Wow! It’s been a productive month! My final thing is one of the several brand new canes i whipped up today on a spur of the moment brain wave.
In clay, the ‘translucent mum’ cane is one of the first people do. I was looking for a more realistic version of it or a peony / marigold / carnation for a while. Now, I’m on the way! Yay!
Tried out making this photo I took a while ago of a flower into some sort of cubism art in photoshop
edit: thought I’d add the original pic
For my thing today, I FINALLY learned how to upload a photo, thanks to help from Kiki!!!!! Not sure what kind of tree this is, but she lives in Trexler Park. She has a large burl protruding from her trunk and in the spring is surrounded by daffodils and then red and yellow tulips. Because of her appearing to be great with child, and because of her garden of flower children, a friend and I dubbed her the Fertility Goddess Tree. For me she is a very feel-good thing!
Ha, ha, ha. Since the last time I posted on thing-a-day was on the 12th, I have obviously not done very well with making something new every day. I suppose I can blame my lack of posting on school work or the many college visits and auditions that I went on, but it’s really just attributed to my lack of persistence to do this every day. However, I figure I may as well still post what I have gotten around to do - less on the craft side, but I managed to take some pictures of what I did make… memories.
OH, that was bad! Ew, haha.
Anyway, here goes - mostly photographs.
Late night cupcakes in the cold! I love the store display - Crumbs, in Westwood.
Grins with missing teeth - February days in the park!
Filled my city with bubbles! At least for a minute.
Secretly planted flowers in the middle of the night with Katie!
The beach in Santa Barbara on a cloudy day.
Organized social activities for my choir - a trip back to childhood!
On the non-photo side, I made some index-card collages to send in the mail. Fun!
Besides that, I also baked a few batches of brownies, a round of dinosaur-shaped sugar cookies, made a home-made lava lamp, started a journal, and a bunch of other things that I currently cannot remember or photograph.
In any case, I am hoping that this isn’t my last post! I will be back in these last few days, I hope. But if this is my last post, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed looking at what everyone else made - everyone is so creative! Thanks for reading, and perhaps our paths will cross again in the future.
In California, the camelias were in bloom. In MN, nothing is in bloom…yet. It was nice to get a preview.
Forgot to photograph Thing 23 from last night. Will do it tonight.Anyway, I was wondering why my allergies are so bad. These were all taken close to my apartment building.
Spent today having a mother and daughter day - shopping, haircut, lunch out, running errands. I was supposed to work all day, but that was absolutely a better way to spend the day! I did manage to squeeze these in. LOVE THEM!
Ready for Spring???
Still working through the stack of blends I made earlier in the month - today was the deep purple and the orange. A violet, a rose, a sort of tiger lily and a random orange flower. The orange was retina burning bright and will be lovely on summer pieces.
I’ve been more productive today then other days. There was a lot of cleaning and then a stitch marker set and some envelopes. It seems my envelopes run out faster then I assume they will. I made around ten thinking no one will buy anything and they do! I’m trying to use the scraps of paper from the other envelopes that I have made to make more. This set of stitch markers I have made similar ones before and they have sold fairly fast. Like always I hope these sell well also.
I made a bracelet out of some laser-etched leather. The etchings are from one of my illustrations.
I cut the leather in a swirly asymmetical fashion, and added one of my rose hair decorations to attach the two sides.
I found these hyacinth bulbs on markdown because it is now too late to get them to bloom for Easter. Since that date holds no significance for me - I made them a cool dark place where they can get started on some roots. I know this is very little, and is not very ‘creative’ but, it will require a thing-a-day commitment of opening them and checking to see if they have the water they need and so I am counting this as participating in the work of creating the flowers which will result and which would not have resulted if left to wither in the store.
They will bloom long after this adventure is over so I will not be able to post their pictures then.
It was gorgeous outside today. I went up to Berkeley and took pictures of cherry blossoms in bloom:
And I read some Rumi poems.
“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky…”
This probably shouldn’t even actually count, as simple as they were to make. I made three tiny little valentines for co-workers. They are about 2 inches wide and so cute. It’s just a heart printed on card stock with colored paper glued inside (one is lavender, one pink, the other coral). I wrote a little note in each. Since I am always the first in the office, tomorrow I will leave them on their desks with a Hershey’s Kiss.
The second card is for a dear friend. Same idea as the mini hearts, but this is a multi-floral design with the Kaba in the center. I got the design off a friend’s website, printed it on card stock and glued coral paper inside.
I also worked a bit on the box from yesterday which I am completely redoing, but haven’t finished it yet.
Palo Alto, CA may be on the way to becoming Amsterdam, USA. While there don’t seem to be any coffee shops selling cannabis yet, the number of bicycles - particularly on the Stanford University campus - is astonishingly heartening. Now, I’m not talking about a bunch of hippies (like me) who think that we can change the world bicycle by bicycle. No, Stanford is a fairly conservative place. They actually hire war criminals like Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice here! Nevertheless, the decision makers on campus at some point had the radical realization that designing a pedestrian and bicycle friendly environment by restricting cars improves the quality of campus life. The result is full bike racks and a healthier student population. This blossoming of bicycle culture is - to me - as inevitable as flowering in springtime.
If you are ever in the region, come rent a bike at the campus bike shop in the student union: 10 bucks a day, 50 bucks a week, helmet and locks included! Pedal power!
These are from the 10th. I’m keeping up pretty well with doing stuff every day but not so great with posting.
And to spare everyone a separate post for the 11th, I’ll put my picture of the first crocuses here too, for a touch of spring!
I’ve been having some sleeping problem lately so I haven’t done much of anything. But I amazed myself by thinking of making a banner finally. I was never interested in learning more about Photoshop since I’m satisfied with the most basic functions. I guess I wanted a customized banner bad enough. I got one now! I love flowers so I googled for white roses and happened to find three gorgeous photos. I studied a bit of the online tutorials and this is what I managed to do.
I tried the above banner on my blog only to see that my blog’s name and description were completely overshadowed and hard to discern. So I made the second banner below.
Now this is the final product.
One of my Etsy street teams, the Fantasy Artists of Etsy, is in the process of doing a round robin to create two fairies a “light” one and a “dark” one. I got assigned to the light one and received her in November and immediately got STUMPED. So, after much discussion with my brilliant husband, I decided on decorating a small straw bonnet for her. (Before and After pictures of her when I get this finished–hopefully in the next couple of days). The light straw matched the vintage lace of her gown and I decided to decorate with minature versions of the paper flowers I use on my cards. I decided to go with blue to match the necklace and wand she is already outfitted with.
This isn’t complete yet as it needs to be far more ornate to “fit” with what is currently on the doll, but this is what I got completed tonight.
This was a Christmas present from my mom, It included the pot, soil and the bulb. (I always forget the name!!)
Here’s a little montage of it’s transition (i’m missing the first few weeks)
January 31st:
February 4th
February 11th:
I planted it after new years and right now it is peaking. Which sadly means it’s all down hill and dying after this. But never fear, i will dry it out and replant it next fall 
And they lived happily ever after.
The End ~
