About Me

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I live in La, work full time and dabble in art when ever I can. I would love to be able to do my art full time--who knows, maybe one day I will. In the past year, I started doing Festivals, trying to sell my Art. It is A LOT of work, but worth it. I have met so many people with the same interests as myself.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Hurricane Isaac

I spent the day, hunkered down, expecting gale force winds and rain.  What I actually got was very little wind and a smidgen of rain.  Now, don't get me wrong--I did NOT want the strong winds, but I would have loved to have a full day of rain.  But, I made the best of the situation. I put in "Sleepy Hollow" with Johny Depp (What a beautiful man to spend a rainy day with...mmmmm, I mean, what a great movie to watch on a cloudy, mushy day :0).  I really enjoyed the day though--I sit in the rocking chair and drank a cup of Pomegranate tea and did some sewing and stuffing on some primitives that I have been making.  I added the grunge sauce to them and baked them.  The house smelled so good! Like cinnamon and vanilla.  When Lewis came in he thought that there had to be something delicious to eat--sorry.   No Cigar! The power surged in the middle of baking and it took out a phase of power, thus, no water.  The pumps require 3-phase and we were operating on 2.  Sounds like I know what I'm talkin' about, doesn't it?  Wrong-0.  I called the water plant and that's what they told me.  So, instead of having the pork roast and potatoes I was planning on making (no water to clean up the dishes), I made a left-over pizza from the night before. 


Here is a picture I painted a few days ago....... 







I still have some finishing touches to make on her but she is basically done.  Hope you all have a great Friday.

F.



Tuesday, August 28, 2012

My son and his girlfriend bought me this book and fish for my Birthday--They know what I like!!


Hubby bought me new rain boots and an awesome camera that I have been drooling over since forever.

It's almost official--four long weeks of vacation!!! Yes, yes, yes--you heard it right, 4 weeks--Yippee...............  Since I was on here the last time I have had a birthday.  Hmmm, I don't feel any older.  When does it hit.  Does it come out of the sky, strike you out of nowhere or does it creep up on you and get you little by little, until one day you say to yourself--this is what old feels like?  It's strange, but my definition of old has changed and is still ever-evolving.  When I was a teenager, I remember thinking my mom was old, I mean really old and she must have been in her mid thirties, early forties. now that I am in my forties, my definition of old is in the sixties and seventies.  And, I am sure, that that too will change.  My number one supporter and love of my life--Lewie, bought me an awesome camera for my birthday.  It is a Canon Rebel.  I can't tell you how it works yet, I haven't played with it, but when I do get to it, I will get back to you :).  My son and his girlfriend bought me some super nice gifts.  My BF bought me a really cool skeleton with a crow on top, but when I got out of the car he fell on his head on the pavement and broke :(.  I am going to try and fix it with apoxie scult. I will post the pictures.  She also bought me a beautiful set of chimes and gave me some spending caah.........hello Hobby Lobby.  I really am blessed to have the family and friends that I have.  They really make me feel special.  Thanks Guys.  Love you all.

This is a project that I just completed.  I call it "Garcia's Ghost".  It is a little weird but I like the way that it turned out.





I have been working on pendants for the last couple of days.  I have them ready to pour so that will be this mornings chore.



These are prints of my original angels.  I have printed them on card stock and mounted them in bezels.  I will pour them with ICE resin this morning.

And, I had to leave you with the following picture.  I have been living here for nine years and this is the first time that I have seen this.  It is SO adorable that I had to share with you guys.



It is a flying squirrel.  He was just the cutest thing.  Hope your lives are all full of wonder.

F.


Thursday, August 16, 2012

Steampunk Suzy and Van Gogh

 I have been wondering--are the summers crazy for everyone or is it just me.  I have had so little time in my studio lately that I think that I am beginning to have withdrawals.  I usually spend at least one day of the weekend in my studio--sometimes two.  But, during the summer months, or especially this summer, I have had no time at all.  Sometimes I wonder if I should just pack away the artsy stuff for the summer and resume again in the fall months.  This summer, I have finished 4 projects and have one started.  The picture above is "Caretaker Pete".  I finished him last weekend.  It shouldn't have taken me so long to do, but I have been working on him for most of the summer.  Course, I had three other projects that I was working on at the same time.  I usually don't do that.  I usually concentrate on just one--maybe two projects at a time.  I have been working on too many and it throws my focus off.
 Caretaker Pete is made from an old tin, a croquet ball, forks, and some sort of handle.  I just used all kinds of odds and ends in him and had a good time putting him together.

 The piece below is called "Steampunk Suzy".  I found an old skull and attached it to a dowel and dress form.  Her dress is made from paper clay. I am relatively new to paper clay but find that I love the texture and simplicity of it.  No ovens--just texture and let dry.  Then you get to do the fun part--which is the painting. I used my Cuddlebug blanks to make the texture in the clay and just stuck them on the dress form. I find that Apoxie Sculpt from Aves is the best product for sticking the head to the dowel and to the base.  It dries very hard and durable.  It is also moldable, like clay but doesn't have to be baked.  I use it for alot of my assemblage projects.  The skull on this sculpture was broken just beneath the glasses.  I used some of the Apoxie to sculpt a new piece and you can't tell the difference between that and the bone.


 This piece I call "Tribute to Van Gogh".  I have a friend who brings me old stuff.  What ever oddities that he finds, he brings to me. He brought me this old wood root ball about 3 years ago and it has sit around since then. So, that is what the body is actually made out of. A  dried root ball.  It had the greatest swirls and valleys in it. It cried out "Starry Night", so that's what I did.  I painted a tribute to "Starry Night" on the wood, decoupaged the arms of an old doll and attached them to the wood with screws and E6000 and drilled a hole in the top of the wood to insert the dowel in the head and glued it also.  The base is made from a sardine can that I had hubby saw a wood wedge for so that it was a little more sturdy.
Tribute to Van Gogh

 I took an inkjet photo and placed it in a microscope slide and soldered the edges for his necklace.

Hope that you all have a great week.
F.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Natures Beauty

Hello Everyone.  Been a couple of days since I have had a chance t get on here.  Just wanted to drop in and let you know what's going on in my little spot of the world.  We did finally get our generator.  It is  low noise with an electric start!! I love it.  I don't know if it's me--or if it ever happens to other women or not, but pull cords on gas powered equipment eat my lunch!! I just can't seem to get them started.  After pulling and tugging and getting red in the face, and finally hostile--I trump off and tell my husband to start the dern thing (in different language--to be sure)!! We actually bought it to put on the back of our camper.  It is big enough to run the A/C and all of the other electrical items.  We are planning a trip out of town in a few weeks, so it will be getting a trial run soon.  

 The star piece above is from a 60's  wall clock.  I tore the clock apart and have been working on a salvage piece called "Jerry Garcia's Ghost".  I will post pictures of it when it is complete.
 The flowers above are called Plumeria.  My BF gave me a plant last year that I have been  nursing.  It has finally grown into a respectable sized bush.  The flowers on it smell  heavenly. 
 The flowers or should I say  plants, below were actually rescued from my compost heap.  I usually make a big fruit salad about once a week.  These are pineapple greens that I had thrown in the pile and later  noticed that they were getting new leaves in the center.  So, I rescued them and planted them. They are still living--have any of you had luck with these??  I have tried putting them in water and starting them but they have always rotted.  These were in a dirt pile and started on their own.  Maybe that is the trick.  Plant the tops in dirt to begin the plant--this is new to me, so I am feeling my way through it with them.

 These are some of the pretties that I picked up this past weekend. 
 These are two vintage figurines.  It is a boy and a girl, but besides that I know very little about them.
 I have been looking for busts for quite a while--I found these at Goodwill (willies) for $3.99 ea.  I didn't think that was bad at all.  I will store them until my house is done (it's gonna happen one day--I just know it)!!
 This picture is really interesting.  It is composed of pins, pictures, and ticket stubs from the Olympics in 2008.  I thought it was a nice show piece.


Another picture of  Olympics memorabilia
The is an old picture that I picked up at Willies.  It has the original price tag of 42 cents on the back.  It is about 16" x  22"  It is very old looking.  There are some flaws in the print and also a little hole, but I thought that it added character and it is an incredible piece.  I know just where I will put it when I get my house remodeled.


 And, last but not least,  a beautiful black widow.  I know that a lot of people don't like spiders and snakes, but I love them.  It is a remnant from my tom-boy past I guess.  I think that black widows are the most beautiful spiders.  So sleek....shiny.   I never kill them.  This is a picture taken at work in one of the enclosures that houses the domestic water risers.  There are two of them in there.  I really hate it because I know if someone sees them, they will kill them.  Human nature, I guess.

So many times people hurt or destroy something beautiful because they are afraid of it.  I don't like to kill any of God's creatures.  I love them all.  I know, that is a little strange, but that's the way it is.  Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Faye

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Antiques and Recipes

I had a "surprise" day Saturday.  We got up and went shopping.  In my house, that is really rare--especially for a Saturday  I guess we are all so busy during the week that when we finally get home Friday night, we don't want to leave the house again until Monday morning.  Saturday was a sales tax holiday--No La. state sales tax!!  So, since we have been needing a generator for the camper we decided that it would be a good time to go get one.  We went to this little town call Minden.  We didn't get the generator (not Sat. anyway--long story) but did manage to hit some flea markets and antique stores.  Here are some of the things that I found.  An old vintage hand crocheted throw.  It is double size.  It has a few spots that needs to be repaired.  I only paid $7.00 for it.  When I got it, there was quite a bit of yellowing on it.  An old man in the store told me to soak it in a Woolite mixture, it would remove the yellowing.  I did and it did.  I let it soak in the bathtub all day and overnight in a fairly strong mixture of  woolite (about 3 times normal strength) and it worked.  I also found a little coffee grinder--I know, bad pic!.  I have a thing for coffee grinders and have them scattered all over my kitchen.  I just love them for some reason and the older the better. I also found an old ironing board.  It is small and I am not exactly sure what it was used for, but I liked it and I bought it.
 In the picture below you see a Noma Lantern.  I wasn't sure what it was used for but after researching found out that it was used in WWII--it was used for a low light lantern.  The glass container inside can be turned and it is three different colors-red, green and clear.  I guess I got a good deal on mine.  I paid $4.00 and the one on line that I found was $40.00.  I bought it because I had never seen one before and it was so vintage.

 This is Archie (Archie Goober) for short.  He is my oldest.  He came from McDonalds parking lot about 12 years ago (hence the name "Archie" --you know, the "Golden Arches"-- and he was about 3 when I found him.  I get silly with him and call him the "ubber goober".
 This is a picture of my craft room door.  I keep the door propped open because it is usually just me in there.  I have a shelf on the door that holds some of my goodies.  While at Good Will (aka willies) I found this funky string door. I thought that it would work perfect for that door- and, Viola! it does.
 This is also one of my weekend finds.  A travel easel.  It has a drawer (you can barely see it opened up on the other side). Maybe it will encourage me to paint "En Plein Air", or in "open air"-which ever you prefer. I have wanted to for some time--Just have to get around to it!
 This is a picture of a hand carved stamp. How awesome is that!  I have never seen one like this before.  I love the beautiful details.

 This is "Steam Punk Suzy"--She is on my worktable right now.  She is almost done.
 This is "Caretaker Pete" --He is not finished yet, but he is getting closer.
 My husband and I bought this little old house several years ago.  We  are going to remodel it--maybe going to get started this fall.  It is on our property but we aren't living in it.  One day though, it is going to be my dream home.  If you look at the front of it, you can see grape vines up under the windows and even onto the front porch. 


This is what it ended up being--2 nice sized wreaths.  After about  two hours of struggling and pulling and sweating and tussling and fussing--2 wreaths.  HOW MUCH DO THEY COST IF YOU BUY'EM? Guess I'm just that kinda girl. If it can be done--I am gonna do it.  You CAN'T just cut the vines and throw them away-no siree.  I can make somethin' out of them.  Give me some gloves and clippers, I'll show ya!  LOL, usually I have my BF over and we have a "wreath making" session and I laugh so much at her tussling and grunting that I don't notice all the pulling and tugging.................but, this year I did it alone :(--And Now I HAVE to give her one.  Now, that is a friend.  I pull and tug and wrestle to build the wreaths and she gets one?  How nice is that.  Kinda like Gallagher (do you guys remember him) he says" these friends were climbing up the mountain and one of them carries all these clinkin' beer bottles in his backpack  up the mountain.  When they finally get to the top, he takes the beer out of his backpack to celebrate and the other ones say "hey, where is my beer"??????????? Aren't those "your beers"??  Gotta love Gallagher!! (If you're readin' this Lynn, I am just pulling your string!!!  :)


 

 The picture above is of a Spinach Quiche.  I tried it Saturday.  It was from a recipe on the "Remodelholics" blog.  Here is the link http://www.remodelaholic.com/2011/09/spinach-quiche-and-recipe-link-up-party/.  It was divine and hubby liked it also.  It lasted for two nights and was good even after reheating.  Below is a picture of my spaghetti squash.  I planted some this year.  It was the first time I have planted them but they are so good and I love them so much that after paying nearly $9.00 for one last summer, I saved the seeds from it and they grew. Cut them in half, clean them, bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.  Put butter and brown sugar in them and they are delicious.

 The picture below is of Zucchini Casserole.  I made that Sunday for Mondays dinner and, that too, was wonderful.  It also came from Remodelholic's web site.  The link is here .  That too, was very good warmed up and, like the Quiche, hubby loved it too.


 And, of course, no blog would be complete without the pictures of my kiddos.
 Big John......... MY fuzzy-wuzzie lover boy.
Lenore--AKA Lennie Penny

Shay--AKA Sugar Bugger


Archie--AKA "ubber Goober"

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