I collect a lot of Lego buildings. They're fun to build and play with, plus I get to set up all the people in town the way I like. These two sets are the Detective Office and the Pet Shop.
I just had to get this Lego typewriter. It was also a fun build because the carriage at the top moves as you "type" on the keys.
My daughter's first pair of sneakers.
The Lego treehouse took me forever to build because I was so busy writing that I wouldn't have time to work on it for months! I think it took almost a year before I finished putting it together.
This mermaid and pirate were the inspiration for Mermaid and Pirate!
The last pair of pointe shoes I danced in are on my bookshelf along with a ballerina figure that one of my 2nd grade students gave me as a Christmas present many years ago.
Two crystal Ganeshas and my ceramic chicken, Henny.
This "reading owl" was a gift by an artist who made several "douen" creatures for me to give away when The Jumbies first came out in 2015.
These three friends live on my bookshelf. The first is a chicken I bought outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a day I went to do research for AFRICAN ICONS. The beaded chicken reminded me of some of the African art on display inside the museum. The second item is a nesting doll. The outside is Mama D'Leau from Looking for a Jumbie. The interior dolls are Papa Bois, the soucouyant, the lagahoo, and the douen. All painted in the style of Looking for a Jumbie. The third is another nesting doll created by Vanessa Brantley Newton. She has a book called Nesting Dolls.