Happy Halloween

This is my brain in the hands of the immigration dept....
Ugh, so much drama!

Isn't this great work? It belongs to turtblu on flickr.

Well today was not nearly as exciting as yesterday... no kids to save or anything.
I was unable to complete my last work for the show, so I'm handing in 3. I just didn't want to put 'anything' on it - so I'll wait till it comes to me and I can do it right, then put in the December art gift show.

If you are in the charm swap and you don't want to see what your charms look like, then DONT CLICK the Etsy link below! I can't stop making these little charms, so I put some for sale on eBay.

Happy Halloween.

The clock is ticking...

I have yet to finish that last piece to be juried for the show. Tomorrow is my last day to decide "what to put in the attic" Everything I try looks crappy. If magic doesn't happen tomorrow, I'll have to pull it off the list. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

In other news - it's been quite a wicked few days, around here. Thursday morning started off with a bang. The lovely department of homeland security decided to 'reclassify' my son to a different status, and so that voided his student visa. This is a nightmare because we had to pull him from school until he has the A-OK to go back. This was the year he decided he was turning his school life around darn it.... and pulled his grades WAY up. I'm trying to appeal, so that this doesn't drag out and cost him graduating with his pals. Man this chaps my hide!!! So I waited all day Friday for them to return my call on Friday, and missed my altered art group - oh and they DIDN'T EVEN CALL!!! I can't take much more of this crap.

I've been playing around with ideas for the charm swaps I'm in. I think I know what I'm doing for Dawn's, and I finally came up with something for Amber's. I haven't taken pics yet, but when I do I will just post a link to them, not the actual pic here, so anyone else in the swap doesn't have to have the surprise spoiled. I just love how they turned out. Hooray for small favors. So I got 18 of them done tonight and ran out of supplies... I'll get more tomorrow and finish them off. If you want info on the charm swaps, check out my site - right on the front page.

Oh! I almost forgot!!! While I was online, reading my favorite blogs, a cute little kid caught my eye, running down the street. He was tiny, like 3 years old tiny.... so I'm waiting for his parents to come by, with the stroller or something, trying to catch up to him, but NO! My street is crazy busy, and everyone speeds on it - so I was freaking out. I flew out of my chair with my eyes on this this little tot and a car rounded the corner - but just as that happened, my son and his friend did too so I was screaming from my balcony as I was running towards them... "scoop up that baby - a car is coming!!!" With one hand he was scooped up and pulled to the sidewalk and the car came to a screeching halt. I flew down the stairs and picked him up. He was crying and had no shoes on, so I took him upstairs, washed his face, and called 911. He stopped crying when he saw my turtle. I asked him if he was ok and he nodded, and he just snuggled up to me while we waited for the police to come. The cop asked him where he lived and of course he didn't know... which frustrated the cop. "He's only about 3" I said "of course he doesn't know where he lives." So we just sat by my front door, watching the street to see if anyone was out looking for him for about 20 minutes. FINALLY a car driving by sees the second cop car out on the road in front of our place and he asked him if he had seen a little boy around. "Like the one up there?" he asks as he's pointing up to us. That was the dad all right. Apparently they didn't realize he was even gone for a while..... and they lived 2 or 3 blocks away, around the corner. He could have been hit by a car on a million occasions, but he was ok. Thank God for that!

I made a new header for the blog.... for November. I'm just itching to put it up! I'll be a good girl and wait....

Coming Together

I'm so pleased, my entries for the art show are coming together. I got the bubbles out of my tree and I'm almost done my 4th and last peice. I changed my last one from a beeswax collage to another mixed media peice. My friend made me a few house canvases, and I used one of those (saving the other 2 for the December art gift show).
So the house.... it's cute and my favorite part is the roof. I cut shingles out of copper mesh, folded the edges in so they are neat and hammered each one on. Then I heated them up with my heat gun, to 'heat patina' them. {pictures coming soon}
It may not be sophisticated art, but it's mine - and they will either accept me or not and if they don't I'm fine with that. Surprisingly good outlook on my part ;) maybe because I sold a painting yesterday! I got a commision to make one like the one I made for my altered art group pal. It came together nicely and is sold and on it's way to it's new home.

Bubble Bubble Toil Trouble

Oh drat, my big tree is getting a little bubbly as it's drying. I may need to add another layer if I can't get it to settle down.

Did you watch Grey's Anatomy tonight? I love that show, but I wish Meridith would just hook up with McDreamy and be done with it. I can't handle another season of 'will they'. The divorced couple was pretty funny too - getting 'lodged' together like that.

My neighbors are driving me crazy. I swear they got booted from hell for being too awful and came here to live. I wish I could move out of Florence right now.... it was such a mistake to move here. It's just been such a struggle to barely stay afloat - totally not worth it. Just 2 more years and I'm free.

.... back to the de-bubble mission. This painting has got to make them stop and think 'hey, that might be fun in the show'.

whole lotta sky

I'm working on my biggest peice of art, ever (besides the windows I used to paint). I'm creating my 3rd work in my 'twilight' series, and it's a whopping 24 x 36 inches, which is huge for me. Pat found a clever way for my little easel to hold my canvas, which has helped alot. Here's a few shots to see it coming along in stages... (still need to add the tree trunks & stars) Oh the quality of the shot sucks, but I didn't want to take the time to fuss with it - I'll save the work till the final pic.

While up in Newport at the craft store I found some teeny tiny glass animals. I picked up a green tucan for my Mom and I got this little blue bird for myself. It's only 3/4 of an inch from tip of the beak to the end of the tail. I have this cute little thing on my monitor where the light from the window can shine through it.

High to Low in less than 12 hours

Last night was of my top 3 nights since living in this cruddy town. It wasn't that I did anything special - it was pretty much the people I was with.
Why are 'last days' always the best days?
Back in L.A., before I moved here, I had a friend that I admired from afar, for pretty much 2 years. We'll call him Mr.Phoenix #1. Well about 6 months before I moved we got close, had tons of fun and spent the next few months wishing we had hooked up from the start. (not that kind of hooking up) So the day before I moved here, Mr.Phoenix #1 moved back to Phoenix, where he was from.
Ditto last night.... had the best time with Mr.Phoenix #2 (who I should have not been so shy with, for so long, like #1) .... and by 9:30am this morning he was on the road, back to freak'n Phoenix. Damn it. So all afternoon I have felt like someone just stole my box of kittens.

The best head ache I've ever had

Today, like many days, I woke up with a head ache. I think it's the switch from sunny weather to rain. Sometimes barometric changes throw me off. Instead of letting it consume my day, Tyler & I went to the thrift store to see what looked interesting. I scored a terribly tacky wall pocket. It's painted black and gold and is deliciously hideous - I can hardly wait to transform it. When I do I'll post the pics here.
After that I went to Sandy's with my crazy big canvas that I bought yesterday up in Newport. I like to paint on small canvases... like 8x8 or 12x12, but I'm making all new art for my entries into the jurried show. The size limitation is 40 inches in any direction, so my new canvas fits right in there at 24x36 inches. I'm doing another in my 'twilight' series... and I'm making sure it gets noticed :) So today I packed up my paints & super size canvas and headed to Sandy's house. It was a great afternoon of painting, talking, and just hanging out. It's usually all work with us these days, so spending my day off there was a treat, especially since I had a headache... it was nice to hang out with friends.
When I came home I was followed by 4 fire trucks, 2 Florence police and a state police car, heading past our place, down the road to another apartment building. We couldn't see any flames but there was lots of smoke and the smell of melting plastic and such drifted down the street. It was raining out and cold rain felt so good on my aching head. Tyler and I stayed outside in the pouring rain for a half an hour just letting the drops soak us. It was a great end to the day.
Well it was supposed to be the end of the day....
It's approx. 2:55 am and I'm wide awake. I just finished another entry for the show. It's called Nesting. It's along the same premise of Grow, but a different look.

Grow

Well here's to hoping I can grow.... as an artist and as a person, since I'm probably not going to get any taller. (I belong to the 5 foot and under group)

So, this is my latest....
I layered acrylic paint, papers, and texture medium on an 8x8 canvas. Then embellished with vintage clip art I got from flickr's Collage Images group, and added wings made from vintage french text. I fashioned a nest from moss and a wood egg that I painted. "Grow" is made from a distressed 'deluxe' scrabble tile, cut paper, a watch face and a regular scrabble tile. The black dots in the upper L corner are old snaps and buttons are vintage from a collection my mom sent me.

This is one of the pieces I will be entering into a jurried show tomorrow. I really hope I will get in because I one of my beeswax collages is in a commercial for the show - and wouldn't it suck if I didn't get my art IN the show?!! The chances are probably slim to none, as over 300 enter and they only take 100. I don't do the usual 'look' you see around here.... everyone does coasty stuff. Oh well, I can't get it if I don't try, right? I won't find out till Nov. 1st, cross your fingers for me.

Say hello to my little shelves

On a brisk stroll through a discount shop I spotted little shelves as I was walking out the door. They were just plain white with little scroll supports, so I picked up 3 to play with. I've made-over 2 so far...
An 'old' Asian one.... using vintage text pages that were torn and decoupaged on. Then one of my own bird graphics that I made in photoshop added on top, then I mixed my 'green tea' colored paint with Golden's glazing liquid and painted over the entire thing. Some black paint aged it for me... now I just need to seal it.
And these are pics are the bright bird one, with fun striped edges.

Love a good quiz

I'm a

Caffe Vanilla Frappuccino

Smooth and sweet, you fit in to almost any crowd. No one would suspect you of being a coffee tweaker!

What Flavor Frappuccino Are You?

Take the other quizes at the bottom of my blog and share your results here :)

SMILE.... even if it hurts

Oh man, my day really sucked - so I have spent the evening online, being inspired by other artists... browsing my fav flickr pics and reading my huge list of favorite blogs. I was at the blog Available Space and spotted this gem......

This did the trick :)

free hugs

Someone sent this to me .... it's a great watch, so I'm sending out to you, my friends.
Free Hug video

Well.... I AM a Gemeni

I can't help but change my look on a whim! I've decided that I might as well change it every month - to suit the seasons, holidays, and my need to try things new :)

Welcome to my October look.

I'm using elements from the "Midnight Jack" kit in my header. It's a digital scrapbooking kit by Jen Wilson. Her site it great - check it out.

I'm digg'n the new 'beta' blogger.... I love being able to add labels. Then you can click on my labels and see all the posts that go with it. The obsessive part of me want to go back through all my old posts and add labels to them. There are about 135 or so.... I really should just start fresh from here, and label from now on, and not go back BUT it will drive me crazy, so over the next few weeks, I'm going to add labels to each post. Jeepers - if I could stop myself I would. At least I don't wash my hands 500 times a day, lol.

I'm also digg'n my new bracelet. My friend Sandy is the designer... and she let me pick one out for my birthday (back in June), but I didn't actually pick it out till today.

Oh, and last but not least, I'm totally jazzed about Tyler's grades. He's not one to put effort into 'boring school' and his grades have reflected that since middle school, until now (his junior year in high school). He's got a B in math class - hooray! Go Tyler!!!

The only thing that's bumming me out is that I have been too busy to work on my creative prompt journal. This am I was unpacking the new 7 Gypsies stamps, then I went to work at Sandy's, then I messed around with this blog all evening. Thankfully I didn't sign up on Rhonna's site... I just decided to do it on my own time. Whew!!!

More changes..... and more to come

Blogger updated so now I can include tags with posts and other easier editing things, BUT I had to change to one of their boring layouts to make the change. I can add my own stuff, like a nifty header now that I've made the switch.... so I think I'll work on my own image this week and hopefully have it uploaded by the weekend.

Creative Prompt Journal * Day 5

Umm, well.... I didn't do this one. I honestly couldn't come up with a thing.
Now I'm super behind, but I'm not giving up..... I'm moving on to day 6.

In other news, I'm getting pumped up about the weather turning to fall. It's getting darker earlier, chillier and just cozier in general. I'm sure I won't feel this way weeks from now, but right now I like the change.

The fall also means my shop (Collective-Artwerx) is getting busier and I like that a lot! I've been ordering some new stuff that should be coming within the next few weeks and FINALLY the 7 Gypsies stuff is starting to arrive! That's right folks, those snazzy stamps are on the UPS truck as we speak. Next week I'll be busy packing them up and shipping them to my awesome loyal customers.

I'm thinking about teaching some classes this winter - I just need to find a good location. I'll keep thinking on that.