A Quickie

Tax time is taking it's toll on my time and energy so I have no new art to share - not even a doodle. Well, not one that I want anyone to see - and probably not for the reasons that immediately pop in your head.

But I don't want to ignore y'all. I get so excited when I get a comment or a new follower and I want you all to know how much I appreciate you. So, since there's no sharable art, I'll share some good news and a few links if you don't mind.

First, my friend Maura who owns My Heart's Fancy bought Risk Blossoming. There really is nothing more exciting than having someone contact you and say I HAVE TO HAVE THAT. Of course, when I delivered it to her, I turned around and spent the money on Tim Holz stamps, etc. Thank you Maura.

And I finally put a piece of jewelry in my Etsy store.. I made this piece a few weeks before we moved and it's been staring at me from my mannequin this whole time!

Nancy received her prize necklace and blogged about it . I was so happy to find out she liked it. And her post brought some new readers and followers. Thank you Nancy.

Then I won a prize at Numinosity Beads. I can't wait to get these beautiful beads. Thank you Kimberly.

Boy, I love blogland!

The last thing to share in this rather haphazard post is that my art group, The Ephemerites, met last night. I love getting together with these friends and seeing all of the goodies they are making. It is always inspiring and my tax induced funk was lifted. My friend Ellen had so many journal pages and sketches - I'd show you but she's been too busy arting to blog. Roz showed us a piece of a soda can she embossed in her Cuttlebug - I'll definitely steal that idea. Lynda & Jackie had made lots of gorgeous tags. Their styles are so different and I loved each piece. Thank you all.

Well, hope you have fun visiting these other sites. And THANK YOU for stopping by, following and commenting ~ Sherry

Experiments Gone Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad

Last nite I wrote about the fun day I had experimenting with my new glass kiln. Now let me tell you what happened AFTER I wrote.

Well, first I went to bed. But being "of a certain age" (ie, middle) I was having a restless night. The fact that all three stooges were snoring in my bed added to my sleeplessness. So I got up. Checked blogger. Checked facebook. Checked my email. Checked messenger even. Hmmmm. Now what? Oh, I know, that one piece of glass was just about perfect but not quite shiny enough. Now here's where I made my mistakes.
.....(1) Check the internet for instructions on shining up the fused glass BEFORE trying to fix it.
.....(2) No matter how wide awake I think I may be, I am NOT functioning at optimum performance levels at 3 am.

But early this morning, those things didn't occur to me. So I put the piece in the kiln with some clear glass balancing on top and set the microwave for way too long. When I opened the kiln, the clear glass had slipped off the fused glass and both pieces had become a big glumpy puddle - some of which was stuck to the kiln wall.

I have these magic heat proof gloves for taking the kiln out of the microwave (you should all totally buy them and keep them instead of those bulky kitchen mitts). But apparently there are limits to how heat proof they are. So when I saw the molten glass on the inside of the kiln wall, I tried to pull it off with the magic gloves.

Dumb!!! The gloves sizzled and turned brown and my fingers felt burned. I set down the kiln (amazing that I didn't drop it), took off the gloves and immediately iced my fingers.

Apparently the gloves were magic enough to keep my fingertips from blistering. But when I got up at a NORMAL time today, I noticed they had little brown marks on them that matched the weave of the gloves where they turned brown.

So buy the cool mesh magic heat proof gloves for your kitchen or kiln. But, for goodness sake, don't put them to the test in the middle of the nite unless you're pouring yourself some warm milk.

lol ~ Sherry

Another New Medium

As I may have mentioned, Patrick and I are getting our house prepped to put on the market. A big part of that prep has been containing the art supplies.

You see, and forgive me if I've already said this here, one of the drawbacks, maybe the only one, to being a mixed-media artist is that I have to have all the supplies for all the different media. Oil paints. Oil paint sticks. Water soluable oil pastels. Rubber stamps. Ink. Encaustic. Acrylics (fluid and heavy body). Gels. Polymers. Resins. And, my gosh, the PAPER! It's everywhere! And as an assemblage artist, I can't see one piece of refuse without thinking, "hmmmmm, if I did . . . I could make . . . with that". So not only do I have tons of art supplies, I have tons of junk.

So I've kind of been bemoaning my non-choice of a particular medium as I filled up the storage unit with art supplies and junk. But what did I do with my birthday gift cards? I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a jewelry glass kiln that works in the microwave. Then I bought a new soldering iron. And more glass. And solder. I'm just a sucker for almost everything artsy-fartsy related. Unless it involves meticulous cutting. Yuck.

I had a fun day experimenting with the kiln and glass today with my BFF Roz. Hopefully I'll melt something that's worth photographing soon. And, yes, believe it or not, a microwave kiln WORKS!!! I wonder if metal clay would work in there or . . . Wait, Sherry, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Or do I? ~ Sherry