...A Walk In The Park

A Picture, finally

2012-02-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

Here I am trying to take a photo in the mirror.

Here is the close up....

I made these earrings of silver polymer (Premo) clay, conditioned and rolled on a 4 or 5 on the pasta machine. Applied silver leaf (the kind in sheets that goes everywhere) and added some Pearl EX powders. Looks just like metal, but oh, so light weight.

That's it for today, gots to go get my teefers cleaned. See ya later!

Just catching up...

2012-01-28T18:28:00.001-05:00

Just a quick post to say that I'm still hanging around. Too triflin' to make a decent post. I keep myself busy making sure the house doesn't turn into an episode of Hoarders, while making lots of time to read, make jewelry or do needle crafts.

Since I don't have the gumption to take a picture of any of my current projects, here is a repeat of a watercolor still life that I did several years ago and then lost the painting. Sheesh, I need to get better at organization and stuff. Less time reading, ya think? Nah...

Speaking of reading, after months of putting it off, thinking that I had to have a special device to borrow an e-book from our local library...I finally figured our how to do it. All I had to do was download a free Adobe reader to my computer and I have access to lots of free books to read. I was hesitant to get a Kindle because I'm so funny (funny peculiar, not funny Ha Ha) about what I like to read, that I didn't want to spend money on something that I wouldn't like. Enter electronic borrowing. Not only can I borrow a book for up to 2 weeks, I can also download a preview of the book to see if I'll like it. I don't know if you can do that on an electronic reader, but this is working for me. This is probably old school by now, but hey....I'm old.

I hope everyone is having a good January. We haven't had any snow yet, and actually just a few days of below freezing temperatures. I'm OK with that, it's just that when it's overcast and the sun doesn't shine I just feel so un-motivated. I try to go to the gym five days a week, but this week I only did four days. The hubby hurt his elbow several weeks ago doing something, he's not sure what and it seems that every time he goes to the gym, he ends up in discomfort for the next few days.

Anyhow, that's what's up with us. I'm multi-tasking like crazy. Fitting in all my reading and artsy endeavors while I surf the web on sites like Pinterest (Pinterest is by invitation only, let me know and I'll hook you up) and StumbleUpon and still remembering to feed the hubs and myself along the way.

So I'm off to plop myself into a chair, fix a cuppa and do some reading. We'll talk soon, I promise.

This is different...

2012-01-16T18:42:00.000-05:00

As you know, I usually post pictures of art that I have done. Today, I am proudly posting the pictures of art that my sweet husband has done.

Ta Da! He finished his studio workstation. You may remember the initial photograph that showed him out in the back yard starting on this project. Well, as you can see, he persevered. He designed, built, stained and polyurethaned the desk. I was really happy that he allowed me so much input, as this was his project, after all. I suggested the oak for the top, as well as the color of the stain. I gave him fine grit sandpaper and a tack cloth from my stash of supplies and I think I was even instrumental in him using foam brushes for the first time. He loved them.

While he was occupied with his desk, I had time to think of fun projects around the house. We had the perfect place in our dining room for a little reading nook. Yesterday I browsed around a bit on the World Wide Web and found a chair that reminded me of how much I like to rock. My Grandmother was a rocker and I always read and rocked when I was a teenager. I found one online that I liked, so we went to a local furniture store to see if they had something similar.

Once again...Ta Da!

It's a rocker and a glider combo. There were some that were just back-to-front level gliders, that I liked, but this one, is an actual rocker on a fulcrum type mechanism, as well as a glider. It takes very little movement to get that rocking motion. It is so cozy and comfy, and it's my favorite shade of green. We found the perfect lamp at Home Depot and now, after making sure all my chores are done, I'm going to chill out and read for a while.

I made several really nice pieces of jewelry this week, but I'll save those for the next post. Hope everyone is having a great week so far. Remember, as always, stay creative and enjoy yourself and we'll talk soon.

January is upon us...

2012-01-08T13:59:00.001-05:00

Man, I cannot believe that another year has passed. Shucks, I can barely believe that two weeks have passed since my last post. Hmmmm, what have we done? Well, the fridge went out and we attempted (unsuccessfully) to live out of coolers in the garage until the repairman arrived.

Fortunately, the repairman had the necessary part for the fridge and we were back in business. We did have to toss out the food that I tried to keep, but the weather got unseasonably warm here and no amount of ice was going to stave off the botulism. Gave the fridge a thorough cleaning and off to the grocery store we went. So we're all stocked up again and the fridge is sparkling and working like brand new.

The hubby wanted a new desk for his home studio and after numerous (probably five or six) visits to the few furniture stores that are in our area, I convinced him to build his own. He is a residential carpenter by trade, specializing in trim, so I knew he could do it. He has built shelves in the past and did a great job on them. He spent several days on the internet, looking at plans, and YouTube videos and decided not only to make his own workstation, but to video the procedure. Here is a quick shot of him in the initial stages of building the desk.

While he was doing his research on the desk, I was getting together a rather large order from Fire Mountain Gems. I usually replenish my stash several times a year and FMG had such a good sale going on that I really racked up the items for under $200.00.

They had tons of books on sale for $2.00 and ...

lots of beads that looked interesting. I also got "findings", those little bits and pieces of metal that go into making jewelry look professional. Crimps and clasps and eye pins and such.

I made two bracelets this weekend and

I also strung together some spotted jasper donuts for a simple necklace that works so well with the black long sleeve knit shirts that I seem to live in lately...

I also put together a faceted plastic necklace that is very lightweight, but will definitely fill the bill when I need a bit more sparkle...

Of course, this picture doesn't do this piece justice. It is very reflective and has the look of hematite in a plastic bead.The beads are reversible Not my usual type of design, but I like to at least try to step out of the box sometime.

Well, that's it for now. I'm hoping that everyone is having a great first week of 2012. Keep doing your art, staying creative in whatever manner is you. Staying true to yourself doesn't mean doing the same thing all the time, unless you have a certain style that your livelihood depends upon. If that is the case, you can always branch out some, just for yourself. Like I said last time, it's ok to get your groove on, but stay out of that rut.

That's all, I'm outta here!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T22:54:00.000-05:00

Well, now that they have been received, I can post the pictures of the crocheted stuffies that I sent to my sisters for Christmas.

You gotta love an armadillo...

The armadillo was a project from the October issue of Crochet World. It was my first time crocheting from a pattern and certainly my first time doing any sculptural crochet. There was a bit of a learning curve and the tail of this creature was where I had the most difficulty. I finally figured out what I wanted it to look like, but there was a lot of "non pattern" work that went into it. (That means I made it up as I went along)

You simply cannot go wrong with a cardinal and a little mousie...

The little mouse was from a pattern in a special issue of Crochet Today called Crochet Gift List. I really learned a lot about crocheting figures and shapes. Both were good magazines for learning. After all, there are more things to crochet and knit than just afghans or scarves. While I do love making both of those particular items, it was such fun to know that I could branch out, so to speak.

There is a bit of a story behind the cardinal. I love cardinals and always have. They are such a beautiful color and they are the State Bird of Virginia, the state from whence I come. That being said, let me share something with you. We recently lost a family friend in a car accident. She was a long time friend, an older gal that loved to be out and about. We were told by her son that she was slumped over in her seat at time of impact, so she probably had no knowledge of what happened. Meanwhile out on the West Coast, very close to the actual time of the accident, my sister said she was visited by a cardinal, outside their house. This seemed to be a female cardinal, one that she hadn't seen before. We, of course, thought that this was a wonderful occurrence and like to think that, perhaps, this little female bird may have been somehow related to the passing of our friend. The really cool thing is our friend's given name was...Virginia. I'm sure that the little crocheted bird will be a loving reminder of our friend. I did it free hand, and while there were areas that could have been perfected, I think it will do just fine.

Well, I hope everyone had the holiday that they were hoping for. Ours was a quiet one, which is our usual celebration. We did go to a movie Christmas Day and saw Warhorse. Pretty good movie, but Christmas Day at the movies is much busier that we had anticipated and there were some issues with that. All in all, we have had a great weekend.

I'm looking forward to getting back to my usual schedule of going to the gym, NOT eating treats and generally getting back in my little groove. We have been invited to a New Year's Eve party, but I'm really not crazy about going out on that holiday, so maybe we will decline that little soiree.

Well, stay safe and happy and get back in your own groove. Remember there is a big difference in a rut and a groove. Make that difference happen in your own life, you'll be glad you did.

Hello to all...

2011-12-16T12:05:00.000-05:00

Well, just a quick post to say hello to all. Hope you are doing well. I'm hanging in there, nursing a back muscle, that decided to make it's presence known in a big way. I don't really know how I strained it (probably from lifting weights at the gym) but it is a nagging visitor that just wont leave.

Hubby just returned from his yearly delivery of Christmas envelopes. Through out the year he routinely takes donuts to our friends at the dentist. Since we have been going to the dentist for over a decade, we've really become friends with the folks that work there. We know them and love them. They are more than just someone that works somewhere. We share the changes in their lives...birthdays and graduations of children, as well as divorce and illnesses.

Anyway, when hubby went in today for a quick dental check up, he took the usual goodies and the Christmas envelopes. Imagine his surprise when they brought out packages for us. He was totally surprised and got verklepmt to be sure.

I got all teary eyed myself, when he told me on the telephone and then we both cried again when we opened the gift itself. It is gift basket from Fresh Market...

This was such a good choice for us. They know that we try to eat healthy and that we go to the gym. This is a bag filled with gluten free items and it is full, as you can see, with food stuffs that we will eat and not have to re-gift.

Well, that's it for now. Hope everyone is preparing for a fun weekend. Don't stress out over the holiday shopping. Remember what your holiday is really about and take time to contemplate, meditate or pray.

That's it for now. We'll talk soon.

I've finally made a decision...

2011-12-02T16:16:00.000-05:00

I'm dropping out of the weight loss challenge at our gym at the half-way point. That doesn't mean that I've given up, it just means that I want to find a way to customize my workouts and not be at the mercy of a pre-determined generic workout. I'm tired of dreading the sessions. Everyone says working out is supposed to be fun. Well, guess what...going out with your honey, that's what's fun. Meeting up with friends where your hair looks good and you don't have to worry about passing gas in public because you are in a torturous position, that's what's fun. Meeting new people and not sweating on them when you shake their hand, that's what's fun. Get my drift?

I tried to make the most of it, but truth be told, I don't give a rat's patooty if I never do another burpee or another mountain climber. I'm ready to plan my own workout, doing the things that I do like so the workout will be less aggravating (notice I didn't say fun). I think I can still be fit and feisty if I do it myself. This is the second time I've tried the standard trainer driven workout plan of bosu balls and crab walks, and this old gal is tired of people thinking she's a miserable old coot, because she doesn't think military style calisthenics are fun. Maybe I just don't like being on a team, I've always been a loner type when it comes to doing things. Whatever it is, there are gonna be some changes made.

So all that being said, I'll keep you posted on how it goes. I'm not saying I'm smarter than the certified trainer, I'm saying she's not certified in motivating and training a Silver Fox like me. I'll show them, you just wait and see!

Black Friday with an update, scroll down yall.

2011-11-25T15:00:00.002-05:00

Hope everyone here in the States had a great Thanksgiving. Since we either make our gifts or order online, I don't have to get involved in the Black Friday shopping frenzies. Speaking of making gifts, a friend in North Carolina, who has her own blog, commissioned a crocheted hat for one of her girls. It was my first attempt at crocheting a child's hat, let alone a novelty hat, but I'm happy with it.

The colors aren't true in this shot, as the pink is much prettier than it shows up here, but hey, it's for a kid. She wont really care that much about the colors.

So that's my quick little post for today. Even though our Thanksgiving dinner is small compared to some of the shindigs that others have, there is still a kitchen to clean. So with that in mind, I'm back to doing my chores.

Enjoy the long holiday weekend and stay safe and DO NOT get pepper sprayed at Walmart!

Here is a picture of Layla in her new hat, sent to me by her mom yesterday.

The perfect picture!

My, Oh My...how time flies.

2011-11-16T12:21:00.001-05:00

Can't believe it's been three weeks since my last post. Good thing I don't have to do penance for that. As we know, just because I'm not posting doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Some of you may remember that I'm currently on a needlework kick. That's the way I am, I might spend several years doing nothing but polymer beads and then six months on pastel paintings and so on. So I'm doing needlework. Crochet, knitting, and bit of needlepoint here and there and pretty soon you have nice little frillies for you, your home and your friends and family.

You may remember me discussing my latest stab at knitting. I cannot remember if I posted the shawl that I knitted. Said shawl started out as a scarf and morphed into a shawl/lap blanket. It's got several apparent boo boos, but that's what makes it unique...

In addition to the shawl, I have crocheted several potholders. I have been crocheting since I was a teen, but I never really tried to learn any more than a standard single or double crochet. Armed with that knowledge, and alternating those two stitches, you get a textured piece that looks like these bad boys...

If you are a crocheter, you will notice that I changed it up a bit and did a double row of double crochet in the center of the top potholder. I am always wanting to know what will happen "if". I have lots of unfinished projects because of this quirky quest for learning new stitches, but once again...that's OK.

I used to love those lacy, yet sturdy doilies that everyone had back in the olden days of my youth. It never occurred to me that they were being created by some little old gray haired lady in her living room. They look so complicated that I just knew it took a crew of medieval tapestry weavers and artisans to create these little works of art. Well, I just decided I can do something like this, myself. Soooo, with all that in mind I purchased a ball of red cotton thread/yarn and started to crochet a hairband/head warmer type of thing. Three weeks I'm working on this thing and this is what I have so far...

It takes so long to do, this decision to make something solid out of duh...thread. I realize now why items made using this yarn are light and open and done in chain stitch. Only a novice like yours truly would choose single crochet to embark on her first journey into cotton thread. We will see how this progresses. I really love the color and the feel of the fabric that is being so laboriously created. It may end up as the fabric for a small purse or such.

Last, but certainly not least, is the craft project that I was working on at the time of my last post. You know the "snob about crafts" post? Well, I finished it and went a bit out of the box with some added embellishing with several paint pens, and am happy with the results. It is a craft kit that hubby got off of eBay several years ago. I have about five or six more and I'm spacing them out to make them last. So I present to you...

He's a sleepy little owl sitting on a crushed glass branch, with crushed glass leaves. His feathers are comprised of orange and white crushed stone that I glued on after lining the design out in black waxed cording. Easy once you get the hang of how to handle the cording and how much glue to use. Since the original glue was not usable, hello...1970, I used Aleen's white, extra tacky, glue. Good substitute.

So there you have it. In between a weekend trip to DC to meet with some like minded folks and going to the gym week days, I still find time to create. Now, my house looks like a cyclone when through it, but that's another post for another day. Point being, I still contend that there is an artist lurking within each of us. We just have to encourage that shy little artist to come by more often. Mine has taken up permanent residence, so I try to keep her fed and warm and happy.

That's it for today. Have a great week and have some fun!

Are you a snob?

2011-10-25T18:27:00.000-04:00

One thing I was often conscious of growing up, was the people that I thought were snobs. The definition of snob changes as you grow. One of the definitions from the dictionary goes something like this:

...a person who strives to associate with those of higher social status and who behaves condescendingly to others...

I have always been a down to earth type person, I hung out with the people I liked, regardless of their social standings. I have known (and still do) people that would snicker at something someone else was saying, not because they enjoyed their company, but because they were looking down on that person.

I do have to admit that I went through a period of my life where I was an "art snob". I wanted to do art, but I didn't think that I wanted to do crafts. At one point, my sister was able to hook us up with an artist type that was giving us personal instruction in pottery. Apparently he was a bigger art snob than we were. We took care of that. Much to his dismay, he was haughtily dismissed after referring to our artsy adventures as "our little craft thing".

To me, growing up, crafts meant gluing cotton balls on a construction paper star to make a Santa, or making ducks out of clothespins. I realize now how much work goes into crafts. So to Crafts, I say "I am sorry I was such a snob". I realized how snobby I had been when a person was asking about a necklace I had made, and she said in a very condescending tone, "oh, you just strung that?", as if to say "how boring is she, she might as well be stringing Cheerios". You know, I really don't want to be that person.

At least we know that's it never too late to change. I can appreciate the great works of art that hang in the most famous museums, and still appreciate the thought, planning and work that goes into crafts like scrap-booking and mixed media art, things that I'm not into. I realize now, that I don't have to like the finished product, but I understand and can recognize when someone has really tried on something.

On the other hand, if I don't like you, and that sometimes happens, it will be extremely difficult for me to acknowledge your talent. Especially if you "dis" my sister and me.

I actually don't know what prompted me to go off on this rant. Maybe because I haven't made a post for a while. In any event, I have been doing bit of crafting down in the art/craft studio and will soon have pictures to prove it.

Take care, y'all and try not to be a snob.

Hello Friday...

2011-10-07T10:51:00.000-04:00

Hello Friday, Susan here. Even though I'm not in the traditional work force any more, I still have that "it's Friday!" attitude every week. I like to think about what has happened during the week, what we have done, and what needs to be done to start a new week.

The hubby and I have been a bit under the weather this week. He has been slightly sicker than I. We both had sinus problems, body aches and general malaise. That's an interesting word and works quite well for how we were feeling, but it you read further down in the Wikipedia description, you will find all kinds of related conditions. but that's another post for another day.

Any hoo, I just wanted to come by and say hi and let you know what artsy creations I have been working on. As you my know by now, I am once again trying to perfect my knitting and crocheting skills and I have come up with these...

This little table runner/scarf is a practice piece using bulky, self striping yarn. This is such a cool way to work. Here is a little blurb on About.com explaining a bit about this type of yarn. I didn't realize there was such a thing until I dug a skein out of a care package that Sissy sent. I started working with it and soon realized what was happening.

The little cosy on the glass jar holding my silk forsythia, started as a practice piece using the knit, purl technique that makes ribbing. I knitted it flat and then joined the edges together for a matching piece to the table scarf. I'm planning on using this same technique for a wrist cuff or two.

I learned to crochet back in the 70's, but I never progressed past the basic crochet stitches. If fact, I didn't even know there were other stitches, but in one of my new magazines, Crochet World, one of the patterns has a stitch called the afghan stitch. This stitch, also called Tunisian crochet is traditionally done with a long crochet hook that has a stop on the end. After reading and reading the instructions for this technique, I finally had to go to the Youtubes to see it being done. After seeing it in action, I realized that I could do a smaller version on a regular hook. After several false tries, I did come up with this.

You may be able to tell that I inadvertently began to decrease the stitches after several rows. I finally realized that this was happening and made the necessary adjustment. This is such a cool technique. It is part crochet and part knitting and makes an almost woven piece of fabric. I've seen online this method used for yarn items that are then cross stitched on. Very cool.

Well, that's what I've been up to this week. That and continued work on the blue knitted shawl. I hope it is still going to be a shawl. It started out as a scarf, but I made it too wide. So I'm calling it a shawl, but I think it will do double duty as a lap rug. Well, I'm having fun with it and it keeps me off the streets.

Hope everyone is having a great fall. Remember that I have another blog (check my right hand sidebar) for other projects that my friends, followers and I will be posting online.

So take care and enjoy your weekend. Happy Friday!

I'm such a slacker...

2011-09-23T19:11:00.000-04:00

I know, I'm such a slacker. I have been doing all kinds of things this month, but I haven't been taking pictures. Just now I did manage to pick my lazy self up and take a picture of the bracelets I made this month.

The other thing I have been doing is re-learning to knit. I knitted a scarf about three years ago, shucks, you might remember seeing it here, but my skill level is beginner to be sure. I am persevering, and my home is now being overrun by squares and rectangles. Hubby is being very patient, especially when I grumble when I drop a stitch, or even worse, when the entire row of stitches came off. Anyway, the main reason I want to learn to knit is to make, what else? Bracelets. Ones like these...

I figure it won't take me too long. I saw some similar in a Vogue knitting magazine in 2008, and I will be using that as a pattern. Wish me luck on that. In the meantime, I'm practicing on another scarf. In cool colors this time, aqua and a heathery lavender variegated. Should be pretty.

Well that's it for awhile. Hope everyone is enjoying the beginnings of fall. Take care and have a great weekend. We'll talk soon.

Guess who we met?

2011-09-13T12:40:00.001-04:00

I'm still a procrastinator when it comes to taking photos of all the art jewelry I've made recently, but that doesn't mean I don't have a new picture. Recently we got to meet a sweet gal. You may know her from Saturday Night Live fame, but she has done so many other things and continues to be a real go getter. We met her at a meeting of like minded folks in our area and she was so gracious and happy to pose with us for this picture.

It was extremely hot, with the sun beating down on us, but not too hot for coffee

Yep, it's Victoria Jackson. She was a sweetheart, just a down home Southern Gal who made it big. She had a big smile for everyone and when she admired the necklace I was wearing, one I had made a while back, I gave it to her. Hopefully it will hold up to her active lifestyle (she still stands on her head) and now I can say a celebrity wears my designs.

You might even remember the necklace shown in the photo, if not or if you're a new reader, you can read about it in more detail here. It was a blog post from 2009. Sure hope that Vicki doesn't mind wearing a prototype. After seeing it on her I just might have to assemble something similar based on that design.

Well, now that the earthquakes and eye exams are over and there are no longer bats in the basement, I can mosey on down to the studio and create something fun and fab. I'm currently trying to perfect my bangle bracelet design and I think I've come up with an unusual armature that just might do the trick. So with that in mind, I'll go throw some clothes in the dryer, put on my thinking cap and skedaddle.

Have a great week and remember that there is an artist in all of us.

I'm a busy girl...

2011-09-05T21:13:00.000-04:00

I've been a busy girl and don't have a new post ready yet. In the mean time, please hop over to my other blog and check out the latest artist to be showcased. Hopefully that will hold you over for a few days.

In between a weekend trip for a family wedding, and getting ready to go to the eye doctor, I just am unsure what my next art will be, so humor me and leave a comment or two at Where We Really Create.

I'll be back soon, so take care and have a great week!

Just as promised...

2011-08-24T14:08:00.001-04:00

I guess I should touch base with folks about what's going on in my part of the world. Two weeks ago an incident with a bat in our basement was going to be part of my next post and as creepy and disrupting as it was then, it just doesn't seem blog worthy today.

Yesterday we felt the vibrations from an earthquake here in our state of Virginia and I thought for sure that would be blog worthy. Alas, after hearing all the comments made by folks on the television that have been in real earthquakes about how silly we acted about it all...not blog worthy. Just not feeling it.

I spent the last several weeks working on making bracelets, some of which turned out pretty cool...but once again they probably aren't blog worthy.

This first one was a second hand bracelet, that I wire wrapped with pink wire and added clear plastic beads from a second hand necklace.

This is a polymer clay bracelet embellished with wire and leather cording tied in knots for some texture.

While this one is polymer clay painted with the ever present gold leafing pen, wrapped in wire and embellished with Tim Holtz gears, held on with black polymer clay fashioned to look like screw-heads.

These last two are polymer clay bases covered with randomly shaped chunks and pieces of polymer clay. Good way to use up scraps. Then carved and baked, after which I highlighted them with ivory acrylic paint.

My hubby is working very hard at revamping my clothes closet. The before pictures I took just don't do justice to how old fashioned and non-functional it really was, so that turned out to be not so blog worthy.

Hubby tore down all the old shelving and rods and is putting up new white shelving. It's very nice and bright. Having a carpenter for a spouse is a good thing. After shots will be forthcoming.

Now you probably know by now, I'm normally a very happy, upbeat gal. I like and appreciate most things. When it comes to art and crafting, if I find something interesting, I usually Google it and check it out online and then proceed with my take on it. It's just this...I don't get physically excited over things. Shoot, sometimes when something is really funny, I don't even laugh, I just say "now that's really funny". I'm laid back. Always. So when I say something is lovely or that I really like it, I mean just that. So don't think that I don't. If you want me to jump up and down to prove how much I love something, you will probably be disappointed.

I'm not sure how any of that that applies to this post, except to say that with the bat, and the earthquake and my clothes closet being remodeled, plus the silly bracelets, this is seemingly a non blog worthy post. I guess sometimes that's just the way it is. Glug.

Don't forget to send photos of your work area and/or your current projects to be the topic of future posts on Where We Really Create. We are showcasing Jenny B. this week and be on the lookout for my friend Kristen next week. My favorite sibling will be the next week. So keep those cards and letters coming and we'll talk again soon.

Please forgive the typos, this stupid blogger is making me coo-coo, and I may not have corrected them all.

Hang in there...

2011-08-22T19:43:00.001-04:00

Hang in there with me, I'm going to have a new post very soon. Think bracelets and bats...

In the mean time, be sure and check out the new blog. This week I'm showcasing the work space of Jenny B. Hope you have the time to check it out, then hop over to Jenny's blog and say hi.

Happy August and a New Blog!!!

2011-08-04T17:34:00.001-04:00

Can you believe it is August already? Gosh, time really does fly by. I guess that is why it is taking me so long to make a new post here. I have been in my studio almost every day, smooshing and flattening and rolling polymer clay. I had lots of fun making the faux metal from last post and spent quite some time on Flickr and Etsy looking at art beads and found a gal named Rebecca that has the best photo tutorials that I have seen in some time. I haven't asked her yet, but hopefully she wont mind if I link to her page on carving polymer beads. I saw how she did this and the wheels started turning. Just what I needed in order to do the high jump out of that box that I was crouched in. So with artybecca's photo tutorial in mind, I came up with a few of my own.

I used a needle with a polymer clay handle as my sketching/etching tool. For a design, believe it or not, I used my hand print that was embossed into the bead when I formed it. I elaborated on this idea on this bead, and on several others made with ivory clay.

After curing them in my trusty toaster oven and letting them cool, I used brown acrylic paint and made sure to get it in all the grooves that I made with the needle tool. You then remove the excess paint with a paper towel. I usually set the bead aside to allow the paint to dry into the groves. I then put rubbing alcohol onto a paper towel (acrylic paint is removed by alcohol...a good tip to know if you ever let your brushes dry before cleaning them) and I gently remove the paint from the bead with the alcohol'd paper towel. I have tried using terry cloth, but it takes away too much of the paint. If you remove too much of the highlight paint, you can repeat the process. After making sure the bead is completely dry, I use automotive wet/dry sanding paper and just knock down some of the little nibblets that remain from the carving process.

Keep in mind that if you are over zealous with the sanding, you will lose your design.

So there you have the basic process. You can use any color clay and any color accent paint, but some of the most fun came from using the technique in Rebecca's tutorial. Her beads are made using scrap clay, and I have a ToN of scrap clay, I came up with these...

After some trial and error using the darker paint, I figured out that I would use lighter paint for the highlight color, so for these I used ivory paint to bring the design out and I was really pleased with the results. Here we have a closer view of the scrap beads...

As I mentioned before, I etched or carved with a needle tool, and poked and tapped to get the texture. It's sometimes surprising what images start to appear from just outlining the different colors. I have bad vision, in addition to my trifocals, I used my lighted magnifying glass to carve mine. This made the colors really pop, making it much easier to see. I carved both sides of the beads, and here are the backs of a few...

All of these designs were the product of outlining random colors with no theme in mind. This is really a lot of fun and reminds me of doodling or zentangles. You can lose track of time and sometimes that's a good thing.

After getting the hang of the etching into really soft clay, I decided to do something other than a bead. It could easily be drilled for a bead, but I was thinking of just putting it on my desk...

For the basic image of the bird, I actually cut a picture of a bird out and pressed it into the raw clay to get the outline. For the rest of the design, I was just winging it.

Since it's been about two weeks since I posted, I still have a lot of other creations to show you. I started off doing some bangle/cuff bracelets out of polymer. There was a bit of a learning curve with the bracelet making and some of them worked...

and some of them didn't...

This could be fixed, but that's another project for another day.

I've decided that one of my favorite creations in the past few weeks was this faux bone pendant...

It's a bit large and sort of clunky, and those of you that like a more traditional piece of jewelry probably wont go for it, but the women at the post office really dug it. Here is a close up shot of the focal bead...

It was made using the faux bone technique, into which I gouged some holes after baking. Then I rubbed some colored clay into those gouges and cured it again. Then I antiqued it with some dark paint and went to my bead stash for the accent pieces. I actually spent a lot of time on the design and construction of this piece. It's probably going to be one of my favorite necklaces.

While I was taking pictures for this post, I took one of my messy table in my studio and said to myself. This is really where we create. There are now magazines out that showcase studio spaces and art spaces. These magazines are really nice and serve as motivation and inspiration for us all. But in order to have your workspace shown in one of these types of magazines there area usually lots of rules and regulations and bells and whistles necessary just for submission and who has time for that. Soooooo, I was thinking, how about starting a blog for real people to show real work spaces and not just the cleaned up version of their studio. With all that in mind, I'm going to try to start a new blog called...Where We Really Create. I thought my friends could send me pictures of what their tables look like when they make something and then show me what they made. No hoops to jump through, minimal rules. Just me posting your pictures. Sound like fun? I could link to your blog and you can get more followers. If this sounds cool to you, hop on over to the new blog and check it out. No followers yet and it will be my art until I get some feed back. If it works, it will be fun...if not, I've lost nothing but a few hours of my time.

Well, that's it for today. Have a great rest of the week and don't tell anyone that I stayed in my pj's all day.

Something different

2011-07-24T21:32:00.000-04:00

Since I had been making polymer clay jewelry for several weeks, I needed a break so I thought I would try something new.

Here you have a bird and a reminder to laugh and wish...

Here we have a close up of the above sculpted and hammered bird...

Here we have a cat with his back turned... he's about the size of an ATC, suitable for framing...

Here is my version of a horse...I'm thinking of framing him as a gift for a equine loving friend...

Are you amazed by my metal working skills? You had NO IDEA I could do this? Settle down kids, it all an illusion. It's Fake, It's Faux. It's my attempt at making copper/bronze art out of polymer clay. Yep, it's all polymer clay.

I used scrap clay and mixed up a very nice dark green. Then I either sculpted, rubber stamped, or cut with an exacto knife the main image. I then used metallic powders in gold, copper and silver. It was all experimental but turned out to be lots of fun.

After having all this fun with polymer clay, I thought I needed to paint something. So I got out my paints and canvas boards and tried all week to think outside of my usual box, to do something artsy, but it just wasn't much fun. I felt frustrated and not talented and that is NOT why I do art. So I put away the paints and cleaned up the art table and got out my clay again. My sister reminds me that polymer clay is what I always run back to if I've got a creative block.

What do you do when your creative juices are evaporating from the heat? Do you sit back and wait? Do you find inspiration in some of the thousands of books and magazines that we all have? Do you sort through buttons or fabrics? What is your favorite way to get back in your own personal groove? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, that's it for today. Hope you like my faux metal work. Try to stay cool and happy. Kiss your loved ones and dance a jig.

New art...

2011-07-13T18:23:00.000-04:00

Not much to post today. It is hot and humid here in the Star City and other than the fitness center and running errands we are staying close to home.

We finally got most of our digital pictures sorted and had prints made...2100 to be exact. It's going to be fun going thru them and making tabs and organizing. Some of them are so funny that the guys who developed them must have thought we were some wild and crazy kids.

I did get some painting in. I found an old snapshot that my brother-in-law took in a Florida many years ago. I still need to touch up the water to get the illusion of depth around several of the trees, and a horticulture friend wants me to add more knees to them just for fun. I went on and signed it anyway, but one of the fun things about acrylic is the ability to fru-fru around with the painting even though it is dry.

I got several books on painting from the library today and I am hoping that I will be able to use them to loosen up my style some. I always tend to go toward a more realistic style of painting, but sometimes I just want to dab and splash and scrape and blob. We'll see if I can let go long enough to do something outside my little comfort zone.

Well, that's it for today. I hope all of you have happiness in your lives. Enjoy life and give everyone a hug from me.

What's up with us??

2011-06-30T13:04:00.001-04:00

Why have I gone from posting every week, several years ago to posting every two weeks? Life. Even my life, as blessed and some might say relaxed as it is, get hectic. I am home full time and that can translate into cooking three meals a day, doing dishes and cleaning house (sometimes), and most of the other things that go with keeping a family healthy and happy. We eat well, exercise regularly, run errands, clean messes, make household repairs, deal with sudden events like running around like a nut covering up power tools when a storm is brewing and hubs is at Lowes, things like that.

Add into this normal routine watching the coverage of the Anthony trial on my computer and television and you have a pretty full day. Some days I clean house while the trial is on, some days I just sit at the table and do art. I am currently at a standstill with polymer clay bead making. Everything I make is starting to look the same. That may mean I'm developing a new style, but actually I think I'm ready to move on to something else. I got out my unsharpened set of Prismacolor pencils and started to sharpen them and to my frustration, each one broke as I sharpened it. Now I'm not the sharpest pencil in the desk, but I know that these are good pencils and would not just be breaking, so that means I need to get a new pencil sharpener. Office Max had an actual Prismacolor brand sharpener, so I tried that and man, it is great. The best hand held sharpener I have tried in years. Be sure and try it out if you are having a problem sharpening colored pencils.

So while I'm doing chores and sharpening pencils, I try to keep checking on DH (dear hubby) while he is working on a under-deck drainage system, very similar to this one. He is doing a great job, but it has required several trips for lumber and other supplies. When he was doing major yard work earlier this summer he got into chiggers, and poison oak and had quite a time. Now that he is under the deck, a little bit of sunscreen and bug spray, along with some ice water is all he needs. I don't have to worry about him taking a tumble down into the woods, which on our little acre is a distinct possibility, so I'm staying inside watching the trial.

I haven't posted any pictures because I had to replace my computer and have just now reloaded my photo program. Hopefully soon I will have some new pictures to show you. Before and afters of the deck, along with a picture of a dime-sized frog that was helping out.

All that being said, seems like we were too busy to make a gift for a very special gal, so once again we are sending something pretty cool that we bought. But not to worry, Lucky, as soon as Carl Coyote gets off that ladder he WILL be at the art table. Homer can attest to that, as well as Laurie.

Well, that's it for now. Take care all and be sure to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you.

How's it goin' y'all?

2011-06-14T16:08:00.000-04:00

Just stopping by for a few minutes to say hello and to see if everyone is doing OK. I'm doing my usual thing, working out and trying to eat healthy. I'm still playing around in the studio and in between play times I even found time to finish a commissioned order of miniature food earrings. They have been received now so I can show them to you.

This time I added cheese to the burgers...

and since some of them were to be PR for a diner in Georgia, I made some bacon and eggs...

and ham and eggs...

I also made some hot cakes and some waffles, but the photos are not the best. And just for fun, I'm posting a picture of me. I had my hair cut six weeks ago and never got around to posting the before and after pics, but here I am now. Almost time for a trim.

We are having a lovely day today. Actually quite cool and comfy. We have had so many days already in the upper 90's that a day in the 70's is wonderful. Even with the heat I have enjoyed sitting on out on the deck and reading.

Speaking of sitting on the deck, we lost power one evening last week. We had plenty of battery time on the laptop, so we lit a couple of candles, got some chips and ginger ales and sat out on the deck in the dark and watched Andy and Barney on DVD while the power guys tromped around in the woods in the pitch black working on the cable. That was fun. They didn't figure out what was wrong for quite some time, but we finally got power late the next morning. Looks like a generator might be in our future.

Well, that's it for me today. I'll try not to take so long between posts, but I know you know how it is. Take care and keep me posted on what's happening in your part of the bloggersphere.

Life goes on...

2011-06-03T19:55:00.001-04:00

Ahh, yes...life does go on. Blogging seems to get put on the back burner if I don't have anything that I think is extremely interesting. Why should that be? Everyday life is interesting. The fact that we wake up every morning to greet another day is interesting. Who is to say that me mentioning all my crazy ailments isn't interesting?

In the past few weeks, I have turned my ankle and had to baby it for an entire...evening. My habit of sitting in a folding chair outside while supervising DH's many chores, afforded me a lovely spider bite that didn't abate until I finally found the Benadryl several days later. It even blistered at the bite sight (rhyme time) and I had to repeatedly "doctor" it to get it to heal. Shucks, I still have a scab from that. And I closed the refrigerator door on said injury the other night and that hurt like crazy and now I have a huge bruise on my inside left forearm from....wait for it....pinching my own arm, while sleeping in a tight ball with my arm trapped between my still somewhat plump knees. Ahh, the joys of growing older. I always have bruised easily and I don't think that will be changing.

And so it goes here in my corner of the world. I am still working out 5-6 days a week and am keeping my calories between 1200-1400. I'm weighing in at 175 and all my size 18 jeans are finally too big. Needless to say my current swimsuit is too large, so I went to the mall (even though there was a stabbing there the previous day) and got a mix and match type suit. Full coverage bottom with a kicky little skirt combined with a nice Delta Burke top. I will still be in big girl sizes for a while yet, so I just better deal with that. The pool at our fitness center does not have a deep end, so we will be checking out the city pool on the other side of town. Hopefully the kiddies will stay in the shallow end and now that I can swim and have fun in the deep end, I will be doing just that. I will be keeping plenty of SPF 30 or higher in reach. Look up lily white in the dictionary, and you will see my picture.

I'm still having fun with polymer clay and am currently trying to decide if the July Birthday Girl will be getting her usual object d'art, or something fun from one of the many online stores that I am so fond of checking out. Oh, well..I do still have several weeks.

Hubby and I have a commencement to attend in the morning at eleven. The daughter of one of our friends is valedictorian of her class. I'm interested to see what she will be saying. Graduation speeches are probably a bit different than they were in 1971. I doubt if she will advise her friends to "keep on truckin" and hopefully she won't fall off her massive platforms that match her white mini dress. But who knows?

Well, that's it for me for now. Hope everyone is having a great week. Take care and keep those cards and letters comin'.

New pictures...

2011-05-23T16:11:00.001-04:00

As promised, here are some shots of the polymer clay beads that I have been working on for the past several weeks. The tile in the pictures is a cheap ceramic tile from Home Depot that you can make on and bake on. Stock up on them.

As usual, you can click on the picture to enlarge it. This first one is made using colors straight from the package, conditioned and then shaped and baked. I often make earrings and a matching or coordinating pendant.

This black and gold necklace is the one I spent the most time on. I used black clay and pressed the beads onto texture sheets. The beads were pressed into the sheet that looks like leopard spots and the pendant was pressed into a sheet that had a branch type design. After baking them I used gold leaf accent paint on the raised areas. Nice huh?

These faux ivory pieces were made using ecru or ivory colored clay and then accented with paint and transfer foil.

This bracelet was made using a custom mixed ivory color clay that was textured and layered with black and gold clay. The design on the gold beads was created using the mica shift technique. It is strung on black rubber elastic. I no longer like to deal with clasps on bracelets.

These rather large beads were custom blended colors, then (L) rolled and shaped into a spiral, textured and accented and (R) cut into a lattice shape with a rotary cutter and placed over the base bead.

Since I was having so much fun with the texture sheets and since I hand carve rubber erasers for fun, I decided to try carving into uncured moldmaker clay. It is very soft, almost too soft to carve into, but there is the advantage of being able to reuse the product that you remove when you carve before curing. After curing it is completely flexible and works well for custom made texture sheets. It is designed for and works beautifully as a mold maker. You can impress buttons, shells, or anything that you want to be able to duplicate .

Ok, back to beads . Who doesn't love some fiery orange beads for spring? This is also a custom blend of warm colored clays and stamped into and accented with gold paint.

More funky beads and pendants. Custom mixed and textured. The one on the lower right will probably serve as a ring component. The purple faceted stone is polymer clay that I made.

The pink focal bead was made using one of the face molds in the goody package that Sister sent me for my birthday. This clay was custom blended and antiqued with burgundy acrylic paint.

Various pendants and techniques here...

Last but not least, was a pendant that I made using a rub on transfer. Obviously the picture doesn't do it justice, but I'm just too sorry to retake it. Regarding the rub on transfers, I would prefer using a water slide transfer on polymer clay, but you can rub hard enough on baked clay to make this type work, but be patient and continue to check that you have a good transfer before removing the art. Accent with some silver paint and you're on your way.

Well, that's just a sampling of what I have made recently. I made several pieces as gifts and failed to photograph them. Of course, they were the best pieces.

Hope everyone is having a good spring and has avoided the storms and tragedies that have befallen parts of the country. Take care and remember to be creative.

Until then...

Just popping in to say hi.

2011-05-21T09:27:00.000-04:00

Just stopping by to say hello and to let everyone know I haven't fallen off the edge. I have been working/playing in the studio and I have made soooooo many beads. I'm off to our weight loss challenge picnic today, but hopefully I'll have time to take pictures and post them when we return. I'll be back soon, I promise!

Oh my, why did I do that?

2011-05-05T17:03:00.001-04:00

Have you ever had a "why did I do that" moment? I have them often enough to think that perhaps I have forgotten everything I ever learned. As you may know the hubby and I have been on a healthy living kick. We are watching our food intake and exercising at the gym. As a treat for my sandwich and chips loving guy, we have been purchasing lean roast beef from the deli. Well, I got it in my head that it would be healthier if I cooked a nice roast here at home and sliced it for sandwiches. Sounds reasonable, right? When I went to Kroger yesterday, my choices were either a nice cut of London Broil at $20.00 (which I could have easily afforded) or a sirloin tip roast at $10.00. Well, old Miss Frugal went with the sirloin tip roast. I got carrots and potatoes and was going to do my usual deal of cooking all the items together in a nice pot on top the stove.

Normally I'm a pretty good cook, but I sometimes get cocky. Perhaps that's what prompted my first mistake. I started to think. Hmmmm. I wonder why do I always cook the roast like this. Is it because Mama did it like that? Did she do it like that because she was from the South? Not me, I'll be a gour-met cook and use a fancy beef rub, and cook this thing in the oven with dry heat. I do my research and found a nice recipe online and went for it. I did exactly what the recipe said, BUT what I didn't do prior to cooking it, was research the different cuts of beef and why you braise or pot roast, versus why you dry roast. I certainly paid for that slight omission. Because after struggling with this piece of meat for entirely too long, I have ended up with a awful mess. I may be able to rescue enough beef to make a pot of soup, but even that is questionable. What did I learn today? If it's not broken, don't try to fix it.

We had turkey bacon and scrambled eggs on rye toast with lettuce, tomato and mayo. My favorite standby sandwich when there is nothing else in the house. All's well that ends well.

Had a great birthday...

2011-04-27T13:16:00.000-04:00

I've been spending most of my time in my bat cave (studio), having a blast with a ton of polymer clay supplies that Peri sent me for my birthday. I was so excited to tear into the box, that I didn't take any pictures. There will be pictures coming of projects already completed, but in the mean time here is a picture of what my hubby got me.

I collect Barbies. Lots of them are headless and naked, but most of them are actually collectible like these. They look vintage, but are not. It's a current series made with the original Barbie face.

So that's it for now. If you have any ideas for jewelry or items that you want to see made from polymer clay, let me know and I'll give it a go. I have already made a crazy steampunk bird using the instructions from one of Christi Friesen books that Peri sent me, and it is a sight to behold. Who know what else might arise from the depths of my studio?... we'll see.

Ok, I'm really leaving now. It's getting ready to rain here, so we are going to try to beat the store to run a few errands. Have fun and stay safe and creative.

Some new art

2011-04-22T09:56:00.005-04:00

After cleaning up the studio and doing a massive reorganization of my beads, I was reminded of what a nice collection of art beads I have. This in turn leads me to thinking that I want to make some new beads for said collection and maybe to even be used in jewelry. Those of you who are long time readers of this little missive already know that I like to use scrap clay in my art beads. I found several "scrap" beads that I made last year who were screaming to become important elements in some kind of funky design so I put this little baby together. It's a good thing as all that screaming was becoming annoying.

(click on me)

I have always liked that antiqued look of dark metal, so I combined a pre-made chain (from Michael's) with some of my favorite beads. The dangles are simply threaded onto eye pins and connected to the chain. Simple procedure, but the time involved is mostly taken up by playing with the beads. I use a bead board to arrange my designs and after a while this one came together easily.

This week I played around with some tried and true polymer clay techniques. I made faux jade beads and then carved into them a bit. On another, I used a dark blend of clay and impressed a plastic tube into it for design, then antiqued it with off white acrylic paint.

And of course, there is the ever popular steampunk look. While this is not my favorite steampunk piece, it does illustrate how easy it is to achieve that belted look that often accompanies the gears and mechanics in the steampunk genre.

The beads on the right were to be accent pieces for the belted bead. but looking at this photo now, I'm thinking that they just might look good with the faux turquoise bead that is on the right of the ceramic tile. The little blue and white bead is an elongated heart shaped bead that will easily fit as a focal piece with some blue beads from my super-stash.

While these pendants are yummy, to be sure...man does not live on beads alone, so I decided to try something I have been ruminating on for literally years. Miniature foodstuffs.

Since I am usually thinking personal adornment, these pieces were made to be used as earring dangles and I am quite happy with this first attempt.

These next pieces were even more fun to make, and since I am used to working with small amounts of clay from making beads, and it didn't feel tedious at all.

(due to the lighting it's hard to see that I'm using a U.S. dime for size comparison. but as always you can click for more detail)

I am expecting to do more of the minis. I have even done a little set of dinnerware. Fun times.

My sweet sister is sending me polymer clay supplies for my birthday next week. Books, tools, clay...the works. Thanks sister of mine. You are the best. This is what I sent her. It was a purchased gift.

(the size of the sculpture is about 12" across)

I think she liked it. I usually make her something, but time and inspiration were not that friendly this year, but I know she understood.

Well, I hope everyone is staying healthy and happy. I have lost another pound, which makes 18-20 pounds since Christmas. I'm planning on 35 more by next Christmas. I figure giving myself one year to lose about fifty pounds was an achievable goal. I'm hitting the gym 5-6 times a week, and while I was never one to go to the gym before, it's really working well for me. Hubby goes to and has lost even more than me. If you are interested in seeing what I have done at the gym, feel free to click in on my other blog.

That's it for today. Have a great weekend and stay creative. Love ya!

Finally, a new post

2011-04-12T11:59:00.000-04:00

I know that all my friends out there are tsk, tsk, tsking about me not posting for two weeks. I love blogging and once I sit down to the keyboard the words just seem to flow. It's just that I have been such a procrastinator this spring. First off we have had the craziest weather and when it's overcast and chilly I just don't want to do anything except kivver up and read.

I had great plans to take pictures of all the pear trees that blossom in our area. I mean they are everywhere and usually look so billowy and white that I just knew it would make for a great photo. For some reason this year, they looked a bit defeated so I changed my mind on that. I did have time to grab the camera when I saw a horizontal rainbow above the school nearby. The colors were much more vivid in person but I didn't want to manipulate the photo to prove it.

I have been in an artist slump this spring, not even wanting to paint anything. Recently I got the jewelry making bug and decided to make some jewelry. At my house, I have a stash of everything, so to make jewelery I needed to get out my stash and go through colors, etc. to find just what I needed. I don't know if this would ever happen to you, but for me it went like this... "I think I could find exactly what I needed if all my beads were reorganized according to color, certainly that shouldn't take long".

Basically, this is what I ended up with. I've often heard that sometimes you need to make a mess to get things organized and that is what I did. I have now organized my beads into like colors, then separated plastics, metal and handmade beads into separate categories. The only problem is I kept coming across clear plastic shoeboxes that were marked "stuff from table". Hmmm, then I had to go through all of those types of boxes and pull out needles, threads, seed beads, findings, and even tools and play a memory game to find out were to put them. You know the drill, I'm sure. At some point, actually quite early on I gave in and started filling jars with bead soup. Jars that look something like this...

Ok, I've realized that I can't keep doing that, so I regrouped and started putting little bits of left over projects in smallish zip lock bags. In any event, it is seemingly a never ending project. I will probably finish today and then I'm going to make a couple of pieces of art jewelry and get out my polymer clay supplies. There is something about working with polymer clay that is very therapeutic. It's just fun to mash clay around in you hands and make stuff with it. I guess that why kids love working with clay. Any hoo, that's what I have been doing for the last two weeks. When it's all done and spruced up, I'll take an after shot and post it.

Speaking of polymer clay jewelry, I found Donna Greenberg's site.This artsy chick makes some jammin jewelry. Might be a bit too big for some tastes, but I think I'd like to implement some of her techniques into my next series of art jewelry. Go ahead and check out her website, it's very nice.

And last, but most certainly not least, please check out my friend Nezzy's blog, called Cow Patty Surprise. She is one funny gal and hard working to boot. She can make anything sound like fun. Her current post on the men in her life is one of my favorites, so stop by and catch up with Nez. She is something else, to be sure.

Well, the skies are dark and ominous and it's not even noon yet. We had 80 plus degrees here yesterday and already it is so muggy you can't breathe. Over the weekend, about two hours from us they experienced multiple tornadoes and are trying to recover from that. It's been a wild and woolly Spring and it's not over yet. Keeping all that in mind, enjoy your week and stay safe whilst you do something fun.

And by the way, I ordered my sissy's birthday present this week, so as soon as she gets it I'll show it to you. Something different for her this year, but I think she'll like it.

Take care and let us hear!

Oh Where, Oh Where Can She Be.....

2011-03-28T17:01:00.002-04:00

I know, I know. I cannot believe that it has been almost two weeks since I posted anything. That is really unusual for me. What am I up to? Well, I'm still working out and eating healthy. I did have a one pound gain last week, but I'm comfortable in saying I've lost 15 pounds since November. I am still working on my needlepoint Matisse, and it is going to be beautiful. One funny thing though, with all my honking about being age appropriate in fashion and such, I did something that really is fun, but not age appropriate.

I polished my fingernails with an OPI pink and used Shatter top coat on them. It is so cool. It dries very quickly and the polish pulls apart from itself, giving a crackle look. This would look good with a nice red polish or even blue to mimic a natural stone look. This was my first attempt, but I'm pleased.

I know this is for the young, hip crowd, but at least my ta-ta's aren't showing and I'm not tottering around on six inch heels. My hubby was out of town for 36 hours and I had to keep myself occupied, so the funky manicure and a CSI marathon did the trick.

I also put together a quick pair of earrings. Using turquoise turtles from my stash and some flat beads I came up with this little design...

There are beads underneath the flat beads, but I was too trifling to take the time to get a better photo.

In the "do you remember when" portion of our program, I will introduce you to (or remind you of) an old first aid potion that was very popular when my sister and I were youngins. Our parents used this stuff for everything and last week when I was looking for an antiseptic for a painful hangnail, I picked up tea tree oil which has a smell that reminded me so much of that liquid of days gone by...APINOL.

It is a pine oil derivative and you cannot use a band aid with it, so we always got a nice plump gauze bandage with real adhesive tape around it. Great for show and tell the next day at school. Well, now that we have the technology to find anything on the web, I did a search and found out that it is still made and still available locally.

It is now available in a spray bottle, but if you order online you can still get the old fashioned glass bottle from our youth. This is an awesome product and they have a pretty nice little website. If you don't have time to read all the testimonials and such I will post an interesting little blurb from their page.

Apinol not gone

About 15 years ago, Ms. Sharafi of Botetourt County (which is where we grew up) sat on a hot curling iron after a shower. A few days later, when Sharafi saw her grandmother Pat Kelley, also of Botetourt, Kelley dabbed Apinol on the still-raw wound, but as a precaution took Sharafi to the emergency room at Lewis-Gale Medical Center. Apinol did its magic on Sharafi's sore behind, because, after the usual long wait for care, Sharafi was told by the doctor she had scabbed over and was healing with no further treatment required, Kelley said.

Apinol is a first-aid antiseptic with a durable Roanoke Valley following. A versatile pine oil-based product, Apinol was rubbed on the sore joints of Norfolk and Western railroad workers from early on. It is still in medicine cabinets in Western Virginia, and still available, though some people mistakenly think the company is out of business.

Kelley's granddaughter, Roanoke native Cindy Simmons, bought the 102-year-old Apinol company in 2002 from its third owner, to prevent its closure, as she tells the story. She does business from Trussville, Ala., and credits bulk orders from Roanoke Valley retailers with 45 percent of her sales.

A slightly sticky clear fluid with a memorable odor, it is reputed to ease pain, repel bugs, prevent infection and soothe burns - even to sensitive areas.
You can buy Apinol at Roanoke retailers including Williamson Road Pharmacy and Crouch's Pharmacy, also of Williamson Road, and online.

So that is a little blast from the past. We also used Blair red salve and drank Fizzies. They were little flavored tablets that effervesced in water and had flavors like grape and cherry. If you are in search of old time products a great site is Vermont Country Store. Now that's a fun site to browse around on.

So I guess that's all from me for several days, and even though I don't usually spoil surprises, I know my favorite sister is reading this, so yes, I got an extra bottle of Apinol and will be sending it to you later this week.

Don't be a stranger, let me hear and Y'all come back soon.

Age Appropriate?

2011-03-15T13:34:00.002-04:00

Yes my little ones, I am back this week with another age related post. Last time I was in a tiff about actors choosing roles that I don't think they are suited for. (I'm sure Hollyweird has taken note of said post and is making corrections in casting as we speak). This weeks' rant is going to hit a lot closer to home. If you are that 65 year old gal that I saw in the grocery store wearing your version of this snazzy outfit...I'm talking to you.

In my opinion, it's bad enough that Fergie, at age 35+ still thinks she can pull it off. Pa-leeze don't subject me to old ladies wearing skin tight jeans and spike heels while doing their grocery shopping.
Ok, ok, I get it. You are only as young as you feel, blah, blah, blah. Well, you are also as silly as your clothing choices. Just because you fit into these things doesn't mean you should EVER wear them.

Ladies, it's ok to feel good about yourself. It's ok to still be a hottie. It's even ok to still think about "you know what" at your age. But put together an outfit that says all this in a way that actually says all that, and more. Not one that says "I'm a doddering old crow, who obviously doesn't realize that the junior department is for juniors".

I am not saying let yourself go. Well, not constantly anyway. We all need our moments of comfort. But I think that sometimes we do need to rethink our wardrobe, as well as hair and make up choices as we age. I stopped coloring my hair, and it looks Fabulous. I also stopped wearing shoes that hurt my feet. So don't let yourself go, let yourself grow and try to make it as graceful as possible.

So that's my rant for this week. Those of you who know me, know that I'm not a fussy, cantankerous old so-and-so. I just sometimes have to say my piece. Have I finally reached the age where I can say what I want? If so... don't get me started on women with baby voices.

I kept my word...

2011-03-05T17:33:00.000-05:00

I said I would be back soon with a new needlepoint project to discuss and also give you my two cents worth on what needs to be fixed in the world. Onward. While I am in my "I don't want to paint" phase, I am doing needlework. After doing butterflies until I'm ready to cocoon myself, I decided to do something different. So I got out my art books and my permament markers and my blank needlepoint canvas and came up with this.

I chose Matisse, not because he is my favorite artist, but because of the simplicity of the design in the piece Dance. I felt that I could reproduce it in fiber relatively easily. There are several companies that have this painting as a needlepoint kit, but that would have involved waiting. Yep, I would prefer to grab the markers and draw it out myself to waiting for an order to be sent to me. I had all the supplies necessary and lots of floss that needs to be used, so that's what is happening.

I used blank needlepoint canvas, cut it so there was a sizable border and positioned the canvas over the image in the book. If you are using a library book, or a picture that you don't want to get dirty, I would suggest making a color copy of the art. Then I took PrismaColor markers, which are waterproof and fairly permanent, and basically traced over the picture. I am using three basic colors with a few darker details here and there. I hope to show you the final project soon.

Now, on to my rant about what bugs me in the outside world. Two things come to mind immediately. One is the current trend for actors who were child stars to continue to act in roles that would be better served by someone younger. Topher Grace is in a new retro movie where he plays someone in college and does all the things that going to college in the 1980's entailed. Uhhhh, Topher grace is 32 years old. I don't know if he is supposed to be college aged or not, but I don't even want to find out.

Just like the commercial that I just saw for Pro Active acne medicine...Jennifer Love Hewitt is the spokesperson. Talking about how awful it is to go on that first date and have a breakout. Talking about how great it is to have clear, SEXY, skin. Ummm, once again...Love Hewitt is 32 years old. Is it just me? Have I become jaded? Do I just not get it? Seeing Love Hewitt spin around and toss her hair and tell me how sexy my skin will be if I use this product, just puts me off. Now don't get me wrong, I know that lots of folks still have blemishes after 30, but put on a business suit, or a classic outfit of jeans and a blazer if you are obviously in your 30's hawking acne cream. I scoff at her with her silly giggles and jiggles trying to sell something.

Next on my list of gripes. The hubs and I went to a local, hole in the wall, night spot to listen to a friend play a gig. It is somewhat of a country type bar, with all the usual stereotype regulars eyeing us, as though we had no right to even enter. The smoke almost choked us as soon as we did walk in. Since I'm one of those dreaded "non-drinkers", I usually have DH order me a soft drink. Last night I decided that a Perrier or sparkling water would be my choice. The bartender acted like hubby was from another planet when he requested the water. He sort of leaned over the bar and bared his teeth and said "you want what?". When hubs finally convinced him that the wife did indeed want water and did they have any bottled water, he said "yeah, we got Kroger water in a bottle". Actually the water was very, very cold and I enjoyed it immensely. The band was pretty good, but we shot out of there at the first chance. When we got home we had to air out our coats to rid them of the smoke. Yikes. Combine that with the craziness that was the convenience store where we purchased gas and it was quite a night to be remembered. I think sometimes you need to be reminded of why you don't go out at "the darktime". Reminded we were, and we got back home by eight p.m. I can only imagine what goes on when the serious lunacy gets started.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully I wont be such a slacker about posting. We are still hitting the gym on a regular basis and we have each lost weight. If you want to check out my other blog, it's got the current workout posted for your reading pleasure.

So have a great weekend, and watch out for all thoses crazies out there.

Hi there!

2011-03-03T16:38:00.000-05:00

Hey friends and neighbors, just a quick shout out to let you know that I'm still around. I'm working on a post, but in the mean time, just wanted to stop by and say HI!

Really, I'll be back very soon with a pretty cool needlepoint project. Until then, take care and enjoy your day.

The more you move...

2011-02-17T12:54:00.000-05:00

The more you want to. Right? Spring is right around the corner and I've been exercising and getting healthier over the past several months. So it really doesn't seem too far fetched when I state that I am anxious to be more active and am thinking of an outdoor hobby. I know, I know... "Susan, you're an artist, and artists stay in one place". Yeppers, that staying in one place may have contributed to an excess of 40 to 50 pounds being packed onto this 5'4" frame. So I'm thinking Rock Gardening.

I don't have the patience to grow flowers, and actually I'm not that good at it. Maybe some Cosmos or something that practically grows itself, but I was thinking rocks and cacti or succulents. In doing some quick web surfing I found these images...

Of course I'm not thinking anything this elaborate. Even though I have the room for it. I'm thinking something that I can do by myself and even change or add to each spring if I still have this unusual desire to be outside lifting heavy objects.

Something like this might be possible. I do have lots of paving stone/tiles and rocks left here by the previous owners. She loved rocks also and they are tucked away in several places. I would love to get to the place, strength-wise, that I could heft rocks up into a wheelbarrow and move them from place to place.

I know this is a bit ambitious. I just want it to be mine. Something that I have done. Not something my landscapers ( whom I adore, by the way) or my very strong and handsome husband has done for me.
But something I can putter around with and get some exercise while I doing it. Oh, I know I could get the clippers and trim the ivy from around the trees or pick up sticks and pull weeds, but what's the beauty in that?

So let's put on our thinking caps and come up with a fun rock garden for me to do. I have the space to do it. I can rake and hoe by hand. I don't really want anything that involves tillers or anything that will make me want to give up. You get the picture, don't you? Something doable that will show results.

Let me know what you think. This is going to be a good Spring, I can just tell.

Life aint nothin but a funny, funny, riddle...

2011-02-12T11:44:00.000-05:00

Isn't it funny, how all summer long here in the blistering humidity of the Old Dominion, I sit and think of how much I long for cold and snow and then after eight or nine weeks of the stuff, I'm so done with it?

Now I'm wishing it was warm and sunny. I want to work in my yard, picking up sticks or tromping around down below the house revamping plans for more landscaping in the woods. Even though our humidity is sometimes excessive , I love it here.

We don't have earthquakes much to speak of (only one that I can remember) and tornadoes usually pass us by (well, there was that one that came through several years ago) and usually the snow is minimal in our area (except for last year when we had about 24").

So we put up with the occasional bout of bad weather, but we love the area. Everything is nearby. We have the strawberry festival,

lots of shopping, our fitness center is only one mile away, and of course there's always bowling.

Whenever we get the urge to catch a movie, most of the new releases are playing at several different complexes.

If you are in the mood for outdoor activities, we have everything you could ask for. A nice little zoo, all kinds of places to hike and picnic and a recently completed greenway that winds around for miles. Now that I'm getting in better shape, I hope to take advantage of these new and improved trails.

So whether I'm sitting inside watching it snow while I do needlepoint, or gazing out the laundry room window watching the wind whip the trees, I always know that this blustery season is temporary. The sun will shine and soon I'll be kicking up my heels in that sunshine and singing the last line to John Denver's famous song in my own way..."thank God I'm a country girl".

Well, that's it for me for today. We'll talk soon. Enjoy your winter and dream of spring.

What Cha Doin?

2011-02-02T13:06:00.002-05:00

..."feeding Alexander".

Now that my friends, is an obscure reference to an old Gravy Train commerical. It's no wonder people never know what I'm talking about. I still speak in the vernacular of vintage television commercials and after school specials. I can't remember to cut the broiler unit off, but I can recite decades old adages and such.

What about you? Do you find yourself retrieving ancient information from your memory banks? Anyway, I was just wondering if it was just me.

Still no new art to take fancy shots of to dazzle you with. I'm still working on needle point and going to the gym and trying to get healthy. BUT in between these things I do manage to read some. I am currently reading Rise and Fight Again by Charles Bracelen Flood. It recounts four of the most disastrous defeats of the American Revolution. I just finished the section on Fort Washington and read about the horrible deaths of the prisoners that were basically stored in churches and warehouses or violently stuffed into the bowels of docked warships without any food or water. Some very sad passages in the descriptions of these soldiers.

I also read fiction. I like the lighter crime novels. The ones that just say someone was killed and then the local librarian or book store owner proceeds to solve the mystery. I also like Southern writers like Fanny Flagg and can always relate to the scenarios that she refers to. I don't usually care two hoots for romantic fiction, but have enjoyed the books by Tracy Chevalier, due to their historical information and well researched facts.

So while it is snowing outside, or the wind is howling, or you just want to cozy up and read, what do you choose. Let me know. I always want to know what my friends are reading.

Well, that's it for now. Take care and stay safe and warm.

Where in the world???

2011-01-25T16:19:00.000-05:00

Where has she been? I'm such a slacker. Between going to the gym and growing my hair, I just have really been slacking off on things. Things like a new blog post...and new artwork...you know, that kind of thing. In my defense, I have been using my break from the easel to do some needlework. Longer days and warmer temps will be here eventually and the needlework will be put up. For some reason, needlework just seems to be a winter kind of art.

I did finish up a butterfly that was started last year...

I started another butterfly as a companion piece...

I finished, (but obviously haven't pressed) a counted cross stitch from two years ago...

And I finally got around to taking a picture of a cute little needlepunch that I did last year.

So, as you can see, I haven't been without art during my self-imposed painting break. I'm just painting with thread.

One thing is for sure, if I ever do get painter's block, there is always another art to motivate me. Because in addition to all my painting supplies, I have (and I know I'm the only one) large stashes of yarns, fabrics, patterns, books and magazines, and of course, my friend the internet to motivate me if I become bored with my current artsy adventure.

The thing is, if it's knitting, I have tons of supplies. If it's sewing, once again I have tons of stash. I have jewelry supplies that would complete any store inventory and whatever I need in the way of polymer clay is always only a few steps away. I have vintage craft kits from the 70's just waiting to be completed and a box full of naked Barbies waiting to be repurposed. Blessedly, our house has a great storage area that is the length of the entire house and DH has been great about helping with shelves and tables and whatever we need to keep things organized. Shucks, I even converted the downstairs walk-in shower to a supply closet. It wasn't always like this. I have done many an art piece at the kitchen table, and who hasn't put that sewing machine in the kitchen at one time or another? That's one of the great things about artists. Whether it is fabric or fiber, painting or polymer...we will figure out a way to do it. Why? Because it's just who we are. We may take breaks from projects for long periods of time and devote time to other things when necessary, but we always go back to art.

So if the little artist within you has been too busy, or too uninspired...indulge yourself tonight. Take her out for a while and immerse yourselves in something that you used to just love to do, or perhaps haven't made the time to do. It could be finishing a previously started project, or simply reading a how-to book. You know you want to...so like those Nike ads say...let's just do it.

That's all for now. We'll talk soon and maybe I won't be such a slacker next time...but don't hold me to it!

Do you have rules?

2011-01-14T12:12:00.002-05:00

We all have rules that we live by. A civilized society, as we blessedly still somewhat are, must have rules to survive. I'm actually referring to the self imposed rules that we live by in our personal lives. Most of my rules are logical, such as increasing the size of the pin hole in the plastic top on my coffee to go cup. If there isn't a "breathe" hole in the lid, you have to almost suction the coffee into your mouth, so I take something sharp, like a pin or the tip of the largest, sharpest knife in the house and enlarge this little hole.

You may be able to notice a small circle on the top of the lid, that is actually the pin-hole that I'm referring to.

It's quite similar to poking a hole in the bottom of the cranberry jelly can at Thanksgiving. Because that works with the cranberry jelly, I've known folks that pierce the end of every can that they open. So you see the kind of rules I'm talking about. We have rules when we cook that may or may not be based on fact. Remember the story about the newlywed that was cooking a ham for the first time by herself and had her husband looking everywhere for a handsaw to saw the end off the ham bone? "You've got to find the saw, Mama ALWAYS cuts the end off the ham". Finally to avoid additional frustration, the husband (who are sometimes a lot smarter than we give them credit for) asked her to call her Mom and ask why you had to cut the end off. Her Mom answered incredulously, "honey, it's because my pan is too small for the ham."

So you may see where I'm going with this. We have a new year upon us and maybe it really is time to reevaluate our self imposed rules.

Lots of my rules are food related. Some of them are a bit weird and nonsensical. If I have made a sheet cake and have snuck in and eaten some right out of the pan with a fork, then I think that I have to cut the uneven part off, so it will look neat. Hmmm, might it be I don't want anyone to know that I've been in there?. Of course, I do eat the part I trimmed off. Good thing I don't bake many cakes. I have a friend that doesn't like to eat a sandwich if there are no potato chips. Or perhaps you don't want to eat beans without cornbread. You know, food rules. Like the one that says you have to eat the entire pack of something, even when it's more than one serving. When we do have cookies in the house, and that is rare these days, I wont take an uneven amount in my hand. I don't want one cookie, I want two or four. I know, I know....

So since we're going to be taking part in the fitness center weight loss challenge, I am going to have to change some things. "They" say that you shouldn't work out every day, that you should let your muscles rest a day. Therefore, I only do cardio on some days and weights on others. Seems that I remember back when there were farms, that folks worked every day and for that much, we know that anyone that has a physical job, they do it every day without have a day to let their muscles rest. So, for me, that is a rule that bears some thought. I have been going to the gym everyday trying to build up my endurance for the competition, because I know the trainer is going to push us to get the most out of us that she can. Today, the hubby was very tired and we went back to bed and didn't hit the gym. I will probably work out at home today and hopefully over the weekend.

We are also invited out to eat with friends Saturday to our favorite restaurant, a Japanese Steakhouse, as a belated Christmas gift. We're both looking forward to that. Usually that's where we go when my sister (Peri) comes in from out west, so it will seem a bit odd being there without them. Other than working out and eating out, that's the extent of our plans.

I have been working on a counted cross stitch kit that I started last year (I think) so hopefully soon I will have that to show. My art table feels neglected, but sometimes that's just the way it is. I'll be full of new ideas for paintings soon, but until then it will words of wisdom and wit and perhaps a few pictures here and there.

So dear friends, enjoy your weekend and when you sit down to enjoy your celery that you refuse to eat without peanut butter and raisins, think about some of the self imposed rules that may have you stymied.

It's 2011...how can that be?

2011-01-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to say Happy New Year to everyone. I hope you all survived the crazy weather, the disruption of snow removal, the falling of birds from the sky and all the other wild things that happened over the holidays.

I haven't done much during my holiday week, but I did manage to make one painting. They say that copying the Masters is a great way to learn. This copy of Renoir's Head of a Girl started out simply as a quick sketch to decide on the colors that I would use when I do it for real. For that reason, I used acrylic paint and not oil. Those of you that you know me wont be surprised that I got bogged down with it and instead of doing a quick color sketch, I tried to replicate the look of oils using heavy bodied acrylic paints.

There are lots of methods and techniques to use with acrylics and I do so love working with them especially because of the fast drying time. On the other hand, that fast drying time is the one thing that will always separate acrylics from oils. That is the reason that I will be copying this painting again soon and using oil paints. The blendability, as well as the color mixing, is so different. All that being said I offer for your viewing pleasure my version of Renoir.

I tried to use the same size canvas as the original in order to keep up the appearance of it being a copy, but as you can see, I just wasn't able to get the colors very close to the version that I was using. Now not having seen the original (which I have read is the ideal way to copy a great work), I really wasn't sure how true the colors in the art book were. At least it is recognizable as the head of a girl, so I'm happy with that. I probably will do another version of it some time.

I will be working on a huge box of photographs from my past for the next several days (I hope it doesn't turn into weeks) and won't be painting much. Organizing old photos and checking out negatives and sorting out photos to scan or reprint can take up some time. If you have any ideas on making it easier, please feel free to let me know. Otherwise I'll be immersed in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and early 80's for a bit. Wish me luck.

That's it from me for several days. Take care and have a great week!

What's on my easel...

2010-12-29T14:51:00.000-05:00

I just couldn't stand looking at that photo of me in antlers any longer, so I'm showing what's on my easel.

This still life painting of a bowl of fruit has been calling me every time I go by it and I always sit down and work on it some more. It's been on my easel all week, but today when I went into the studio, there was silence. I suppose that means that it's done for now. We will see.

This other one, a garden of imaginary flowers, was created while learning which brushes make which strokes, but it turned out to be a colorful surprise.

It's been quiet here on the home front. I am staying in for the most part. The hubby and I went out yesterday to run errands and to swing by the mall. I was thinking, for some unknown reason, that everyone had gone back to work and school. Wrong...circle gets the square. (Hollywood Squares reference). Traffic was heavy and everyone and his uncle must have gotten gift cards this year. Well, I don't need anything enough to put either one of us through that pain. Hopefully, next week things will calm down and we can stroll the mall, hand in hand, and find all kinds of deals that have been overlooked by the masses....uhhh, right.

In any event, I'm staying in and keeping warm and waiting until Friday when the mercury is supposed to rise to 50 degrees. Can you imagine what kind of holligans warm weather on New Year's Eve will bring out? Looks like I will wait until next week to hit the mall. Sheesh, this is unending...

So that's it from me for a few days. Stay tuned for more art and as they used to say on television in the old days..."keep those cards and letters coming".

It's Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T12:44:00.002-05:00

It's Christmas Eve and I don't have a current Christmas picture of us to post, but the sentiment is the same.

As we remember that this holiday is to celebrate the conception and birth of Christ, we know that how ever we celebrate it, whatever our belief is, as long as we remember to honor Jesus, we will be blessed.

I hope you all have a wonder filled and joyous Christmas.

Merry Christmas

from

Susan and Family

Finally, I can post this...

2010-12-17T19:42:00.000-05:00

I have been chomping at the bit to post this, and finally it's been delivered. This is the present I sent my sisters, a portrait of one of their cats.

This is a pastel portrait that I did in October and have been quiet as a mouse about it. I had it framed and sent it to them this week. They loved it. This kitty is named Zipper and he is such a ham, he poses for the camera every time we get out to the west coast to see him.

I have done several other things, but I wanted to show you this in the meantime.

Merry Christmas, Peri and Peg-Peg, we love you bunches!

It's just two weeks til Christmas...

2010-12-11T19:18:00.000-05:00

Yep, two weeks until Christmas and the only decoration I have this year is one poinsettia that we got at Home Depot. Actually the only reason I even have that was to have something to paint. I haven't done a still life for several months, so I thought a seasonal one would be just the ticket.

I had fun doing it and while I'm sure I could have probably staged it better somewhere else in the house, it just worked for me on the mantle.

We have spent a very quiet week here, going to the gym, doing a bit of shopping and watching some television. It's funny, even at my age, I still get teary eyed at the Christmas television specials. It doesn't matter if it's the old faithful ones from our youth, or the Christmas episode of a current sitcom, I still get weepy. Always have, probably always will.

In addition to being weepy, everyone here in my neck of the woods has been on pins and needles, due to the abduction of a local 12 year old girl. Her Mom had missed work two days in a row, so on Monday, concerned co-workers call the police and when they entered the house, unfortunately, they found the mother, Tina, murdered. The daughter, Brittney was not there and it was soon discovered she had been taken by her Mom's boyfriend, apparently on Friday. An Amber Alert was issued immediately and finally last night, they were seen in San Francisco in a Safeway. A shopper recognized them from the Amber Alert photos and called police and they were able to arrest him without incident and get Brittney. The officials aren't releasing much information, but at least she's safe and on her way home.

I hope everyone is staying calm, cool and collected over the holidays. My shopping is done, and after we go to UPS Monday, I can sit back and relax. I don't stress out much this time of year. The hubby and I get things we like throughout the year, so we don't worry that much about special gifts for each other. I ordered art supplies from Dick Blick and he will probably get something from Musician's Friend and we both like to order shoes from Zappos. So this season hasn't stressed us out in the least.

Well, that's it from me for now. Stay safe and warm and remember to tell the people that you love, just how much they mean to you. Take care, we'll talk soon!

Getting ready for the weekend

2010-12-03T13:05:00.002-05:00

Hey out there. Seems that Friday is going to be my day to post. I am sitting here patiently trying to recover from my morning workout. One thing about going to the gym is that I seem to challenge myself more than I do when I workout at home. Perhaps it's the fact that I have to actually get ready and drive to the center to do my workout. I know it's not the money, as the fee is only $39.00 a month. I haven't researched any other health clubs, but that seems reasonable enough when you have access to an indoor pool, group exercises and every kind of weight and exercise machine that you may need or want.

Sorry, I got a bit off subject there, I was going to discuss the fact that I like to compete with myself. Each time I go to Zumba I go a little bit faster, or reach a little bit higher so that I still am sweaty and slightly red faced when I finish. It will be sometime down the road before I am not surprised with the image that I see in that wall of mirrors. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a poor body image at all, it's just that I'm not used to seeing myself all jiggly and breathless when I look in my mirror. I usually have a makeup brush or a curling brush in my hand and am in another kind of zone completely.

Oops, I did it again... I was going to mention that even on days that I don't have group exercise to motivate me, I push myself to walk faster and even run a bit when I'm on the track. I like to use the recumbent bicycle and cross trainer machine and each time, I try to work a bit harder in hopes of building up my strength and endurance levels.

I promise that all of this is actually leading somewhere, so try not to doze while I get to my point. What point am I trying to make? Stick-to-itiveness! Yep, that made up word that says so much, it's now in the dictionary. Perseverance, tenacity, just plain old staying power...whatever you want to call it, it's got to be what makes the world go around. You just can't get anywhere by fizzling out, or by giving up or by quitting. If you think you can, you might as well just sit in the floor and cry because you won't get what you want from life.

Having a goal and working for it is healthy. If you are like so many of us and you sit for hours at a time, try to set simple goals like getting up and walking around the room every hour. It is so easy to be at the sewing machine, or the art table or surrounded by colorful yarns and forget to move. Yep, we forget to move. It's a good thing that breathing is involuntary, or we might forget that, also. So, let's challenge ourselves this month and at least set a goal to make some changes, and possible move more. Park at the end of the lot at the mall (making sure you are in a safe spot if you will be shopping until dark), or take the stairs instead of the elevator. Even little things like standing up straight, instead of leaning on the shopping cart will also make a difference in the way you feel about yourself.

Normally, I don't rant about these kind of things on my art blog. It's just that I think it's important to do my personal best, because I seem to just feel better when I do. That's why I did a second version of my bucket and tree painting. I liked the first one I did, which is on the right, but I wanted one that was more transparent and went with the barn paintings that I'm doing.

(Click on the images for a larger version)

So that's what I did this week, as far as art. I am also thinking of doing another version of the covered bridge in this same fashion, so be on the look out for that.

Well, that's it for me for today. Hope you are ready for a great weekend. Take care of yourself so you, too can do your personal best.

Everything old is new again

2010-11-26T17:22:00.001-05:00

When it comes to art instruction books, it doesn't have to be a new publication to help you improve your techniques. I am currently using a book published in 1984 called Acrylics, Translucent Techniques for Landscape Painters, by R. Bradford Johnson. Now, I do have to admit all the paintings tend to look the same, as you are using the same techniques used in the previous exercise and adding new ones when you go to the next tutorial. Of course, each person puts their own spin on color mixing and such, but they do all tend to look like copies from the book. All that being said, here are three paintings that I have done in the past week.

This was my first one, and I sort of forgot that I was going for translucency, and painted in a more opaque fashion.

The second one adds weathered wood and rocks...

This third one throws snow covered trees and stonewalls into the mix...

The next one will have a windmill and a rusty tin roof on the barn, so I really am learning as I go.

Hope everyone had a good week and a good Thanksgiving Day. I have to get on the computer and get some shopping done, but other than that, Christmas shopping for me will be very easy. I'm not much on decorating these days, but I still have some money left on a Bed, Bath and Beyond gift card, so I think I'll scope out some new, and hopefully, easy to display, holiday lights. No Griswold lights for us, but if you are into that type of decorating, check out this site.

Well, that's it from me for now. Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Happy Friday!

2010-11-19T14:43:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone is gearing up for a fun weekend. Since I didn't want to see that same artwork all weekend, I thought I would post this recent practice piece...

Looks like water is a recurring theme in my work. I got a bit wonky on the head of this bird, and it looks like those bird creatures in the cartoons. I was trying to make it's feathers stand out a bit, but he does look a bit furry, doesn't he?

Anyway, that's what's on my easel this week. Perhaps I will change things up a bit next week. I have been taking lots of reference photos of the trees around my house. I really like to draw and paint trees. Who knows, maybe I'll try my hand at some wildlife next time.

In the mean time, have a great weekend, get ready for Thanksgiving and try not to over indulge.

Another week has gone by...

2010-11-14T12:55:00.001-05:00

Yes, it's hard to believe that another week has gone by. I worked out five days last week, but am taking the weekend off to recover. I was so sore last week, I think I may have overdone it on Thursday, but I'm feeling good today.

Anyway, I said that I hadn't really done any art to speak of. That is never actually the case, I always have something in the works and I'm always of the opinion that if it's not "perfect" I just can't post it here. Well, fiddle sticks on that. I'm going to go ahead and post everything that I have going in the art studio.

I have been working on an oil painting. My first in about six or seven years. And I've only done two others, so oil is not something I am experienced in. You may recognize the covered bridge from my trip several weeks ago.

I cleaned up the studio and set out my acrylic paints and tried my hand at some impressionist work. This one of the boats in the harbor is very unfinished and may be destined for the trash bin, but that's yet to be decided.

This last one is in acrylic and is quite large for me. At 16 x 20, done in acrylic on watercolor paper, it is taken from an exercise in an oil painting instruction book. I am much more in favor of the fast drying time of acrylic so I am adapting some of those techniques to my acrylic work. We will see how that goes.

So this is what I have been working on. In between going to the fitness center, keeping up with everyday stuff, and just enjoying life in general.

We have been watching the new AMC series, The Walking Dead and it is super gory and very scary. If you are into zombies, this is the show for you and you can catch up on past episodes here. If you are uncomfortable with yucky special effects and don't sleep well after viewing something of this nature. Do Not, I repeat Do Not, watch this show.

So that's it from me for now. I hope everyone has had a great week and is rearing to go into the next one.

What's up with you?

2010-11-07T11:52:00.000-05:00

As some of you already know, I take art by spurts. I spent the entire summer painting and having a blast. I still have several paintings I want to do as Christmas presents, but I have reached that time when I put up my paints and let things simmer for a while.

In my last post I may have mentioned that I am trying very hard to "get into shape". At this stage of the game ( umm, age 57) I'm not sure what that shape will be, but I do want to be flexible, have endurance and a healthy cardio system. So I've been hitting the gym lately and am actually liking it and looking forward to my next visit. The Zumba Gold class was pretty intense, but got progressively easier with each class. This week I am going to attempt to add something called "hooper-cise" into the routine, so I'll be sure to keep you posted on that. My swimming lessons were successful, but with cooler weather here, I'm not too hep on getting in the pool. Maybe a water aerobics class here and there, but I'm not sure.

What does one post when you no longer have kitties doing crazy things, and your jewelry making has been on hold for months and your artist's muse is on vacation? Let me go to my archives and see what I can come up with. I'm sure I must have some pictures that could be revisited...

How about revisiting my old halloween costumes? You may have noticed my new profile picture. The last year I worked I was a mime, so I am using that for my ID shot for a while. One of my favorite costumes, (which my sister said didn't look like a costume at all) was the year I dressed up as Mommy Dearest and carried a wire coat hanger. So just for grins and giggles, here I am as Joan Crawford. Enjoy!

Yep, it's me with heavily drawn eyebrows and bright orange lipstick with lots of rouge on my Mean Mom cheeks.

On a sad note, I just wanted to mention that my sister told me that one of her friends took his own life last week. He was a lovely young man and one of the first folks she met when they moved to California. Due to his brief appearance on the Batchelorette, his untimely death by his own hand, is now world wide news. This makes it even sadder, in my opinion, that the grief over this loss has to be so public for his family. There is, of course, always more to the story when a death like this takes place, things that I won't go into here, but I offer condolences and I do pray that he will be remembered for the nice guy that he was. Julien you will be missed by those who loved you.

So that's it for now. I hope everyone had a good weekend and is preparing to be healthy, creative and happy next week. Remember to tell your loved ones how much you care and give them a big hug.

Welcome November...

2010-11-01T00:01:00.002-04:00

Wow, can today be the first of November? Finally we are getting some cooler weather. It has been in the 80's here all Fall. Kind of hard to get ready for Autumn when the air conditioner is still humming along.

I have two more paintings to share. This first one is based on the photograph taken by my friend Karin at Countryfolk Keepsakes. In addition to being a very creative primitive fabric sculptor and doll maker, she is Mom to several furbabies and often we read about their antics. Anyway when I saw one of her photos, I had to paint it.

My version of it...

And then I decided to play "what if" and added some large pine trees and came up with another version

Karen suggested I add her little busy friend "Stan the Beaver" who resides very nearby. Maybe next time.

As I mentioned last week, I was going on a bus ride to view the leaves and to take pictures of some covered bridges. We had a lovely time and even got to ride up the mountain and have lunch at the famous Mountain Lake Resort. Here is a shot of the view from the bus.

Not bad for a moving vehicle, huh?

Here is one of the bridges that we saw

and we even got to see bovine

So, as the old folks used to say..."a good time was had by all".

Well, I have decided to start hitting the gym, so I expect I may not be quite so prolific in the art department. Last week in addition to my swim classes, I used the stationary bike, walked the indoor track and took a water aerobics class. This is the last week of my swimming lessons, so I am signing up for Zumba Gold that starts tomorrow. It's the easier version of Zumba, aimed at true beginning exercisers and those that might need to go a bit slower. Hey, I'm not too proud to admit that I fall into that category. Let's hope that's all I fall into.

Remember if I don't talk to you before Tuesday, get out there and vote. All states have elections and I really feel that our voices can be heard. Your vote does count.

So that's it for now, hope everyone has a great week, being creative and loving life. Do something fun and if anyone asks why...tell then Susan said to!

Evrything about this is "wrong"

2010-10-24T16:44:00.001-04:00

I used the wrong brushes, and the wrong paints, but following along with Terry Harrison on Artist's Network TV, I came up with a reasonable copy of his tutorial.

This painting was done using liquid acrylics instead of heavy bodied paints, I used regular sized brushes instead of big brushes and my canvas, an 8 x 10, is a bit smaller than I'm used to. Actually, I'm quite happy with it and am now off to my art table to work on another one. As long as I'm having fun, that's all that matters.

So don't forget... stay happy, healthy and creative!

Just checking in...

2010-10-19T15:32:00.000-04:00

Well, just making a quick post to say hello. I am getting back in the groove and have done several more paintings. One I cannot show because it's going to be a Christmas present for someone that reads this blog, but one that I can post.

It's another seascape, painted from a photo that I took while in California. I won't bore you this time with the progression of the painting. As much as I loved using stick pastels, I am have great success painting with Pan Pastels. They are so much fun. But anyway here it is. I took this shot right after sunset at Carlsbad Beach. Hope you like it.

In addition to keeping house, taking swimming lessons and painting, this week I am going on a day trip to see four of Virginia's covered bridges and to soak in the fall colors of nature. We will also be having lunch at Mountain Lake Resort, the film site of Dirty Dancing. Expect lots of photos, hopefully some that can be used as reference photos for numerous autumnal paintings.

Well, that's it for today. Hope everyone is having a great week. Enjoy yourself and stay creative!

Sea Scape Progression

2010-10-13T10:56:00.002-04:00

As some of you may remember, one of the reasons I went to visit my sister was to paint. Here is a pictorial progression of my seascape. The reference photo that I used was from the Wet Canvas website. I am having so much fun using Pan Pastels that my other pastels are crying. Don't worry little stick buddies, I'll get back to you soon.

Phase 1- I work from back to front...

Phase 1 A - This shows me applying the pastel with a sponge

Phase 2 shows the progress

Finished painting

We had a great time painting, and while I still have some great vacation pictures, I thought I would toss in some art. I am going to work on another seascape today, from a photo that I took at Carlsbad Beach.

It is rainy here today and while I like rainy days, it is a bit more difficult to become motivated. We'll see how things go.

I did sign up for a second set of swimming lessons and am currently practicing kicking with my legs and not just my feet. Whew, playing in the pool is fun, but practicing technique is hard work. Well, you know what they say about practice.

I guess that's it for today. I hope you enjoy the photos of my progress on this beach scene. Tune in later for another one. Take care and enjoy today.

I feel like I've been gone forever...

2010-10-08T12:22:00.000-04:00

Well friends, I'm back from vacation and everything seems topsy turvey. Unpacking, getting back in the groove, taking swimming lessons, trying to get DH back on our regular schedule of eating good food and well...you know the routine.

I did have time to load some of the pictures I took while out in San Diego. I stayed at my sister's other house, the one she uses as an art studio and the one that has a beautiful pool. We had lots of fun and I was very brave and even swam in the deep end of the pool. Those swimming lessons were money well spent.

Anyway, until I get everything back in order here on the home front, I'll only have time for a few pictures, but she has such a lovely home, I know you'll enjoy this virtual tour.

We start in the hallway, looking toward the foyer. Take a glance in the living room, dining room, breakfast nook, living room and kitchen. Later I'll take you outside for a glance at the pool, their beautiful landscaping and maybe even a night shot.

Hope you enjoy this first installment of the photo tour.

Down the hallway...

Formal living room on the left

On to the breakfast nook...

And then into the kitchen...

Off the kitchen is the den...

I also took several other pictures of the foyer and formal dining area, but blogger with it's newfangled features, wont let me post them because of them being vertical. Does anyone know how to get past that?

Anyway, that's a start and hopefully in the next day or two I can show you how gorgeous the outside of the house is.

In the mean time, I'll be doing laundry, shopping and generally getting back in my groove. Yep, it'll all be about how Susan got her groove on. So until then, let me know what everyone has been doing and remember to stay creative and artsy in your own special way.

Hello out there...

2010-09-22T15:49:00.000-04:00

Hello to all my little friends out there in blog land. I'm sorry that I have no new art to share today, but I have been sidetracked by the little things that happen in everyday life. Like taking adult swim classes for those fearful of water. I am doing really well. There are three of us in the class. One lady had never been in a pool and is really still very scared. The second lady is learning to swim for the first time and she has adapted quite well to the pool. And then there's Maude....just kidding. Yep, I am the remaining member of the class. I never learned to swim as a child, took swimming lessons as a young adult, but never got comfortable in the water. I am very buoyant and can always go into a back float and make my way to the edge of the pool if I get freaked out. So when I found out that our local county rec center was offering these lessons specializing in newbies and scardy cats, I just knew this was it. I knew this time I could give this fear to God and learn to swim. I signed up and got new swimming goggles and after two very gentle and helpful lessons (and being the bravest one in the class), last night I swam. I actually swam. Goggles on, face in the water blowing out air with my mouth, feet pointed and arms moving correctly, I swam. My eyes are tearing up as I type this. You have no idea what a gift this is. I was unafraid. Completely. I was concentrating on kicking my legs, face in the water, blowing out bubbles, and making sure my arms were coming out of the water. When I needed more air I came to the surface and heard cheering. I turned around and looked and way down at the other end were my fellow fraidy cats, going crazy, screaming "you swam, you swam". So you know what I did? I swam back.

I am so thankful and feel so blessed to be able to have made this much progress. I am still stunned that I did it. Just like Tom Petty says, "the future is wide open". It was so awesome.

Now for something else awesome, I'm going to take another trip to see my sister, Peri, in California. She and a group of friends were going on a fall trip to view leaves and she realized that she needed to be at home during that time, so to make up for her missing her trip, I'm going out for almost a week to visit. I'll be staying at their studio. I'll have everything fun at my disposal. It even has an in-ground, saltwater pool and I am going to swim while I'm there. We will dabble in art, swim when we want, do some shopping and of course, eat out.

So if posts from me are few for the next several weeks, you'll know why. I'm taking my mini laptop, so I can check in on stuff and won't be completely out of touch, but I just might take an "internet vacation" while I'm at it. Refresh will only apply to me sitting in a lounge chair and close window may only happen if it gets chilly at night.

So be sure to think of me the first week of October and if you're going to be in the San Diego area and want to meet up, just let me know. In any case, I'm sure everything will go swimmingly. Groan.

Ducks on a pond...

2010-09-15T19:57:00.000-04:00

Using a photo from the reference library at Wet Canvas, I painted these little guys. Their website is free and has great copyright free photos to use in your art.

I find a picture I like, download it and pull it up on my computer screen to refer to as I paint.

With the vision problems that I have, this method works quite well for me...better than a photo, because I can zoom in and out as required.

Sorry for the short post, but tonight is the premier show of Survivor and the finale of Big Brother 12. I'm a fan of several reality shows and even auditioned for Big Brother 6. They had me so convinced that I would be picked that I got anxious and changed my mind. I had even arranged for time off from work just in case, but when I got down to the last 200 applicants, I bailed and backed out. Fortunately, I hadn't signed a bunch of waivers at that point. Anyway, I'm glad that I at least tried out.

Have you or anyone you know ever auditioned or been on a television show? I'm just wondering.

That's it for today. When you have time, hop over to my other blog to see what else I'm doing.

My latest paintings

2010-09-11T16:27:00.000-04:00

Well, as we have all heard, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But sometimes what I think will make a great painting just doesn't work. I am still coming to grips with the fact that even though you can get beautiful detail with pastels, you just can't use the same technique as with pen and ink or graphite. Even a novice painter like me has to realize that sometimes it's the medium you are using and not you. With all that being said I present to you two versions of what I thought would be a great painting. I was thinking of an ultra close up shot of a flower, painted showing sun and shadow and lights and darks. I think sometimes I get confused and think that a painting has to look good close up and that's not always the case.

Any hoo, I've done a large version on watercolor paper (which in another topic altogether)

and this much smaller version on Wallis sanded paper. Neither painting really moves me and I still need to work on the leaf in this one, but I'm posting them anyway.

Deciding on what to paint sometimes is a hindrance for me, but I'm working through that right now and I think I'm going to try a much more painterly approach on my next few pieces. To aid in this I will be trying out my new set of Pan Pastels. They are super soft pastels that you apply with specially made sponge applicators. Since I'm not a painter, but a "draw-er" this will entail learning some new techniques.

So there you have it. Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Hope you are being creative and loving life. Take care and be happy.

Just a quick post...

2010-09-01T18:51:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to show several things I have done over the last week. With my hubby in DC this weekend, I tightened up several paintings and did a couple new ones.

Here is a still life with a stack of books. I set this up with two light sources so I could have lots of shadows. If, during the painting process something seems a bit off kilter, I like to bounce ideas off my hubby. He knows what he likes, and he can always tell me if he thinks an area needs attention to be more visually pleasing. While not an painter, he is an artist in his own right (musician, singer, videographer and computer guy, just to name a few) and being a carpenter always helps, because he has such a good eye for angles. Plus, I trust his opinion.

Next we have a still life painting of a vase. As you know, I am trying to find my way with pastels. My style falling somewhere between impressionistic and realism. I really love the look of impressionist art, but have trouble letting go details. But for what it's worth, here it is.

These next shots are the result of a conversation with a friend. She mentioned that the last time she saw me at our mixed media art group, I was working on the beaded vest. She asked that I post pictures of it again. So even though I'm doing pastel paintings these days, I thought I would throw in some of my previous pieces for folks that haven't seen them. (pay no attention to my crazy hair or my tremendously large body) So Norma, these are especially for you.

All in all, I put in about 40 hours on this beading. I also added bits of lace and some pewer charms to it. Perhaps it will soon be cool enough to wear it again.

Well, that's it for today. Hope everyone is having a good week and is staying out of the path of Hurricane Earl. Looks like the Carolinas could be in for a soaking. Hang in there, and even though hurricane parties are 'da bomb, please take any notices seriously and head to higher ground if so advised.

Take care and enjoy the rest of the week.

Another Friday post...

2010-08-27T00:05:00.001-04:00

Just two pieces of art to share, this first one is my DH done in charcoal, still in progress...

and the second one is a pastel self portrait done by looking in the mirror with strong light on one side of my face.

Both of these portraits make us look way younger then we are. My sister says, that's probably because I see us as we were instead of as we are.

What are your thoughts on that? Is my inability to draw the extra chins from my vision problems, or am I subconsciously too vain to include them?. Even at age 57, I have very few wrinkles, so I'm ok with that part. The mirror was about three feet away from me, so maybe I couldn't see the imperfections, or maybe they just don't show up in a "painterly" portrait. Anyway, I wish I looked this good.

Well, that's it for this week. Perhaps I'll have something new next week. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Say a prayer for DH and all the folks that will be attending various events in D.C. this weekend.

Take care and let us hear!

Working for the weekend...

2010-08-20T13:25:00.001-04:00

Everybody's workin' for the weekend. Remember that song? Whether you punch a clock or need to get all the lessons done for home schooling, or like to make sure all the laundry is done before Friday, we all seem to work for the weekend. There is always the chance that something really awesome will happen on Saturday or Sunday. I don't think we ever get over that feeling. I've heard folks say "everyday is the same for me". How sad that must be. No Siree, not this little red hen. I'm always on the lookout for something fun and most certainly looking forward to starting another week.

This week I did work on a new painting. Remember the snapshot I posted several weeks back? Well, here is my take on that photo.

Since this was my Grandmother's home I felt authorized to take artistic license. The siding was actually gray, but I couldn't make any of the grays that I have work, so I went with blue. The size of this art is about 16 x 20. I have gone back and forth about the bricks in the foreground, but my sweet hubs, who is an excellent carpenter and a stickler for detail and preciseness said it looked good. That's high praise in my book. The bricks seem to be leaning a bit, but I think that gives it a bit of charm. The main theme of the painting originally was going to be the flowers, but I had so much fun doing the house, that I just let things happen as I painted.

I did have the painting of my sister's house and flowers framed and am sending it to her today. I also included a little surprise for her, so there will be more about that later.

So I guess that's it for me today. Oh, one other thing. After shopping at our local Kroger's today, I was sitting in the parking lot getting ready to call DH on the cell phone (I don't usually drive and talk at the same time) and I suddenly felt the car lurch forward. I checked to make sure it was it park and it lurched forward again. I thought an earthquake was unlikely, so I quickly figured out someone had just hit my car...twice. I waited until the little old lady (she looked a bit like that little old lady that stole the stuff on the Andy Griffith show. You know, the one that they weighed because "little old ladies oughtn't rattle"), finally got into the space before I got out to look at the damage. It wasn't that bad, but when I realized she was trying to sneak into the store without acknowledging the incident, I had to say something. Fortunately for me, several folks witnessed this (with jaws dropped, I might add). When we shouted at the little lady to come back, she had hit my car, she came back and started shrugging her shoulders and saying she didn't understand me. She then went on about her business. Well, that just wasn't going to do. A really nice gal named Monica, got out of her car (on crutches) and said she saw what happened, and did I want her info. She also took photos of the damage while I was getting the tag number, etc. and said she would e-mail them to me.

The little lady came back while we were still there and I finally made her understand that you don't just hit someone's car and shrug and walk away. After refusing to give me any personal information, I asked her where she was from and she said Brazil. I told her that here in the States it was against the law to refuse to exchange information when you hit someone and that I would just give her tag number to the police and let them take care of it. Ok, maybe that was a bit much, but a person needs to take responsibility for their actions. When I said this, she suddenly was willing to give me name and phone number and ask me not to call insurance people without talking to husband. He pay. Oh, now she remembers some communication skills. There was actually very little damage done to my vehicle, good thing I was driving that big old dreaded SUV. If I had been in my Subaru she would have ruined it. She really did a number on her own bumper. Now I need to decide...do I call her and let her off the hook or do I just let her wonder what's going to happen?

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Enjoy the weather. Smell the flowers and give someone a big hug. And if you get hit in the parking lot, don't take a shrug for an answer.

Friday AGAIN???

2010-08-13T09:45:00.000-04:00

Obviously I cannot believe that it's Friday again. My studio reorganization is still a work in progress, but I did have time to watch some really good videos on Artist Network. Just to keep my creative juices surging, I did a small watercolor from one of the demos.

That's all I've done this week as far as art goes, but I'm hoping to be back soon with my complete pastel painting of the flowers at my grandmother's house. I might start a series of paintings of her flowers. She and my uncle lived right on Main Street in Small Town, USA. She was one of those folks that had the knack for growing flowers. People would drive by the house just to see her flowers. The house had a big wrap around porch and all summer long there was a constant stream of folks coming up on the porch and plopping down in one of the rockers for a chat. Those days are gone now, that house is sold and instead of geraniums there are rebel flags and pink flamingos in her brick flower boxes. Ahhh, the times they are a changing.

Just wanted to offer a quick thank you for all the well wishes for DH. His stitches are now out and he is able to get back into a routine. He had developed a place on his back, right were the guitar strap hits and it needed to be taken care of. More of a nuisance than anything, and he recovered nicely.

So that's it for today. Hope everyone has a great weekend and hang in there, Fall has got to be right around the corner!

It's almost the weekend

2010-08-06T18:55:00.001-04:00

Well, this is my first post since Blogger decided to change things, so watch out. Things might go wonky. This week I have been trying to keep DH quiet so he can heal from some outpatient surgery. Nothing too serious, but he does have several stitches and since the area is on his back, I am playing Nurse Suzy.

I have also been re-organizing my art studio. Since I'm having such fun with pastel painting, I will be putting away some of the mixed media items that I haven't used for a while. I did decide on my next painting and have been doing some preliminary sketches preparing for that. I have an old snapshot that I took years ago and I think it will make a pretty good painting.

You may be able to tell that something has been spilled on the photo and the house is tipping backward due to the angle I took the picture, but I think it will be fine for my purposes.

Well, that's all for me until I actually do another painting.

Take care and have a great weekend.

Flowers for the weekend

2010-07-30T19:50:00.004-04:00

Let's start the weekend off with some flowers...

These steps lead to my sisters' home in San Diego. Whenever we're there we have lots of coffee and gaze out the windows while we decide what to do that day. Don't these colorful plants just send you?

This painting started out as a color study. Only problem is, I didn't stop soon enough and get out my good sanded paper. This was done on a piece of smooth watercolor paper. When it wouldn't accept any more pastel in an area, I dabbed on liquid matte medium with a smallish paintbrush, let it dry and then added another layer. This worked quite well. There's a name for this technique, but I can't remember it. In any event, I got the look I was going for. Now if I can just remember to start out on the good paper, I'll be headed in the right direction.

Well, that's it for now. Enjoy your weekend and remember to stop and smell the ________.

(can you identify the flowers in this picture?)

Humpty Hump Day

2010-07-28T12:23:00.007-04:00

Yes, it's Wednesday. Hump Day. Middle of the week. What ever you want to call it, Wednesday seems to be here before you know it. Wednesdays make me think...hmmm, what have I done this week? Did I talk to my sister? Have I been to get groceries? Are all my chores done? Where can the week be going? What do I have to show for it? Do you do this? Think that every moment has to be accounted for, has to have been worth something, has to mean something? I try to get past that nagging little voice in my head (or that little character on my shoulder, like in cartoons) and enjoy life. My family, my life (with what talents I have) are gifts from God and I plan on enjoying them to the fullest. With that in mind, may I now present my latest works of art.

This first piece is done on an 8 x 10 watercolor canvas. The reference photo that I used is comprised from two Kodak Instamatic snapshots taped together.

My brother-in-law was stationed in Colorado in 1980 and took these shots and graciously gave them to me years ago. Using my imagination for the missing areas and eliminating the hood of the car, I came up with this...

Not all of my painting are "successes" by any means, but I can always pick out portions of each one that I really like. The following still life is one of those. Keeping up with a family tradition of asking "what can I draw?", I turned to my mentor (it's so nice to have an artist in the family) and one of the things suggested was a still life with fruit coming out of a cornucopia type basket. Well, I always have lots of fruit and I have a Longaberger basket, given to me by our Realtor when we became homeowners.

After several attempts I came up with a still life and photographed it and did my pastel from the photo. Right now I'm working better from photos than the actual item, but that's another story. Anyway here is the result...

Perhaps all this fabric draping was too much of an undertaking for a novice painter, but I persevered and got it to this point. As I said earlier, sometimes I don't consider the entire painting a success, but I love certain parts of it. On this one, I'm really pleased with the basket. I tend to want to draw in details and I have to remind myself that this is not a real basket of fruit, it's just the illusion of one. Looking at it, I don't really need to see each detail, to realize that it is a recognizable representation of a basket of fruit, a napkin and a candle. How romantic, imagine gathering up these items and stepping out on your deck at dusk and having a snack with that special someone. Right... then slapping mosquitoes and knocking over the tea and dropping the napkin...well, you get the picture.

Well, that's it for me today. I'll be back soon with more art, insight and laughter.

Hey there...

2010-07-23T12:35:00.006-04:00

Just a quick post to say hello. I made a web cam video and with the aid of my hubby, I got it loaded and thought you might like to see it. It's me in my purple kitchen saying hi.
Hope you enjoy it.

That's it for today. Take care and have a good weekend.

The Process

2010-07-15T19:25:00.017-04:00

Sorry, but I forgot to take a shot of just the sky. I love doing clouds with pastels, it is so easy and they almost form themselves. I started with a blue sky with fluffy clouds and blocked in a big tree shape and foreground in bright yellow and painted them with odorless thinner. Then I added a curvy trunk and applied thinner to it with a rigger or liner brush...

Next I added some background trees and I started adding various squiggly marks in bright colors to resemble leaves and added to the trunk a bit...

Next I refined the leaves some more, trying to achieve a bit of depth with different shades of orange and red...

Initially I had planned to make the ground appear to be blanketed with fallen leaves, hence the yellow underpainting, but this tree wasn't ready to let go yet...

No siree, this tree said, "these leaves are mine, and I'm hanging on to them".

The shadow just started to emerge on it's own, so I went with it. A bit more defining of the trunk and the foliage, the tree is finished.

So that's the art for today. I hope everyone had a good week and has lots of fun planned for the weekend. DH has friends that are playing in the Blue Ridge Blues and Barbecue Festival this Saturday. We will all be having dinner together tomorrow night and then he will meet them for the festival on Saturday. Me? I'm making sure I have some yummy healthy treats on hand for the NCIS marathon on USA network. It starts at 1:00 and I'm going to watch them all until DH comes home. I don't care how many of them I've seen, I really dig that show. A bit gory for some, but it's all special effects and make up and doesn't bother me in the least.

Do you have wonderful plans for the weekend? Hope so. Whatever you do, stay safe and happy.

Can it be Tuesday already?

2010-07-13T12:45:00.005-04:00

I find the days seem to buzz past me in a blur. I've recovered from my little bug, with the exception of some lingering body aches, that might be actually attributed to trying watch tv while on the treadmill. Well, like Roseanne Roseannadanna would say, "it's always something".

It's nice to have a little studio space in which to be creative, and I know you are bustin' a gut to see my latest painting, so here she is.

This is copied from a demo in my pastel instruction book. Some folks don't believe in copying another artist's work, but I think that if it is from a tutorial and it gives you a materials list, it is meant to be copied. It's not like I'm going to try to pass it off as anything, or even claiming that I took the photo, but if you look in Painting with Pastels by Maggie Price, you will recognize it from the section dealing with bright underpaintings. That won't keep me from being proud of it, or framing it for my home.

Before starting my journey with pastels, I didn't know that you could collect the dust from your pastel painting and make your own neutral colored pastel. Yep, you can and that's what I did here. The colors usually result in some sort of gray depending on, obviously, the colors you used. This is what resulted from this painting.

It's a very nice greenish gray that will be great for shadow areas and such. The method I have been using is to place paper beneath my table top easel and capture the dust that way. After putting it in a container, I added water, five drops at a time and stirred with my gloved finger of my right hand. After slowly dripping water and mixing about 20 drops of water I got a good stiff consistency and proceeded to form the dust into a cylinder. Pretty cool, huh?

And last but not least, I'm really trying to get serious about my weight and health. I'm 40 pounds over my mid-range desired weight. In April my sister and I challenged each other to lose 20 pounds, and I haven't dropped an ounce. Any hoo, I decided to take before pictures to be a bit of a motivator. I decided to take the pictures myself, and I'm not showing the actual pictures, but I did think that this was pretty funny. I have a ten second timer on my camera and a two second one. You guessed it, I accidentally pressed the short timer and had to run to my spot.....resulting in this image.

It looks like I'm doing some kind of clogging, doesn't it? I always wanted to learn to clog. You know that kind were they wear taps on their shoes? Wouldn't that be fun? If you live locally and find a clogging class, let me know and we'll partner up.

Well, with this picture burned into your retinas, I'll say ta, ta and go work on a new painting. I'm working from a reference photo that is gorgeous. It's a wonderful image of a Japanese maple, that was in a fall edition of House Beautiful. You just never know where inspiration might be lurking, huh?

So that's it until later. Take care and be creative and kind.

Hello There, Ya'll

2010-07-08T14:52:00.011-04:00

Well, it's been a fun summer so far. The hubby and I spent the past several weeks working on creating artistic birthday presents for a very, very special friend. She loves and appreciates handmade gifts , so each year we try to come up with something new we know she will like. This year, DH made her a polymer clay bear, not only as a gift, but as a reminder of how much we love her. I couldn't post it before, but she has it now and loves it.

You may remember that we did dragons for her last year, so I carried through with that theme and did a drawing with watercolor markers and gel pens. It turned out really cute, and I had it framed so all she has to do is hang it.

We had a blast working on these projects and knowing that someone really likes the gifts that you made means a lot. Happy Birthday Peg-Peg!

We went to several Independence Day events and even though we took lots of pictures, I haven't posted them yet. Everyone (meaning me) was so hot and gooey, that I don't know that I will, but as they say here in the South, "a good time was had by all".

I'm not sure whether it was from something I ate or a mean old bug, but twice this week I have felt poorly. Tuesday, I just felt yucky enough to go back to bed. Wednesday I felt good, so the Sweetest Hubby in the World took me to the mall. After leaving our keys one place and having to go back to get them and then leaving my shopping bag at the mall and having to go back again and finding it, we finally made our way home. Then, after a quick trip to the grocery store, I settled in and finished another painting. Lo and behold, this morning I woke again with what we call "the tricky gut". You probably know what this means and how it makes you feel. Now, I feel fine, so I just don't know what was causing it. Sheesh.

My sister, Peri (you may have noticed her in my comment section) helps me with my pastel work via long telephone conversations. She suggested that I paint something I know, something I see everyday, like my woods. We have lots of trees around us and I really need to practice on trees. My first step started with a quick drawing on a sketch pad. Hard to imagine a scribbled drawing like this will ever end up being recognizable.

Then I took reference photos, one in black and white, to show values and one in color to help jog my memory.

I used an 18" x 24" sheet of watercolor paper for the finished picture and after a while this is what I came up with.

Every painting I do teaches me something new. On this one I learned a very important lesson, don't forget to touch up your light area before you spray your final fixative. I'm quite happy with it though.

Another thing I have learned by reading various artist magazines is a neat way to store pastel painting until you have them framed. Check this out...

If you use wooden pants hangers, they grip your art securely and leave enough room between each piece to keep them from touching. This little tip could be applied to lots of things, like hanging up fabric and other things.

Well, that's it for today. I hope all of you are feeling well and not suffering from the heat. We hit 100 yesterday and that's reason enough to stay in and keep cool.

We'll talk soon, enjoy your weekend!

It's a different picture, really...click in

2010-07-01T08:23:00.005-04:00

Well, kiddies, another week has passed and I was able to spend some more time in the studio. Here is what I worked on this week. When it comes to art, I was usually a pen and ink, or a pencil artist. In other words, I draw. As you know I am trying to branch out with the pastels and learn to paint. For some reason, I just naturally started out small. I suppose I got in the habit of drawing on pads that were small enough to hold in my lap while watching the television. The pastel work that I have done recently has all been done on sheets smaller than 8 x 10, so at the suggestion of my sister, who has been painting with pastel throughout her career, I went much larger. She wanted me to do a large version of the picture with the mountains and the path, so here we go.

If you could not visualize it before, you can easily see that 18" x 24" is much larger than the 6" x 6" from last post, but it shows you how versatile pastels are.

Still working somewhat large, I used my 10 x 14 sketch pad for a study in color. Since I wanted something else colorful, I went looking around the studio for something with a lot of color. Sitting atop my sewing machine stash was a plastic bag that holds my thread, so I just plopped the bag of spools next to my table top easel and began to block in the colors using the side of the pastel. After blocking in the size and shapes, I went on to add in the tops and bottoms of the spools, using circular movements. A few dark strokes were added to show depth and then some loose curved squiggles for detail and I ended up with this.

Well, that's what I've been working on. I hope everyone has had a good summer so far and are planning all kinds of fun things for our Independence Day holiday. DH and I will be attending our
local celebration. Everyone will setting aside differences, if any and celebrating as one, while listening to speakers and celebrating our freedoms. Freedoms that have been fought for so diligently over the years. If you live near by, please join us at An American Celebration here in Roanoke, Virginia.

Well, that's it for now. Enjoy your week and celebrate this weekend safely and securely.

A beautiful day...

2010-06-21T15:52:00.004-04:00

It's a beautiful day here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I finally got my cable fixed and the bedroom furniture delivery is finally complete. Had a few bumps along that road, but all's well that ends well.

Got new pastels last week and have been spending time getting to know them. So far I have come up with these little gems...

I painted this one using my instruction book as a guide.

This one was also an exercise from one of my books.

This one was painted from a picture that I took many years ago at the Peaks of Otter. It's a lovely little area about an hour away from us. Our Mom worked there, and it was where I had summer jobs during my high school years. Haven't been there for years, but it used to be really nice. Rustic, but nice and quiet.

I'm learning as I go with the pastels. I had this last one just the way I wanted, when I decided to reach over and add binoculars to the man crossing the bridge. Got them just so and looked down and realized that my right hand had completely obliterated the fence and most of the bank next to the bridge. I know how to avoid this, I just need to remember. Since pastel is a forgiving medium, I was able go back in and make the necessary touch ups.

Well, that's it for now. Got lots of things to do here on the home front. Birthday presents to make, chores to do and such. Now that my cable is working, I'll be checking on all my bloggy friends more regularly. Hope everyone is having a great summer and staying happy and being creative. I'll be back soon with more artsy stuff. Till then, take care and enjoy life.

Cox bundle

2010-06-14T16:14:00.002-04:00

Just a quick post, while I have internet to let you know that my cable and therefore high speed internet and telephone keep going out randomly. They are supposed to be here to check it out Wednesday, so if something happens and I don't respond in my usual speedy fashion, you'll know "her cable's out again".

Other that the constant frustration of being without cable and thinking, well maybe it's this, and maybe it's that...anything to keep from having to call the service guys..other than that, our lives are good. Now that I see this in print, it seems a bit trifling to be worried about the internet, but it's really the phone that is important. I have one of those old timey "pay as you go" cell phones that I use periodically, so I at least have something. What did we do before this age of technology?

My question to you is this. What would you miss most, in the way of technology, if it were to suddenly disappear? Inquiring minds want to know. Could you live like a pioneer? I'm just wondering.

OK, let us hear!

More Pastel

2010-06-08T12:52:00.003-04:00

I'm having fun learning to use pastels. I'm still taking advantage of art instruction videos and being reminded of lots of things I had forgotten. About the color wheel, values and such. This painting of water is a combination of two videos that I viewed recently.

I am using watercolor paper, not only because it's what I have, but because you can use water with pastel. Watercolor paper also serves as a great support if you want to make an under painting using water based media.

This next piece is based on a pen and watercolor that I did this past fall. It is looking at my woods from the deck and transferred quite nicely to pastel.

I didn't realize what a nice painterly effect you can get with pastels. I thought I would hate the dust on my fingers, as I'm funny about my hands getting dirty. Really hasn't bothered me in the least. If it does bother you though, medical examination gloves are an easy fix for that and are easily found. I'm still learning a lot about shadows and in this piece I realize that my colors are probably too bright on the shaded sides of the trees. It is a "remembering" process as well as a learning process. Another great thing about pastels is the ability to go back in and change things. They are very forgiving.

This last piece is a still life that I did yesterday. I used a cardboard box and lamp light to get the shadows. The back drop that I used as a drape really was too light, so I changed the color some.

I'm still in the learning stage, so I really haven't grasped the fact that I am going for an impressionist look, instead of photo realism. I tend to want to draw and become detail oriented. I am getting there, though.

So that's what I've been doing lately. I'm having fun and that's what art is all about. I hope everyone out there in Bloggerville is making time for fun this summer. Remember that summer fun is more than gardening and swimming and barbecuing. It's also about working a little bit of art into that fun. So how about spreading a long sheet of butcher paper across that picnic table and let everyone draw and paint. You too, Dad! Put those tongs down and paint with the kids. Have them make pictures of the food you are fixing and then everyone will have a lovely memory of that cookout with Cousin Drucilla.

Well, that's it for today. Have a great week and enjoy life.

Let's do art!

2010-06-01T20:00:00.000-04:00

Since it was so hot, muggy and sometimes raining this weekend, the hubby and I didn't venture out much. I used the time to catch up on viewing art demonstrations online. You can subscribe and watch them on sites like Artist Network TV, or if you're not ready to commit to purchasing one yet, you can watch some free instruction on How to Draw and Paint, or you can watch shorter videos on Youtube and other sites.

In any event, I have such respect for portrait artists and am always trying to improve my skills in that area. Using a cosmetics ad from a magazine as my model, I came up with this...

I used the grid method to transfer her features to my paper and I drew my grid wonky and all her features are a bit off. It's drawn with a 2B pencil and blended with a tortillion. It's only practice, so I won't be too hard on myself, but it does go to show that you really need to have your feature placement dead on, to get a realistic drawing. I think that's why every portrait I draw has a "cartoony" look to it. Well, practice makes perfect.

Another thing that intimidates me is painting. I can never loosen up enough to get a painting that doesn't look stilted. I think that I perhaps I over analyze the process, so for this one I just grabbed a small watercolor pad and using acrylic paints and an old plastic plate for a palette, followed along with the tutorial for this little scene...

This was actually a study on how to use masking fluid and a sea sponge for texture. My masking fluid (years old) was dried solid in the bottle, so I used rubber cement. My sea sponge has long since migrated to warmer waters, so I used a regular sponge that I picked little pieces out of. You get the picture??? Once again it is only practice and while I cringe and see everything that is wrong, I'm still not going to beat myself up. I had fun doing them both and plan on doing more soon.

That's it for now. Hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready for whatever this week brings. Just remember, if you're bored or looking for something to do, check out some art videos and you just might surprise yourself.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T10:23:00.003-04:00

The real price of freedom.

One of many, James Reagan gave his life for us. You can read about him here. Join me today in prayer. Pray for the families of these brave men and women and remember them with pride.

Happy Memorial Day.

It's me again...

2010-05-25T19:15:00.002-04:00

So you won't have to keep looking at those burned beads, I'll show you what I did with them.

I antiqued them with black paint and then with gold paint, glossed them up with Mop and Glo floor wax and made links using 14k gold filled wire. Considering everything, they turned out just fine.

I also put together a similar style necklace using beads from Peri's and my early attempts at polymer clay beads...

You are probably seeing a pattern here. Although I have silver hair and am a "True Winter" and not supposed to wear gold, I love warm coppery colors, combined with black and gold. I have lots of necklaces that are very similar to this.

I tossed together several donut necklaces and have a tutorial in the works if anyone is interested in how these super easy necklaces can be made. (Along with a very funny story about them)

I love wire work and have been wrapping beads on eye pins recently just for fun. I decided to combine some of them in a pair of dangly, but casual earrings...

Shucks, I even had time to do some seed bead work...

I was trying to learn to make a beaded bezel for this ring, but it wouldn't hold the stone, so I converted it into a beaded bead and went with that.

And just for fun, I'll leave you with a picture of me. I have always had super straight hair, that back in the day, had to be glopped with Dippity Doo and then spend the night sleeping under a hairdryer to achieve a bit of curl. Imagine my delight now that my hair is coming in wavy.

I know some of you gals might laugh at me for thinking this is curly, but believe me, I'm Shirley Temple compared to what I used to have.

So that's it for today. Hope everyone is having a good week. Take care and treat yourself tonight!

Fry-day

2010-05-21T13:27:00.005-04:00

Well, there certainly wasn't supposed to be another segment of the Ugly Bead Project so soon. But alas, many things went wrong .

I forgot to take the beads off of the cardboard that I used to carry them to the oven...

I forgot to check the temperature...

I forgot that after spending an hour conditioning the dang stuff, that I had mixed Cernit with Sculpey III...

I shrugged it off when my hubby seemed concerned because he thought something was on fire and couldn't find it...

I still didn't think anything about it when he had me look at the haze ("don't you think that's smoke?") that had wafted thorough the basement...

I was actually surprised when I went downstairs with him to check on our crystal growing coal project and just casually checked on my beads that were cooling in the oven...

TO FIND THIS!!!

Sorry Hun, it seems you did smell smoke and yes, something was burning. Sometimes things really go awry don't they?. These faux coral beads are going to be antiqued, but I think some of them are too far gone. As Britney would say, "oops I did it again".

Well, not to worry, it's just a reminder that things can still go wrong. Even after fifteen years of working with polymer clay. So I'm off to see how this little project ends up.

How are things going with you? Think I'm the only one having bad luck? Nope, check out my friend, Shelly at Blue Ridge Lady and see how your day measures up.

Whatever you are doing this weekend, don't try for perfection. You just might be disappointed.

Enjoy!

Ugly Beads vs Lonely beads

2010-05-19T17:15:00.004-04:00

OK, perhaps I was too harsh when I referred to the bubble gum colored beads as ugly. No, actually I wasn't, but as my sister pointed out, the way I presented them and the angle at which I took the shot made them seem much less hideous than they really are. That actually reflects the way I look at life. Sometimes things in life can get really ugly, but often when we change the way we look at them, they somehow get a bit better. I have always been an optimist and I'm sure I always will be. All this being said, I will continue to post some beads that, while possibly not the ugliest in my stash, have certainly been lonely.

There are several large baggies of polymer clay beads that I have made over the years and thought they were horribly disfigured, or just misfits. Either way, they were relegated to a life in a plastic box, under a table for a long, long time.

Here are a few, remember those awful pink things on the left, from ugly bead project #1.

On to ugly bead project #2. This next piece was created from these lonely (read u.g.l.y.) beads at the left of this photo. They were the result of my attempt to step outside the round bead box that I sometimes get hemmed into.

Well, they didn't turn out like I had planned, so I tried highlighting them with some silver paint and when that didn't go well, I tried dipping several of them in melted UTEE. UTEE stands for ultra-thick embossing enamel and is one of my all time favorite things to work with. I can usually rescue anything with UTEE. When this still didn't get the effect I was looking for, I banished them to that "I'm not happy with you box" under the table.

Fast forward to my current Ugly Bead Project. After dumping all these beads out onto my table and really studying them, I decided that the main thing the flat ones needed was continuity. So I painted all the edges black and then dotted red and yellow paint on top of that. Then I glued black square beads on the tops of the beads and then glued orange beads on top of them.

So take the continuity of the embellishments, along with some coordinating dangles and a bit of chain, and I have created a really fun piece that I like a lot.

Seems we've come full circle here. If life is giving you ugly beads, search for the continuity that is needed and then present those little beads in such a fashion that they are no longer the least bit ugly. Then pat yourself on the back and give yourself an "atta girl"!

Ugly Bead Project

2010-05-16T14:47:00.003-04:00

Ugly Bead #1

What in the world was I thinking? This looks like something encased in pink bubble gum. Apparently pretty glass beads and sparkly pink paint didn't help at all.

More to come....

I hope it will be worth the wait...

2010-05-14T18:46:00.002-04:00

Just popping in to say hi. I have been making jewelry lately and some of it has been quite less than satisfactory. That got me to thinking, how about an "ugly bead project" so that's what I'm working on.

I'm not an athlete, or a "mathlete" for that much, and I don't like being put on the spot of having to compete with a group, BUT (and isn't that a big but?) I do love to compete with myself. So tomorrow in addition to showing some jewelry that I actually planned out, I will be showing you the first installment of the ugly bead project. I have lots of beads that sort of went in their own direction and I'm going to see if I can corral them back into my world.

Wish me luck and let me know if this is a phenomenon which exists only in my own personal galaxy, or if you have "ugly beads" also.

Greetings

2010-05-08T12:24:00.012-04:00

Hello there, for some reason I don't really have any pictures to post today. So if you are just a blog "picture only" person, you'll be bored. No wait, I do have a picture, hang on while I load it....

Yep, my goodies came in from our recent session of retail therapy. This is from a store in San Diego called Great News. It's a fabulous store that sells all things related to cooking. They even sell online, for those of us who can't just jump in the car and visit on a whim. We bought cook ware and all kinds of other goodies. One of the fun things I got is a peculator. (Oops, that should be percolator, thanks Sis, I was relying on the spell check and clicked the wrong one) Anyway, how long has it been since I had perked coffee?? Heavenly, I am telling you.

At the risk of sounding like a shopping fanatic, or a mall rat, I have another quick story that I thought was funny. DH (that's Darling Hubby when he's being good) had errands to run and I know that sometimes he gets sidetracked and doesn't get everything done, so I went with him to help. We had several things to get that required going to said mall, and I had him almost running from store to store, especially looking for the elusive oval shaped table cloth. Everyone has oblong, but no oval. Why didn't I remember this at the shop in CA? Sorry, I digress, just had a shiny moment. You know how birds and other animals are distracted by shiny objects, that's a shiny moment according to my sister... Shoot, I did it again.... anyway, after sprinting from one store to another, he finally stopped and said quite emphatically, "my toe hurts!" and without breaking stride, I told him "my toe has hurt for three years, keep shopping".

I finally let him stop and take a break and even "let" him stop at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. I told him I didn't want anything since I'm dieting, but I did mention to him that he might want to try a chocolate covered pretzel and that he might like that coffee flavored cream and that he might like... Well, anyway he got a bit of a break and we decided to find the table cloth online and call it a day.

I tried to get him to do this,

but he wasn't going for it.

They also had a riding/driving simulator that bounces you around inside, while trying to make you think you are sailing over sand dunes, but he didn't want that either. You got to remember that this is the same guy that convinced me to go on the Skyfari at the Zoo...

and I was terrified, while he loved it. All this leads me to reason, that his toe really does hurt. Needless to say, after finally having to take his shoe off and massage his toe because it was cramping like crazy, we decided to donate those shoes.

As you can see, I'm hopping all over the place today. First I say no pictures, then I end up with three, and I can't seem to stay on topic. Have you ever been typing and think there is a bug on your foot and go crazy and then realize that it's the cord to your mouse??? Sorry, another shiny moment.

Well, I'm driving my own self crazy, so I better go get focused on something. I have made two pieces of jewelry this week that didn't work at all, so that is a bit frustrating. I think I'll find a nice easy pattern and make something that I know will work.

Take care, enjoy the rest of your weekend and if you're a mom, Happy Mothers Day.

Spring time fun

2010-05-01T13:18:00.004-04:00

As you know, I'm back from my trip and we're settling back in to everyday life. When the hubby picked me up at the airport, he asked me if I wanted to take a quick overnight trip to his college to hear one of his friends play music. I opted out of this trip and sent him on a little retreat of his own. He only stayed one night, but had fun seeing them play and then meeting up with the members of his old garage band and belting out some 70's favorites. He had a blast.

Ok, so now we're back to settling in to everyday life and having fun together. We always go to the Strawberry festival that is held to raise money for one of the local schools, so we headed out to check out this years event.

Here's DH getting the tickets (we figured this out after a brief wait in the serving line and having to change lines, man, is every thing is so complex these days?)

We did enjoy the sundae and shortcake and even got a friendly passerby to snap a shot of us.

Shucks, I even found a heart shaped bite...

After partaking of all the strawberry yumminess, we headed out to see a movie. DH and I have been waiting patiently for the release of The Runaways, and it didn't disappoint. There is a bit of sex and drug use, but considering the time and subject of the movie, it was completely necessary. The actors did such a great job of portraying these legendary female rockers, that I completely forgot that one of these rowdy little gals is being played by Dakota Fanning. They grow up so quickly, don't they?

Not much art to post, as I have been beading lately. I have finished this...

Loomed Bracelet

Bead embroidery butterfly

and I'm almost finished with this little number...

Free form bead bracelet with custom blended polymer clay cabochons.

So other than making room for my shipment of goodies from our retail therapy, I'm taking it easy. I got three magazines to amuse myself with while DH was gone, Bead Unique, Cottage Style Design and Taste of Home Chicken cookbook. Great choices for me, as I can read these mags over and over again. What better way to spend your weekend? Planning jewelry, planning bedroom redecorating and smacking my lips over chicken recipes. I'm happier than a baby pig slipping around in the mud.

How about you, you having a good weekend? I hope so. Take care and enjoy each day. It's been given to you for a reason. Live it and love it.

That's it from me for a few days, see you next week. Have a blast until then!

She's Baaaaaack!

2010-04-27T13:25:00.003-04:00

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm back. Remember that I said that I called my sister to let her know a package was coming for her birthday and she said she wanted me there as well??? I got there right after her package did. What did I send her, you may ask? She just discovered Hannah Montana and has had a blast engaging in marathon viewings of Hannah and all her antics. What would be a better present than a box full of Hannah gear. Yep, that's right, I sent my silver haired sister a long blonde wig and a microphone and a very usable shoulder tote. If you hang in there with me through out all these pictures, you just might see Sister in the wig. Don't worry, I asked her first. That's it, so enjoy...

She was happy to see me!

We had fun playing drums...

We belted out a few old favorites (the playing is so totally staged, but I did wail out the tunes)

I made new friends...

and laughed until I needed Depends...

I had my first fondue experience...

I even got to see some surprise snow...

We did lots of retail therapy, so as the packages start to arrive, I may share with you some of my various birthday booty. I had a lovely time and am very thankful to have such wonderful sisters. They know that I love them, but I wanted to say it again. I had fun and while there's no place like home, California if a great place to visit...if you have a sister there.

Just a quick trip!!!

2010-04-22T22:28:00.004-04:00

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I am taking a quick trip to CA to see my sissy. It was quite unplanned. I called to let her know that I had sent her birthday package and she got excited about that, but what she said she really wanted was for me to come see her. Since my birthday is on Sunday (we are five years and five days apart), I decided to shock her by agreeing to hop a plane and fly out. I am not the greatest traveler, but once I get in the airport, I do alright.

Therefore, I'm off to San Diego early Friday morning and will get back 9:00 pm Monday. Maybe I'll have some fun photos to share when I return. So keep me and all the pilots in your prayers and I'll be back soon.

This and That

2010-04-14T14:18:00.008-04:00

I'm still in the midst of spring cleaning, so I really don't have any art to post. I did make a loomed bracelet on a child's craft loom to get back in practice. I have a large beading loom, designed by Don Pierce, that I am planning a project on, which will be fun I'm sure. If you are not familiar with beading on a loom, check out his web page.

I am always seeing fun things out in the yard. I have several squirrel nests high up in my trees...

If their nests become flea or insect infested, they abandon them.

My neighbor has feeders. I'm not sure if this is a bird feeder or a squirrel feeder, but the hubby was able to get a quick shot, through the screen and quite a distance away, but you can see the determination in this little fellow.

What a hoot!

Look carefully and you can see him stretched out between the feeder and the tree that he is literally hanging onto my a claw. Funny.

As some of you may know, the Cardinal is the state bird of Virginia. There is a good reason for that. I saw this little guy fly by today and was able to snap a quick shot of him.

Isn't he gorgeous?

Several weeks ago I mentioned that I'm not a practical joker. I have one favorite joke that I pull on my hubby. Whenever I'm letting the length of my hair grow, I always get a little fake hair scrunchie and wrap it around my short little pony tail to mask the growing out process.

My trick on the hubby is to come running out of the bathroom with the fake hair in my hand and act like a big glob of my hair has come out. I know this is not really very funny and the last time I did it to him, we were on vacation in California and it just about scared him to death.

While doing my reorganizing, I came across my "partner in crime",

Looks like Ric Flair hair!

and thought I would show her to you before she is retired to a life as a doll wig.

Well, that's all from me today. If I get some art or jewelry finished, I'll be sure and share. Until then, enjoy your week, give someone a hug today and tell them it's from Susan.

Five new friends

2010-04-07T12:25:00.001-04:00

We have five new friends. At least I thought they were friends. They seemed to be a bit miffed at me for taking their picture and haven't been back for several days. Imagine living in a reasonably large suburban area and having these sweeties in your back yard. I love it. While everyone else on our street has back yards, my neighbors and I have yards and wooded acreage. We have a very small crick that runs along the property line and since having so much rain and snow this winter, this little stream is supplying lots of critters with a cool drink. I've seen groundhogs and squirrels, but way too many bees for my tastes.

In addition to watching the wildlife, I have been doing a bit of spring cleaning. Yesterday I tackled one of my art storage areas.

Shower stall in extra bathroom used as storage

This is just the first area I'm working on. I'm planning on organizing the closets, the laundry room (where more of my polymer, lampwork and beading supplies are) and maybe getting new curtains or draperies for several rooms. Lofty aspirations I know, but that's what a little bit of sunshine and fresh air does to me. Right now I have the hubby toting heavy stuff out to the curb for the bulk pick up guys. Ahhh, springtime.

As most of you know I have a weight loss blog, so I usually don't post that sort of thing here. Recently though, I read several statements that really rang true with me. One of the things I read somewhere was "if hunger is not the problem, then eating is not the solution". This really hit home with me. How often do I eat when I'm not hungry? Only all my life. The other thing that I wanted to bring to your attention is the current post of Roy Cohen. He mentions how much time we spend doing daily activities and how we could borrow from those minutes to make time to work out. Really good article, I hope you have time to read it.

In Roy's profile he uses the word mindful several times. This is a word that I have often used and to me it means that you have thought something through. Being mindful of the way you live is a good thing. If we all just went through life willy-nilly, nothing would ever get done.

As we all know, life is like anything else... you have to think it through, figure out what is the best way to go about things and then do it. If at first, what you thought was best isn't, that doesn't mean that you just stop trying. Certainly it's ok to sit in a chair with binoculars and watch the deer for twenty minutes at a time, but you need to eventually get out of that chair and do something else. It doesn't have to be productive or mean something, but you do need to grab onto life and show it you're in it for the long haul.

Set aside an hour or so for blog reading and then get up and do some one minute exercises. Do some stretches or what ever you are physically capable of doing. Unless you aren't mindful and overdo it, you'll feel better.

With all this being said, it's time for me to hit the treadmill. Enjoy your day and if you'd rather, put on some peppy music and dance your way through life. At the very least... you'll be getting some exercise.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T09:44:00.002-04:00

What's in your "to do" box?

2010-04-01T11:56:00.008-04:00

Today is April 1st and since I don't really like pranks, I thought I would address one of the little jokes we pull on ourselves. You know the one where you start a project and for some reason you never finish it?? Yeah, that one. Whether it's a knitting project that just got boring,

...or an entire shopping bag of jewelry that you keep because you KNOW that you are someday going to redesign the pieces, we all seem to do this.

What about you? Do you or any one you know do this routinely? It could be the latch hook kit that your mom put away for so long that mice ate the yarn (I know someone else that remembers that one) or maybe you have a bag of half-done embroidery projects. I have a beaded project that I decided to give up on and placed the magazine with the instructions and all the components into a bag and was going to give to someone else to finish,

but....I just can't seem to part with it. I know I can finish it someday. Blessedly I have room to store these treasures, and it's a good thing, because I plan on being able to do my crafts and art and jewelry for a long time to come.

And I ask again...what about you? Do you always finish all your projects? Do you feel guilty if you walk by the same necklace for months at a time and then make yourself finish it and then realize that it took about ten minutes.

Have you been wanting to whip up some stretchy bracelets and are such a whiny baby that you find every excuse not to? Now's the time.

Even though I'm much more a "lady of leisure" these days than in the past, I still find myself procrastinating on some things and spending way too much time on others (blogging and web surfing, just to name two).

Here is a piece that I started several years ago, that was inspired by the neck wear on Dancing With The Stars, but what would I ever wear it with... so here it sits..

Is the key multi-tasking or motivation? Right now I'm out on the deck making this post because it's just too beautiful to stay inside (multi-tasking). I do set little goals for myself, and try to stick to them. I clean the house for two hours and then allow myself to play in the studio for three, (motivation) . What's your method of getting your favorite things worked in with the must do things?

Right now I have to make a decision. I want to stay out here on the deck,

but in between dodging all those wasps with the crazy long legs, that keep circling me, and the desire for some tea with honey to combat my scratchy throat and cough, I think I'm going to have to go in.

How did you spend April 1st? Any jokers in your crew? Are you now so worried about your "to do" box, that you can't concentrate on any thing else? Hmmm, maybe I'm more of a trickster than I thought.

Take care, and let me know how you deal with some of the quirky little things that we do to ourselves.

Enjoy.

Thursday's art

2010-03-25T16:15:00.001-04:00

You may remember that I've been working on an art bead for a Flickr group challenge. This month's inspiration comes from Van Gogh's beautiful "Almond Branches".

My initial thought was to make a landscape cane with the entire image formed into the cane. This proved much more difficult to execute than I expected and looking back, I think that I should have used an inlay technique instead. In any event, this is what I ended up with...

I tried to duplicate the look of hand painted porcelain by adding some extra accents to the branches with various pens and paints and after curing, I coated the pendant with a product called Faux Dichro Liquid Glass which gave it a lovely glazed ceramic look.

Much to my delight, the current assignment for Art Beads. com's Beaders that Blog program is Spring. We were told to pick anything from the catalog that made us think of spring. I thought that it would be fun to combine the challenges and decided on blue jasper calsilica coin beads as a complement for the Almond Blossom piece. I mean after all, what says spring better than the beautiful blues and woodsy browns that are in these jasper beads. The beads that I received are so gorgeous, that they almost outshine the focal bead that I made. I'm thinking of also using them in a multi-strand necklace. I've very happy with them. To complete the design, I made some accent beads to match and I decided on light yellow seed beads as spacers.

These challenges just might be the motivation that I needed to get out of my slump. When working on a design, I'm not usually very dreamy or poetic. The beads I chose are calsilica, actually a man-made amalgamation of various minerals and stone fragments that are held together with resin. While working with these beads and the polymer clay, I did stop to contemplate the many ways of combining natural elements with man made products. It seemed to make a statement about how we can retain our love of nature and yet use modern technology to enhance art, as well as so many other areas of life.

That's it for now. Hope everyone is enjoying their week and getting ready for the weekend. Take care and stay creative.

*FTC compliance disclosure* the products attributed to Artbeads.com in this post where provided as a promotional gift by Artbeads.com in relation to the blogging program. My comments pertaining to these products are my personal opinion, no compensation has been received.

A give away

2010-03-23T12:08:00.002-04:00

I still don't have any art to post, but I'm working on it. I am offering a little giveaway over on my other blog and thought some of you might be interested. I won't give away the details here, but I will give away a cool item over there. So join the rush to enter your name at my healthy living and weight loss blog, "Let's Lose Weight This Year" and meet some new friends and maybe win something!

I'm still working on my art bead necklace and will post that later this week. Between crazy weather, a hubby with a cold and motivation that is apparently taking a vacation, I've been pretty slothful. But this will pass, it always does.

Take care and enjoy your week.

In between projects

2010-03-16T16:00:00.000-04:00

I'm in the process of making an art bead for a challenge that is due before April 1, but in the mean time I thought I'd pop in and just say hi and post a few fun links. I'll be posting some art soon, but I thought until then I would ask you a quick question...do you have little guilty pleasures? One of mine is watching court shows. It started back in the old days with Judge Wampner and The Peoples court. These days I love to watch Judge Mathis and Judge Judy. I have to think of my little uncle (God rest his soul), of how much he loved and respected Judge Judy, so I don't feel but so guilty about it.

Anyway, what is your little pleasure, that perhaps no one knows? I have several...in addition to my judge shows, I love watching reality shows in general. I always loved to dance, so my other little secret is that when no one is looking, (imagine me whispering this) I try to teach myself how to do those "booty shake" moves that I see on the dance shows. I know you are laughing, but I'll bet you do funny little things like that, too.

Come on, fess up...you know I'm not alone.

What's up with me

2010-03-10T15:45:00.003-05:00

The weather the past few days has been beautiful. We went shopping several times and ate out several times and have just had a nice time recently. In between times, I have been doing my usual things... housework, laundry, listening to talk radio, and being creative.

I was quite happy with the agate cane from last post, so I put on the mad scientist lab coat to see what I could make with it. To start off, I sliced the cane into equal slices and flattened and elongated each piece slightly. This was done using a small piece of white PVC pipe that the folks at Home Depot gave me from a pile of ends that was next to their cutter. Never know where your next tool will come from, huh? Any hoo, I poked holes in the tops of the slices and baked them in my trusty toaster oven.

Side note to my Sis...I'm still using the same little oven that we placed a label on that read "polymer clay only". Upon seeing this label, our other partner in crime exclaimed "Where in the world did you find an oven for polymer clay only?" We hooted and hollered and Sister just held the label maker up, gunslinger style, blew the smoke from it and tipped her hat. Ok, well maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it was really funny in a "duh" kind of way.

Back to the slices. This is what I ended up with.

On to another matter. I don't know if you remember, but a while back, I was contacted by Art Beads.com and invited to be a member of their group "Beaders that Blog". The way it is set up, they have certain beads that we can get from them, as a promo gift and then we review them. I have made several nice pieces using beads from this program and I have been able to try new items, that I ordinarily would not have tried. I took apart several vintage necklaces and made this piece, and then I tried my hand at resin and blogged about that here. Having not used the copper bracelet with the resin, I still had it and have just been looking at it and waiting for the right time to create something.

All of this is leading up the the creation of a faux scarab type bracelet from the ends of the agate cane. I love to challenge myself to use my scrap clay in a pleasing way, so I formed little beads and pressed them into that copper colored bracelet. TAA, DAA...

I still participate in the Beaders that Blog program and after choosing and receiving my latest beads, I got stumped. I had originally visualized making a sparkly neck piece using both the garnet tear drops and the purple faceted CZ beads together, using a wire wrap technique.

This last time I chose purple CZ beads and garnet teardrop shaped cubic zirconia (CZ) beads from their online catalog. As you can see in the picture, I was going to use sterling silver wire and wire wrap the tear drops to make a loop on them to attached to silver chain. Well, this was my first time working with this type bead, and they were too delicate for this technique, so I had to put my thinking cap on. I normally have no problem with design, but when I had to go back to square one, it took me a while. After several weeks of looking at these beads I designed this necklace.

I used amber colored crystal beads from my stash, and place the teardrop garnet cz's between them. It's really comfortable and looks quite fancy for such a simple design.

I really liked the purple cz's but they weren't speaking to me until today. I had used my beading board (which is a neutral gray) to try out endless color combinations and didn't like anything. It wasn't until I took a piece of hot pink fabric and placed the beads on it, that inspiration came to me. While it didn't involve pink at all, it did make me realize that these purple sparkly beads needed aged copper beads as their new best friends. Don't you agree?

Sometimes we need to just sit back and think about simplicity. This is the simplest bracelet ever. Copper beads and Purple faceted CZ rounds on elastic. I have it on right now and I love it.

Since I always wear earrings, I whipped these up, also.

Well, that's it for me today. A little bit of this and a bit of that. I should get my treadmill tomorrow, so that will be fun. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes. Take care and remember to have fun and be creative in your own special way.

*FTC compliance disclosure* the products attributed to Artbeads.com in this post where provided as a promotional gift by Artbeads.com in relation to the blogging program. My comments pertaining to these products are my personal opinion, no compensation has been received. It's probably a good thing, too, because I'm sometimes way too honest in my reviews.

Another day in paradise

2010-03-04T10:25:00.005-05:00

I cannot believe it's been a week since I posted here. What with the snow being on the ground for so long, and having fallen into an indoor daily routine, I never seem to know what day it is. It used to be I knew what day it was by what I had seen on the television the previous night, but now we DVR all our shows and watch them throughout the week. If we watch our Monday night shows on Thursday, and our Wednesday night shows on Saturday, it can get a bit confusing.

I have been spending quite a bit of time working with polymer clay. One of my favorite books for ideas is Ancient Modern by Ronna Sarvas Weltman. She loves to make jewelry that she refers to as impracticable...big, bold pieces that might impede normal duties, but are still such fun to wear. Here is a bracelet made from one of the techniques.

One of the components in this fun chunky elastic bracelet is faux agate slices. I found a picture online of a really pretty agate slice and referred to it as I built this cane.

Isn't it cool how my patio table looks like water???

Using translucent clay, gives it a more realistic appearance. To get an unusual texture for the outside of the cane, I rolled it in Epsom salt and then applied various colors of alcohol ink. You can then gently remove the salt, or you can carefully make the slices without removing it, but don't run it back through your pasta machine, or the salt will scratch the rollers.

Speaking of agates canes, the bracelet also includes slices from an agate cane that my sister and I made about nine years ago. Just another confirmation as to the length of time you can keep unbaked clay. Some of you may recognize the ring and brooch from an earlier post, but since they are favorites of mine, and made from this same book, I'm showing them again.

Other than watching it snow and hoping for Spring, I have been doing a lot of blog surfing. I read all your blogs and for some reason have been lax in commenting and for that I do apologize. We did go to see a movie last week, The Crazies, and I loved it. Really scary and lots of gory special effects that were believable enough to be fun, but not so disgusting.

The sun is actually out this morning and the hubs has suggested a shopping trip to Stein Mart, so I'm off to get ready for that. Hope everyone is enjoying their week and preparing for a warm and sunny weekend.

Take care and stay creative.

Just some art

2010-02-24T13:55:00.002-05:00

Now, I know some purist would beg to differ. Not everyone would consider the following beads actual works of art, but for today we will.

I tried several techniques since I last posted. Much of my time is used playing Mad Scientist with my clay. I have several great books and while I know their techniques work, I'm always wondering "what will happen if I try this?" I learn a lot, but lab work does eat away at your creative time.

Today's art is faux bone. I based several of my pieces on the ancient art of Scrimshaw. Scrimshaw was originally done by whalers on the bones and teeth of whales and walruses. They used the tools at hand to engrave designs and then rubbed the design with pigment to bring out the image. If you like to do scrimshaw, you are a scrimshander. These days artists certainly don't use bones and tusks from endangered animals in their art, so it is often referred to as faux scrimshaw or faux bone even though the technique is still the same.

This may sound odd, but I haven't seen a piece of actual bone in years. I remember ham bones and chicken bones from my younger days, but since all the meat I cook is boneless, I'm not really sure what color bone is. With that in mind, I relied on the color combinations mentioned in my various clay books for my faux bone polymer clay. I came up with these...

The piece on the left was done on raw clay using a needle to punch tiny holes into the clay in the design of a tiger. I wasn't sure how to initially get my image onto the raw clay to go by, so I printed out a small picture of a tiger and took the needle tool and punched holes through the paper to outline the tiger. I pressed the picture onto the raw clay and was going to go over it with a soft lead pencil in hopes that the graphite would go through the holes. Well, it didn't...but something even better did happen. Due to the light burnishing of the image, the holes themselves showed up on the raw clay giving me a perfect dotted outline to start my project.

The tile on the left was done by pressing an un-inked rubber stamp into the raw clay. On both of the pieces, I baked the clay at 225 in my little toaster oven. I use a lower temperature than recommended and it seems to work quite well and I don't get much scorching. After curing the pieces, I used brown acrylic paint over the entire piece and then wiped off the excess with a cloth before it dried . If your image is quite deep in the clay, you can sand any remaining paint off of the piece. If your image is not that deep, and sanding would obliterate your image, you can lightly spray rubbing alcohol on a smooth cloth and go over the top of the piece. Rubbing alcohol removes acrylic paint, so don't spray it directly onto your piece, or you will have to start over. But it's good technique if you don't like the paint that you used to antique your piece, as you can use the alcohol and an old tooth brush to remove that color.

Whew, I'm wordy today, aren't I. Sorry about that. On to the next one...

On this one, I simply rolled the bone clay into a somewhat large ball, then flattened it slightly with my hand. I textured the clay with a needle and lightly pressed an oval shaped cutter onto the clay, giving me a frame for my picture. I baked the clay, then antiqued it. For the picture, I used a copyright free, laser printed image left over from my library art club days (thanks, Marnie!) and a piece of clear packing tape. You place the tape down on the image, and use something to burnish it. I used the back of a teaspoon. After making sure the image is burnished completely, you then place the whole bit into a small bowl of water and walk away from it. It usually takes about five minutes for the paper loosen and you can then start to remove the paper carefully from the tape, using your fingers, re-wetting as you go. I use my non dominant hand, so I won't be tempted to scrub the image from the tape. After all the paper is gently removed, the image is completely transferred to the clear tape. I used a bit of gel medium to glue the tape transfer to the pendant, added a few gold paint highlights and it's ready to string.

Lastly my personal favorite is a grungy faux bone heart.

I roughly shaped the clay into a large heart and sliced it flat down the middle (think of filleting a fish) and then roughly placed them back together. I wrapped thin wire around the hearts, pressed in some grommets, roughed it up some and also used various shaped pieces of wire for texture. Cured and cooled, I removed the wires and applied the paint to antique.

While blog surfing earlier this morning, I checked in on a favorite, Pink Crayon Studio. Suze Perrott is a marvelous artist and today she shows a picture of a stack of her fabric that reminded her of a deli sandwich. That got me to thinking what a great way to find colors that go together. If you are in a bind and can't think of what colors to use, think of your favorite foods and the colors that they contain. The colors of a juicy hamburger, with shades of ground beef brown, tomato red, lettuce green and that off white colored onion, would make great colors for beads for a new necklace. Ok, now thanks to Suze, we're hungry and off to the store.

Take it easy this week. If you're expecting more falling weather, prepare for it and remember spring is right around the corner. It has to be...tell me it is!

Still hanging in there

2010-02-16T18:33:00.006-05:00

Not a lot going on here. Did get a few beads and buttons made...

but I just can't come up with anything I really like. I prefer my work to be original, but there comes a time when you need to get out the books and practice techniques using another artist's work as a sample.

I want to make some canes and create some jewelry similar to that of Karen Lewis (Klew) and Kim Cavender. The best way to do this is to condition a lot of clay ahead of time, so you can proceed uninterrupted with the building of your canes. Conditioning clay is my least favorite part of the process, especially the stiffer clays, like Cernit and Fimo.

If you are not familiar with the process building a complex cane from polymer clay, check out the the free tutorials of Desiree at Desiree's Desired Creations.

There are as many ways to use polymer clay as there are artists and crafters that use it. There is no right or wrong design, and once you learn the techniques you are really not limited by much. It is an inexpensive art material and requires few tools, and can be cured in an inexpensive toaster oven. If you find that you really like polymer clay and want to subscribe to some really helpful and professional videos, be sure to check out Cindy Lietz.

All that being said, I'll leave you to check out yet another picture of me. An unretouched full length shot of me standing in front of our door.

The reason I'm mentioning this is that this shot really shows that I have packed on some winter weight and I'm going to be using this as my "before" shot for the huge amount of weight that I plan on losing. Wish me luck and keep track of my weighty musings over here if you want.

That's it for today. Hang in there and try not to let the acres of snow drive you batty. It has to melt sometime! If you don't have snow...enjoy that fact and act accordingly!

Frivolous Friday

2010-02-12T17:25:00.000-05:00

Frivolous because I really don't have anything much to say. Got out today and ran some errands...

Piles of snow everywhere, even at the bank (snow bank, get it?)

Went to see Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges, liked it a lot, but I kept thinking that Jeff Bridges was Kris Kristofferson, I got a bit weepy at the end, but it was really good and the music was good, too.

Went to Merle Norman to get some nail polish, but they only carry OPI nail color now, and I can get that cheaper at the mall, so no new nail color today. I didn't realize that Merle Norman was discontinuing their brand of polish, or I would have stocked up. Grr.

DH took a picture of me in my new glasses with relatively good hair today, so I'll share that with you.

Other than going out to lunch yesterday and to a movie today, DH and I aren't doing much for Valentines Day. I'm kind of funny about Valentines Day. It started back in grade school when we were supposed to give those little Valentine cards to all our classmates. It actually started when I was in first grade, my Mom, after trying to deal with me and my siblings waiting till the last minute to address the valentine cards, decided it would be a lot quicker if she wrote the names on the envelopes....in cursive. That meant that the next morning in school, six year old me couldn't read any of the names on the envelopes, and had to traipse back and forth asking Mrs. Henderson, the teacher what each envelope said. Needless to say, thirty trips back and forth to the boxes would have been too much for her, so then she takes over and puts them into the boxes. Not a good way to start Valentines Day, huh? Then fast forward to sixth grade and yes, we still have to put a valentine in those stupid boxes. But the cards they got me to give out all said I love you on them, or be mine and that didn't sit well with me. Man, I couldn't catch a break, I just wasn't into any of the boys in my class, or many of the girls for that matter, (they all teased me because I was the chubby girl). It never occurred to me to not put a valentine in every box, I mean how rude would that be?...anyway, I took my pen and crossed out love on the cards and wrote like instead. For some reason, the adults thought this alteration was hilarious when the teacher ratted me out the next day.

As an adult, it didn't get much better when my boyfriend of almost ten years, waits until after Valentines day to pick up left over candy that was on sale...the reasons for not liking Valentines day go on and on.

Blessedly, as you know, I now have a wonderful, loving husband who would go all out on Valentines Day and would take me where ever I want to go, by I'd rather stay at home with him, watching shows that he tapes for me and feeding him my homemade chili and watching him doze off in front of the tv. That's what Valentines Day is really about for me. He has bought me jewelry and perfume and candy and clothes over the years, but sitting beside him watching our shows is the best present anyone could get. Like the song says, who could ask for anything more?

So what started out as a frivolous post, turned into a happy post about my sweet hubby. If you haven't seen him for a while, here is an older picture of us together. I think he looks so cute here.

So there you have it. This little photo is my Valentine to you. Hope you have a great weekend and a wonderful Valentines day. If your day doesn't turn out the way you planned, remember you could be forced to send love notes to kids you don't really love. In other words, it could always be worse. Take care and embrace and enjoy what the day brings, I know I will.

Monday, Monday

2010-02-08T15:50:00.003-05:00

The sun is shining and although there is a lot of snow, the roads are clear and dry. DH had to dig out some, but thanks to our neighbor, our driveway was mostly clean. I had errands to run before the next storm (Tuesday, grr) so I got chauffeured around town all morning.

Went to Michael's for a new clay blade. I have tons of dull ones and haven't figured out the best way to sharpen them, so I had to fork over $5.00 for one blade. Yikes.

I think I'm going to take a break from the collage work and make some jewelry. Making jewelry is what I always go back to and I think my polymer clay is calling to me. Hopefully, I'll have something to post later in the week, jewelry-wise, but until then here is the only art I've done recently... my last two collage journal pages.

My pages are fairly large, 11" x 14", so I have lots of room for my images and lettering. I may have mentioned that I'm participating in a Flickr Collage group, where we all download the same image and create our piece. I'm getting a bit stymied in this type of collage art. For some reason, none of my pages look anything like the others in the group, and I'm constantly comparing myself to them. The group leaves positive comments on my art, but for some reason, I feel like they are dancing around the fact that I'm just not like the other kids. I have always been a bit different, and have been called crazy, weird and my all time favorite...colorful. Ahh, but again, I digress.

Here are my most recent submissions.

The guitars and the necklace were my addition to the supplied images, as were the words and the doodles.

This week's sheet was mostly party images with cake and balloons and vintage photos of fancy ladies. I had some really nice watches cut from a fashion magazine ad, and I added them, but I really never got a feel for this week's images.

With all this in mind, I think I'm stepping away from collage for several weeks and going to play around with wearable art, mostly necklaces. I've done a bit of research on what the new trends in jewelry are and will be trying my hand at a few new ideas.

We picked up my new tri-focals today and am trying to get used to them. I can see much better than before, but there is a learning curve. Maybe if I can come up with a cute way to camouflage my turkey wattle, I'll post a picture of me actually wearing them.

Well, that's it for today. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't get any more snow, but I'm thinking we will. If you get any of this next storm, try to stay warm and safe and enjoy it.

Hang in there and remember to be creative in some way and to love life.

Yes, I'm snowed in

2010-02-06T12:03:00.004-05:00

I am snowed in, but I'm not unhappy at all. It started snowing early Friday morning (about 3 a.m.) and now at noon on Saturday it's still snowing. Due to the fact that at times it has been quite fine, we haven't gotten the accumulation that we did on Christmas Eve, but this is a heavy snow that is sticking to everything. Our neighbor had a new blade he was itching to try and he pushed and plowed everyone's driveways. After working (playing?) for hours, he finally realized it was an uphill battle.

He is a great guy and I'm sure when it finally stops, he'll be back out helping us all.

Here is the view down into my back woods...

A neighbor's tree sags from the weight of the snow...

A close up of a tree holding the snow, as if she loves it.

This shot, taken from my deck, shows even the tiniest branches grasping the snow...like it's some kind of winter game. I love it.

It's a good thing this red car has no where to be this weekend. It will take quite a bit of sweeping and a lot of hot cocoa for this neighbor to go out.

To help deal with the weather, I love to do art, especially coloring. I'm so glad to have such a talented artist friend as Jenny, who graciously shares an image to color. Please stop by and visit her and see my take on Jenny's art.

So, that's it for me today. I'll be staying in, having fun and counting my blessings. Power, cable, food and love...things we might take for granted, but really appreciate on a day like this.

Enjoy your weekend and have fun!

It's monday again...

2010-02-01T11:09:00.002-05:00

Well, it's Monday again. We had another major snow storm over the weekend with frigid temps. I don't mind at all. I would show you a picture of this new storm, but surprisingly enough, it looks a lot like last month's storm. So I won't bore you with that.

As you know, I am a very lighthearted and happy person. There have been several really sad things happen in our region lately, the finding of Morgan Harrington and also finding little Aveion Lewis. These were two local missing persons cases, that have been on our news recently.

Both of these cases are now murder investigations and we are all saddened by the events. Last week I was going through some of my previous essays and I came across one that I want to post for you today. Approximately one year ago, two similar events happened that prompted me to write this, and it still holds true.

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Sometimes when I stop and think about all the pain in this world, I wonder is it OK for me to be so happy? I know He wants His children to be happy, but is it fair for me to be happy when others have such grief in their lives?

Babies being killed by family members. Ridiculous. Families being torn apart by the sudden death of a loved one just doing his job, killed while at work, by someone doing something stupid. The people that caused these deaths? How can I feel for them? Is it Evilness? Madness? Spirits...from a glass vessel? What causes their pain, what causes people to change? From the decent souls that you thought they were, into instruments of pain? Instruments of death?

Can I live with myself for being happily married for over twenty years, with hopefully and prayerfully, many more years in the future? Can you be happy for me? Or do you hate me for my happiness?

How can I ease your pain, how can I not think of you, all of you? I am only one person, one silly little girl. Am I masking my empathy for you with my happiness? Do I bury myself in my own interests because your pain makes me physically ill? I have to stay healthy, so when it is my time to do my part, I will be able. Please don't hate me because I'm happy. Love me for it. It is a gift from God....this capability I have to always stay positive, to be able to remove myself from your pain. I have to, I know you don't want me to falter... I have to be here for you.

If I don't cry when I hear your grief, it's because I must not. I would cry all the time. I have to grab the bootstraps on my pink patent leathers and give them a tug. I am here to help you and I can't do it if I am in pain.

Don't hate me because you think I'm happy, or beautiful, or rich or blessed or fortunate. What you may think of me, what you may think I am, have you considered that you just might be wrong? I love you, I love you all...maybe too much.

Thank you for the music. Thank you for the art. Thank you for the healing. Thank you for being you.

It's ok to grieve, just don't give up. Grab the rope and hang on. It really will be ok. I know that in my heart.

Faith, Hope and Love...

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So that's it for today. I'll be back soon with some art and something lighter and happier, I promise.