H.E.A.R.T

As an Army wife, military charities hold a special place in my heart. I am a member of the Etsy Homefront Team. H.E.A.R.T stands for Homefront Etsy Artisans Returning Thanks. For the next few months, the Homefront team is offering items in our etsy stores as charity sales. Many shop owners will offer one or more items where 100% of the proceeds will go to the Fisher House The Fisher House is an organization that works to support military families by providing a home away from home, so that family members can be close to their loved ones during hospitalization for an illness, disease or injury.
Starting on March 1st, buyers can do a search on Etsy for the tag "Homefront Charity" and see a list of participating items. We will make our donations to the Fisher House on July 1st of this year. We hope readers will help us to make our first charity event a successful one for this great cause.

Please visit
The Homefront blog to learn more about this wonderful charity event. And be sure to visit Etsy starting tomorrow to help out military families in need.

Just a note, I have decided that rather than choosing just one or 2 items...I will donate 50% of the proceeds from EVERY sale over the next 4 months to the Fisher House. I feel that this will allow for more choices for folks to help out this great Charity.

Deborah
P.S. I will also be uploading several new jewelry pieces as well as my dragons to my etsy store this weekend.

Steampunk!!!

Steampunk...what an inventive art form. I love the juxtaposition of a beautiful piece of art with the workings of gears and such. A friend posted on her blog about a great artist selling on etsy. Catherinette Rings. They make amazing Steampunk Rings. Great metal work paired with gorgeous stones and beads. I was bowled over when I visited their store. And then to discover that they are generously having a drawing to GIVE AWAY one of their awesome rings! Please visit their blog and through it their etsy store to check out this amazing artist! www.steampunkrings.blogspot.com

Meet Maleficent!!!

Inspired by the villianess from the 1959 Disney classic Sleeping Beauty! I chose to base my dragon off the Maleficent's human form rather than her dragon form. She has green facial features, yellow eyes, and even the pale purple 'eye shadow'. She is unfinshed at the moment, as the jade sphere she will hold (representing her staff) has not arrived yet. Also her wings are not complete yet. I do hope you enjoyed seeing Maleficent in all her wicked glory.
Deborah

Another dragon this way comes!

I spent the afternoon working with my clay. I had a custom order for 15 pens, that I needed to get done. So those got finished before I played. I started by researching an early Disney Villianess. One of my favorites actaully. And no I'm not gonna tell you who she is until I post her picture. I love the way she turned out though. She is busy resting in the dragon-sauna right now. Hopefully in the midst of all the other things I need to do tomorrow I'll find a few minutes to snap atleast one pic of her. I know I'm evil but hey that's the mood I was in while sculpting! LOL
So short and sweet for today, but more to come tomorrow.
Deborah

Meet Ipilya!

Ipilya was born last night. I envisioned a stormy dragon, but wanted to name him something other than, well, Stormy. LOL So I searched out named of mythological Storm Gods. Ipilya caught my attention as he is the Aboriginal Lizard God of Storms. Seemed fitting huh! LOL Here is a little blurb I found online about him.

"Gods from Australian Mythology...
IPILYA


IPILYA: Lizard God of Storms.


In a large swamp lives this enormous gecko, 100 yards long. He is responsible for thunderstorms and heavy rain. When the monsoon period is imminent he slurps up large helpings of water and sludge, which he squirts up into the sky to become thunderclouds.

With a bit of roaring to set things in motion and induce some lightning flashes, he feels he has done his bit. Then he goes back to basking quietly without being disturbed until next season.

Intruders will be severely slurped."

I couldn't help but chuckle as I read it. I even did a little but of detail painting on him...I thought it kinda reminded me of Aboriginal tattooing. I am currently working on his wing and will take more pics after they are finished.

End of one week or beginning of another. :-)

Mmmm what a nice Sunday. Hubby and I went out and spent the afternoon at a local gun show. Not much for me too look at...although there were a few folks selling jewelry too. Speaking of, I am gonna make myself a magnetic bracelet. I am having some issues with my right wrist again. Before hubby and I moved to GA I had been getting sharp pains in my wrist. I think it was the beginnings of carpal tunnel. But quitting work (I worked in the office of a furniture store) and becoming SAHM really seemed to help. but now with all the sculpting I'm doing, not to mention all this typing ;-) my wrist is starting to act up again. So I picked up some magnetic beads today and will put together a bracelet this next week. I am hoping that wearing it will help aleviate some of my pain. I'm concerned that I do indeed have carpal tunnel and really don't want to have to deal with surgery.

Well back to our day. We next went and had coffee and lunch at a local cafe. Hubby had a hot white chocolate mocha, and I had an Acai berry smoothie. MMMM it was so yummy. It also had pomegranate, blackberries and some other berries too. I LOVE poms and I am quickly becoming a fan of the Acai berry. it's got this kind of rich almost chocolate-y flavor. mmmm

Then we headed off to a couple local craft stores looking for my magnetic beads. It took 2 tries, but hey i finally found them. Also...not sure if this is chain wide but our Jo-ann's had some of their Studio by Sculpey clay and tools on clearance. So I picked up a pack of clay for hubby, and a couple of the tools that I didn't have.

Came home and started some bacon for dinner...in between batches, I started my newest dragon. After dinner, I got back to him and he is currently baking away in the oven. I have not yet named him, but will have pictures up sometime tomorrow.

So I hope you'll come back and visit, and meet my new dragon.
Deborah

Yeah!

I got some sculpting done last night! I decided to try my hand at creating a Kudzu's Whimzy style dragon. If you aren't familiar...I urge you to visit Sally and view her amazing work at www.kudzuswhimzy.blogspot.com Sally is not only an amazing artist, but a generous one as well. She graciously shared a tutorial on how she creates her awesome dragons!!! So with many hearty thanks to Sally, I'd like to introduce you to Blaze!

I had a wonderful time creating him, and am just thrilled with how he turned out. I'm hoping Auntie Sally is as pleased with him. I couldn't have done it without her! :-)

Today is Friday, start the weekend! :-)

Another week come to end. My how this week flew by. My article did indeed come out in todays edition of our local paper. Unfortunately it is not available on the internet version of the paper. I sent an email to the reporter asking her to send me a copy...if I have not heard back from her by the end of the weekend I will type it up myself and post it here for everyone to read. It was a nice little article and made me very proud.

I finished the day grocery shopping and then reading hidden away in my room. ( I came home from shopping with a huge headache.) So I enjoyed finishing off the last of the 2nd book in a Gena Showalter Lords of the Underworld trilogy. It s essentially a story regard what happened after Pandora's Box was opened...and why it was opened. Gena is a fantastic paranormal romance author, if this is a genre that appeals to you, I highly recommend you visit her blogspot. www.genashowalter.blogspot.com

And now I'm catching up my blog before I head off to attempt a Kudzu's Whimsy style dragon. Be sure to click on the picture of her dragon to the left of my blog to view her wonderful work! :-)

Sooo for now I am gonna wrap this up and then I will be off to do some sculpting! Night for now.
Deborah

Ugh ok how about Weekly Words! LOL

Yikes can you believe it's Thursday already! This week has just flown by. Monday was a crazy day...I spent it cleaning and reorganizing my kitchen/studio, in preparation for the reporter from our local paper to come out. It was a bit of well I like to call it organized chaos. Hubby just called it a mess! LOL I do so much better when I know I have a deadline to deal with. A good friend called it pressure cleaning! That seems to definitely fit me.

Tuesday started with another call from the reporter...she was canceling her face to face interview and wanted to know if we could do it over the phone. I was a little disappointed but quickly said yes to the phone interview. We had a wonderful time talking and she asked me to take a few photographs of the hearts I will be teaching. She later emailed me and mentioned that if I might be teaching the hearts "with all the watch gears" on it. She loved my Steampunk turtle and said that if I was, then they might be able to use the turtle pic too. So I'm going to be on the look out for a large cache of watch gears. I sent her several pics of hearts as well as the turtle. She sent me a copy of the write-up that will be in tomorrow's paper. I don't know what pics she used (if any) but I will link the article tomorrow! :-)

Wednesday was a busy day...the leaders of 4 of the 5 spouses groups got together to put on a lunch fundraiser for the command and staff. I made a large crockpot full of chicken alfredo. Lunch went well although a little small...each spouse group made about $40 for our group. Not great, but not bad either. My group has another lunch next week. We are doing hot dog and BBQ pulled pork sandwich plates. Hopefully we will do very well.

Today was kind of a lazy day...slept late, talked to my mom, and then spent the afternoon reading and answering emails. I packed up my laptop today to ship off to HP. I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but I broke my A key earlier this week. I managed to catch my fingernail under the corner of it and it popped up! Talk about frustrating! It couldn't have been the X or the K key...no it had to be the A...I use that key ALL the time! LOL But the good news is, I called HP and they are fixing it for free. So I'm using hubby's laptop in the meantime.

Tomorrow is a pretty easy day...just gotta go grocery shopping. Hopefully....and heck I even say that hopefully! LOL I can do some claying tomorrow. I got a great shipment of Tibetan wool, beach sand and seashells today. I am very excited to get more done on my mermaid. I think I'm gonna tackle hands. Once her hands are done, I can paint her features and give her a gorgeous head of hair. :-)

So I'll be back if I can manage it tomorrow. If not y'all have a wonderful weekend.
Deborah

Monday, Monday!

I was woken this morning my a jarring ring, ring of my phone. Now granted it was 10am, but we tend to be night owls on weekends and holidays. Oh wait who am I kidding...we are always night owls! LOL But we like to sleep in on weekends and holidays. Oh wait, got side tracked...back to, my morning wake up call. So I am listening to the answering machine downstairs, and I hear this woman talking about the Women's Conference I was asked to teach my polymer clay hearts at in March. So I grabbed the phone and said "hello". Next thing I know I have agreed to do an interview with our local paper about my polymer clay work to promote the conference!!! That's the good news...bad news is she's coming here to my house tomorrow afternoon! :-$ eek!!! Let's just say I would greatly benefit from a cleaning service if we could afford one! LOL But thankfully I also work well under pressure, SOOOOOO instead of claying today I spent the day scrubbing, sweeping, and straightening! I have a bit more to do in the morning, but the reporter won't be here until around 3:30 tomorrow. So I'm not stressing...yet! LOL

I will be one of a few teachers featured in the article, and hopefully it will be available on their website. If so I will most definitely share the link. :-) I am very excited if not a little nervous too. But I look forward to telling you all about it tomorrow.
So for now have a wonderful night!
Deborah

Ugh another week gone

Well gee here it is Sunday again already. Another weekend gone and well I honestly haven't gotten anything done! lol Hubby and I took our youngest out on Friday for haircuts. He and I both went drastically shorter. His hair was down to the middle of his shoulders, he loved it, but was tired of people mistaking him for a girl. :-( So he decided he wanted it cut. He looks adorable now. We are all happy with it and no more being mistaken for a girl. Me, well I decided thst since I wear my hair up 90% of the time, I decided to cut mine short too! It's was a huge shock, but I really like it. I don't have any pics yet, but will get hubby to take some so I can share my new look with y'all!

We enjoyed our Family Friday Movie Night with the kiddos watching Igor. It was a cute movie, but very un-disney-like. Not sure I would recommend it to everyone, but if your sense of humor is kind of warped you'll probably enjoy it! lol

Saturday Hubby and I went out for the day...we bought a 96 Mustang back in October and I loved having a sports car. Hubby likes it too, but it's his work car. And he really prefers a 4 cylinder as opposed to the V-6 of the Mustang. So he really wanted something different. So we decided to go looking for something both sporty AND a 4-banger. Something that would make us both happy. OH and BTW did I mention we couldn't spend more than about $1000 after trading the Mustang. Well wouldn't you know we actaully found something!!! We found a 2000 Pontiac Sunfire CONVERTIBLE!!!! For $2600, and the lot gave us $1600 for our Mustang! I was amazed. So our Valetines gift to one another was another car!

We spent the rest of the day just driving around. Window shopping and just enjoying being together. We came home and made dinner for the boys. TV dinners, they love 'em! Then I saute'd some various mushrooms and cooked us some bacon-wrapped steaks. We enjoyed a nice quiet dinner and then enjoyed some time playing the Wii with the boys. I bought them BoomBlox, it's basically jenga on steriods. Both hubby and the oldest say its addicting. So we had a very nice Valentines day. I hope everyone else enjyoed their day with loved ones.

As of yet no claying done, however I did dye some crepe doll wool for her hair. I love the color but am not sure if I am going to be happy with the texture. I will have to see how it dries first. I have some Tibetan lambs wool coming soon, So I might use that instead. Oh I also found the perfect shell for her 'lounger' out in the garage. I had forgottten that 2 summers ago I took the boys down to Mobile for vacation. While there we went to Dauphin Island and the boys collected 2 jars full of great seashells. I found a wonderful larger rectangular shell in the jars that will suit her perfectly. I'm still going to paint some satin and line the shell with it, that way it looks alive, and will be much comfier for her.

Well that's it for today, no claying done. Hopefully I can get some in tomorrow. Enjoy the evening all!
Deborah

Well just a quick little post today, nothing new to share. I've been doing laundry all day long, well that and surfing the internet. This blogging thing can get addicting...so many neat blogs to read! But thankfully the laundry is almost done, and I don't have much planned for tomorrow. The only thing I have to do tomorrow is pick up Valetine's cards and candy for my son for school on Friday. After that...I'm claying!!!! More fishies, coral and maybe even some tiny seahorses and a giant clam.

Why a giant clam...well I have decided that since my mermaid is resting in her sea garden she needs a lounge chair. And what better lounge chair for a mermaid than a giant clam! :-D I am going to sculpt the shell from clay and then take some satin and hand paint it. (cause if you aren't familiar with giant clams...the insides come in amazing colors and patterns!) So those are my plans for tomorrow and into the weekend. Hubby is off from work on Friday and then he AND the boys are off on Monday. So we shall see how much I can do.

Wishing everyone a great Thursday!
Deborah

So yesterday was another busy day for me, I babysat in the morning, ran my hubby lunch and then off to Hobby Lobby for supplies to make hubby a bulletin board for work. Then came home to make dinner and head to a meeting. Thankfully I had a little time in the morning while I baby sat to put some pieces together. I finished my yellow and green anemones, and added a head to my mermaid. I also sculpted a little cf-style sea turtle and an octopus too. My sons LOVE the octopus. I gotta say I adore him too. And he look so much better once I sdded as little brown paint to antique him. Oh yeah I also added 'nemo's' stripes! I think he looks fantastic.

Today is more laundry, and more sculpting. I'm gonna work on some more fish, and try and figure out what other coral, anemones and critters should be in my mermaids garden. Come to think of it I need to decide what to call my mermaid. She needs a name!

Well I'm off for now, talk with y'all later!

Deborah

YEAH!!!!! She's Back!!!!

Oh my gosh...I am so happy...my muse is back! After days and days of being uninspired I finally am sculpting again!

And you wanna know where my muse was hiding...On http://www.pogo.com/. If you aren't familiar with pogo, it's and online game site. They have a free membership and then a paid Club membership. I am thoroughly addicted to pogo. (thanks to a birthday present of a membership from my sister. THANKS MUG! lol) So anyways, there I was feeling kinda bummed and crummy, playing a game called Squelchies. (it's a match 3 type game, set under the sea) And on the background are all these corals and sea anemones. And it just hit me....I wanna make an anemone!

So I got in and mixed up some glow in the dark clay, with a little white, and some translucent. And started rolling...oh yeah and I looked up anemones online to see what they looked like.:-) So I rolled and rolled and rolled until I had a couple dozen of the little buggers. Then I dipped the tip of each one into Pearlex powders in Interference Green and Violet. (for any non crafters these are powdered pigments similar to loose eyeshadow) I then baked the lot of them and chilled in ice water to get them as translucent as possible. While those where baking I took a little of my tentacle mix and added some pink powder. And made some pointy, swoopy tentacles for a different anemone. I also mixed some pink clay with some pale brown and sculpted the pink anemone's base. After my glow tentacles came out I baked the pink parts.

While those where baking and chilling I realized that my anemone needed a clownfish. I mean really, what self respecting anemone would be caught without it's resident little orange buddy? So off surfing I went again looking for pictures of clownfish. Thankfully I found a really great picture, and I set about sculpting possibly the smallest and most realistic piece of my sculpting career...so far! :-) I really amazed myself...he turned out...dare I say it...almost perfect!!!

After my tentacles and anemone base came out and were chilling, I baked my 'nemo'. I inserted a thin wire while sculpting him too. And then I got to work assembling the 2 different anemones. The pink one was pretty simple. I added some liquid clay to the base then added a 'blob' of more pink/glow clay. I poked holes around the perimeter and added more TLS to each hole, and stuck in a wavy tentacle. When I finished going around I brushed more TLS over the base of each 'arm' and then into the oven he went.

Nemo's anemone took a little more work as the type that clownfish usually live is have tentacles covering their surface rather than just the outside edge. So I shaped the base, took a paintbrush end, and poked dozens and dozens of holes across the top and along the edges. Smearing another good coat of TLS over and into the holes I started applying the tentacles. Of course wouldn't you know I needed more tentacles! lol Good thing I tend to mix up more color than I might need. ;-) So I counted to see how many I'd need and rolled, dipped, baked and chilled again. I added Nemo and then finished adding his pal's tentacles. I used some white TLS and painted on Nemo's stripes. I will use black paint to add the final details tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the collage of my anemones, and thanks for 'listening' while I released my joy at my muse finally returning! :-)

Deborah

Sunday 2-8-09

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. Mine has been well intersting, to say the least. We had a friend over last night who is going through a rough patch, and that was great. But in the midst of it we get a call from a wife to find out things at her house were bad. So needless to say that brought the 'party' to a screeching halt. So it was a long night with calls coming and going helping her out. It ended up being after 3am this morning before we made it to bed. *sigh*

I had planned on claying today, but can't seem to find the motivation. Does any one else ever get like that. Real life getting in the way of your creative mojo? Any suggestions on getting over it. I'm sure I'll think of something, for now I'm gonna just play around online in between loads of laundry.

I did take a bunch of pics with my new camera yesterday, so I'll share some of them. You can also see many more of my things (taken with my new camera, of course ;-) ) on my website http://www.dlsarmywife.etsy.com/

Bright and Sunny Saturday

It's still chilly, but the sun is shining today! I spent an hour or so this morning taking new pictures of some of my polymer clay work as well as some earrings I still have. I will be updating many of the pictures in my webstore today. I am hoping that these new clear pics will help show off my work to it's full potential.

Not to much else going on today, Hubby is most likely gonna head out and go golfing tomorrow morning, and I am gonna try and swing over to visit our local Paint-your-own-Pottery store. I think it would be s neat place to have an outing for our spouses group. I'll also spend sometime tonight and tomorrow making phones calls just to remind folks about our meetings, and preparing for that meeting Monday night.

I am also gonna get some clay time in. I need to play, still no idea of exactly what I'm gonna make, but I feel the need to get my hands moving.

Y'all have a great day!
Deborah

Ok so Daily Dish might be stretching it! lol

I really am trying to remember to post every day, but yesterday was just crazy! Our Family Support group put on lunch for the soldiers yesterday. We served hot dogs and shredded chicken sandwiches, chips & mac n' cheese, and a bunch of home-made desserts. Considering we didn't advertise as well as we could have we still made almost $200. It was a great event and we are planning another one next month.

Then after lunch I had to rush over and get my nails done. And then rush to be there when H got home from school. Had to start dinner almost right away because Hubby and I had a meeting at 5:30. Or atleast I thought it was 5:30!!! LOL we showed up, kids in tow, only to discover the meeting didn't start until 6:30!!! Ugh! I hate when I mess up times like that. But I guess it's better to be early than late. lol The meeting finally wrapped up around 8ish. Made it home in time to get H and B ready for bed.

Today was a little slower, a friend came over this morning to go through my scrapbooking supplies. I scrapped for several years, until moving on to my jewelry habit.(which of course I have since moved on, to my polymer clay habit ) But anyways, she is newly married with little ones and wants to start scrapping. And since I have tons and tons of stuff I gladly willing to 'share the wealth' and pass stuff along to her. So we enjoyed spending the afternoon going through supplies and just chatting.

This evening I had a 'ladies night' with the other Support group leaders. We had a nice time just chatting and hanging out. Our host is planning a wine tasting for our next get together. Sounds like fun. :-)

Hubby is thinking about going golfing tomorrow, so I think I will alternate between laundry and claying. I'm not entirely sure what I'm gonna work on, but I'm eager to play. So hopefully I will have some new pictures to share with y'all tomorrow.

Have a wonderful Saturday everyone.
Deborah

Geez, here it is Wednesday already. Where oh where has the week gone? Hubby and I spent Sunday afternoon and early evening awaiting returning troops. It's always wonderful to see so many families reunited! We were supposed to go to a SuperBowl Party afterwards, but the flight didn't get in until later in the afternoon. So we ended up not heading out until after 9. But sometimes it's more important to be around when friends need you.

Monday was a busy day and sadly no claying got done. Our spouses group is having a lunch fundraiser tomorrow, so I spent Monday making up a flier and doing some shopping with my co-leader. Tuesday was busy too, early to rise to get our taxes done, then an afternoon meeting. Came home made dinner, worked on shredding chicken for sandwiches tomorrow, (ugh still have another chicken to shred tonight, not to mention baking to do!) and then I drove out to Wal-mart to buy my new camera.

My new camera is sooooo cool! It's a FujiFilm S1000, I got it for $189, including a case! It has a macro and a super macro feature. (that's for close-up and super close-up shots.) Which for posting pics of my clay work is so important for me. I took a few pics of my turtle piece just to try it out. I just can't get over how amazing these pics look! I now need to rephotograph ALL my pics for my store! Ugh can't say I'm looking forward to that but "A picture is worth a thousand words!" And to have a good looking store, means having great looking pictures!

Geez can you believe that it's Wednesday already. Been a busy week so far. Hubby and I spent Sunday welcoming home returning troops. It always wonderful to see families reunited. We had been invited to a SuperBowl party, but due to the flight coming in later, we spent a large part of the evening at the airfield. But you know that's ok, sometimes it more important to be where friends need you. :-)

Monday was kind of a lazy day, I didn't do any claying, but did some shopping and planning for an upcoming lunch fundraiser. Tuesday was busy, busy. Got up early to get our taxes done. (I do so enjoy that. and thankfully our trip to go see The Mouse ;-) is all set to go! :-D ) Then I had a lunch meeting. Came home and cooked dinner, and shredded a chicken for sandwiches tomorrow. Then off to Walmart for my new camera!

I LOVE my new camera. It's a FujiFilm S1000. I needed a camera that takes good close-up or macro shots. My new camera not only has a macro setting it has a Super-Macro setting!!! Yeah. I took some quick shots of a turtle piece I have done just paying with it last night. I put them into a collage a bit ago to see how they look! I am THRILLED with this new camera. And it was as steal too at only $189 including the carry case!

Well off to change my clothes to go do some more shopping, then get my nails done, then got baking to do as well as church tonight. So I guess I gotta get scooting. Until tomorrow. :-)

Saturday

Well I guess since it's already after midnight it's technically Sunday! lol Well let's see, today a gorgeous, sunny, crappy day! It actually started Friday night, I couldn't sleep! So I was up until 4:30 in the morning playing games online. I finally was tired enough to head to bed, and slept until about 11:30. Got up and made the kiddos some lunch, read my email and just kinda chilled. I read my email and surfed the net for a bit playing games on pogo.com. My usually babysitter called wanting me to go to the gym with her, but I just didn't feel up to it. A little while later I went out to Wal-mart because the hubby needed wiper blades for his car, and the younger 2 boys needed new sneakers. (they grow out of and wear them out so quick! lol) I managed to find sneakers for them as well as the oldest all on clearance!!! 3 pair of shoes for $27.00!!! I was very excited. :-)
I stopped off at Books A Million on my way home and picked up the new issue of PolymerCafe and BeadUnique. One of my favorite artists, Christi Friesen, has pieces in both of them! So I am eager to try them out. I made it home and started cooking hamburger for tacos. Dinner was late tonight, but on the weekends I don't mind. And well I've been online ever since. LOL So unfortunately I didn't get any claying done today, and most likely won't get any done tomorrow either. Hubby and I will spend a portion of our afternoon at the Airfield tomorrow, as we have a wave of troops returning. And then a SuperBowl party tomorrow night. Ah well there is always Monday, well atleast until I need to go shopping again! But then I can alway sculpt afterwards too.
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend and enjoy your Sunday.
Deborah