busy girl, happy girl, grateful girl

the past few days ended up being busy days.   i thought i had an extra week until mother's day.    not a good thing to discover when you are making you mom, sister.....and yourself a mother's day gift on a much larger scale than you have ever done before.  

april 23rd through the 25th i went out of town with my mom and sister to the quilt show in paducah, kentucky.   on the way home we stopped in a small town, germantown, to visit the tiny cemetery where 2 of my mom's ancestors, august tunze who was born in 1826 and died in 1906, and his son who died at the age of 8.    the headstones were mostly over a hundred years old and were deteriorated, and had deteriorated so much over the last couple of years since my mom's last visit, we were not able to locate august's son's headstone.

thankfully 'tunze' was boldy carved at the bottom of august's headstone, so we were able to do a rubbing for each of us.

we did a rubbing of the entire headstone.   the top part we did separate from the bottom.

i decided that i would solder the rubbing we did of the bottom of the headstone that has 'tunze' on it, since it is my mom's maiden name, as a mother's day gift for each of us...and also as a way for each of us to save a memory from our trip.

i needed to cut glass that was 17" long and my glass cutting table is not set up to cut glass that size, so it was a challenge.  i have also never had to tape and solder anything near this size either.   i really wanted to just give up after the first piece of glass i cut was a mess....but i decided failure was not an option, and giving up would mean failure.

i backed the glass with copper flashing.   the copper flashing is cheaper than going to an art supply store and buys pieces of copper.  the flashing has a not-so-sticky-sticky-backing to it.   nail polish remover would not unsticky it, so i figured i could remove the sticky and give the copper a nice patina all at once by taking the torch to it.   

during the soldering process.....the piece had to hang off the end of my soldering table at times so i could reach the middle section to solder.   a couple of times beads of molten hot solder bounced off my thigh.   ouch.

the next steps were to patina the solder, rub off some patina off the raised areas to give it a nice aged look, and then add polish to clean it up.

the chain was added and done.   i was able to get all three done and have plenty of time to make homemade cheese crackers, sugar cookies, gooey butter cake, and yeast rolls.  

i was so very grateful the meniere's beast was behaving, but the rocks in my ears have been out of whack, which causes positional vertigo and that can be scary while holding a hot soldering iron in your hand.   i have never had vertigo attacks from the positional vertigo this intense before, and i am so very grateful that these attacks last no longer than a couple of minutes.    

kind of felt like i conquered another mountain with this project.  

i managed to do all of this without even so much as a broken finger nail....then while putting foil on a cookie sheet i nearly cut my finger off....ok...not totally off...2 hours later it was still bleeding.   

during the week i also got myself back in the habit of making art as soon as inspiration hits and not saving a tab on the computer to do later or jotting down notes and a sketch.   

inspiration hit and i did this

i love all things science related.   i love the look of old museum mounts.   someday i am going to have a cabinet of curiosities.   i just need that bigger house first so i have room.   

when a combination of stress and menopausal pms hit hard....a bit of zentangling was in order to calm the nerves and get my mind centered again.

i am also getting ready to assemble some bits to make what i am thinking will be called the birds and the bees.....i emptied and cleaned a chicken egg and one of my african grey's, jilly, eggs.

felt someone, or something staring at me as i was getting dressed after my shower.....found we have a peeping tom....or peeping squirrel!

saturday night my hubby came home with these for me for mother's day.   they are so beautiful.   i am trying to decide if i am going to hang them to dry in a day or so, or make beads from them.   i have been wanting to give that a try for years and just recently came across the recipe again.

yesterday we went to my sister's home for mother's day.   i rarely drink alcohol.   i figured i had done enough of that in my younger days.    i had my first mimosa.   i am hooked.   now i know why my daughter was able to down 6 of these last week at a wedding reception.  

i have been saving bottles to make a bottle tree.   i want to save blue and green bottles.   up until yesterday i had a whopping 2 bottles.   green....from my olive oil.    now i know how i am going to get some of the blue bottles.....the muscato used for the mimosas.   i am thinking once a month we can play mother's day and have a mimosa or two.

my mom brought over files she has from doing research on our ancestory.   my aunt had started doing this years before she passed away.   it was so exciting to learn about who and where we came from.
we found out we might be related to people down the street from us we have known for almost 20 years.  small world, huh?  i can not wait to learn more.  

we had lots of cranky, and scary looking,  people in our family tree....this guy looked like he would have been an awesome grandpa type guy.

i am getting ready to start a big and exciting project that i will tell you about next post.    the hubby just got home, so i gotta run....and i need to start on my big project.    

have a beautiful day.....lots of love to you.  

ummmm....stuff i did today? i really can't think of a title.

i finished the first one today....squeeeee!   i love it....but after a minute or so of celebration i was not 100% in love with it anymore.   there was just too much space all in the middle there, and once i put it on i was not loving where the feathers hit.

i added another hook so that i could wear it this way too....and i am back on total and complete love.

this necklace has a lot of things i love.  my love of asymmetry, science, found objects,  and all things vintage. 

in the process of finishing the necklace above,  my arty-a.d.d. kicked in and i saw these beige-y pearls sitting in a baggie, and they almost perfectly matched the vintage paper i lined the reliquary boxes with ......and then i heard them whisper.....hey...you....stick us in one of those oh-so-soon-to-be-reliquary boxes over there.....hey you....don't ignore us......you know you want to....it's ok...put the necklace down and just do it. 

ugh....alright already.  i give in to you my arty-a.d.d.  i will do it.   i am glad i did, because it will take a good 24 hours for the diamond glaze to dry completely.   i have no clue what i will add to these at this point and that is because i would not give in any longer to the arty-a.d.d.  i went right back to work on the necklace.  yea me....

ok....so when we watch a scary or gorey icky movie we always do a happy chaser show to wash away all the yuck from our brains.....well after i finish a prototype or a first of a mulitple of something i kinda do the same thing.  i give my brain a little mini break and work on something little before starting on the second of something. 

i have some vintage plastic pink beads and matching pink freshwater pearls that i can't quit thinking about, and i think because it is spring, so i decided to put some vintage pink appliques under glass and solder as a focal.

 i soldered the first one, and did not like the dot placement.  when i don't like something i push it aside and then come back to it.  sometimes i have to fall in like with something first, and then love will follow.

i soldered the second one and liked the dot placement on this one much better.   i knew there would be no falling in love or like with the first one at this point.

  thank goodness i had other pink appliques to choose from, and quickly had another one under glass and ready to solder in no time. 

one thing i have learned is once you put dots on something, you can't really remove them with out it getting messy and the piece looking like there was some serious solder overdose going on.

 i knew this, but i hated where the dots were and figured if worse came to worse i would break the glass and remove the vintage applique smooshed between the layers of glass.

so i began to try to undot the piece and remove some of the solder....and of course it became a mess. 

right about the time i was ready to reach for the hammer and smack the ever living crap out of it and take my frustration out on this molten mess i remembered how years ago i made spikes on a piece that suffered a solder o.d. .  how perfect would that be?  these are suppose to be roses, i think, and rose bushes have thorns....so when life gives you sucky dots make thorns.....ok not as catchy as ' when life gives ya lemons make lemonade....but close enough.

it took me a minute or so of playing to remember how i did it a couple of years ago.  the first time i made the thorny spikes it was an accident while playing with the temperature on my soldering iron.  you have to turn it down, the temperature, so that as you lift the iron up the solder begins to cool almost immediately.  

i really like this, and i am thinking of keeping it for me.  on a short chain or strand of beads i think it would be fine.  anything too long and as i move it could flip over and stab me.  yipes!  i would have to carry a supply of band-aids and neosporin every time i wore it.  not good. 

i would love to be able to sell it, but i am afraid someone would get stabbed by the spikes and then it would be like mcdonalds and a lapful of hot coffee kind of thing.....and i don't want that.

the hubby and daughter said to just put a disclaimer on the listing....but i think the coffee cups had a disclaimer on them and that did not work for micky d's now did it?!

anyway...i just keep picturing the wear-er hugging some poor soul and putting a bazillion puncture wounds on them.  i think it is better i keep this one as it could potentially be a lethal weapon!

i know i said i would post photos of the progress of the weed killing, but i is so tired and i have about 40 ounces of water that has made its way through my digestive system and is screaming to break free to the other side of the ride.....so i am going to say nighty-night sleep tight and i will type at ya later.

big squishy hugs and sloppy kisses to you.

do-dadding up papier mache easter eggs

finally i am back...what ever crud i had kicked this arty girls butt in a big way and made the beast (meniere's vertigo for those who are new here) cranky.  but i am back. 

i still need to finish the other bunny necklace, but i really wanted to work on something easter-y today.  i really don't have many decorations for easter.  i dunno why.

and yes, the bunny necklace is easter-y....but i just didn't wanna work on it....ok already?

 what vintage decorations  i have i loves......

these bunnies were made with my mom.  16 years ago we were going to get into the craft business, but i had a newborn at the time and it just never....happened.  probably a good thing because when sewing these i wanted to jab the scissors in to my body repeatedly....i just can not do repetition.

and i just hadda put my bunny ears that my daughter recently gave me to good use.

the big bunny is just a few years old...i bought it from at a craft fair a few years back.  to the right is an art doll i made a few years ago....and yes she does have ninnies...... made from polymer clay. 

so i am pretty puny in the decorations department for this holiday.  a few weeks ago when cleaning my studio i came across 4 large and 9 small papier mache eggs.   the other night i came up with an idea for the small ones....and i have to say they turned out just like i imagined them!  squeeeeee!


i decided to work upstairs in the kitchen because (a)  i did not have enough open space on any of the tables in my studio and (b) the weather started out beautiful and i thought it would be great for snapping photos of the creative process.  the weather quickly changed from sunny to cloudy and rainy then back to sunny then back to rainy...and the photos reflect it.

since i did not have enough acrylic paint, i 'borrowed' from our trim stash of creamy off white latex paint. 

and because i am an a1 slob when it comes to painting i made sure the entire kitchen table was covered.  i also wore a junky shirt because the inner kindergartener in me,  still, without thinking, wipes her fingers on her shirt.


i  wore rubber glubs, because i just did my nails the night before and did not want to ruin these beauties.  normally i do not paint my nails very often, and normally my hands are stained with some arty medium.   my daughter found matte polish for me.....loving the matte nail polish, and loving that the sparklies stay sparklyyyyyy.....ok...so where were we......

the 'before' photo....

i wanted the eggs to look antique and well loved.  i played with a couple of different methods of removing just the right amount of paint. 

this one i  painted a light coat of paint and then held the egg for a few minutes.  when i removed my hand it took some of the paint off with it.

the other method was rolling the egg when the paint was slightly tacky on newspaper.  it actually ended up working out best when i crumpled the paper up and then wrapped the egg up in it and removed it. 

a sampling of eggs done both ways....

next step, i stamped them.

to get a bit of exercise in, i took 3 eggs down to my basement studio at a time. 

i love, love, love these.   i remember a bit ago that i have a vintage wire egg basket and i may just transfer them in to that and keep them in the kitchen after easter. 


for the large eggs i decided to try something that has been pinned on pinterest on several occasions.  using elmers glue as a crackle medium.

even before my hubby lost his job 10 months ago i cringed at the cost of the different crackle paints and mediums out there.  well now there is just no way, so needless to say this girl was as happy as i  could possibly be when i saw the tute on pinterst.  

only problem was i did not have enough elmers wood glue, and no white glue...but i had this

this stuff is a bit more pricey than good old elmers, but mixed with a bit of water to give it the consistancy of elmers it worked just fine.    i am a now now now instant gratification kind of girl....ants in my pants kind of girl so there was going to be no waiting until later in the evening to get some elmers. 

the first egg i did not basecoat.  the other 3 i gave basecoat in pink, green, and purple.

i put the glue on with a sponge brush, and gave it a pretty gloppy thick coat....

you need to let the glue dry just enough so that it is tacky, or sticky.  i found that just dry enough was when you could touch it and it would hold your finger print there.  you then want to load your brush with enough paint to make one long stroke if possible.  make sure you paint in one direction, as in from top to bottom of your project.  do not put the paint on too thick, and do not go back and add more paint...unless it is immediate.  the link for the elmers tute is here .

being that instant gratification kinda girl i grabbed the space heater and used it to speed up the process. 

there is one drawback to using this cheater-cheater method

nope, my easter egg did not develope a zit.  but you do need to pop it.....ewww gross.  sorry. 

it is a poofy bubble of air due to the glue and paint becoming a bit too warm.   who knows...maybe if i was to do it even longer it might've burst in to flames....so....if you are antsy like me and choose to use heat to speed up the processing of all of this be careful. 

i still have more schtuff to do to these guys, and should have them done by tomorrow.  i will post pics when i am done, and the pics will be better.


while digging for these eggs in a super huge plastic tub o'stuff i came across about 20 or so of these.  most still unpainted.

cute little buggers aren't they?!  i had forgotten all about them!  so like i said...most still need to be painted.  remember....i am not much of a repetition type of a person.  i figure i will start on them in july or august to put in the nest feathers shop. 

i am self taught at everything i do.  i saw the snowman face on a painting magazine for ghosts and adapted it. 

i am so thankful for donna dewberry.  that woman knows how to teach some painting.  her books are just perfect for someone like me.  learning disabilities and blonde, and i tend to over complicate things...all handicaps!  *snort* 

i am still so proud of what i painted on our 1930's  kitchen table...so proud i'm just gonna show it off again! 

well...that is pretty much all the show-n-tell for now.   if all goes as planned i will be back tomorrow to show off the finished bits of the crackle eggs.

sloppy smooches and squishy hugs to you....