anyway, thanks again and go check out the new necklaces

Peace,

Michelle

Upcycling for the Birds

Check out my new fountain in the garden 🙂

Y’all who follow me on fb know that I make regular trips to see the tire guy, Gabriel, up the street. He’s happy to supply me with as many tires as I want. It’s a win for both of us as he doesn’t have to pay the fee to dump them and I get to have free planters for my garden AND less tires going to the dump!

Living in the swamp has been a learning experience for me. Most of everything that I plant needs to be planted above ground or it will drown. That’s a lot of soil purchases (dude!!!), so having free planters helps the pocketbook. Note: I don’t use the tires for my edibles. I build planter boxes for them.

The project I’m showing you today, was built with the birds in mind. I had purchased an old sink from The Green Project in New Orleans. They are a salvage store with the motto, Buy Used, Create New, and that’s just what I did. I painted a few tires, put a 5 gal recycled bucket in the center, added a small pump to the bucket and put the sink into the tire hole. I had an old faucet that I found at Mike’s office when he first moved in. I decided to create a mosaic block and insert the faucet into the hole that I drilled and then run tubing from the faucet to the pump. I added a few rocks and voila. Tip: If you decide to tackle this project for your garden, put the tubing into the faucet before you do anything. I created everything else first and then I found that the tubing didn’t want to go through the faucet. There was A LOT OF CUSSING and I jacked up my mosaic and let’s just say that the experience was very frustrating! Thank goodness Mike came to the rescue. We had to make a few changes, but then we finally got it to work. Lesson learned!

Anyway, now I have a fountain for the birds! The water stream is just enough. Not too much and not too little. The birds love it and even the hummingbirds are able to sip from the stream while hovering. I’m also hoping that the bees will be able to land on the rocks to take a drink without drowning.

Cool, Right??!!! I LOVE it!

Here’s to the birds & the bees and upcycling!

Peace,

Michelle

p.s. Thanks to all who have followed me here! I’m so happy to have you!

Shine On

Hello there and THANK YOU for visiting my new website/blog!

I’ve been wanting to do this for what seems like a million years, but you know how it goes…..LIFE! It’s been a little tricky lately, but I try to not let it get me down. That’s not how I roll. Shit happens, you cry about it and then you put one foot in front of the other and SHINE ON. Right?!!

Anyway, for the last couple of years (maybe more), I’ve been disappointed with the direction Facebook has gone and THEN, they had to go and buy Instagram and mess that up too. Everything on FB seems so divided and polarizing (especially since 2017) and Instagram is a popularity contest where everyone is working so hard to get as many followers as they can. It seems to me to be so desperate and on top of that, one big creativity suck. I mean, when people won’t even do business with you (no matter how great your work is), unless your IG numbers are high, what does that say about where we are as a society?? Put it all together and we have all become a bunch of puppets with Zuckerberg controlling the strings. How sad is that?!!! YUCK!!! We are bots!!! ALSO, everything you tune into anymore is DEPRESSING. I want a change!

So, I’ve decided to venture out on my own. I want to create a happy, fun and creative place to visit. No politics. No hate. Just goodness and art…..and FLOWERS! I will still be on FB and IG, but only for random thoughts and opinions (y’all know I have them! LOL!!!) and to hopefully convince y’all to hang out over here with me if you like what I do.

AND………in order to convince you to follow me here (see follow buttons to the right) (seriously, you should do it) (who doesn’t need a little happy in their inbox?!), I’m offering a give-away!!! That’s right!!! Follow me and you will be entered to win my newest creation, SHINE ON. Drawing to be held on May 15

I got the idea of SHINE ON when I watched Brandi Carlisle at the Grammy’s sing the song, The Joke. OMG!! That song gave me the goosebumps. Have you listened to it?? So GOOD!!! I got out my pad and sketched out the idea that had just plopped into my head. Then later, I came across the following and thought, Yes.

~And perhaps
what made her beautiful
was not her appearance
or what she achieved,
but in her love
and in her courage,
and in her audacity
to believe:
no matter
the darkness
around her,
Light ran wild
within her,
and that was the way
she came alive,
and it showed up
in everything
~Morgan Harper Nichols

Isn’t it BEAUTIFUL??!!!

And here is my newest piece, SHINE ON….. btw, I’m making a BIG one to go over my door in my house.

Wouldn’t that look great hanging in your house?? And wouldn’t it be a great reminder on those less than stellar days?? YES!!! So, go follow me and throw your name into the hat to possibly win it. And even if you don’t win, there will be a lot of good things happening over here to make you happy that you signed up anyway. And probably more give-aways because that’s a pretty damn happy thing to do too! Now, I’ll end my very first post here with this:

When life gets discouraging and doesn’t look like your soul feels, keep going and SHINE ON

I hope to see y’all over here on a regular!!!

p.s. I will have new items coming to my shop VERY SOON!!! Wait until y’all see what I’ve been up to 🙂

Peace!

Michelle