Today is my beautiful, wonderful, absolutelyfabulous sister-in-law's birthday!! She makes some awesome tags on her other journal, My Creative Corner, so I made her a tag for once :)
How is everyone doing? I'm ok, I'm healing just fine. However, I have a mean old cold. It hit me just a few days after getting out of the hospital. It's getting better, I have my good days and bad. So, I've been sleeping a lot. I've still been working on some projects, but this cold has been hell on my creativity. I've just finished a special piece for a great family friend.....BUT.....My camera is gone! :(
You all know how much I love my new camera. Well, I went to take some pictures the other night and I saw a spot on the lens. I tried cleaning the lens 3 times or so and it wouldn't come off. I thought it was a piece of dust or so that got stuck under the lens, but when I took it back to Best Buy, the guys at Geek Squad said that it was a scratch. They told me that they will replace it, but that Best Buy doesn't carry that same camera anywhere anymore. What liars! The guy over in the camera department, looked it up for me and he found 2 or more stores in the state still have the camera. So, he ordered it right up and I should *crosses fingers* have a new one by tomorrow. It has been bugging me so bad that I have been dreaming about my camera troubles.
So there you have it, my week, 90% sleeping and bugging out over a camera. Once I do get my camera back, I will post my newest creation. One that I think you'll all get a kick out of.
One final note, I think I've got it set up now that I receive alerts via my normal email. *crosses fingers once more*
Back on the 21 of March we were having a blizzard. Mom came home from running some errands, and told me to grab my camera. She drove me down to a nearby park. The scenery was gorgeous! I still didn't know much about my camera, so some of the pictures didn't turn out all that well. But it's still pretty. Here are some of the panoramic pics I took.
(See thoese two black dots in the distance, they're deer. I couldn't get a clear close up of them tho. I was really bummed) :(
I went back the next day after reading the camera manual.
(Imagine my surprise when I found them again) :-D
Just one more photo I want to share with you. In high school, my favorite class was photography. My teacher, Mr. Holtorf, was one of those teachers that you hear about that inspires children. He was fun, tho his lectures weren't, he was strict, but kind. He made me want to go to his class. In my junior year, I took the second of his photo classes. There were only like 8 students there. We all had so much fun. One assignment was to take a photo story. I went to this same park and took pics of the park in fall. Mr. Holtorf can be tough when it came to grading. Each photo was rated on a scale of 1 to 10. And he rarely gave a picture a 10.
I was the only person in our class to receive a 10. (I think I actually had 2, but I could be wrong.) After that, Mr. Holtorf recommended me to another teacher to take family photos at a hockey game. And Mr. Holtorf even approached me again in my junior year to take photos for the school district. The district wanted pictures showing school life to decorate their new office. Come half way through my Senior year, the district finally picked and put the photos on their walls. Out of all the students that participated, I had the most, 4, equal only to the professional photographer. Sadly tho, I didn't get to see Mr. Holtorf much after my junior year, he retired at the beginning of my senior year. I only got to see him again a few times at school and again at the meeting where the district unveiled the pictures.
Hello everyone, I hope every one is well. I'm feeling better everyday. Here are my latest creations for your enjoyment.
Up above is a collage of flowers that are actually a part of an even greater project. I made the collage so that you could see the details of the flowers themselves.
What we have here is a paraffin oil lamp. I got this lamp ages ago from my own garage sale. My SIL's SIL put it in and I took it out cuz I thought it was cute, but I never used it. I peeled off the decoration and added my own. I followed a tut to make the flower petals, and added them to a slab of transparent clay. Then I glazed and glazed for that high gloss shine. I think it turned out well. I love decorating glass with poly clay.
Here we have a faux turquoise liquor bottle, a basket weave glass and another cigarette case. A lot of the time I want to attempt a new technique, and I need to justify using that technique. So, I'll find something to embellish. That's the case with those 3 items.
Mom had finished off the liquor in the bottle, cleaned it out and brought it to me. She said that she thought it was an interesting bottle and wanted to see what I could do with it. I thought, "Hey, I want to try one of faux turquoise techs." I had a vision of how I wanted it to turn out, and the end result is exactly what I had in mind. I had extra "turquoise" so I made some beads and found a way to also incorporate them into the design.
I had that mini hurricane glass lying around since my last thrift store visit. One night I made a basket weave cane, and I couldn't figure out what I wanted to use it on. Then I saw the glass. And, well you see the result. I think it's really cute.
Finally, we have the cigarette case. I know it's a terrible habbit, but I found the case one day at Goodwill. It had a faded brittish flag sticker, and after making my own case, I decided to do another. I actually forgot I had it when I made the design to cover it. The tutorial I found was on a French poly clay site. When I finished the tech, I had a slab of clay and I didn't know what to do with it. I remembered the case and voilĂ , there you have it.
On Tuesday, I made mom drive me out to the thrift store. We combed through the store and I got some interesting new glasswares to decorate over time. But for right now, my Great auntie is really sick and I'm making her a special piece to hopefullymake her days a little brighter.
Well, it's been a while, huh? I just get so tired since the surgery, today is the first day that I haven't taken a nap at noon. Thank you all, again, for your well wishes. You don't know how good that has made me feel. I'm kinda bummed that I haven't been on here much. I don't think that I can thank you guys enough.
This wasn't my first surgery, actually my third, but it was still scary. The first surgery I had was on my knee. I was a pedestrian and I was hit by a car when I was 17, they had to go in and fix the cartilage behind my knee cap. Then, I had a huge ovarian cyst (the size of a beach ball!!) that had to go. I looked 9 months pregnant! I kept being asked when I was due. (The first person to ask me was the pastor at my great aunt's funeral....that was creepy.) But this one was the first time that it was like an emergency surgery. And that really scared me. Everyone kept telling that my scar is cute, UMMM....no. It sure don't feel cute. But I guess that is supposed to mean that it will be just a little scar when it's all said and done.
Do you want to hear a creepy story? Not a gory, give you nightmares, kind of story, just creepy. Ok, well mom had her appendix removed when she was a little girl, like 5 or so. Her scar is huge, it actually causes her pain. That's not the story. Anyway, my grandfather died on March 28 many years before I was born. Mom says that every year something happens around the time of his death that is unusual, mostly a huge blizzard. Two years ago our cat of 16 years, Scrapper, passed away. This year, I had my appendix on the anniversary of his death. Grandpa's passing, mom's appendix already gone, it seems like he's out there, sending us reminders. Gee, thanks gramps.
I just noticed that I've been getting more and more comments on my entries. I'm sorry that I haven't really responded. I don't use AOL, so I don't get the notifications of new comments. I wish I knew how to have them forwarded to my regular email. Any heads up will help me out.
Bea asked me a few questions, and I thought I'd answer them.
I found the bamboo tut at Polymer Clay Central. Here is a direct link for you: Bamboo Pen.
I prefer to use Premo and Fimo soft, but since the company that makes Fimo changed their formula, I've started using Premo more. The change in Fimo changed the baking temp, and before I knew about the change, I noticed that the piece I made looked a little burnt. I don't like Sculpey because it gets too soft, and it's a little too brittle after it's cooked.
The pitcher was a glass pitcher. And it was a thorn in my side. Originally, I attached all the little pieces to it with just a thin coat of Elmers glue. Well, when that dried, the pieces were cloudy. Part of it's appeal, to me anyway, is that you can see the fish on the other side through the glass. So I plucked each and every little piece off and re-attached them with liquid clay. Once that baked, a whole bunch of the bubbles slipped down, and the fish weren't sitting right either. I plucked them off again! I finally just used crazy glue and with a little help from mom and one big headache later, it was finally done. I tend to become a perfectionist when it comes to my art, and I wasn't going to be ready to give it away till I was satisfied with it.
Even tho I've been away for a while, I have been working on some projects!! It's taken a little longer than I would have liked. Like I said before, noon-time naps. It kinda sucks to only be awake for 4 hours then be so dead tired. I'm just about finished with a few of them, and new ideas are coming to me every day. All I need to do is get some pics and I'll post them when they're ready.
My name is Allyson, I am 27 years old. I live in Brooklyn Park with my mother and my grandmother. I have 2 cats, Seth and Chance, they are my babies. I share a dog, Baxter, with my mom. I have a wonderful family. My brother Bill, whom I have always counted on to have my back and my beautiful sister in law, who is the best-est friend anyone could ever have. She talked me into creating this journal to share my artistic talents. And of course all my wonderful nieces and nephews whom I love dearly.