Fuzzy Gems: "Making Wool Beads" tutorial now available!

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I've been inspired by the folks over at Lampwork etc. to get off my butt and finally finish the "Making Wool Beads" tutorial that I started last spring. Let's just look at it as the jumping off point for the collection of tutorials that I'm planning to make up this winter (while I can't get on my torch to make glass beads since it's too cold...)

...and really, doesn't everyone need something to do during the winter months to fight off the "blahs"?

I hope you'll head on over to the shop and take a peek at the tut and at the new items that Tish and I have added. We'd love it if you decided that you needed to take a bit of our Creativity home with you by purchasing one of our pieces, but that's up to you! http://www.wooltwogo.etsy.com

Happy holidays!

Makeup: "Eddie" from Iron Maiden

My husband, Chris, was quite the rocker when he was in highschool, and this Halloween, I made a dream come true for him when I painted him up as "Eddie" from Iron Maiden.

The headbangers in ol' St.T approved of my rockin' hubby as he energetically and skillfully beat his drums to the wild funk of his band, "Dave's Not Here".

Chris LIVES for his music and was thrilled to have a comfortable costume like this to wear at his Halloween night Gig.

I couldn't resist making a version of his photo where I tweaked it with Photoshop to give him the proper electric Eddie eyes and wild hair...

(Feel free to click on the pic to get a closer look, or to see more of my Halloween 2008 makeup pics!)

Update: Cool news! I won the Sept./Oct. 2008 monthly contest on the UKfacepainting Convention forum for this painting (I sent in a photo where I hadn't played with the hair and eyes)! They said that they liked my blending and brush control...

Ghoul's Night Out

Last week, my friend Kay and I went out to the "Ghoul's Night Out" author reading at our local public library.

We had a wonderful time listening to Kelley Armstrong, Michelle Rowen, and Eve Silver read exerpts from their books and answer questions.
The staff at the St.Thomas Public Library did a wonderful job organizing everything from the advertising and decorations to the refreshments. We were just a bit disappointed at the way the costume contest turned out.

When the authors finished answering questions, they reminded the staff about the costume contest and I believe the response was something like: "Oh, let's pass this one off to (add name here, 'cos I forgot it) who's handling that" and then that person said "The winner is Sweeney Todd!"

What?!? When the heck was the judging? as we walked in?!? (Correction; as I quickly breezed in the door, making a beeline for the front row center like the book-geek that I am?) Kay and I both sewed our costumes, but as far as I could see, nobody checked workmanship. (boy, doesn't that sound whiney? I think I've entered too many convention costume contests...)
Sheesh. Oh well, I "won" the book that Michelle read from by asking a question -- and then I spent every penny that I had in my purse buying a copy of Kelley's newest book and the first one of Eve's.

Kelley Armstrong's new YA book :"The Summoning", was really good and I am impatient to read the next in the series. I just finished reading "Bitten & Smitten" by Michelle Rowen and I think that I've found a kindred spirit in Michelle and look forward to reading more of her books...I love a sense of humour mixed into writing.
I've just started Eve Silver's book: "Demon's Kiss". Much darker than the other author's books, but intreguing none-the-less.



...and hey, you learn something new every day! When I was resizing my pics from this Event, I learned about (and found) the red-eye button in my photoshop! Neat! No more glowing demon eyes now
...unless I add them.

It's a Blogger game... Creative Chaos

Mary Beth at http://novembersfyrestudio.blogspot.com tagged me in a comment and introduced me to a blogging game of Tag!

I checked out her site and blog and apparently, now I am supposed to go Tag 7 other blogs, list them and write some random, strange facts about me down here.
So here goes;

1. I'm ALWAYS going to find something more interesting to do than clean up my chaos. The only way I do housecleaning is if I can "trick" myself into it!
2. I'll always name my pets after food items. Evidence? Our two cats named "Bean" and "Licorice".
3. I know for a fact that our cats merely tolerate us for food, litter changing and "skritchies", so I occasionally humiliate them by taking silly photos of them when they're trying to sleep.
4. My favourite song right now is "The Highwayman", sung by Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash.
5. I still occasionally "squee" at the sight of Orlando Bloom with his shirt off, although the fascination is fading...
6. Sometimes I have uncontrollable urges to colour my hair. I've been holding off for over a year and a half now...my resolve is starting to flake at the edges.
7. I'm really really good at procrastinating about house-cleaning!

Blogs I tagged:
http://everybodylikessandwiches.blogspot.com/
http://pinuptales.blogspot.com
http://tartelette.blogspot.com/
http://lampworkbylori.blogspot.com/
http://www.jodigreen.ca/blog/
http://thatbeadgirl.blogspot.com/
http://missmalady.blogspot.com/

Hot Glass: 16th Session

Let's set the bar higher...
Okay, now that I'm not doing too badly with creating earring pairs, let's see if I can make matched sets for Knitting Stich Markers!
(not as easy as it looks, but hopefully will be like catnip to knitting enthusiasts!)
I played around some more with the stringer swirly twists...I'll be exploring that technique much more before I move on to the next technique.

Why do I love thee so much oh hot glass?

Hot Glass: 15th Session

Ho ho ho...'tis the season to make bead to exchange with other enthusiasts before we all get too busy with the actual seasonal rush!

I played around with ivory and it's reactant qualities as well as attempted to sculpt some xmas beads. My first attempt at using a stringer to twist a swirl into a bead! Neat! I'm going to play with that some more! Now if I could just get organized enough to get these exchange beads into the mail I'd be doing really well!

Who's up for a cookie exchange!?! I'm making a list...

Hot Glass: 14th Session

"The Grape Escape"...
First time that I've worked in pretty much the ONE colour in a lampworking session. I can see the appeal.
You can see that I couldn't resist a little red as I was finishing up though. (*grin*)
I'm simply going to have to figure out some kind of closer by studio where I can lampwork in all weather conditions. That's all there is to it! Simple, eh? NOT!
Oh well, at least I can make as many pretty beads as possible before it gets too cold to work, and then I'll go back to my neat felted wool beadmaking and learning new stuff for graphic design and illustration.

If winter wasn't made for one to be some kind of couch potatoe, I don't know what season was!