Major stuff got taken care of today. My mom and her hubby Jon came over and helped me fix some stuff around here. He replaced an electrical outlet that wasn't working properly and patched a pipe so that I can use my outdoor faucet again. She hauled a bunch of boxes of toys out of the basement and out to the shed to get ready for a garage sale and held the baby so I could clean the cat box. I'm very appreciative and slowly warming up to her new husband. As it turns out he seems to be a decent sort of fellow with only good intentions. I'm glad for that.
Our dogs are recovering from being spayed and neutered on Sunday. No corgi puppies for us. It seemed like a good idea at one point but we came to the conclusion awhile ago that it would just be way more effort than we are willing to invest to take care of a litter and make sure they all made it to good homes.
I also got my shop up and running finally. You can see a link over to the left there for it. I haven't been doing anything for the shop lately but I hope to get back to it soon. Right now I just have some small pieces that I finished weeks ago.
I'm trying to get the yard all cleaned up and ready for planting. I got my compost pile all sorted out today. The old compost that is ready for using in beds is now piled up and the bin is empty and ready to take all the food scraps that have built up over the winter. I just stick my kitchen scraps in plastic shopping bags and put them in a trash can next to my back door and then empty them into the pile when spring comes. It's kinda messy but not too heinous as long as I wear gloves. It doesn't smell nearly as bad as one might imagine and occasionally, oddly enough, a very sweet earthy smell emerges from a bag that had just the right combination of veggie scraps. It's quite satisfying to see just how large the quantity of food scraps that we've avoided adding to the landfill over the course of a winter. And it was extremely satisfying to see the rich black humus that came out of my old heap. I'm eager to get it into some beds for planting.
Yay for summer!
oh and one last thing. My brother T called to let me know that he finally got all of my dad's old 8mm home movies converted to dvd. It turned out to be three hours of tape! Ohmygosh I am soo excited to see these.. he said not only is there stuff from when we were really young children but there is also stuff from when our parents went to Rome for their honeymoon and even stuff from my dad's childhood.. oh I can't wait to get the dvds in the mail!
Showing posts with label art etsy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art etsy. Show all posts
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
look ma! I can spin!
Lately I've been feeling the itch to change my appearance. I feel as though I've allowed myself to slip into a more "normal" or mainstream appearance and I don't really feel like it's true to who I actually am. I feel as though I'm not standing in solidarity with all the other freaks and geeks out there in the world by masquerading as just your average mom with small children when the truth is I am actually quite different than most people in my ideas and ideals and general outlook on life and society. I've been toying with the idea of a nose ring but I have concerns about it getting yanked on by my small children. I'd like to get a tattoo or two but they are expensive and I have concerns about injecting strange substances into my skin. I doubt they have organic tattoo ink.. I'm not sure it's a good idea even if they did, from a health perspective. I know that it may seem silly to be concerned about tattoo ink but then to go ahead and slather a bunch of bleach on my hair but I figured it's been 8+ years since I dyed my hair last and that it was probably the easiest way to alter my appearance drastically without costing an arm and a leg and not being too permanent.
Well, it was my paranoia about my hair becoming brittle and strawlike that threw a wrench in my plans for purple hair. I left the bleach on my hair for 45 minutes and I could see that parts of
it looked pretty light. I thought it was light enough to show of the purple in a few key spots and so I prematurely rinsed. I should have left it in for another 15 - 30 minutes. As it was, when I put the manic panic in it only gave me some very subtle purple highlights. Not at all the dramatic change I was hoping for.
Ah well.. Maybe I'll try again in a month or so.
I got closer to setting up my online shop a few days ago. I now have a new checking account that is exclusively for my store paypal account. This is to avoid any possibility of a paypal glitch wiping out rent money. Now I'm just waiting for the debit card to arrive in the mail and I'll be ready to start listing stuff. Woohoo! I've got a variety of fiber art, wood burnings and paintings ready and I'm thinking about maybe figuring out how to do prints so I can sell some photography, digital art or prints of original paintings or burnings.
Another thing I've been doing lately is learning to spin. I made my own drop spindle and spun up my first ya
rn. It was and is still very challenging but it's quite fun learning and playing with the oh so soft merino wool. I'm still pretty darn slow but I think my first attempt came out rather nice. I'm now working on some beautiful blue and brown roving that I bought from Allspunup.etsy.com and it's just wonderful to handle and gaze upon. I was a big fan of fondling yarn before this but making it myself just brings it to a whole new level of enjoyment. I'm now fantasizing about a spinning wheel. Something to work for I suppose. They are pricey and it will motivate me to get busy creating things to sell in my shop.
Here's a small portion of the roving after I fluffed it all up in preparation for spinning.
Playing with this wool has been my beacon of light the past day or so amidst all the barfing. Quinnster and Zayzae have been fighting off a nasty stomach bug they caught from our neighbors. No fun at all when they only thing that stays down is water and maybe some toast or crackers. It's especially difficult for Zay because nursing is such a source of comfort for her and she's not able to keep the mama's milk down. She's doing surprisingly well understanding that right now having nummies= throwing up and therefore she's not begging for it and has been drinking water instead.
So it's late and I really should be going to bed.
One last thing... my brother transferred some really old home movies to digital and uploaded them to YouTube. I'm the one with the thick bangs and pony tail. Interestingly Quinn runs just like me it would seem.
Well, it was my paranoia about my hair becoming brittle and strawlike that threw a wrench in my plans for purple hair. I left the bleach on my hair for 45 minutes and I could see that parts of
it looked pretty light. I thought it was light enough to show of the purple in a few key spots and so I prematurely rinsed. I should have left it in for another 15 - 30 minutes. As it was, when I put the manic panic in it only gave me some very subtle purple highlights. Not at all the dramatic change I was hoping for.Ah well.. Maybe I'll try again in a month or so.
I got closer to setting up my online shop a few days ago. I now have a new checking account that is exclusively for my store paypal account. This is to avoid any possibility of a paypal glitch wiping out rent money. Now I'm just waiting for the debit card to arrive in the mail and I'll be ready to start listing stuff. Woohoo! I've got a variety of fiber art, wood burnings and paintings ready and I'm thinking about maybe figuring out how to do prints so I can sell some photography, digital art or prints of original paintings or burnings.
Another thing I've been doing lately is learning to spin. I made my own drop spindle and spun up my first ya
rn. It was and is still very challenging but it's quite fun learning and playing with the oh so soft merino wool. I'm still pretty darn slow but I think my first attempt came out rather nice. I'm now working on some beautiful blue and brown roving that I bought from Allspunup.etsy.com and it's just wonderful to handle and gaze upon. I was a big fan of fondling yarn before this but making it myself just brings it to a whole new level of enjoyment. I'm now fantasizing about a spinning wheel. Something to work for I suppose. They are pricey and it will motivate me to get busy creating things to sell in my shop.
Here's a small portion of the roving after I fluffed it all up in preparation for spinning.
Playing with this wool has been my beacon of light the past day or so amidst all the barfing. Quinnster and Zayzae have been fighting off a nasty stomach bug they caught from our neighbors. No fun at all when they only thing that stays down is water and maybe some toast or crackers. It's especially difficult for Zay because nursing is such a source of comfort for her and she's not able to keep the mama's milk down. She's doing surprisingly well understanding that right now having nummies= throwing up and therefore she's not begging for it and has been drinking water instead.
So it's late and I really should be going to bed.
One last thing... my brother transferred some really old home movies to digital and uploaded them to YouTube. I'm the one with the thick bangs and pony tail. Interestingly Quinn runs just like me it would seem.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
The Patchwork Tree
Knitting has been taking a back seat to my newest interest- embroidery. My first project was a blended piece. 
The trunk of the tree was knitted in some novelty yarn and then couched onto the fabric background. It was pretty much freeform. I didn't draw anything out beforehand and just dove in and started stitching. I learned a lot and went through stages of not liking results and then just continuing to work the piece until I liked it more. Ultimately, I'm happy with my results from my first foray into embroidery. Well.. not technically my first since I did a couple things in high school but this was the first time that I actually picked up a book to learn a specific way to stitch.
I'm on the home stretch of my second project. I think I'm done with the main image and now I just need to put a fabric back on it and finish the edges nicely. I'm still trying to decide what color to use for the border. I'm thinking I'll keep it minimalistic and just use some black fabric for a border with stitching done around in the same color as the branches.
The trunk of the tree was knitted in some novelty yarn and then couched onto the fabric background. It was pretty much freeform. I didn't draw anything out beforehand and just dove in and started stitching. I learned a lot and went through stages of not liking results and then just continuing to work the piece until I liked it more. Ultimately, I'm happy with my results from my first foray into embroidery. Well.. not technically my first since I did a couple things in high school but this was the first time that I actually picked up a book to learn a specific way to stitch.I'm on the home stretch of my second project. I think I'm done with the main image and now I just need to put a fabric back on it and finish the edges nicely. I'm still trying to decide what color to use for the border. I'm thinking I'll keep it minimalistic and just use some black fabric for a border with stitching done around in the same color as the branches.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
artistic inspiration
Recently I've been spending alot of time browsing the handmade goods on Etsy.
I find it to be a wealth of inspiration. So much so that I've gotten back to some other art forms that had been shoved to the wayside by my newfound love of knitting. A few years ago I discovered woodburning- or pyrography if you want to be really geeky about it- and just loved it. There's something so haunting about the finished product that I just love. Perfect examples can be seen in my favorites list which is linked in the sidebar as Beautiful Things. There are a couple of tagua nut pendants that are done with a combination of burning and oil painting that I just adore and have inspired me to try my hand at something similar. I bought some tagua nut slices and took my cheapo wood burning tool to a couple. My results have been less than what I hoped for and I think part of the issue is that my tool is just inadequate. It's the $10 dollar variety from a craft store. I'm going to keep at it though and see where it goes. I went and got a piece of basswood to practice on and found that it's much easier to get nice results from that than the tagua.
I've discovered through Esty that something called Art Cards Editions Originals (ACEOs) are very popular. Basically any kind of art in a 2.5 x 3.5 inch trading card format are really popular collectors items right now. I've been looking for a way to make money from home and I'm going to try to plug into that market and see how it goes. I've almost finished my first piece which is a combination of knitting and embroidery. It's cute. Not exactly how I pictured it in my mind but it's been a learning experience. I'm having a lot of fun brainstorming and being inspired.
I find it to be a wealth of inspiration. So much so that I've gotten back to some other art forms that had been shoved to the wayside by my newfound love of knitting. A few years ago I discovered woodburning- or pyrography if you want to be really geeky about it- and just loved it. There's something so haunting about the finished product that I just love. Perfect examples can be seen in my favorites list which is linked in the sidebar as Beautiful Things. There are a couple of tagua nut pendants that are done with a combination of burning and oil painting that I just adore and have inspired me to try my hand at something similar. I bought some tagua nut slices and took my cheapo wood burning tool to a couple. My results have been less than what I hoped for and I think part of the issue is that my tool is just inadequate. It's the $10 dollar variety from a craft store. I'm going to keep at it though and see where it goes. I went and got a piece of basswood to practice on and found that it's much easier to get nice results from that than the tagua.
I've discovered through Esty that something called Art Cards Editions Originals (ACEOs) are very popular. Basically any kind of art in a 2.5 x 3.5 inch trading card format are really popular collectors items right now. I've been looking for a way to make money from home and I'm going to try to plug into that market and see how it goes. I've almost finished my first piece which is a combination of knitting and embroidery. It's cute. Not exactly how I pictured it in my mind but it's been a learning experience. I'm having a lot of fun brainstorming and being inspired.
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