A Mermaid In A Shell

here s a sweet altered mermaid standing in a sea shell. I used the top half of a vintage woman from a postcard, and the bottom half of a mermaid from a coloring page, and a butterfly I enlarged to give her wings. The rest is different colored sequins and beads and glitter. The crown is the top of a glass ornament that I flattened and cut in half, easy to do with regular scissors. Since I have a huge collection of shells, I took a large one to have her stand in, and some ice blue acrylic rocks around her feet, with some smaller shells. The lichens I just found on my back deck today; a sweet bird was carrying it to build a nest with, but saw some bright yellow insulation clumps laying on the deck, and traded me for it.

You can't see since I put it in the back, but there s a knot of soft red hair stuck in the lichens...maybe from a deer or a dog, maybe even a fox. Probably taken from a carcass somewhere. I used to have a huge white German Shepherd named Sandy, and the birds would land on him in the spring and pull his hair out while he slept. I loved that dog, so smart and sweet and the first dog to ever call me Mama. He must ve picked it up from the kids calling me Mama, since we didn't teach him to say it. Sandy had a bad habit of chewing freshly plowed roots, and would get them stuck in the roof of his mouth. He'd sit outside the front door calling "Mama,Mama", and I'd go out to see what he wanted. It got to the point where I'd hear him calling me, and when I walked out he'd open his mouth and hold his head back so I could see. I'd tell him "wait right here, Mama will fix it" and I'd go get a pair of needle-nosed pliers that I had to keep close to the front door for just this purpose. The first time I had to use them it scared him just a little, but I patted his head and rubbed his belly and told him it'd only take a second. After that he knew that was the only way it was gonna come out. The kids used to sit on his back and ride on him like he was a little pony, and he loved it. Poor old Sandy.