Finally! A Craft to Post!!

Well, after my very cranky post yesterday, I'm glad to be posting a much happier note today. :) I de-crankified by complaining and bitching to just about everyone, and finally got it out of my system. And then to make a newly happy me even happier, my friend emailed me the pictures of her chip and dip set! :)

The chip and dip set is ceramic. I went to Crankpots on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. They're a pottery store that has all unfinished pieces. You pick the piece you want - each piece has its own price - and then for a $20 studio fee you can sit in their shop and paint the ceramics. If you're not done, you can come back and finish it later. Once you are done, you leave it there to be fired in their kiln. I've gone there a few times now, and it's a lot of fun. The pieces I've painted are painted in Hot Tamale Red and Rawhide Brown. I decided to keep it really simple and paint it in two colors that remind me of my friend. I painted the platter in all brown, then painted the edge with the red, and painted a heart in the middle. I painted the dip cup all red on the outside, and then brown in the middle, to provide a nice contrast. Once I was done painting the colors, I bought a special paint called "blooming crystals". It's full of hunky chunks, and once you put it in the scorching heat of the kiln, the chunks melt into the paint, providing a "bloom" of color overtop your base color. I decided to paint all the brown with a blooming color called spiced banana. It had brown and yellow small flecky crystals. It sort of reminded me of banana bread. I really like how it turned out (especially because I had no way of seeing the finished product before Tabitha received it!) I like how the crystals can be seen over the red edging and red heart. I made sure to coat the red extra well, so you can't see the brush strokes, but I decided to do the exact opposite on the brown parts - I made sure to leave obvious brush strokes to give it a more authentic and rustic pottery feel. I'm glad she loves it, I'm just going to have to paint myself one now! I'm terribly addicted to going to Crankpots now. It's a lot of fun, and best of all, it's a quite place away from home that I can sit, relax and craft. Hmmm. I wonder if I can play hooky from work to go...

Bitchy!

That accurately describes my mood lately. Bitchy. I don't even feel like I just came back from a four day vacation. The vacation itself was lovely! We camped out at the family farm, got a lot of boating and tubing in, the weather was glorious, and we had lots of fun away from all the craziness of real life. But, bright and early this morning reality came pounding back with a vengence. Arg! Even though I was slathering myself with SPF 50 sunscreen several times a day throughout the weekend, I managed to burn myself to a lovely lobster red. I tried toning down the redness with a self tanner, but that only managed to make the red more intense. And it hurts! Like a sonofagun! At least I know THIS pain is quite temporary. Everything else seems to have no end in sight.

I don't know if it's the hot and humid weather we're having lately (don't get me wrong - I LOVE the sunshine. Seeing the sun, and getting to enjoy the nice weather is great) but it's TOO hot for my liking, and it seems to make me and everyone else grumpy. I had to deal with unhappy customer after unhappy customer at the shop today. Sigh. Everything seems to be going as smoothly as the warts on a witches nose lately. The employees are restless, I'm restless, the owner's restless. The project Rob and I are working on seems no farther along than two months ago. Hurry up and wait. Hurry and wait. Wait. Everything seems to be in limbo, and I'm sick and tired of it all. Sick and tired is absolutely right. I've caught every single bug going around - and caught it twice. When I haven't been dealing with respiratory infections, eyeball infections, pnemonia, colds, flu bugs, I've been stuck with a mysterious runny nose, and a complete lack of energy to do anything. I thought the weekend away would recharge my batteries, but all it's done is clog all the problems into a shorter time frame to fix. One day back from my vacation, and I'm already ready for the weekend.

I was supposed to go to a pen turning class at Lee Valley with a friend tomorrow, but due to lack of registrants, it was cancelled. Yuck! I really wanted to make my very own pen (all my friends know me as the pen whore) I guess I'll just pile that up on the list of disapointments. :(

Lucky I managed to squeeeeeze in a small craft project for one of my oldest friends' wedding. Tabitha. I've known her since grade 6 and due to a lucky twist in fate have gotten back in touch with her this year. I got down to Crankpots in Edmonton and painted a beautiful ceramic chip and dip set. Or, at least I think it's beautiful! I couldn't get it fired in the kiln in time for the wedding, so I let her know when it was ready for pick up, and she let me know today she got it, and loves it. I can't wait to see pictures of it so I can post them here! It's been the only real craft project I got in for the past several weeks. I'll post pictures as soon as I have them. That, and her kamakaze wedding and my vacation has been the only real fun I've had in a while. (sigh)

I'm hoping to get back to the gym. My doctor has had strict instructions for me to avoid public places like gyms and swimming pools until I've been symptom free for at least a week. I can't wait to get some schedule of normalcy again. I want to lose some of this excess weight in hopes that's been making me feel tired and run down. I go for my assessment today. Hopefully the prognosis isn't too grim. But, I just won't think about it. Just close my eyes and leap.

And because it makes me happy, I have posted a few pictures from my awesome weekend. Enjoy!

PS - I swear I'll get pics of me modelling my merkin and tassels soon - as well as some of my new hats. I {heart} hats!

Hair!

I haven't blogged in SUCH a long time! It's been so busy, with my projects that I've been doing. I've started stamping a recipe book that I thought would be my "fun summer project". Uh huh. If it gets past the stage it's currently at, I'll be surprised. And amazed. Right now, I've got about 30 recipe cards with the lines stamped on. And that's about it. I still have to ... well, do everything including figure out what recipes I want to put in the book, and write them on the cards. Forget about assembling everything! Sheesh!

But I did partake in one of my favorite crafts last week - changing my hair! Maybe it's not traditionally a craft, but it is pretty awesome! In my life I've had my hair a multitude of colors (brown, blonde, black, red, cherry red, blue, green, purple, yellow, orange, fire engine red, and a combination of all of those.) And my hair has been all lengths (including almost bald thanks to an oopsie that had me chemically burn the hair off my head - right before Christmas! hee hee...)
So just this past week, I finally got sick of trying to grow it out, and got it cut into nifty layers including bangs! I haven't had bangs in forever. They're side sweeping, covering my left eye and they're driving me NUTS! Oh well. It looks good. I got my hair dyed jet black (my favorite color for my hair for the past two years) with cherry red "panels" of color chunked in. This will keep me happy until I'm sick of it next. However long that will take.

Other than that, my summer has been filled with playing catch up. Rob and I are still working on our secret project, which is less time intensive, but still taking a lot of time. And that leaves no time for anything else. One day a week we're furiously cleaning the house because we haven't had any time to do it any other day. The weekends are a wash because Kathleen is in swim club, and every weekend is a tournament. She's doing really well. She's got a whole bunch of "beat my time" ribbons and has won first, second or third in nearly most of her races, and even took home gold (for best overall) at one swim meet, and a bronze at another. I'm so proud of her, and she loves it, which makes giving up every weekend worth it, but it still leaves us with NO TIME! Ahhh! I figure I can rest when I'm dead. That just leaves me with one problem: when am I gonna get time to do my crafts?!

Busy busy busy busy...

I've had some pretty awesome stuff I've been wanting to blog for a while, (I've found the BEST repent sinner cards I have been DYING to post pics of) but unfortunately I've had so much to do and such little time. Not even one evening of crafts have been squished into my crazy busy schedule. :( (sigh)

I've got my own personal crafts, some 3-D boot shaped party favors to make, wedding invites to finish, pants to hem, a whole house to clean, I must get over all my infectious illnesses so I can be cleared to go back to the gym so I can feel guilty about NOT going to the gym. Work has been super crazy busy, and THEN I get a call yesterday asking me to testify at the CRTC hearings! Eep!

If you don't remember (or have started reading my blog more recently) I had posted a few months back that my boss had put together an application to obtain a broadcasting license for am FM station for the County of Leduc. It's this big, huge, long and technical process just to put the application in, and then if it's accepted, you have to appear before a panel of experts who ask questions, point out problems, clarify facts in your application. Well, that was yesterday, and I was asked to appear and speak on behalf of my boss. I was honoured to be asked, and excited to be a larger part of the entire process, so I went. It was a really interesting day. I got to see how the process works, see other applicants pleading their case, and answering questions. I got to speak about the research done and programming. I feel a bit bad about not answering more questions, but if I did, I would probably be feeling bad about saying the wrong thing. Heh. So now it's a waiting game. Wait for their decision. It's only a few months away...

Nippleicious!

I've had a very busy week! I've had birthdays and anniversaries and parties and out of town visitors! Oh my! But that also means I have awesome things to write about this week.
Wednesday was my big 3-0 birthday! I had not been stressing or worrying about "no longer being in my 20's" even though I think that's what the mainstream media wants you to believe. I think there's a certain grace and elegance to aging. And I was certainly sick of hearing "you're ONLY in your twenties?" I dunno. I think a certain amount of credibility goes with you when you've got wisdom and experience (aka age).
Despite not being very worried about my big day, I didn't want a giant birthday, so I opted for my usual wednesday night karaoke, and invited friends and family (and strangers) to come out and help me ring in my new age. It was wonderful. Lots of people I love showed up, and I got some amazing home made gifts! Two gifts stood out, and they're the subject of this post:
Nipple Tassels.
What is it about getting older and wiser? I've always been very secure with myself and I like to think I'm fairly confident, so it was hilarious to get not one but THREE pair of nipple tassels! Hooray for older, sexy and confident women! Of course, these were to go with my new fuzzy, glittery merkin that was a present from Amy. (please go to her blog at http://themadstamper.blogspot.com/ I have learned a lot from Amy who I lovingly refer as my Craft Guru. She's awesome to the power of ten!)
She made set #1 of the nipple tassels. Hers were made with purple sequins with a border of pink sequins glued to fabric shaped in a cone. Long white tassels dangling from the center complete the look. They match wonderfully my blue and green merkin she also made. (merkin is a public wig that became a fashion accessory for hookers in the 15th and 16th century. When a hooker had an STD, part of the treatment was shaving the pubic area, so if a potential customer realized she had no pubic hair, that was a tip off that she was 'dirty' so the wig was created so that the hooker wouldn't lose business after treatment. Now merkins are making a come back as "outerwear" for clubbing, and berlesque shows)
Set #2 was made by my sister Cindy, who although wasn't able to celebrate with me, she made some awesome nipple tassels. This pair, was created by forming foampaper into cones, and then gluing fine pink blue and copper glitter into a heart shaped pattern with copper colored tassels glued in the center.
Set #3 was given to me by Cindy, but made by her friend. These are very traditional pasties with gold sequins glued onto the foam cone, and red twisty tassels glued in the center. I love them all, and can't wait to try them out!

They're a quick and easy craft project! Adhere the tassels and merkin using eyelash glue, spirit glue or double sided tape, hold (hold firmly, but don't press too hard) while glue is drying (between 5 and 10 minutes) then shimmy and shake! I will get pictures up eventually of me modeling these wonderful creations, but until then, you can admire these pics.