Im gonna do it!

I have wanted to make a shrine for a long time now, so, this looks like as good of a reason as any to finally do it!

CRAFT and iLoveToCreate.com have teamed up to present to you the Crafty Chica Challenge: Love Shrine!

Kathy Cano-Murillo, the Crafty Chica, has been making love shrines for the past 15 years. Using everything from mint tins to cigar boxes to even kitchen drawers, she transforms them into colorful art assemblages filled with objects, trinkets, mementos and phrases she loves. Her themes range from exotic lands to her kids to her Mexican culture. But her favorite love shrines to make are themed around romance!

In Kathy's new crafty-themed novel, Waking Up in the Land of Glitter, her main character, Star Esteban, makes a magical, glittery love shrine for her ex-boyfriend, Theo as a way to woo him back. Readers will not only have a peek at how Star made her love shrine in the story, but at the back of the book there are directions to make your own. You can also try one of Kathy's Love Shrine workshops in a Box - or start from scratch!

Here are her tips:

Let your heart guide you. Think of all the things that give you goosebumps (or that you want to give you goosebumps!) and make you happy! Your shrine can be exploding with sparkle and shine, or it can be soft and subdued. Start by laying down a foundation and background, and then adding a focal point, and then add accents to round it off. While Kathy likes to use creative containers for her love shrines, you can use what ever you want - anything is fair game! Kathy believes by setting out your love shrine in a place where you will see it everyday is a great way to bring happiness into your life!

Enter in this Crafty Chica Challenge for a chance to win crafty prizes. This challenge will run for 5 weeks, and the deadline for entries is 11:59 p.m. PST on March 11, 2010. The Prize winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 17, 2010. Because Kathy feels that love shrines are oh-so-very personal, the winners will be drawn at random. There will be one (1) grandprize winner, and three (3) runners-up. For more information and official rules, visit the Crafty Chica Challenge: Love Shrine contest page.

• The Grand Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket, a copy of the Crafty Chica's first novel Waking Up in the Land of Glitter and a $50 gift certificate to the Maker Shed.
• The Runner-up Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket as well as a Crafty Chica bobblehead.

To enter this Crafty Chica Challenge, please submit photos of your love shrine to the Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr Group, and include a description of your project, inspiration, and materials were used in the process. (250 words or less please).

Golden Dragonet

Golden Dragonet
Originally uploaded by Angry Angel

I stumbled upon this darling via some random linking. She is by Angry Angel, and who ever you are AA this is WONDERFUL!

I want one. I love firelizards!

Crochet, hmmm, maybe I should pick up some hooks and see if I can make anything more that a granny square!

I found her etsy site

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lucyravenscar

this stuff is adorable!

Starting of the year right!

Thought for the New Year ... if you are not living your passion ... Use the Blue Moon energy to help you with a new beginning.... "Find your passion. Look into the volcano-the fire, the lava of your Soul. The part that burns insistently and urges you to look at it. It is there that you find your answers and your true joy."

I can hardly believe I haven't had any artistic worthy posts since September--ouch.

Well I am starting off 2010 with the mojo focused in the right direction. I began this year prototyping!

Back in May I had these Easter egg ornaments and had no idea what to do with them. Stumble and trip and I ended up turning them into acorns.

Of course I thought these were the bees knees as it were. I ended up converting all of my glass egg shaped ornaments into acorns. I then took a back of styrofoam Easter egg shapes and turned all of them into  acorns. My colors began to deviate from "natural" acorn colors into fun fantasy colors, purples and pinks.

During the curing process I discovered that the styrofoam shrank. And caused the acorns with this as a base to crack. Hubby too k a purple cracked acorn and began to play with it, mostly trying to get the styrofoam out at first, then he thought this would make a great fairy house.

I have mentally been trying to figure out a good acorn base to make houses. You see the styrofoam really wasn't a smart thing to cook in the oven, and I only learned about that after the fact. That and I didn't want to constantly have to fix cracked acorns, because I used the wrong materials.

The first acorn fairy house, 

this one had the styrofoam base.

I thought about using that potato starch packing material, after all its potato starch it should be ok to cook, and it dissolves. 

I tried to mold and egg shape by hand. Ok that was a mess. Then I tried to use a plastic easter egg as a mold. It took a lot more of the packing material than I thought it would, it was very dense and heavy. And it did not keep its shape. In the end it required too much polymer clay, and the acorn turned out distorted and too heavy. And yes it does dissolve, but not before creating a gooey mess.

potato starch base acorn

Then I thought well, if I can used the plastic egg as a mold why not use the plastic egg as base. After all I use it as the base for other projects. So I tried that. and it worked beautifully. It actually cut easier that the thick wall of polymer I had created for the the potato starch based acorn.

The next step is to develop a tutorial for the fairy houses. I have worked one up for the plain acorn. Debating if I should submit it to Polymer Cafe, or go direct to online tutorial down load with claylessons.com.

Mehndi

I love doing henna--or mehndi. There is something about drawing with the cone, creating the stylized patterns that are based in tradition. Creating variations.

Something about it that I can do for hours.

Its more that just the drawing portion.

There is something very soothing and sensory about the entire experience.

Maybe it is the essential oils mixed into the henna, the smell, maybe its the texture of the paste.

I can keep going even when my hand hurts. Actually I dont usually notice my hands or my back when Im doing henna--just after when I try to move again.

I can go for hours without doing anything but henna. And I do mean hours.

In an exercise to discover when am I in the "flow" of creativity, I wrote repeatedly that it occurs when Im playing with henna, more so than with clay, or drawing.

And its not about the drawing. I can draw, I practice henna style work with markers, not the same. The closest I have come is fabric paint. And this has resulted in a painted dresser, many purses, and now a pair of shorts. I am thinking about extending onto more clothing.

Im very excited, in a conversation with a dear friend she suggested that I do henna at a local small festival instead of vending my jewelry as I normally would. I decided to do that. And as soon as I did I got 2 more opportunities to "do" henna.

I haven't done henna at this level in a long time. I am looking forward to it very much.

Tomorrow is the first faire. If you are in Hendersonville TN, come by The New Earth Center I will set up at 11am and hang out henna-ing until.....

Discussing Steampunk

Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

I will be discussing Steampunk with Mitzi on Bead Java Saturday August 15, 9 pm central. On Blogtalkradio

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Bead-Java/2009/08/16/Bead-Java-Your-Hot-Forum-For-Hand-Crafted-Jewelry

Burning up!

It is way to hot outside. I feel like I could make a bunch of projects out of polymer, put them on the back porch and in 20 minutes they would be cured! I know its not even as hot here as it could be. I finally made it to Tuscon--ok in the middle of July--ouch talk about hot!

Im not very motivated in extreme weather, Im sort of like a lizard, I just want to go lay out under a big flat rock and do NOTHING.

Here are some goodies from folks over at etsy who didn't just do nothing. Of course they all remind me of how hot it is...


This is Treade hes a fire dragon from ElementalDragons
isnt he cute!

And this pen is called Dragon Skin its from creativewriting

And these swirling Rust leaves look like flames to me. Beautiful pendant is by iamcr8tive.

Cepholapod Coronet

My mermaid with the octopus crown made it in to the current (August 2009) issue of Polymer Cafe. It was killing me to not post images of her on the internet, since they say no previously published images, and posting it on flikr is "publishing".
Well here she is, this is another view from the magazine. I was trying to show off as many different textures on her as possible.
The challenge was for texture.
The face and arms are poceline, I did not make them, the rest of her is pretty much polymer clay using different sculpting techniques.