Take Control Of Your Life

Today is Monday and I am sure having the Monday Blah. Well, I was until I read a post over at Scoutie Girl! I wanted to share it:

You are in control: of your life, your opportunities, your ability to enact change in this world.

Use your creativity, your outside-of-the-box point of view to make something happen today. Stop wishing for change, stop envisioning a better world, stop hoping for a shift of power.

Seize control. Take your ideas to the street and demand to be heard.

If you are a consumer, use consumption to take control. If are a creator, use innovation to overpower the status quo.

We all as Artists get into these frumps. Everyday life can do that to

us. It is when we come across a post, a quote or someone who says something like the above that instantly gives me this recharge! I wanted to pass it along. Hopefully it inspires you as well.

I have not blogged in a while so this is what has been going on with me.....

Yesterday I spent the day with an artist friend of mine, Kat Allison. We dyed fabrics like muslin and china silk. She also taught me a little bit about screen printing and

mixing my own dyes. It is very fun to do. My hands have red dye on them still.........gives me a very arty look :)

I was fumbling around in my studio the other day and put together a piece with scraps. It is my favorite piece at the moment, my circle eternity necklace.

This necklace I wore at the local Etsy party we had for Etsy's birthday. This is going to be part of a flower line I am creating. I should be posting this necklace on Etsy soon......I have someone who may be interested...yeah! We will see.....

I am continuing with my silver jewelry class. I am working on some copper pieces. I figure I spend this year learning and working on inventory so I will be better equipped for shows next summer.....Besides this I am spending my weekends walking around farmer markets and laying on the beach....enjoy the simple things in life and absorbing all the earth has to offer!

I like spending evenings after work on my patio and looking out at our gardens....








The other week was my birthday. My husband knows how much I love Marilyn so they got together and order me this cake!!


It took me a day or so to cut into it, but they took a picture of it for me and had it framed.

My Interview

I am currently working on an article for our Bead Society. I am the newsletter editor and I decided to pay tribute to a member and local artist who recently opened her shop. I feel that local artists do not get recognized enough if at all.

I feel that as artists, we often get into rutts and wonder if anyone else gets like this and how to get out of it. One of my questions to Tammy was "What inspires you? Here is an excerpt:

What most inspires you?

Nature, water. I love solitude and quiet. My office/studio looks out over the Sarah Creek and York River. I get to watch the Heron feed, red wing black birds nest ,boats coming and going and the wonderful sunsets. Almost everything comes from this. I recently took Kat Allison and Cindy Yost’s class at Art and Soul, a new medium for me. The energy from other artists gives us so much and renews us from day to day chores. I will go into my studio late at night, when no one is around. This seems to be the most valuable time for me to put things into action. I always look at other artist’s work. I do not copy their designs, but I carry a sketchbook in my purse and take notes or draw out my interpretation of the concept

I love her answer on this, because I believe we all pull energy and inspirations from other people. People and our daily surroundings are great sources. If we carry a sketchbook or a journal with us, we can capture life's moments at any given time.

Sometimes we just have to stop and take in what is around us and breath........

Vintage Blouse

Pretty In Pink....
and shear blouse
Nice for summer nights with jeans and chunky shoes........

http://www.etsy.com/listing/46981596/vintage-blouse

Silversmith Class

Well, this is my first pendant from my silversmith class. I am pretty proud. It is a great class and I love doing this.

It takes a lot of time, but like anything else, the more I work with it the better and faster I will get. I must say the polishing part took the longest. It was hard for me to detect the fire scale. I am still working on this piece. I have to add the wire up top. Normally a bale will go there, but I decided to use wire because of the bottom pieces of brass, silver and copper. I need to stamp those pieces. I figure I will stamp them with the name of my soy making candles project.......coming soon! :)

The stone needs to be set in the bezel. Once all this is finished and polished to perfection I will post detail pictures........

Italian Life

I love, love, love being Italian!! Not just because of the pasta and the cannolis........that is fabulous, but because I feel Italians are full of love and life! If you ever been around them you know this. Even at funerals, there always seemed to be such a calming sense. Though funerals are sad, being around a room full of Italians made it manageable. The stories, the food, the wise cracks.........everything always seemed fine. They celebrated the life of the person. Italians always laugh, and have a good time no matter what. I remember growing up we lived next door to my cousins and there was always laughter, gatherings and food and wine. They lived life to the fullest, loved people and never judged.

Some things I have learned growing up Italian:

Everything will be fine, just put on a little lipstick!
Mangia! Don't worry about the calories, life is too short.
Eat Fresh Food, get rid of the processed crap!
Red Wine...drink it
LAUGH
LOVE
Have a strong Family
Enjoy your life, surround yourself with friends and famiies.....have fun little gatherings
Appreciate Each day and Have fun
Be Happy, Hopeful and optimistic.....no need to be miserable, remember, everything will be fine, just put on a little lipstick.

Labels?

Scoutie Girl, a blog I am so happy I came acrossed, has a question about "How do you label yourself?" http://www.scoutiegirl.com/2010/05/labels-whats-yours-we-scout-wednesday.html

I cannot define myself in one label. I think that we are so many things and having to be "labeled" can seem so negative.

I am so many things; Mom, Wife, Friend, Tech, daughter, designer, crafter, Creator, silversmith......the list goes on. I could have a different label everyday dependinng on my mood, LOL. The one I like, that best describes me to date is "Student Of Life". I am constantly learning. I need to educate myself from others, books, the web etc. That is a label I could live with....for the moment :)

Backyard

We are revamping out backyard. We put a little patio off our main patio by the driveway. It was just grass with a little stone garden. Now it looks great coming off the patio!! By the fence is a flower garden. See how drab it is? Check out the pictures further down :)






My husband made this fireplace for me. It is great!! He took some left over slate that we had when we redid our kitchen and put it on the top of the fireplace.




Finished product! We just have to grout it now. This fireplace will sit on another section of our yard as soon as we get our granite patio done. We were given big huge slabs! Can't wait for it to be done!!


This year we did the red mulch in our back yard. It used to be filled in with stone, but over the years it just got to much debris from the pine needles etc. We decided to do the mulch. It really pad the backyard pop!




I love to have a nice backyard were I can just sit and enjoy the weather and views! It has been a long time since we really gave our backyard TLC!