Buying Handmade for Christmas

A friend and I took a road trip north to Sharon, PA to check out a gallery and craft show. We made a few sellers happy today!

We started at 29 Logan Ave (photo at left and article about owner Donna Bostardi are here) and then stopped by a show called "Arts on the Avenue" that was right around the corner from the Gallery. I can't show exactly what I bought because they're for Christmas, but you can see the artists' works at the links below:

Gail Trunick -- These works are more serious than the light-hearted clever creature I bought today. I will post a photo of it after Christmas. I challenge you not to chuckle when you see it!

C&C Ironworks (Charles Hughes) -- Some cool items that look like they would be right at home in a medieval castle

Sandpiper Soap Company (Susan Crisan) -- The most delicious smelling whipped body butter in a scent called "toasted rice" -- I want to eat it!

Carolyn Parker -- Colorful "fabric pottery" -- On this postcard you can see the loopy trimmed blue basket my friend bought. So cute!

Wet Dog Studios -- The item I bought has a most interesting carved texture on the outside and functions as a basket. It has a very graceful shape.

The party was fun and my dress was fantabulous!

The necklace I made for the dress worked great and I used links from one of the chains to make matching earrings.

See those straps on my shoes? These formerly slightly-too-loose shoes stayed put and were comfortable for dancing after I wrapped a skinny black stretchy headband twice around each foot at the arch.

This very cute little beaded purse came from Dress Barn. It was just the right size.

Craft Class: Enamel pendant

I took an Enameling class tonight at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts with Lindsay Huff. I have an enamel pendant I made in first grade but that's my only other experience I ever had with it. Lindsay showed us the basics and then we all went to town with colors. To get the most done in a short period of time, I chose a large 2-inch diameter disk and made different designs on both sides. As so often happens with me, the vision I had in my head for side one didn't turn out good at all, and the side I tossed together with no thought actually turned out really nice. Lesson: when starting out, simpler is better!

This was the no-thought, just make something quick to go on the back design. And I really like how it turned out so now it's the front.

I tried to make a sky and hillside with flowers. I ruined it with the purple. I should have left it simple with a loose cluster of orange flowers. Oh well. If the class hadn't been almost over, I could have salvaged this by putting a orange or yellow over the purple to tie the colors together better.

I just became aware of the website "Damn You, Autocorrect." It's definitely good for a few laughs! I texted my mother once to tell her I was "Almost to Kirwan Heights. Be home in 45 minutes." Autocorrect helpfully changed it to "Almost to Korean hysterical."

Sketchbook 2012: due soon, not nearly finished!

I just realized how close the deadline is and of course my sketchbook is not nearly finished. Here are a few new pages. These are fancier versions of my usual doodles I make during meetings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a tasty dinner of turkey, stuffing, roasted veggies, sweet potatoes, crescent rolls, and pumpkin dessert (not cake, not pudding, but somewhere in between). I cleaned up the dishes for my mom and now I'm giving her some computer guidance in between her phone calls from various relatives.

I won't have any time for claying this holiday weekend but here are some recent beadlings for your viewing pleasure...

 



My friend Marcy attended Carol Simmons' workshop a few weeks ago and came home with a lovely cane.

www.flickr.com/photos/marcympc/6275125940/in/photostream/  She had a few scrap slices so I asked if I could have some to test an idea. I layered several complementary sheets of color and then put the scaps on top and started running them through the pasta machine. As the layers got thinner, the underlayers started coming through giving a distressed look to the cane patterns.



For the beads above I sliced the sheet of stretched out cane into strips and wrapped them around a log of clay. I sliced the log into pieces about 1.25" long and loosely rolled them to squish them down and out without flattening the ridges too much. I cut circles out of the rest of the sheet and used them as endcaps.

 Fun TV... I am loving American Horror Story on FX. It is strange, creepy, and very fast-paced...no dribbling out the mythology here! You have to start at the beginning because you learn new details every week. Here's the link to the first episode: http://vod.fxnetworks.com/watch/ahs/1205292832001

Weekend Beads: Ribbons

Yesterday I put a "curb alert" free stuff ad on Craigslist and some people came and took away old things I didn't want any more. Easy way to get rid of the relatively-useful-but-no-longer-wanted things taking up space in your house.
Fueled by my favorite treat --  0% fat plain Fage Greek yogurt mixed with Wild Strawberry Crystal Light for flavor -- I found inspiration and made some new "ribbon spool" beads. I like these...will do more experiments.

There are eight here. They sort of look like stacked pop caps!

Six beads here...wider ribbons

This is what you get if you roll a ribbon spool smooth! Halfway smooth makes an interesting bead also
but I have none to show you. Later...

Scrap clay was rolled into a sheet, a giant bolt was rolled across the surface, the top bumps were shaved off, and the sheet was smoothed. Then the whole sheet was rolled into a log, sliced and rolled into beads.
These guys are relatively small for me...about 1/2" diameter.

These also started as a sheet of scrap, impressed with the plastic cover from an old office cubicle fluorescent light.