Bad Blogger!

I have been a bad blogger....how long has it been? With so many things going on, it is hard to remember sometimes! So a lot has been going on....We just got back from the beach last week. I went with Momma, 2 sister, my niece & 2 nephews. It was a lot of fun! We spent a lot of time on the beach, shopping/browsing at souvenir shops, and of course eating. We ate at Lamberts (www.throwedrolls.com). I had never been and never had rolls thrown at me before either! Its a fun atmosphere and the food is so good....the best fried taters ever!

As my sister & I were walking across the beach, I thought I saw a feather or piece of fuzz blowing across the beach. I decided to get a closer look and it was this tiny crab. How cute is that?

Soon I am hoping to have a bigger studio and maybe even start giving some art lessons! I should know in a couple of weeks for sure....I can't wait, but trying not to think too much about it until its a "done deal"!!  And we are about to start on remodeling our house again.....this time the living room and kitchen. I will be SO happy when I have a brand new kitchen! This house was built in 1930 and probably not remodeled since the 70's. It has light blue sheet rock walls & ceiling. I have started tearing that  down and there is bead board I will keep. There is an old chimney. It was covered with sheet rock, but one of the first things I did was uncover that....one of my favorite things about the kitchen!! When we moved there was nothing but a refrigerator, ugly metal cabinet with the sink and 2 tiny cabinets hanging on the wall. (One was in the corner!) So I have removed most of the sheetrock and painted the beadboard, put in dishwasher (but it has to be replaced now) and moved in some old cabinets, including a hoosier type cabinet. Right now it is just piece together....can't wait to have a real set of cabinets! A refrigerator with an ICE MAKER and new floors! Oh...and a door going out of the kitchen to the outside! So far we have remodeled a bedroom that we are using as a living room for now, bathroom, laundry and walk in closet. The best thing about finishing the living room & kitchen is the next thing will be a new roof and vinyl siding!

Have you looked at the current issue of Create & Decorate magazine? I have a star make-do pattern in there. Then it will be a while before I have another project in there. I haven't submitted things in a while until recently, so I will miss out on several issues! I do have some projects coming up in magazines/websites but I don't want to say what they are until they are published.....so keep checking back and I'll post the news when they're published!

The new kitty

I let the new kitty stay inside last night because she was still a little wobbly from her surgery. She stayed in another room in a cage. I let her out first thing this morning. I set her down on the porch with some food hoping she would stick around, but she took off to the shed she had been living in. I am sure she will make her way over here when she feels better. I wish I had taken pictures of her to share....she is really pretty! The girls at the vet's office thought she looked like she had a little British Shorthair in her....I agree! I would love to find her a new home soon. If I don't find them a home within a couple of days, I get attached and have a hard time letting them leave. I have only ever given 2 cats away in my whole life!  haha!

Well, this is a short one today. Maybe there will be pictures of the new kitty soon....and maybe new dolls will be done soon too!!

Holy Moly....is that Alfred Hitchcock?

  I just finished several new paperclay pieces....some Snowmen, Santa and this guy. I thought he looks like Ziggy, then my Momma pointed out he looks like "ALFRED HITCHCOCK"! "Good Evening...." she says. Anyway, decorating a Christmas tree is the last thing I ever imgined Alfred Hitchcock doing, but here he is doing it! lol! You can go to www.thecatspyjamas.com and click on the Papier Mache section to see "Alfred" and my other new designs. There are lots of moon ornaments there (of course). My favorite is Santa with his big belly, bottle brush tree and stack of wrapped gifts beside him. Look for me at Homestead Hollow (Springville, AL) in October, Christmas Village (Birmingham, AL) October 31-4 and Yellow Daisy Festival (Stone Mountain, GA) in September. I'll have these and bunches of new designs with me at the shows. If you do make it to one of the shows, come by and introduce yourself!!

Check out the next issue of Create & Decorate magazine....I have an Americana Make-Do in there! Seems like so long ago that I sent it in. I was surprised when I looked at their site yesterday and saw it was going to be in the next issue! Go to www.createanddecorate.com and look at next issue and you can see a sneak peek of the make-do.

In the cat department....a few days ago a new kitty came to our neighborhood. She is skinny and a little sickly, but after a few days of food, she is feeling better. And today she is at the vet getting fixed so there won't be a whole litter of kittens in a few months! ;) The vet's office had EIGHT kittens and two big cats for adoption. Couldn't resist going to see the kittens. As soon as I got near their cage, every one of them stuck their tiny little paws out, reaching for me. Its almost tempting to bring the whole bunch of them home and snuggle with them!!

Puppies & Jewelry....

Okay, last week was interesting to say the least! My Daddy told me that he saw a litter of puppies in the woods. As soon as I got off work, I put my big cage in the back of my truck and took off with canned cat food, water, a bowl and a flashlight! There were 5 black puppies there. Two were friendly and no trouble to catch so I brought those home. My Daddy took some food to them the next day and after work, I took off again. Bought a new cage for the other 3 and I took a live trap that I use for the feral & stray kitties. I was able to catch them all....

I found a home for one. I arranged to meet her in another state, which is a 45 minute drive for me. I got up early (I am not a morning person!!), gave the little guy a bath and took off the Tennessee. I waited for 45 minutes and she didn't show. So I drove another 45 minutes home. Apparently she got there before me and thought she had missed me so she left! I was planning to take the puppies to meet the local shelter. They were set up at the fair and would try to find homes for them, so I took them to the vet for baths. That was a waste of time because they all had accidents on the way home. A couple were out of the cage, so my truck was a MESS by the time I got home! Ha....they were really cute and sweet, so I kept that in mind while I was shampooing my carpet in my truck the next day. I called the shelter today and 4 of them have homes and one is in a foster home. So I guess this story has a happy ending!

And while I was cleaning up after the puppies, I worked on new jewelry! I should have my new website open in the next month or so. Here is a sneak peek of some of my new jewelry designs! Right now I am concentrating on pendants....then I have some other exciting new things for the site. I can't wait for the site to be ready for the world to see!! It will be a challenge to squeeze in the time for this site too, but I'm excited about it!    

Tax Time!!

Oh, no....it snuck up on me again!! So tonight I am scrambling, trying to get some done on my taxes!! I actually have most everything together, its just all that adding!! I've been happily ignoring the fact that I should be doing my taxes. ha ha! In the meantime I have been working on some new stuff. I painted a cat for ASPCA Day to donate some money to ASPCA.  I had fun with that one....click on the painting to see the auction and BID to support ASPCA!! They're my favorite charity!

Speaking of animals....spent a lot of time this week trying to catch a stray that keeps hanging around. He likes to come in the middle of the night and pick a fight with the other cats and he has the most awful cry that sounds like a siren!! I set the trap so I could take him to get fixed and bring him back here. He is too smart and hasn't gone in, but I have caught two of my own cats!! Cricket is a stray and she's still a little skittish....so she stayed mad at me all day after she got in the trap. ha ha! (She's over it now.) By the way, the new stray's name is Jack!!!

This weekend I painted a couple of paintings for my living room. I found this cool graveyard picture on the internet, so I painted a small painting for myself. I loved it so much, I made a huge one to go behind my couch! I still have a lot of decorating to do, but those 5 canvases covered a lot of space! I was just telling a friend that I need a clone of myself and I could get so much more done! Actually I could use several--one to design & make dolls, one to paint, one to do the internet work, one for jewelry, one to clean my house. Then I could just sit back and tell all my clones what to do! Its a nice thought anyway!

Cooking..hate it or love it??

Do you love to cook or hate it? Sometimes I love to cook...other times I hate the thought of going in the kitchen! My husband jokes about me starving him for a whole week, then one day he will come home to a huge cooked meal and his belly hurts from all the food! I feel like I have two personalities...one is creative, stays up all night, keeps a messy house, eats junk food and basically doesn't take care of herself. The other one gets up early in the morning with her husband, cooks breakfast & makes him lunch, cleans house, exercises and even makes dinner at night! (Maybe my alter ego is June Cleaver!!)  If I get up early, I can't be creative. So....this week I don't feel so creative and I am enjoying cooking. I'm just wondering how many of you feel the same way? One day a lady came in my shop (back when I had a shop!) and after looking around a while she said, "I'll bet you have a messy house." I wasn't sure if I should be offended...or if I should wonder how she knew what my house looks like?? Then she said she had always heard that creative people were messy. So I guess that was meant as a compliment.....I took it as one! I would LOVE to hear some of your thoughts on this....are you more creative at night? Is YOUR house messy too? Come on, admit it!! Make me feel better about my mess!

Shows, Sick Cats, Birthdays......

Well....sorry its been so long since my last post. So much has been going on! I went the Cottontails Village in Birmingham last week....or was that 2 weeks ago? I don't really know...it wasn't too long ago! I spent a lot of time getting stuff made for it. Snapped some pics of my booth.... This is my first inside show so I didn't have my display all ready. I wasn't even sure how it would  be set up.....but I will know next time! Its hard to tell from pics, but I thought it looked pretty good!

I painted a couple of windows--something I hadn't done in a while and they both got gone pretty quickly. Now all my windows are gone and I want more to paint on! Guess I will have to start going scavenging on Sunday night again to see what people have put out in their trash!!! (That used to be a fun past time for me & my husband until someone called the POLICE after we picked up something on the side of the road. It was obviously trash, but he must have changed his mind after he saw someone wanted it....so we had to return it to the side of the road!!

I took my jewelry and worked on my display....I usually don't have any way to display so people usually don't even notice it! I worked on this display throught the day so I came up with some things and it started looking pretty good by the end of the first day.......I still have some work to do on it. I will be working more on my jewelry and other wearable art during the spring & summer too. And I have an exciting announcement that I will post here SOON! Keep checking back to find out what it is!!

Now, right before my show, I had some sick kitties! Bilbo had a lump between his shoulder blades. The vet didn't want to wait to see if it went away, so he had surgery to have it removed. He had 14 staples down his back (poor guy--he had already had surgery to remove one front leg, we think his injury was from a trap). He actually got around pretty well although he wasn't to happy about it! The lump wasn't anything serious and he doesn't have to have any more treatment and he is all healed up now. Now we just wait for his hair to grow back there!! Then Elvis comes along with a sore leg. We couldn't ever see what was wrong with it, then the day I took him to the vet, we felt a big swollen spot. To make a long story short (not sure if I can do that!!) she sent him home with antibiotics and the next day it opened up and had a pretty big hole there. I took him back and she thinks he was shot with a BB gun! My poor Elvis....I can't believe anyone would be mean to such a sweet kitty! He is all well too, besides a bald spot where he was shot. But I was taking care of those guys while trying to get ready for the show. I came home to two more outside cats with abscesses and had to give them antibiotics, but they are well now too. Thank goodness....they're hard on my pocketbook!

And we had FOUR birthdays this month! My father-in-law and my brother have birthdays on March 9. My nephew's is March 10 and my brother-in-law's is this month too! So we had one party and an Alabama/Roll Tide cake for everyone! Its always fun for us all to get together. We played 80's Trivial Pursuit and found out we aren't as smart as we thought we were! My niece wanted to be on my team.....I thought it was because she thinks I'm smart. Then I found out its because I'm the oldest, she thinks I would know more about the 80's!! :(

Before I go, I wanted to share a picture of one of my favorite new pieces...He's made of paperclay, hand-painted, then put inside a shadow box. Around the edges of the shadow box I printed a piece from a poem by Carl Sandburg.