Friday, November 30, 2007

Not much happening...

I am having a quiet evening, at home with the pup. The "tree" is lit, there is a cranberry scented oil lamp perfuming the air, the fishtank is bubbling away in a rather soothing manner, and I just vacuumed. For the end of a week, its feeling pretty nice.

But I haven't anything exciting to share here; like I said, not much happening!

Here's to your own peaceful evenings - happy December, friends!

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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Feeling Christmas-y

It snowed big, white, fluffy flakes last night. We had to take a middle-of-the-night walk with the dog, and it was her first real snow experience. Very amusing. She just couldn't seem to believe that it was all real!

While I find the early and intense commercialization of Christmas to be quite bothersome and actually somewhat sickening, after Thanksgiving is passed, I am ready to jump right in. Things like soft powdery snow and twinkling lights make me feel honest-to-goodness warm and fuzzy, and the smell of gingerbread always seems just tantalizingly out of reach. I will make some soon, and hopefully share the joy with a few neighbors, but for the time being I have contented myself with some holiday decoration.


Besides my sparkly candelier, a Christmas tree of sorts is now sharing its warm glow in my home. A real, live, green, nice-smelling tree isn't really practical for me yet - I will travel for Christmas and don't spend nearly enough time sitting at home to properly enjoy it - so I opted for driftwood. White lights and golden jingle-bells dress it up right now - after the swap I have a feeling it will be much more fun! It needs a bit of adjusting, another trip to the rock shop (aka beach) should put things in order.

***after having a look at this picture again, I just have to add that my poor little tree really looks much nicer in person. The lights should have been the kind on white wire, I know, and the whole thing looks rather as if it will go tumbling over at any moment, but its actually very sweet! :) ***

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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

New Doll

I just posted this sweet little lady in my shop. She is another needle-felted creation, with cloth clothing. They are just so much fun!



In other news, I start my new job tomorrow! Very exciting. Must get some sleep...

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Friday, November 23, 2007

Long time gone...

I really did not intend to be gone so long. So sorry! I hope you all had a very warm and happy holiday (the US-icans among you, I suppose), and that you still fit in the clothing you owned before and did not have to brave the insanity of Black Friday to refresh your wardrobe.


My mother came to visit, and we decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner a day early so we could fully enjoy the leftovers for the rest of the week. This plan has worked out splendidly, with gravy pasta dishes and reheated stuffing and plenty of pumpkin pie for breakfast! And of course, the soup in the works. I love Thanksgiving leftovers.


It turned freezing cold here last night and I think Winter is truly upon us. I intend to make the most of it by getting busy with making things. Isn't that just the best way to spend the dark, frosty evenings?

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Friday, November 16, 2007

Splatter Creatures

These are a few pictures of my favorite piece made during my splatter and drip experiment a few weeks back.


I especially like the little amoeba/spider shapes in the ink. I think this one is trying to learn to play ping-pong and dance at the same time. At least it (he? she?) is having fun!


Here, two shapes meet (on the middle-left). They aren't completely sure of each other, but they will cautiously try. The one on the right, meanwhile, has dropped a jar of raisins and is trying to collect them all before someone else comes and eats them up.

Is this an art project or an ink splot test?

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Living Traditional Arts

I have (finally) gotten around to updating my parents website, Living Traditional Arts. We are still trying to figure out what, exactly, is the purpose of the site, but for now it is a portfolio of the various artistic mediums in which they work, and also includes some work of family and friends. The idea is a gallery of the ongoing life of traditional arts, I guess.


Check out the quilts especially - there are quite a few pictures of my great-grandmother's quilts. Gorgeous, and a bit intimidating in their complexity.

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Feeling sparkly

For some reason, I started feeling very wintry and sparkly this afternoon. It has nothing to do with the weather, which was incredibly pleasant here. Usually I feel this way when there is a light dusting of snow and big flakes in the air, bundled up in a scarf and wishing for gingerbread. Maybe it was Martha did it, with her crafty ideas and wealth of wreaths and ribbons and glittery candles. Anyway, I happened to have come across a wealth of copper in the form of a discarded electrical cable, so, with a desire for candles and craftiness, I set to work.

It was simple to strip off the outer layer of protection. The inner layers are a bit more difficult. Lucky for me, not feeling up to too much effort at the moment, one strand of copper was not covered. I decided to leave the others be.

My plan was to create a candle-ier; a twisted copper hanging candleholder. Here is how I went about it...


I folded the copper length in two, and looping the middle around a door handle, pulled the ends tight and twisted them together all the way down.



I then spiraled the twist, with the loop at the top for hanging.


For a while I have had a pile of cute little tart tins in my pantry. I am sure they would be lovely for tarts, but tarts are rather fussy and it occurred to me that the pans would also make very sweet candletrays, affixed to my copper base.


So they were pulled out and, with the help of the handy glue gun (note: I used a cute little itsy-bitsy glue gun. Don't follow my example), fastened at intervals along the copper.

The spiral was bent, stairstep style, along the way in order to hold the trays flat.


Ta-da! A pretty glittery candle-ier!

I think I will tweak it a bit to hang better - the trays could use some leveling and the entire piece needs to lowering. But it has a nice warm, holiday-ish glow. Now I just need some gingerbread! Or maybe some patience.

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Monday, November 12, 2007

A Dilemma

This painting is a conundrum. It was done in the past year, mainly (if I may be quite honest) to fill the quota of finished pieces for a painting class. It isn't really my style. I keep expecting to see a small, very fast cartoon creature go zipping past.


Problem is, I just can't seem to whitewash it as I did the others. There is something about it that stays my hand, while simultaneously driving me nuts.

Perhaps it is one of the pieces that must be given away...

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Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Facts and the Habits

I was tagged a couple days ago by Sherry of Sage and Thyme to share 6 habits or facts about myself... here goes...

THE RULES

A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

THE FACTS AND THE HABITS

1. I am left-handed. I feel that this is a very defining part of my life and sometimes I wonder how I would be different if my right hand were dominant. I also like to tell people that I am lefthanded when I discover that they are too, and then we can talk about how we, unlike the majority of the world, are in our "right minds"! I also feel uncomfortable in Indian restaurants, although this does not stop me from visiting them regularly.

2. I find four leaf clovers. This has been a habit of mine since childhood, and now is somewhat compulsive - when I see a patch of clover I have to at least glance over it to check!

3. I also pick up pennies. I blame this on my mother because she does it too. All of my coat pockets are filled with lucky pennies that are probably incredibly disgusting from the street. The combination of the clovers and the pennies make me feel like I really fit into my wierd neighborhood. (I am just not sure if I am exceptionally lucky, but so far I have no complaints!)

4. When I am nervous I twist my earrings. Because of this, I kept losing earring backs, so now I pretty much only wear the ones I got my piercings with, the ones with the backs that lock on tight. Now I can twist to my nervous little heart's delight!

5. I hate shopping for toilet paper. Not quite sure why, but the toilet paper aisle really stresses me out.

6. I blush very easily. My father used to enjoy demonstrating this to strangers.

There we go. That was actually harder than I thought it would be! Where have all my habits gone? hmm, maybe the transitory college lifestyle was better for me than I realized!

Moving on... I tag Becca and eb and anyone else who wants to play along! Leave me a message so I know where to go to learn all about you!

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Friday, November 9, 2007

Whitewash II

Here are some of the paintings I spoke of last time. Unfortunately for explanation purposes, I seem to have never taken pictures of the paintings in their original form. For my own purposes, I couldn't care less. Like I said, they weren't exactly my favorite pieces!




Now, of course, comes the question of what to do next? I am fairly confident something will come to me for the first two, the last one is just seeming a tad bit scary. Any ideas?

(I have been tagged by Sherry to share 6 Habits - coming tomorrow...)

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Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Baby, its COLD outside!

It is starting to get blustery and cold around here, especially in the evenings as I learned last night trying to find a bus home from the car lot. I am attempting to purchase a vehicle, my very first car, and its all absurdly hard! I won't bore you with the details, but let me just say that car lots are designed for people who already have cars. People walking in off the street are at an immediate disadvantage. I'm just saying.

I am also busy trying to find a new job or jobs. Hence the need for a car. Aya!

In between these adventures, I found some time to paint a couple days ago. I haven't managed to take pictures, but I want to talk about the paintings because I had a lot of fun with them.

One of the hardest things for me, I have found, is letting go of an idea. This spreads into my art in that even when I detest a painting, I find it difficult to part with or make major changes to. So I made a break for it and brought out all the reject paintings, the ones I wasn't sure about, and the ones that just plain bored me, and I whitewashed everything. It felt so good. I chose small areas that were appealing and left them alone, and painted a thick coat of white everywhere else. Words aren't really working here, so I will try to get pictures tomorrow.

I feel that I am rambling a bit, so hopefully along with the pictures tomorrow, there will be more coherent words!

Have a pleasant evening, friends!

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Monday, November 5, 2007

oo, I'm Featured!

Very exciting! Erica from FiddleLee just featured me on her Etsy Treasures Blog. There are some pictures of my work that is for sale on Etsy, and an interview. Thank you so much Erica! I'm so honored!

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Saturday, November 3, 2007

Back to the everyday

So I'm back to the normal colors around here. Though I must admit that that does not exactly extend beyond my blog - the Jack o'Lanterns are still bein prominently displayed and I fully intend to light them up every evening until they melt into oblivion. I like to stick things out 'til the bitter end!

I found a brilliant site this morning, a blog illustration/cartoon game between two people, and I just have to share. It is called The Superest, with the tagline Who is the superest hero of them all? I highly recommend you click the start at the first hero link and work your way up.

In other news, I am looking for a new job. So if you know of something amazing, tell me about it and I will dream and scheme a way to get to it! Unless of course you are in Vermont, in which case I will take it very seriously and be forever grateful.

I have no pictures right now, so... Yikes!


They just won't stop!

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Thursday, November 1, 2007

Do I *have* to take off my costume?

I'm going to go back to the normal colors around here, but please, can't I keep it strange for one more day? I just really love how the pumpkins glow...

Plus, I just realized that the post before last was number 100! So happy 102nd post to me! or to the blog, but what's the difference, really?! In honor of the event, I am going to eat a candy bar, and I encourage you to do the same. I'm sure you have plenty of left-overs!

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