Busy!

I've been crazy busy since getting back but I wanted to give you a quick update on a few of the presents I've received in the 12 Days swap. The gorgeous canvas piece entitled "The Messenger" is from Katie and I love it! The next piece is from Liz and it's fabulous. I love the colors and dimensions. I promise to dig my camera out tonight and take pics of the other pieces that I can't just scan in! :)

I'm meeting some friends for dinner and tomorrow night work is having a screening for "Night at the Museum" and then I'm on vacation for the holidays! Yay! It's definitely becoming festive at our house!

Have a great Wednesday guys!

Back from Missouri

Sorry about the long absence, we've been in Missouri since Wednesday but I don't always like to post that we're going out of town and I didn't really have a lot of time or access to the 'puter! :) Now that I'm home, I finally had a chance to catch up on a few things. Here are a few items from the 12 Days exchange. The collage piece is from Edina and the book is from Deb and I love them! They've done a fantastic job! I've got more goodies to show but I was lazy and didn't want to try and dig out my camera. :O

I hope you keep checking out the blog of the daily goodies on the 12 Days blog because I'm telling you, these ladies are talented. They are shocking me everyday with the talent in this group and the imagination and work that went into each piece. I'm thrilled to be among them.

I've got some more to show and tell about our trip but I'm wiped out and tomorrow's a work day so I'm off to bed.

My great friend Gwen is too talented!

My friend Gwen made these sets for me for my sisters and they are gorgeous! She's just getting up and running with her knits but she does fabulous work and she's still reasonable since she's just starting out but I'm not sure how long that will last since I'm telling you, she's fabulous! Gwen's made me a few scarves and a gorgeous lap blanket along with a scarf/wrap that I wore all last winter because it was that cozy. Anyway, keep an eye on her blog to see her new stuff or get in touch with her if you need something warm and fluffy to get through the winter... and really, who doesn't! :)

Don't forget to keep watching the 12 Days of Christmas countdown. We started today - woo hoo!

Glinda Collage

I made this one for my little sister for Christmas. It's a 3-d collage under glass on one side and a regular collage under glass on the other. The box is just a regular cardboard jewelry box from the Container Store that I painted on the 3-d side. The flat side is water color paper I painted to get the perfect shade of yellow brick road yellow. I printed the lyrics directly on to the paper, added Dorothy and the German scrap border and the back was exactly how I wanted it. The front however was not so easy. It was tricky to get that crown glued in to place but 4 hours later and half a tube of liquid nails later, it's good to go! I used some pink glittery jewels from Papier Valise to prop up the crown.

Just a tip here, it kept beading up with moisture under glass when I was finished soldering so I ripped the finished solder off. TWICE - because I was that freaked out about it but tonight I finally just did it one more time and let it cool (my husband also talked me down from the ledge after another freak out) and the moisture evaporates after it cools down and it's fine so don't worry about that part if you decide to tackle this project and have a similar experience.

I was inspired my the mini-Hallmark ornaments we saw at the mall shopping so I put them to good use here. The idea is the Glinda the good witch left her goodies in a hurry to meet the wizard but not without leaving a note! I may have a few left over for some fun pieces later.

Initial Necklace

I'm still working on Christmas gifts but I took a break to play around with some pieces I've been trying to arrange into a necklace for weeks. I bought the large smokey quartz beads yesterday and they were exactly what I needed. They worked great with the golden and smokey swarovski beads so all the pieces finally fell into place. It turned out even better than I expected... although my expectations were fairly low since the pieces were just stacked on my desk with me adding, subtracting and re-arranging for weeks!

Today was crazy since it started at 4 am and has yet to stop. I've been working on projects to finish up, stocking the freezer with baked goods and now I need to really think about wrapping some of the goodies... I'm not sure I'm ready to face the paper cuts yet! :)

Anyway, the project for my sister has turned out unbelievably super cute and I hope she loves it. I'll post pics as soon as it's totally finished - she doesn't read the blog so it's safe. Also, my sister-in-law's will probably be in the pic stages tomorrow.

Anyway, I hope everyone's getting into the Christmas/Holiday/Festive/Even if it's not your holiday you get a break any way mood - the cold front's breaking and the high will be 70 tomorrow which, honestly, still feels like December in Texas and I've decided I've finally been bitten by the Christmas bug and have been driving my husband crazy. The alternative was I was driving him crazy because he was worried I hadn't started in about the holidays yet, now, all's right with the world.

Shopping

Today was spent with the last of the Christmas shopping. I think we've got most everything for everyone in our families and our all set. We also worked in a movie, The Holiday, which was really good and I highly recommend it. After spending the entire day out shopping, we finished up with dinner at Cafe Brazil and I think we're heading to bed early... we deserve a rest after fighting the crowds!

Tomorrow will be spent on making the rest of the presents, cookies and cakes for the freezer, wrapping all the presents, decorating the tree and making Christmas cards... yep, I'm definitely ready for bed! :)

Hope your having a great weekend.

Snow Days

I made this pic last week for the December Challenge for Mixed Media Artists. This one was a lot of fun since it was mostly coloring, playing with glitter and glue! I had a little bit of difficulty on the background since I knew the exact shade of blue I wanted but getting it was a little bit harder than I imagined. In the end, I beat the canvas down with a lot of water and paper towels.

The basic idea was to create a piece that evoked a childhood memory and this one is sort of a culmination of a lot of memories for me. I made it last week when we were hit with the flurry of slight ice and snowflakes but very cold weather and it really reminded me of those extremely rare times when we got 2 snow days from school. 1 was not all that unusual, but 2 was almost unthinkable.

Oddly, the most striking thing about this image for me though is the house. It's the house that evokes the most memories for me. My grandparents house was pink and growing up, that was where almost all of the family gatherings were regardless of seasons or occassions. When I really think about where we were for most of my childhood memories with my extended family we were in a pink house on the Kansas prairie. :)

Last one arrived today!

I'm participating in a 12 Days of Christmas Swap and my last package arrived today. It's been a ton of fun exchanging stories, gifts and ideas with such a great group of artists. They are amazing and talented and have been an inspiration. I can't believe how much fun it's been and we haven't even opened our goodies yet!

I've been keeping mine in the dining room in the trifle bowl. This seems appropriate somehow. :)

Weekend Update

I've been working on this chain while watching season one of Weeds. It took most of Friday and Saturday night but it was a nice way to start the weekend. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the locket when it came in. I ordered it with a few other goodies from Papier Valise a couple of weeks ago and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Yesterday was spent catching up on sleep since I had a migraine in the morning and I slept until 3! I hate that sine it means most of my Sat was a bust. We spent last night finalizing Christmas shopping so we're almost finished. Now I just have to finish the gifts I need to make!

Have a great Sunday!

New items on Etsy

Today was a rough day at work but we're due for sleet and a serious cold front so I'm hoping for a snow day... Maya has a bad infection and we need to up her allergy shots so my husband is trying to sweet talk her into taking her antibiotics and steroids. It's not working but it's kinda funny to watch. She's the sweetest dog on the planet but not a good pill taker. On the human front, I'm due for allergy testing Monday so Maya should be happy that I'll have to do it to although it should be slightly less traumatic for me since I won't have to be knocked out for it, although my husband might prefer it!

Anyway, I'm working on a couple of new projects that I should have pics to post tomorrow and I've added a couple of new pendants to my ETSY store. One of which is this one. She's one of my favorites since I picture her as one of the really sassy WWII women that I think helped keep America running, and extremely interesting, during an unbelievably difficult time.

I love my des chiens!

... and my Google home page. We're in the process of switching internet providers since Comcast was purchased by Time Warner (and I've come to loathe Time Warner since they seem to have a serious issue with actually being able to keep internet connectivity) so I'm just making the jump over to gmail.

I set up my google home page with my horoscope - my husband warned me about the horoscope and that it was not a happy go lucky little horoscope but in fact was very "heavy" but sheesh! I've also a few other fun little items including: the date/time, the moon phases, word of the day, movie times, headlines, gmail, weather in my area (and London, England - just 'cause) and tips I should know. It's sort of like my own personally daily Farmer's Almanac... maybe that's just a Midwestern thing! :)

This is a fun little pendant I made using some optometrist's lenses I got from eBay. The middle is clear but the sides are frosted so the "chien" text was off center so it could be read in the clear part, turns out when I applied the diamond glaze the frosted glass edges disappeared so now I'm calling the off-center text artistic choice for added interest. The piece is to keep a little piece of my puppies close to me when I'm at work all day...

Speaking of which, tomorrow we have to take Maya (the Akita) back to the dermatologist because her allergies are back and out of control. We'd finally gotten her off the steroids and antibiotics and on the allergy shots but she's had a bad flare up. I'm hoping he can do something to help her. I feel like she's miserable but this might be worse on us than her but I hate to think she's miserable and can't tell us. I'll keep you posted.

Art Days

I had a great time on Friday with my friend Kate and can't wait to see how the vase experiment turns out next week. Mostly, I practiced cutting glass which can be tricky given the different types of glass, variations by color, etc so I appreciated the practice with Kate around. I've also spent most of today working on a fairly substantial Christmas art gift, sorry no pics yet!

Thursday night we did manage to see The Queen. The theater was packed but it was worth it, my husband might not agree! We also managed to make it to the square but the crowds kept us from staying very long but I found a great pack of dominoes that I can't wait to put to good use.
My husband also took me on a spending spree at the book store since he got a $100 gift certificate for filling out a survey - he swears it took 2 minutes- he's got way more patience for that kind of thing than I do but I stocked up!

No big plans for our final day of holiday freedom - maybe we'll venture out to the grocery store, I think that's the most holiday shopping I'm willing to risk!

Happy Saturday guys!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been a quiet Thanksgiving in our house. We took the easy way out and got a smoked turkey from a bbq place ... it was very tasty and didn't take all day to make! I think we're going to head out in a little while and see The Queen. It's gotten some pretty good reviews and I love Helen Mirren. If we can stay awake long enough, I may even make my husband buy some new house shoes at the Eddie Bauer Outlet at midnight, mostly just because we could. :)

Tomorrow morning I'm heading to my friend Kate's to make a vase. She's got the super cool glass kilns and tools so we're going to play in her studio for a few hours. Tomorrow afternoon we're heading to the square for the "Dickens of a Christmas". We've lived here for 6 years and have never managed to do it but tomorrow's the day - well, that's the plan any way!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone ... if you're not in the US, well, it's probably the weekend and that's a good reason to be thankful too!

Sorry about the down time!

I've taken a little unexpected down time this week! It's been hectic but definitely improving. My doctor's appointment went well and I've got a new migraine medication that I take daily - Weds I double the dosage so I'm hoping it doesn't make me loopy. My husband assures me I have very little wiggle room in this area! The good news is that the new medication is working and I've only had to take the bad migraine medicine once so that's very exciting. There was no blood taken this visit either, although she mentioned that I should visit an allergist and there would be lab potential next month. I'm just excited that I think I might be able to eek out of November without needles so woo hoo!

I've been working on some art projects but since they're mostly gifts there's not a lot I can post in terms of photos. As soon as the holidays are over there will be lots of goodies to be seen. I'm also working on a few things just for me but they're a little time consuming but I'm very excited about the upcoming holidays to do nothing but eat turkey, play in the art room and watch movies.

On the movie front, we saw Casino Royale yesterday and it was fabulous!!! I've been a Daniel Craig fan for a long time and Layer Cake is quickly becoming one of my husband's favorite movies and Casino Royale offered a little something for both of us since we're huge James Bond fans. Definitely a must see for Bond fans.

Since I don't have any new photos of art, I thought I would pull out another Europe photo. I went with one from London of Harrod's in honor of James Bond and the beginning of the shopping frenzy - it seemed appropriate.

It's been a year since our trip and I'm starting to seriously bug the hubby about our next adventure. So far we're in talks about the Czech Republic, the Christmas Markets as a group Tour and Italy. I'm taking votes and comments. :)

Tired and blah...

This has been a long couple of days with zero art happening. I've got tons of ideas but not enough time or energy. (I should warn you that this could be a slightly whiny post but I feel better having given you notice.)

The basic gist of it is that we get up at 5am and don't get home until 12/13 hours later. With dinner, dishes, etc it's pretty much late evening before I'm walking into the studio but we've both been feeling icky so mostly it's just being plopped down in front of the tv which drives me crazy because it takes up all my free evening time... but, I'm addicted to alot of shows so while TIVO helps me out, I've got a serious tv addict monkey on my back. I can't give up The Amazing Race or CSI/CSI:NY (I can't even begin to talk about my reality tv addictions - like Project Runway, Top Chef and Survivor) and the group at work has ganged up on me and forced me under their spell with their love of Heroes... seriously, it's a problem.

When not plopped down in front of the tv, I'm taking my fairly serious migraine medicine and curled up in a ball in bed asleep - or hoping for sleep. I see the doctor again tomorrow - 3rd dr's appt in 6 weeks each requiring blood to be drawn. My arms look like I've got a problem worse than a TIVO obsession; the lab techs and I are starting to be on a first name basis!

Also, we have yet to talk about the most crazy addiction of all - the book monkey. I have stacks and stacks of books waiting to be read. I've managed to squeak out extra reading time to and from work - I carpool with the hubby (so don't worry about me being a road hazard!) - at least an hour each way so that's some pretty good book time. But, I have to read before bed, otherwise I can't sleep, admittedly I sometimes lose track of time and realize it's midnight and I'm now in trouble 'cause of the 5am wake up call. ... Maybe I should be including that in my migraine journal!

OY! Where does it all end? My friend, Gwen, and I kid because for a while I was riding the train back and forth and kept talking about how I was a hamster running in the wheel but getting no where (seriously, the train is strictly North & South so there weren't even hills or curves to break up the ride!) but let's be clear - my route may be boring but my wheel is pink and sparkley!

Ok, I appreciate you guys listening to me rant. I'm sorry for wallowing in what is clearly, self-indulgent whining about too much TV and too many books - I'm starting to feel pretty seriously embarrassed given that there are actual problems in the world besides too many tv shows in their season pass manager. I'm going to bed and will try to wake up with a better attitude - at least the dr's appointment means I get to sleep until 7am! :)