Scanned images from early 1950s editions...

Above:   Raggedy Ann and Andy by Johnny Gruelle. 

Below:   The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper.

When you’ve lived in one house for nearly fifty years, you tend to accumulate some interesting things along the way.  Here are a few things I found at my grandmother's house.

Above:  a package of six "Animal Party Sticks."  They're at least a few decades old, still in their original wrapping.

Below:  an oil painting by my aunt Frances when she was in high school.

The windmill below has been there for several decades, even though they land was parceled so it no longer sits on Gran's property.

“... the result is a series of rhyming lines and doodled beasts.”

When I saw this description of an art exhibit at the library, I knew we had to go.

The “Exquisite Bestiary” exhibit by Columbian artist Flora Cohen is a hands-on (“Please Touch!”) display of drawings developed from games she played with her young nephews.

Benjamin and Jonah loved moving around the pieces (attached at the wall with velcro).  They each found an appropriate caption of their own, which I captured on my personal blog.

We also went upstairs to see the “Stories from the Florida Vault” display which included vintage South Florida tourism and hotel brochures and steamship schedules (when Miami was marketed as a package destination with Havana and Nassau).  There were also comic books and sheet music featuring South Florida cities and landmarks.

When I was preparing my post on Etsy pouncing this past week I stumbled across an interesting shop called Eclectable showcasing the work of Michaella Ruffino. The bottlecaps in particular caught my eye because Jonah loves collecting them whenever he steps foot outside our door.

Remember I mentioned that good photography is essential to selling your creations online? Not a problem here -- Eclectable has fabulous photography! In fact I like some of her photos as much as the actual objects themselves!

Plus, she gutted the face of an old watch and filled it with little treasures:

So I had to meet this person... and here she is!

Michaella, tell us a little about yourself and your shop, Eclectable.

I live in the beautiful hill country of Texas. My horse, Prince Albert and I compete in Dressage. It is a very elegant sport and I really love it. I like to read, eat healthy, and be with friends and family.

Eclectable offers lots of fun bottlecap art, bottlecap art jewelry, and vintage/unique jewelry. I use pieces and parts of vintage jewelry (like the gutted vintage watch) to create my own unique jewelry.

I love the gutted watch idea – what inspired it? And where do you find your inspiration for your other pieces?

I was shopping at my local junk store and I found a couple of watches with no faces. They caught my eye and my mom said, "Whoa, Michaella, you could take these and put in junk and resin!"

Where do I get my inspiration from? Mostly, if I am surrounded by found and vintage objects and supplies then the inspiration just comes. It's really fun! My first inspiration for the bottlecaps came the summer of my sophmore year in highschool at The Attic Gallery in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The stingy and determined highschooler that I was, I asked the lady what "the shiny stuff was (resin)" and went home and made some of my own. Vintage odds and ends also really inspire me!

So where do you find the raw materials?

I buy the resin (Easy Cast) from Hobby Lobby/Michaels and I get the vintage and found objects from thirft and junk stores -- I treasure hunt. As for the bottlecaps...at first I went to my local Taqueria and asked them if they could collect their Coke bottlecaps for me for a while, and they did. I was pretty surprised. Also, my best friend is always finding me rare bottlecaps and giving them to me in bulk! As for the vintage bottlecaps, my pastor gave me a huge, HUGE batch from Canton, and when those are gone I'll buy my vintage bottlecaps from Etsy. Now that I'm picking up my production pace again (thanks to Etsy), I've been buying a lot of my supplies from other shops on the site.

What is your approach to creating art – do you assemble it together in your head before your start? Or work with and through the medium and see where it takes you?

Sometimes I'll get an idea/inspiration and I'll write it down or sketch it. And sometimes I work with what I have and let it take me through to the finish, I do not create it in my mind first.

Overall, once I touch my supplies, the end product is always different from the start...which is fun!

Also, I have created several custom bottlecaps. People send me pictures and ask me to make them into necklaces or bracelets.

Michaella’s workspace

What are your plans for the future - for both Eclectable and your life in general?

I’d like to become a history teacher - I already teach art at an educational co-op and that's a lot of fun! I'm excited to see where the Lord takes my life.

For Eclectable, all I will say is that I have a pretty neat piece coming out as soon as my supplies come in... Come check it out in a couple of weeks!

Thanks Michaella! I look forward to seeing more of your creations at Eclectable!

Previous artist interviews.