Little valentines everywhere

I made several "tootsie pop flowers" for my son's teachers for Valentine's day - super easy, and they really made a lovely bouquet when grouped together.  Plus, got to use up some old scrapbook paper bits that were too small for anything else, yeah!   All you need is:

1 tootsie pop
5 3" hearts (3" tall x 3" at the widest point)
1 3" circle, fringed toward the center
2 leaves (cut from different paper for contrast)

Punch holes in the center of the circle, the pointy end of the hearts and the pointy end of the leaves.  Push the tootsie pop stick through the holes (starting with the circle, then the hearts, then the leaves) and wrap a little tape around the bottom to keep them from sliding off.  You can also tape the whole thing to a skewer and wrap the skewer with green tissue paper to make a stem (which makes it easier to gather these into a bouquet).

I'm thinking these would be awesome for just about *any* occasion, not just V-day.  :-)

Squadron of angels

I've been busy crafting a whole fleet of guardian angels to send out into the world.  :-)

What's new in the studio

Little bitty (2-3/4" x 7") inspiration altars using hand-stamped mosaics and encaustic-covered collage backgrounds.  I *love* mixed media!  :-)

Everyone needs a guardian angel

Tried something new this week - an "art doll" that can be personalized.  It took me some fiddling to figure out how to do the face tile, but now that I've worked out the kinks I've listed it on Etsy as a customize-able art piece.  Not sure if there is a market out there for guardian angel art dolls - guess I'll find out!

The important thing is that I had fun with it, and churned up some ideas for my family for the holidays...  :-)

Punning around

A teeny little commission from a friend - collage on card stock, coated with encaustic medium.  It was fun to play with (and will absolutely crack up the intended recipient, who currently has 4 shelties under her roof).  Sometimes it's hard to get going on big "art with a capital A" projects - often, a little "goofing around" is all it takes to get the creative juices flowing again.  :-)

Look within

This year, my goal with my art is to elevate it in my OWN mind to the level of art.  Sounds stupid, but there you go - in my head, I'm still a "crafter" and a scribbler and a dabbler, not really an artist.  Yes, I'm my own worst enemy - thanks for noticing!

I've been tossing around the idea of doing something a little more intricate with my little altars, and my first attempt at translating what's in my head to an actual thing came out pretty fun.  It's an interactive piece, with little doors that open to reveal mirrors and messages - sort of a punny little play on the "look within" theme.  I wish I had made the backer board larger (or mounted the whole thing on a separate background to give it more presence), but overall I'm fairly pleased with it.

I surprised myself when I listed this in my shop at considerably more than I have historically sold my work for in the past.  Given the amount of time and effort that went into it, I should have charged about double the amount I eventually listed it for - but I'm still on that journey to believing that my unique "artist's voice" has value to anyone but me.  I doubt that I am alone in this struggle between wanting my work to actually be affordable enough to *sell*, and wanting to place a reasonable value on my time and talent.   :-)

So, there we are.  Thinking about trying something else new and different with polymer clay next - stay tuned!

Perfectionism

As I'm sure many creative people have experienced, getting stuck in one's perfectionism can be sadly crippling.  I have taken several "process art" workshops, all of which were highly beneficial and wonderfully freeing - but the lessons never seem to "stick".  The bogeyman in my head always seems to have something to say about the end product, which sometimes keeps me from even getting started on a project, let alone finishing it.  I know how pleasurable the creative process can be, and most of the time I embrace it fully when I am in the midst of it, but letting go of the end product and just letting it be what it is continues to be a huge stumbling block.

Last year I started this oil painting (my first) at the encouragement of a dear friend of mine who is a very talented artist.  I was really intimidated by the medium (which is vastly different from anything I'm used to) and had a hard time finding the fun in it.  Then I did finally find the fun and got the painting mostly finished - and then the perfectionism set in.  It didn't turn out the way I had pictured it in my head (at all), and I didn't know how to "fix" it, so I let it sit. And sit.  And sit.  And then started telling myself that I really needed to finish it before I could start any other artistic projects, and because I couldn't figure out *how* to finish it, I just denied myself a lot of creativity.   How stupid is that?

Last night I decided that this was NOT going to be a project I wanted to have blocking my creativity for one more minute, so I finished it.  I still don't like the way it turned out, but I am going to let it go and move on to the next thing and hope that I have learned *something* from this.

Perfectionism - go find yourself a brain surgeon to latch onto, and leave me the hell alone!