ruth rae & kelly snelling*

last thursday & friday, i had the pleasure of spending time with one of my favorite jewelry artists and fellow blogger~ruth rae. she and her co-hort~kelly snelling were in cincinnati for a week putting together the how-to pictures for their upcoming fabulous book~a charming exchange...here is the front cover

i drove down thursday night and had a great dinner at a place called TRIO, my wonderful friend~shara was also there as i cannot go to cincinnati withoutgiving her a call..she is a elementary school art teacher and a brilliant mixed media artist....anyway, we had a great time eating and drinking martinis and of course talking about everything!!!!! kelly had
a bee in her bonnet to see the well known cemetery~spring grove, right in cincinnati, so we drove over and it was closed..well, i wasnt about to disappoint her, since who knows when she would ever get back to ohio, even though she is from kentucky and has this great accent and she is so matter of fact, i love her! anyhoo, i told them i would drive back down and we could go, so that is what i did and it was FRICKIN' awesome!! to say the least.....spring grove built in 1845 is the 2nd largest cemetery in the United States and is spread out on 733 acres, people 733 acres it was amazing and we didnt even see a fourth of it..it is also an arboretum and there are beautiful old trees of amazing variety..now lets talk about the cemetery markers~WOW!!! ...below is a sampling of a few of the pictures were snapped...

these 2pictures were obviously from a life long eagle scout, the eagle is perched atop
a tall obelisk and the owl is at the bottom..very cool....
this statue of the headless woman was vandalized..so sad and such a stupid act!celtic design on a cross monumentthis is a huge statue that had a beautiful patina on it, i am assuming it is bronze underneath the patina but if you look closely between the folds of her toga, there are a couple of wasp nests and between her feet under the toga rests another wasp nest.....not too many wasps were home but enough for us not to bother them to much!!when it was time to go and we were driving out of the cemetery, we came up this beautiful church-like mausoleum, it looked like a small, small version of notre dame in paris, anyway it is magnificent. it looked like the bottom of the structure held the crypts and if you look at the last picture behind julie & ruth, the crypts are behind the metal gate. i am thinking that when family came they could reflect in the church above..i do not know but of course will just find out next visit, which will probably be next month..i cannot believe that i have live in ohio all my life and never knew this beautiful cemetery was ever here..it really is a magnificent place and if you get the chance , go visit!!

from left to right: julie, ruth, shara, kelly and me sitting on the step............