Once A Year

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Today is my birthday! I'm 29 years old today, the last one before my thirties. I have always looked forward to my thirties. It seems like most people start feeling more comfortable in their own skin around that time. I have always felt a little too awkward and self-conscious and that's one thing I'm hoping to say good-bye to with my twenties.

Today I am the happiest I have ever been on a birthday since I started this blog. The only thing that would make it better is seeing my family. But I am fortunate that I got to talk to them all this morning.

Things are good. I feel at peace. I think I am becoming the person I want to be. Thank you to you all for continuing to visit my little corner of the internet. Keeping this blog is one of the things I love doing the most and I am grateful to have wonderful readers.

Now I am starting to feel superstitious and weepingly sentimental so I'll stop before I drive you all crazy.

Everyone eat cake today. Have two pieces, I'm not counting. ( :

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Animal Lids!

Thank you to everyone for the sweet comments on my engagement photo! We got the Save-The-Date postcards in yesterday and they look good which is a relief. I was worried something would potentially get lost in the screen to paper translation but it worked out fine. Phew!

Yesterday I had the day off and I really made the most of it. I also inhaled a lot of spray paint fumes but it was all worth it. I have mentioned before my love of the app Craftgawker. I get so many great crafting ideas from this site. For a while now I have been wanting to make jars like these submitted by The Daily Telecraft.

The night before my day off work I was brainstorming ideas and decided it was finally time to make the animal jars so that was my plan. And then a crazy moment happened when my friend Jessica posted this blog on my facebook page and recommended I check this out.
I think the universe was telling me something so I definitely gave it a go.

I bought a pack of animals, spray paint and jars. The biggest pain was figuring out what glue to use. I originally used a glue that I thought worked well with metal but I was wrong wrong wrong! Little animal feets were popping off left and right. I was bummed but not ready to give up. My boyfriend finally suggested epoxy so a made my millionth run to the stores for the day and finally found a proper solution. I'm still a little scared to tug too hard on the animals but I think they are mostly staying in place. I like the gold and silver spray paint best for a more polished looks but may try this again with different colored paint. I have some light cool blue paint that might be nice. I love this project! It's easy to do and the material are very easy to get. From now on every pickle jar I empty is going to be made into an animal lid jar! The possibilities are endless!

I can't wait for my next day off!

xoxo

Announcement

I am getting married in June! Do you know how uncomfortably close that is? Not because I don't want to get married, I can't wait for that part. I just dread all the eight million things that need to be done. Seven million of those things are making paper pom poms and other wedding decorations. Aye yi yi. Anyone want to have a crafting party?

This weekend we knocked off one of the things on our to-do list. We finally got our pics taken for our Save-The-Date. I hate getting my picture taken so I was really dreading it. I wanted to use this photo as our inspiration...

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Instead we opted to go a bit (tiny bit) more traditional. We were thinking of American Gothic and I was also thinking of some of my older artwork:

We came up with this but it was a little too edited...

Ultimately we went with this. If it wouldn't have been too weird I would have had us dress as sheet ghosts.

One thing down, 799,999,999 more things to go.

Weekend!

This weekend was a productive one. By getting to be creative at work it really makes me want to bring that creativity home and make lots and lots of stuff. Since I had Saturday and Sunday off my plan was to create create create. Friday night I bought lots of tissue paper and by Saturday morning much to my boyfriend's grief the living room had turned into a crafting zoo. Why didn't I use my clean studio space? Because it was clean! And I didn't want to mess it up!

So I made banners. Lots of them. Well, several of them. It can be time consuming...

So, it sort of doesn't seem like a lot now that I post the pics... But one is still in-progress and I am debating switching from tissue paper to fabric. Or maybe just making some fabric ones as well as. It's hard to get the wrinkles out of the tissue paper. I tried ironing them under a towel but that didn't work at all. Any suggestions?

I also made this in the middle of it all...

I had always wanted to take a toy animal and spray paint it a solid color. I love how it turned out and now I may be a bit addicted. I want to spray everything. Help?

That was my weekend in a billion and one pics. How was your weekend?

xoxo

Arts For Sale!

I recently hung some of my artwork up at Cracker Jax. It's really exciting to see it all hung up together. If you live in the area I hope you'll stop by and see it. My new work is part of the collection as well. Yay art!

Some Things To Look At

Good morning! First of all, thank you so much for all the sweet comments on my new work! I'm pretty excited and inspired right now so it's nice to hear I'm doing okay. Here are some (mostly) non-are related things around my place.

I got a "grow your own crystals" kit and I grew my own crystals! It actually worked! Science is so magical.

This pile of crepe paper is waiting to be turned into a pinata. I'm waiting to figure out what kind of pinata I want to make. The possibilities are endless.

I hung these scarves on my window in my studio. I can't quit looking at them.

This is my current favorite little collection. Those are snow globe frames from a craft store. I want to fill my house with snow globe ladies.

These next two pics are just artsy and this is an artsy blog so...

Celebrations are in order! The bathroom at work got cleaned out which means all new stuff at Cracker Jax!! If you're in the area stop by this weekend for the Holiday Open House!

Happy Middle of the Week!

New Work

I just finished up these newest pieces. I feel like my work is changing and growing very slowly but it is changing. I feel like my work is becoming much more landscape oriented though it may not be a landscape set in reality. I think a lot when I work on these. I was thinking about isolation and worries and doubts. I feel like I pack so much into these pieces the same way I pack so many thoughts in my head. I hope that even though the colors are sweet and sometimes a bit saccharine the work is still tense and a little tiny bit unnerving. I hope.

I am not going to list these on in my shop but will instead hang them at my new job Cracker Jax. If you are interested in the work please contact me.

Cutie-Pies

Good morning! I don't know if you know this or not but there are so many cute things on the internet! Breaking news! Here's a collection of some cutie things that are making me want to get in the studio.

Girlie Pains's Mel Stringer makes all kinds of fun paper craft goodies as well as zines, original art, brooches and more! This little birthday party scene makes my heart beat fast.

I'm wild about all of Jess Quinn's characters.

Courtney Chelo's shop Closer to the Ocean is filled with beautiful and nostalgic collages.


Aimee Ray has lots of goodies in her shop Little Dear but I especially love her embroidery work. The first one is title Rainbow Warrior. Perhaps a Cocorosie reference?

It's really amazing to me just seeing a small slice of the greatness that is out in the world and knowing there's more and more and more and more where that came from. I feel like that means the world is okay because people are out there creating and beautiful things are happening. Sometimes I let the bad news of the world bring me down. Next time I'll just think of the endless beauty that's out there and I'll feel better better better for us all.

Studio Day Success

Yesterday I had the day off so first thing I did was hit up some thrift stores in search of books. I came away with some real finds. The Salvation Army just happened to be having a sale where 15 books were only $1. Just my luck. I love all those Time Life books.

Also, the Goodwill wasn't having a book sale but I really lucked out with the Family Creative Workshop series find. I'm pretty sure my friends Joanna and Don have these same books and they are always making neat retro crafts.

I keep playing around with this little heart. Valentine?

Here are some pieces that are almost finished. Just a little bit more to go. I'm also working on a print exchange that I am embarrassingly behind on. I feel like I have low printmaking self esteem lately. Do you ever feel that way? I need to start doing more relief. I always liked it but switched to doing mostly silkscreen because it was quicker and much more instant gratification feeling. Oh printmaking!

Do great things with your weekend. Bundle up in the cold. Drink some apple cider. Make tissue paper pom poms and write letters to your friends.