December 2008 - cookies!

Here's the only proof I have of last year's cookie decorating efforts:

wow.... 2+ months without any new posts. sorry about that. I am now officially home and (mostly) recovered from south america . . . . . and now fighting with my computer to let me get pictures off of my SD memory card. so. as soon as we finish arguing about who is going to win, I will start posting stuff again.

November art - 4 of 4

Here's the beginning point of my kitchen rennovation:



There will be a step-by-step post someday..... keep in mind that to-date, the thing is only 70% done..... I need to get myself over to talk to some people about kitchen sinks and counters and islands and one more cabinet deal-i-o.... which adds up to: roughly 30 square feet still need a bunch of attention.

November art - 3 of 4

In the time before other thanksgiving guests arrived at my aunt's house, I ran around her yard with scissors and put together a mantle centerpiece for my aunt:




To which she added a few additional decorations and kept around for Christmas:

Left-handed?

Hilary and I decided that there's something to be said for forcing yourself to draw with your non-dominant hand..... it seems to produce more "happy little mistakes" or give more "life" to the lines or something....

Dr. Sketchy's - Jan 09

No way! Here's an art post that's actually *from* this month!!!

Sunday I went to the High Noon with this awesome girl and we did some life drawing. I thought about putting these behind a cut or on a different page with a "not safe for work" explanation... but then I realized that none of these are nekkid people anyway. The High Noon doesn't have a permit for naked-ness, so they will never be nekkid drawings resulting.

So. here ya go.

1-minute sketches:





2- minute sketches:






5- minute sketches:





10- minute sketches:




20- minute sketches... which turned in to multiple, shorter sketches because I got bored and wanted to start over:

November art - 2 of 4

I did not do a lot of "art" in November.... rennovating my kitchen was my first priority for much of that month... that being said, I did make nametags/place holders/whatever they are called for Thanksgiving at my aunt's house.... and I had a helper for the photography part (who is also originally from my aunt's house):



These are real leaves, pressed for a few days to get them largely flat, names/messages written on them in metallic paint pen, then laminated and cut down to non-square shapes. fun!

November art - 1 of 4

In November, my furnace decided to stop working.... so I baked 5 pies and assorted other baked goods to heat my house a couple of degrees....



sadly, I did not have enough muscle coordination left in my (then frozen hands/brain) to take a better picture of said pies ;) and I have no pictures of the other baked goods either.

keywords

This is not an art post, but this is funny (I think). Check out some of the keywords that people used to get to my site in March '08:

birthday kittens
i will go slightly out of my way leaf
installed slate floors + pictures
malva paintings
pictures of slate on a porch

In April '08 it was:

cement mushrooms
peep art
peep zilla
winter's edge
"electrical wires" and artist

And now in December '08 it was:

boro pendants
tie dye folding chair
"i will go slightly out of my way to step on that crunchy-looking leaf"
6" flat lap grinders
672dc924fff1496fb3a664cf6c8d560eda967ddb49c1a177
attaching cabinet knobs
dwarf kittens up for adoption december
flat lap grinder

DWARF KITTENS?!! really? hee hee hee.

Catching up with October - 8 of 8

Then there was a series of lightswitches that I made in October '08....

Catching up with October - 7 of 8

Catching up with October - 6 of 8

These were not made in October (I haven't fired up any hot glass stuff in many months) but I photographed them in October.... who knows what I had been planning to do with the pendants *or* this picture, but here you go. Here's a pile-o-pendants that lives at my house.... photographed in october:

Catching up with October - 5 of 8

My friend Chuck showed me the delights of googly eyes..... Meet "Mr. Garbage The Garbage Can", the googly eyed fish, and the googly sink.







The eyes have recently fallen off of the googly sink and I feel a little bit like I've lost a friend....

Catching up with October - 4 of 8

I made flan a couple of times in October. Crystalized sugar makes nifty designs when you pour cold water on it. Can you see the very tired, nearly dead (and very droopy looking) horse in here?

Catching up with October art - 3 of 8

Here's the "before" shot of some glass I fused in order to play with that lap grinder that I used to be afraid to plug in and use:



aaaand.... I can't find the "after some progress" image..... but the "after" was going to attempt to show how I'd used the lap grinder to shape these in to some shapes other than lumpy rectangles (I beveled a few, one turned in to an octagon, etc.) They're still not done yet as there's some undertermined amount of polishing required to do to get them all shiny again. Perhaps that'll be a January project.

Catching up with October art - 2 of 8

Playing with "color accent" on my camera on the banks of the Mississipi river at the 'rents house:

Catching up with October art - 1 of 8

Holy cow, it's been 2 months since I FTP'd any pictures of stuff over here. Eeeek! Ok. Let's celebrate the beginning of the new year by catching up on art stuff from the past 3 months...... starting with classic October activities.... Here are some more pumpkins that we carved at art night at Lara's house just a few days before Halloween!



Carving 9+ pumpkins led to a whole lot of pumpkin seeds, too - most of which ended up roasted. These were fun to play with in the bowl to make nifty designs:

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 :)