Struggling to stay warm

We've definitely hit a cold snap here in Texas. I think it's in the mid-20's and spitting very slight sleet, nothing is accumulating but now is when you find out exactly how many bad drivers there are in Texas!

We are hunkered in with a nice fire, the puppies and the Olympics trying to stay warm. I'm working on the altered cirque book today and have all the pages painted. I'm really happy with how they turned out. Pictures will be posted on completion. :) Now is the fun part where I get to dig through all my postcards, stamps, scrap, etc to find things to create the book.

Hope you guys are staying warm!

Marathon Olympic Watching

So we've gotten a little bit behind in our Olympic coverage. We've got more than a few hours built up on the TiVo (love the TiVo... seriously, can't say enough!). A friend and I caught the Chronicles of Narnia last night, second time viewing and just as good, and it's just a beautiful movie. The lamp post burning in the forest with the snow is gorgeous. I'm hoping to figure out a way to capture that in a collage or mixed media project but don't have any specific ideas as yet.

I'm working on an altered book made of round coasters from On the Border. It's a little bit embarrassing how much I love that restaurant given the great Mexican options here in Dallas but I can't help myself. A nice waiter gave me a huge stack of them after I mentioned they could be used in art projects. Currently, there are six on my desk drying after their second coat of gesso (one of my favorite art supplies ever!) and I'm thinking about a circus theme. I love Cirque du Soleil and am thinking of doing some thing with the Altered Cirque as a theme. There are some great stamps from Zettiology and I have a few along with some vintage circus scrap that I think could be really great. I'll post photos if it all works out!

Now, I have to head back to the Olympics, hubby and the fire... yes, it has finally gotten cool enough to really enjoy a fire here. It's supposed to be in the 20's tonight! Keep warm, it sounds like there are cold fronts moving in almost everywhere.

I'm adding a photo of the necklace I made while avoiding cleaning my studio space. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I dyed the domino with Adirondack alcohol ink in Lettuce and stamped it then screwed in eye screws (you have to start pilot holes prior to inserting the eye screws - I used my dremel). Finally, I just used wire to create the necklace with natural stone beads and tiny swaravoski crystals. The domino lays flat when you wear so it's comfortable to actually wear. I need to do some further experiments with color on the domino to find the perfect dye.

Have a happy Friday!

Back!

We're back from Austin and I'm a little wiped out. Being huge Olympic fans we've got the Tivo set to record the games while we're gone, problem was we didn't get caught up on our "regularly scheduled programming" (can't really explain the use of quotes other than to imply newscastery kind of voice to be used when listening... I'm lacking sleep, please bear with me! ), anyway, we had to do a major crunch of reality and forensic TV shows and still haven't seen much of the games. Trying to avoid being spoiled by the major news outlets, and a few minor ones, has proved a tricky business. Hubby almost collided with a retaining wall trying to get to the radio as NPR started to give a medal rundown. We're both shrieking and reaching for the power button at the same time. It wasn't pretty. But, and most importantly, we cut off Carl Castle prior to the spoilage.

On the art front, Austin was great and I found tons of stuff to use in my next projects. We found Toy Joy on Guadalupe ... great way to spend a late Friday night. As well as a tiny art fair on 6th street which was slightly disappointing in the way of turn out but great in terms of being inspirational and seeing other artists get creative in getting their work out. It was fantastic and really inspiring. Right now, I'm going to try and see if I can get the hubby up and going... need more storage from IKEA.