Golden Hearts

Here is a very simple necklace of gold toned heart charms and a vintage bone heart on an 18" gold-plated ball chain and findings.

This necklace is available at my online store.

Dancing Blue Goddess Necklace

I've been busy the past few days playing with my beads and newly ordered chains. In going through the various drawers in my bead desk, I found one of my beautiful lampworked goddess beads that was just calling out to be made into a necklace. She started out on chain, but I didn't like that, so did some more digging around and found my blue rubberized acrylic beads and glass pearls that matched her perfectly. A few more blue beads, with swirls, and dark pink jump rings completed the look.

I'm happy to offer this beautiful goddess necklace here at my online store.

Sunday Quote

My New Bead

This is the new lampworked glass goddess bead I just bought from Jo Turner at Etsy. She lives in England, so I'm going to have to wait a bit for the bead to get here. This will go with the rest of my collection of Goddess Beads from a number of bead artists from around the world.

I think that while I wait for her arrival, I will have to do some bead shopping for an appropriate necklace. OR...I could just go looking in my immense stash for the right beads. Either way, I will be a happy beader!

UPDATE: I received my beautiful little bead in quick time and I LOVE her! She is fabulous and I may very well need to buy some of her sisters to keep her company! And, indeed, I AM a Happy Beader!!!

Flying Cartography

Claire Brewster lives in London and uses old and out of date maps and atlases as her fabric with which to create her intricate, delicate and detailed cut outs. The cut-outs are pinned either directly on to the wall as a large scale installation or captured in box frames. The shadows created when light is shined on them gives them a 3 dimensional quality and creates a feeling of movement.

Now you know what to do with your old maps. Or you could send them off to Claire to use. :)

REculture

This popped up at REculture the other night from a Pinterest board and I am amazed.

"A worker checks the finishing on a motorcycle made from recycled materials of spare parts from cars and bicycles at a workshop owned by Roongrojna Sangwongprisarn in Bangkok July 27, 2011. Roongrojna, 54, creates his artworks from recycled spare parts from used cars, motorcycles as well as bicycles. With four shops in Bangkok named “Ko Art Shop”, Roongrojna also exports his artworks to clients all over the world."

If I ever decided to ride, this is the first place I will go for a motorcycle. This thing is just plain scary sitting still, can you imagine what it would look like coming down the road at you?

Leopard Keeps His Spots

I thought it was time to show off a little of my own art and get this necklace posted after I finally got some nice pictures of it.

This piece was created for a theme show, It's A Jungle Out There, for the City of Gresham Art Committee last year. It is made of various shapes of leopard print acrylic beads and combined with amber faceted glass beads and gold plated chain.

A very fun piece to wear and will fit right in with the animal print fashions coming this spring. You can find it for sale at my store.

Meyoko

Found on Colossal today.

"Ecuadorian illustrator Melissa Murillo (aka Meyoko) lives and works in Berlin where she draws some of the most fantastically intricate images I’ve encountered in some time. These two skulls utilizing the abstracted anatomy of insects are by far my favorite, but my guess is many of you will thoroughly enjoy the rest of her portfolio. These two particular pieces are available as limited edition giclee prints in her shop, and you can see her work later this year at Illustrative in Berlin."

Look for her other work on her site. They are amazing to look at and there is so much to see in each piece.

Exploding Ivory Soap

Ok....I usually don't hang out at "moms with kids" kind of blogs, my "kid" is 30, but this was too cool to miss. I found the link to Toys In The Dryer on Pinterest and just had to try it myself.

Grab a bar of Ivory soap, cut it in half and then half the halves. Place a 1/4 piece on a paper towel or paper plate and put it in the microwave for 60 - 90 seconds. I only had mine in for about a minute. Zap it on high and watch the magic! Let it sit a bit and then use as you would any other soap.

Useful tip: Don't get this idea in your head before you start dinner. My kitchen was overpowered by Ivory scent and that just doesn't go well with taco salad.

Sunday Quote

Tapestry Taxidermy

Well....not exactly taxidermy. From Honestly ....WTF - "Frederique Morrel and her husband Aaron Levin are best known for their needlepoint covered fiberglass sculptures. The design duo scours garage sales and flea markets in search of vintage tapestries and discarded embroidery to create these one of a kind beauties."

Life in the woods

At Last! We now have power for a period longer than two hours! Yay!!! It's been a very strange, scary and very wet week.

It started late on Saturday night with a small, forecasted snow storm. Sunday was another snow day, but only a few more inches were add for a total of three. Monday was cold and more snow showers, but nothing nasty. Woke to seven inches in the morning, thinking that this was as much as we were going to get. WRONG!

The snow started coming down at two p.m. and didn't stop until sometime very early morning Wednesday. Along with that snow came high winds which knocked out power at 12:03 a.m. Tuesday morning. When HB got up Wednesday morning, he always gets up very early, the count was about 20 inches. Yep. Almost two feet worth of cold, wet, white stuff. Just like the weathermen predicted, the weather changed and the south winds brought warmer temps and rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain. I spent the day inside stoking the fire and catching up on my reading. Luckily, the weather was warm so the house didn't get too cold. We started the generator around 4:30 to make sure the house would be heated up before we turned it off at 9 p.m.

I did a little winter prep this summer by buying a couple of battery operated camp lamps and I read Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly from the light of those lamps. (So far it's a very good read and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of this country and the Civil War.) I read until midnight and trundled off to bed, hoping the power would come on sometime in the night. No such luck. We finally got the power back on around 10:15 a.m., right after I started the fire in the stove. The lights went out, came on, went out again and then came back on for good. Until 1:45 p.m. Glad I kept the fire going. I cooked my lunch on the Franklin stove, (if you don't have a cast iron skillet, why not?), kept the dog busy with his rawhide bone and did a bit more catch up on my magazines.

We lost a lot of branches from the trees around the place, but what broke my heart was the beautiful maple that split. It broke a third of itself and now I'm afraid we'll have to take the whole thing out. I love that tree. When it came down, it also took the tops out the the two small cedars that I call The Twins. I'll be going down the driveway tomorrow and I've been told it is really bad. I will have to check the rest of property, when the wind dies down, to see what other damage we have. It looks like it will be a very big clean up this spring.

Birds on Paper

Checked into Colossal tonight and saw the beautiful painted birds on pages of scientific books. These works are created by Paula Swisher. She has a number of different art works at her website and tons of pictures of her birds on her Flickr site.

I love how she juxtaposes nature against the scientific. Very lovely.

Sunday Quotes

Week 2 of Class

It's been a busy week, but I've had fun working on my watercolor backgrounds in my spare time. Week two is all about doodling with media that is water- soluble. I'm used to acrylic paints, colored pencils, oil pastels, markers and the like, but watercolor, though not new to me, is something different that I have to learn more about. I guess that means more play time at the art desk. *big smile*

Here are the water-soluble doodle backgrounds I've been working on.

This is what they look like after I've taken the smaller pages apart.

Since these are backgrounds, I will be creating more doodles or Zentangles on them before I make them into journal covers.

More Fun Time Wasters

I love this site. I can play for hours and not just the same game. zefrank is a great place to go to play, read, see and otherwise spend more time online than you should. Look under Interactive Toys and play with some of the cool toys for your computer. No need to download anything, just click and play. Have fun!

Goldfishing

I was just surfing at Colossal, haven't been there for a few days, and saw this remarkable artist. Not saying that the other artists on the site are ho-hum, they are not! Click on over and be amazed by them all.

These are painted fish!

Ryusuke Fukahori's video shows how he layers paint and resin to create 3-D goldfish in beautiful wooden containers.

Bead Sculptor

Gail Gorlitzz does the most fascinating things with beads. I love her beaded sculptures and wish I could get an up close and personal look at each one. Check out her gallery and see what she can do.

3D Japanese Artist

Yuki Matsueda has come up with a very unique way of creating and showing his art. The pieces look like they are coming apart and trying to escape their original "containers". Have a look.

Sunday Night Quote

Ok...first Sunday after the New Year and a new start to the year with a new quote. Enjoy your upcoming week.

Art On An Envelope

Mark Powell has an interesting base for his drawings. He uses old envelopes to draw, in the most intimate and intricate way, the faces of people. Take a look here at his wonderfully beautiful art.

Friday Night Spotlight

Tonight we are going to be looking at some different things with your health in mind. Don't go away...just take a look, you never know what you might find.

First off is my very good friend, Heather Michet, pronounced me-che, who owns a local small business here in Sandy. "Heather is an impassioned healer, artist and educator employing Reiki, Aromatherapy, and profound listening to enhance her clients’ health and well-being." Through Iris Healing Arts, she offers several healing tools: Reiki, Aromatherapy, lifestyle modification guidance and education for natural healing. Sometimes you just need someone to talk to and Heather listens very well.

In a completely different vein, but one that would still echo natural healing, the bedroom is a very important room for our well-being. If you can't sleep your health will suffer. Perhaps a new look, a few new touches or even a new bed might do the trick. See what ideas elle decor has for a bedroom of/or in your dreams. Scroll sideways to see many different bedrooms.

Do you like to sit and rock the time away? Here is a rocking bed that will send you to dreamland in the way you used to be rocked when you were young. The Mood Rocking Bed also uses small rubber stoppers if you don't want any movement for sleeping.

After getting that good night sleep, you want to start off the day right. Here is a great tasting way to add your minerals and vitamins in a quick and easy morning smoothie.

Now that you've been very good to and for yourself all day, it's time to treat yourself with a Vietnamese Avocado Shake. Yes, it's green and yes, it's heavenly. Scroll down the page on the website, find the recipe and indulge.

Second Attempt for Class

Making the first doodle art piece for my class at Strathmore Online Workshop was fun, so I had to make another. Using the same stencils, but starting with different colors, I followed along with the class materials and here is "3 O'Clock".

Click on picture to see things better.

The final version...

How different it looks when I take the pages apart for the journal covers.

I'm already starting another one. This can be addicting. I'm glad I took this class, my creativity meter is rising steadily. Just thing for after the holidays and the beginning of a new year of art.

My New Calendar

Do you have your new calendar for 2012? I just got mine!

First Step on the Path of 2012

I decided to take an online class first thing this year. I wanted to play with some of the paints and color things that I have. I'm taking the Strathmore Online Workshops with Traci Bautista. She is teaching her Visual Journal workshop this time. It's free, which is a BIG plus after the holiday season, and can start you out on one of those get creative resolutions to this year.

Here is my first doodle piece from Lesson One.

I didn't have the right paper and used what I had, which is 140# Strathmore watercolor paper 5.5" x 8.5". I taped them together and proceeded to paint as if they were one. I like the way it came out and now I have covers for two journals. I think I'll be making some more of these as the classes progress. This was fun, even though I was not in love with my piece at first. Just working through the layers helped bring it to life.

Obliteration

I saw this at Colossal today and thought you might like it too. Sometimes I wish I were a kid again just to enjoy all the new fangled things out there. When you get to Colossal, click on down the page to see all the pictures and read about this exhibit. Hurry, more great stuff is being put up daily and Obliteration is steadily pushed to page two.

See what can happen when you have a white room, sticker dots and kids all in one.

January 1, 2012

I've been posting almost every day now since July 1st. Sometimes had something to say, sometimes not, but found things to put up just for fun. Discovered a lot of cool stuff by cruisin' around and will be using some of those ideas when working on my arty endeavors and the house this year.

Today starts the other half of my yearly challenge to post daily and I decided to start off with "something completely different."

George Washington Writes a Letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President:

Although it is two hundred years, and more, since I laid down the cares of an eventful temporal existence and took up residence in my long home, Our Gracious Lord has seen fit to bestow upon my spirit the gift of perpetual cognition, and He has granted the further boon of permitting me, for a few moments, to assume sufficient corporeality to pen this letter, which I place before Your Excellency as the cri de coeur of a patriot whose efforts on behalf of his country have been deemed by its citizens to possess no little significance. Read More Here

Happy New Year!!

Thank you for coming by and visiting my little space on the blogosphere.