Etsy Charm Swap

All the charms I received in the mail are below. I listed every one's shop name and links.

Our swap hostess...Glazed and Confuzed
A sterling bracelet and a cute glass ladybug.

Creative Muse
This is a feast for the senses! Ok don't eat it, but the rest.
Colorfully dyed silk ribbon made into a fuschia blossom and .........filled with lavender!
I love this charm and it says a lot b-cuz I don't like PINK!

Fallen Angel Jewelry
Very cute little guy, gecko???? My daughter loves this one.

Luna 2005
Beautiful pale turquoise blue and aluminum charm with bead dangly

No Duplicates
Lives up to her name.....
Paper and glass beads with a brass found object. (maybe from an old clock???)

Mamacita Beadworks
Pewter, I love pewter...so earthy. Architectural feel, good contrast to the other charms.

Blueberry Jewellery
Very cute and jingly....my fav colors!

Holly's Rainbow
This charm is made from saltdough. So it is light, and has an earth quality.
This is my name in ancient Ogham alphabet...cooooool.
My kids both love this one.

Moony
These are polymer clay that look like stone, small and dangly
OK I thought I'd put my two worst pics together!!!! sorry guys :-(

Crye
This is a terrific lightweight polymer heart with an embossed design.

Julie*Ann
This is a wonderful burgandy polymer clay charm w/ an "X" in braille
My photo wasn't that great.

Elena Mary
A nice heavy charm...with a hemitite sun. I'll put this one in the center of my bracelet.

Squirrel Girl 68
Beautiful amber colored beads!!!

Papernclay
This yummy greean and coppery polymer clay chrms looks great with the one above.

Chickadee Social Club
Two fer one! Yeah!

Nursery Rhyme ATC

Ok I'm finally getting around to post pics of the ATCs I received in the ARTchix Studio Nursery Rhyme swap.

The spinner card ATC is from Christiana Robertson, the little bird one is from Jeri Mihm, the star wand one from Tanya Borchert and finally the Twinkle Star card from Suzie Dufresne. Thanx ladies!!!

I really enjoy doing the swaps, but I have gotten so busy lately. Later I'll post the results from the Etsy charm swap. I have one other chunky book I'm waiting for, but other than that, no swaps for a while!!! Or at least until I see one that looks really fun!

foundlings

A few new collages.

Scrabble Charms ---How many points are your intials worth?

My initials are 14 points. I would have thought an "X" would be worth more! I made these little charms today. A little different than others I've seen. They hang at an angle and I lined the holes with tube rivets. I haven't made tube rivets in years and I only cracked 2. Yeah!


I just keep soldering away on my glass charms. Some I will make into necklaces with silk ribbon, beads, and more charms. The others I will sell as loose charms, like the others on Etsy.

Water's a bit deep

Snow melt + Photoshop= Fun

I'm working on more plant themed collages. Maybe I'll call them "foundlings"? A mix of "founders" (IE ancestors) and "seedlings". Still thinking on it.

March In Wisconsin pt2

A few days later and now it is warm (50). We still have lots of snow on the ground, so the family went out for a big snowball fight! Wow I'm exhausted! The snow is still deep (18") in places but now it is heavy and wet. My sweet hubby decided it was fun to make me his main target. I feel bruised and sore. The kids fav target was my bottom. LOL!
Instead of cocoa, we all wanted cold drinks when were done. Good way to spend a Sat afternoon.

Remodeling in Progress

I am changing a few things on my blog....so things might look a bit wonky!

March in Wisconsin

In our woods

Not a good picture, but look at them!

I love to watch the birds at my feeders. On the worst days, there they are. I know it is a matter of survival to find food everyday. I was outside shoveling, being pelted with bb size hail that hurt! There are those little juncos, doves, cardinals, nuthatches, and chickadees at the feeders. We get a few different woodpeckers also. Thru sleet and snow...they are there. I never get good pics of them though...hard thru the window screen.
The other day I look out and I was invaded by turkeys! There is a large flock living in the woods, but they rarely come into our yard. They must have been very hungry!

February

I really hate February! Usually by this time of the winter, I start to go a bit "stir-crazy". Sunny days are ok, I play cat. I sit in the sun whenever possible. Dreary days are the worst.

I haven't gotten too much made in the last 2 weeks. I have a stack of designs and sketches. I just haven't gotten in the basement to my dungeon studio. Soon.

So far I had made these charms for a swap and to sell. They are made from small images from Artchix, bits of paper, and an old yardstick. Fun Huh!

I bought a new, well different vehicle today. I am now a mini van owner. I like the van, but I already miss my old car. It was a Nissan Altima. Good family car. We just needed room to carry more passengers and I needed more room, for art fairs.

Not much to say

I'm still working on some new stuff.

I got an order of beautiful ribbon to go with my charms today! Yeah!

The ATC on the left is for a swap. The rest I made are on my flickr site. This is my fav.

The full nursery rhyme is:

Mary had a pretty bird,

Feathers bright and yellow;

Slender legs, upon my word,

He was a pretty fellow.

The sweetest notes he always sang,

Which much delighted Mary;

And near the cage she'd ever sit,

To hear her own canary.

Brrrrrrr! Baby it's cold outside

I love that song. And it is cold outside. Here in the dairy state it was minus 13 when I got up this morning! Now it warmed up to a balmy minus 3. I actually don't mind the weather. Of course, I'm not outside for too long either. At least it is sunny, as long as the sun's shining I'm fine.

I just list my new round charms. I'm working on cutting the glass even smaller to make some charm bracelets. Fun fun.

The amaryllis bulb I got for xmas is bloomming beautifully. A bit of warmth on a cold day.

Charms galore

I made a bunch of charms this week. I think they turned out well. I realized if I'm going to do art fairs this summer, I'll need to make hundreds of these. I will also need a lot more designs. I just get bored using the same images more than a few times.

I prefer circular shapes, so I finally ordered a lens cutter. I'm looking forward to making round charms, both for pendants and charm bracelets.

I'm not doing so well on my art daily challenge. I do work on something everyday, but I don't finish something daily. I have a stack of new sketches for collages, I haven't started any yet. I need to make more assemblages, but they don't always come easy for me. When the idea/ spark is there, I know exactly what to put where. Otherwise, I can't force it.

I sent off my pages for the latest chunky book swap I'm in. The theme this time was "In the Name of Love". Very fun!

The last one I did was "White" themed. I got my finished book last weekend. Beautiful. I have to post pics on Flickr. I have a nursery rhyme ATC swap coming up, then no more for a while!

ATC pt 2

My Daughter wanted to make some too. Not bad Huh!

ATC pt 1

I'm working on a few ATCs...Just as I finished this one I sent it out! I have 6 others I need to scan. They are for a swap. I also have a few other charm designs. I'm adding them here and there to my Etsy shop.

I'm In

I've been accepted to Craftstravaganza Art and Craft fair. It's at the end of April in Minneapolis. Yeah! I hope this will be a fun day. I'm excited. More later.

New Charms

I'm working on some new charms. Though these will not each be an original collage. Before I spent too much time on each one to sell for the price I marked them at. I will scan in each finished collage then print them out in a high quality copy. Then I will add a back design and text. These I will sell them individually with ribbon, chain, cord, etc...

I have so much fun working on them. Almost like ATC. Tiny little gems!

January Art

I really need to get moving and list more artwork on Etsy. This collage is 4x4 inches plus the ribbon hanger. I made four collages yesterday this size. I'm also working on some collage sheets that I will sell as pdf files. No shipping cost, easy to download and people can print it out anyway they want, cardstock, transparency, transfer paper, etc...

I have a few art pieces I made last year that I've never listed yet!

I'm still trying to decide how many fairs I want to do this year and which ones to apply for. So far, I want to do Craftstravaganza April in MN, Artapalooza again Sept in Iowa, and maybe one around Chicago in Dec. Other than that, there are tons here in WI all summer.

I will soon add a link to the side for my flickr site. I am trying to create a new piece everyday. A challenge. Some have turned out well, others so-so. But it is good to put aside the time for myself each day.

Surviving Xmas

I wasn't sure if I would! I have felt sick for over a week now Yuck. So I've missed out on a bunch of festivities and yummy goodies. We went to visit family, then we came home and more family came to visit us. Lots of fun! The kids got to play with their cousins and

I got to see two of my brothers. Too bad though, one bro couldn't make it.

The craziness can be exhausting though. Now it is time to slow down. I am looking forward to working in my studio. I feel a bit energized by "vacation". Lots of good ideas are buzzing 'round my noggin!

10 days til Xmas Day!!!

I do love Christmas! I'm sentimental this time of year. I love the old songs and Xmas movies, baking cookies and getting a tree. All of which we seem to be doing late this year! I finally got up the decorations and the tree is done. The kids had their Christmas program at school, very cute. I have most of my groceries for a whirlwind baking session and I am almost done with the Xmas cards.
I know it is a bit late to send out cards, but I'm doing it anyway. I made the cards this year in a series. All have a simple penguin and hat, though the backgrounds and hat colors vary.
We have no snow here and it really bugs me! I need snow at Xmas. Without it, it's not the same. WE have family from out of state visiting and I just want everything to be just right. Snow is part of that. Please SNOW!!!! Even just a bit. Now I say this...we'll get a blizzard and our family will be stuck in some airport!!!!! Good thoughts...just 3 or 4 inches. I'm optimistic, I even bought an extra sled for my nephew to use. SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!
I haven't been working on anything new in weeks. I'm taking a break til after the holidays. I'm letting ideas simmer for a while.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Etsy

I've made a few ornaments using old canceled Xmas stamps. They are the right size for these ornaments! And it is interesting how cheap it used to be to send a letter.

I've added more ornaments in my etsy shop. I have some others to add, but I'm just trying to get good photos of everything. I never realized how challenging that could be. I'm learning that to sell online, I need to spend a lot of time messing with photos and my computer.

The ebay charity auction started for the animal shelter A Place To Bark.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZaplace2barkQQhtZ-1

I hope for the animals sake it goes well.

Finished White chunky book page

The book theme was of course ...white, but I had to add a bit of green.

Thought I'd post this. My finished book page front and back. I will post finished book when I get it. I'm excited to see the final product.

I've been reading online about different ways to build a softbox to better photograph my artwork. A lot of different ways to do it, but I'd prefer to use natural light. That's fine and good except we haven't seen the sun in days. Many more cloudy ones to come, ugh!

New Stuff on Etsy

I'm adding new things in my etsy shop. Mostly Xmas ornaments and some mirrors. I've already sold a few things, so far so good! I still have some necklaces and collages for sale. Here are pics of an interesting direction I'm going in. I like the idea of our ancestors being the plant's "seed". I think my next one will be larger, with photos also on the leaves. Maybe I'll make one of my family.

Cute turkeys

The kids made these at school. I miss those days, sigh!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Ok I survived Tinsel Trail!!! My first holiday art/craft sale. It didn't go too well. I mostly brought holiday decorations, and most were interested in my art! This is a good thing, but I had all this xmas stuff I wanted to sell. The lesson here is.

...stick with the art!

Have a good long weekend!

Busy Busy!!!

It's after 1 am, I gotta get up way too early for the holiday art/craft show today. Wish me luck at Tinsel Trail!!!!!----Stevens Point, WI Holiday Inn 9-4pm

Better late than never

I seem to always be a bit behind on these posts. Last week I found out that talented artist and animal lover Bernie Berlin used photos of 2 of my pieces on her blog. I've never met her before. But when I read she was having a charity auction to benefit her shelter, I wanted to help. I sent her 2 art pieces for an auction on ebay. The sale was postponed, but it should now be starting on Nov.20th. Her blog is http://aplacetobark.blogspot.com/

This pic isn't that great, but I realized it's the only one I have of this piece.
One of the pieces shown is this one "Good Egg" and farther down is a dog charm necklace. I am thrilled that she posted both on her blog. Thanx Bernie!!!!

White chunky book

I recently got my finished Halloween chunky book in the mail. It turned out great! I 'm now working on a "White" themed chunky book, also ArtChix sponsored. I'm added a few thing yet and other embellishments to each copy. My inspiration was a book I read many times over Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks. I don't read much fantasy/magic book, but I really love Terry Brooks novels.

Photos of where I work

Where I work

OK I've been trying to post this for days, but keep having trouble with the pics. So here it is sans photos and I'll try to add pics separately



I've been working a lot to get ready for this holiday art/craft show I'm doing in a few weeks. I've been making a bunch or ornaments and decorating mirrors. Which is fun, but I miss making different, odd stuff. When this show is over I want to spend the winter experimenting with new techniques and assemblages.

Here are some photos of my work area. I work in a windowless basement when I can stand it. Often though, I bring stuff up and take up the dining table. I hate working downstairs on nice sunny days! Though late at night it is perfect.
I try to be fairly organized and neat, but it's not me. I need to make a bit of a mess.