Oh it's been a long time since I've posted - eh? fear not, there's been a LOT of stuff going on. Some art, but mostly home rennovations.

At least 3 posts from Oct/Nov are still on my camera.... and some time at the end of December I will show you what my new, 75% done kitchen looks like. (remaining 25% of remodeling to happen in Jan/Feb).

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Blogging by mail!!!

SO, a full week after this package arrived... I am getting around to posting it. Apologies for the delay....

Last week Tuesday I came home to find a package from Amelia on my doorstep! Check it out:



There's everything a girl might want in this box (^_^) food, tools, and things to make me pretty!

In all we have here: two different kinds of dark chocolate (one with ginger and one with sea salt), some tasty looking canned goods (chow-chow, pear preserves, and a jar of green pepper jelly --- this green pepper jelly is the one I'm currently most curious about.... what do I do with it? Hmmmmmm. There will be some recipe investigation on that one for sure.), some gravy (I love gravy!), some black bean soup mix (MmMmMmmmm... perfect for fall weather), a silcon-lined hotpad to protect me while trying out all these new ingredients, some lovely silk-screened cards, the bestest smelling rosemary-mint soap, and two necklaces --- which I tried on immediately, of course:







Thank you Amelia from Georgia!
(I wish I knew which of the 117 websites was yours, so I could give you proper credit for this by linking to you :) and, I confess, I'm also curious to learn a little more about the person who sent this lovely stuff my way.

And thank you, too, to Stephanie over at Dispensing Happiness for coordinating a fun blogging event like this! Check out the other folks who participated, if you have time and/or are curious.

The whole kitty fambly....

My aunt has some kittens available for adoption around Thanksgiving. If you are interested, leave a comment here and i will hook you up with adorableness :)

Kitten #5 --- BABY

My aunt has some kittens available for adoption around Thanksgiving. If you are interested, leave a comment here and i will hook you up with adorableness :)





Baby - this littlest kitten is an orange male, with unique circular tiger stripes on each side. He loves to be petted, even upside down, and is a real comfort hog. The sunniest, warmest spot is best, in his opinion. This is one special kitty looking for a special home.

Kitten #4 --- BUTLER

My aunt has some kittens available for adoption around Thanksgiving. If you are interested, leave a comment here and i will hook you up with adorableness :)



Butler - this little female is also a calico, but has the distinctive white bib and a white tip on her tail. Butler loves to run and play with her litter mates. She is definitely a long hair kitty, and has very wise eyes.

Kitten #3 --- ZORRO

My aunt has some kittens available for adoption around Thanksgiving. If you are interested, leave a comment here and i will hook you up with adorableness :)



Zorro - this little girl has a mask across her eyes, and loves to stand in the food bowl as she eats kitty chow. Zorro can be shy, but warms up to people quickly. Her eyes will be green, and her soft fur is piebald.

Kiten #2 --- MING THE MAGNIFICENT

My aunt has some kittens available for adoption around Thanksgiving. If you are interested, leave a comment here and i will hook you up with adorableness :)



Ming the Magnificent - this orange tabby male kitten is the boldest of the bunch. His interest is in climbing and exploring. Ming will be long-haired, and a lover. He likes to be petted and told he is king.

Kitten #1 --- SQUEAKER

My aunt has some kittens available for adoption around Thanksgiving. If you are interested, leave a comment here and i will hook you up with adorableness :)



Squeaker - this all black female kitten loves to play. Her opinions are expressed in vocalizations that can mean anything from "hi" to "got food?". She is not shy, and is the first or second one who comes running over to see what is going on.

Kittenz! I know you want some.

Apples & flat lap grinders.... all else is temporarily on hold.

I bought a flat lap grinder last week and only just today got around to assembling it. It took a while (there are screws that are threaded so that they loosen to the right.... doh!) and I'm going to be honest with you ---- after turning it on and off a couple of times and watching the motor spin so fast that the whole machine kind of sidled & practically jumped sideways on my countertop, I'm a little scared of using the thing. But I will. I just need to step out and pick up some distilled water for it before trying anything.

In other news, I don't think I should be allowed to go to any produce farms with 11 frogs. I thought I learned my lesson with the tomato insanity business earlier this summer, but no.

You see, I now have 49 pounds of apples to process...
:o

Yellow Orange Passion Blend

Here you see two projects in one.... first, the small garden path I'm going to finish before the ground freezes. Last night I was raking leaves in different patterns to lay out the shape of the path once and for all (much easier than moving all the rocks, which is what I was doing before). Turns out I need more rocks.

Second, you can see the oodles of bulbs I bought last week. Allium, fritillaria, tiny dwarf iris, anemone, camassia, crocus, narcissus, and tulips. About 265 bulbs total at the moment, and I may possibly get a few more tulips. Maybe. An alternate subject or title for this post could be "Glutton for punishment". I do this every year to the tune of 100-300 new bulbs. And every year I complain about what a pain it is. But then every spring I am hap-hap-happy to see all the new flowers in my yard. Except for last year. Last year I didn't plant any and this spring my yard seemed just a little less festive, a little less full than it could have been. So this year I maybe might be trying to make up for it ... just a little (^_^) "Yellow Orange Passion Blend" is my most exciting bag of bulbs thus far --- they are crazy designer narcissus in all sorts of double & triple formations. Can't wait to see them --- check back in ~6 months for an update!

I <3 fall

Beets as art?

CSA brought some nifty stuff last week.....



This is a beet that doesn't stain your hands (or your insides) bright red. And it's super cool & swirly on the inside, too!!!

Art from Ventura

no hotel art. sorry. i was too wiped out. no airport art because I was too entertained walking around and doing other stuff. HOWEVER. I do have someone else's art to share! Check this out --- I bid on a small print in a silent auction while at Dziesmu Svetki in Ventura.... and I won! It just came in the mail while I was out last week:



(artist = M. Taube)

Photo fusing attempt #2 = partial success

BEFORE:


AFTER:


Next time I think I can have 100% success if I:
- stick to single-color glass (the ones with the multiple colors mixed together melt at different temps resulting in the wavy/distorted photo transfers... I think)

Reasons why I think even my next one might still not be 100% success:
- I don't *want* to stick to single-color glass
- I still have temperature/speed experiments in mind


Next week we will see: hotel art.

Photo Transfers on glass. Attempt #1 = FAIL

BEFORE:


Going in to the kiln:



AFTER:


Well. I partially burned out the photo transfers and now I have blobs of slightly dirty looking melted glass that I don't know what to do with. However, I also now have a better idea of how that kiln fires (i.e. how fast it heats up at different settings), so I'm trying again tonight.

oh also - just for the record, all of those images on there are straight off of random internets sites and not my own. And that clear orange turned a lovely shade of bright bright red.

Screwed?

This weekend I:

• Fixed the shed door. New hinges = the door closes easily now :)


• Finished assembling the compost bin - it is now one cohesive piece and will not fall over if you touch it. Let the composting begin in earnest!


• Bought COE 96 glass and assembled some photo transfer fusing stuff. Photos of that to come later this week. The firing will probably be Tuesday night, so... no pictures of the outcome until Thursday (or later)


• Assembled the working frame for the stained glass window. My mom, the stained glass teacher, was right.... putting it all in the frame pointed out how off-kilter it still was and I have much work to do to get it all to fit. But I made some progress.

The only picture from this yesterday's projects worth showing is....

I guess i either got a little carried away with the electric drill or else I bought crummy quality screws. There are now two screws in the compost bin that are never coming out....

Cabinet knobs

Fused glass epoxied on to wooden shapes:



Still need to:
- stain the knobs
- cut & attach the threaded stick (name?) so that there's something with which to attach the knob to the furniture
- refinish the furniture. ha ha. as if.


but no. really. even if i don't refinish the furniture, I want to finish these knobs so I can see if this is anything that might be worth making for the new kitchen doors on the new kitchen shelves that I'll be getting someday.

More fall fun, coming up!

I'm borrowing this from my parents:



Do you know what its primary purpose is?
Do you know what its secondary purpose can be?
(It requires one small, easy-to-make modification to perform as object #2.)

yes, yes. It requires some cleaning before it can be used. That is what the wire brush is for. and check out those #$@*(&!!! tomatoes still hanging out in the background. sigh.

Table-riffic!

I bought two tables this weekend. Both need some work.

Table #1 is from Saturday's trip to visit my aunt:


It's a folding table but it's currently missing a leg. Which is interesting because I bought a leg for it on Sunday and the leg cost me more than the entire table did.... almost twice as much! (how does this happen?) Total cost to this point is still <$10 but still.


Table #2 is from Sunday's trip to brunch @ D's:


Step 1 = give it a good, long bath with lots of elbow grease:


Step 2 = decide whether to leave it as is, paint it some other color, or strip it & refinish it. Painted wood makes me a little sad sometimes, so I'm leaning towards the refinishing route.... which means chemical stripping in this case, I think. There are at least 2 layers, possibly three, to go through and they look like they're old, possibly lead-based and will likely be a medium-pain-in-the-butt to get off.....

Card #3 of 5

Tomato insanity!

Last year it was strawberries that my roommate and I got carried away with... this year it was tree farm produce....

What you see here is 32 lbs of tomatoes, 15 lbs of tomatillos, and almost 5 lbs of hot peppers.


After much work (and notice it's not even done!!! there are ever more tomatoes & tomatillos to deal with), it's turned in to 4 quarts, 11 pints, and 16 half-pints of canned stuff. It also became some fresh salsa and some tomato soup. Click on this picture if you want to see what's what.


AND this year was the first year ever where I exploded a few jars. Sadly, these all would have been pickled peppers if only they had survived (I tasted a few explodees and they were quite tasty) and so there are only 3 jars left of that particular experiment... at least they made a pretty cool "BOOM!" sound when they blew... (^_^)



Earlier this year I canned three different kinds of jam, too:
- blueberry, low-sugar
- blueberry-cherry-rhubarb
- blueberry-blackberry-gooseberry
The blueberries I picked in Michigan, the blackberries in Chuck's backyard, and the gooseberries in my yard (they're one of the new bushes in the highly contested borderline). But I don't have any pictures of *that* process.

Card #2 of 5

Changing purposes...

While in Ventura last weekend, I found a pretty nice macrame belt. Since I am not fond of wearing belts for show (I'm more of a utilitarian belt person ;) I thought that it might make a nice necklace and/or bracelet... and it did!



I couldn't resist taking a picture while I was unraveling the part that I cut. This makes me think of an alien bug, don't you agree?

Card #1 of 5

I'm in the middle of making another set of cards. 5 designs, 8 prints of each. I think that this set will be a little more obviously a "set" than the first set of cards I did this year.

Here's the first one I finished next to the linoleum block it came from:




I may resort to random on wikipedia for names again....

Notebook Doodle #18

Notebook Doodle #17

Gratuitous Pindzele shot

I'm thinking I might change her name from Pindzele to Pixel. She kind of looks like she's pixelated *and* she doesn't really react to any name particularly consistently anyway... so until we get the "come when you're called" down, I figure it's still OK to change her name.

grinding glass

I am half done with the grinding stage of the window I'm working on. It's nolonger safe to walk around in my kitchen w/out shoes on (don't worry - all food has been moved to be out of range of flying glass particles), but here's what it looks like when it's ground down to actually fit together nicely:



Here's what's still left to work on:


I'm kind of excited about this project again now :)

Notebook Doodle #16

July & August intentions

I'm starting to think that perhaps I'm trying to fit too much in to one month.... especially considering that in the last two months I've only finished one of the things on my list :S

....starting in September, I'm narrowing the list of things to accomplish and adding a section of "bonus points for doing _____ " kind of list. Or that's the thought at *this* moment anyway.... let's see if that works or not....

July/August
- re-wire kiln
- re-do the patio furniture
- mat and/or frame a bunch of stuff
- begin a woodworking project (a table!)
- paint the 3.5'x7.5' paintings at D's (or at least *start* them)
- track down one last ceiling tile painter.... who happens to be my roommate!
- rehab clay & glazes
- get back to creating that window!
--- grind down the edges
--- wash & dry all pieces
--- wrap with copper foil
--- burnish the copper foil
--- solder the window
--- ?patina?
--- install the window
- play with hot glass

Notebook Doodle #15

Notebook Doodle #14

Fixing a favorite lawn chair...

BEFORE:



AFTER:




INBETWEEN: