Cat House

Just a quick post today.. wanted to share the super cute piece Hannah soldered with Julee. She has a black cat Sophie so when she saw this on a collage sheet she grabbed the image and made this cute collage. Love the colors and think it will be so cute on our collage wall.

of art & Etsy...

Happy St Patty's Day!

We just finished up a yummy dinner of Corned Beef & Cabbage with all the trimmings. Super yummy. Plus, I harvested some lemons from our tree and made yummy lemon pie (which we dyed green) for dessert. Mmmmmmm.

Since it was pouring rain all day and the feast was simmering on the stove, I got a fair amount of computer time in and managed to restock the ole Etsy store as you can see over in my sidebar. Hannah and I have been busy in the studio making fun pendants out of old keys, vintage jewelry bits and Swarovski crystals.
Also, since I have been cleaning the studio, I ran across a pile of back issues of Portals Zine so I listed a few issues of #7 in the shop... last chance! LOL

Also, as I teased a couple of days ago. I finished a couple of my soldered pieces. Here they are...

The first is my mermaid piece. I collect mermaids and have a mermaid tattoo. The focal on this was a little card someone gave me ages ago that I had been saving for just the right thing. I threw together this little collage when Julee was here and I love how it turned out. I soldered 3 rings to the bottom to dangle things from but it looked kind of sparse so I added the chain and was able to dangle lots of goodies!
Our bathroom is decked out in mermaids so this will be going in there. love it..

My other piece was more of an affirmation piece for me. I have had the beveled glass just hanging around so I created a house shape with words cut from a PaPaYa Art calendar. The little bird is from a Teesha Moore collage sheet and then just pieces of wallpaper and deco paper. Its very meaningful to me and I think it will end up next to my bed. Been loving the vintage faux pearls lately so they are getting used a lot as seen here, in the dangles. Love the happy colors and positive affirmation.

Work Table Wednesday...

Last week my Brave Girl friend Barbe started a feature on her blog called "Work Table Wednesday" to share what is currently on our work tables.

Hannah soldering her first project.

Mine has been undergoing some serious cleaning up and clearing up. I had a little extra motivation because I was expecting a visit from my friend Julee and her daughter for an artsy visit. They arrived yesterday at about lunch time and in the 26 hours or so that they were here, Julee taught us how to solder. She is a whiz at it and has taught many classes and makes all kinds of cool stuff. We were super fortunate to have such a cool, patient, funny, (careful) teacher and we experimented and made all kinds of neat stuff. Hannah had a blast!! Julee was GREAT with her.

So, anyway, that is what was on our work table today:

Hannah cleaning and buffing the soldered edges of our "finished" pieces

Experimenting with soldering bottles.

We still have some hangers and dangles and other things to add so the finished piece reveal will have to come later. The kids got tired and started melting down so Julee decided it was time to hit the road. All in all, very productive and fun visit. We are looking forward to next time and maybe heading up to her neck of the woods.

I you are interested in learning to solder, Julee now has an online class! Its only $55 for four parts and four complete projects. I cannot recommend her style enough, even for "conscientious" kids.

Mo BETA

Hey Kids,
I have been out of town for a couple of days with the wee one. I came back and decided to take a leap of faith and upgrade(?) to Blogger beta which will, allegedly, make editing the look, etc of this blog much easier. Of course I have to add back in all sorts of things so please excuse the mess around here until I can get that taken care of. One of the things I am contemplating is a whole new look, so stay tuned!


In other news, I GOT MY NEW SOLDERING IRON!! Man this baby gets HOT! I love it. Still need some practice but much better results than previously. Pix soon. I am pooped so toddling off to bed. Hope everyone has a great weekend!