Time to brag a little...

I just had to share, I'm in a treasury on Etsy for the very first time!

A special thanks to Uniquely Nancy for featuring me! How awesome! To see my items and the others that were featured up close, click HERE! By the way- the green star cane is mine. :-)

I'm going to run now... If I'm going to get a walk in tonight before it rains, I've got to go NOW!

Busy busy busy...

Yet again, it's been a bit crazy in Crafty Mom household. I know I shouldn't be surprised by this, yet I am. We've already completed one school fundraiser. Caylin has her first major project due on Friday that I'm getting way too involved in.

Jake has been busy with his freshman soccer team and we've hardly seen him at all the last month. Tommy is absolutely loving every minute of school. And Miss Maya is teething, but at least she's finally learned what yes mean, and that she can say it. But she's also mastered the phrases "I want" and "I don't want"- and how to scream when it's not her way. I think Mike is just trying to reduce the number of middle-of-the-night calls he gets from work.

As far as me... I've been fighting a cold for the last few weeks, but that hasn't made me any less busy.

I completed and sent off another letter tile for the PCAGOE Alphabet Charity project. We've finally got one complete set, and there's only one tile left for the other set!

Isn't it cool? It's going to be donated to a children's hospital or advocate. The Y in the lower left corner is mine- I'm so proud!

I also completed this little guy for the PCAGOE monthly challenge. The theme was Day of the Dead. While he didn't win, I was still very happy with him. He was something new that I tried, and it's always important to try new things. And of course, he's for sale on my Etsy!

Speaking of my Etsy, I've listed one of my Mayan pendants- take a look!

Lastly- we had our first frost over the weekend! I harvested my basil and oregano. The basil has already been quick-dried in the oven, and the basil is hang-drying. It's kinda neat seeing it there in the kitchen... I think I'm going to have to do more herbs next year!

Your Mission...

...should you choose to accept it:

Go vote for your favorite textured entry at PCAGOE!!
This month's challenge was "texture". All of the entries are so wonderful, I'm not sure which one will win! Don't forget, by voting you're automatically entered to win one of two fabulous prize packages!



I gave my husband a mission this weekend. It was to clean out all of my son's GI Joe accessories. It was all supposed to fit into one box. In his opinion, we just need a bigger box. But, in mission control's eyes, well... he didn't make it out alive.

So far this weekend, I have cleaned out my son's room and the garage. Still on my to-do list is the basement. But the sun is shining so bright and beautiful outside, I'm not sure I can force myself into the basement for too long.

Wishing Stars

Well, we're still not exactly back to normality, but we're headed in the right direction I think. Last night was the Meet & Greet at Caylin's school, and today Tommy had his bus orientation. And I'm still working on the wishing stars. They're cut out now!

To be honest, I don't have a whole lot to write about today. I would like to show these image transfers I was working on last night.

Also, I drew this a while ago, but colored it today. I plan on making a cane with it, but I'm not sure what color to make the background. I was thinking a faux wood would be really neat, but I'm not completely sure how I would do that (although I have an idea or two). If you have any thoughts, leave a comment below!

I just love these creations. Here's more info on them:
1. Sea Sculpture Brooch Pin with Stripes, 2. Sea Sculpture Brooch Pin, 3. Lynne's Awseome Blossom Earrings, 4. The six images below show items that will be taught at the Sundance Retreat I'm holding in September with Lynne Ann Schwarzenberg. Read more by clicking on the "Sundance Retreat Workshop" icon on the right side of this page., 5. A Checkered Yellow Sunflower Pendant, 6. Yellow, Copper and Brown Sunflower Focal Bead, 7. garden ring, 8. Polymer Clay Pendant Necklace, 9. polymer clay beads, 10. Polymer Clay Candy Hearts - Feb 08 Meeting, 11. Awaken Tree Pendant - Polymer Clay, 12. Broche arcoiris / Polymer clay Rainbow brooch, 13. 'Lavender Water Lilies'

I would like to say I was feeling a bit in a funk today. I meandered over to Oprah.com and found a couple of great articles.

The first is "Are You on the Right Course?" by Martha Beck. She believes that there's a superhero in everyone of us, we just have to peel down the layers to find our spandex-clad super-selves. Pretty good read for someone down in the dumps.

The other is "6 steps to Get Your Creativity Flowing" As told to Jancee Dunn. There are some great insights from Tom Kelly- IDEO's general manager.

It's gonna be a loooong night

Can you believe it's almost Friday already? This week has zoomed by! I can't believe I haven't even blogged since we've returned from Disney! Yes, we did survive... although I wasn't postive we were going to get out before Fay hit. BTW- the hotel had the cutest comforters on the bed. I was there almost a day before I realized that the characters from Nemo were on it!

So seriously, it's 11:09 pm here in Wisconsin- and I'm only halfway done with what I need to do tonight. My mother's birthday is tomorrow, which always means a late night for me. I suppose if I started her birthday presents sooner, I wouldn't have to stay up quite so late, but that just takes all the fun out of it!

Thus far, I've made guacamole, made a custom envelope, made her present, and wrapped said present. I'd show it to you, but my mom reads my blog from time to time... Hi Mom!

Still left to do for tonight, and going into this morning- downloading 158 pictures from said Disney trip. I've also got to pack up these letter tiles to go to the PCAGOE Alphabet project. We're making 2 mosaics of polymer clay letter tiles that will be donated. I don't believe they've decided on who it'll go to, but if memory serves, there was talk of a children's hospital. But, it doesn't matter- they were a blast to make!

Oh, yeah, and I've got to pack tonight, because we're going out of town again! This time, we're going to my uncle's cottage "up north", eh. That's Wisconsin talk for even further north than we already are. And we get to behave slightly less civilized and enjoy things like walking barefoot through shallow water with our pants rolled up to our knees. Or catching frogs and turtles and fish. Or getting four wheelers stuck in some muddy spot.

PS- It's now 12:51 am. I was going to make some of these muffins posted on Lisa Clarke's blog, but I'm all out of steam. Get ready to laugh- maybe I'll do it in the morning before I go to work. Hahahaha!

Artist of the week-Kerijoy

Kerijoy has an amazing story, and she details in it in her profile so much better than I could paraphrase it. Here is a small sampling:

I began the 'Wall Dancers' in February 2003. After 15 years of being a Senior Designer, I lost my "passion" for my art. Just when I said 'No Mas!' and 'I knew' where my life was going (silly me!)- Our Higher Power decided to display a sense of humor and I've been 'along for the ride' ever since! I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in February 2002 that kept me literally bed-bound. It's been a 6-year tough battle but my ‘choice’ was not to take the victim role. The first dolls were actually made in bed with me in my jammies! I was told by all of my doctors that "these were impossible to do" and still to this day they still wonder 'how I do it.' ~smiling~ You just have met the 'Rainman-Of-ETSY!'

I think the one that speaks to me the most is her Peace Destiny Serenity doll. 2 things that I want and one that I try to understand. Maybe by finding peace and serenity, I will understand my destiny. Cheesy, yes. But that comes with the territory.

Technical Difficulties

It must be something in the water. One of my favorite blogs dissapeared a week or two ago, and now I'm having difficulties. My laptop is dying. Yes, I just got it- but it was free for a reason. There is a poor connection bewteen the power cord and the computer, and the only way to fix it is to replace the motherboard. The battery absolutely refuses to hold a charge, and even though I have it on a stationary surface, it'll shut down, usually in the middle of something that took hours to work on. So, I have neglected my lovely blog, but no longer--NO LONGER, I say!!!

And now for something completely different- Something to drool over...

And beg hubby for. Ok, so I've made a VERY strong, VERY obvious hint that it'd make a wonderful Chrsitmas present. So strong and obvious that he received an email from me with a subject line of "Christmas present", the words "HINT HINT HINT" in it, and a link to her website. I'm shameless, I know. And in case you didn't take the time to visit Donna Kato's website, if you pre-order, you'll get an autographed copy. I expect mine under the tree in November, darling.

Just Keep Swimming

One of my mantra's of late is from Disney's "Nemo"... when Dori is singing "Just keep swimming..." Many times I've been at a point lately, where I need to remind myself to just keep swimming. It's silly, but it makes me smile a little too.

This is one of Swimmy's friends, getting ready to go into the oven. I made him for a swap on Etsy called Swim It Forward. Just post a message saying that you'll make a Swimmy for the next person that posts, they'll convo them, and you send a Swimmy. You can also make one and send it directly to the Etsy HQ-find more details on that here.

So, go make your own Swimmy, and swim him forward!

Featured Artist of the Week

Check out ArtByLilin's Etsy site this week!!

This was just posted today and isn't it gorgeous? I love her peacock collection- this one is KORBEE. Reminds me of the peacock we saw at the zoo last week with its' feathers so proudly displayed for all the hot peacock chickies to see!

Lilin has done an excellent job mixing colors, and just look at that scroll at the top of the pendant! Lilin- you've outdone yourself girl! Nice touch on the peacock feather in the background too.

Have a great weekend.

Featured artist

Now that I'm blogging daily, I'm going to begin featuring at least one artist weekly. This week's artist is Etsy's BiMiki.

I love this adorable asian style necklace! BiMiki says she's a technique junkie, and I completely fall into that category. Added bonus, in her profile she says "A minimum of 25% of the cost of each item is donated to Christian recovery programs like Celebrate Recovery and counseling programs."

Her Etsy already looks great, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of her wonderful work!

Junk day

I'd like to start things off today with a moment of silence... you see, Goldie the zombie fish finally went to the big fish bowl in the sky last night. Caylin flushed her down the toilet without a single tear. She was so strong. Afterwards, I sent her up to ask her daddy if she could finally get that baby chick, now that we had one less pet. I'm so evil. Tee-hee!

Today was sort through junk day. By 5pm, I realized that I was carrying WAY too many things in my tote, so we had to slim down. I had 5 different notebooks, 3 magazines, a make-up bag (not that I ever put any on regularly), migraine meds, a collapsable file folder, thank you cards that I never wrote out, an empty change purse, a garage door opener, various loose papers, and a cinnamon candy cleverly disguised as a peppermint. YUCK!

After consolidating, I had every intention of taking updated, better quality pictures for some of my etsy items. Pictures that I was supposed to take over the weekend. As I was going through things, I kept finding all these unfinished projects... like earrings that I just had to throw together to make a complete set, or the pendant and toggle for a necklace that just needed to be thrown on rubber cording. Not to mention the sheet of clip art I had printed nearly 6 months ago to do image transfers with! So, 2 1/2 hours later, I've got 5 complete necklaces, 3 sets of earrings, and numerous pictures just waiting to have the paper dissolved off of them. Wee!

Now I just have to figure out- Should I keep them, or post on Etsy? What do you think?

Meetings and messes

Here I am blogging, just like I said I would... I even got my tail up off the couch from under the nice warm blanket to stick to my blogging commitment. I didn't think it'd be good to slack off on my first day.

Today was the meeting for the Metro Milwaukee Polymer Clay Guild. It has been far too long since I've met with these wonderful ladies! It's so nice to get together with people that understand clay obsessions... not that I'm obsessed or anything. I've only been in my studio all weekend!

At the meeting today, Beth taught some great cane making demos! She had some great leaves and flowers. I love how my leaf turned out, but I think my flower could've used a darker outlining color on it for contrast. It's spawned a lot of ideas that seem really good in my head right now- hopefully I can bring them to life in clay!

Looks like I'll be demo-ing at the September meeting, doing image transfers! I've only done one so far, but I've been wanting to revisit and master that technique.

Speaking of technique, I learned a great one that makes a big huge fun mess from the Winter 06/07 issue of Polymer Cafe. It's Laurie Prophater's Ancient Metal Technique and it was tons of fun to do. If you get tired of being exact with canes, this is a great thing to try and just let it take you where ever it goes.

I made my own stamps, based off of Mayan hieroglyphs. Its just some scrap clay, cut into squares, then I used very thin extruded scrap snakes to make my stamp designs. (I've got a whole bunch more in mind...)

I followed Laurie's technique and the above is what I ended up with. These are drying after applying a coat of minwax to them. Normally I don't varnish, but I didn't want the finish to rub or scratch off. I love them, and can't wait until I have one strung to show off!

Here's another messy technique I worked on this weekend- stamp into some white or off-white clay, then cover with a mixture of liquid clay and alcohol ink. I don't remember where I read about this technique, it was months ago, but I love it. I think it looks like ceramic glaze. I have decided I need to get some additional inks though- I only have 3! I'm not sure how to finish these off yet. Any thoughts? Post your comment below!

First order of business

Welcome to Confessions of a Crafty Mom!!!

I'm new at this, so I hope you don't mind the clutter. It might take me a while to get sit-iated.

This weekend we were lucky enough to have the Bead and Button show in town, on my birthday I might add. I demo-ed for about a half hour at the National Polymer Clay Guild booth, until I was booted out of my chair by Christi Friesen. I couldn't have been booted out by a cooler person! She sculpted this awesome little seahorse in about 10 seconds. Ok, maybe a little longer, but never-the-less awesome. If there's anyone out there that has any pictures from the show, send me a comment! I'd love to see some and/or post them up here!

So, I know I mentioned my birthday... I just have to brag, I got 4 (YES 4!) vases of drop-dead gorgeous flowers.

Aren't they awesome?! Thanks Mom, Sue & Mark, honey, and kids!

It's 2 hours past my bedtime, and I'll be turning into a pumpkin any minute. More tomorrow kidies!