Snow, Snow and a little more snow

I'm in Copper Mountain, Colorado and it's awesome! Today I went to Vail for a while and it's very cool. Lots of good shops, restaurants and picture taking possibilities. Since all of my stuff to update with photos is still at home, you'll have to wait to see the sights. It's snowing tonight with a chance for more tomorrow and we're heading out tomorrow so let's hope the snow stays in the mountains and doesn't impact the trip home. So that's the quick update for now, more later with lots and lots of pictures, I promise!

Busy Day, but not as busy as some people!

This is a photo of a desk of someone who is leaving at work. He's a good guy and a really good sport. He thought this was awesome - it kind of is, but he handled having to unwrap his pens and water bottle a lot better than I would have after 8 hours! Plus, sitting on aluminum foil all day, Yikes!

Now the other one is the opposite of busy, in fact, she couldn't be bothered to move when I put her blanket back down. Not to worry, this is the back up bed in case the two over sized paisley puppy beds next to my side of the bed get tiresome. It's rough, this life Abby leads. Filled with constant stress in worrying about whether to sleep on her beds, our bed, the two chairs or the couch. Oy, all that indecision can leave you exhausted.

Yep, art day down the drain

Mostly, I got very little art down because of stinkin' real life stuff like cleaning the house, washing the sheets, making cheesecake (I don't eat it, just make it). I did manage to get a background done of something I hope will be great. In the meantime, I did organize some of my flickr images from my day of photos from downtown. I hope for more art progress tomorrow. But for now, it's a school night again and I've got to go to work tomorrow. So night everyone.

Happy MLK day!

Flea Market Saturday

Yesterday was flea market day in Fair Park and I found some goodies. Mostly more photos, but I also picked up some flash-cards, a cameo, a great 40's coal mine photo, another vintage dog statue from Japan and the dog will have company with my occupied Japan Tahitian girl (she's amazing, regardless of how many people think she's tacky. I love her and will not be swayed). I'm starting to get quite the dog and photo collection. Hmm, I wonder if it's because I can't bear to have homeless photos or puppies!? Speaking of which, don't forget to donate to Bernie's shelter with this handy badge in the nav. I mean, it's there and you're here so just go ahead.

After the flea market we had burgers at the always tasty Twisted Root. If you're in Dallas, it's a must stop. Better yet, call me and I'll take you, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Just for you! This brings me to my new venture, a food blog that can be found here. If you're interested in food, check it out, if not. Stay here and I'll keep you entertained with art and stories of falling down. A little something for everyone.

We hadn't yet had our fill of fun so we headed for the theater to see Juno. One of the best movies I've seen in a long time. It's awesome! The acting by everyone was terrific and it had J.K. Simmons, for Closer and Oz fans, as well as Allison Janney from The West Wing and Drop Dead Gorgeous. If you haven't seen it, stop reading go get it, watch it then come back and tell me how fabulous it was. It's ok, I'll wait.

Today was more flea marketing for me in McKinney, I struck out with only seriously real junk to be found, I resisted the urge to take home more crystal candlesticks for a $1.00. After a chai tea from Saxbys, my new favorite thing, I finally dragged Rolland out of the house with bribery (new macs at the Apple Store to be seen) and we headed out. We made the odd choice of seeing Sweeney Todd. Mostly it was a time thing. The movie was really beautiful and the costumes were to die for but the rest was eh. It's a musical, not my fave, and then lots of fake blood just pushed me over the edge. Watch it on DVD for the lovely costumes and truly great sets, otherwise just stick with Juno and catch up on The Closer in case we get new eps for the summer.

That's it, I've got to go feed all the beasts and you're probably tired of me by now. But, I'm off work tomorrow and have big plans for you! Stay tuned.

Photo Escape

We bought the fancy camera pre-London and we've used it a little bit but last Friday I decided I wanted to go on an urban photography shoot for an afternoon break from work. I've attached the inspiration/sanity wall I have at work (it explains why I felt the need to run screaming into the streets for a break!) and a picture of me on the photo hunt. I was inordinately proud of the artistic-ness of said photo. My friend Mark who was with me just rolled his eyes. It's not hard to keep humble. I'll work on getting the rest of the photos downloaded and up on flickr this weekend but now I'm off to bed early and Doctor Who dvds... I deserve it since my day started out with me braining myself with my messenger bag! Seriously, I have a knot and bruise. I defy anyone to call themselves a bigger klutz than I am!

Yeah, you think you have a worse self-inflicted injury? I haven't even started! I fell and bruised up my knee on a crack in the sidewalk while watching a bunny when I was walking between classes at college (yeah, my husband laughed until he cried, it wasn't pretty). It's still a story he loves to tell. Then, there was the time I was walking the dog and tried to jog across the street to avoid another dog and a baby carriage, yep, you guessed it. Wipe out in the middle of the street with me tangled in the leash. This involved a trip to the ER, one of those yucky walking boot things and physical therapy. They tried to teach me to walk on crutches but after falling down repeatedly, they just gave them to me since it was required and pushed me out in a wheelchair. Honestly, I have no idea what they were thinking! I guess my point here is that I'm lucky I got away from the messenger bag incident with only a headache, knot and bruise! If you think you can give me competition, I'd love to hear it. I'm starting to become concerned I REALLY am the only clumsy person on the planet.

Some fun news is that the Third Monday flea market is in McKinney this weekend and I'm going to hunt down the metal man I blogged about previously. A friend hooked me up with a great woman who wants me to make her windchimes from whatever I want. They gave me the perfect excuse to dig into metal pieces, sparkly things and whatever else I can find for hours! I'll be in heaven. This time, I'm taking my camera to document the excursion and and all of the metal glory.

My Morning Challenge

It's not what to wear, but what can I wear to show of all my cool jewelry! The photo only shows a small portion of my selection to choose from and it gets even trickier with gorgeous pieces like the close-up photo. This one was made by my friend, the amazingly talented Cindy Dean. She makes awesome jewelry and I coveted this necklace and then won it in her blog contest. I definitely did the happy dance of joy for that one!

I can't take credit for the cool earring holder made from the frame. My Dad made on for my Mom so then Rolland had to make one to my specifications while I wasn't in the garage driving him crazy! It's always interesting in our house. :)

Busy Weekend!

I had a terrific, but very busy weekend. Saturday was an art day starting with my meeting with the North Texas Mixed Media Group. These are some talented ladies! I'm doing a round robin with the group and the themes people came up with, and the work they've done so far, is awesome! I can't wait to get crackin' on my contribution to the books. My book is about loss and this is the cover. It was kind of a bear to get the colors right (maybe 8 layers of paint) and finally, only the charcoal pencil could help get the color and age I was after.

Part of the group fun was making these paper dolls and seeing which paper everyone drifted to and how they put they're doll together. I've attached a photo so you can see our "secret self-portraits". :) I think Livia said she got the idea from a new book she found called "Paper Whimsy" but I haven't checked it out yet, it sounds like it could be a new addition to the bookshelf.

After our meeting, some of the women and I went to lunch and art shopping. Seriously, I thought I could find inexpensive goodies. but I've got nothing on them! They went through the craft store with eagle eyes finding all the goodies in the $1 bin. It was something to see! These are some generous women, sharing not only their art brilliance but shopping tips too! If you get a chance visit Mary Lynn's blog (my soul sister in her love of all things girly) or check out the amazing Lisa who gives terrific art advice and the chance to find some more art goodies on her website. Saturday was a little bit of heaven for me, spending time with other artists and never once did they have to pretend interest in the discussion around altered books, the art world, etc. My husband's still in shock more people than just me care about any of it.

Today was an errand kind of day highlighted with my $10 jeans from Old Navy and football all afternoon. I have no idea when it happened but I've been converted into a fan. We also had some steak sandwiches I made based on a recipe I found here based on the recommendation of Weetabix's blog. She was right, those sandwiches are awesome and especially tasty with the addition of provolone cheese! Anyway, Ree rocks and if you ever wondered about life on a working cattle ranch, she tells you all about it!

It's Sunday, so I'm off to think about going to bed since Monday morning comes early in our house. Hope you had a good weekend and an even better Monday. Night guys!

Sign in page for RR

This is a page I made for the RR I'm in and very excited about seeing all the ladies this weekend. It's the page to the right of the sign in page - maybe I'll show you that later, it's not nearly as exciting.

I couldn't resist this image and went slightly background crazy with this one. I've really enjoyed playing with my paint and charcoal. I started out on this one with a pretty french blue but decided it was a little too pretty so I added some black, a tiny bit of white and some glazing liquid so it wasn't too thick and would let the words bleed through a little. Even then it was still too tidy and called out for some charcoal. I happily obliged with some scribbles and shadowing on the edge. Then I knew I wanted some text but couldn't stop there when I had the perfect opportunity to add my crazy cat lady photo (don't you love her?!) and then I could rest. Well, after I outlined the box with a thick charcoal line and sealed the page. After that, it was definitely rest.

Morning Quickie

Okay, just a quick note about a couple of awesome new blogs I found that are written by one woman. This one is all about her life on a working cattle ranch with gorgeous photos and tips on how to take said photos. She also writes a blog about food and cooking which is here. Since Food TV, this book and this one are considered must haves (well, by me!), I love it and had to share with other foodies out there!

I'm Published!

A piece I had sent in to Somerset a while back has been published in the Winter 2008 Gallery! Woo hoo! I know lots of people are regular publishers in magazines, books, etc but I have to say, this is my first and I'm absurdly excited about it. Mine is the Bettie necklace. :)

Edie & Ivan, a tragic love story

This is a page I created in my RR book that I'm participating in with my North Texas art group. Those ladies are awesome and know how to rock the RR! Anyway, this page tells the tragic story of Edie and Ivan who were engaged but Ivan was tragically killed in WWI before they were married. Of course it's all fictional but I saw these two photos and new there had to be a great story there.

The theme for my book is "Loss" so this page is all about lost love. I'm kind of excited with how it turned out and I got to use my new numbers stamps and letter stamps I got at Michaels today. 50% of all stamp sets, now I know I have nearly every stamp imaginable but I don't have too many letters or numbers so it was a sale I couldn't pass up. :)

Okay, I need to head to bed since there's no more vacation for me for a while and it's back to the mines!

Metal Goodies Galore

We went to the monthly flea market in Canton today and I hit the metal motherload! We found this great vendor with tons of metal findings, prisms and doorknobs. Oh my! He was terrific as he helped me find some wonderful treasures and there were lots of stories for several of the pieces. He and my husband had a long talk about a few things but I was in art frenzy with all the goodies to pick from! Here's a pic of what I got and the best part is that he comes to the monthly flea market in McKinney so I can travel only a few blocks to get stock up.

My desk is covered in pieces drying after coats of gesso and absorbent ground. There should be some art happening this week with all these backgrounds drying and new fun pieces needing a good home.

Resolution Inspiration

If you guys haven't had a chance to check out Sally Jean's latest post, run there now! It's awesome. There's a list of things she suggests you check out. Thought provoking, inspirational, whimsical - it's got it all! Definitely much better than a typical resolutions list.

Snow, snow, snow

Well, that's how I feel when I look at this lovely snowflake my friend Mark's wife, Robyn, made for me. It's hanging off a piece I made a while back and I think it's perfect there. I can easily see it from my desk, and since I think it should be snowing 300 days of the year, it's a wonderful reminder of winter time - plus, it's pink! Thanks guys, I really love it!

I'm getting ready to start my book for a RR I'm participating in with my North Texas group. I've got my theme and have jotted down several ideas for pages I want to incorporate into the book. Hopefully now that I can get to my desk again, I'll be able to start on it this week and make great progress before the 12th get together where we hand them off.

The other exciting news is that I bought my plane ticket for The Art Nest retreat so I must really be going! I've been gathering up art supplies here and there when I'm out so I won't have to do a mad dash to the art store, or Dick Blick, right before I leave. No last minute shopping here, well, so far.

I know it's only 8:20 but we haven't adjusted to our non-vacation schedule so I think I'm going to read a little before my especially early bedtime. 5 am seems to come even earlier than it did before the vacation!