Blue Sand Studio

Adding to My Collection

2012-01-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

Are you an artist? Are you also an art collector? I am both, and I love collecting the art of others. Living in Florida, we are at the start of the outdoor art show season. For the next three months, we have a few choices each weekend of wonderful art shows to attend. I've been to many, but there was always one on my list that remained elusive, until now. Last weekend I went to the biggest of them all, the Las Olas Art Fair. This show goes straight down the closed-down Las Olas Blvd. in Ft. Lauderdale, with 300 artists. I've seen a few of the artists before, and bought some of their pieces. There were a lot of new ones too. Here are some trends I saw:

-- Not a lot of traditional oil painting, but the ones there were amazing.
-- Most of the pottery was Raku.
-- The jewelry at this show was top-notch. Jewelry booths didn't take over, though, like at a recent show where 56 of the 250 booths were jewelry.
-- Resin-coated paintings are really in. I saw about 10 artists who did that. I'm not sure I like it though. It gives such a shine to the piece, and I really like texture and being able to feel the texture of the painting. I guess growing up in Cocoa Beach, they just remind me of surfboards.
-- Mixed media paintings are developing a stronghold in major art shows, which is nice to see. I like the combination of paper with paint, and the addition of pencil and other media to the paint.
-- Blown glass is becoming more popular. I saw some amazing artists who are stretching the boundaries, including geometrics in blown glass by layering colored glass upon colored glass.

And finally, here is the piece that I got. It's hanging in the main room of my house so everyone can see it.

It is a long, pottery tube that could be used as a hanging vase. The artist's name is Tanya Tyree, and she is from Afton, Virginia. She explains that this piece is hand built, without the use of molds or templates. She adds original abstract drawings, it is glazed, and then raku fired. What I like most about this is all the different motifs -- house, sun, bird, trees -- and you see something new each time you look. The colors are great with my buttery-yellow wall and light blue and brown furniture.

You can see more of Tanya's art here.

What a Christmas Season

2012-01-07T05:17:00.000-08:00

Want to hear something weird? When I was growing up, we didn't put up our tree until Christmas Eve. Of course, I didn't think that was weird. I loved it. In fact, when we were real young, Santa Claus put up the tree. Can you imagine the amazement when you woke up Christmas morning, and a tree was there, with all the presents? I loved that tradition. I think it came from my Dad's German mom. Anyway, I still am a little off with the rest of the world in having a tree up. I like to put it up around the 18th, and leave it up to around the 3rd. This year was different. We hosted my husband's family for Christmas on the 4th, so we needed to get the tree up early. His cousin came from England for Thanksgiving, and stayed a bit extra, so we wanted to get the Christmas celebration in before she left. So, for the first time ever, we put our tree up early. On December 1st. (We refused to do it in November.) Here we are putting the star at the top of the tree.

A week or so later, we visited Santa at the mall. My son was there, taking the picture. I didn't make him sit on Santa's lap this year. I think maybe I did last year. I should probably have made a rule that once he reached six feet tall, he wouldn't have to do the Santa thing.

Christmas in our house is actually a 3-day affair. Christmas Eve is exciting because of the preparations, Christmas Day is great, and then the 26th is great too because it's my son's birthday. For the past two years, we spent Christmas up north, giving the kids a wonderful snow vacation. This year, the kids really wanted to spend it all at home, and my husband had all those three days off, so it was great. We started by hosting 14 people for Christmas Eve dinner. It was 80 degrees during the day, so we were able to eat outside. What a fun night. Everyone brought a dish, so I didn't have to work too hard.

Here's what we woke up to Christmas morning.

And here it is about three seconds later. Well, maybe a little longer. My kids actually sleep in on Christmas. I know, all you parents whose kids wake up at 5 hate me right now. I woke up at 7, just because I couldn't sleep in if I tried. I had breakfast and read the paper, and at 8:00 my daughter finally woke up. We held her back until 8:30 when we let her wake up her brother.

We had Christmas dinner on the patio too. I was ambitious and made a ricotta/cranberry/pecan-stuffed turkey breast that was amazing, and a prosciutto/fontina/basil-stuffed flank steak on the grill. We ate so much, no one was interested in dessert. Now that's a feat!

The next day we celebrated Michael's 17th birthday. We took him down to a Brazilian restaurant where we could eat to our carnivore's delight.

We capped off the holiday season with a trip to visit my dad and brother in Cocoa Beach. My sister was visiting with her family from Virginia. We gave the kids a treat and surprised them with a limo ride. We took it out to dinner then drove around looking at Christmas lights. Here we are before we left.

And here's the craziness in the limo.

I hope you all had a great holiday season and are looking forward to a bright and merry new year.

P.S. It's no longer 80 degrees here. We woke up to 30 degrees on January 3.

I Love to Bake

2012-01-06T05:07:00.000-08:00

Have I told you that before? I really, really love to bake. If I'm stressed or out of sorts, baking is what brings me back. Of course, I love to eat what I make, but I love more to give it away. That's my thing. If you're recovering from being in the hospital, I'll bake you some cookies. Just had a baby? I'll bring you some muffins.

A few years back, we started a tradition of a Holiday Dessert Party. It started with everyone coming over for coffee one night before Christmas, and I would put out a big spread of desserts. It's evolved into a full party, where all the guests bring appetizers or drinks, and I still make all the desserts. I start baking the week before, and have so much fun making cookies, cakes, creme brulee, tarts. I always make my family's traditional cookies: pink spritz with peppermint; white spritz with lemon; and green spritz with peanut butter and almond. These are amazing and actually called Velvet Cookies. They really do melt in your mouth. I also make thumbprint cookies. My mom always put candied cherries in the middle, but I put chocolate chips or a dollop of raspberry jam.

For my husband's firefighter friends, I always make a Red Velvet Cake, although this year I made cupcakes. I also made vanilla cupcakes with ganache frosting. So simple, and so good. My favorite go-to recipe when I want to bring a dessert with a bit of "wow" to a party is my Caramel Macadamia Nut Bars. Those are to die for.

I've still got a few leftovers in the fridge. They're great for late at night. If you're interested in any of my recipes, let me know. I love to share.

Back to My Blog

2012-01-05T07:17:00.001-08:00

I've been neglecting my blog, and all my readers, for awhile. Mostly it was because our computer was dropped, I had to get a new hard drive, and I lost all my photos that were located there. I just don't think a blog post is fun if it doesn't have a photo attached. I also took a much-needed vacation from the computer during Christmas. I didn't even check my email from December 20 through January 2! Since I work from my home, a lot of my work is generated by emails. I had a few hundred to go through, and now I'm updated. I took my computer to the geek-expert who easily regained my internet access. Then I spent the day re-loading all my programs, and the next day re-loading some photos. So I think I'm back in business now!

For the next few blog posts, I'll tell you about our holiday season. But for now, I'll show you a little culture. Have you seen any Shakespeare lately?

My son recently played Mercutio in Suncoast High School's production of Romeo & Juliet. Michael was the comic relief in an otherwise tragic play. He gets drunk at the ball, flails drunkenly with his sword, and then ultimately dies in a sword fight with Thibault. We thought the casting was a bit funny, not because Michael can't handle a comic role -- that's actually what he's best at -- but because at 6'3", it seemed odd that Michael was felled by a 5'6" Thibault.

Michael performed 7 times over 3 weeks, and I saw 4 of them. I can't wait to see what he does next!

Friday Plans -- See Some Art

2011-10-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

I love going to artist receptions at local galleries. It's a fun, social night out. I often get to see an artist's work that is new to me, but usually I'm attending to support an artist friend. This Friday I'm heading to Whole Foods Market to see oil painter Nancy Tilles and her amazing nature-inspired art. Yes, Whole Foods Market. Our store in Wellington is using their eat-in cafe to showcase talented local artists. They've filled the walls of the cafe with over a dozen paintings.

Nancy Tilles is an award winning artist, well known for her paintings and portraits. Her paintings are joyful expressions brought to life through color and form. Influenced by living in South Florida for over 30 years, her images often reflect a tropical theme, rich in color.

Nancy will be bringing additional paintings the night of the event, including a new triptych she will unveil for the first time. If you'd like to attend this event Friday, October 21 from 6:30 - 8:00 p.m., you may RSVP to Whole Foods Market at 561-904-4000. Whole Foods Market is on SR7 in Wellington, south of Forest Hill Blvd.

New Online Magazine

2011-09-01T06:55:00.001-07:00

The world just got a little more interesting with the first issue of a new online magazine, Sparrow Magazine.

The editors, Emilie and Kelly, have created a magazine that celebrates a grounded, nurturing life, where you can push yourself to reach your highest potential. They've gathered an interesting group of contributors, from across the U.S. (with one from the UK and one from Australia thrown in) who have written 23 articles for this first issue. They have grouped their articles as follows:

Body

Mind

Nest

Connections

Flight

Here is the link to Sparrow Magazine.

So now comes a plug for me: I am a contributor to their magazine! I have written an article in their Connections category, titled "Finding Community in the Arts." I write about my experience as president of our local arts group, The Wellington Art Society. If you ever wanted to know what my "day job" is, read this article.

Sparrow magazine will be coming out with new articles every three months. Be sure and stop by to read some great content.

Creating with Friends

2011-08-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

Two artist friends and I are challenging each other to make new art. We're inspired by the many art books we've purchased . . . but never actually used. Well, we read them, and we look at them, but like many other people, we don't actually try the techniques we read about. We've changed that and are now attempting some projects.

The first was a hanging sign I made from Shona Cole's book The Artistic Mother. The sign acts as a reminder to do something, maybe one of your goals. I made spots for two statements, so I could make my reminder more of an action statement. Currently it says, "Fly Toward/Creating Art." The word tags are slid behind mica sheets. I have other word tags in a little envelope in the back for other goals I have. I'll keep those to myself.

Years ago "star" books were all the rage. I remember seeing them in magazines and craft books. I'd never made one, because they looked so complicated. Surprise -- they're not at all! We also have the benefit that one of our artists works at a printing shop, and she has access to great paper cutters, and cut all the papers to size for us. All we had to do was score and tape the pages together.

It's called a star book because of what it looks like when you open it up.

Accordion books were also very popular. I made mine with painted tissue covers, and watercolor paper.

Unfortunately, the water colored paper looks a little wavy. Maybe watercolor isn't the way to go for a folded page.

Our next projects are banners and a decorated box. I've made the banners, but still need to "bling" them a bit. Stay tuned!

My Second Zine

2011-08-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

The second issue of my mixed media art zine Paint/Paste is hot off the presses. The theme for this one is Scraps. My zines describe and show some of my favorite mixed media techniques, and are completely handmade. When I thought of the Scraps theme, I knew that I would use some kind of a scrap, or re-used paper, for the cover. My first issue, which had the theme Words, had a hand-painted cover, and each cover was different. This time, I used the pages from an old mixed media calendar. I gave credit to the artist who made the calendar page on the inside back cover. I also cut and paste papers onto it and jazzed it up with paint pens.

I've called my zine Paint/Paste because I want to focus on painting and collage techniques. With the theme of scraps, I used a two-sided scrapbook paper for some pages, and old green ledger paper for another, and old maps for another.

I showed examples of different paint techniques over scraps, and different adhesives you can use for scraps.

I included a how-to for making a mini-book out of a single sheet of paper, and included an example of a book made from a magazine page. I also included a bonus handmade book in a little pocket. By the way, I always use old envelopes for pockets. I try not to buy too many brand new art supplies, and re-use things as much as possible. I grabbed a stack of large flat mailing envelopes, cut them in two lengthwise, and used half an envelope per zine. The envelope is folded in half and stitched into the binding. If there was an address on the envelope, I obscured it with a rubber stamp or sticker.

I cut cardboard boxes to use as bases for ATCs, handmade books, or other art. I included some examples, cut from a mac and cheese box, moon pie box, Christmas cards, and photos. (Sorry, but I very much enjoy the Christmas photos I get from friends, but I don't save them. They're nice sturdy pieces for art.)

I also included some obscure scraps that I've collected over the years. Stationery from hotels, recipe cards, old over-sized photo negatives, really old photos, bingo cards, dictionary pages.

The planning and construction of a zine is a challenge you should attempt. Pick a theme that goes with the type of art that you do. Don't be stingy with your inserts -- what are you saving all that stuff for, anyway? I'll be announcing another zine swap in this blog soon, so stay tuned.

If you'd like to buy one of my zines, you can find them in my online shop here. I have a few left and will sell them until they're gone.

Future blog posts will tell you about all the other zines that I received in my recent swap. You'll be amazed by the creativity of the other ten artists!

Zine Swap

2011-08-19T06:20:00.001-07:00

Three months of planning, gathering materials, creating inserts, and then one crazy week of assembly = my second zine. I love every part of the process. A zine is essentially a self-published magazine. You choose the topic and the contents. It's more than just writing articles, though, because you make the pages, the cover, and inserts. You make a lot of decisions in the planning stage:
-- Will I write all original articles or have guest writers?
-- Do I want to include a page of links or sources?
-- Should I do a how-to article, including examples?
-- Will I type the text, hand-write it, cut and paste it?
-- What size will the magazine pages be and how many will there be?
-- What material will I use for the cover? Will it be all handmade?

I don't know how you plan projects, but my initial planning is all in my head. In fact, I can plan an entire jewelry piece or ATC in my head. For the zine, after I've done the initial planning, I start to mock up the pages. I use 8 1/2" x 11" pages so I can type most of the text using Word. I'll take 5 blank pages, and fold them over, and write the heading for each page and the table of contents. I'll include other notes, like if there will be a pocket, what kind of inserts, and if I'll add handwriting to the typed words.

I think inserts are key to an engaging zine. It's fun to pull out examples of handmade papers, or ATCs, or mini-books. The theme of my zine is always mixed media art, so those are the kinds of inserts I include. I think the reader likes to see and feel the examples.

I'll tell you more about my zine in my next post, but here's a sneak preview of what it looks like.

I hosted a swap, and ten other artists made zines as well. We made one for everyone, they sent their boxes of zines to me, then I split them up and sent them back so they have a full set. Now we're all spending our free time reading these wonderful works of art. Check out my blog again, and I'll show you each of the 11 zines individually.

New Orleans Jewelry Classes

2011-08-09T05:30:00.000-07:00

I recently traveled to New Orleans with two friends to take jewelry classes with Thomas Mann. Thomas is an amazing metal jewelry designer who has been perfecting his craft for 40 years. Check out his website here and be sure and look at the gallery of his designs.

Here we are with Thomas and his excellent right-hand woman, Angele, who arranged the classes for us.

He is now teaching classes at his studio. He's created a space with 11 workstations, plus one for himself, and moveable tables he can set up for soldering or other kinds of specialty work.

I've worked with metal a lot, but needed some help with the jeweler's saw and soldering. I only broke about 5 saw blades, and melted my soldered piece once. It's never good when the instructor looks at your soldering and says "Start over". That's because I held the heat on too long and melted mine to little blobs. But I was having fun, and by the end I got it right.

He taught a week-long series of classes in metal working. We learned the proper way to use a jeweler's saw, soldering with a torch, and filing, etching, and cold connections to make a "Found Object Sandwich". Here's the soldering class holding our pieces.

Here are our finshed sandwich pieces. The sandwich consists of a metal front that has had the middle cut out, a plexiglas piece, a photo, and a metal back.

We stayed in a beautiful Bed & Breakfast right down the road from Thomas' studio. We could walk to his studio on Magazine St. in five minutes. We had a suite of two bedrooms and a sitting area on the top floor of The Terrell House.

Each morning, we were treated to a full, hot breakfast. The owner was even generous enough to share some recipes with us. We had egg dishes, pastries, all homemade, and an amazing bowl of fresh mixed fruit every day.

I highly recommend destination workshop vacations. It's great to get away from your usual life, great to visit a new city, learn something new, and meet new friends. If you've never done it, dare yourself to. Be bold, even if you have to travel alone. You'll find many surprises along the way -- like just how brave you can be and how much fun it is to try something new.

Harry Potter Takes Over

2011-08-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a little delayed on making this post, but I just had to show you some photos from the premiere of the last Harry Potter movie. My son is a Harry Potter expert, and I'm as enthusiastic as he is. A few months ago, in anticipation of the last movie, he announced he would be dressing as Lord Voldemort, the total bad guy, and going to the midnight movie. I told him I'd drive him and his friends. And I decided I would be dressing too. I went as Tonks, the woman who can change her hair color at will. His friend went as Lucius Malfoy, as a Death Eater. We learned there would be a flash mob wand war an hour before the movie started, so we made sure we got there around 10:30. (Yes, we both own HP wands. His is the Elder Wand, and mine is Sirius Black's. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you may exit my blog now.)

Here is Michael before he dressed as Lord Voldemort.

Michael's friend who is in theater school applied his makeup. Yes, Michael shaved his head for this.

We're dressed and ready to go out.

We ran into a girl who made a perfect Belatrix LeStrange. She was so into it and enthusiastic. I don't know why Michael's head is glowing here.

We also ran into Albus Dumbledore and a Whomping Willow.

The wand war was caught on tape. If you fast-forward to around 3:50, you'll see Lord Voldemort, the last one standing.

Click here for the video.

Summer Days, Summer Colors

2011-07-07T05:30:00.000-07:00

This greets you when you enter my home. The colors will brighten your mood, even on the grayest of days. I don't paint realistic flowers -- I doubt if this depicts anything that is found in nature -- but I love messing around with colors and shapes.

Ironically, I really hate green. I don't wear it, I don't decorate my home with it. I had to consciously buy a green paint. This is my experimentation with it. I guess I like it in small doses, and when it goes with the scene.

Pounding Some Metal

2011-06-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

I recently got back into one of my real loves, working with metal. I love the pounding for texture, the bending, and combining different metals. I worked with copper and brass, and I bend sterling silver wire. I use metal snips to cut the other shapes. My dremel smoothes the edges.

Bold Painting Tells a Story

2011-06-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

I present my largest painting yet -- I think it's 3' x 3', and I've hung it right in my dining room. What do you think? I've been wanting to do one with high rise buildings, despite the fact that I live in a one-story home in a traditional neighborhood. I tell a story about people who come home from work, enter their homes, and shut the doors, never to go out again until leaving for work the next day. I thought the skyscraper-type home would make a bigger impact with the story. I love the bright colors that I've used. It's a pretty "out there" painting, but I'm proud of it. I also think it's a brave move to put it in my dining room. It goes well, though. There's nothing formal about my dining room.

Wrap Around Bracelets

2011-06-24T16:30:00.001-07:00

I'm trying out a new way to form bracelets. I make a strand that is about 22 inches long, with all kinds of beads. I add a nice clasp. It is designed to wrap three times around your wrist. What do you think? This one is my favorite. It's very beachy with turquoise, coral, and sand colors, with some seashell beads, pearls, and gems.

I'm thinking of changing out the silver clasp to a copper clasp on this one. I think it will work better.

This last one has golds, creams, and russet, with a gold magnetic clasp. This may be easier to connect for some people.

Are You Telling it to Win?

2011-06-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

Here's what I'm reading right now -- Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story, by Peter Guber. You may vaguely recognize his name, thinking he might be in movies or something. You'd be partially right. He's currently Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, which produces movies (recently, The Kids are All Right), and runs sports teams. He has a long and successful career where he has made many deals and projects. But did people come to him, and say "Hey, I want to work with you?" No, he came to them. He pitched an idea, perhaps one they never knew they needed. He was able to tell a story that told them why they needed him, what he could do for them that they weren't already doing for themselves, and how he could do it better than anyone else. This storytelling is what he calls Tell to Win.

I'm not even finished with the book yet, but I want to recommend it. Are you thinking of taking your art business to a new level? Are you realizing that you're a pretty good artist, and maybe instead of just selling your art, you could teach others about your art? That's where you need to tell a story. What can you give to others that they can't give themselves? What is it in your background that makes you the one, perfect person who can give that to them? Have you analyzed your strengths? Those are what you need to capitalize on, and tell people about.

We're always telling stories, but are we telling them effectively? What kind of title do you give your art? (Please, don't tell me you've made a piece and called it "Untitled.") How do you describe your art? Do you mention the inspiration, where you found those certain beads that make that necklace, why you used those colors? Do you describe it on your website, your blog, on flyers or in brochures? Do you attach a small tag to it with a small description? How do you describe yourself when people ask what you do? (See my last blog post that talks about your Elevator Pitch.)

I hope this post gets you thinking. I found Tell to Win at the library, so you may be able to also. Has this inspired you to ramp up and focus the stories that you tell about your business?

What's Your Elevator Pitch?

2011-05-31T11:13:00.001-07:00

Have you heard this expression before? An elevator pitch is a statement you make in response to the question, "What do you do?" Imagine that you are riding in an elevator with someone who asks that question, and you'll get an idea of how long you'll get to answer that question. We're not talking about going into your whole bio. If I started with "I graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland ...", half the elevator would have gotten off before I finished, and the other half would have fallen asleep.

The first rule of the elevator pitch is then, keep it short. You don't want to lose your audience before you're done.

The second rule: be clear. The only way you can do this is to practice the pitch. Say it out loud. Say it in a conversational manner. Don't sound like you're giving a speech. What are you? What do you do? Are you a lawyer who is a partner in a firm, who takes dance lessons for fun, teaches French in night school, and is secretly writing a young adult novel? Only you can figure out what you want to put out there. You'll decide what you want to say based on who you are speaking to.

That brings me to the next rule: know your audience. Most of the time, you'll have a slight idea of the background of the person who is asking what you do. In the above example, that person may have an elevator pitch about being a lawyer, that he would use in some occasions, and a separate one about his novel that he would use in others. Don't be afraid to create a few elevator pitches. Just be sure they are specific enough to have some meaning and be interesting to the person you are talking to.

I've come up with my elevator pitch, what about you? Of course your elevator pitch can change as you change; it can always evolve. Here is mine:

I am an artist. I design jewelry and paint, selling my creations on the internet and at small shows. I also run a non-profit -- our local art society. We have over 100 members, and we provide exhibit opportunities and mentoring. We also donate art to our communities and award college scholarships to young artists.

What do you think? Are you an artist who is not afraid to say "I Am An Artist"? Or "I Am A Writer"? If you'd like to post your elevator pitches as a blog comment here, I'll post them in a later post. Why not get them out there? Who's with me?

Here's one of my latest jewelry creations. I've gone back to my roots -- working with metal. My camera recently broke, so I just got a new one and am back in business taking photos and posting them to my blog.

Here's my latest painting. I haven't thought of a name yet.

I'm looking forward to hearing your pitches.

I won an Award

2011-05-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks to K.C. Woolf, way over in The Cotswolds, England. If you don't know where that is, look it up. I actually do know, because my brother-in-law visited there, and brought me back something for the kitchen that says "The Cotswolds" on it. It looks like a beautiful area.

Anyway, K.C. is a writer, and I stumbled upon her blog and have enjoyed reading her. You can check out her blog here.

She has bestowed upon me this award.

Thank you so much! As a stipulation of this award, I need to write seven things about myself, then pass the award on to someone else. So here goes.

1. I've visited Scotland three times, and absolutely love it there. I have a knack for coming during warm and sunny weeks. When we last visited, the first week of April 2001, it ended up being the warmest week of the year, warmer than the coming summer months. We love it there, and always do a lot of hill walking, which is like mountain climbing to this Florida girl.

2. My new favorite sport/hobby is stand up paddleboarding. I have no pictures of me doing it to show you, because we're always out getting wet while doing it. Our favorite is to do it in the rivers, where it's calm and relaxing. Our whole family has gotten into it. We haven't bought our own yet -- it's just easier to rent it right on the river. Here's a picture of someone else doing it.

3. I love alternative music, and music is a big part of my life. That means that I listened to The Clash, Modern English, and Duran Duran during college. Moved into the whole grunge scene with Pearl Jam and Nirvana. And rock to The Killers, The Airborne Toxic Event, and Muse now.

4. I have a degree in accounting (didn't like straight accounting), a degree in baking (discovered you can't make much money at it), and now run a local arts group.

5. I'm a movie nut, although I don't get out to watch many movies. I can tell you about different actors and what they've been in and who they've acted with.

6. I love to cook, especially desserts. I can crank out four kinds of cookies in one day, or a dessert buffet for 50.

7. I'm probably a bit Attention Deficit Disorder-like. I jump from interest to interest. But I like to say I have a Renaissance Soul.

I now bestow this award onto Sandy at Food and Fond Memories. Her blog is filled with recipes, travel, and great stories.

Let me Gripe for a Moment

2011-05-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

Recently I mentioned someone in my blog, giving them a good shout out, some promotion, unsolicited. This was someone whose blog I read and enjoy. I emailed her a note to tell her about my mention, giving her a link so she could check it out. Here's the gist of what I got in response:

"Thank you so much for your kind note. Believe me when I say all my emails mean so much to me. However, I am just too popular to truly read all my emails, and certainly to even respond to them, so I'm just giving you this standard reply. Thanks and come again."

Really? Then why do you list your email address in your blog? Do you like being so popular that you don't have time for anyone?

O.K., I'm done now. My next post will be all rainbows and unicorns. I promise.

A-Z Recap

2011-05-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I made it through the month of April, doing 26 blogs posts for this challenge. Here's a list of my posts, if you'd like to go back and check them out.

Action Jackson
What's in a Name?
I Comment on Your Comment
Decadent Dessert
What's an Etsy?
Forge Yourself Some Jewelry
Goals -- Who's Got Goals?
Home Renovation -- Complete
Artist Interview -- Concetta Perot
Artist Interview -- Jescalyn Vazquez
Kick-ass Jewelry
Lots of Desserts
M about Me
New Trends in Jewelry
Outside Views
Painting Styles
Consider the Letter Q
Book Reviews
Scavenger Hunt
A Tale of Two Friends
Understand Your Audience
Vacation Destinations
Wellington Art Society
Expand Your Skills
Be Yourself
Why Make a Zine?

Why Make a Zine?

2011-04-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

First of all, what is a zine? The word comes from magazine, as it is a self-published magazine. Usually one person writes all the contents, draws or takes the pictures, designs the cover and format, types and assembles the publication. It can be quite personal. It can showcase you as an artist, writer, poet, illustrator, thinker, or political mind. The creativity can be in the content and also the format and construction.

The purpose of your zine can be to promote yourself or others. It could be simply a vehicle to get your thoughts or creativity out to others. In my case, it was the challenge of creating all aspects of a project. It wasn't about control, but about the planning, execution, and accomplishment.

Zines can be folded over, stitched, or stapled 8 1/2" x 11" paper, the simplest format. That's how I made my zine, Paint/Paste. They can be elaborate, glossy pages, put together through a website, such as lulu.com or blurb.com. I wanted to go with the complete hand-made style.

Some zines are a showcase of many artists' or writers' work, not unlike a literary magazine. Do yu have any examples you can tell me about? I'll list them here.

Zines are usually pretty inexpensive to sell. $1 - $12 is normal for handmade zines. The professionally bound zines can be $20 - $40. If you're making it yourself, keep in mind that you probably aren't going to make money on them, so just think of it as a labor of love. You can find zines on Etsy, Amazon, eBay, and in some independent bookstores. A place that sells only zines is called a Distro (as in, distribution). You can do a google search for these.

I'm hosting a zine swap. If you'd like to challenge yourself to make a zine, then trade with other zine-makers, check out my tab at the top of my blog. There's still time to sign up.

Be Yourself

2011-04-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

Do you love reading blogs that have long, flowery descriptions of their art or latest vacation? I do, but I don't write that way. Should I try? No, that's not me. I'm constantly developing my voice as I expand my art skills, but I'll never be someone I'm not. This is just a quick reminder to be yourself.

Expand Your Skills

2011-04-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

This is a stretch for my X post, but here it is. I'm a jewelry artist. But lately I've been trying my hand at painting. I'm not a realistic painter, but I play, and I love it. What is something new that you have tried?

Wellington Art Society

2011-04-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

I'm wondering if I've ever mentioned what my day job is? A few years ago, as I ramped up my jewelry making and got serious about entering shows and trying to sell, I joined our local art group. The Wellington Art Society formed 30 years ago in Wellington, Florida. Now it includes artists from all over Palm Beach County. I jumped in and joined a committee, joined the Board of Directors the following year, and was elected President the next year. Which means I'm now running a 90+ member organization. We put on outdoor art shows, gallery shows, one night "pop-up" shows, and display art in office and government buildings. My work involves lots of email communication, meetings, and running our monthly events, which include artist demos and challenges. Our latest venture is with our local Whole Foods Market. We will run a one-artist show in their cafe every three months, with a big artist reception the first week. These have been big successes in the past, just now we will be running it instead of Whole Foods. We generally take the summer off from our regular meetings, but we'll be doing outings to museums and small get togethers.

So that's it. My hidden job, that the blog world probably didn't know about.

Here's one of our artists, Linda Rovolis, at a recent show, selling her paintings and hand-painted purses.

Vacation Destinations

2011-04-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

Planning a summer vacation? I'm behind the eight ball on that one, but we'll be going somewhere. Just don't know where yet. To help you with your plans, here are a few fun places we've been to.

White water kayaking in the New River Gorge, West Virginia. Here I am paddling furiously to keep my daughter safe, while she's screaming and having the time of her life.

Sliding down a rock outside of Asheville, North Carolina.

Touring the old homes in Savannah, Georgia

Hiking up mountains in North Carolina.

Or just doing a staycation in your own backyard with the kids.

Where are you planning to vacation this summer?

Understand Your Audience

2011-04-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post today. Have you ever heard that expression, "Know your audience"? It's referring to when you are speaking, or writing, or promoting something. We all could work on remembering that when we're writing blog posts. Go back to your original plan for your blog:

What is its purpose?

What do you want to talk about?

Are you promoting yourself, a product, or a service?

Who is your reader?

Who is the purchaser of your product or service?

If you answer those questions, you will know who your audience is. You want to interest them with your blog posts. You want them to want more. You want them to tell their friends about you. Keep your audience in mind, all the time, and you will head toward a very successful business.

A Tale of Two Friends

2011-04-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I traveled to phoenix to attend a friend's wedding. I had never met the bride or groom until two days before the wedding. Intrigued? Here's the story.

When I was about 12 or 13, I wrote to a pen pal organization. Remember those? You'd find the addresses in the back of magazines. Probably Tiger Beat or Archie comics. I requested a pen pal from another country who spoke English. I got Karyn, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We wrote weekly for many years, and now we exchange about a letter a year. We've updated each other on our college years, marriages, kids. I knew Karyn had a son my age, another two years younger, and divorced over 10 years ago. I was thrilled for her when I received her wedding invitation. Then, much to my surprise, I saw that she was getting married in Phoenix. I could go there! To travel to Edmonton from Florida would take about three flights. But Phoenix was doable. I decided to go by myself, leaving my husband to stay home with the kids.

I arrived Thursday afternoon, and she had told me that the girls were going out to dinner Thursday night. We all met in the hotel lobby at 7. The other ladies asked me my name, where I was from. A few of them said, "Oh, you're the pen pal! I've heard about you!" We joked that I had probably known her longer than most of them, but I had never met her. I was beside myself with excitement waiting for her to arrive.

I was not disappointed. She made me feel so welcomed, including me in the family dinner Friday night, and seating me at the head table on Saturday. I had such a fun time, hanging out with all the Canadians, who couldn't have been nicer. What a great woman, and a great group of friends. Here she is with her new husband, Ravi.

I know the kids today don't even know what a pen pal is. I can keep up with Karyn's life via Facebook, and she mine, but I will still write her a letter, in longhand, and tuck it into an envelope to mail to her where ever she is, every year.

Scavenger Hunt

2011-04-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

I've left for a quick trip to Phoenix to attend a friend's wedding. I didn't want my kids to miss out on an Easter Egg Hunt, which is a tradition in our house. Usually we do a huge hunt in the backyard, inviting all the kids from my daughter's class. (My son got his hunts when he was younger.) We have a big backyard, and hide hundreds of plastic eggs with candy in them all over. "Hide" is an exaggerated word, because only a few are hidden in trees, under bushes, between fenceposts. The rest are out in the open on the grass, but it's still a mad dash to get them.

This year I decided to do a scavenger hunt in the house for my son, daughter, and husband. Yes, my husband got to do it too. We did this Wednesday night before I left. They knew nothing about it, so it was a big surprise when I told them I had hidden Easter gifts for them in the garage. They went off to look for them, and discovered a beach pail with a note in it for each of them. (We often use beach pails for Easter baskets.) The note gave a location for the first treat, so at that point they realized it was a scavenger hunt. I hid about a dozen eggs for each of them, and the eggs contained candy and a note for the next location. I varied the difficulty of hiding spots for each. My son had an issue when he didn't know what a salad spinner looked like. My daughter wasn't sure which piece of furniture was our love seat. In the end, they found lots of candy and a present.

Book Reviews

2011-04-23T16:00:00.001-07:00

I'll give you a couple mini-reviews of books -- one for crafters, one for writers (or bloggers). The first, is The Savvy Crafter's Guide to Success by Sandra McCall. If you are beyond the craft-making as a hobby, and you'd like to sell your wares, this book should be helpful. She discusses paperwork, photographing your art, and different venues where you might sell your art. Her husband is a photographer and artist, and the photo hints are especially good. I've always thought taking a good photo of your art is the hardest part of trying to sell it. When you're competing with thousands of others on the internet, you need to let your art stand out. You also need to be consistent with your branding. Your name, logo, and image must be the same on every piece of print material and transmitted text. I've found this book very helpful to look through in depth or just look up specific things. One strange thing: after enjoying the book, I googled the author and discovered that she's dropped out of the art business. How odd. The book has been a big success for her, so I don't know what happened.

If you're looking to jazz up your writing, perhaps for your blog or in the materials you use to describe your art, I highly recommend Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge's Poemcrazy. Susan teaches you to play with words, and try new combinations. She introduces the reader to word tickets, where you write interesting words, then rearrange the tickets to make pleasing combinations. She'll have you creating incredible descriptions of things that will keep your reader interested.

Consider the Letter Q

2011-04-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

My son recently received a high school assignment to write a paper called "Consider the Letter Q." Say what? Each person in the class received a differet topic, but they all sounded bizarre like that. He explained to me the style of report he was to do. You take an item, and you think about it in many ways. For example, the letter Q:

How do you feel about it aesthetically? Is it an attractive letter? Does its look or shape effect how you feel about words that begin with the letter?

How is it used in the English language? Is it used frequently or infrequently?

How is it used in other languages, if at all?

Could it be deleted from our language, how and why?

How does it sound?

You get the idea. The point of the assignment is to analyze something, from all angles, in an organized, intelligent manner. Why am I bringing this to you in a blog post? Because it occurred to me that this method is a good way to do a blog post, or other such writing. Let's say I wanted to write a post about a piece of jewelry. I might give a description that included the type of jewelry, it's length or size, the materials used, and the colors. Is that enough to interest someone in buying the piece?

What if I looked at it from other angles? Who might wear it? At what occasion? Do I have other pieces, like earrings, that might go with the necklace? Did I find any of the materials from an unusual source, such as re-using beads from an old necklace that was my grandmother's? What inspired me to make the piece? What techniques did I use to make the piece?

The answers to these questions make the piece more interesting. It may make someone want to see more pieces. It may make the reader pass the blog post on to a friend they think might find it interesting. You see what I mean.

Next time you make a blog post, consider the letter Q. How can you describe a picture or write a story from some new angles?

Painting Styles

2011-04-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

I'd like to introduce you to some artists who may have a painting style you haven't seen before. So many wonderful artists are self-taught, and don't make traditional landscapes, still lives, portraits, or other more formal styles. These artists practice what I would call a whimsical, springtime style. The colors are vibrant, not dark. The subject matter might be animals or character/people. I "met" each of these artists when we took an online class together. I'm now a follower of their blogs and their art.

First, I'd like to introduce you to Jenni Adkins Horne. I posted an interview on my blog that you can see in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. She resides in Georgia, and is quite prolific with her art, making paintings, jewelry, and accessories. She often shows her work at art shows and galleries.

Nic Hohn is an artist in Australia who paints beautiful pictures of women, and has branched out into greeting cards. You can see her blog here.

Juliette Crane lives in Wisconsin, where she is very busy painting owls. She even has a "How to Paint an Owl Workshop" that you can see the details of on her blog.

I hope you take the time to visit these artists' blogs, and leave them a note that you dropped by. Are there any painters that you know from visiting blogs that you'd like to tell us about?

Outside Views

2011-04-19T06:47:00.001-07:00

It's springtime in Florida, which means we're getting 85-degree days, but the trees and flowers are blooming. I grew up in Central Florida, Cocoa Beach to be exact. For the last 25 years I've lived in South Florida, which is below the tropics line. We have even more blooming trees than we did in Cocoa Beach. We have caladiums, which much to my surprise is a bulb and come back every year. My only experience with bulbs was when I lived in Cleveland, and I loved the first dafodils of spring. We don't get those here. My caladiums are starting to sprout, and should be 2 feet high in a couple weeks. As I took a walk around my neighborhood, and my dad's in Cocoa Beach, I snapped these photos of spring colors. Here they are for your enjoyment. Click on the photos to get a clearer picture of the flowers.

Bouganvillea

Oleander

Mahogany -- All the leaves of our mahogany tree fall in April. The first year that happened, I thought the tree was dying. I'd never heard of a tree dropping its leaves in the Spring. It took me a couple years of raking them to realize that the lawn guy would just come by and turn them into mulch, so why bother. An interesting thing, after we had 3 hurricanes in two years, the tree took three years off from dropping its leaves. I guess it really needed time to recover.

Gardenia -- my all-time favorite flower. The bushes in our yard bloom about a month after all the other ones in the neighborhood. I go through gardenia envy every year. This is the neighbor's tree.

Hope you enjoyed these!

New Trends in Jewelry

2011-04-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

In the world of jewelry making, as in any art, trends come and go. I think most people remember the macrame jewlry trend, and the tiny seed bead trend. Here are a few trends I'm seeing now that you might find interesting. I found these examples on Etsy, where you can search by type of handmade item you're looking for, such as jewelry (or specifically necklaces, bracelets, etc.), or paintings, or handmade books. For each photo, I'll give you a link to the artist's shop so you can see more examples.

Sea Glass

You'll find lots of jewelry using sea glass as a component, in a variety of colors. I don't know if it's real sea glass, like found on a beach, because I know some artists are just breaking bottles and putting the pieces through a rock tumbler. You must admit, though, that the artists make gorgeous pieces. You can find this artist here.

Polymer Clay

Polymer clay is a substance that you can shape then bake to a hardened state. You can use colored clays, and you can add color after it's baked. I've seen artists make pieces that look just like precious metals, gemstones, or rocks. The good part is, they're gorgeous, much less expensive, and lightweight to wear. Laurel Steven makes amazing polymer clay pendants and jewelry.

Steampunk Jewelry

Steampunk is a style where you use old watch parts and odd metal pieces that might be glued, wired, or riveted together. When done well, they can be really cool pieces. You can see this artist here.

Dichroic Glass

It seems everyone has a little mini-kiln nowadays. To make dichroic glass, you layer bits of glass and melt them together in a kiln. They make tabletop kilns now that are perfect for this. I haven't gotten into this since I have young children in the house and don't want a hot appliance around. Some of these artists do amazing things. The problem is, tons of cheap pendants are being shipped over from China and are sold at craft booths for $5 a pop. I know artists who hand make every glass piece, and there's no way they can sell one for $5. It's tough to compete with that. Here's an artist who makes some beautiful pieces.

Wire and Metal
Now this is the trend that I like to do. Cut a piece of metal, shape it, hammer it, add some wire, twist and turn it. I can tell that this piece has also been given an aged look, using Liver of Sulphur. You make a solution and dip the piece in it, and it darkens it, especially in the deep parts. It's a nice look. This artist can be found here.

Stamped Letters

This is an easy technique, and I see a lot of it. You can custom make name tags or stamp inspiring messages. You can also finish it with the Liver of Sulphur, so the interior of the letters darken and stand out more. You can see this artist here.

Art Jewelry and Resin

This is a nice example of two trends. Painters and collage artists are realizing in this economy that they won't be making as many $300 sales of paintings as they did in the past. They need to expand their product line, and the smart ones are selling prints and licensing their art. Others are taking a reduced size of their art and making jewelry with it. I think that's genius. This artist has taken a bit of a map to make a pendant. Others might use just a piece of their art. The other trend here is using resin to finish a piece. It seals and protects paper or small pieces in a pendant. Resin is huge now, and you can try different brands or mixes to get a resin that works great for you. Resin has come a long way, and there are products that dry clear, not cloudy, and bubble-free. You can see this artist here.

Have you noticed any trends in jewelry making? I love trying something new.

M about Me

2011-04-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

My M post will tell you about me by telling you about the music and movies I like. I'm no 20-year-old, but if you heard the type of music I like, you might think I'm a bit younger than my 47 years. I listen to the "new" alternative music, as opposed to the new pop, like Lady Gaga and the Celo Green. I get that music from my kids, so I know a lot of the new pop stars. My formative years were REM, U2, The Fixx, INXS, New Order, The Violent Femmes, The Cure. Then I moved into the whole grunge scene, with Pearl Jam and Nirvana, then later, Green Day. So to give you a post that tells you a little about me, I'll mention some of my faves in music right now. Does anyone out there close to my age like these too?

Mumford and Sons

Muse

The Decemberists

The Airborne Toxic Event

The Black Keys

Kings of Leon

The Killers

As for movies, I like so much. I love movies with a twist, like The Crying Game and The Sixth Sense (and I'm not ashamed to admit that I didn't see either one coming.) I like ones that stretch the concept of moviemaking, like Pulp Fiction. I like movies that the mainstream audience didn't see, like Lost in Translation, Stranger than Fiction, and The Visitor. I'm not afraid to see sub-titled movies, like The Band's Visit. And I love the classics: Gone with the Wind, The African Queen, and anything with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. I tend to see the new movies later, when they're on Netflix. I haven't gotten around to watching The King's Speech, but I will. And I love, love The Oscars. (I could open up a whole conversation about the merits of different hosts, and how they could make the show better. Have you seen the movies I mentioned? What are your faves?

Lots of Desserts

2011-04-17T05:04:00.000-07:00

I know, that's a weak category for L. In a former life, I was a Pastry Chef (until the economy took away the company where I worked), but occasionally I get called to bake for others. I recently created a cookie buffet for a girl's Sweet 16 party. It was a Sock Hop/music theme, and I made some cookies that were supposed to look like records. They are big chocolate chip cookies, dipped in ganache, with a white chocolate center and pink frosting initial.

I made: brownies, peanut butter brownies, record cookies, rice krispies treats, coconut macadamia cookies, pecan blondies, marble cookies, and pink and white Spritz.

You better believe I saved some extras for my family.

Kick-ass Jewelry

2011-04-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

I'm back among the living with my computer. If you read my last post, I was detailing my computer woes. Well, we took it in, the guy spent 5 minutes with it, and fixed it, not charging us anything. Man, he's good.

To catch up with the A-Z Challenge, I bring you the letter K. I call these some kick-ass jewelry, because they took a long time to make, they involved lots of colors, with a flow to them, and the resulting pieces are quite unusual. And they were really fun to make. Here they are.

Creative Blog Award

2011-04-15T05:16:00.001-07:00

I am pleased to tell you that Deirdra Eden-Coppel, from A Storybook World, has bestowed upon me and my blog this award:

Deirdra found my blog through the A-Z Blogging Challenge that I'm tackling this month. Over 1200 bloggers are participating, and we've challenged ourselves to post 26 times during the month of April. Deirdra came upon my blog from this list, and somehow, she deemed me worthy of this award. Thanks, Deirdra! She has created the artwork for her awards, and you can check out all of them here. She is an author and illustrator of fantasy and fairy tales. She has also entered the world of creating animation for e-books (obviously she's good at it, judging by these animated awards she's created).

Thank you, Deirdra, for this award! Now here's the irony -- today marks the post for M, and yet I've missed K, L, and M. You see, I've had major computer problems this week. My 12 month and 3 weeks-old laptop has been hiccuping for about a week (meaning, 3 weeks past the warranty -- Yay). I realized I can't send it away to be fixed until I get a replacement computer so I can keep doing my work (my day job running our local art society, and my other job of blogging and promoting my jewelry). So I bought a new computer on Monday, spent all day loading it, only to return it Tuesday due to a fatal error message. Bought a new computer, then spent all day Tuesday loading that up (like I have spare time for all that). My husband has a good deal at work to get the whole Word/Excel/etc. package for $5 (I know! Great!), but we haven't gotten the code yet, so I don't have the ability to attach any Word files or any other work to emails. The old computer now won't even open the internet, so I can't attach any of my photos to a blog post, because all the photos are located on that computer. Following me? Anyway, that's why I've missed posting my K, L, and M. I just can't do posts without photos. I'll try to take some new ones today to put on the new computer so I can keep going on this challenge.

There you have it. I receive an award, yet I'm neglecting my posting. Stay tuned, I'll be back and running shortly!

Please stop by Deirdra's blog and give her some love for spreading the love.

Artist Interview -- Jescalyn Vazquez

2011-04-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

Today I present to you a California artist, Jescalyn Vazquez. Jess is a wonderful painter and collage artist, who is expanding into the creation of clothing for preemies. Her day job as a NICU nurse, combined with her artistic talent, make me sure that her preemie line will be a success. After a busy year (or more) of planning a wedding and starting her new life with her husband, she has jumped in full-force to her art business. I am pleased to introduce you to Jess.

Where do you live and how long have you lived there? Is there another place which you consider your hometown?
I live in Sacramento, California, and have lived here my whole life.

Tell me about your family.
My mother was a single mother, and worked her butt off raising me. The majority of her family weren’t supportive of me being half African-American, so they weren’t a part of our lives. My dad’s family were extremely toxic, so didn’t play a big role in my childhood. It was my mom and me against the world. My mom married my step-dad when I was 13 and they have been married ever since. He and his family are so supportive and loving, and they are such an amazing part of my life.

Do you work at a job other than making and promoting your art?
I’ve been a NICU nurse for 5 years. I used to work 50 hours a week, saving up for last year’s wedding, and a new home. I was burnt out and unhappy. When I decided to get really serious about my art, and business aspirations, I cut back to 28 hours a week. My schedule allows me 6 days off in a row, every other week, so I feel like I have a mini vacation to work on my art and business. I couldn’t be happier. I feel like my life is finally my own.

What hobbies do you have, or how do you spend your spare time?
Oh my, where to begin? I have been told, by many people, I am a grandma, stuck in a twenty-something year old body. I crochet, knit, quilt, garden, draw, paint... basically anything creative. I’m a bit of a squirrel, fortunately and unfortunately, and when a technique, or project, catches my eye I have to try it. I may be a little scattered at times, but that’s just me, and I love every crafty moment.

Where does the name Peach Honey come from?
Funny story... I had lunch with a friend of mine, and my drink for the day was a Peach Honeybush tea. My husband, Joseph, always called me his Peach, so after that day I started calling him Honeybush. Joseph was so supportive when I decided to focus on my art, and our love was its driving force, so I decided to name the business after that love.

How would you describe yourself as an artist and the art that you do? Do you give yourself a title?
I work with any medium that crosses my path, and because my interests change from month to month, mixed media gives me the freedom to explore. I find pleasure in collecting supplies, and try to use them in unique ways. Sometimes I use 20 different supplies in one painting, and I love that! Every layer adds more depth, and every supply has a special place.

What type of art do you spend the most time doing?
I love making dolls, but I’m in the process of changing the faces. I recently drew a quick sketch, for a NuPastel Cravings on my YouTube channel, and I didn’t draw any eyes. I loved it!! It was mysterious and sexy, and gave me a lot of freedom when it came time to working with the background. Next week my focus may change, but I think it’s important to bend to our changing interests, allowing our art to grow as we grow.

Can you give me a timeline of how your art has developed over the years?
I was always a crafty person, but never knew I could paint. I was always focused on school, and my main focus, out of high school, was getting my nursing degree. My best friend introduced me to scrapbooking after I graduated from nursing school in 2006. We used to spend hours at the local scrapbook store creating elaborate books for family and friends. I got such a high from creating, so I started to look for my next fix. Scrapbooking led me to Ali E, Tim Holtz, and then to Suzi Blu, my mentor.

I was on YouTube one night (at 2am), watching painting technique videos, when I came across Suzi Blu’s channel. I became so obsessed with mixed media, so I took a couple of her classes, and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. Over the last few years I have bought every book, taken every class, e-course, and read every eBook imaginable. I’ve learned a lot over the years, but it’s only the beginning... I can only imagine where this passion will take me over the next few years.

Has your art always been similar to your current style?
I’ve only been creating for the past 5 years, and I never went to art school, but I have definitely seen my techniques improve as I learn. My color schemes are more cohesive, my faces more contoured, and my paintings have more depth... all because I’m addicted to learning. I will never stop being a student, and I believe there’s always going to be a new technique to learn, a new product to try out, and a new opportunity just around the corner. I don’t think my style will ever stay exactly the same, and I hope my pieces reflect the knowledge I gain as I continue on my journey.

If you were making art solely for yourself, not for sale, what would you make?
I would probably make an abstract painting with lots of texture, and simple silhouettes. I have an idea for a couple pieces that use lots of molding and crackle paste... lots of peaks and valleys with deep color. Love.

Which type of venue for selling your art has been the most successful for you?
Word of mouth. I have made multiple paintings for people at work, and they have referred me to friends who need pieces for their home, or for charity auctions. I like working with people one-on-one to create something perfect for them. It narrows down my wild imagination into something tailor-fit for them.

I think artists now are realizing that they can’t rely solely on selling one type of art. What are all the types of art that you sell (such as your preemie line)? Do you do any writing?
I have just started a NICU-friendly preemie clothing line. I have been busy making blankets and fitted sheets, and the clothing production will start in the next couple months. I write for my two blogs, PeachHoneyLove and PeachHoneyPreemie, but don’t write for anyone else at the moment, although I would love to have such an opportunity in the future. My blogs are in the middle of a major renovation as I change over to Wordpress, and build my brand. I hope to really figure out where I want the two blogs to go, so it’s useful and successful.

How did you get started with making video tutorials, and is that something you want to continue with?
I love making videos! There were days where I couldn’t transform my thoughts into a beautifully well-written blog post, but talking it out felt natural. I sat in front of my MAC laptop, one day, and just talked. It felt so good to be able to get my point across. I will definitely be making a lot more videos in the future!

I met you online when we were both taking an e-course taught by Kelly Rae Roberts. What was your motivation for taking that course and did it fulfill your expectations?
I was feeling so burnt out at work, working 50 hours a week, and not sleeping. I was missing my creative time, and was dreaming of having a successful artistic career, like the one Kelly had created for herself. I read her blog every day, and jumped at the chance to find out how she did it. The class was the kickstart I needed to really be serious about taking the plunge into a different life. I have read through the class twice, and am going through it again at the moment, picking at different lessons as I build my brand and create a community, online and locally. Kelly’s class was my “aha moment” that proved anything I wanted was, indeed, possible.

It seems you’ve taken a few other e-courses. What can you recommend about them?
My new obsession is collecting e-courses. Kelly’s was the jumping off point, and then as I began to build my business, I started looking for other classes focusing on certain aspects of the game. I just finished Holly Becker’s Blogging Your Way class because I wanted to find my voice, and turn my blog into a resource for others (this is still in the works). I’m in the middle of Tara Gentile’s Website Kickstart Class because I wanted to build a website I had complete control over... this has been the start of many steps to building the PeachHoney Brand. I have also taken a lot of art-centered e-courses from SuziBlu and Monica Zuniga. They have a ton of videos you can save right to your computer and reference any time you’re struggling with a technique, or need some quick inspiration.

You seem to have worked hard to cultivate an online presence as an artist: you write blog posts quite often, you’re on Facebook, twitter, Youtube. Is there anything I’ve missed?
I justed signed up for Pinterest this week, so we'll just have to see if it ends up being another soldier in my social media army.

What do you think each of these connections do for your artistic business?
When I first signed up for Twitter I didn’t know what I was doing. I never tweeted, and when I did I didn’t know what to say. I’m a little smarter now, and I love Twitter for creating a community. I have met so many people, and they have become an integral part of my business. My Twitter friends celebrate my successes, link to my posts, and send me all kinds of love through the air waves. I’ve been building a new website, from scratch (AHHHH!). Whenever I have a dreaded code question, I send in out to Twitterland, and I get an instant response from friends. Kelly said it best! Twitter is like standing on the front porch waving at people to come check you out. It's your first line of defense in the world of social media. It gets people interested in you. My favorite people to follow are the witty tweeters. Even though they don't always tweet about their business/art/blog, I feel like I'm getting to know the real them, and it gets me to their site... and that's what we want, right?

YouTube is a great avenue for reaching people in a completely different circle. It was slow, at first, but recently I’ve been getting a lot of emails from artists just starting out.

I do find a jump in page views when I post to my Facebook fan page. I think because it alerts my friends, that don't religiously follow my blog, to my posts and daily happenings. I have linked my Facebook Fan Page to my Twitter account, so if I take a shopping trip to buy more fabric (which happens more often than you would think), I post it on my Fan page, my Twitter peeps get the message too.

Where do you make your art? Do you have a dedicated space in your home, or different spaces depending on the art that you’re making?
I use one of our spare bedrooms as my art studio, and have started to overrun one of the other guest rooms with my sewing supplies, much to my husband’s dismay. I have so many art supplies, so if I’m working on a big piece, I will sometimes bring it downstairs, so I can have some more space.

Can you tell me about your new preemie line, and what stage are you at with that business?
This project is my pride and joy!!! I’m a NICU nurse, and I’ve always seen a void in the preemie clothing industry that I was dying to fill. The professionally-made preemie clothes out there don’t work for a majority of our babies because most of our kids have IV’s, gastrostomy tubes, or something else that hinders their ability to wear clothing. We can’t feed their arms through clothing because of the risk it will affect their lines. On the other hand, the other NICU-friendly preemie clothes are not professionally made.

I hope to create a well-made NICU-friendly preemie clothing line that not only works for the majority of our babies, but is also professionally made and stylish. I’m a preemie advocate and stylist, and they’re in dire need of a cute wardrobe! I have had most of my patterns made, and am now looking for a sewing contractor (hopefully in my area), to produce my line. After I get my samples made, I will take it to work to try it out. I hope to have some samples in hand in the next couple months.

Thank you, Jess for this great interview! If you would like to see or hear about more of Jescalyn's artwork, you can visit her here:

Her blogs:
http://peachhoney.blogspot.com
http://peachhoneypreemie.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/peachhoneylove
Twitter: http://twitter.com/peachhoneylove
YouTube: http://youtube.com/peachhoneylove
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/peachhoneylove/ (still in the beginning stages of development)

Artist Interview -- Concetta Perot

2011-04-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

I "met" Concetta Perot last summer when we were both taking the same e-course. She is a fabulous mosaic artist living in London. She makes small mosaics, large public art mosaics, commissions, gallery work, and teaches mosaics to kids and adults. It's my pleasure to present this interview with Concetta.

Where do you live and how long have you lived there? Is there another place which you consider your hometown?I live in London, in a place called “Tooting” (which some people think sounds funny!). Been here for 22 years so its the longest I have lived anywhere but my roots are in the South of Italy (both parents emigrated to the UK in 1960) and I lived in Italy as a child.

Tell me about your family.
Neil, my wonderful husband of 17 years, Isabella (5) and Toby (4) my gorgeous kids, Pom Pom, Rosie and Chloe the cats and various numbers of goldfish! We are lucky to live in a neighbourhood with amazing community feel to it and consider many of our close friends and neighbours as family too.

Do you work at a job other than making and promoting your art?
Well, other than household management and parenting (!).... I gave up my previous job/career 2 1/2 years ago. I was a qualified social worker, running a training department in a national children’s advocacy organisation. Loved my work but the creative path was calling me and having children gave me the opportunity and courage to make the change (which took a lot of guts). I have not looked back.

What hobbies do you have, or how do you spend your spare time?
Gardening - we have a very small garden that makes me happy and we are part of a community farm which is wonderful. I love to write. I love to read. I love being with friends and sitting round a fire, drinking whisky, playing guitar and singing.

How would you describe yourself as an artist and the art that you do? Do you give yourself a title? Do you have an artist statement?
I am a mosaic artist. Mosaic is the most amazing medium - most people are not aware of the existence of contemporary (as opposed to Roman/Byzantine) mosaic. I love the colour, the reflectivity, the possibility. And I love that mosaics reflects life - broken-ness is beautiful.

What type of art do you spend the most time doing?
I make wall art, sculpture and jewelry. My own projects are almost always on the shelf as I have been so busy since going pro. Happy and sad :) :( about that!

Can you give me a timeline of how your art has developed over the years?
I started about 10 years ago. Pretty much self-taught with the support of the amazing online community of mosaic artists. Just after going pro, I took a master class with the amazing teacher and mosaic artist, Sonia King. That confirmed me in my skill, corrected some of my bad habits and gave me some new insight and technical skills. I feel I have flown ever since.

Has your art always been similar to your current style?
It’s always evolving. I feel myself developing month by month - growing in confidence both technically and artistically, going deeper with every piece I make. I just follow my nose - make what either my heart or opportunity (materials, commissions)lead me too.

If you were making art solely for yourself, not for sale, what would you make?
A very large mosaic of a dove, in lots of shimmering shades of white, to go over my bed - the reason I ever started to mosaic in the first place!! I would do large scale, dramatic pieces. They take ages but there is something stunning about scale. And then weeny jewelry to give to friends!

Are most of your mosaics commissions, or do you have some in galleries or other venues for sale?
A mix of all three. My problem at the moment is that I do not have enough pieces! I have done lots of commissions - small and large - which has to date been very fulfilling. I have work in a wonderful place called the b-gallery. This is a lively centre for arts in Bedfordshire (just outside London). Last December, I did my first solo exhibition which was wonderful (and exhausting). You can see it all online here. I also have work in an online gallery called Unearth (but only one piece there at the moment as need to made more!). I take part in group exhibitions such as the forthcoming “Gothic” exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral during May organised by the British Association for Modern Mosaics and the “Forest” exhibition in May organised by Opus Mosaics.

I think artists now are realizing that they can’t rely solely on selling originals of their art. What other things do you do that add to your creative business income, such as, teaching, writing, or anything else?
I run classes at my small home studio twice a week - which I love love love. My blog is regularly populated with images of my students’ works in progress and me gushing about how I enjoy making ‘mosaic addicts’! I also do series of workshops at a lovely place nearby called the Artyard. Lastly, I do community mosaic projects - two ongoing at the moment. The funny thing about the community mosaics is that they have come to me (I haven’t gone out seeking them) and they, so far, tie in directly with the experience I have a social worker for 20 years (children in care, refugees). Serendipity....

I met you online when we were both taking an e-course taught by Kelly Rae Roberts. What was your motivation for taking that course and did it fulfill your expectations?
I love Kelly Rae’s spirit. I resonated with her experience as she too was a social worker turned artist. I wanted to learn from her experience of developing a creative business. The course was resource rich and she shared so freely which is beautiful. The biggest gift of the course was that it makes me take myself seriously as a business woman as well as an artist. I am in the middle of ‘flying’ and Kelly Rae’s course definitely provided currents of air under my flapping wings! Before taking this course, I also took Marisa’s “In the Fishbowl” class which was brilliant and nicely complimentary to ‘Flying Lessons’. Both these courses provided materials and helped me to make important mental shifts.

Can you talk about your art friendships you’ve met online, how you’ve cultivated them, and what they mean in your artistic life?
There are some people I have met on line (through taking both Kelly Rae’s and Marisa’s course) who immediately felt like kindred spirits. I feel a sense of sisterhood with them and hope we can meet one day. In the meantime, we shoot off emails to each other to check in, ask questions, offer support. It’s precious. And of course we visit each other’s blogs. I am lucky in that I have also met several people in real time and one blogger friend Amelia happens to live round the corner and we have become good friends and meet regularly to catch up and help each other on the journey.

Do you still take classes to learn new art techniques?
I did Amelia’s Experimental Art E-Course. Fab for playing with different mediums, having fun and just unleashing creativity. She is just enrolling for a class that starts mid April and I thoroughly recommend it!

Where do you make your art? Do you have a dedicated space in your home, or an outside studio?
I have an out building at the bottom of my garden which is converted into a studio. Small but does the job as I don’t have to walk far to work.

I hope you've enjoyed my interview with Concetta Perot, mosaic artist. You can check out her website here, and her blog here.

Home Renovation -- Complete

2011-04-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

Long-term readers of my blog know that my family went through a home addition and renovation for six months, ending in January. I know you've been waiting for some "after" photos, and I'll tell you why it's taken me until now to take them. Because once the professionals are done, you still have a lot more to do. Like buy curtains and rods, since your new rooms have new windows. Paint the art room, because you stupidly said, well I'll just do that myself. Move all the massive amounts of art supplies that you have in your art room -- wondering how all this used to fit in the corner of your bedroom, but now will barely fit in an entire room. (Reality: your art stuff was in your bedroom, in the hall closet, in the family room, in the computer desk; you get the idea.) You need to find just the right shower door, and discover that they don't exist anymore. You need to make a curtain for the new bathroom door, since you were shocked to discover it was installed with unfrosted glass. You need to buy new towels, sheets, garbage cans, and all kinds of things to fill your new rooms. You need to install shelving in the new closets, because you stupidly said, we'll do that ourselves. All that took time, but my house is at a clean stage right now (because I invited friends over last week; if you need to clean your house, invite your friends over, and that will motivate you to do it) so I've finally taken pictures. Here they are. And I love it.

The start of the addition being put on the back of the house. The little window you see got covered up, and they broke through the end of a small closet to make the doorway connecting the two.

Here's down the hallway to the addition.

The outer wall to my son's old bedroom. I let him draw a creature on it, then I painted it. It was fun for the month it was up, then they tore down that wall to expand the family room.

Here's the room after the wall was removed.

This is the finished room. Well maybe not finished -- I'm going to paint another picture to put in here, and I need something in the corner, maybe a plant. Yeah, it's never-ending.

My beautiful new kitchen.

With really cool vein in the granite.

Looking the other way to the dining room.

And one more view.

And finally, the art room.

We've only lived here for 18 years, and it took about 3 to find the right builder. Yeah, baby, it was worth it.

Goals -- Who's Got Goals?

2011-04-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

I talked about action in my first April post, now I'm going to talk specifically about goals. I don't like goals if they're vague, like, I will have a new job by next year. That's a nice goal, but how would you go about doing it? You need to have your action steps planned, and you need to have a way to measure the results.

Recently, as I've been reading a lot of writers' blogs, I see a few have adapted a similar way to measure the path they're taking to their goals. Let's say a writer's goal is to complete a first novel in a year. That's huge, but non-specific on method. Here's what I've seen some writers post on their blog, in different variations:

Submissions: 3
Rejections: 0
Acceptances: 1
Short Stories Written: 2
Submissions Still Out There: 4
Word Total: 17,390

This author may be keeping track of things on a monthly basis. Their method of tracking tells me a lot: they know that if you don't write stories, you won't meet your goal (perhaps the goal is to publish a book of short stories, or to gain recognition by having short stories published in a variety of venues); they know that if you don't submit, you can't get accepted; and they know that they must write, write, write, if their goal is to be a writer.

My goal is to sell more jewelry. Here's how I might modify the above list, with the expectation that submitting pieces to contests or magazines will increase my exposure and possibly result in sales:

Pieces created this month:
Pieces submitted:
Pieces still out there:
Pieces showcased on my blog:
Pieces posted on Etsy:
Pieces sold this month:

How do you quantify your steps toward your goals? Have you been writing or making art this month?

Forge Yourself Some Jewelry

2011-04-07T12:45:00.000-07:00

Forging is a technique in which you use a hammer to flatten, shape, and texture metal. Any amount of hammering will gradually harden your piece of metal more and more. So for example, if you're using soft sterling silver wire, you may want to twist and bend it to a jewelry shape. Well, you want it to keep that shape, and not stay bendable. You'll finish it by hitting it with your hammer to harden it, and hitting it more if you'd like to give it a little texture while you're at it. For silver, copper, and brass, you don't use heat when you're forging. Hitting it with a torch is actually called annealing, and that will end up softening it. If you want to use a torch to add color to a piece of copper, for example, you'll then want to forge it to get it hard again.

And that concludes our mini-tutorial for today. Use the word forge when you're hardening and bending metal. Don't use it just to sound like a macho metalsmith. I've seen descriptions of jewelry on the internet that use "hand-forged", and yet it doesn't appear that a hammer has hit the piece at all. And besides that -- forging shouldn't be so macho, bang, bang, bang. You need to gently hammer and finesse the piece. Banging the heck out of it will not give you an attractive look.

Here are some pieces that I forged:

What's an Etsy?

2011-04-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

Etsy is the name of a website. You can find it at http://www.etsy.com/. Artists, writer, and other creative types sell their handmade goods at this site. They set up their own shop, like I have one called Blue Sand Studio. I can sell my jewelry, zines, and other art, under my name, and anyone in the world can find it and purchase it. The purchase price is sent to me through my PayPal account. The reason I use it is because I don't have to build my own website that will have purchasing capability. I use their site, and people can search for "jewelry," "necklaces," "silver jewelry," and hopefully find my stuff. The only problem is, there are 10's of thousands of jewelry items on Etsy. I have to figure out how to make mine stand out.

That's where photography comes in. That can be the hardest part, especially since I'm photographing jewelry. I get a shine if there's too much sun, and I definitely can't use a flash. Over time, you get better at it.

I'm even venturing into the world of painting, and will be posting my first two paintings onto Etsy this week.

Check out Etsy for handmade items. You'll be supporting artists, and you'll find unique items. If you're tired of mass-produced "art," then Etsy.com is the place to go.

Any Etsy shops you can recommend to me?

A-Z Challenge Update

2011-04-05T14:55:00.000-07:00

Blogs I have visited so far: #1 - #454
My plan is to visit all of them, but man, really? People are still signing up and there are over 1,200 and still counting!

This includes #453 who just did a post for "D is for Death." I'm finding a lot of interesting people out there.

Number of new followers I've gained since signing up for the challenge: about 30

Number of blogs that I've added to my followers list since I joined the challenge: 32

Number of blogs I'm following that I'm actually reading: all of them.

My method is to read the posts in google reader. So if I get behind, you may get a comment from me on a post you did a couple weeks ago. Hope you don't mind.

How are you doing with the challenge? Meeting new bloggers?

Suggestions for next year:

Find a way to delete bloggers from the list whose blog link just doesn't work. I've found at least half a dozen like that.

Maybe group the blogs by category, such as writers, or more specifically, science fiction writers, artists, moms (or families). Just a thought.

I'm enjoying this. Are you?

Decadent Dessert

2011-04-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

Today is brought to you by the letter D. I see that many of the A-Z bloggers chose chocolate for their letter C. Well, I'm going to tempt your tastebuds with this Decadent Dessert -- Double Chocolate Pudding. This is a recipe that I've created over time, trying different combinations and amounts of chocolate. This is my final version, and man is it good. If you're used to pre-made puddings, or even the mix in milk kind, you will not believe it when you taste this.

Double Chocolate Pudding

1 cup sugar, divided
3 tablsepoons cornstarch
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
2 cups whole milk
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter

Put 1/2 cup sugar, the cornstarch, and the cocoa powder into a medium saucepan.

Whisk together to mix and remove any lumps (by doing this, you avoid having to sift the cocoa powder).

In a mixing bowl, put the other 1/2 cup sugar, the egg yolks and egg.

With a different whisk, whisk until the color lightens and the mixture streams off the whisk.

Pour the milk into the cocoa powder mixture, and cook over medium-high heat while stirring. When it starts to boil and thickens a little, then take it off the heat. Gradually pour it into the egg mixture while stirring. (Doing it gradually will prevent you from cooking the eggs. You just want to gradually heat them up.) Pour all the mixture back into the pot and heat over medium heat for two minutes, while stirring.

Chop the chocolate (this can actually be done while the milk mixture is heating up.)

Take the pudding mixture off the stove. Pour the chopped chocolate into the pudding.

Add the vanilla and butter and stir in completely.

Pour into individual one-cup ramekins. This recipe makes about 10.

This is the cookbook that gave me the starter recipe, which I modified. There are some amazing desserts in here -- I highly recommend the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, which is the birthday cake my mom made for me every year when I was young.

Thank you to my son for taking some of these photos. And thank you for not taking one when I was licking the bowl.

I Comment on Your Comment

2011-04-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

I would venture to say that 99% of blog readers are blog writers. Which means that most of my readers know exactly what I'm doing: pouring my heart into a post, then putting it out there for anyone to see. Hoping someone reads it. Did they find it through a search? In most cases for me, no. They've found it through a link on someone's blog, or because I've commented on their blog and they've come to mine to see who I am.

While you're visiting, if you find something interesting, please leave them a comment. Bloggers love to get comments on what they write. Please make it an interesting comment -- "Wow, that looks fun!" is just a gesture. Why not go a little further with something like "Thanks for the great post about frisbee golf. If I hadn't seen your photo, I wouldn't have known that golf frisbees are shaped differently than regular frisbees." You can even answer a question the blogger might pose with a link back to your own blog. But don't just toot your own horn -- you're there to tell them you like their blog.

When someone gives you a comment, you'll usually see it in your email. I always email a thank you back to them. In other words, I comment on their comment. That's a great thing go do, especially when you're only getting a few comments. You want them to know you appreciate them. If it is a blogger you've never seen before, take the time to go back and look at their blog. The bottom line is, if you want someone to visit your blog, tell them thank you, then go visit their blog.

Can you recommend any artist blogs for me to visit? I'm always looking for new ones.

What's in a Name?

2011-04-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

You've found me, here at Blue Sand Studio. You see that I'm an artist: I make jewelry, I sell it on Etsy, I paint, I live in Florida. But why Blue Sand Studio? Why not just call my site after my name?

Here was my thought process. I'm in the business of creating jewelry and selling it. But I also make artist books, Artist trading cards, paintings, and use all kinds of mixed media. What might I make in the future? Who knows. That was my first thought: don't pick a name that restricts me to one thing.

Why not use my own name then? Because I'm an artist, and my work gets done in a studio. It's a physical place, but also metaphorically, it's a place where I can plan and think about many things. I can introduce other artists on my blog through artist interviews (such as these interviews with Kecia Deveney and Jenni Adkins Horne). I can review books (check out what I thought of Poemcrazy). I can inspire you with my surroundings.

But I always want you to know that I'm an artist, I embrace others' art, and I want to promote myself and others. To me, that means studio -- a place where I can create art and others embrace art.

Why Blue Sand? I wanted something that reflected my beach roots in Florida.

I first thought of "Silver Sand," which would reflect my use of silver in my jewelry. I rejected that because Silver Sand as a google search gives you tons of links to hotels, and I didn't want to restrict it to just jewelry. I chose "Blue Sand," because blue is my favorite color. Dumb, but that's how I got it. There you have the evolution of my business name, Blue Sand Studio.

Care to tell me the origin of your blog or business name?

Action Jackson

2011-04-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's a title of a cheesy 80's movie starring Carl Weathers (and with Sharon Stone!), and it has nothing to do with this post. I just think it sounds cool -- like giving the word action a little more emphasis. This post is all about ACTION.

As I wake to this April Fool's Day, I'm aware that there's nothing foolish about this lofty goal I've set for myself. I've joined the A-Z blogging challenge, which means I am commiting to posting to my blog 26 times during the month of April. As you can see from my blogging history, I've never posted 26 times in any month. But I've made this goal, and I'm going to take action on it.

Let's talk about goals. Why do I want to have goals, and is having a goal enough? I'm a learner and a tryer. I want to become a better writer, so what better way than to just write. I know, sounds obvious. Just like anything, you need to practice. But why write on a blog? Because I also have the goal of firmly establishing my jewelry and art business. If I write about the jewelry I've made, perhaps someone will be interested enough to buy a piece. If I write about other art I've made, art I've admired, other artists, techniques, books, then my readers will have a better idea of who I am. If you know the person, there will be a greater chance that you'll want to support that person's business.

I have a goal: write more, write better, gain more readers, gain more sales. That's great -- on paper. But a goal needs to have commitment, and that's where this challenge comes in. I'll be blogging a lot this month. My audience is other bloggers, writers, artists, lovers of art, who might become interested in me and later, my jewelry and art. I am taking action toward this goal.

What action are you taking today? Do you have goals, do they have a timeline, and are you committed to your action?

A-Z Blogging Challenge

2011-03-31T15:35:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a challenge tomorrow for the month of April, where I will be posting 26 times -- the topics will start with each letter of the alphabet, starting with A. Over 900 other bloggers from across the world are joining me. You can find the complete list of participants here. I've gone through a lot of the list, which is heavy with fiction writers. I'm an artist, and I follow a lot of artist blogs. But since I'm a blogger, then I'm a writer, too (yes-- and you are, too). A lot of the writers post entries about marketing your writing, developing a following, and sticking with the task of producing written pages. All artists can relate to that: keep making art, use your social networking and other venues to get noticed, and market your work.

Please go through this list and visit some new blogs. You'll likely find something very interesting. Please leave them a comment.

Stop by my blog this month -- I'll be posting every day except Sundays, which will amount to 26 posts. And if you want me to stop by yours, send me a link.

As I watch the news and see that the northeast part of the U.S. is gearing up for more snow, I'll leave you with a recent photo of a brilliant sunset where I live.

Mai Tiki, Your Tiki

2011-03-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

I was just visiting my hometown of Cocoa Beach for a few days, and I ran across these tikis while on my walk.

The artist at Mai Tiki has created these in Cocoa Beach for over 35 years. Over time, people have placed them in their yards, the city has put them out at parks. I don't have one in my yard, but I'm thinking I might need to add one.

They are all hand-carved from palm trees.

They used to be left natural, but now you see them painted bright colors. It really is great artistry. Here's a gallery of a few I came across.

Have you seen any unusual art lately?

I'm a Failure as a Morning Person

2011-03-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

It's confession time -- and I am the only artist out there with this confession, apparently. I owned Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way. I thought her habit of writing "Morning Pages" was a way cool idea. I tried it, and made it through about one day. A raise of hands, please, how many of you out there embrace morning pages, write their three pages a day, and are consistent with it day after day?

How many of you have stacks and stacks of completed morning pages or filled books? How many of you want to keep those pages forever or throw them away or shred them to create art?

Sorry, I just couldn't do it. Do I write in a journal? Absolutely, and I've written in about ten in the past year, grouped by subject. But I just can't do it as an assignment. I think that's the problem with me. I have so many things on my daily to-do list, I can't add another one "just for fun." I can write in my journal, when I feel like it, which is quite often, but not on a regular basis. If I'd miss a day, then I'd feel guilt, and I can't add more homework or guilt to my life.

So all you wonderful, disciplined artists and writers: keep writing in your regular, same way, and I'll keep writing randomly in my short-attention-span way. We all make the world go around.

Last month, after many years of sitting on my shelf, I finally gave up forever and gave the book to Goodwill. I know where you can get a copy real cheap.

Happy Zine Day -- Judy Merrill-Smith

2011-03-12T01:34:00.000-08:00

For my final review of the ten zines I received in a zine swap, I present Judy Merrill-Smith's zine called Something Extra Number 3: The Invitation. The cover of Judy's zine is 6" x 12", and is collaged with book pages, painted, and she hand-stitched lace pieces and edging to the paper.

When you open it, you see that Judy has re-purposed a 12" x 12" calendar page for the cover. She kept the back side of the blue stitching exposed, which is a nice touch. The pages of the book are folded over 8 1/2" X 11" pages, with typed text and full-color photos.

Judy's first article is about "guerrilla art," and how she recently created some of her own. She explains that guerrilla art is free art placed in public places, often anonymously. The fun for the viewer is stumbling upon it and wondering about its source. She tells a story about being on vacation, and becoming so moved by news of a death, that she decides to create a piece of art as a memoriam. Amazingly, she spies the family of the victim as they discover this art. It really is a beautiful story, and she's a beautiful woman for creating it.

Judy has written a how-to article as well. She picked up some vinyl street signs that were destined for a landfill, and created beautifully painted flowers. That's a great example of making beauty from trash. Her step-by-step instructions are detailed enough, with accompanying photos, that most readers would be able to re-create the flowers. I only wish she included a photo of the original signs so I could get some perspective on the starting point.

Her next story starts with the question, "Ever heard of a zine library?" I have, and have been to one in Portland, Oregon. I haven't found one in Florida yet, but Judy discovered one in her hometown of Spokane, Washington. What a great story to include in her zine! A lot of us in this zine swap are creating zines for the first time, and many have never seen one in person before creating their own. It's great to know there's a whole world of zines out there. Be aware, though, some zine subjects may not suit your tastes. If you find a library, just put the oddballs back and keep looking, because you'll see there's a wide range of topics and zine styles.

Her last story is about her practice of writing "Morning Pages," a ritual popularized by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way. I know this is huge with many people, but I've never been able to keep up with it. She's quite brave and includes a couple in her zine.

I don't want to forget the nice little gift that Judy included with her zine. She's generously given the zine reader their own embroidery floss, fabric, and edging so we can incorporate them in our next project. If you like what you've seen of Judy's art here, please be sure to stop by her blog, Cheery Tomato Productions.

I hope you've enjoyed my reviews of the zines I received. You can go back and look at my complete list of posts at the end of this one here. I'll be hosting my own zine swap this Spring. You can see the details by clicking on the "Zine Swap" tab at the top of this blog.

Random Friday

2011-03-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

I saw a similar post somewhere, so I thought I'd throw out my random thoughts today. My hope is that my randomness gets a little organized as the day progresses.

Outside my window...it is sunny and clear, but very cold for Florida this time of year. Yesterday we had a huge storm with hurricane-like winds. A cold front followed it and it’s only a high of 66 degrees today. It was 84 last week.

I am thinking...that I’m not dressed warm enough for this day.
I am thankful...that I live in this wonderful home.

I am wearing...jeans, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt. I’ll be adding a jacket when I go out.
I am remembering...that I need to balance my checkbook today.
I am creating...an accordion book. Two other friends are creating their own, then we’ll meet for coffee to compare.
I am going...to Cocoa Beach this weekend for the kids’ spring break and to visit my dad. If the weather warms up, we hope to kayak, jetski, and/or stand-up paddleboard. I grew up on the Banana River and we can do these things right in the backyard.
I am reading...nothing right now, although I’m itchy to read a good book. I need to go to the library and search for a good biography or other non-fiction book. Any suggestions?
I am hoping/praying...that I will get a lot done today. Yesterday was a lazy day because the previous day was so ridiculously busy that I needed a break.

I am hearing...Alternative Rock on the music station on my TV. We’re new to the music stations, since we just got our cable changed with the purchase of a big HD TV. I’m loving hearing Modern English, INXS, and The Clash again. Although I often hear The Clash since I have a couple of their albums. I should buy INXS Kick on CD – I used to have it on cassette and I rocked it constantly. I miss it.
On my mind...to design a new business card that reflects my evolved artist mission statement.
From the kitchen...half my family is out of town for a school field trip, so I’m not cooking right now. I baked three kinds of cookies last week though, and I have frozen “cookie balls” that I can just pop in the oven when I want. I love to freeze the extra batter in cookie shape, on a cookie sheet, then transfer the frozen balls to a Ziploc. Then I’m ready for a fresh-baked cookie at a moment’s notice. I love the convenience, but the convenience means I’m eating yummy fresh cookies too often for my waistline.
Around the house...I have so much to do to get my art room organized. It’s still just a mass of boxes. I need to get back into that today.

One of my favorite things...blog hopping and “meeting” all these interesting people from all over the world.
A few plans for the rest of the week...like I said, head to Cocoa Beach and get some fun in the sun.

A Pox on You

2011-03-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

Or is it a Pop? This is why my daughter can spend 45 minutes just eating a bowl of cereal. That's when I can get an awful lot done on a Saturday morning.

I don't normally shamelessly showcase my children on my blog, but I'm going to today. 8 years ago today I brought this little beauty home (the girl, not the dog).

Yesterday we did the once-in-a-lifetime (for us anyway) birthday party where we rented a water slide. Now let me just warn you if you ever want to try this -- be careful what you wish for. We wanted it big enough so her older brother could use it as well. I assumed it came in three sizes: small, medium, and large. I was wrong. It came in one size: ridiculous. We're talking 65 feet long and 22 feet high. Yowza, right? I wanted to get my money's worth, so I let my son invite friends near the end of the party. And I tried it too. I mean, I paid for it. I'm not going to NOT do this. It was loads of fun. Then the neighbors came by, and the neighbor dad went down too, challenging a 15-year-old friend to climb up it (rather than taking the steps behind it), where she handily kicked his butt. A good time was had by all.

In case you're unaware, all 7 and 8-year-old girls love, love, love Justin Bieber. And because I have a teenage son, I'm also aware of this other tidbit: some teenage boys love to have the Justin Bieber haircut, and to dress like him (my son excluded), but they swear they hate him and his music. Yeah, right.

Thus ends the post about my children. I now go back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Happy Zine Day -- Deborah Boschert

2011-03-04T06:36:00.000-08:00

Deborah Boschert calls her zine Inspired by ... Architecture, with the tag line "A little zine with images, ideas and thoughts about creativity." She's right -- it's little in size, but filled with wonderful photographs of architecture from all over the world.

She's hand-painted her 4 1/2" x 6" cover, using brushes, stamps, and scratching into the paint. She's cut out a little door and a window so you can see through to the first page. All of her pages have full-color photos, all taken by her during her travels. She must always have her camera with her, and she has a real eye for details from her surroundings.

Even after Deborah's taken a picture, she still notices more details when she looks at it. In one photo, she points out that she is shown in a reflection in one of the windows. That's something I probably wouldn't have noticed.

Photography runs in Deborah's family, because she says her husband takes a lot of photos when he travels with his work. She includes one from Africa. I think it's base housing. It's a simple repetition of buildings. What a fine example of government formality.

Her final picture is a bit of an art quilt that was inspired by one of the photos. That final page is what made me want to visit her website where you can find many photos of her art quilts. I'm glad I stopped by. You can see her website here and visit her blog here.

I have one more of the zines I received in a swap left for review. You can see the complete list of zines at the bottom of this previous post. I'll be hosting my own swap. If you're interested in joining, click on the Zine Swap tab at the top of this page for more information.

Make Your Own Wall Art

2011-03-03T11:45:00.000-08:00

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know that we just finished a home addition and renovation. And I know you're still wondering -- when is she going to post some before and after photos? Yeah, yeah. When I say it's finished, I mean the PROFESSIONALS are finished. Our work is still ongoing. I still need to hang pictures on the walls; make a curtain for the giant window in the bathroom door (no, I don't know why we got a door with a big window in it for a bathroom, either); put shelves in the closet so we can empty the boxes on the bedroom floor back into the closet; hang other curtains (preceded by: buy curtains); touch up paint; figure out the configuration and plugs for the stereo, DVD player, Wii, and who knows what else. So just be patient. I'm still working very hard on this renovation!

Part of it is I've decided to paint a couple of my own paintings for my new walls. We've worked so hard on this house -- I want it to reflect my taste and style. I've completed two paintings, and here they are. Too bad I didn't take "in progress" photos of the splashy one, because it went through about 5 different configurations before I came up with this. I still didn't call it "done," but hung it on the wall anyway. When friends came over, and they raved about it, I decided I could call it finished.

Here it is -- I also call it Spring Storm.

I've place this next painting on the wall on your right after you enter my front door. When you're sitting on the love seat in the living room you look across at is. This one I call Field of Possibility.

Happy Zine Day -- Pam Crawford

2011-02-28T07:07:00.000-08:00

Pam Crawford has created a zine that is so colorful and full of pockets and samples that you immediately want to pick it up and thumb through it. I wasn't sure what her title meant until I read her introduction. Her zine is called The Dollar Store Zine. She explains that she lives in Presque Isle, Maine, far from any craft or fabric stores. The dollar stores are her local source for art supplies. I love that! Practical, and frugal, too.

Pam gives the timeline of how she created her zine, which is great for anyone wanting to create their own. She takes the mystery out of the creative process in her detailed descriptions of her brainstorming of ideas and her many uses of dollar store finds.

Her zine is a stack of bags that she stitched down the center. Each bag holds a finished project or items you can use in your own projects. She's typed the text and glued it on the outside of the bags.

I just have to tell you about what Pam has done with playing cards. Who can't afford a $1 deck of cards? Or who doesn't have a deck with a missing card or two? You now have a stack of up to 52 craft supplies. She gives an example of an ATC with a card base, an altered playing card, and my favorite -- a mini book. I love the mini book: how simple, but so cool. It helps that she found a deck of cards with a colorful butterfly back.

Pam groups her zine by the departments within the dollar store. The kitchen/home goods department yields paper towels, waxed paper, and freezer paper to paint, with suggestions to grab coasters, chopsticks, and paper plates for future projects.

While checking out the hardware department, Pam found a foldable wooden ruler. She's cut it into 3/4" pieces, and has made a charm for the zine owner. I can see creating a cutie pie charm bracelet for some lucky girl from your dollar store finds.

Pam has included a few how-to projects for you, with examples. This zine gives so many ideas, it could keep you busy for a month. Thank you, Pam, for a well-thought out and generous zine.

You can see a list of all the zines I received in the swap and the blog posts I'm doing about them here.
I'll be hosting my own zine swap, and you can see the details on the tab at the top of this page.

Happy Zine Day -- Kara Klein

2011-02-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

Kara Klein recently took a vacation to Japan, and invites us to join her in her zine she calls Japan Dreams. The color-copied pages are brilliant with color, and cut in various widths for added interest. The cover is shades of orange and pink on cardstock, using tape strips with rubber stamped letters for the title.

This zine is a travel journal with memories of her trip as well as tutorials for little projects. Each page is loaded with background colors and scraps that she picked up in Japan. She uses postage stamps, stickers, photos, Japanese writing, origami, and includes a little packet of scraps for the reader to use.

Kara has stitched together a folder to hold the zine, that is probably made from a brown paper bag. a fabric scrap gives it a nice edge, and it is closed with a button and thread.

I've seen rubber stamps that people have carved, but she describes how to make one from a photo. She's used a photo of a lotus pod that she took in Tokyo. Using photo editing software, she has altered the image to use as a guide for carving a stamp. I never would have thought to do that. I think the idea of carving a stamp free-form is intimidating. This technique takes the stress of where to begin out of the equation.

Kara has adapted a technique called laminated collage to make her cover. She describes it at the end of the zine. Her description makes it sound so simple -- I'm definitely going to try it. If her zine doesn't make you want to visit Japan, you will at least be inspired to record your next trip in words, and scraps, and colors.

You can see my reviews of all ten zines I received in the zine swap here.
Carol Henley -- Wrandom Writings (1/6/11)
Irene Prior -- How to Use Markers to Create Colorful Works of Art (1/19/11)
Cris Peacock -- Words & Art Zine: Making Poems (1/24/11)
Lori Garver -- Brown Paper Bag Art (1/29/11)
Barb Nelis -- Left-Brain Heart (2/4/11)
Heather Simpson-Bluhn -- Journal Play (2/15/11)
Kara Klein -- Japan Dreams (2/24/11)
Pam Crawford -- The Dollar Store Zine (2/28/11)
Deborah Boschert -- Inspired by ... Architecture (3/4/11)
Judy Merrill-Smith -- Something Extra Number 3: The Invitation (to be posted on 3/12/11)

You can read about the zine that I created here or you can purchase extra copies of my zine in my Etsy shop here.

Butterfly Reminder

2011-02-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

Back in January, I told you about my idea to actually try some art projects that I read about in the many mixed media books that I buy. I've finished my first one, which came from Shona Cole's book, The Artistic Mother. Her book has really inspired a lot of people, and I know some artists out there have created art from her inspiring ideas. If you have made anything from her book and posted it on your blog, drop me a line and I'll post a link here.

I chose to do her Butterfly Reminder project. Of course, I can't just copy it exactly -- I need to take her main idea and tweak it a bit. The project is a little hanging piece for your wall that reminds you to do something for the day. In her example, she uses the words "Write Today." Well, that's a good goal, but I was thinking -- I have different goals every day. Sometimes I need to tell myself to write, sometimes to make art, and sometimes to exercise more. Although "exercise more" isn't specific enough for me. If it's vague, I'll never do it. Anyway, I decided I wanted to come up with a way that I could change the words.

After choosing my reminders, typing them on cardstock, and printing them out, I made little mica slots that the words could be slid into. My idea was to have an extra mica slot on the back to store the extra words. I attached the mica pieces using eyelets punched through the balsa wood base. I soon found out the eyelets wouldn't go through one piece of balsa and a piece of mica on the front and another on the back. Instead I just glued a little envelope to the back to hold the words.

I rubber stamped my butterfly design rather than cutting out a downloaded picture, as Shona suggests. I didn't feel like cutting around the edge of the butterfly because I thought the balsa wood was tricky to work with. It splinters easily and pokes your fingers when you cut it. I found that my metal cutting snips were stronger and worked better than regular scissors, so I just used them and kept the balsa wood in a rectangular shape. I did round the edges a bit. Balsa wood must come in different thicknesses, so either mine was thicker than Shona's, or she's just better at cutting than me.

I have two dangles hanging for the words because I wanted to have a verb and a noun for my goals. I used coated copper wire to hang the beads, which means it will always stay shiny. Now I won't have to worry about polishing it over time. If you're curious, some of my other words are: "Fly Toward Your Business", "Fly Toward Exhibiting Your Art," and "Get Moving -- Rollerblade", and "Get Moving -- Play Racquetball."

My next project comes from the book Book + Art -- Handcrafting Artists' Books by Dorothy Simpson Krause. This book doesn't have step-by step instructions for every example, but I will use one of the books as inspiration to make my own. I'm going to make an accordion book, like the one on page 70 called Hearts. It will be a challenge to come up with a subject for the book as well as the process. Would you like to join me in creating your own interpretation of an accordion book?

Blue Necklace

2011-02-16T07:45:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's a boring name, right? I always title my creations before I put them on Etsy to sell, but I'm having trouble with this one. I just finished this three-strand necklace and I'm at a loss as to what to name it. Do you have any suggestions?

I've used a bead soup mixture of blues and purples. Pearls and glass beads accent the strands, every inch or so.

I've joined the three strands within a silver Bali cap bead to hide the ends. The toggle clasp is sterling silver as well.

Any ideas for a clever name? Here are some of my favorite names: Susie wants Silver; Dangling Participle; Madame's Finest; Sultry Blue Moves. Post some of your suggestions here.

Happy Zine Day -- Heather Simpson-Bluhn

2011-02-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

Heather Simpson-Bluhn created a colorful zine she calls Journal Play. She color-copied bright collages for most pages, and machine-stitched the binding and cover.

She describes how to do a gesso resist with rubberstamps, inserting an example as a half-page in the zine. Abruptly, she gives a journal prompt on page 3 of the zine. This little prompt is attached with fancy tape to a piece of textured paper.

I'm getting that Heather is a lover of paper. Her collages use magazine bits, insides of envelopes, origami paper, and book pages. She's created an envelope from plastic by stitching the edge and binding it into the zine. This packet contains paper scraps we could use in our own collage.

For all of us who also have a scrap collection, Heather has included a how-to article for turning your scraps into paper flowers, which she calls "tattered blooms."

Heather extolls the virtues of listmaking, and urges us to list words as our own journal prompts. I find myself wanting to write in my journal, yet I don't want to stop reading her zine. She's also listed some mixed media tutorial sources on YouTube. When I'm done with a journal page, I'll be sure to hop on the internet to check out some of these videos.

If you'd like to see more of Heather's art, you can see her blog here.

You can check out the zine that I made for this swap here. I'll be posting more reviews of all the zines I received from the swap in future blog posts.

A Little Heart Bling

2011-02-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

I've always been a jewelry girl. I've been wearing necklaces and rings regularly since I was about 11. I just can't understand women who don't finish their outfit with a pretty necklace. If I go out without one on, I feel naked. I have quite a collection of necklaces, and a lot of charms. I thought I'd show you some of my heart charms on this nice Valentine's Day. This is by no means all, but it gives you a nice selection.

This first one is probably my oldest. My mom gave me this when I was about 11. It's smooth stone, and I wear it on a simple gold chain.

These two are also very old. I wore these all through high school.

A couple years ago, I participated in a Valentine's charm swap with 49 other women. Yes, I know, that means we each had to make 50 charms. It was so exciting when we received our packets in the mail. I loved them all, but this one especially because it was not red. I thought it was such a clever idea to do one in blue and yellow.

This is a polymer clay heart, handmade by Laurel Steven. She is an amazing polymer artist and you can see her work here.

Here's another old one. It is carved mother of pearl. Do you remember when mother of pearl was popular? Don't answer that, people will be able to guess your age.

These are two lovely green hearts, but unfortunately I don't wear green at all. Maybe for St. Patrick's Day I'll wear a heart for my spot of green.

And lastly, for some real bling, here's a gorgeous crystal heart from Baccarat. My dad got me this one. It's beautiful.

I hope you're all enjoying your Valentine's Day. Did you receive any heart bling from your sweetheart?

Sending You Some Warm Weather

2011-02-08T08:02:00.000-08:00

I know a lot of you up north have had your fill of winter and snow at this point, and the season is young. I'll send you some of my Florida photos, and maybe you can feel that yes, it may get warm again. I took these when I was visiting my dad in Cocoa Beach last week.

The lifeguards were on duty, but no one was swimming. The only people on the beach were walkers, like me.

Some little animal came by here earlier.

You can see here where many storms have pushed the sand up onto the boardwalk. While some beaches lose their sand, this beach has an abundance.

Keep warm! I hear another storm is heading for the northeast later this week.

Happy Zine Day -- Barb Nelis

2011-02-04T04:56:00.000-08:00

As I go through each of the 10 zines I received in a recent swap, I'm struck by how different one is from the last. We all received the same guidelines for the swap -- handmade, at least 20 pages, include a how-to article, and some goodies for the recipient. Beyond that, they can be any size, reflect any medium, and have any construction.

Barb Nelis's zine, Left-Brain Heart, is a colorful feast for the eyes.

I think most of the pages are construction or scrapbook paper, each one a different color. The size is 5 1/2" x 8", with a stitched binding, but it is so chock full of inserts and examples, that the side is about 2 1/2" thick!

I don't think Barb has a blog where I can see her art, but she's included many collages in her zine. She's obviously a lover of words and quotes, colorful scraps, and stamps.

Most pages have some kind of a pocket or attachment for scraps and goodies. She's included how-to's for a folder pocket, a bookmark card, and of course colorful examples of each.

She's generous with her enclosures, including a large scrap of fabric that may inspire you for a future project, a couple of crocheted pieces, and a mini paper pad.

She's included one article about de-cluttering your life. As I read it, I couldn't help but wonder: is she talking about physical clutter, or mental clutter? She's proved she is also a very good writer.

To see more reviews of mixed media zines, check out my blog again. I have five more to go!

To see the zine I made for this swap, check out my blog post here. You also may buy one online at my etsy shop here.

Soldering is Not So Scary

2011-02-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

Many of you know that for the last four years I've traveled to Portland, Oregon in October to take art classes at Art & Soul Retreat. I'm changing it up a bit this year, and will be attending their New Orleans retreat in July. I'm excited to be traveling with two friends who are new to the retreat scene. We've chosen one class that we'll take together, then we'll take three others. My friend will be taking a soldering class with Sally Jean Alexander. I took one from her my first year, and totally loved it. She's a thorough instructor, and teaches a project-based class. I recently came across the project I did, which I had given to my mom as a gift.

We collaged papers, using color copies, paint, pencils, and sandwiched them between thick beveled glass. I went with an Oregon theme, using postcards, stamps, a photos, and other items from my mom's Oregon relatives. We soldered down the sides to keep the glass sandwich together. All in all, a good first experience with soldering, which is not that hard after all.

Happy Zine Day -- Lori Garver

2011-01-29T04:27:00.000-08:00

We now enter the world of recycling with the next zine, Brown Paper Bag Art, by Lori Garver. The cover of her 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" zine is made out of a brown paper bag. She has stitched the binding, as well as the title, which is rubber-stamped letters on frayed fabric. The cover also has some pretty colored flowers, which I discover later she has described how to make.

Lorie starts with a nice introduction about her love for brown paper bags. She points out that they are plentiful, usually free, and can take many mediums well. That's beautiful music to the ears of many mixed media artists, especially in this economy.

Her how-to for making paper bag flowers didn't disappoint. She gave a few techniques from different artists and included a few samples.

Lori has discovered an artist who hosts a brown paper bag art swap each year, and she's included an interview with her. She's also researched links to other artists who use brown paper bags. This is a fun inclusion in a zine. I haven't gone through all the links yet, but it will be a fun thing to do on a rainy day.

Lori seems to like to try new things, and that's all the good for us. She shows you how to make waxed paper bag dolls, textured paper, paper beads, and just for that time when you're relaxing and reading your favorite zine, some brown sugar cookies. (Yum -- I have to try these!)

I love how a handmade zine can open you up to an artist's world. I can see that Lorie likes to sew and work with fabric; re-use materials; play with rubber stamps; and she has an attention to detail. I am enjoying "meeting" other artists through the swaps that I do. You can meet the next artist when I review Barb Nelis's zine on February 3rd.

Check out the zine I made for this swap here. If you'd like to "meet" me, you can buy my zine online at my Etsy shop here.

Where Did This Come From?

2011-01-27T11:56:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of putting everything I own back in closets and cupboards as I come to the conclusion of a six-month home remodeling. The builder just has a couple things to tie up, and we can say that the professionals have done their work. Now comes the hard part for us -- finding places for everything; choosing curtains, rods, furniture, area rugs, and art for the walls, in these new rooms we've created; cleaning the dust that's accumulated, then cleaning it again. The decorating is the fun part, but very time-consuming when you're running a busy household with two kids. The kids seem to have a better social life than the adults, and my husband and I spend a lot of our time ferrying them from one event to another. I'm also traveling up to Cocoa Beach every couple of weeks to check on my dad, spending 5-8 days at a time there. That puts a damper on getting my house projects done, as well as updating my blog, running the art society, or doing any art of my own. I have no computer up there, but I can bring some jewelry to work on. That just requires planning on my part, because I have to bring every supply I think I might need with me. I don't have the freedom to just search through my supplies while I'm creating.

Anyway, that gives you an idea of the crazy life I'm leading with this home renovation. As I was organizing my kitchen cupboards, I came across some things that I haven't used in a long time that I've immediately put in the garage sale pile. I've also had some surprises when I've discovered things I haven't used in awhile -- but I love and am pleasantly reintroduced to. I've looked at some things and said, "Where did this come from? I forgot I had that." I'm sure you've said that before. Well, here are a few things that will not be put in the garage sale, and I'm going to make the effort to use real soon.

I think I got these little condiment dishes at Crate and Barrel. I've used them when I've made a meat fondue, with three different dipping sauces. I like that you can put one at each place.

This is a depression-era glass plate that was my grandmother's, or perhaps my great-grandmother's. When my mom had to put her mom in a nursing home, she packed up a few boxes of things and shipped them from Oregon to Florida. Us kids searched through the boxes and chose things we'd like to keep. I've always loved this dish. I've used it for nuts or candy, but would like to think of a more imaginative use. Any ideas?

This is a crystal butter dish, and I have a matching honey pot. I like using this when you have people over for a nice brunch. We've done that on days when we hit the green market in the morning, and come back and make a nice meal from our purchases.

And finally, here is a pottery oil lamp. I've never used it -- this falls in the category of, I forgot I owned it. My mom found this at a nice gallery and gave it to me for Christmas. It includes instructions for which oil to use. I'm definitely going to use this on our next cold day, when I'm making hot chocolate at night and the lights in the house are low.

Have you discovered any lost treasures in your home lately?

Happy Zine Day - Cris Peacock

2011-01-24T04:13:00.000-08:00

I'm posting reviews of the zines I received when I created 10 of my own and traded with 10 other artists. You can see the zine, or small, self-published magazine, that I created, here.

Today I want to tell you about Cris Peacock's zine, called Words & Art Zine: Making Poems. Cris is an artist living in Maui who makes jewelry and other mixed media art.

Her zine is 4 1/2" x 5 1/2" and is spiral-bound. It looks like she painted the pages and maybe did some sun prints of flowers. She sent photos of the pages through PhotoShop, altering them to make her own paper. I counted 20 pages with the covers, but that doesn't give you the full picture. Many pages fold out, fold open, or include pockets. Some pages are cut down, others have deckled edges. I bet she had fun putting this mini-book together.

The opening line for her zine is "Ideas for making simple poems to mix with your Artwork." I'm all about including words and stories in my art, but for some reason, I haven't braved the poetry waters. I don't know why -- I wrote hundreds of poems when I was younger. I think when we get older, we feel less free to express ourselves. I'm definitely expressing myself artistically in many ways; perhaps this little zine will encourage me to try poetry again.

Cris starts with a poem by her favorite poet, followed by a book recommendation. She talks about words -- and did I mention that the text in her zine is all handwritten? She's definitely studied calligraphy. I think words read better that way, especially when they are poems.

Cris describes a few easy poem forms to get you started: haiku, acrostics, then leads to poems with a more complex structure: diamonte, cinquains. She gives an example of each.

Once you've written your poems, you can follow two techniques for presenting them. She describes how to make a plumber's tape repousee' and to make paste paper. She includes examples of each.

And finally, her book ends with a little envelope of goodies. I think that's the unwritten rule of zines: include some goodies. And it makes it so much more fun when you pull them out of an enclosure, like you're opening a present.

You can see more of Cris's art at her website and her blog.

I Dare You Not to Laugh

2011-01-23T18:44:00.001-08:00

As I'm reading blog posts from various artist friends, I came upon this one by Stephanie Lee, a mixed media artist from Southern Oregon. Apparently she did this late one night -- I think this should be required viewing for anyone who's had a bad day. There is no way you can get through this and not laugh. Have fun.

You can see it here.

Happy Zine Day -- Irena Prior

2011-01-19T04:01:00.000-08:00

To continue my review of zines, today I will tell you about Irena Prior's zine, How to Use Markers to Create Colorful Works of Art. I received this zine in the recent zine swap, in which I created 10 zines and traded them with 10 other artists. You can see the original post about my zine here, and the first zine I reviewed here.

"Zine" is short for magazine, and it is simply means that it is a self-published book, with the content, design, and reproduction done solely by the author. We were challenged in this swap to create our own zines and trade with other artists.

Irena has a blog called Just Crazy About Dogs. You understand that when you see that a lot of the art in her zine is dogs. She is a talented artist with good drawing skills.

Irena gives a comprehensive tools list, including the brand names of some of them. I think some authors get caught up in the feeling that they don't want to seem to support one brand over the other, so they omit the brand names altogether. I hate that. If an instruction calls for a "solvent ink pad," for example, I want to know -- what does that mean? Permanent ink? Alcohol ink? Anyway, she lists "copic" markers and "Tombow" dual markers, both of which I'll be tempted to try so I can see why she likes them and what effect they give.

Her zine includes simple exercises to expand your drawing skills. I especially like her recommendation to start drawing on index cards, and practice many times until you switch to watercolor paper.

Irena gives detailed descriptions of her drawing techniques. She explains how she uses damp watercolor brushes to blend the color. She didn't save money by producing her zine in black and white. She made the right decision to show full color so you can see what she does with the markers. Black and white just would not have worked with this subject matter. With 22 pages plus the cover, the color copies are worth it.

Watch my blog for my next review of a wonderful artist's zine.

Renovation Update

2011-01-18T05:37:00.000-08:00

For seven months now, my family has been in the midst of an addition. I thought my home was in disarray a few months ago. Little did I know just how crazy it would be now that they've gotten into the main part of the house, and they're working on the kitchen, and the tiling of the floors.

The cabinets and granite countertops are in. I've placed post-its on the doors and drawers of what I'll fill them with.

I'm dying to fill the cabinets, but I've hit an interruption. Now that they're tiling the floors, I'm in the way. I've holed myself up in my bedroom until they're done at the end of each day.

I have furniture stacked up in corners of rooms. I can't find anything I need.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some "after" photos soon. I've told my husband, we better not take six months putting everything back in the kitchen and the new closets. I'll give myself one month, or I'll get very stressed out.

Are you working on any challenging projects? Hopefully you see an end in sight too.

Snow in Florida?

2011-01-14T09:09:00.000-08:00

I don't think so.

It was announced yesterday that Florida was the only state in the Union to not have snow on the ground. Big surprise there. We did get our share of the cold front, which was morning temps in the 30's. That's mighty cold for us, particularly since we don't have the proper clothes to dress for it. I had a hard time finding gloves for my daughter, because they don't sell them much here. The ones I found are pink and cute, but not that warm.

Today they announced that the Florida state government is jumping on our snow-less status and launching a promotional campaign to attract people to our state. I guess they figure, if you're sick of snow, come here.

Well, my family did get to see snow this Christmas. We spent the holidays with family up in Cleveland, Ohio. We came after their two big snowstorms, arriving to over a foot of snow on the ground. That snow could stay for the next couple of months.

Here's the face of a happy girl in the snow. What do you do when you're from Florida and you're surrounded by a Winter Wonderland? Why, you climb, jump, and teeter on things so that you can retrieve the amazing icicles you see.

We loved our visit in Cleveland. Our cousins live right on a golf course (and in this economy, it's gone bankrupt), so you're able to hike all over it. About 11:30 p.m. on Christmas night, after eating for about six hours straight, we took a walk through the snow. We saw four deer, and a couple of fox.

How's everyone else doing? Have you dug yourselves out of the snow? Are the kids back in school?

Happy Zine Day -- Carol Henley

2011-01-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

A while back, I posted about a zine that I created. A zine is a fully hand-made magazine about a subject of your choosing. You can see where I described my zine here. I call my zine "Paint/Paste," and showcase painting and collage techniques for mixed meda artists.

I was inspired to create this zine for a swap -- meaning, I created 10 zines and received 10 different zines back from other artists. I'd like to show off the zines I received here, and I'm starting with the zine "Wrandom Writings," by Carol Henley. Her art is created at her Swallowcliffs Art Studio.

Her zine includes excerpts from some of her journals. It seems that she is quite the journaler, and has kept journals for years. Her zine is the size of half of a standard sheet of paper, meaning it's folded over. She has stitched the side binding and it has 18 pages plus the front and back cover. All the pages seem to be color copies; each page is a new treat of beautifully colored art.

Carol is opening up the pages of her private journals for us to see. She freely gives her motivation for journaling, and how it makes her feel. I think she is quite bold and should be commended for her generosity.

Her journals are visually appealing as well. She's used water colors, stamps, drawings, to enhance her pages. She's included some of her soul collages, and you realize that she's a talented artist, not afraid of placing unlike things together in interesting ways.

For those who haven't started a journal, Carol gives us many reasons to try, and then tells us how to do it. I especially liked when she says you should think about the purpose of your journal. I can't just write to write. I always need to have a purpose for writing. Do you want to analyze your personal finances, she asks? Why not make that a topic for a journal. How great -- I never would have thought of that one. I will say that I have journals for different purposes: project ideas; blog post ideas and first drafts; business plans.

One of the fun things about making your own blog is you can include pull-outs, pockets, and freebie gifts. Carol has included a handmade blank book, so the zine reader can start her own journal. She has used a cut-down cover from a used book, and stitched in blank, lined paper for writing. What will I put in my new little journal? She's definitely inspired me to create some artistic journal pages.

You can visit Carol's blog and see more of her wonderful art on her blog, Swallowcliffs Art Studio.

I have a few of my zines left, and you can buy them through my Etsy site, which is my online shopping area for Blue Sand Studio. You can find them here.

January Challenge

2010-12-27T07:15:00.000-08:00

I've discovered that my friend Joyce loves ATCs and mixed media as much as I do. She's also a book-buyer, and has a great collection of art books, a lot of which we have the same. Do you ever feel like you buy art technique books but you never seem to make anything from them? I read them, and pore over them, but don't always try the techniques. Well one of them that I've been reading over and over is The Artistic Mother by Shona Cole.

(obviously I grabbed this photo from Amazon. I don't know how to get the "look inside" logo off of it)

I'm taking the plunge -- Joyce and I will be doing the project on page 87 -- The Butterfly Reminder. We won't talk about it, we'll just do the projects separately and see how we each modify or interpret it.

Would you like to join in on our challenge? We're giving ourselves a February 1st deadline, and we'll post our photos here. If you make a page 87 project, send me your photos. I'd love to see them.

Christmas ATCs

2010-12-24T06:56:00.000-08:00

I just did a fun swap with my Artist Trading Card group. The theme this month was Holiday, of course. I love getting groups of ATCs, because you see how many ways people can interpret a theme. I thought it was interesting how little we used traditional green and red. Since blue is my favorite color, I really like the blue cards.

I think it's funny how many of the Florida girls use snow themes in their art. I guess we really covet what we can't have. I'm sure some of you up north have already had your fill of snow!

The card on the left is the one I made. I used my favorite background technique lately -- Golden acrylic paints on canvas paper. I do a whole sheet of 16" x 20" paper, then when the paint dries, I cut it into 30 ATCs. I added Sharpie poster paint pen doodles, and lastly, the stick-on jewels. I love that you don't have to put a tiny dab of glue on them anymore. Stick-on's wonderful.

Here are a few more that I did -- I guess the better ones were chosen by everyone in the group. I think one of these sort of looks like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Have you done any Christmas art? I'd love to see it.

It's Christmas Cookie Time

2010-12-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

It's been a different kind of Christmas season for me this year. We're in the middle of a home renovation that is now at the CHAOS stage. After adding on, the workers are now inside the house tearing apart the kitchen. I'm leap-frogging our possessions from room to room as I'm clearing out closets and all our kitchen cabinets. We officially switched to paper plates and microwave dinners. I also have two rooms' worth of furniture stuck in my living room. Because of this, we've done not a stitch of Christmas decorating. No tree, no outdoor lights, no holiday plates to eat from or Santa mugs for hot chocolate.

In the midst of all this, my Dad went into the hospital the week after Thanksgiving. I've driven the 2+ hours north to Cocoa Beach twice, with the last visit a 7-day stay where I parked myself in his hospital room. To cut to the ending, he's gotten much better, they've cured his ailments, but he's struggling to walk after being in a hospital bed for 18 days. I would too, and he's 91! Anyway, my brother and sister and I are taking turns being with him, and I'm back now with my family for a bit. Hey, my daughter's a Santa believer, so we need to do at least a little bit of Christmas!

I knew just what would make it feel like Christmas -- baking Christmas cookies. So before my latest trip to Cocoa Beach, my neighbor and I got together and I made two of my mom's traditional recipes -- Spritz Cookies and Velvet Cookies. They're both made with a cookie press (I got a fancy electric one quite a few years back), and we cranked out quite a few hundred.

In our family, the white ones were always flowers, with a lemon flavor; the pink ones were hearts with a peppermint flavor. Those are from the Spritz recipe. The green ones were Christmas trees and we used the Velvet Cookies recipe. Oh man, those cookies taste so good! The recipe has peanut butter and a little bit of almond extract. Instead of white sugar, there's confectioner's sugar, which gives it that velvet feeling. Here's the recipe you can try, and maybe the craziness of your holiday season can feel a little better when you get in the kitchen and do some baking. This is a fun one to do with the kids because they love to decorate them with sprinkles.

Velvet Cookies

1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup sifted confectioner's sugar
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
green food coloring
colored sprinkles

1. Cream the shortening, butter, sugar, and peanut butter, until fluffy.
2. Stir in the egg and extracts.
3. Gradually add dry ingredients to the mixture.
4. Add green food coloring, as desired.
5. Fill a cookie press with dough.
6. Form into desired shapes on an ungreased cookie sheet.
7. Decorate with colored sprinkles.
8. Bake at 400 degrees F for 10-12 minutes.
9. Cool on wire racks.
10. Store in tightly sealed containers for 1-2 weeks.

New Painting

2010-12-12T08:13:00.001-08:00

I did some painting recently, and boy was it fun to get back into it. I started three paintings and finished one. I like to paint canvases flat on a table instead of an easel. I get a few going so if I get stuck I can work on another one then go back again. The one I finished was the largest one -- I think it is 24" x 30". I'm entering it in an exhibit that will be at the new City of Wellington Village Hall. They've just built a new municipal complex, and they've asked the members of the Wellington Art Society to fill it with art. We have about 85 members, and we received 105 submissions! I'm the president of the group, so I was really proud of how the members responded. My painting will be considered for final judging. All the paintings will go up December 31 for their grand opening.

This photo is pretty good, although I think the colors are a little altered. I call the painting "And Then --". It tells the story of a woman who is running away. She's running from her past life, but she's running toward her future, which will be filled with art.

I love to add words to art, especially an entire story. I'll post more photos when I finish the other two paintings.

My Favorite Color

2010-12-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

It's probably not a secret, but I love blue and all its shades. Over time, I've gotten away from so many blue accessories in my home. I embrace many more colors now. But if you analyzed my wardrobe, you'd see I have a lot of blue -- royal and turquoise being my most prized. So here's my latest necklace creation using all those wonderful colors. It's my first free-form bead weaving necklace since I learned the technique in Beverly Gilbert's class. You can check out my previous post and the necklace I created here.

I started with one of her bead soups, a mixture of blue, green, and purple beads.

I strung four interconnected rows, then started building the focal piece.

I added a chain at the end to make it easy to fasten. Here's the final necklace.

Hand-painted Artist Trading Cards

2010-11-29T05:15:00.000-08:00

I'm loving using big, 16" x 20" canvas paper for painting. I splash colors, wait a bit to dry, and splash some more. I'm using acrylic paints with my brushes, my hand, fingers. It's a fun way to paint. I've discovered that a sheet of paper that size can then be cut into 30 Artist Trading Cards (2 1/2" x 3 1/2").

After the initial painting, I cut the paper into the cards. Then I add more paint. I use Sharpie paint pens (these are water-based) to write words and add extra lines and dots to the cards. These pens are great for adding a quick border to the card. On the back, I use a rubber stamp for my name, or just sign it with a pen.

I gave out most of these ATCs back in October when I was in Portland at Art & Soul. I have a few extra -- email me if you'd like to trade.

Handmade Zine

2010-11-28T08:07:00.000-08:00

I recently completed my first issue of a zine. A zine is a handmade, self-published magazine. I've been admiring others' zines and really wanted to challenge myself to make my own, and here it is.

My little magazine is 9" x 5 1/2", and is 100% made by me. I call it Paint/Paste, because I focus on my favorite painting and collage techniques. I created the cover using heavy weight paper that I painted with watered-down acrylics. Each cover is painted differently, and I included the paint color names in the inside back cover in case you're curious of what I used.

Inside is 20 pages of mixed media techniques. I have a how-to article on creating your own painted papers that you can use in your art. I even included examples of the papers, and an Artist Trading Card made using the papers.

The theme of this issue is Words, and I give techniques for finding your own words to use in your art, and what to do with them once you've found them.
I talk about how to leave your mark on your art, and which tools are my favorite for making those marks.

I made 20 copies of this zine, 10 of which were included in a swap. I'm selling the other 10 in my Etsy shop. I'll post one copy at a time, and when that one sells, I'll post another one. You can see my Etsy shop here.

Happy Halloween -- and Giveaway Winner

2010-11-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who stopped by my blog to celebrate my 100th post. I pulled a name from the comments, and the winner of my giveaway necklace is ... Kristin! You can check out Kristen's great blog here. For all others who commented, I'll be emailing you something special as well.

I made two groups of artist trading cards (ATCs) with a Halloween theme recently. One is for a trade group at the store Everything Scrapbook and Stamps in Lake Worth and the other was for the Portland Art & Soul Retreat I went to at the beginning of October. ATCs are mini works of art that you make with the sole purpose of trading them with other artists. I enjoy the challenge of making something small and of making art with a theme. And I really like the growing collection I have of others' ATCs.

The first group are the ATCs I made for the swap group in Lake Worth (just down the road from where I live). I used color copies of a vintage postcard. Here's the original postcard.

I love the saying "What the (devil) is the matter with the lampposts?" Now this postcard is from around 1910 and was mailed to my great-uncle in Oregon. I really don't know what that statement means. Is he drunk? Has he tilted all the lampposts? I love that he's smoking a cigarette. At the time, it probably didn't mean that he was decadent or anything, they probably just added that in the picture out of habit. I think that's funny. Anyway, I cut out the devil picture and glued it to some Halloween-themed scrapbook paper. I used an embossing pen to draw vertical lines, then heat-embossed silver powder. I wrote down the side "Beware the devil inside -- he likes to play!" I think they turned out quite nice.

The next group of ATCs were for Portland. For these, I painted on a 16" x 20" piece of canvas paper. After it dried, I was able to cut it into 30 ATCs. I added the words and some embellishment later with Sharpie poster paint pens. I have some extra ATCs, so if you'd like to do a trade with me (for an ATC or any other small art item), please drop me a line.

Golden Raspberry

2010-10-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

I recently made this necklace with Beverly Gilbert's Golden Raspberry bead soup. I added a few glass beads to the mix, and made it a three-strand necklace. When attaching the strands to a 3-strand magnetic clasp, I purposely didn't match up the strands so that it would give a twisted look. When you wear the necklace, it appears like it's one long strand that has been twisted around your neck a couple times. This mix of beads has a lot of shiny gold seed beads, so the necklace is quite stunning and really catches the light. You can now see this necklace for sale at my Etsy Shop.

Home Renovation

2010-10-22T05:30:00.000-07:00

I've been kind of quite about this, I guess because I don't want to jinx it, but our family is in the midst of a house renovation. It took us about 3 years to get a builder for it. I know, crazy in this economy, right? I can't tell you how many builders spend over an hour talking with us, only to never call us back with a quote. We finally got a good one, and it started over the summer. We're adding a couple bedrooms, and deleting one to expand the family room.

Here's a photo when we were dismantling the patio screen in the backyard.

Here's the start of the addition. You've got to have the concrete blocks in hurricane-prone Florida.

Here is it with a roof. Since this photo, the exterior has been painted, and the interior walls are up and painted. We're just waiting now for the electricity to be turned on.

Since we're tearing down a wall inside, I thought my son Michael would enjoy drawing a big picture on it before it goes. He's made hundreds of drawings in his life, mostly of elaborate creatures, gods and goddesses, or animals. Here he is drawing his "Warrior King," floor-to-ceiling.

I'm doing the painting, with my color choices. He wanted to see how I'd interpret it.

And here's the final, complete with its name in some made-up foreign language.

Michael with his masterpiece. Isn't it great? It will be up only a short time, or maybe longer if we get a few more days of no one showing up to work on the addition. I guess that's all part of renovation work. For now, we're loving having this great painting on our wall.

Portland Art and Soul Art Book Class

2010-10-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to take a class with Leighanna Light at the Art and Soul Retreat in Portland, Oregon last week. The class was The Construction of an Art Book. We made it out of long strips of canvas that we folded to make book pages. Leighanna taught us great collage techniques -- painting, distressing, using copper patina on canvas (who knew you could do that?), attaching rivets, gluing and painting great papers. The class was informative, but then we were left to do our own playing. It was a fun group of women, from all over. I was surprised to find that there were a few others from Florida in the class! Here are some of the creations from the ladies in the class:

And this is the book that I made:

Whidbey Island Scenes

2010-10-20T05:16:00.000-07:00

I spent four days on Whidbey Island, Washington, taking a bead class with Beverly Gilbert. For the past two years, Beverly has taught a week of bead classes at her home, and I was so thrilled that I could make it to part of the week. I showed photos of my necklace I created in her class in this post. But I wanted to show you just how beautiful the setting was. To give you a little background, I had never been up this way before. Whidbey Island is one of the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound, near Seattle. You need drive your car onto a ferry just to get there. I was a little nervous about that, I guess because I've seen too many movies where cars drive right off the end of the ferries into the water. I drove on without incident, and was treated to a breathtaking view of the mountains. I don't know if you realize this, but you could live in Portland, Oregon or Seattle for months and not realize you are surrounded by mountains because they have so many cloudy, rainy days. I was lucky enough to have some of the clearest, most beautiful days ever on my trip. Here's a view from the ferry.

Each morning I took a walk on the beach, which is right across a wetlands area from Beverly's home. I took way too many photos of rocks and driftwood, because we just don't have those things on our beaches in Florida. Apparently, the residents tend to claim the driftwood that comes up near their houses. I don't mean they take the driftwood. They leave it on their beach, and expect that anyone walking on the beach won't take it away. They might just leave it there, or they might stack it up into interesting sculptures. But it's theirs, and it needs to stay on the beach in the front of their house. I respected that. Although I will admit I took a few rocks home. Not too many, though. Here's a photo journey of my walks.

Be sure and check out my 100th Post and Giveaway. You may comment until October 30 to be entered in the drawing.

100th Post and Giveaway!

2010-10-19T04:54:00.000-07:00

Whew -- it took me 26 months to get to my 100th post. I'm definitely doing more posts per month now, but I'm still a little erratic. I'll do 4 in one week then skip 3 weeks. Ah well, that's just how it goes. But I'm very excited that I've reached this milestone. I love that I have this venue to showcase my jewelry creations, my experiments with painting, assemblage, artist trading cards, and other art pursuits. To celebrate, and thank all my blog readers, I will be giving away one of my necklaces to a lucky reader. I'll be drawing a name from all the comments to this post, but I have a request. My last couple posts I've been talking about the bead class I took from Beverly Gilbert. I love taking classes and would love to hear about more. So in your comment, tell me about an art class you took that you really liked. Who was the instructor? Where was the class?

As a special bonus, I'll be sending a 10% off coupon that can be used in my Etsy Shop to the first 26 readers who post a comment. Keep your comments coming, and keep them interesting. I love hearing from people all over the world, and I love visiting your blogs in return. Make sure you have a link to your own blog in your comment so I can stop by.

I decided to do a mini-tutorial to show how I made this giveaway necklace. I started out with one of Beverly's bead soups, and a piece of 18 guage sterling silver wire to make a pendant.

I used my round-nosed pliers to make a loop at one end. I always make the loop that will attach the pendant to the necklace first.

I continued using the round-nosed pliers to bend the wire into an attractive shape.

I used my steel block and chasing hammer to hammer the wire pendant flat. I used the large end of the chasing hammer. I didn't hammer the ring at the end of the pendant because that tends to open up the ring.

I turned around the chasing hammer and hammered with the smaller end to make little dimples in the flat wire. I like this look because the dimples catch the light and make it even shinier.

And finally, I strung the beads and attached a lobster clasp.

Here's the final necklace that will be given away to one reader. Get your comments going!

Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll keep this giveaway open until October 30.

Jewelry on Whidbey Island

2010-10-18T06:38:00.001-07:00

In my last post, I told how I was heading to Whidbey Island, Washington to take a bead class with Beverly Gilbert. The class was called "Wander with Color," and she had 11 students. We took it in her wonderful house right across from the beach.
We were set up in her back room, spread over two tables. It was quite comfortable, and cozy so you could easily chat with your neighbors while beading.

This was a 2-day class. The first half-day was spent talking about color theory and how that works with beading. Essentially, you can't think of the color wheel in beading the same way you do with painting where you can just mix two colors to make another. With beading, the colors will be side by side. But can you truly make, for example, blue and orange sit side by side and look good? Beverly taught us how to gradually "wander" from one color to the next. So for that example, you might start with blue, then work with lighter blues, to a lighter yellow, to a darker yellow, to orange. Then you might go with red to get back to the blue again. I chose blue, purple, and copper as my colors. We started by piling the beads on a paper to make our own palette. Here's what I came up with.

We used a free-form bead weaving technique called netting. Here's my creation with just a couple rows of beads strung.

And here are some photos of how my necklace progressed to the finished project.

Be sure and stop by tomorrow when I make my 100th post. I'll be giving away one of my necklaces to one lucky reader to celebrate!

Bead Soup Necklaces

2010-10-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with these fabulous bead soups that have been created by Beverly Gilbert. If you haven't seen what she can do with color, you have to stop by her website. I'm heading out to her vacation home in Whidbey Island, Washington, tomorrow to take some of her colorful bead weaving classes. I can't wait to see what I come up with. I already own a lot of her bead soup mixes, so I looked through my stash to decide which color theme I wanted to go with for my class project. I ended up calling her to see what mixes she had on hand. She said not to worry, she'd have a dozens of new color combinations to show me and I could just decide then. She said I may even change my color ideas a few times before I decide on the final project. I'll post some photos from Whidbey Island as soon as I can get my hands back on a computer. For now, I'll show you some photos of necklaces I've made with her bead soups.

Shimmery Desert Sand

Dark and Tangled Seas

Hike into the Rainforest

Crackling Ice Floe

You can soon see these for sale at my Etsy Shop.

Altered Book -- What's Your Word?

2010-09-12T09:45:00.001-07:00

I'm in the middle of an altered book swap with a group of friends. Each person started with a book, either a regular book or a blank book, and picked a theme. The idea is that over the next 12 months, each of us will get a turn with her book, and will decorate a two-page spread using their interpretation of the theme. I chose a little cookbook, and the theme is "Memorable Meals." I'm hoping each person will tell a story about a memorable meal, whether it was memorable because of the food, the location, or the people you were with.

I recently worked on a friend's book whose theme was "Words." We were to pick a word that has real meaning to us. Well, so far, the artists have picked nice, touchy-feely words like "tranquility." I went in another direction. I chose the word "metal." I like to try many kinds of art and techniques, such as painting, collage, assemblage. Sometimes I need to remind myself to get back to my original love, and that's making jewelry with metal. I love bending and twisting wire. I love hammering, etching, and folding metal sheet. So I chose metal as my word.

I used silver duct tape that I textured with a stylus, then lightly covered with blue and black paint. I also used that tape to cut out the letters for "metal."

As a little gift for the book owner, I made a copper charm with her daughter's name on it.

July Travel Log -- Rabun County, Georgia

2010-09-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Last year we took a driving trip with the goal of staying at The Dillard House. Dillard is a city at the far northeast corner of Georgia, right at the border of North Carolina. We had visited this area almost 20 years ago and eaten at The Dillard House for one of their famous family-style meals. Family-style is where you don't really order anything, they just start putting down platters and platters of food. For dinner, we had fried chicken, ham, potatos, fresh biscuits, green beans, and about a dozen other things. For breakfast, you've got to try the homemade donuts and the peach turnovers. We realized last year that 1) the food was still amazing, but 2) we didn't have to actually stay there to enjoy the great food. The accomodations are a bit pricey. But last year, we really loved the whole Rabun County area, so we visited again.

This time, we stayed down the road in Tiger, pop. 189. We found a great group of cabins, called The Tiger Creek Falls Inn. We stayed in Cabin #8, which was more like a 2 bedroom/2 bath condo. Not rustic at all. You could walk down a path or down stairs to get to the creek. The creek was private and refreshing. We relaxed in the water after a long day hiking. That's our new favorite place, and hopefully we'll make it back there next summer.

We liked the Town of Clayton, with its main street. There's a great independent book store and a folk art gallery that we love. We also went through their small history museum, which is always fun to do when you're visiting a new town.

While in Rabun, we visited the Tallulah Gorge. You can hike down to the bottom of this gorge, by walking through the woods and walking down 560 steps. We did it last year, and the kids decided once wasn't enough, and they wanted to do more. My son discovered that if you get there at 8 in the morning, they give out passes to the first 100 hikers to go all the way to a sliding rock. So -- after you do the 560 steps, and did I mention you cross a suspension bridge, 1000 freet up from the floor of the gorge?, then you can be part of the 100 who get to cross boulders and go over steep terrain for another 3/4 mile to reach a sliding rock. And when I say "cross boulders," I mean you have to jump across some pretty wide stretches. Easy for my monkey children, kind of scarey for me. I soon realized that if my son went first then turned around and held his hand out to me, it was easier. I just needed that hand to jump to, and it gave me more confidence. This photo is at the very beginning, which was some of the widest areas we had to jump across.

Here we are on a rather steep spot. I'm holding on for dear life, and my daughter is climbing way out of range.

We reached the sliding rock, all hot and sweaty. It was such a sense of accomplishment. At this point we're not thinking of the boulders we have to cross again, the 560 steps we have to take UP, and the suspension bridge we have to go across again.

I slid down the rock once, in my clothes, then spent the next 2 hours trying to dry off. My kids did it about 30 times, each time getting braver and crazier. It's a bit scarey how the water pushes you down. But after a few times, my daughter was standing, dancing, and high-fiving people as she went down.

This is the water you get dropped into. Isn't it beautiful? I could have stayed there all day, if we had thought to bring a lunch. We brought lots of water for the hike and a few snacks. Unfortunately, on our hike back up, we lost a water bottle as it rolled down the steep side into a waterfall. We were pretty darn thirsty after we went up the 560 steps. It felt good to say we did it, and we had loads of fun. But I may put this in the category of done it once -- don't need to do it again.

July Travel Log -- New River Gorge, West Virginia

2010-09-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

I've posted southeast vacation photos from Savannah and Asheville stops. From Asheville we drove to the New River Gorge area in West Virginia. The New River Gorge is very deep, and very long. It has a huge bridge that crosses it.

We stayed in a cabin, rather rustic, and we met friends from Ohio who stayed in their RV.

This was the view to the side of our cabin. We hiked the trails for miles through the woods. We couldn't stop the kids from climbing down to the water. The signs read "No Swimming," but they swore they hadn't despite coming back soaked. Slipping off rocks and stepping through the creek doesn't count as swimming. It took a week for my daughter's shoes to get dry, a week until we were at a more civilized hotel that had a washer/dryer.

The creek below the cabin had an old mill. The creek was filled with boulders that the kids loved to climb. The water level was low this time of year, but we saw photos where the water went all the way up to the bridge.

Our big event at the gorge was an all-day white water rafting on the upper New River. We used Class VI River Runners, and didn't regret it one bit. Our party was made up of six adults and four kids. We used "duckies," which are inflatable kayaks. Three of the kids were in double duckies with a parent. We had one guide in a single duckie and another in a big raft that he sat high in and rowed. The big raft is what you traditionally see when 8 people go rafting with a guide. We started around 10:00 and didn't get off the water until 6:00. We went about six miles, going through rapids up to Class III, and stopping a few times to swim. The most unexpected fun was the lunch. We stopped at a rocky beach where we could hike to a waterfall. When we got back, the two guides had put out the best lunch spread I've ever seen. Now, we had played hard and anything probably would have been good. But this truly was good, family picnic food: cold cuts, tuna salad, pasta salad, fruit, and banana pudding. Banana pudding out in the middle of a river! That was heaven.

I took my daughter in the double ducky. Here I am desperately trying to keep her in the raft, and safe. And here she is, having the time of her life, with not a care in the world. She truly is fearless. Click on the photo to see a larger view.

I'll be posting one more leg of our trip -- the Rabun County, Georgia area. Stay tuned!

See the USA

2010-09-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

I recently was challenged to make an ATC with an Americana theme. Everyone in the group did these patriotic, red white and blue cards. I went a little different route, I guess because I had just gotten back from our big road trip through the southeast. I was thinking of Americana as the Great American Roadtrip. What could be more American than that? I scrapped together map pages, old bus tickets and schedules, then stamped "See the USA." The string was added to give it a feeling of the roads on the map.

Another Necklace

2010-08-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

I've been back at my art table, creating a few more necklaces. I made this last week using browns, mauves, and beige. It sounds plain, but it really isn't. The center beads are colored fresh-water pearls. I love how they are unevenly shaped and hang vertically. They're real smooth and feel nice on your neck. I think the colors make me think of Fall weather. Here in Florida, we've been having stormy wet days. It's keeping the temperature in the low 80's, and we may have even broken 78. That's cool for us! I guess Fall is coming.

You can see this necklace for sale in my Etsy shop here.