Lost & found and trying again

Ok so it's been a year and a half since I posted anything in here. Shame on me, I know I know. So even if I have no photos loaded and ready I am going to try to post what my day was like every day and see if it's helpful to me.
This morning Rick made me one of his amazing western omeletes for breakfast. Chloe, a friend of Adairas and daughter of one of my friends was picked up from the sleepover. Got all the kids ready to go and off to church. Holy snow, we got several inches of the white stuff dumped overnight, so Rick shovelled as Adaira was grumpy, and he didn't feel like dealing with her. After church we went home and had a quick lunch then Braydon and Rick went off to  curling. Adaira and Kaylen went out to remove all the posters from trying to find the kitten a home. Adaira then decided to name him Miko after much discussion and thought.  I finished a black and white jewelry set, and got my tax stuff out for Rick. We discovered that my papers are in horrible condition, and I need to keep better track of when I do shows, the fees and how much I make at each. Like really really badly done. I can't find anything anywhere for anything.

Kids go back to school after a week off tomorrow. So all the fun of prepping the little mosters. And now I need to make supper.

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!