Some Little Lovelies

Isn't that lamb the sweetest thing ever? My daughter went to town for some last minute Vegas trip supplies and came home with this lamb, bubble bath and a cute emery board for dear old mom. I think I'm getting buttered up for something.....but she's airborne tomorrow.

The 5 x 7 canvas is an acrylic, by a friend, of my old jewelry business sign (hence, the name of my blog).

The other pics are my Charge-It Fairy charm by Sally Jean Alexander. I just found the tiniest easel today that finally fits it-kind of like Goldilocks- I now have at least 7 easels plus a fork. Okay, well, the tines were bent to make it into an easel, but it was, *sigh* too big. So, I made it a business card holder upstairs. The fancy silver easel I made into a business card holder downstairs, and I still have easels to spare! But now I have one that's just right. No wonder the back of the charm says "She Couldn't Help Herself....It's So Me!"

A Few Childhood Mementos

I took these pictures for my ZNE Book Club assignment and decided to post them here, too. Our assignment was to reflect on where we stash our little treasures we accumulate and what special life mementos we have kept.

There are a couple places new acquisitions go, depending on what they are, and I consider them in a "holding pattern" until I decide what to do with them. Besides having a candle shelf in my linen closet, I have sort of a junk jewelry drawer for all small miscellaneous. That drawer presently also has some coupons and a crocheted bird in a fabric bowl. That's where my high school charm bracelet, pictured here, resides. It is too noisy and kind of tattered to wear, but I still love to look at it. Every charm means something. This is "back in the day" when brides gave their maids a charm instead of a new car for being in the wedding.

There is also an armoir in my office, full of my yarn stash, mailing supplies, a jewelry box, and my grade school girl scout sash, pictured. Look at all those badges! I see one for scultping- I have no idea what I did to earn that.

And finally my baby shoes and a little silver spoon my mom gave me, although not my baby spoon, are tucked (usually) into the drawer of the little antique desk in my office that is too rickety to sit at.

We were supposed to solder a charm and make a magic wand to close out our assignment. I did actually get the wand started, and it is painted silver and gold at the moment. It is also in a holding pattern and may get moved on to my witch hat swap holding pile (along with my stuffed crow and rat that were in the armoir) since it would be a key accessory.

Our new book for September is Alphabetica by Lynne Perella. ZNE is absolutely a wonderfuly group of talented people, and we are having great fun right now with our new and improved chat home on Ning. Come check it out:http://zneiscraft.ning.com/.

Thanks also to Falcon or Spastikat of Artists who Love Art on ebay for my crocheted flip flops in our secret swap and to Sue Johnson of CaaT for my incredible goody box in our Art and Scent swap. The candle is burning right now!

Sally Jean's Pretty Little Things - for Me!

I was so pleased to finally receive the charms I ordered from Sally Jean, author of Pretty Little Things. I had been coveting these miniature silver soldered collages for months, and then to my surprise, the book was our ZNE August Book Club assignment. After a month of pouring over the book and completing writing and art assignments, my charms arrived, as if to reward me for "graduating." I added the four small ones (G, create, home and chocolate chip fairy) to a silver charm bracelet where I also added danglies I made out of "that" turquoise as Sally Jean calls that shade of robin's egg blue. The larger pendant, the Shopping Fairy, could make a necklace or I am hoping to find a tiny silver easel for it. It is about 1 x 3 inches. The charms are much tinier. Love it!

That Peaches & Cream Complexion

Here is a copy of a recent collage using some of my vintage magazine finds from Better Homes and Gardens and McCalls from the 1930s to 1950s. I see I didn't do the best job copying or scanning, since I cut off a couple of key comments, such as "All they ever wanted to talk about was her crow's feet" and "Are you really lovely to love?" Well, clearly not with all these crow's feet- kind of all over, huh? Collage doesn't have to make any sense- that's why I like it.

I am now going to try my hand at making a glass charm similar to those in my book club book "Pretty Little Things." I had the silver foil tape and now I have my glass squares. This can be done without Flux and a soldering iron, although it won't look as nice. I also now have both a stuffed crow (on a crow kick, non?) and a stuff rat, and either will look divine on my witch hat, which gets mailed off to someone else. Come to think of it, all the good stuff gets mailed off to someone else, hmmmmm.

However, one lovely thing did come to me yesterday, and that was a silver soldered charm by Kris Hubick of Retro Cafe Gallery (see links at right). She did a great job-so smooth and the bail is placed so nicely. I just got a chain for it today as I decided it was too big for my charm bracelet, as I am afraid the others I have ordered from Sally Jean will be. Hard to do dangly when you're on the computer all the time.

I also hope to squeeze in another post tonight about Home and Color for both my ZNE assignment and my Caat assignment. I do take these seriously; I must have been a good little school girl. Were you?

I Saw A Spirit - collage

Here is a little collage I did for my ZNE Book Club assignment this week. We are to create a mixed media collage one step at a time, by drawing random tasks from a bowl and performing them in order. Mine were: write, use Twinkling H2Os, sandpaper, sand again, stamp with bleach, distress in some way, use water color crayons, paint, distress, apply a photo, scratch, apply a transparency, apply magazine bits, apply background paper bits, apply text, overstamp, seal.

I made this copy, and also a sepia one, before sealing as I think I will coat it with beeswax or maybe spooky beeswax drips, I haven't decided.

Next up is a numbers theme ATC for my ATC/ACEO Enthusiasts group on ebay, and the collage will also serve for the August month-end collage challenge for CaaT. I am continually amazed by all the talented people on ebay! It would be so great to do nothing but create, post, sell, buy, read beautiful blogs, rinse and repeat all day long!

Tonight I picked up some more art supplies. I am going to try my hand at acrylics, so I got some paint, brushes and thick little fat canvases (5x5). I also got a bunch of paint swatches (Lowe's) and will be collecting wallpaper swatches for my next endeavor.

Finally, I am awaiting some domino-size tiles in the mail from my BkNq (book-nique) group, out of which I am supposed to make a tiny book. Not sure what my subject will be! I have gotten lots of suggestions at home for verrrry short books, such as "Guide to Safe Hunting," by Dick Cheney and so on...you get the idea...and I don't want a political blog!

My Space, My Studio, Myself

I am fortunate to have not one but two workspaces in my house. So, when my ZNE Book Club assignment while workshopping Pretty Little Things by Sally Jean Alexander was to write about and show my studio, it was an assignment I could jump right into. I actually have an office upstairs which I use for my full-time job, where my white wicker desk is surrounded by things I love, such as the little wooden antique desk I inherited. There's not much work space on my desk, but all I really need is a place for my laptop. From here I can check email, work on Excel spreadsheets, presentations, reports, etc. At night, it becomes my ebay, blogging, and uploading spot.
My actual "studio" if it can be called that (and my book club says it CAN), is in the basement great room/family room/whatever. It originally started out as a place to scrapbook. I have a desk, hutch, library table, one-drawer file and other storage spots. However, my desk was easily getting scratched with all my ephemera (I usually just say all my crap), so I decided to enlist a covered card table for my real dirty work, such as paper cutting, gluing, painting, sanding, pasting, stamping, etc.
I am lucky that I have a little kitchenette of sorts with a non-laundry laundry sink where I can wash my brushes, a fridge, a microwave and I even have a rough wooden workbench and pegboard for the really dirty work. And trust me, it gets dirty, which we anal Virgo people hate, so I have not only a vacuum, but a mini shop vac, dirt devil and mini dust buster on my workbench.
If I could do anything differently, I would definitely have a bigger work table as well as a bigger television, as when I am at my desk, I cannot see the TV at the other end of the room- and not because the room is that large! My favorite part is that this is the coldest place in the house, and the white shag rug feels great on bare feet (clean only, of course).

ZNE Book Club for a Good Cause

I am so excited to be joining the ZNE book club for August. We are studying Sally Jean Alexander's Pretty Little Things http://www.sallyjean.com, already one of MY favorite books! I already have assignments in reading, writing about my studio space, posting a photo and have a collage assignment to create and post. Sheesh! Just like school- only better!
Even nicer is that the book club fee goes to support an animal rescue farm site, a Place to Bark (see the right side of my blog), run by Bernie Berlin, a collage and ATC artist.
Besides this little bit of work, my ATC/ACEO group on ebay has given out individual dares for an ACEO to complete and post, and I am waiting to get my assignment. ACEO stands for Art Cards Editions and Originals and ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards.
An example of another dare was "What would Medusa look like if snakes didn't exist." So, you get the idea...
As well, my ebay "Respect-Artists who Love Art" group has a challenge due tomorrow based on the word "rock"- any interpretation/any medium. I have a couple of ideas but nothing done yet, plus I am off to Michigan for the cancer walk. Sheesh again!