a bit of art, a lot of baking, and a ghostly visitor

yaaaaaaaaawwwwwn....this girl is pooped....but happy.  my arty-mojo is back in full force and boy did this girl miss it while it was away.

i wanna do everything...NOW!   my arty-a.d.d. is in danger of rearing its ugly head, so i need to make sure i slow it down and finish   e v e r y t h i n g   i start. 

this has been a long weekend, but not long enough.   its seems like just hours ago we were all just waking up to friday commenting that it felt like saturday, all muh peeps had the day off for good friday.  

saturday the beast hit hard and bad and i thought maybe if i ignored it, just maybe, it would go away and let me play artist girl in the studio.  i managed to solder two of these before i had to call it quits. (i just realized that i did not take a photo of the entire vase, i still need to add the wire so that i can hang it)  i will take a finished photo of it tomorrow after i add the wire.

i should not have been playing with anything sharper or hotter than a crayon, as the vertigo became more intense my lack of coordination became comical and dangerous at the same time.

i have had these wee hanging vases for about uhhhh...2 years.  i told the hubby i knew i would figure out something nifty to do with them, and pretty them up.  it is amazing how just a bit of solder and a dangling thing-a-ma-bob can make a huge difference. 

this first picture is actually with the vase upside down, it seemed to be the only way to snap a good photo of it. 

my daughter introduced me to instagram and i played with it for the first time tonight.  it is neato and all, but i just don't get what all the excitement is about. 

this is the bottom of the vase.  the tear drop piece hanging down has a vintage applique under the glass. 

i added a bit of texture to the tip by letting the foil/tape wrinkle up a bit, and during the soldering process i played around with rolling it over a textured paper towel while the solder was still drippy and hot. 

i am thinking i might need to do some more playing with this idea.

today the beast started out a bit more well behaved and while the hubby and boys went to the annual easter car show and my daughter watched a chick flick.....i am more in to what we call 'dick' flicks around here (as in dick and jane, not the naughty slang term for the male anatomy)....i could not wait to get to the studio. 

i soldered the second dolly reliquary, and i decided to patina one of them.

i like it both ways.  3 of my four peeps like it both ways as well.  my oldest son only likes the shiny one.  

i am thinking about offering this shiny one up for sale with a photo of the patina-ed version as an option.  i dunno.  

if all goes as planned then i should have them finished by tomorrow. 

next up, i soldered the second one of these as well.....

instagram again, i do have to say i like the aged look it gives the photo.   i must surely be missing something though, right?  i have facebook friends posting every photo they snap using this app at an annoying volume. 

a few weeks ago, when i was suppose to be cleaning my studio, instead of putting the peacock feathers away, i just hadda play with them first, and after grabbing a doo-hicky, its name *poof* just slipped my mind....i came up with this and set it aside.  i just knew someday soon i would use it, and i am thinking maybe i could use it here?! 

ummmm....i mean here.

i rummaged through my vintage bead stash to gather bits for this necklace, and its twin.  i am thinking i will have to hunt down some more.  i am hoping i can get the better part of these two pieces done tomorrow as well. 

and instagram again

oh, i did not want to stop playing artist girl at this point.  i was having so much fun.  my inner kindergartener wanted to throw herself on the ground and kick and cry for more play time, but  the guys were home and i promised kolachis for dinner and crack cookies for not only our family, but another family which meant a double batch because no way were we about to give up even 1 of these addicting morsels out of our batch to an outsider!  so i put on my big girl panties and went to work in the kitchen.

kolachis are pretty much yeast rolls stuffed with goodies.  tonight ham and cheese.  to help make the day feel a bit more festive i decided to tint the dough in a blue-green pastel shade.

the photo does not do these round mounds of stuffed nummyness justice, but it gives you an idea.

sadly i did not get to eat one of these tonight as i had a self induced case of monster heartburn caused from sampling  snarfing cookie dough earlier. 

crack cookies.  with or without instagram they taste devine.  i will have to wait until tomorrow to eat an actual cookie since the hubby jinxed me.  never before did the cookie dough samplings snarfings i took made me sick....but nooooo the hubby said to me ' your gonna get sick from that' as he took about 3 cookies worth of dough for himself and here i type with the taste of store brand mylanta clinging to every taste bud on my tongue like it was a life raft and heartburn and a blech stomach and silently praying  begging that this goes away by the time i finish this post.

3 hours in the kitchen baking, and thankfully the hubby was there to help.  there is something about baking and cooking and such in the kitchen that always seems to set the beast on extra ornery mode, and that makes putting things in and getting things out of the oven a no-no. 

it did not help that it was nuts during the entire process....

my daughter....mom when are you going to make the icing, as i was spooning dough on a cookie sheet
my hubby........hon are you going to put dough on the other cookie sheet yet (after i already explained it needed to cool down first)
my daughter....can we make the icing now  (she is 21 by the way)
son number 2...i think the toilet might overflow the next time we flush it cuz.....(i am thinking we should flush it with the plunger in hand to fix the problem but before that comes out of my mouth....)
my hubby....i need to put our sheets and pillow cases in the dryer and the laundry basket is full, what should i do with the laundry in the dryer.  (because the kitchen table also serves as the laundry folding table)
son number 1...when is dinner going to be done
son number 1.....the toilet overflowed
my daughter....can we make the icing now
me to the hubby.....soften 1, 3, start...do this 3 times (so we can soften butter to make icing)
hubby....but 3 means 3 sticks of butter, we only have 2 in here
me....remember last time i told you the microwave can not count....if you press 2 then you have to do it 5 times not 3 which takes more electricity which costs more money which really makes you grumpy when you get the bill

over the 3 hours i was baking and making i had mike attached to my ankles with my each and every move just waiting to be the first one to slurp up any droppings of cookie dough

mia was scurrying at any and every sound and dashing off to run under the hoosier cabinet for safety, i am most sure that she was a scaredy cat in her previous life.

and molly the princess kept scooting her blanky throne to the middle of the floor, and right under my feet.

there were approximately  257 other decisions that i was asked to make as well, ok maybe not quite that many....but it sure felt like it. 

not only was the beast being a pain, but i am hearing impaired and have auditory processing disorder, which means that my brain and ears do not connect properly and i have a hard time understanding words, especially in sentences and son number 1 has a speech impairment and bad timing and i love this boy with all my heart but he seems to have a knack for spewing interesting facts at the least convenient of times. 

after the cookies were scooped, baked, and mostly iced i started working on the stuffing part of the kolachis, for some reason the dough was a bit stickier tonight and was quite a pain to work with, and as i was dealing with the dough i was waiting for it.......and finally the hubby said it...'you know it is probably the food coloring that did it'.   a few years ago i dyed our mashed potatoes pink on valentine's day and my gawd the hubby turned in to my dad and spewed don't &$@# with my mashed potatoes....i swear he was channeling my dad as that was so out of character for the hubby.  since then we joke about dying food....cookies are the only exception to his rule.    as soon as the kolachis were shoved in the oven the table was cleaned and laundry folding began. 

ok...so i was gonna stop yammering on and say goodnight, but i added the 'and a ghostly visitor' to the title and if i don't tell you now i am gonna forget.

last night i was in the kitchen by myself facing the fridge....ok i will admit it, i was swigging out of the milk jug.  i have good reason though since the dishwasher is still not working and i hate the thought of washing a cup if i don't have to.....so anyway,  the daughter was at the gym,  son number 1 in a gaming coma in his room with headphones and mic on, the hubby was on the computer in the bedroom and son number 2 was at a friends house.  behind me, in the livingroom  i heard a man say 'hello'. 

my hearing impairment can make figuring out what direction a voice or sound came from tricky, but as i turned to see who and where the voice was mia and molly raised there ears and looked in to the livingroom. 

just to be sure i checked on son number 1 and he was still in game coma and then i asked the hubby, who had the tv muted, if he said anything, pulled up a site on the computer with volume.  nope. nada.

i told the hubby what happened and it made the hair on my arms stand up on end.   we have had a ghost with us for quite awhile that we swear we brought home in an old armoir.  just in case you are thinking i am nuts, we have a list of witnesses.  'frank' never has spoken, and he seems to not be around during stressful times and as you know it has been a rough year. 

so, my daughter and son number 2 came home and we were in the kitchen talking and my daughter looks to the livingroom and said did you hear that man talking, it sounds like dad. she could not tell what he was saying though.   i had not told her or either of the boys what had happened.  and there goes the hair on my arms standing on end again.  after i told her what happened just a bit earlier we ran back to tell the hubby, and double check to make sure it was not him talking.

i so wish i knew who he was and what he had to say.  a few weeks ago my boys were woke up, awoke, awaken.. 4 or 5 days in a row at the same time every morning by a robin pecking and scratching at their bedroom window about 3 hours each day.    for the last couple of weeks something has caused my hubby to wake up between 4 and 4:30 am.  there have been a few other little odd things here and there. 

ghostly stuff does not bother me, but i have to admit this is making me a bit on edge.  the recorder on my phone is amazingly sensitive and i thought about doing some goofy amateur evp session.....but what if i get something.  i just know i would pee myself and not be able to sleep, even though i find all the ghost stuff fascinating. 

well, i think i have exceeded my jabber limit and i am going to say nighty night....and chug another bit of mylanta-y stuff. 

sweet dreams to ya.  mwah.

i think i found my mojo

i have spent a couple of weeks cleaning and reorganizing my studio, getting rid of things that after years i have not used, but  will in a week or month or so i will find a use for....as always.

my studio still needs some work done, but i have enough room to work and this arty girl is starting to find her oh-so-lost mojo again.

since easter is around the corner i figured what better project to start off with than one that has a bunny.

about a year ago while wandering the bead section of a local artsy fartsy store i came across the beads for this project and knew exactly what i was going to do with them.  one set of beads have flowers printed on them...the other remind me of heads of lettuce or cabbage.


 i needed this guy (and his twin) for the necklaces....... because this is one of those make one to sell and one for meeeee kind of pieces.    these bunnies have been part of our easter decorations for about 20 years. 

even though the bunnies are 20 years old, they did not look old enough so i aged them with a bit of sanding and......

how about that chippy neon pink polish i am sporting....huh?   every time i would look down at my nails it would about blind me!

i using a sponge brush i rubbed a bit of this over the bunnies....

the top bunny has been aged with the distress ink, and the bottom one....not yet. 

later today i will spray a bit of clear coat on it to seal the distress ink. 


the next few steps were very tedious.....i cut 60+ 4" pieces of 18 gauge steel wire.

there are 2 very important tools, besides the clippers, for this job.....

i love my nitrile gloves.  they help keep my hands clean....er, and keep me from getting poked by the wire.  after a messy job like this i give them a good washing with some dish soap and ring them out. 

my safety glasses with built in bi-focals.   this arty girl will be 47 this april, and even though i feel like i could be my 21 year old daughters twin sister, my eyes and their abililty to focus on objects within arms length would beg to differ.  


i use to wear my safety glasses all willy nilly until a few years ago when cutting the tip off of a large sewing needle, about the size of 18 gauge wire,  the chunk hit me dead center in my eyeball.  yipes!  i kept looking at my eyeball all evening expecting to find the chunk imbedded in my eyeball...several hours later i found the quarter inch piece in the lower part of my eye lid.  it took over an hour to get it out of my eye....believe it or not, it is much easier to get an eyelash out of the ole eyeball than a chunk of a needle. 


i now wear my safety glasses 99 % of the time and usually won't even cut a piece of paper without them on.

so after cutting these 60 pieces, which takes some muscle let me tell ya, i then began sanding off the annealing.

i have found that the easiest method for this is to sandwich the wire between 2 sanding blocks.

 i use the super cheapies from harbor freight.

below you can see the difference.  i love the aged look the annealing gives, but it rubs off and it is icky, so if i want to age and darken the steel i rub a bit of novacan black patina on it...which i do not have a picture of.  you can buy it at shops that sell stain glass and soldering schtuff. 

thank goodness i have a tiny t.v. from the dark ages in my studio.  it gave me something to watch while i undertook this boring task.  i am too antsy to sit for too very long doing something like this.  even while engrossed in a movie i had seen a dozen times before.....eagle eye....i still had to get up and fidget in my studio every 15 or 20 pieces. 

by the time i was done with this my shoulders and hands were in cramps, so i decided it was a good time to join the peeps upstairs for the evening....and if i began to feel a bit guilty,  all i had to do was remind myself that my nitrile glubs were-a-drying and i had to wait for them to dry for the next task anyway.


the next task will be to apply a coating of this stuff.....

this will seal the steel and help prevent rusting in case it comes in contact with water.   i have not had much experience with this stuff, just under a year of working with it, but many artists that work with steel use it and swear by it.  

i am hoping by later today i will have completed this step and be well on my way wire wrapping the beads and assembling this piece.

you will have to excuse the blurry-ness of this photo, but it is a bit of a peek of what is to come. 


i am still not sure of  how the bunny will connect to the necklace.



and i am ending this post with a pat on my back, because the beast (meniere's disease vertigo) has been kicking my butt big and bad...i spent two days in bed because i was unable to walk....i was able to do all of this while my world was still spinning and tilting.   i am able to walk at this point, but i kinda look like a drunk trying to walk on a waterbed, and my hands sometimes forget they are attached to my body and i drop things.....alot....which makes the whole entire process of creating slow going  at times.   my fear of becoming an invalid from this disease has given me the strength and determination to push myself beyond what i thought i could do.  i am pretty darn proud of myself.

with that said, and my back patted, i hope to be able to post later this evening with photos of what i have completed.

xo