It was a warm November

 Our McNutt family early Thanksgiving at Faria Beach was EPIC! Just look how gorgeous the day and sunset were. It was so nice to see the family!! My daughter had such a good time. I think I went through 3 or 4 outfits :).

 Perfect way to recharge for the rest of the year. The beauty that day was unreal! These photos don't even do it justice. Wish we had a whole 3 days there just like this.

 All my jewelry made it back to the Art Hus after the Queen of Arts Show. The whole shop has been reorganized and it looks so fresh and new. There are many new members and the crafts just keep pouring in!

 There is a new batch of my paper clay tag/ornaments. I get a lot of positive feed back from these. I need to get them posted on my Etsy site again. My Mom's spot is looking good too!

 Here are 3 of my newest round robin journal exchange pages. I had a lot of fun with the Teesha style one and my daughter wants to have the Monarch girl one. It is nice to play with all my pens and supplies.

I just finished up this journal. I had made it primarily out of paper bags. It was fun to work in, but I want to have some better paper in the next one so I can sketch easier. I have had no time to make one so I am currently using a journal I made in a Teesha Moore class back in April. I am loving it, but there is no place to sketch in it. Go to my flickr to see most of the pages in my journal set.

Here was us girls at the Queen of Arts show. What a fun time we all had!! Now I have a bunch of projects I need to get to. So many sketches, notes, to do lists and ideas, but nothing finished yet. I need to get on it!! I hope my next post will be filled with accomplishments.

October Came and Went

 Here I am at my solder station again and it was pretty darn cold. So little time to get everything done for the Queen of Arts Show at the Elverhoj. I did get most of my jewelry goals completed. I think I am getting better at planning for scarce work time and have more realistic goals.

This photo came in sideways, but this is a photo of all my supplies I use to make my paper mache birds. I made 7 of them this day. Way to go me! I did not get them all painted yet, like I had hoped. I hope to get to them soon and bring them to the Art Hus in Solvang, Ca.

These are their tails :)

Here are all the silver earring pieces ready for color and a tumble. I think I made enough to last a bit.

 Here are the earring pieces again, now joined by my rings, ready to throw in the tumbler. I ended up with around 10 rings this round.

 These flowers were very lovely at my sketch day with the Valley Sketchers on Saturday. I just love coming to the Summerset Farms to sketch the fall scenery. Really gets me in the mood for those pumpkin Lattes.

 Here is one of the sketches from that trip, I think it is my favorite.

 Here was a fun entry in one of the journal round robins I am doing. This came together fast, but I am sure I should have been working on stuff for the art show instead.

I did finally find time to work on these paper clay ornament tags. I do not think I had time to photo them after I high gloss sealed them. My daughter wanted to help.

 Here was my case at the Art Hus before I raided it for the Queen of Arts (it is all back now). The bracelets are new by the way.

My daughter dressed up like a "Scary Witch" for our 5 or 6 costumed events this month. I got pretty good at her face paint by Halloween. She did all the Jack-O-Lanterns at the house. She is so talented!!

Jewelry work in September!

 Rocking my Jewelry studio this week. I had a large list and did not finish it in the limited time I had given myself, but it was better than nothing. I would drop my daughter off at school down the street, have some coffee with my dad, go for a run and then have 2-3 hours left to get some work done before my daughter got out at 12. I was really enjoying it though. I really miss making jewelry sometimes. It did not feel at all like work, except when my fingers hurt.

These are the links being made for my silver, textured link bracelets. By the end of this process I feel very intimate with every individual link. I bend the wire into loop, solder, stretch to be oval, hammer flat, hammer a pattern on both sides, chemically color and them tumble to polish. So much work goes into these. I love mine, I wear it every day and even shower in it. The one I am wearing is over 5 years old and showing very little wear.

 These are the beginnings of my square wire rings. They seem to be a favorite at the Art Hus. I get a lot of requests, but these suckers are so hard to size. There is a mathematical formula, but it does not account for the hammering and texturing, so they are very hard to make for custom orders.

These will end up being my rustic heart pendants, similar to the one I wear. I did not finish them, so I do not know when I will get back to them. I sure hope to get these 3 done before the Queen of Arts show at the Elverhoj Museum, but no guarantees.

 More work on the square wire rings. Here they are getting soldered and then reshaped and later textured on the mandrel. I need to prepare some of them for a bezel, antique them and polish before they are ready.

These are some of the stamps that I use to texture my work. These are my favorites. I actually made these myself when I was in college from cement nails and iron horseshoe nails. I hope to make more some day, but these have really held up through the years. I am very proud of them.

This was August

 August was quite busy. It was a countdown until my daughter's first day of Kindergarten,  trip to the Sketchbook Project, some round robin journal fun, a little bit of work, a sketch day with my daughter and dad, some pen pal letters sent and my first "real" official run.

 This is the mobile library of the Sketchbook Project. My mom has a book in hear. I had no idea it was coming to Santa Barbara for 2 days! I got off work early and gave myself an hour to indulge in all the awesome books. I checked out around 10 journals and enjoyed most of them a lot. Lots of fun and inspiration. I bought a blank one to take home, fill up and send out. I am excited at the thought of checking it out next year. I better get to work on that soon, It is due in January.

 Here is my first entry in someone else's journal. I had some fun with this one. I like the way it came out. I am very excited to see this round robin every month and to see what all the other artists are doing. The best part will be getting my 2 journals I made back and seeing all the awesome artwork I get to keep!!

My daughter is growing so fast. It was nice to have her at our sketch day this month. She did one sketch in my journal and then collected a bunch of tiny white flowers to decorate my book.

 Finally made a new stamp for my new tags to replace my too large, old ones at the Art Hus. Now I just need to find time to get in there and retag all my stuff :P

 I love it when I find time to send out mail to my 5 pen pals! I have always loved to write letters and then have a bunch of fun making them a bit artsy. I had hoped to get these out every month, but I am not quite hitting that. I think I am at every month and a half or two.

My big personal news is that I signed up and finished a "5K" race. It was Run or Dye. My whole work was going to come out, but it did not really work out like that. I had been trying to hit 3 miles for around a year and was so stoaked to think I was going to finally do it! I am very proud that I finished, but my running app said it was only 2.75 miles. It was fun to be bombarded with color and have my daughter there to cheer me on. I am sure this will not be my last, but don't expect me to be running a 10k or marathon any time soon :)

Getting Back to Some Work

 Special order for some birds. I just need to add some finishing touches and a glaze and they are good to go.

 Looks like I need to get to the Art Clinic and make some more birds, I only have one more left for the Art Hus. Next I will be making some funky photo albums. I got the repurposed Ritz boxes all ready to cut so stay tuned for progress photos.

 I have been playing around lately in that Mermaid Circus internet class put on by Teesha and Jane. It has been very fun and inspiring. There is a round robin group that has spun off and this is one of the journals in process that I will be trading around. I cannot wait to see what comes in the mail. It has kept my small amount of free time a bit too occupied lately. It has been a lot of fun and refreshing, but I need to get some stuff made for the Art Hus that has been waiting. I have a couple weeks of time coming up in September that I will be devoting to jewelry production. More bracelets , rings and red hearts.