Candy Jar from Swap

This is the fabulous candy jar I got from the candy jar swap. It was a great idea posted on one of my favorite artist blogs and several of us signed up to swap treats and pretty treat jars for our studios. I love mine and my hubby has already broken into the treats while I wasn't looking! I guess that's fair for stinking us out of the house with soldering all morning... it was pretty bad since I had some left over solder dregs on the iron post-cleaning.

Along the soldering dreg lines - I've posted pictures of Abby (& her sister Maya) before but Abby's usually my little shadow falling me around - here she is as I post. She's always with me in the studio room. Today however, the soldering stink was particularly bad and Abby fled in self-preservation. About 30 seconds later my husband appears in the doorway, with Abby behind him, and totally deadpans "Have you heard about how the mines used to have canaries that alerted them to problems..." looks at Abby and back to me and follows up with "your canary made a break for it." I'm still laughing about it, I'll admit you may have had to be here.

Finally, back up and running

I've finally got internet service again. I tried to post last night but blogger and my internet were having issues. I created this piece and love how it turned out. All that's left is to solder.

I do have an important safety tip however. Copper foil, is still foil and can cut a chunk out of your thumb when trying to peel the tape of the piece when you feel the tape isn't lining up just right. Or so I've been warned. I noticed the cut when I saw blood drip on my desk... oops. I hate that because once I know it's cut, then it starts to hurt. It was just fine when neither the brain nor I acknowledged it!

Anyway, I've got a ton of soldering to do but it should go really well now that my irons have been re-tinned. My husband did a great job of making them sparkle again.

Technical Difficulties

We're having some internet issues at home so I've been unable to update anything. The good news is that I asked my husband to get a couple of things for me at the stained glass store and $50.00 later I got a bag of goodies! He told them I was having a couple of issues and they hooked him up. He's a very sweet husband and his b-day was yesterday.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

p.s. Hopefully, said very sweet husband will get internet fixed by tonight. :)

It's been a while but art has been happening!

I took a little while to get some things straightened out. I had my tests on Wednesday and found out I had to wear a little monitor that monitors (go figure) some activity until Friday so basically I spent last week pouting... probably not my best week. We did take some positive steps forward and joined the gym again and I'm kind of liking having a spot to go to and just clear the mind. It's great to just workout and treat myself to the illicit podcasts (ok, it's the Firefly/Serenity podcasts and I've now just outed myself as a huge geek but it's totally worth it because they're fantastic!).

My husband has been busy at work, luckily he avoided most of said pouting, but he was very sweet and bought me this great bag that I've been coveting for weeks - pictures will be posted - so I took out my mood on my studio and played with my microscope slides. I did more image stamping and am really happy with the result.

I should be back on blogging track this week.

p.s. Since I'm apparently into full on confessions. My movie service has recently sent me Battlestar Galactica season 1... seriously, biggest geek ever!

99 bottle ...

Well, something like that! I'm on a bottle cap making spree and here are a few important safety tips. The dremel that burned up but had an adjustable speed control, well, those should be replaced otherwise you end up using your regular dremel that you use in the drill press to sand and it turns out sparkles will fly. Literally. The grinder on high speed and the bottle cap whole was a little scary. I had to send the puppies out of the room. Now, my very sweet husband would be (if he were home when this happened) pointing out that I could stop during said process and not risk flying metal, sparks and potential fire hazards. Um, right. Anyway, I did not stop mid-sanding and here's a quick look at the plethora of in progress bottle caps.

p.s. I love that the spell check wants to change dremel into dreamily.

Mail Art

Just in case you ever wondered, yes, your mail person does like to look at your mail art. My Dad worked at the post office for years and I would send them colorful letters and cards which he said everyone thoroughly enjoyed. I'm sure he couldn't have been biased in any way! Although, I would be willing to bet that even the postal employees get tired of looking at bills!

This is the background for the address portion of a box I'm getting ready to ship so I hope some people at the post office get a kick out of it.

Paris Sparkles

I was playing with my Staz On ink, which is one of the best things invented, and I stamped the Eiffel Tower onto a microscope slide just to tinker with the look and I loved how it turned out. I was patient (for once in my life) and let it dry for at least 24 hours, even after hitting it with the heat gun, and then added the backgrounds and a collage element for the finishing touch. I especially like how the background paper adds an antiqued look to the slide... completely accidental on my part! It's also handy that it can be worn with either side out just depends on the mood. Now, I just have to solder and add the jump ring but it's much easier to scan without the jump ring. :)

I've also added a photo from our trip for comparison.

Vegas Find

When we were in Vegas last weekend, we were walking around killing time before heading to the airport when my husband spotted boxes sitting in the floor next to an ashtray. Turns out, they were wooden cigar boxes and the woman running the cart was more than happy to give them to us. He stuck them in his backpack and hauled them back to Texas for me. He still thinks it's a riot that my favorite thing in Vegas was the free cigar boxes. I'm a simple girl. :)

Candy Jar Swap

I signed up to participate in a candy jar swap... it seemed like a really cool idea, until I had to think of one! This is what I came up with for my jar and I kind of like. It's fairly simple but I tend to either keep it simple and straight forward or go totally overboard and glitter anything that moves. In this case, I thought less was more. I made smaller ATC's (on actual playing cards) then laminated them. Turns out, adhesive won't stick to laminated cards so I removed the laminate film from the back (keeping it on the front) and then re-applied the adhesive, added a ribbon and am calling it a candy jar!

Hopefully my swap partner will enjoy it, I certainly had fun adding the words and giving you a sense of who these ladies might have been.

Back from Vegas and Happy 4th!

Hey guys Happy 4th!

Sorry for the long break. I had a bad week and then headed for Vegas to recover! Actually, I had some bad medical news, not life threatening but not pleasant either. I have to have an endoscopy on the 19th so I spent a few days sulking (it wasn't pretty!) and then headed to Vegas for us to celebrate our anniversary. It was nice and relaxing but hot and by hot I mean lava melting your skin off would've been cooler kind of hot. I even gambled (sorry, Bo!) slightly but mostly caught up on my reading and napping. We did get to a show and saw KA which was really good but I think Zumanity is still my favorite.

Anyway, I've made a few new pieces and hope to get back to a regular art schedule again.