out tha door

i made some new animals, posted them this AM on etsy, and one has sold already! wow! the lighter, smaller kitten up there, is going to live with a new family.

begonia the bunny here is one of my favorite animals ever. it's gonna be hard to give her up, but i hope she finds a happy home too!

i have a backyard-garage sale next weekend, and an outdoor fair the weekend after. i'm looking for a more creative solution than the regular 10x10 pop-up display tent. in my mind, a fabulous fringed umbrella just shows up at my door. for free. wouldn't that be nice?

Next Show:1 week away!

Crafters in formal wear. It's what everyone's dying to see, I know. I may even break out one of the tiaras......

bit the bullet

i just went ahead and filed my taxes. i couldn't figure out deductions.
i'm gonna have to hire an accountant from now on. i just don't have a brain for biznass.

the show at the skool opens tomorrow, i will be so glad when it's open and i can focus on making my own art for a while. the play is HILARIOUS but i'm excited for a real audience. i'm sure they're getting sick of me being the only one laughing.

i've got a handmaidens show on may 4th, and another outdoor craft fair on the 31st of may and 1st of june. i'm going to make some concrete mosaic stepping stones and bug picks to go in the garden, along with the duckies to go in the house.

for keeps

sometimes i make something in the duckie uglings line that's just so darn cute, i can't bear to part with it. this is a problem when i'm trying to a. make money at this and b. downsize my apartment. but i always have a few favorite animals around to inspire and encourage me.


i'm not saying that it's easy to party with everything i make-their personalities start to come out and sometimes it's even hard to sew on them-they start to come alive and i worry that i'm hurting them. HA!


here are two recent animals that are just gonna be too hard to send off in the mail. often times these keepers end up going to family members or friends, so i can still visit them on occasion!

about a month ago, i made the cardinal. there's just something about his face or that magical lace, i just don't know.








kazi is named after my godmother's siamese cat, she had a sister named kama that i never remembered, but kazi lived to be like 23 or something. she was an awesome cat!

for now, these two are stayin' with me.

bye bye birdie

This little Eggling is on his way to a new home! Two more remain, and I hope to add a few more when I get back from Chicago next week.
I'm taking the others (that didn't photograph well, but were super cute) to a store/gallery that might pick up some Duckies too. Exciting! And then on Friday, I leave for the Windy City!

drawing to a close

i spent last night hangin' out with my folks and watching the biggest loser. i've never seen the show before, but jason really wants us to apply.

but then the whole world is going to know i'm fat! (/sarcasm)

well the mosaic has been quite the learning process. i've been working in a roughtly counter clock-wise spiral progression from the lower right corner and back around, and I can see how early on i wasn't doing such a great job of fitting the pieces together, using too much adhesive, etc. but i got a lot better as the piece went on. and now i'm into one of the final stages, grouting.

grouting has never been my favorite process, and it's funny that it's GOT to be last. i am known for leaving unpleasant tasks until the last minute, say cleaning my house right before a party instead of doing it gradually over time. i don't know of anyone who LIKES to do unpleasant tasks first, but it is ironic that you can't HELP but do this one last.

i've got the coffee cups done, but i do have a pretty major gash on my left index finger. as i was grouting little streaks of orange-red kept showing up, i had cut my finger thru the rubber glove, and it was now seeping out into the grout. ish.

i had underestimated the amount of black grout i am going to need so i have to run up to home depot in forest lake or white bear to pick up some more. bummer! i don't want to over buy, but i don't want to have to make another supply run in the middle of the project.

8:30 PM-I have finished the grouting! It looks AWESOME, in my opinion.

i have sacrificed 4 fingertips to the slicey parts sticking up on the surface however, and my hands are stained black, too. But it's worth it!

Now, I just have to screw it to the wall at the coffee shop, cover up the screws, and re-grout the lines between the panels. Another 4 hours of work, and it'll be DONE!

Just getting settled, and.....

I've started my more permanent administrative job @ NWC now, it's just a lot of getting to know how the various departments work, where to get a PO from, etc. It's a steep learning curve, but it's going OK.

Our Handmaidens Craftmas show was un. be. lieveable. I had a fantastic response from everyone, and sold all but two animals. I brought along some sweaters to work on small bits if I had time, and I ended up selling polar bears RIGHT off the tree! I hope to bring some more in to I Like You this upcoming week, for anyone who needs a last-minute gift.

I made a new bag for my laptop, with red, black, and red sparkle vinyl, lined with black-n-white dots and with a child's safety seat strap and foam inserts (thanks ax-man) and a new flamingo.

I made my Christmas list, and boy, do I have a lot of work to do before the big day! Got to get to knittin'!

There's some exciting news in the pipeline regarding a more permanent live/work space, but I'll just leave you with this for now. GO BEARS!

A month? Really?

Wow. I have been really busy with Seussical. A whole month has passed since I last blogged, and there's some exciting new developements in my artistic journey!

But first, I'm having an absolutely lovely day. I finished up Eat, Pray, Love this Am, which I started on Friday night. A very interesting book about food, forgiving yourself, and learning to be one with God and the universe. Then I took a walk around my neighborhood and discovered a community garden and a park I had never known about, both within about a 10 minute walk from my house. The garden still had so many vegetables and fruits growing in it, even though we've had several nights of frost. I watched a fat little bumblebee looking in vain for a flower, though he must have missed the last of the roses that were growing just outside the fence.

It's what we call 'Indian Summer' here in MN, which is the last hurrah of good weather before the cold, rainy, sleety, then snowy weather commences. I'm going to soak up as much of it, as I possibly can. A family of little birds has nested immediately above my door though so I can't just prop open the door and let the good air in, as I'm worried I'll have a feathered roommate in no time.

On the art front, I won a mosaic mural commission, co-planning a massive craft sale in early December, and building a website for a friend of mine in exchange for life coaching. All in all, I think it's a good deal for me! Slowly I've been making more and more stuffed animals, they all have their own fun personalities and expressions, it's hard to part with them sometimes!

And, for my birthday in 3 days, I'm getting my very own laptop. YAYY!! I'm so excited to have my own computer, I think it's going to do wonders for my writing, art, and marketing of said art.

busy nite last nite!

had a bite with a good friend at the birchwood cafe. where i also stopped for breakfast yesterday. we had gotten our wires crossed, and he thought i was going to pick him up. so i called his landline (how can you not have a cell phone these days?) and sure enough, he was waiting for me.

anywhoozle. once he got there, we had a lovely, laugh filled dinner. i'm going to miss him when he moves to beantown.

after dinner, i went home to shower and make a few quick thingamajigs. here's a quick painting/collage that i did, called 'the shape of my heart'.

it's a matte that i picked up at artscraps, then i collaged the background of a piece of rag paper also from artscraps, using newsprint and tissue paper. layered an old piece of map paper from paper source, some thai paper from who knows where, some sparkely gold paper from sample books my mom gave me, and some rhinestones (on the crown). Threw some paint spots down over it. then I made the lower piece, using the same stuff, and a paint chip, stamp, and sheer ribbon that had been accidentally overdyed.

went back in with a pen to give a little more definition to the wings.

i also encased a rabbit in one of the eggs from two days ago. it worked just great. look for some egg-bunnies soon, well, maybe in like a week. i'm pretty freakin' busy with other stuff right now, and my cousins are coming to town this weekend. yayy!!!

then i went to a fringe show. i'll say this about it. i'm glad it was only 28 minutes long.

came home, touched up the paint, and went to bed.

Paper Flurry

Jeeze I've been a busy girl these past few days. Here's my table, you can see the buns in the upper left corner. I'd had an idea of putting wee birds and other creatures into paper mache eggs, a while back, and just got around to trying it last night.

First came the hunt for an egg-shaped object/objects to use as molds. After several failed attempts to make them out of plastic bags and crumpled newspaper, and a wild idea to use a potato, I settled on two wooden half-eggs taped together. I also found a few cups and pressed-glass bowls to make larger paper mache pieces which will be nests.

I love the paper mache paste mix-it's so easy and CHEAP. Microwave a glass of water for about a minute, add 2 T of corn starch, and then microwave at 15 second intervals, stirring between each session, until the mixture is the consistency of yogurt. It thickens as it cools, I usually end up adding a few more drops of water to it as well. Sometimes I mix in lavendar oil as well.

I used torn strips of the local free newspaper, and The Onion, which made for some fun reading as I worked. The molds were just perfect for the length of strips I had torn. On the first layers I used a lot of corn starch glue and on the upper layers, not so much. Didn't use a brush until I got to the decorative layers of tissue paper. My hands have a nice blue-green cast today!

Anyway. I molded them, let them sit for 10 minutes while I molded the next one, and then peeled them out or cut them off, and set them to dry on a muffin tin's backside (DIRTY!). 10 minutes in the oven at 200 degrees, and they were ready for a layer of tissue paper. I did re-inforce a couple of the early ones with another layer of newsprint. I added ribbons to the eggs, my plan is once they're totally dry, to encase the wee animals and cover one more layer of tissue paper around the ribbon, so you'll pull the ribbon to release the animal.

I think I need to find a larger egg mold, the wood one worked great but it was just a bit too small. The animals are going to be SMOOSHED in there!


Lastly, as I was going to bed, I decided to cover my journal with a new cover. I used tissue, stuff from the newspaper, a vintage French postage stamp, a snippet of iron-on lettering my mom had made for me a billion years ago when I was in dance (hence, no middle name), and a flower cut from the lace that was in my sister's wedding gown. I wasn't sure it was going to stick with just the corn-starch paste, so I covered it with a few layers of tissue as well.

Just a quick little photomontage of a new bun, and a photo I took last year of a lotus from the rain garden at the Como Zoo.

More tomorrow, I'm going home and sewing up a bunch more buns tonight!

Work from the weekend

Alrighty well I'm going to try to get a personal blog going again. Wish me luck.

I won a considerable amount of cash again at poker, so I went and bought some canvasses at Michaels as well as a book on artful blogging, and the DVD for 300. I basically then just holed myself up in my house (barring the trip to the Uptown Art Fair with my folks) and worked.

Here are two wee rabbits, with painted-lace wings and embroidered faces. They are about 3 inches tall, made from recycled sweaters.

They'll be going to I Like You on Wednesday, along with a few other small stuffies.

Here's the detail from a collage/painting that I did. The bird's wings and bodies were made with bleach-painted construction paper, I used a scrap that was lace-printed for their beaks and legs, and the 'nest' is part of a vintage photo-holder that I got from my gram.

I'm not 100% happy with it yet, but it's getting there. I'm thinking I'll add real branches to the bottom where they're painted, right now, which you can't see in this photo.

Lastly, here's a collage/painting, once again, in a vintage frame. Still needs a title, I'm thinking,

"Muffy the Explorer. Got off the couch, did great things"