Holy moly long time no post.
Oh yeah... life... again.

I also vehemently hate that since I have a google account this blog is somehow linked to that account WAAAAY more than I want it to be. Truly, if I ever get the rest of my life organized I'll leave blogger and google for my art related things and build (with some help) my own site. I really do want my own online gallery. My cafepress site is a place holder and convenient way for me to get some of the items I personally want for myself. (Mugs. I am in love with my artwork on mugs that get used daily.) Etsy is great in theory, but I'm not comfortable with the amount of time it would take me being on my computer even more than I am to get my site seen more... I WANT it seen more, but until it is it feels like I'm losing more than I gain to have a fully stocked online shop on Etsy. If I had ever had a sale in the time I've had the site I'd be more willing, but I haven't. Add to that the utter frustration of not havign the images of my work that I need when I need them to upload to the site and I feel like I should give up.
Luckily, I'm stubborn.
Luckily, dreams never die... it is when hope fizzles out that dreams blink out.
And hope, however unlikely and quiet and invisible, I do not really lose.
Even when I can not see a positive, I have some hope.
It may seem fluffy and flowery, but in practice it is dirty and gritty and makes you scream in anguish.
Hope is the anguish that you endure to take that next step though you can not give a single believable reason why you aren't turning around and going home.
Hope...
To steal a line from my favorite movie:
"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies."
Whoops... that's my favorite line... the one that applies here to this post:
"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free."

So with hope I plan to dig in my heels at the beginning of my new year in March and honor the three parts of my life I cherish by getting with the plan and doing the work. All the way around. Some days will be horribly unpleasant, but so truly worth it.

In the Arts arena I've made a baby step - my next big project is started - by request it;s another bird.
Wish me luck!

Triple Project Tuesday

Today's pinterest inspired projects:
salt dough keepsakes & nutella hot cocoa & quick yard ghosts*

Now I've done the salt dough before but always left it out for a week to dry out on it's own.
SALT DOUGH: Very old simple recipe of 2 parts flour to 1 part salt plus water. Pinterest calls for you to "cure" it in the oven at 250 for 2 hours. Sillies had a blast playing with it... rolling it out (using an empty salt container because I couldn't find my rolling pin!) and cookie cutters. I used a skewer to poke holes in each of them so I could later be able to hang them with ribbon. Sillies is excited, but Momma didn't know he played with the timer so they were in for less than 2 hours... and the hand prints puffed. Not happy about the ornaments puffing up. The acorn ones are great, the larger hand prints don't feel right.
Project grade: end result + fun creating =B

Nutella hot cocoa. Splenda, more often hiding in the ingredient list as Sucrolose, makes my inside try to kill me. Serious intestinal pain. Sucrolose is the third or last ingredient in every hot cocoa packets I find in the store. It sucks. It's not just the low calorie ones... even the ones with lots of sugar will list Splenda/sucrolose as the last ingredient! < / rant >
Anyhow, it was chilly and my husband still isn't home and I don't know how to properly start the pellet stove (we moved here in Spring) so... hot cocoa craving! Then I was sad because I don't have any in the house (because I stopped buying it because of the sucrolose.) and... *blink blink blink* I remembered the pinterest 2 cups milk + 2 spoons Nutella = yum! So... I get out a saucepan, put in 2 cups milk and a big spoon of nutella and turn on simmer and then start the bath for my son. I return and stir and it's still too cold for all the nutella to come off the spoon and my son wants to then show me a bubble mohawk... so I then completely forget about it until after his bath. I used my rubber whisk, but it was slightly too late... the nutella got slightly scorched. It was better than no hot chocolate and much better than the packets of pain.
Project grade: A (my result =A- and I burnt it, so I totally recommend this hot cocoa recipe!)

Quick Yard Ghosts*
-Old handkerchief or a square that size of white fabric
-Whiffle ball
- large rubberband
-long stick
Super quick & easy & will withstand the rain. My son thinks they are awesome and was thrilled to put his shoes on and go put them in the yard near the driveway.
These I didn't find on pinterest, but it should be up there. If I had a working camera it totally would be up there! It's my creative way of giving my son the handmade ghosts for our yard that he said he wanted last week. "Not just a pumpkin Mommy, we need ghosts too!" By the way, a four pack of small whiffle balls was found at the dollar store, as well as one large flour sack cloth (which I cut into quarters) and I have been keeping rubberbands from veggies from the farmer's market... so I made 4 lawn ghosts for $2.

October starts

Hooray for mostly success!
I'm taking a moment from cleaning to do a pitiful excuse for a post.

-"We're all mad here" sign done, in need of touch up, but done
-Olde Tyme Faire sign figured out. This is a project I was asked to do for church. I still think less words is better, but whatever, the project isn't my baby like it is to the event chair person
-leftovers for dinner that didn't feel like leftovers
-octopus from old paper towel cardboard rolls
-play-doh funtime
-battery tea light in a plastic jackolantern basket = instant jackolantern for the window that can't burn down the hosue
-I came up with a useful short cut: votive candle in a wine goblet normally creates a mess... Get out a cupcake liner! Put the paper cup in the goblet, open it up as much as you can, place the votive in and light! The cup collects the wax protecting the glass, the glass protects the flame from drafts and the second half of the votive BURNS LONGER! The wax isn't forever spreading out making that huge puddle... which slows the burning. PLUS if you get themed cup liners like I do, it can be that much more decorative. :)
+I came up with a hanging ghost project at my son's request. (Styrofoam ball rant) I went to the dollar store to pick up whiffle balls in place of using the styrofoam for the head base. I couldn't find googley-eyes in the dollar store. Boo! Going to have my son glue together cloth circles and I'll attach the eyes with a single stitched 'x' in the middle of the eyes. (I hate to sew because I'm horrible at it!)
 +figured out my chess queen crown for my Halloween costume. Again, I'll be using a whiffle ball in place of the styrofoam ball. Again, will be interesting because I'm horrible with a sewing needle.

Projects done by October 5th:
-"We're all mad here"
-"goblet candles"
-Pumpkin Snickerdoodles (didn't turn out as well as the ones I did in September)

Started:
-Olde Tyme Faire
-portrait painting

So really, I'm still alive and well. I just get busy (new house!, child, health, life) and don't feel like I write very well so I either forget or tell myself "another day without writing won't kill my blog"... and it's true. While good blogs are like houseplants, this blog is like a dandelion... it persists whether you water it or cut it down.
And for that, sometimes, I am grateful.

I have  a friend who is doing attempting to do 365 projects from pinterest.com over a year's time. This young woman has two very young children. And she's blogging about the projects. And... the best part... she's amusing as hell and REAL. Like opening the front door-for-the-mailman-with-the-toothbrush-in-your-mouth real.

I love the concept and her writing.
And so I'm a little inspired.
At least so much so as to pledge to update my own blog once a week AND do my own project once a week.

I already do at least one project once a week, but now I'll keep track and try to share about it.
I am not above having my Halloween costume (The Red Queen) count in this as a project since I've put enough thought forward and intended to make my own crown too. (A proper Red Queen crown, not just any crown, NOT the Queen of Hearts Crown, but a chess queen crown.) I must admit today I caved while looking for a Mad Hatter hat in iParty.... I fell like a pawn for the ease of buying a $6 crown that I can easily use as a base and will only take 3 steps to modify. This will take incredibly less talent, patience and time than making a prom-quality type crown... and be less expensive. Did you know Styrofoam balls are a few bucks EACH? I can buy a pack of styrofoam cups (I don't, but I could) for the cost of ONE 4 inch styrofoam ball. It annoys the hell out of me. I an struggling to come up with a non-styryofoam option and will probably rant about having to spend $4 on a piece of styrofoam before it's Halloween.

The upside... it's October, I'm inspired to be creative, and my husband hasn't seen our credit card bills for the crafts & clothes I bought yet :)

Still Alive

Right arm still not corrected.
Still aching. Trip to a hand surgeon left me angry. Surgery is suggested although nothing physically changed in her examination over the year between her visits... except she noticed the movement where she ignored it before. She also ignored what symptoms I did and did NOT have. She ignored my actual concern - usage! Pain is painful. It makes me a b-I-t-C-h sometimes. That's not my primary concern. Diminished strength and usage of my dominant hand & arm is the biggest problem. blah.

So, I have done very little in the past few months in way of art. It makes me sad.

Have some non paint projects on the list to do over the next few weeks. Mixed media shadow boxes in the style of an old fashioned memory box. Wish me luck!

The new backhanded compliment

Sometimes I get compliments out-of-the-blue on my artwork.
For a moment after I register it as a sincere compliment I smile and am happy.
Lately though, I only get that single moment to revel in the compliment before the person ruins it with a "you need to". For me, the pushy "You need to do xyz. Really! If you contact blah blah blah online I'm sure they would love your work. Here, I'm writing it down for you. Oh! and there's a phone number. You should call them now. I'll wait."

Okay, slightly over dramatic, but sadly only slightly.

It has become the new backhanded compliment to me. It isn't, I know through others eyes, but that is how it feels to me. When the person is an artist or editor or collector 1) the suggestion holds real value 2) it's always worded better. The casual non-artist is without reason more in-your-face about it all. The non-artist simply DOES NOT UNDERSTAND. Which makes such things said online easy to deal with (I just don't type back until I can write "Ok. Thanks. Bye" In person such confrontations are SOOOOOOO painfully difficult for me. I don't want to be mean because these people aren't trying to offend me. They truly think they are being supportive. They have no idea that they are bothering me. They have no idea that if it's a genuinely intelligent suggestion than I have probably done so already. (Unlike writers who keep their rejection letters I burn mine.) To steal a line from my friend, Jeff,:
Art is HARD
And unfortunately our world forgets it. We are in a time where much of the time people have no idea how it is to be walking in anyone else's shoes. Little old ladies stick their noses into your parenting suggesting things that are kind but you know haven't a chance in hell of working. People outside of my faith community tell me all the time (incorrectly!!!!) what my church does and doesn't stand for. (For the record the sign "Bigotry in the name of God is still bigotry" was at a sister church of mine, so yeah haters, just leave me alone because you don't understand we're not about hate) And increasingly people with no background in art, galleries, publication or printing keep telling me what I should be doing. It's condescending. Telling me "Your art would look great in children's books" is a compliment. At least it's a compliment that would feel like one. Telling me "You need to get yourself published." or "You need to use XYZ brand of paint." or "I really like this one but you need to paint over her and make her red" is aggravating. No... it's insulting!  All of those have been said to me this month by non-artists.

I want to know if it makes sense that those who are not artists out there. I also would love to find a non-snarky something to say to these people that would ideally get them to not say things that way again to me. I would settle for being able to shut them up without insulting them back though. (Especially when one woman I see on a weekly basis).

Art is hard.
The art of dealing with stupid people shouldn't be.

I shouldn't be online at all...
but it's the least-pain distraction in recent weeks.
That's not an excuse, it's a statement of what is.

First PT appt this morning - evaluation of my arm. Epicondylitis SOUNDS like a fun thing, but it's not. I only have 3 "pieces of homework". So super simple I left thinking "Really? I must do that stretch a few times a day naturally!" Maybe I do... because once I got home and did them they HURT like <insert my laundry of curse words to diffuse my pain here>.

I wanted to draw in the studio today. I still might. I wanted to take out the trash, even though I can't do so well when my arm isn't on fire. No chance of doing that today. I want to get drunk (to mask the pain) and draw (to feel productive). That's what I'm reduced to. What I will do instead is pop more ibprofen than you should take all at once, have a small snack and go to teh studio while leaving my laptop here so as not to remain on the internet. In all likelihood I will paint instead of drawing because I do lesser tiny fine motor movements  when I paint than when I draw. Then, when my frustration with my physical abilities makes me want to throw things out the window I will pack up... now if I am good to myself I will leave before I am on the verge of tears and go for a mile walk. If I am my stubborn self and stuck at it too long, well, I don't know. Maybe "Mother Mother" can be found on the radio and screamed along to on the drive back home.

Oh yeah, this is what pain does to people, it steals a little bit of your soul.

I was pretty happy-go-lucky this morning until the pain set in.
And we're now at the "cause pain in stretching or need surgery next year" phase. M*(%erf*(&er.

I finally figured out how to do my self-portrait. damnit. I want to do it while I can see the steps in my mind. My arm, and by extenion my hand, don't want to cooperate. damn.