Ornaments

At the gallery demo last weekend I took an order for some tree ornaments, and I kicked myself for not thinking of that before, duh!  They were to be red wire and star like. I did a couple trials before I settled on one, and the test ones make great holiday pendants! The first one looks like a poinsetta flower:

The second one is half the size and makes a nice little star pendant for those less into chunky jewelry:

But I finally came up with adjusting another pattern to come up with this 6 pointed star pattern:

She wanted a set of 6, so I was busy making them this week, and because I have orders to fill this is when I started baby sitting a teething 1 yr old. LOL never a dull moment around here I tell ya!

I think they turned out rather well myself. And I found another ideas for holly leaves with red bead berries. But before I tackle ornaments I need to play with the lovely sterling silver wire I got from The Ring Lord:  http://theringlord.com/  They are based in Saskatoon, and have loads of different wire. I'll still need to order my coloured stuff from the States tho, sigh.

Anyway I need to make something really amazing with the silver and see if I can get it into the winter amateur display at the art gallery next month.  I think I have done what I'd like shown with my can tabs, so just need to go nuts with nice wire and semiprecious beads. Wish me luck!

Art Gallery demo/new display colours

 

Sun Oct 3 I did a wire crochet demo at the art gallery. And got to test the new colour scheme for my display. In mini display form. I like the way that the colour turned out, everything stands out better than the black.

There weren't many people who came to look, but I sold earrings and a ring. and a well known local artist was interested in one of my older sets that I have always wondered why hadn't sold. However she didn't have her wallet along, sigh.

 At the time I was demoing there was a stained glass class happening, and the instructor ordered a set of tree ornaments based on a pendant I had crocheted. which lead to Laurie (education director) to suggest I join a few other artists in Nov to teach various ornament making. 5 people who came indicated that I should teach wire crochet. So, I am going to try to teach a class in 2011 sometime. EEK!! So much new stuff to try and do, and all of it at the same time, why can't new happen slowly? I don't like too much change... Taurus I suppose. Anyway it was a rather interesting day.

Studio Tour

Over the weekend I took the afternoon to to a semi-local studio tour of 9 artists.

Luckily the weather co-operated and it was a nice day out. (Sitting in the tour van and getting up and out all the time was torture, for me though. I managed to injure my tailbone slipping on the step and bouncing on my tail down to the concrete pad.)

The first stop was a charming pottery/painting studio. The artist uses her painting skills to decorate her pottery work. lovely fruit and floral themes on all amnner of pottery creations.

The next artist raises alpaca and uses their wool to create luxuriously soft knits, and amazingly soft stuffed animals. Here is an alpaca mom and her baby.

Some of the alpaca items, hats, scarves, mitts, sweaters, stuffies ect..

Elaine was part of the tour as well with her polymer clay work, but alas, there were too many admirers at her display to get a good photo.

Here we have a fibre artist, she mostly does various dye and dye techniques, but she also does amazing quilting work, which wasn't displayed. as well as photography of local wildlife which she uses in her cards and prints.

Another artist has her studio on her farm in a nice sized building, huge windows and wall to wall paintings and artworks. She does acryllic and water color painting, felting, all sorts of different needle works, everything really.

The same artist as above. I had to show this dragon, all needleworked in gold thread, beads and sequins, the details are amazing. It took her 2 weeks of 10-12 hr days to stitch this gorgeous and priceless work. I drool, seriously.

This pottery artist is very different from the first one, the patterns in her work are more textural, though there were a few painted pieces. She also does amusing little faces, and "mosquitoe house" garden decorations.

The last 2 artists are a husband and wife team who have thier studios in the basement of an old old schoolhouse they have renovated. The live in the upper floor.

She does plaster casting impressions of nature scenes, animal tracks, feathers, different plantlife ect.

This one is a huge casting of a busy gopher area, full of rodent tracks.

Her husband does black and white classic photography using a bellows style camera, which my photo didn't turn out of, sadly. lots of nature scenes, and he does images in a totally darkroom, slowexposure where he runs a flashlite around the subject and ends up with a wild light outlining the photo subject.

It was a really fun and busy day seeing all the different local artisans, and their equally different studio areas. So much talent, and so much inspiration. I hope they do a tour next year too!

Swift Current Fall Gift & Craft Sale

Alrighty My good pal Elaine the entirely too talented polymer clay artist otherwise known as Tooaquarius  http://www.tooaquarius.com/ and I have decided to host our own gift & craft sale Dec 4th!!

We are renting the entrepreneurial center in town and  so it'll be smaller about 30 tables, but very exciting as neither of us has planned an event like this. However we've done enough shows that we know what sucks and what's a nice touch.

Lotta details, busy busy for awhile getting it advertised and such. Very excited to see what happens with this.
to book in e-mail craftsale@tooaquarius.com


Cindy

Kittys

My half grown kitten Blaze is a tech cat... he can turn on the computers, and what he searches for is amazing : grreeabdf for instance.
and of course when I am on here he needs to nap on me.

He also thinks empty cat food bags are the bestest toys...

Last night my BF Jackie was telling e that her eldest daughter found a tiny kitten on her boyfriends farm, and for a day and a half no momma cat. The tiny thing hadn't opened his eyes yet. So they got kitten formula from the vet and took him home. However the next day daughter went off to collage. Mon Jackie could get home at noon to feed, and his eyes opened, but 1 might be blind. Tues was ok for feedings too. Yesterday didn't work so smoothly. So I am kitty sitting during the day. It's name is Teddy Bear. And he's the size of my hand. You can see the slight film on the left eye, might be a baby thing and he'll be ok, might be a bad eye.

he/she's had a bottle

and then was tired and fell asleep:

I moved Teddy to the pet kennel Jackie brought and he's happily napping.  Blaze however has his fuzzy nose outta joint, so baby is in the office/studio with me with the door shut. My kids never took a bottle. I have bottle fed lambs on the farm, and took a turn with a calf. kittens are very different, so this will be a learning experience. A cute and fuzzy one, awwww! Might not get a whole lot accomplished today, darn. (hehehehe, snuggle)

I did make a few things yesterday, and am still finishing up another, so once I finish I'll photo and post.

Clay and new Kitty

Yesterday, Monday was a busy day. The morning was about cleaning a bit, The afternoon I went to my first polymer clay bead making class. And this is what I made:

I have made several swirled beads before, so that wasn't new, but making the canes for the flowers was new, and simpler, yet more time consuming to prep for than I thought. I was not expecting to come home with useable goodies, so that is/was an awesome thing. My flower cane is pretty good, but if I continue with it I'll need a lot of practice with the formed flowers (bottom of photo).

After class, since we have no kids until this evening my husband and I went for supper, and once we got home the people who are giving us their kitten decided to drop him off earlier than planned as he likes to escape when the doors are open to move boxes out.

So, here is our new kitten Lionblaze, or Blaze for short. Formerly known as Alvin.

As you can see he immediately helped Rick with the class he is taking...

And was curious about the camera.

And then napped on the crochet thread for my current project, and the project.

Lionblaze seems to have missed the "be aloof" part of the program and was eagsrly climbing all over us purring as only a kitten can. Unfortunately our 2 yr old crippled cat Licorice would be happier if the new kid would just go away and stop trying to be friends, it's not gonna happen.

Well when my 3 get home tonight from Grandmas I think a certain furball will be enthusiastically loved. Dunno if I should feel sorry for him or not!

Birthdays

Today my daughter turned 9. so for the next month I have a 12 yr old, tow 9 yr olds and two 7 yr olds, none of them twins. My daughter and step son are exactly 11 months apart to the day, so for 1 month a year they are the same age. And my son and step daughter are just under 5 months apart, so they are the same age for 7 months a year.

I always make a special cake for the kids birthdays, and for todays I did a cute gummy bears at the beach scene/theme.

I cut out a section of the top cake layer and filled it with a mix of blue and green jello, and added gummy sharks. The floaty tubes are gummy peach rings and of course gummy bears. I used marzipan for the beach blankets, ball, sand pails and scoops. The sun shade is a small truffle paper on a toothpick with gummy pieces securing the cup. I used a tooth pick broken off to make the footprints in the sand. It was pretty fun to make, and the kids liked it too, jello AND cake!!

Tomorrow I take my first official polymer clay bead making class. Which is being  taught by my RL friend Elaine of   http://www.tooaquarius.com/ She has wanted to teach me for a few years, so this should be fun. Later in the week my 2 eldest daughters are taking classes from her as well on making critters. I may post about it tomorrow, IF I remember my camera. I am awful for forgetting it and wishing I had it.  I'll try to remember to put it in my back pack for tomorrow.
C'ya!

Bowl full O fun!

 

Last Month at a family reunion I went to the local farmers market. There I found a couple of women spinning wool yarn at their display. I spotted this gorgeous purple wool, and brought it home. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to make with it, it was just to gorgeous to leave there! After a couple weeks I decided to make a bowl with pulltabs, and expand my catalog of items I make with tabs. Perfect thing for the wool! So here is my first can tab bowl! I like how the verigation comes through in each row like I switched yarns. I think I might make a few more bowls, maybe slightly larger.

The second item I am chatting up is this fun pull tab purse. It's a custom order and each row is a different shade of green. I actually have over 16 different greens in my horde! Some shades are pretty similar, but side by side are different.  I tried making a button loop closure for under the flap, and I think it turned out pretty well ( small pic). I had my daughter model the bag for me, and you can see my messy studio in the background!

Anyway I am now making a blue bag in multiple shades, and after that I have a project to represent my hometown for a juried in art show this fall. I haven't done an "art" show before so this should be interesting to try!  More pics and progress when I complete them.

makin' stuff

I am still trying to create a little free-er, and more art inspired. This bracelet uses several fillet crocheted triangles in different sizes and metal colour, copper, gold, silver. Originally they were layered together as a pendant and earrings. I decided to attach them all together for this asymertical but geometric designed bracelet, after ripping apart a few older pieces that have been in my stock for a few years unsold. I kinda like this new design it's fun and funky and I hope this new direction will sell, time will tell right?

This is what the triangles  pendant and earrings looked like before. yeah my photography has improved a lot in that time too LOL!!

some of my new work is still similar but showing more of the crochet work, less simple chaining.

I am rather liking the lacy disks behind the beads look right now.

Currently I am working on a pull tab bowl using hand spun and dyed wool I got at a farmers market. I'll be sure to show that one off when I am done!

trying new things

I am planning to push my creative boundaries a little. I did my first freeform wire crochet last week while at my Tuesday Makers meeting. I must admit it was a bit daunting, having no idea what stitch was going in next or in what direction I should work. But it is a pretty artsy piece, I decided to add a chain and make it a bib necklace. Wearable art, I am sure someone out there will appreciate it, but I know it's not everyones taste. I might keep it too, but being me I'll have to make earrings too LOL!!

I was at the local art galleries summer salon show this Sat. And it occured to me that I really need to get myself into the fall/winter one. Wondering if I should just do my usual or make more artsy stuff for that. Maybe a bit of both. Hoping I get the time to make a new purse design I've been pondering too.

Well right now I need to concentrate on getting Adaira ready for diabetes camp and prepping for my parents 40th anniversary surprize party this weekend.  Should be a crazy week as usual!!

Family stuff

I have been rather busy with the family lately. My middle daughter Kaylens birthday is in Aug, so if she wants any friends to come to the party we have it in June. I always make the kids special home made cakes, and she wanted a flower garden with her name in roses and gummy worms all over. I have very little skill with icing technique. So I used skills learned from polymer clay sculpting that my friend Elaine of Tooaquarius taught me and used marzipan to which rose extract and red food colour was added. The girls liked it.

The same weekend there was a big annual Picnic in the Park, a family fun day, with games, food and live entertainment. My eldest daughter was a volunteer face painter and got to paint her littlest brothers face.

And the museum put on a mock trial and used volunteers from the audience.... yeah they picked me. I was told to improv my lines if I wanted, so I hammed it a bit. It was fun, and a nice end to the day.

Alyia, our youngest daughter had her friend birthday party this past weekend, she asked for a unicorn cake, which is much easier than the rose garden was!

And I leave you with the PS2 family airband, Kaylen is in the back on drums, Alyia is our lead singer, Braydon and Geran are our guitarists, Adaira isn't in the photo, I guess she must be the manager, LOL!! Note the rockin' PJs onstage!

I been blogged!

I just got a message that I have been blogged about! How cool is that? She has an awesome blog  going, and amusingly chose a lot of the pieces I have done with Elaines beads. I had no idea she was planning anything, so there's no interview, she just pulled info from my shop. Very nice surprize. I wonder if I should try to do a few artist interviews on here when I can't think of anything of interest to report. Ok here's a link for you to check it out:
http://vabeachquilter.blogspot.com/

Tab mania

I have been working on some interesting orders in the last few weeks.  The first is a large, large bag, about twice as long/deep as my usual bags, and it has a divider in the middle and 1 large pocket in each side. I used about 620 can tabs. My daughter at 5 ft 2 is my model.

The other project which is for the same customer is a tank top made of 744 can tabs. She wanted it unlined to wear over any other top. Luckily my daughter the model is the same size a ladies small. The top is a first for me, as far as can tab creations go. And humble as I sometimes am... I think it turned out really well!

The next item is a necklace I made for the creative challenge thread on artfire, the theme is/was wind. I used thicker wire to crochet the sodalite and blue lace agate into a bar, and then made a cute, whimsical red kite

to float into the sky. I may donate it to the kite festival this month.

So my next order is another black purse, I love the orders, but could wish they wanted some colour! after that I'm doing a green purse with all different shades of green, a nice change!