heart to heart charm swap

Here are the front and back of another set of soldered charms I just finished. These were made for a Creative Underground charm bracelet swap. It's hard to see in the photo but the image is of an angel "smithing" a heart.

got plastered

Here are photos from the amazing Stephanie Lee workshops I attended. If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend taking a class from her - she is warm, down-to-earth, generous, and talented. The first class was called Totally Plastered, and we learned all about creating plaster effects on flat surfaces. Below is the board that I started that day. It's definitely not finished, and I may just leave it as a practice piece.

The second class was Plaster Architecture. I started and will continue working on the two shapes you see below. Hopefully, you can tell that one is a bird; the other is a cupcake which will eventually be more obvious. Also pictured are the two wonderful pieces of Stephanie's artwork that I purchased.

great weekend

Just got done with a weekend of fabulous classes taught by Stephanie Lee who I highly recommend as a teacher! She imparted a ton of information about working with plaster and I'm still reeling from all that I learned. Will have photos and more tomorrow after a good night's sleep!

happy lunar new year!

2007: Year of the Pig

I'm not a big believer in horoscopes/astrology but sometimes they're fun to read anyway. According to one website:

Those born in pig years tend to have excellent manners, make and keep friends, work very hard, and appreciate luxury. They are very loving and make loyal partners.

face and navel-gazing

In drawing class, we have been working on self-portraits for the past week and have to turn in another one on Monday. I have been working on mine for the last several hours and need to take a break from looking at myself in the mirror!

On a sort of related topic...yesterday, hubby showed me a PC Magazine article (March 6, 2007 issue) about a market research firm forecasting a peak and drop off of the popularity of blogs. The number of active blogs as of last month was around 63 million. They predict the number will top off at 100 million in 2007 and then decrease and level off at around 30 million. That firm's analyst said that blogging is now in the hype phase, but eventually bloggers and readers will pass into a "trough of disillusionment, where they'll realize that blogging isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread." Others disagree with the prediction and say that blogs are "still the domain of the early adopters."

Occasionally, I think I'm headed into that trough, especially when I get tired of the self-examination and feel like there's just not enough time to live interesting stories and also write about them (and on top of that, reading everyone else's!) And sometimes I wonder if my presence in the "blogosphere" is really that compelling to more than a few people.

What do you think? Take the poll...

happy valentine's day

And thanks to my honey for this beautiful box of my favorite and the best chocolate in the world! Hope you all have a wonderful day.

my artfest fabric fatbook pages

swap-a-licious

My Divine Definitions swap arrived in the mail today (the one in which I made the little soldered lightbulb dangly). Check out the spectacular tin and treasures I received! Pardon the one giant photo but I wanted you to be able to see the details. I wish you could hold these in your hands and admire them up close because the photos really don't do them justice!