Finally made something! Take that, Muse!

Anyone who has had his or her muse and mojo run off together knows the joy in my headline. A frustrated creator also knows the experience of spending hours piddling on something only to dislike it enough to tear it apart and start over. And a muse-less, mojo-less person like me would understand why I got excited about simply gluing a piece of clip art into a pendant.

So the above are my results, two-plus months after I bought the supplies at Art & Soul, Portland. I was excited with the colorful collage sheets offered at the ArtChix booth.

And, after a ridiculously-long absence from the ArtChix Yahoo! Group, I was lucky enough to have my pendant chosen for the home page art this week seen here. Thanks Cindy! (and Helga!)

And if that weren't enough, I got a nice comment from the very sweet and gentle Bone Folder (can a bone folder be sweet and gentle?) Mike Jennings of Hannah Grey. Mike and wife Shosh have a fantastic e-store, and are two of the sweetest artists you'd ever want to know. Mike says Shosh is having an art drought. Boy, do I know the feeling! And how about a drought with guilt?! I 'owe' Mike and Shosh some art samples plus a promised 'dolly box' for the Hannah Grey Design Team, and I just can't make a thing to save my life. But, I know it will come- if past experience and quantity of supplies are any indication. Take heart, Shosh!

I was enthused with the ease of the resin-like DG3 Art Gel when I tried it at Collage's free make-and-take in the Art and Soul lobby. In fact, I loved my little Paris pendant I made there, which someone else apparently also liked, because it disappeared during its 24-hour drying period. Who knows? Maybe my muse took that and bolted.

Once home, the supplies sat on my desk until this past weeked. They were joined by some beautiful glass beads I got on another trip as well as my bead soup kits from Gilbert Designs. Everything just kept staring at me, until I finally put most of it away. That in itself is unusual, because I usually organize everything away as soon as I get home from a trip. Maybe my muse can't operate around a messy desk?

While at A&S I scooped up alcohol inks for making glass slides, daubers, said slides (Memory Glass), accompanying frames, bracelet blanks, pendant blanks, two sketch books, charcoal, collage sheets, ephemera, all from Collage on Alberta. In fact, I spent so much maybe my muse left me to get a job. Or perhaps I horrifed her? Overloaded her senses? That's probably closer to the truth.

So, the other night I felt motivated to make a bracelet to wear with a particular outfit. The glass beads were the right color. I had all the stringing supplies: toggle clasp, spacers, pliers, Soft-Flex all laid out in front of me. I perused my latest copy of Stringing. Every thing was so cool! I looked at my stuff. Nothing. Strung two bracelets. I'm a little OCD when it comes to stringing very symmetrically, and symmetry just isn't in style right now (see Stringing). My muse laughed at me! I cut the bracelets apart, filed the beads back into their little cubbies and put everything away.

My next adventure went slightly better. I decided to make the pendants shown above. There's nothing to it. In fact, the ArtChix inchies were already sized to fit the pendant blanks. The pink one is art from a couple different sheets, a little charm and some seed beads. The round one is clip art of a crab from ArtChix, a starfish from Hannah Grey, a shell and some seed beads. When your muse is happy with your arrangement, you simply fill the pendant with DG3 Art Gel, which hardens clear overnight. Voila! Done. Put on some ball chain, and you have a necklace. Not very challenging, but I'm working without my muse and my mojo, so I have to ease back into creating after a bit of an absence.

I know everyone talks about their muse running off, but I had had a good run, nearly 18 months of frenetic creativity in every spare moment, weekends spent without sleeping, juggling multiple projects, writing for four or more blogs, coordinating groups, swaps, fat books, submitting art and articles like crazy for publications, working on an art book proposal, writing fiction. Eek! No wonder my muse needed a vacation. Now if I could just go with her!