What's New

Edolie's drawings are starting to show figures, this one is of her, Ciaran, and Me as princesses.  I made the dresses:)

My ever growing air plant collection.  I started with one and now have a whole window full!

So, school has started, Ciaran is pretty happy in first grade.  He loves to read, he loves his teacher, and his two new buddies.  He even loves the class pet, a tarantula named Nell.  That makes my heart happy.  Ed and I are enjoying our time at home in the mornings and out and about.  She is now my super fun shopping, errand running companion.  When we are at home she is pretty content just drawing, painting, or playing with play dough.  We do take breaks for tea parties and fashion shows though, and occasionally a walk out to visit her scarecrow friend on the bottoms.  Other than family life, I am working my butt off to get some leathery stuff made for my shop and hopefully a couple of shows for the holidays.  I am also trying my hand at needle felting, and sewing some new clothes for myself.  I found a stash of fabric I've had for years and I am intent on using it up!  Also,  I need new clothes since it seems that one crazy effect of a bad gallbladder is some weight loss!  Not sure about the health of having a super restricted diet, but it feels good to be a couple of pounds lighter.  I don't really have my nice glass of beer or cider in the evening anymore so I've kind of gone haywire with my projects.  I can't say I'm at all unhappy about it though.  Feels nice to be creative, it really helps in every aspect of my life and I can't complain at all.  The only thing that's hard is that I just plain don't have enough room to work and keep this place tidy, I'm just a messy square I guess:)  I am off to cut out the last few wallets before gluing, sewing, etc. commence!  Wish me luck!

Baby Tig

We got a new baby on Friday.  A 6 month old baby leachianus gecko, or leachie from a awesome guy in Tennessee!

Baby Tig in his/her travel pod:)

This critter was in the box too, I'm pretty sure we're going to keep him, he's not a reptile but he's cute:)

I haven't worked for a couple of days.  The good part of that is that I now have a hallway instead of a huge pile of ill-fitting clothes and shoes,  and a bedroom that is not a storage room! I am aching to get back to creating.........something! anything! I set up a work area in my bedroom that I will be sharing with Baby Tig( our leachie).  Tig will be hangin' out and being a gecko, and I will hopefully be doing some drawing.  I'm trying to use it as a quiet space for a bit of art therapy.  The last few years have been pretty crazy and all that craziness has somehow caught me all up in it's grip and I'm trying to get free.  I can't go in to too much detail since this all involves family and such, but it's really unhealthy stuff, and I want to free myself of that as much as possible, since there really is no hope of solving other peoples' problems.  So, I am kind of keeping to myself, playing with my kids, working on my art and designs, and hangin' out with my scaly, shelled, and fuzzy friends.  I try to stay positive and look to the adventure ahead.  That's all I can do, and for right now, it's working!

My Itty Bitty Painting

This is my Itty Bitty painting that I made over the last couple of days after days and days of contemplating what I would do with this tiny canvas.  I had this crazy looking skeletal creature all ready to go but I just feel like I have to do more with that one.  I came across this sketch while I was working and thought it would make a nice painting.  I had already made a mask in a very similar design but the drawings of mask designs have a completely different feel than the actual mask itself.  These past few weeks have been hard for me and I needed a little bit of light, so that's where I went.  I think it turned out o.k. for my first time back to painting in many, many years and I'm getting ready to go downtown to turn it in for the little art show I made it for. 

How it All Begins

This is what a stack of billfolds looks like before I start cutting and gluing.  Each appliqued area is hand drawn out and then cut out by ME!  Then it's all about finding pieces of leather and suede to glue on to compliment the design.  Then interfacing the whole lot of them,  then sewing the appliques, and then putting the whole thing together.  Seems like a lot of work but it goes relatively quickly.  This is how I will be spending my day while I wait for phone calls and such.