Train Crafts

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Even though it is an anti-pagan holiday, I still get a kick out of wearing green. I've noticed that in San Luis Obispo, CA, they celebrate holidays a lot more. I saw so many people wearing green, and it wasn't even night time yet, so I know they weren't just bar crawling. On the train I worked on my knitting, read some fiction, and recorded a new video. Then tonight after the grand kids went to bed, I started some Thunderbird beaded earrings. I grew up in New Mexico so I knew of the Thunderbird mythology. I asked my daughter which of the picture earrings she liked best so I could make her some, and she said she preferred designs without pictures, so so much for that idea.

Working on a Painting With Fun Shapes

I'm getting ready to go out of town for 4 or 5 days. I don't really want to lose the great flow I'm having with my artwork, but I need balance in my life too and that means participating in family events.
I picked a hard painting today.  Lots of small intricate shapes to paint  After hours of working on it, my hands died and my eyes burned and my shoulders ached, so I had to give it up for the night.  It's going to be interesting to see if I can manage to paint while on my journey by train and on the road. I can only take minimal supplies with me. I'll let you know how it goes when I get back.
I'm obviously not going to be able to do my new Etsy shop grand opening today at 1 PM. I'll be at the train station. Oh well, best laid plans.  I had to push back the date to Dec. 15, 2011.  That way I'll have a few days to work on listings once I get back home next week. I'll have to write descriptions and do photos and so on. And I realized my scanner won't hold a 12 x 12" painting. It's too narrow.  So all the photos will have to be done with my digital camera. I had hoped to open on the first and catch some of the Christmas shoppers.  Oh well, can't win them all.  See you in a few days my faithful readers.

Shopping for supplies at Joanne's

After swearing I wouldn't get too carried away at Joanne's today now that I had my Google Adsense check in hand, I did get a bit carried away.My main goal was to get a mini quilting iron for scrapbooking. To my shock they were $30 and up, so even with the 40% off coupon that was more than I wanted to pay. But I decided to check the notions dept. too and found the coolest little traveling iron in designer colors for only $9.99. They had color choices of pink/white, translucent red, translucent blue, and black. So I got the red one. It says on the label you can use it for collage work so I think I'm good to go with the beeswax collaging projects. Can't wait to try it.


I don't know about you, but every time I sew my cat walks all over me, the machine, the sewing desk, and the surrounding boxes. He knocks off the scissors, pins, scraps, you name it. So the other thing I've been looking for is a cork board or something to hang behind the sewing machine. I didn't even know Joanne's carried such a thing but saw in their ad a cork and dry erase board with magnets. It was on sale too so I got 2 of them. I can use push pins to hang up pattern bits, and get magnetic hooks to hang up my scissors, seam ripper and so on. That should make sewing a lot less aggravating and frustrating.

Then just for fun I got the Blue Moon combo pack of beads and faux pearls called Frosting to make myself some Steampunk inspired cluster earrings. I loved all their color combos and was torn between the red, blue, purple or the one I got. Hopefully I'll get to make those today though I'm pretty tired because I stayed up until 3 AM last night. Why oh why do I do that?

The Knifty Knitter products were also on sale so I picked up the flower loom I've wanted for a few years now.

I hope the rest of you in the USA had a good 3 day weekend.