That Jolie Girl

Vacation

Well, I'm off for a week to Florence, Oregon.  The dunes at Florence are world famous.  As you can see from this satelite pictue, they are huge.  My husband says that there are 40 miles of sand dunes.  I don't know how true this is.  My husband, his family, my niece, and myself will have a week filled of four wheeling, sand boarding, beach walking, and s'more making.  We will be camping directly on the beach.  I can't wait.  I'm well over due for some time off.  I'm sure I will have a ton a pictues.  See you next week!

I am My Own Superhero

My first dabble into the world of crafty sites was with Andrea's Superhero Designs.  Besides making great jewelry like the bracelet above, she has a great community page and resource section with a good article about starting your own business.  She has also started a great photo booth gallery that makes me think of the movie Amelie every time I see it.  Mainly I like going to Andrea's site to gain inspiration and motivation.  Her motto is "you are are your own superhero".  It doesn't get much better than that. 

Another Super site is Supercrafty which is compiled of a bunch of crafty gals from Portland.  They have a whole section of their site dedicated to starting ones own business.  If you haven't checked it out, you definitely should.  It's so wonderful to see people reaching out to help others.  I'm still trying to start up a business.  I've set up my paypal account.  I've got great ideas.  Now I just need to jump that last hurdle of putting products (and myself) out there. 

Photo Friday - Attractive

I had to think about this week's topic for some time.  I didn't want to use the traditional attractive as in Johnny Depp is very attractive.  I wanted something that was attracted to something else.  Well, these bees are always right outside my front door.  They love my lavender.  I have lavender planted on both sides of my walk way.  I love the smell as I'm walking to my front door.  At first I was really annoyed by the bees.  Who needs them anyway, they are just a pest, right?  Now I look forward to seeing my bees.  I've grown quite fond of them.  I think when the lavender is all gone, I will miss them. 

Taking these pictures required a lot of patience.  I used my macro lens, so I had to get up close and personal with my little friends.  A lot of the focusing was just eyeballing and guessing.  I can't believe the shots I got.  Of course for every good one, there were plenty of bad.  I've decided to post more than just one because I really like these shots.  The top photo is my true photo submission.

Run Hit Wonder

Well, I did it.  I ran/walked the Run Hit Wonder yesterday.  It actually went much better than I was expecting.  The weather was great, sunny and not too hot.  My sister-in-law and three kids came down to cheer me and my husband on.  I managed to make 17 minute miles.  While it's definitely not ideal, I didn't come in last which was my greatest fear.

Having the bands on the route was a lot of fun.  The Donnas were great! The bands did create quite a bottleneck because people would stop running just to hang out and watch.  That was great for me because it let me pass people.  I was too slow to see Chingy.  He had finished playing before I got to his 3 mile marker.

The after concert with Joan Jett was a lot of fun.  I've  loved her ever since the movie 'Light of Day'.  My 2 year old niece had the best time.  She rocked out to each song.  She is definitely the punk rocker of the family.  All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better first race to be in.  I even got a metal for finishing.  Looks like we will do it again next year.

Art Gone Wrong

My cousin and I have a pact about the things we make each other.  If for any reason one does not want to keep the art that the other made; the first person has a duty to return the art to the creator.  This rule has only been acted upon once.  I made the picture above many years ago.  It's a self portrait of me and my cat.  I used a lock of my hair and some of my cat's hair that he shed to add to my art work.  Well, apparently this freaked my cousin out.  I think 'Eww!' was his exact word.  Granted it's not my best work, but I don't think it's that freaky.  So he gave this back to me a little while ago.  It makes me laugh every time I see it.  I'm going to hang it up in my art room. 

Dust in the Wind

I finally finished these two paintings that I have been working on for months.  I'm very happy with them.  I have hung them over my couch where the previous paintings I blogged used to live.  Now that these are done, I'm already thinking about my next painting.  I think I am going to go much smaller.  Painting is very relaxing.  It's the same feeling I would get when I took pottery classes.  Paint is a lot cheaper than ceramic classes.

My sister came over and noticed them right away.  She said that she would like some exactly the same, but with more yellow.  I couldn't ask for a better compliment.

The Old Becomes New

My grandmother was known for wearing big gaudy pieces of turquoise jewelry.  She had a ton of the stuff.  After my grandmother passed away, my sister asked my mom for a piece of her jewelry.  My mom presented us with two huge necklaces.  This one above is only a fraction of the necklace.  It's five strands across and easily 26 inches long.  It was massive and also falling apart.  So with my sister's blessing, I decided to take apart the jewelry and re-string it into something that is actually wearable.

I made this piece for my 11 year old niece.  It's 15 inches long and everything, excluding the clasp, is from the necklace above.  My niece loved it.  I'm going to also make her a necklace of just the brown beads. 

I made this necklace for my sister.  Again it's all from that first necklace and it's 16 inches long.  I made the necklaces this weekend and didn't have time to make my own.  I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks I will have the time.  With the amount of beads from the two necklaces, I should be able to make at least 5-6 necklaces.

Making these pieces has been really special.  I just finished a book called Four Souls by my favorite writer Louise Erdrich.  In this book, Margaret has a vision to make a medicine dress.  She talks about spending time with the dress and while creating it she can reflect on where all the different parts came from and their history.   I feel the same way with spending time with my grandmother's jewelry.  I'm creating something new while taking the time to appreciate the  memories that are associated with these old turquoise beads.

Photo Friday - Silky

This is my submission for Photo Friday.  I found this topic to be tricky.  First I went for the obvious by taking pictures of the many dandelions in my yard.  I didn't like how those came out, so I finally settled on this.  It's fringe from a silk scarf that lives on top of my piano.  I love the colors in this photo. 

All Before Noon

I've already had a busy day and it's not even noon yet.  First my husband and I jogged three miles.  We signed up for the Run Hit Wonder 5k because we wanted to see how much torture we could sustain.  This is the first time I have jogged (and I'm using that term loosely) 3 miles in my life.  I did better than I was expecting, because I'm still alive.  The race is in one week and at least now I know I won't have be life flighted out at the end. 

We came home and showered.  My husband went to a geek fair (no joke) that Free Geek is putting on.  I walked up to my neighborhood coffee shop (True Brew, they are the greatest!) in an attempt to cool down after my jog.  I stopped at a garage sale and bought these beads.  At first the lady wanted 5 bucks for just the darker strand of beads.  I talked her giving me all of these beads for 5 bucks.  I will be able to get at least two, maybe three necklaces out of this lot.  They are pretty old, so I think it was great deal. 

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When I got home, this was waiting for me in the mail.  Maitreya over at craftlog gave away these patches as an appreciation gift for people checking out her blog.  Thank you so much!  I love it and the stationary is adorable.  This is turning out to be a very good day!

Newport, OR

Here are the highlights of the photos I took while at my mom's house over the 4th of July.  This is the Yaquina Head lighthouse.  We got to climb to the top of the lighthouse and learn all of it's history.

We went to a clam bake at Nye Beach.  The weather was great and the food was so good!

This is Agate Beach and there were a million sea gulls everywhere.  They were so tame that you could walk right up to them.

Using my macro lens at the tide pools at Agate Beach. 

Happy Day Birthday

My friend Diana has a thing for pearl snaps.  She loves to wear shirts with them.  So I thought for her birthday, I would take that love one step further.  I decided to make her a pearl snap bracelet.  I didn't realize in my fit of genius how crazy this project was going to be.

First let me say that attaching pearl snaps is crazy hard.  There is little to no information on the web about how to do it.  I asked the lady at my local craft store and she didn't have much insight.  She did suggest that I invest in a pearl snap attachment kit that was about 3 bucks.  All it turned out to be was a bit of black plastic and a one inch piece of metal.  End the end, the attachment kit turned out to be my best friend.

The bracelet in my head was ribbon with snaps all around it.  Well, ribbon and pearl snaps just don't mix.  I made a couple of prototypes to no avail.  My next idea was to get an old shirt with pearl snaps at Goodwill and assemble the bracelet by cutting out the snaps and sewing them together.  I did manage to get a shirt at a garage sale for one dollar.  But alas, that plan also failed.  I finally decided to use the neck line of a shirt (it had some sort of elastic in it, so it was a bit stretchy) that I had put in my material pile to use for crafts.  I dove in and just started attaching pearl snaps to it with a vengeance.  After about 4, I found my rhythm and it got to be a bit easier.

I gave the bracelet to Diana yesterday.  I was exactly one week late in getting it to her.  I'm actually surprised that it got finished at all.  I was ready to throw in the towel and be done with it.  She liked the bracelet a lot.  She called it 'dorky punk rock'.  That's pretty much how I would describe Diana, so I think it's a perfect fit.  She also liked the DVD of Tupac called 'Thug Angel' I got for her.  She can't have great taste all of the time.

Fused Glass - Update

I finally found a glue that works on metal and glass.  I went to my local craft supply store and bought two different types of glue.  Both types failed miserably. 

Finally after looking on the Internet, I bought this glue.  Don't read the back too carefully, because it's really scary how harmful this stuff can be.  The glue worked great!  I was able to glue the backs on the pendants, add a bail, put it on a cord, and it's actually jewelry now.  I even gave one necklace to my mom.  Here's a close up of one pendant.

Photo Friday - Candid

Candid was a hard theme.  My husband has challenged me not to use anything thing that I've taken in the past for Photo Friday.  This will force me to really get out there and work on taking pictures.  Candid, at least to me, needs to involve life because how can a still life be candid.  So I set about trying to take pictures of my cats.  Atty started attacking the camera handle (that's the grey cord in the picture) and I got this photo.  I guess that's about as candid as you can get.

Wire Necklace

This is a necklace that I made out of steel wire.  This piece is basically a sampler of different types of wire beads.  Steel is so much cheaper than silver, so it's a good material for trying out new things.  I used so much wire in this piece, I think it would be too expensive for me to reproduce in silver.

I never fail to get compliments on this piece.  It's pretty big and showy.  I always wear it with my hair up, because with all of the twists, it's easy to get my hair tangled up in it.  That only takes once or twice to figure out.

Photo Friday - Used

So, I have to know my limitations.  I just don't have it in me to do Illustration Friday.  It's too hard for me to do on a regular basis.   I've decided to take my husband's advice and try Photo Friday instead.  I'm much more comfortable with my camera.  I hate it when he's right!

So this week the challenge is 'Used'.  I like the idea of the barnacles being used and then the creatures move on.  I also like that there can be beauty in used things.  I think I've found my niche.

i-pod Sock

My husband sent me this link to make an i-pod sock.  Apparently they are all the rage, although I had not heard of them before.  I made this for him this weekend while we were at the beach visiting my mom.  It's always nice to have something to do with my hands while chatting. 

I liked how this turned out.  The pattern was easy to follow.  I added the stripes for flare.  Since I just got my very own i-pod.  I will be knitting myself a sock soon.