Sod's Law

This last week has been a living testament to Sod's Law--which states that not only will everything go wrong, but it will do so at the WORST possible time.
Here's what happened:
Our neighbors on the other side of the double accidentially severed their power line on tuesday. I got a call saying that inorder for the electrician to make the repairs the power had to be shut off on both sides--but only for an hour on wednesday morning. Ok, I said, no problem. I re-arranged my scheduale so that I'd be out of the house. Power went off. The electrician came.
And then the storms hit. (The wind was so ferocious that it caught my car door while I was getting in, ripped it from my hand and smashed it back into my head giving me a lovely black eye.)
And power went down all over the city.
We found ourselves at the bottom of the power company's to-do list.
Thursday, no power.
Friday, no power.
Then, we hear from our neighbors that the power is back on. Hooray! We come home, and low and behold, the power company had turned on the other side but not ours. So, we called and begged and argued and finally they came out and got it back on.
Ugh!
Needless to say, I am in a foul, foul mood.
Luckily, I managed to get this birthday present done for my friend Sarah. Here is her card:

And here is the ring I made for her. The doll is actually made out of UTEE. I made a cast from the original and then cast it using white utee. I used easy cast resin to fill it. The red background is sequin waste.
Here's hoping this next week is better than the last!

workshop day

This last Saturday we had a workshop day for the IAA and I taught a beeswax collage technique. Here is a photo of the sample:

And her is a photo of Ariane working on hers:
And here is Diana, hanging out. Take a gander at that lovely bag of Copic markers. I have serious marker envy just looking at it.





Shaun, who kindly hosted, has the sweetest pets. Here's a photo of her darling dog, who wanted to make art so badly, she had her nose pressed against the glass whining.

Here is another photo of the dog--can you see me taking the photo?
And lastly, here's Kristin holding the adorable kitty-cat.

A moment of perfect stillness

It's snowing here, again--admittedly not my favorite thing. Snow is ok the first time it falls and only if you don't have anywhere to go. But after the fourth or fifth time you find yourself thinking "son-of-a-#!*^&, now I have to go out and shovel again!"
But today I was looking out my window and I had what my yoga instructor calls a moment of perfect stillness. Everything inside of me just stopped--all that noise that is normally filling my head went quiet. It was such a wonderful moment, I had to take a picture.
This is the view out my window. I altered it in photoshop to turn it into a TTV.
Hopefully, I will have some art to post in the next couple of days. I'm working on a couple of projects for submissions, so they can't be posted. But hopefully I'll have other stuff done.

Oh Darling!

I am just in love with Kris's new line of "Hello Dollies" that are Valentine themed! I am normally not a Valentines day sort of gal--as anyone who knows me well will attest, I am more likely to snort, roll my eyes and make gagging noises at overly romantic stuff. I think it has something to do with the fact that my idea of romantic doesn't always jive with the more traditional cupids and bows sentiment. For me, having my hubby hold my hair while I'm deathly ill from the flu and dry heaving, is the hight of romance--not exactly the sort of thing Hallmark makes a card for.
But I digress.
Back to the Dollies--they are so cute, they move even me to creating something sweet and love-dovey.
Here is a collage I made using a couple of images from her sheet. The main girl and the flowers. Take a look:



I think my favorite part of this piece is the wings--they were cut out of netting and then I dipped them in beeswax and then dusted them with perfect pearls. It was one of those serendipity moments, I was working with beeswax for the background and looking at the netting thinking to myself "Gee, I wish I could figure out a way to make these stiffer..." and then I saw the beeswax and thought "what the hey." It turned out really well. Here is a close-up.


Hope everyone had a good weekend and I'll see you soon!