Birthday weekend

This weekend was my birthday and my husband surprised me with a Friday overnight in Austin so we could wake up early and hit Fredericksburg on Saturday. If you've never been to either of these places highly recommend them. Fredericksburg is this great little town in the Hill Country with shops and gorgeous stone houses but it can be a little bit of a hike from Austin so it's worth making a weekend trip. We happened to plan ours when it was the last of winter and got hit with 30 degree temps and sleet! It was kind of cool though to drive back through the Hill Country and see the blue bonnets peeking through the ice.

I did manage to eek out a tiny bit of art this weekend in the two optometrist lens charms. I liked how they turned out and it was fun to tinker with photoshop a little. Friday night included a stop at Toy Joy in Austin so I picked out some goodies that should have some upcoming potential... :)

New Kitchen... mostly

The kitchen is finally back together after the mini-remodel. This was part of the reason for long absence with no posts. That, and the 12-14 hour days at work. I'm hoping to slow down on those too. The pics show the new counter tops we had installed which are Corian (flint to be precise) to replace the old white Formica which was stained and coved in the corners which meant it was ripping after 7 years so it was time to go. We put in a slate tile backsplash ourselves and it wasn't too bad. We've gotten to be pros at tile now and the new faucet and garbage disposal (not pictured) were installed by hubby alone and he did a terrific job. These seem like straight forward installations but not so much.

Anyway, the new stove is a dream to cook on and to celebrate I got this book which is wonderful! It's girly, a cookbook and includes the Texas Hill Country which I love so it's a must have... it's actually on my nightstand now as bed time reading. Odd I know for most people, but then again I'm a Food TV addict so there you go.

On the art front my friend Lara and I are going to the Art Guild on Tuesday night for a reception and min-class on book binding. The class should be great, I've been really interested in classes at the Guild for a while but just haven't done the research so this should be a great chance to find out more so I'm really excited. I'll keep you posted [bad pun intended... :)].

Exciting News I'm just now posting...

A few weeks ago Sarah Stewart Taylor emailed me to say a friend had found her name on my blog and she liked some of my work. I almost fell over… it was very exciting. I love her Sweeney St. George series. They are wonderful! Anyway, she asked if I would make her some cards and a charm so I did. They should be in her hands now so I’m posting the charm I made now since she should’ve received it last week. It took a little time to get done but I was thrilled with how it turned out and I really hope she likes it. I hope she likes the cards as well but since she’s going to send those on, I didn’t want to post those images… not that I imagine the recipients read this but just to be safe. :)

Anyway, you should definitely checkout her books since I think they are terrific and definitely a great way to head into the summer time reading season!

Whew, it's dusty in here!

Ok, so it's been a while since my last post. Work has been crazy busy and my connectivity issues have been driving me crazy. I'm hoping to resolve both of those things... mostly through wishful thinking. Is that the same thing as positive thinking? We've also been doing some kitchen re-modeling and I'll post pics when it's completely back together. We're at about 80% now.

I'm thinking I'm back on track artistically speaking and here's a piece I finally finished. It too has been gathering dust but it's finally done and I'm pleased with how it turned out. The first time I stamped the image on the glass and soldered the piece, cleaned the glass only to find that I had stamped the image to the wrong side of the glass ... once it was clean there was no more image! I was not happy. Much better now. :)

Happy Tuesday guys, I'll try not to go so long between posts!

And my little dog too...

I was off work today for Presidents Day so my friend, Jen, and I went antiques shopping. I scored some great finds including some wonderful cigarette cards with dogs on them (they didn't quite make it into the photo) , a cabinet card, some prisms, an old Sherlock Holmes story and blue & white dog figurine that will join the growing collection of dogs on my book shelf. I'm not quite sure what's up with the collection... I refuse to believe that I'm growing up to be the crazy dog lady but a couple of them just speak to me and I don't want them to be lonely. Okay, maybe I have crazy dog lady tendencies but they are latent and I'm not acknowledging them further!

Anyway, I have great ideas for the pieces I bought today - especially the bright green prisms. Hopefully they'll work out as hoped. Work has been a little bit crazed but I have some new art commissions that I'm really excited about and will post more here once I'm finished... I don't want to jinx myself. :)

We did do some movie catch up this weekend including Catch & Release , Because I said So and Breach. All of them were good but my husband definitely liked Breach more than the chick flicks. Although he usually likes a good chick flick he wasn't thrilled with these choices but I really liked them. I love Diane Keaton and I liked the story in Catch & Release so they were both good for me.

I'll try to do better with my posts this week. Happy Monday guys!

My Gift for Valentine Exchange

This is what I made for the Valentine's Exchange. I finally figured out how to use alcohol ink on the domino and created a background color and then stamped a layer on top of that including tiny hearts in red. It was really subtle and a heart was definitely supposed to be included in what we made so I worked a larger heart image into the collage. I sealed all the layers in between so after stamping I sealed it. Collaged. Sealed. Etc. And then put on several coats of diamond glaze at the end. I was really pleased with how it turned out.

On the illness front, I've finally turned the corner and the cough is down to a reasonable level. I'm taking only over the counter drugs now and can do things like go to the grocery store and not be too exhausted to move! Although our trip to Costco yesterday did not go entirely without incident. I know I've mentioned that I'm slightly clumsy and accident prone but that may be understating things a bit. This should clear it up for you. I bought a magazine yesterday at Costco that they put in the box of stuff but somehow it manged to fall out, slide out of the cart and fall underneath my foot at the exact moment I put my foot down mid-step and I totally wiped out in the Costco concrete parking lot. This is when my additional padding to my butt came in very handy although still sore - nothing is broken. My husband very nicely helped me up and pointed out that this would only happen to me and that it was seriously odd how the stars aligned to put all those things together at once. He blames my magazine selection "Everyday with Rachael Ray". She's not his favorite!

Yikes!

I hadn't realized it's been such a long time since my last post but I've been busy and then had bronchitis for two weeks. I haven't done much the last week but take my prescriptions, watch movies and sleep. And cough. Let's not forget the coughing from hell. It's been fairly miserable so won't bore you with all the details but not much art's been getting done but I have been able to open My Valentine's exchange gifts. You can go here to see what some of the goodies have been so far.

I'm hoping to feel better this weekend and get some projects done and have something far more exciting to write about. :)

Special Deliveries!

I got a lot of goodies in the mail today from the Valentine's Day swap. It was great to come home to lots of presents in the mail and the countdown to start opening is almost done... just a couple more days.

I also got my book delivery from Amazon so I'll have a couple of new ones to add to the growing stack on the nightstand. Taking the train into downtown has really been a great way to save gas but the the 45 minute ride each way definitely lets me get in some great reading time!

Feeling Better

I've been sick with a sinus infection all week and had to pull some long days at work so this has not been the best week. I'm happy to say that I'm feeling better and really happy that it's Thursday night! My friend Bo ventured into downtown to join me for lunch today so that definitely helped to perk up an an otherwise icky work day.

I finished reading this book on the train today so if you like urban fantasy I really recommend it. The next book in the series is on it's way now. I'm taking a break from my normal cozy mysteries and travel books although the Beatrix Potter series by Susasn Wittig Albert are great and I just finished the third book. Her China Bayles series is set in the Texas Hill Country and the characters are wonderful and amazing that you get drawn in and imagine that Pecan Springs could be a real place you'd love to pack up and move to (unless you really know what the temperature would be in the summer!).

We need to get some un-fun stuff done around the house this weekend like dusting, cleaning the bathrooms, etc but we plan to work in a few fun things - maybe a movie, catch up on some of the movies we need to watch here and definitely some art on the list.

I promise more exciting posts in the future when I've rested up and got some art done.

Gifts for Valentine's Swap

These are my wrapped gifts for the Valentine's swap... I'm pushing the deadline but I made it. The gifts have already started rolling in and I'm excited for February when we can tear in. :)

Snow Day Today

We got a surprise snow day today with the ice and snow that fell this morning. It was definitely great and we took advantage of it by making stew and watching daytime television! I also worked on my charms for the Valentine's swap... I'm a little behind because my fairly simple project got a little complicated.

I'm also fending of a cold/illness that's been trying to come on for a couple of weeks but I woke up with the scratchy throat that's now a major sore throat and the beginnings of a cough. I'm ignoring the body aches and chills hoping they'll go away. This is not going to end well. :( I made reservations at Ruth's Chris for Sat to celebrate hubby's new job so I'm really hoping to hold off on any major symptoms until after that.

This is the charm I made for the 12 Days of Xmas swap. I never posted the pics of my gift since it was a surprise but here it is. The finished piece and the collage by itself. The idea was to make something to help remind everyone of the 12 Days Swap "club". It was a lot of fun and the Valentine's swap has been great also. These are some amazing and talented artists and Lelainia has done a fantastic job organizing everything as well as doing a wonderful job of wrangling us!

Sorry about the inadvertent quiet time.

Last week was just a rough week and I got home from week wiped out with very little in the way of inspiration for art. I'm hoping to get my wind back though. My friend Lara came over yesterday and we made some jewelery and munched on snacks while the weather turned ugly out. Lara headed home early since she lives quite a bit away from us but it was nice girly afternoon. My husband built us a nice fire which we crafted by and enjoyed cheese fondue voodoo- courtesy of an Alton Brown recipe (add some Parmesan cheese to make it perfect), fruit, cheese, hummus, guacamole, salsa, etc. It was a perfect Sat afternoon followed up by a trip to the bookstore and Mexican food for dinner so all in all - a perfect Saturday!

It's freezing cold again today and the trees are covered in ice but the roads aren't icy or anything so that's great. It turns out that mostly people don't know that so every time we've ventured out we've had the roads and stores to ourselves! :) Rolland starts his new job tomorrow and is allowing himself plenty of travel time. I get the day of for MLK day and am celebrating with a massage, my first, courtesy of a gift certificate hubby bought me during a stressful period a few weeks back so I'm very excited. I'm planning to rest up and then get started on V-day cards and finish up my charms for a swap... I promise to do better with the posting so you can plan on seeing pics of the cards. I can't post pics of the charms until after the swap but I'll get a pic up of the charm from the 12 Days of Xmas swap exchange. I don't think I ever posted what I made for that one.

p.s. If you look at the margin on the right you'll notice I added a section for my friends and some blogs I check out regularly. There's a few more I need to add but this was just a start. I was inspired after having dinner with a friend of mine the other night who's encouraging me to study more design, photoshop, flash, etc. It's something I want to do but have been kind of hesitant about it. Turns out I was being extremely silly about my blog - this update really was as easy as copy and paste! :) I just need to go ahead and take some classes and realize somethings will be difficult and tricky but others won't. That's the fun part.

Tile Box

This is a piece I just finished for a friend of mine. We went to Portland for Art & Soul last year and she loved Laurie Mika's pieces but couldn't quite manage it at the time but she knew I had taken a class and hinted that a homemade gift would work great for birthdays or Christmas. :) This is a small-medium size box I washed in gold and stamped around the bottom and then covered the top in clay tiles. The frame tile has a glass bubble with her initial... hopefully she likes it. She can always use an extra jewelry box. We share the love of jewelry, there's a good reason we're friends!

My studio is a disaster so I worked on this project in stages in the kitchen and living room and a clean up is in order. I need to get moving on my Valentine's swap and a scrap book I've been commissioned to make for a friend of ours who is also a co-worker of my husband's. It's pretty straight-forward but I need to focus and really do a terrific job for her so I definitely need to do some tidying, straightening and serious arranging. I get sidetracked by the sparklies though! I'm hoping for fabulous inspiration and art to be created while getting a clean studio... this is my dream. As always, I'll keep you posted on the results.

Happy Monday!

Triptych Collage for my Parents

This piece was a gift I made for my parents for Christmas. I had to hold of on posting until post holidays but I was really happy with how it turned out. There are a lot of little pieces in it that are specific to them. Hopefully they like it - they seemed to so that was nice. :)

We've got big cleaning plans at our house this weekend including the plan to put the last of the holiday stuff away which is always a little sad but since we didn't do the complete top to bottom decorating it shouldn't be as big of a production as some years! Hopefully we can work in some movie time or something fun. I have a few art projects I want to work on but nothing too pressing. Valentine's Day is approaching I'm participating in a swap that should be a lot of fun. It's like the 12 Days of Xmas swap so there should be lots of goodies to share!

Happy New Year!

We had a big New Year's Eve of snacking on junk food and watching CSI re-runs. I think we finally caved and went to bed around 10 which is fairly typical in our house - even for New Year's Eve. When your normal day starts around 5am it's a hard schedule to break! It's been a really nice 3 day weekend with lots of puttering around the house and getting some of the smaller errands done... nothing major although the hubby did finally get his work bench built out in the garage/shop. That's a major accomplishment given that it was pretty chilly here yesterday. The puppies and I stayed nice and cozy by the fire. I think we're planning for more of the same today - maybe a few more snacks and maybe a movie.

Saturday I went shopping with my friend Gwen and used up some Christmas gift certificates. We scored a few cute tops and Gwen got a really great top/lounge sweater. We followed this up with lunch and a trip to the huge Half-Price books on Northwest Highway then a check-in at the Border's. (One of my gift certificate surprises was a post-Christmas present from Rolland for trip to the Spa. I've never actually had a massage or facial and he figured the stress of the last month means I'm due - I'm trying to figure out if I should stretch it out into several smaller treatments or blow it on two major treatments - this was the major topic of lunch :O). We had a really wonderful girly Saturday afternoon.

I did get some art work done working on polymer clay tiles - it was even worth the complaints from the husband that I was killing us all with the tiles in the oven - and finished up this that necklace I've been working on for about a week. This one took longer since the beads are smaller and we've had a lot of distractions. I've actually had this charm made for a couple of months but just now got around to finishing the piece. It's a little of season but, it's still a fun necklace that I think I'll wear all year round! The beads are German 40's-ish that I got at a flea market and love the sparkle.

I'm off to pick up the house a little so I can enjoy doing nothing else in peace for the rest of the day. Happy New Year!