Super Busy March

 I got my paper packets made and photographed, now I need to write a description, crop and resize them. I hope everyone likes them as much as I do. I get so many compliments when people see them in my journals.

 My daughter will be turning for this month so I am making her a special crown. I make a new one for her every year. This is the first wire one. It is not finished yet, but I am liking the way it came out so far. I am so pleased, that I am having thoughts of making more of them to sell. If I do end up doing that, I might make some fabric ones too like the one I made her for her 1st birthday.

 Now no one wreck the surprise for her. I will be adding some flowers next.

I had a purchase on my Etsy shop and they asked me to change it to say "heart" instead of "love". I was worried about the lettering, but I think it came out okay. I am sending it off tomorrow. Well...I had a big list of stuff to do tonight, but passed out for 2 hours and now it is midnight. I had like an hour and a half more to do...oh well. I feel a headache coming on. It was a real nice day off of work and I even got stuff done. Yay me! Hehe. This is such a crazy busy month for me. I cannot keep up with all the stuff!!! Off to bed for me!

Trying to Gain Momentum

Birds are getting started. I need to grab some stronger colors from my paint bucket to get these to the next stage. Orchids are all almost gone. I think these yellow birds will be chaneling lesser goldfinches or warblers. The blue one might become a bluebird. I have one big one with no color yet that is saying "mockingbird".

That would be a tribute to a friend that is no longer with us. I have always loved them, but now whenever I hear one, I think of her.

 Last Thursday was ditch day at our work. We were wined and dinned! It was such a nice day and we were in the perfect spot to enjoy it. I did around 5 little sketches while we were out.

 The food was so amazing!! I think I can say that I am finally not full anymore. We saw the movie "Pina" after lunch. What an amazing thing to experience. It brought out a lot of emotions in me. I feel Pina's pain as an artist and I felt special to see her through her dancer's eyes.

 View from the wall by the ocean: butterfly beach.

 The Biltmore as seen from across the street. I finished it later with gesso and Copic markers.

 Yes, I visited the Burger Bus again :) So hard to resist when it sets up a couple blocks from work. Good thing that it only parks there once a month.

I leave you with the painted unicorn my soon-to-be-4 year old daughter painted at Knit Fit today. I was so impressed with her work! WOW!

3 Day Weekend YAY!

 Got some beautiful Phaleonopsis Orchids to lighten my mood to happy inspiration. I even got in a quick sketch. Orchids are so alien looking when you really study them. It was real nice to fit in some art time/space last night and the sketch warmed me up for the Valley Sketcher's meet-up today. I really need to get to work on these birds ASAP. I am hoping over the next two days I can pull it together.

 The Sketch meet-up at Mission Santa Inez was a lot of fun! It was very overcast when we got there at 10 and pretty darn chilly. The way the morning sun was coming through the fog on the hills in the distance was so wonderful. We all debated on how one might capture that look. We ended by pulling out cameras. Mary Beth was the only one who executed it I think. The sketching was good fun! Towards the end a wedding was setting up and a Mariachi Band started to warm up there instruments nearby. We thought it was a loud sterio at first, but we finally pulled our heads up from our sketching to take a look.

 I tried to get a photo, but it did not come out. I sure wished I could watch them perform so I could get a sketch. The sun did come out to warm us up a bit. We left right before the cold winds picked up to meet at Valley Books. It was so nice that so many of us could hang out at the book store share. What a great start to the weekend!!

These are the Mariachis all hiding behinde my Dad's truck and below is my camera attempt at capturing the morning effects. Next step is to clean the house a bit and hang out with my daughter, then on Monday I hope to devote 3-4 hours to the studio. Wish me luck!!

Happy Valentine's

I sure hope everyone had a fun Valentine's Day! I know I had fun making Valentine cards. My daughter and me made 22 heart envelope Valentines. After she went to bed I started work on mine for work and family.

I had a bit of extra pink paint :)  I made 20 for work and 6 larger ones for the family. I kept trying to plan what I was going to do, but in the end they just happened.

I used my newly carved heat stamps to finish off the tiny ones, then used some white paint and black markers for the rest. I ran out of time to do anything with the backs, so you can see the Lucky Charms box I used (my fave).

And my nail stickies are still going strong! I have another set to try next (if these ever wear out). Now its time to start thinking about March and St Patty's Day! I am excited to have a sketch day this Sat too!

A Few Finished Projects

"Love Bird" all finished and ready for the Art Clinic's "Love is Not Math" jurried show that opens tomorrow at the Art Clinic then moving to Valley Books.  I also finished another heart stamp. I love how the veins and arteries came out.

 Had a lot of fun with this quick sketch of one of my favorite "places" to eat lunch: the Burger Bus" in Santa Barbara. This time they had changed their location schedule and I had to hunt it down. That was kinda fun, though it took a bit more of my lunch than I wanted. I've got 4 more paper mache birds to paint and hope to make another batch of paper clay tags/ornaments soon. I do need to fit in sleep somewhere so fitting it all in will take longer than you'd think ;)

Almost Done with Paper Project

After painting and cutting all that paper, I finally find time to spray paint some extra little bits of detail. I often have people ask me about the papers in my hand made journals, so I decided to make a bunch of this paper and sell it in packages in my Etsy Shop. It was fun to make. I have never done this in a large quantity before. I will start packaging them up soon.

 I will be posting some photos of how the packets come together. I hope people will like them as much as I do. It would be really cool if people bought them and then sent me pictures of what they made!

 It was my Mom's birthday last week and I somewhere found time to make her a little gifttie. I like to make these little diorama-like things with my daughter in them for her. I love making them and they always seem to turn out pretty neat.

 The sunsets and mornings have been so very beautiful lately. Here was a quick snapshot out my car's front window on the way to work.

Heart Troubles

 In this small pink notebook I was drawing design ideas for my next hand carved stamp.I did these drawing Tuesday night. On Wednesday at 5pm as I clocked out from work, I noticed an odd feeling in my chest which caused me to start coughing a little. I walked down to my car and turned it on. I felt winded and my heart beat seemed too strong. I put my hand to my chest and felt my heart beat racing out of control.

I tried to relax and take deep breaths to try to slow it down. Dr Gunson was still upstairs, so I decided I would turn off the car and ask his opinion. He checked my pulse and took me to the other side for an EKG. My heart rate was humming along at 198 and went right up to 211. Scary. It was very even and rhythmic beats although fast. There wasn't any irraticness to it.

 He made a call and we decided to go to the ER. He drove me and Nancy came with us (my Mom away from Mom). We arrived and I was emitted right away. My heart was still racing. They took me back to start an IV. After 1 hr with my heart racing out of control it came back down on its own, right before they were about to drug me all up.

No one can tell me why it happened, and I do not think it has happened since. I am still nervous, but appear to be fine. I cannot thank everyone enough for all their assistance, I mean....where do you start? I have seen a Dr since, but need to see a specialist. I am told everything (tests and sounds) were clear and healthy. I hope the 24 hour heart monitoring harness gives me more piece of mind.

Hey, but doesn't the new stamp look cool? I finally finished it today. If you are hearing this story for the first time, and thought maybe I should have told you face to face...sorry, I am not comfortable with it yet and hate to make people worry.