(And am happy about it!) The folks at Artbeads.com came across my creativity blog and offered me free stuff if I’d blog about their products. So I agreed, why the heck not?! They suggested I choose $35 worth of supplies so I did. (Score!!) They sent them and I opened them and LOVED them! I didn’t get around to doing anything with them for a while but then sat down one day a while back to make some earrings.
I’ve made two pairs of ultra sparkling earrings now and worn them both to compliments, thank you very much! Today they sent me a card with a $20 gift certificate in it as a way of saying thanks for the blogging… which reminded me to uh... blog something. (Check out the blog post I wrote here) Plus, there is a little coupon code worth 10% off your purchase if you should decide to pick up a few beads at Artbeads.com. The code is: “SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0424” and it is good through 12/31/09… so pop on over and pick up a few things for your Christmas projects.
I finished up baking the wedding cake… in a range that now has a (temporary I hope) wooden handle, that’s right ladies and gents, my kitchen range is sporting a 2x4 where the handle should be. One side of the handle came off yesterday as I was putting the first cake in the oven. Later, the other side came off as well, right in my hand. With the new chunk of wood, I can get in stuff in and out of the oven much easier. And that was all that mattered while I was baking the wedding cake. Tomorrow I will ice the wedding cake, Saturday morning I will deliver it and then enjoy my cousin’s big plain Mennonite wedding.
Just about the time I was headed off for a nice leetle nap, I saw that the USPS had delivered my box of broken NASA glass… which sent me downstairs to the kiln. I played with the pretty bits of dichroic glass and put a round in the kiln to fire up. I spent some quality time with the whammer, making broken glass into more broken glass, managed to wham my own finger like the genius I am. Owie! I just finally pulled that batch of glass out of the kiln just now, they were still 102 degrees, but that’s better than 1500 that they were earlier. I think they turned out beautifully in spite of the fact that three of the six have crack marks in the center. I’ll ask a glass friend what that was about but I’m pretty sure it’s because I opened the kiln door to peak at the wrong temp and the glass just couldn’t contain it’s joy at seeing me and it's heart just burst right there in the middle. Or something like that. Temperamental stuff, peaking in the kiln at the wrong time is a bad idea.
I was serious about getting that nap so I tried again. This time the phone rang just after I had
dozed off. The hubby was on his way home
and bringing the father-in-law with him.
He was just passing through but we managed to talk him into staying the
night. I would have cooked but he just
wanted food, a shower and off to bed with him.
He’s driving some kind of big rig through the area. We ordered a pizza and that was that. I like to cook, and I would have loved to
cook for them but they were looking for something a little more instant. To bad, their loss.
I managed to put some glaze on a series of wine
glasses. It seems like wine glasses were
good for me this month in sales. The
second round of glazing will come tomorrow and then I’ll get a feel for whether
or not I like them… so far myeh. That's how they always look after the first round, the second round is what makes them beautiful.
While I was working on the glaze my friend Michelle called. She was here for a few nights last weekend and I made home made hot poppers. She was making them and trying to remember what I'd done. Just cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds and membranes. In a microwave safe mug put half a block of cream cheese in the mic for 30 seconds. Stir in some salt and peppa, onions, paprika, garlic and some swiss or sharp cheddar (in fine chunks) or whatever your favorite cheese is. Stir it all together and put in a pastry bag (or a ziploc bag with the corner clipped if you don't have the other) and pipe it into the pepper halves. Line a pan with foil, put cracker crumbs in the pan so the peppers don't stick, top the poppers with more cracker crumbs and some parsley. I popped them in my toaster over at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, served with cold sweet n sour and duck sauce and YUM! Michelle was trying to remember what I'd done, she'd been watching while I made them when she was here. She'd found a recipe online from Emeril... but she said it was too complicated. Michelle liked my recipe better than Emeril's!! *wistful bits of happy joy and smug self approval*
I just put another round of glass in the kiln and set it off. By morning I hope it is back down to a temperature that I can get in there and see what they look like. I love working with glass, you never know what is going to come out of the kiln, but honestly, waiting to pull them out after they are back down under a hundred degrees is really hard. I am curious and impatient.
It’s time for full tilt production for the holidays. I want to get my work into a few more galleries and see if I can rock this holiday season. I hope so. That would be cool.
Then maybe the first of the year I can work on transforming my kitchen. I’m thinking a new floor – which I think means the old vinyl will have to come up. And since it’s been down there since 1975 I don’t know how hard it will be to get up. And everything needs a coat of paint. The walls, the cabinets… everything. It’s going to be a really big job but it will turn out fine, if I can ever make up my mind on the colors. I fear that I don't really want to live with the gray I've chosen. It would be beautiful in someone else's home, but other people can live with colors I can't handle and the opposite is true. (I remember well my fuchsia bedroom - it rocked - but to be fair it was mostly concrete, steel, glass and hardwood... but still the one fuchsia wall ROCKED!) Hmm...
I still hope that we can get the adoption in by the end of
the year, mainly for tax reasons but honestly, hope is waning for that. And the possible financial repercussions of
that kind of suck. But whatcha gonna
do? There isn’t anything I can do but
wait. Well... I can blubber over it, but I've already done my share of that. Honestly I don't know whatever possessed me to say that I'd pay thousands of dollars and wait hundreds of days for something I'm not sure I can handle when it comes. I'm just sayin.
That's a day in the life of an artist. Never a dull moment.
I pulled up in front of my house to park and *bump…* uh… what was that? Did I hit the truck? So I parked Vincent and got out to see if
there was some damage. Yeah. There was damage. I ran over a turtle with Vincent Van Go. And the shell was broken, the bits had
squirted out and a puddle of blood was forming as the lil bugga looked up at
me.
I felt like a horrible human just
then.
Later when I visited the site he
had tucked in his little head and died.
Sigh.
And now there are
flies.
I have told hubby, he shall visit
with a shovel to remove the remains when he gets a chance. I told the lil bugga that I was very sorry
but it didn’t help. Hubby said some apologies
are like that.
I love turtles.
La Sigh.
Hey everyone, I’m trying to raise some money to get a new floor in my kitchen before the kids come. And since I’ve just started learning how to fuse dichroic glass in my kiln, well… this is your shot at getting a great deal on a new piece of jewelry for yourself or a gift. Check out the options here.
To this guy who waded into the loony bin tea party people with a simple sign and a smile.
See it on flickr
Which NFL team are you rooting for this season? Who do you think will make it to the Super Bowl?
I don't know, and I couldn't care less to be honest. I don't like football, I never have. And I watch it when I am forced to, but generally the ADD kicks in and I start getting really fidgety and acting like I'd rather be elsewhere... mainly because I would really like to be elsewhere. I guess football is that major contest of the warriors that is missing in our culture since we don't feed Christians to lions, or watch the battle raging in the valley below, or have a bull fight in the city square, or a duel, or public hangings... or whatever life and death blood sport that we long for as a only slightly more evolved (appearances can be deceptive) looking people.
Thing is, my facebook updates from people in my neighborhood are all about sports right now, which is growing really old really fast. I went on a delete facebook friends spree lately and deleted the people I kinda semi know but wouldn't speak to if I saw them at Food Lion. That helped.
Ok then, that was random.
I was watching this tonight with hubby in the room, he laughed at me cause I was "mmm humming" my laptop, agreeing with this guy. Some excellent material here! It is 19 minutes, but it went by in a flash for me, he's talking about creativity which is near and dear to my heart as an artist!
I am giving some thought to a kitchen transformation. I painted it, but it never felt right. I didn’t take it far enough, I didn’t touch the cabinets or the floor. And those things need to be transformed!!! So…
Hubby is going to be away for the weekend, I’m considering buying some paint and seeing what I can do about another transformation in the kitchen. It would be more fun if he were here to do the back breaking parts, no doubt. But I’m a big girl, I can do this. Now… do I really WANT to tackle it ALONE? THAT’s the question!!
I have it worked out in my head... I can almost see it... almost taste it... maybe even SMELL it. It's nothing I haven't done before only not quite this boldly... Hmmm... The ideas, there are just SO MANY!
Here are some of my fav inspiration photos: over at my la bloga
How do you think technology will impact your future?
Presented by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow.I think it will annoy me a great deal as each big change comes down the line. But I will eventually learn to use and appreciate the next new thing technology offers up.
