Heating Up in the Studio

 Just even hearing about the possibility that Michael deMeng may do a workshop in Bisbee was enough to send me out to the studio to make some demented unbeads at the torch. I can see adding these little numbers to some assemblage in the future. You see they only have one hole... (well actually you don't see because the hole is hidden) They are inverted vessels which may very likely have stems of some sort to attach to them.

"Time Waits for No Man"

An encaustic collage that I got around to finishing after half a day at the torch making headpins, paperclips and  some more torched hammered earring parts as well as a few experiments with torch fired enamel bead caps. It was a productive day.

I had some new ideas for postcards.

This one has pressed flowers from our wildflower patch sewn in with mica and bits of silk cord and brocade.

I got ahold of some very aged and overexposed photos during my adventure above the coin shop in Bangor. I tell you it was a treat to be digging around in a room of unpriced stuff.

Problem was when I  asked the owner for the prices he had long stories about the pieces including history and value that we had to come back another day just to finish  the purchase. (We had a lobster dinner to get to )

There was no story about these photos though  they were included in a batch deal we made.

The little fabric photo was courtesy of a swap with Lorna from Artymess

This one also has some of our wildflowers and copper mesh (also from Lorna) and a piece of an old fabric photo

This is what has driven me into the studio. Winter is really here now!

A view of our front yard. You may recall a photo of me mowing that earlier this summer.

And our back yard.

This is the shop that we never quite got going but it's all painted and cleaned out and housing  some very cool stuff now.

A few shots near Knik Arm outside of Anchorage on our way home from the Bead Arts Gala

And you've heard about Alaska's Giant cabbages of the Matanuska Valley

What about the marshmallows we grow here?

Winter Themed Coolaborative Book Project

When Corrine from Dosfishes approached me about a collaborative book project I was intrigued with the thought of a three way book collaboration.

She explained to me that there would be three different books for the three of us participating.

The other gal is Lyle from Just A Note.

We would each do additions to pages so and would each end up with our own book that the other two had contributed to. Each page would be a collaboration and the theme was winter.

It was challenging to decide what might be the right amount to add to a page so that you would leave room for the others to do their thing.

This is just half of the pages I ended up with, I'm saving the rest for another post.

We also decorated a cigar box to keep out book in.

So I don't know if this is considered a Round Robin.

Perhaps it was a Triangle Robin.

And while I know that most of you have seen plenty of winter, you may have to endure some more winter imagery in these pages.

I would love to know which pages you like the best.

Thanks!

It was fun to guess which additions were made by whom,

each person displaying their own flavors and style.

Stampings by Lyle, I believe.

This one has more of a Corrine look to it.

I've had plenty of winter after all my years in Alaska and it was challenging

to portray what winter is for me now in Arizona.

This windblown crepe paper that was stuck to my ocotillo tree in the yard is perhaps 

a better portrayal of winter rather than a classic winter snow scene.

Some pages were obviously all mine!

Swirls before Pine

I love the surface treatments on some of these.

 I think this one was Lyle's Style.

I'll post some more soon if you can stand any more winter images!

Raining & Complaining

       It may be raining nearly every day here but at least it's not cold and dark.

One of my very favorite activities of sub-arctic winter ~ Snowshoeing!

Something I don't get to do much anymore since we started escaping to Arizona for the winters.

Frosty Girl

Summer blueberry picking.

I don't think we've had more than two days of blue sky since May here. The temps have been hovering between 50F and 60 F  (10C-15C) with clouds, rain or wind for most of June and July now.  I have managed to get in a few good spells of blueberry picking in between clouds and at least it's light out all night albeit rainy.

It does make for some good studio time though and I've been attacking the 100 or so archaeology artifact boxes that I was given that were going to be thrown away by the university museum and I'm doing some decoupage of ephemera and images on them.

I also have a couple of metal tables that I'd picked up at a garage sale that are ripe for decoupage as well. The philatelic magazines that my husband gets are full of stamp and antique mail images that I'm finding to be fun to decoupage.