The damages report

To any of you that came looking for me late Saturday or Sunday, you have my sincere apologies.

For me at least this show was direct from H*!!

We arrived at 11:00 a.m. on Friday morning to set up and had to wait for half an hour for the person in charge to show up and tell us where to set up.

Here is a picture of our booth.

If it looks like we're sitting in the street, it's because we practically were --- the back edge of the tent was about 3 inches from the edge of the curb.

And the wind! Oh let me tell you, it never stopped.

The whole time we were there I was picking things up after the wind blew them off the table. In the picture on the left hand side you can see that I had two framed pieces up, but I gave up on that after they were blown off too.

This picture shows the damage that was done to one of the pieces. All of the little bunches of glass flowers were knocked off the roof and many of the individual flowers around the base of the birdhouse were also damaged.

I'll have to figure out how to repair or rework this piece.

It's not that I haven't done shows in adverse conditions. We worked through some pretty strong winds in Atchison, KS a few years ago, and when we went to a show in St. Joseph, MO it rained most of the weekend, but in both of those cases I was never worried that a big gust would take my whole tent out into traffic -- literally.

Also in both of those cases the people who were in charge of the show were right on site----

and there were bathrooms available (at this show the porta potties were never unlocked -- we had to go ask a local business to let us use the facilities --- which on Saturday morning meant not until after 11 a.m. when we'd been there since 8:00 a.m.)

oh yes, and at that show people were actually there to look at (and buy) the art

At this show people didn't even know why we were there and one vendor got yelled at by a passing driver because he couldn't see around her tent to make his turn.

{sigh!}

I will be writing a letter to the promoter to explain the issues we had, and I'm really glad this was not an expensive show.

There was an up side to the weekend, however.

A while back I ran across the website of an artist that is doing very cool bead embroidery stuff. When I saw that she was doing this same show, I was pretty excited because it meant I would get to see her work, and hopefully talk with her.

I got to do both.

And what I saw has set me to thinking about a whole new way to display my things. I'll be talking about that whole idea as we move along into creating our new look.

The latest (and last for a while) piece of beach glass complete.

Because of the curve of the sides of this semi-triangular piece of glass, I needed to use something across the back of the glass to pull the sides in.

I didn't realize it would look like a sort of spider web through the glass --- an effect that I really like

Because we don't have another show for a while, I'm not going to be working on these semi-production pieces for a while.

I have several ideas for some bigger, framed pieces that I want to work on, and there are some other jewelry pieces I want to do that are bigger and more complex.




Check out my newest doodle!

As I said, folks weren't at the show to buy --- most just walked by and complained about the sidewalk being blocked --- so I had some time on my hands

I did this little drawing of the giraffe

A while back my mother gave me a white shirt that my dad didn't need any more, and I've been thinking about doing something to "jazz it up" so I can wear it sort of like a jacket at shows.




I think I will begin by putting the bear and bird design I've been using on my business cards on the back of the shirt, then add some of the other animal drawings that I've done -- like this new giraffe

We'll see where that all goes.

Time to get some laundry done, and run a few errands

Beach Glass Set-up and a Finished Object

After some fiddling around I finally have a set up for the Rocky Mountain Beach Glass.

Made up entirely out of materials that were on hand, I tried to create that "day on the sand" look for this display.

The "beach" is a piece of rough sandpaper. The "beach chair" is three pieces of thing scrap lumber held together with duct tape hinges. The "beach towel" is a strip of terry cloth ripped out of a towel that had seen better days but still had a few "good" spots. The sign was printed on my computer printer on cardstock, and is held together in that tri-fold shape by a piece of tape. Only the shells are the real thing, and these came out of a box of goodies that were my grandmother's (the kind of "green" use she would highly approve of!). I would have like to have a little sand castle or a mini bucket and shovel, but those things were not in the "stuff I've collected and just can't throw out" box, so this will do.

I have 10 finished pieces of beach glass right now and hope to have at least one more finished by Friday --- and maybe have some "on hand" with me to work on at the show.

A finished object!!

And just for me!!!!

This is made out of a piece of the complex cloth, with some quilting embellishments.

I thought about adding some glitter fabric paint, but frankly I wanted to get it done before the weekend.

This is going to be used to protect my "darth vader" sunglasses (you know, the kind that fit right over your regular glasses) while they're bumping around in my bag.

I'm not as happy with the actual design of the finished object (it's a little uneven and the button closure isn't the best) as I am the cloth it's made out of, but it will do the job it was designed for.

Meantime I have quite a bit more of this lovely fabric to do something else with --- as soon as I figure out what that is!

time to get to it

More beach glass

Once I finally figured out how to enclose this piece of glass so I could make it into a necklace I was so excited about it I just kept on working!

I'm really pleased with how it came out.

This means I'll have at least 10 pieces of the Rocky Mountain Beach Glass to put out on the table at our show this weekend. That is enough to actually look like a "line" of jewelry.

We spent some time over the weekend working on how this stuff will be displayed. I'll be doing a "dry run" in the next couple of days with the actual pieces of jewelry, and I'll be taking some pictures then.

And yesterday was the day for the great "wash out" of the load of glass that had been slosshing around for the last month (more or less)

These are the pieces that came out.

Some really nice possibilities here for some future pieces of jewelry!






Remember these from the other day?


I've decided I like the look of these better

So I'm going through and redoing the mushrooms, changing them all to these lovely red topped ones.

Ok, it means I'm not as close to done as I thought I was, but remember this is a Christmas present!!

I've got plenty of time to get it done




It's time for Mittnz!

If you were reading along here last year, you may remember that I participated in a challenge to knit 8 pairs of mittens to be sent to Cheyenne River Reservation for the folks there. Last year this effort resulted in 1003 pair of mittens and other wrist/hand warming goodies being sent.

This year's challenge is to knit 9 pair.

And it's high time I got to it!!

So this little gem (being knit on size 2 and size 3 needles) was started last night. I cast on, did all 20 rows of ribbing and the 6 rows before the beginning of the thumb increases in about an hour and a half.

Since these are to be ready to mail the last week of September, I figure I need to knit 1.5 pair (just 3 mittens!) a month. How easy is that? (Especially since I can usually do some of this kind of knitting in the car as we travel).

Want to join the challenge? Hop on over to Sheep Shots and read up on how to join us!

Well folks, the laundry awaits.......(yeah, if it's Monday it must be laundry!)

Another piece of glass

One more piece of Rocky Mountain Beach Glass jewelry complete!

I really like the way the deep impressions in the glass look even after a month of rolling around in the tumbler.

This one was such a big piece of glass (1.25" tall, 1.5" wide) that it needed some embellishing, but I didn't want to cover the patterning in the glass itself. Fringing was my answer, although I was not going for that over long dangle look.

I do like the way this one came out.

Next up in the beach glass is a piece of the gold textured stuff.

Sunday I will be washing out the batch of glass that has been rumbling around for a month now, so there should be some interesting pieces there too.

Meantime I'm working on some ideas for two pieces of distinctly Egyptian looking jewelry.

These two extremely similar, but not exactly alike, glass cabs look like eyes to me. I picked these up in an exchange with another artist in Springfield, MO, a couple of years ago at a show. There have been several fleeting ideas about how to use these, but nothing that really stuck until now.

The Eye of Horus is a frequently seen Egyptian symbol, and I'm thinking I might be able to create two pieces on that theme, using these two pieces of glass.

(Here's looking at you, kid!)

Back to the card tricks

Ha! I'll bet you thought I'd forgotten all about this project

Nope, just don't get to it every day

So here are a few more of the ladybug suit

closing in on half done with the number cards for the deck


I have now finished all of the blocks for the afghan (OPPS!, I forgot to take a picture of that very last, very skinny block) -- anyway, it is all stitched together now and I picked up the stitches along one narrow edge and knit two rows across it last night (no, I don't know how many stitches, counting wasn't required because I was just picking up the crocheted edges of the blocks --- I promise to count later)

Yesterday afternoon, the DH cut the piece of PVC pipe that I'll be using as the "spine" of the giraffe, and this morning I found the piece of batting I needed to wrap it, so today I'll be working on the finishing of the giraffe.

After several attempts to encircle one particular piece of brown beach glass, I have accepted defeat -- this piece is particularly difficult because it is roughly triangular as well as being curved -- so I'll probably break it in one more place and toss it back in the tumbler for the next batch of glass. Today, a new piece to try.

rollin' along

back to work after the weekend

Another piece of Rocky Mountain Beach Glass complete.

This one includes a little silver sea gull suspended in front of it, which I really like the look of.

I used the blue thread inside the clear beads again, so the whole piece looks like a sort of shimmery ice blue

The next one in line to work on is a piece of brown glass, so there will be some gold beads involved in it




In terms of keeping an accurate record of what we did over the weekend, I'm pathetic!

This is the only picture that got taken, and it was taken about noon on Saturday. By the time the guys had to quit working on Sunday (rain and power tools are NOT a good mix), about a third of the deck planks had been put down.

Because there are no stairs yet and the deck is about 30 inches off the ground at the far edge, we had a fun time getting three dogs in and out on Sunday evening in the rain.

It's looking great though, and by the time it's finished up with the rail on one side for hanging planters, etc., it will be a lovely addition for their back yard.

So today, it's back to working on projects --- time to get to it!

stamping, stuffing, felting, breaking(?!)

After much fiddling with spraying of dye stuffs, etc., I decided we had reached the "point of no return" and it was time to stamp.

This is the first stamping, using the aspen leaf stamp that I cut and shading the paint from very pale yellow at one end to a sort of rusty brown at the other end.

The plan for today is to use the maple leaf, start at the dark end and stamp using a pale yellow green graduating to a sort of brick red. And to overstamp some of the aspen leafs -- at least to have some of the edges of leaves overlap.

It occured to me that if I really, really like the finished product, I can submit it to SpoonFlower and have yardage made up --- how cool is that!

No, this is not both back legs --- just one from two different angles.

The one on the left is the "side view", the one on the right is the "front view" of the first of the back legs to be stitched and stuffed.

So we now have the proverbial 3 legged stool arrangement --- I'll be working on the forth leg today










Work on the tulips for the bunny continues

The yellow one is now complete

It's a bit smaller than the first one was, and more tightly closed

And here we have the petals of the last one, all laid out on the foam felting "board" with the little white edging and the green in the center of each petal.

I'll be putting that one together today, so the bunny will be finished very, very soon!


This picture could be labeled "unintentional beach glass beginnings"

This was a bottle that got pushed to the back of the refridgerator.

It got cold enough that it froze

and broke the bottle

When everything defrosts I'll be able to pick through the glass, soak off the paper and put some of this in the tumbler in the next batch.

And the clean up wasn't too bad

I'll be packing stuff preparatory to traveling tomorrow to our daughter's house --- we hope to build a deck --- or at least get the foundation of it firmly in place --- this weekend (weather permitting!)

another piece of beach glass

Another piece of Rocky Mountain Beach Glass jewelry complete!

This was a piece of brown glass, and because the shape had more "gentle" angles, I was able to use the netting technique around it.

The DH has dubbed this one "rootbeer float" --- as the beads I used are mostly rootbeer or frosted rootbeer color.

The next piece of glass that I'm going to tackle is a deep red with patterning in the glass --- I'll probably be starting on that one this afternoon.




A Victim of Multi Tasking?

Quite a while ago I started this mixed media piece

The box is about an 8 inch cube, and the critter is a bear (well, it has a bear's head) and is intented to be dressed (that's why only the head and the paws are fur)

This thing has been through several variations already --- originally we were aiming at trying to make him actually spring out of the box (you know, jack in the box style), but the inability to get the mechanics of that brought us to this stage

Trouble is, I don't remember what I was thinking about dressing him --- at one time it was a sort of wizard idea, but that just doesn't fit with the box

So now I'm thinking about going clown

hmmmmmmm, guess this is why he fell out of the multi-tasking rotation ----- more thinking required

About now I should be packing for a venture to my daughter's house for the weekend --- the trouble is, even though it's mid-April, it's SNOWING!!! And between us and our daughter's house, there is a little thing called Monument Pass, on which it has been snowing for most of the night and there is down to the roadway fog. Oh yes, it's supposed to continue snowing for most of today and into tomorrow afternoon.

We'd been hearing all week that this storm was coming, but sometimes they forecast it and it misses us entirely --- not so this time

nuts! --- I guess we'll be shifting the plans to next weekend instead

guess I'll console myself by working on projects

More Rocky Mountain Beach Glass

Ta Da!

This was the one and only piece of green glass that I had found, and I decided it needed those little silver jumping dolphins as the accent on the fringe!

Notice that the bezel band around the glass looks white, while the chain looks green. Both things were done with white/clear beads, but I used white thread in the bezel and green thread in the chain.

I really like the additional colors this use of colored thread inside the beads gives me. It's like multiplying the number of bead colors by the number of thread colors --- endless possibilities!

Meantime, I'm trying to figure out a way to do a whole special display area on my show table for this stuff --- something that looks like sand and water with a little wood sign -- maybe a life guard stand -- we'll see

The birdhouse and the flower cart were also worked on yesterday, but I was just too "brain dead" to remember to take any pictures! I'll try to do better today

We're planning to get out into the front yard today and get the area ready for the ornamental grasses that are on their way for one side --- hauling out the tiller and all --- should be interesting!

Beach Glass, Birds and Inspiration

Another piece of Rocky Mountain Beach Glass jewelry complete

This piece of glass was part of a plate that we thought was orange

When it came out of the tumbler, however, it was revealed that there was only a orange coating on the outside of the glass

Because it had a grooved pattern, some of the orange in the very deepest grooves remained even after it had been tumbled (see there at the top of the triangle in the close up picture. That gave me a starting point for the colors I used to create the bezel.

This is the first of these that I've used this banded bezel approach --- I really like the way it can so closely form around the sharpest of corners.

The DH says this looks like citrus salad -- lemony and orangey -- the lemony look to the chain is because I used a yellow thread through the clear beads.

I'll be doing a few more of these -- I set up 4 of them at once -- each one a different color (to keep the "monkey brain" from getting bored!)

The bird parts have become the bird!

A lovely bright yellow layer of rooving over the core pieces, then I added the black for the tail

This time I added the little "drumsticks" for the legs before I put the color over the outside, and I like the look a lot better (always learning something new!)

Today I plan to do the beak and the wings -- we'll see how that goes


Yesterday we made a stop at the nearby Hobby Lobby (my favorite local "den of iniquity"!) to pick up some small floral wire and a few more wood flower pots for the flower seller project.

While we were in there, the DH said "don't you think it would be good to have another block of rubber stamp material on hand in case you think up something else you want to do?"

(I love this, like I can't get into enough trouble thinking up projects, he helps so well!! It's great)

Anyway, they didn't have any more of the blocks the size I bought the first time, but they had this one that is more than twice as big, and since I had a coupon, I got a very good deal!

When we've been looking at the material to cut, I've been looking longingly at the Speed Ball tools --- the ones that were originally designed for doing linoleum block cutting. But they were just to expensive for me to just say "Oh what the heck, just buy them".

Again the DH comes to the rescue. "What about wood carving tools" he says, since he's had some experience with that medium, so off we go to the wood carving kits and tools. Behold a set of six cutting tools, everything I really wanted and a couple more besides --- for less than $5.00!

I've decided that even in the case of materials and tools the "snob value" of being an Artist versus a Craftsman can cost you in real dollars. Even in selection of tools, one must be creative!


The last piece of my birthday present arrived (FINALLY!!) yesterday in the mail.

Oh my pretties, this book is amazing --- and probably already stained with drool marks from where I looked at all the pictures.

And there on page 103 is the picture of the piece that Sherry Serafini made that set me off on this odyssey with big bead embroidered pieces. It had originally appeared in an issue of Bead and Button, and I've been playing with the idea and the techniques ever since.

This book is AWESOME --- full of wonderful inspiration and a whole section of technique from each of the artists --- some of which I had already figured out on my own and some that are new and I will be fiddlin' with in the future.

Worth the wait!!

off to work!

Look, it's dirt!

Gardening season has officially begun!

Yesterday morning we planted the seeds for the things that need a head start here in our short growing season.

We got this lovely faux greenhouse that has 72 spots to start things in

On Wednesday we had filled it with soil and wet it down to soak up the moisture so it would be ready for the seeds

The planting was done by poking a hole in the center of each little cell with a bamboo skewer then the seeds were carefully put in with tweezers.

You'll notice on the top left corner there is a little white sticker. That's so I can tell which one is the top left corner!

And here is the planting chart. It has a circle drawn at the top left too --- just so I can remember which end is up -- so to speak.

The chart tells me what got planted where so when they start coming up (those little pilot leaves on a lot of plants look very similar) I'll know what I've got.

Oh yes, those cells that are highlighted in yellow? Those are starts for our kid's garden --- they're getting tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini. We've agreed that the mild peppers (bells and pasillas) will be grown in our garden and the hot peppers (jalapino) will be grown in theirs ---that way there will actually be both kinds and not just a whole batch of "wonder what this will taste like?" as peppers readily cross pollinate.

The little green house has been transported upstairs to the spare bedroom where we have a light on them to warm the soil. Now the trick is to keep the very interested labrador out of them!

Under the catagory of "third time's the charm", I was notified via email this morning that we actually passed the jury on one of the last applications I sent in, so we do have two shows to take our latest mixed media items to. Hurrah!!! Our show dates are May 15 through 17 and September 18 through 20. I'll be posting further details as we get closer.

Remember this from yesterday?

During his "putter in the garage" time yesterday, the DH created the little platform inside the cart that I needed to raise the floor so the pots will actually be visable.

He also brought in some sandpaper and I've started sanding the pots so they are all nice and smooth for the first coat of paint.

I loaded up the tumbler yesterday with pieces from both of these "gift glass" pieces. (For the first time on this project I forgot to take a "before" picture --- OOPS!)

Anyway, along about Mother's Day there will be "after" pictures and I'll have a whole new batch of glass to make pretties out of!

I've been working on a necklace from the last batch of glass, and it's coming along nicely. Because each piece of glass is so unique and individual, creating the bezel for each one has required some real "thinking out of the box". I've done various types of netting around the ones that are curved or have gentle angles, but for the very sharp triangular pieces, netting doesn't work so well.

After several attempts on the current one, I made a peyote band to run all around the edge then used smaller beads to make the "prongs" on the front and the back to keep the glass from slipping out of the band. I'm working on the chain now --- almost ready to zip it up.

It's progressing nicely.

time for some breakfast!