New Greeting Cards

Pictured here are some new greeting cards that will be available on the Jazzful Art website. I worked today on a variety of paper crafts, including assorted tags that will be packaged in sets. I discovered that my favorite crafting tools right now are the eyelet setter and my Xyron adhesive applicator. And the Fiskars paper crimper isn't so bad either!

Having My Cake

Here's a tiny peek at my final project for Wilton Course 1. I'm a bit tired of smelling buttercream icing -- both my studio and kitchen smell like it all the time now -- so I don't know what I will do with this cake, except maybe slice it up and freeze it, since Dan doesn't really care for non-chocolate cake. I have a 3-week break before Course 2 begins, so now I can put this out of my mind for a bit and get some other things done. I had planned some paper crafting for tomorrow, but it looks like I will be in the midst of a candle-making marathon, so the notecards will have to wait til Thursday.

By the way, for my friend who likes raw cake batter (don't worry, I won't rat you out!), Duncan Hines French Vanilla is pretty good...

Crafty Goodness

No time for creative work today -- we were busy setting up a space to make our candles so we don't have to use the kitchen. Then I baked a cake and made icing for my final class tomorrow of Wilton Course 1. On Wednesday I'll be making some tags, notecards, and a few other things, which will be for sale on our Jazzful Art website, when that gets finished. Check back for more information on that later. So for now, I'll just leave you with some crafty goodness -- photos of paper and formica chips I'll be using for some of my tags and cards and miscellaneous projects.

Daring Cardmakers - Tagged

This week's dare over at Daring Cardmakers was as follows:

"Everything we buy has packaging, some of it excessive, some of it beautifully designed. Tags, labels, stickers... all sorts of bits and bobs that we can recycle onto cards.I dare you to make a card using a tag, label, sticker or anything else you can find, that's from packaging and would normally end up in the bin. Of course you can ink it, change it, distress it and add anything else you like! If you're feeling brave, I DOUBLE DARE you to make it a card for a man!"

I've been saving this tag from my new Crumpler camera bag -- it was just too cool to throw away. So when I saw the dare, I was reminded that sometimes it's a good thing to be a "bits and bobs" packrat. If you look closely, you'll see that the robot is made of Crumpler bags. I wouldn't call this a "manly" card, but since it's designed for a boy, maybe that counts. This was actually a triple dare for me, because I challenged myself to not use rubber stamps, which I always use on my cards.

For this card I simply corrugated a piece of silver metallic paper, punched holes in another, added a border around my tag, and applied eyelets and soft wire to my laser-printed greeting.

Bath Time

Last night I attended a Natural Bath & Beauty Products class, and learned how to make bath salts and melt-n-pour soaps. Theresa is a very animated, knowledgeable instructor, and I would love to take a more intensive, hands-on course from her. She approaches most of her soap recipes the same way my grandmother did her cooking -- the "pinch of this" and "handful of that" technique. Not much precision measuring going on here, but it always turns out just fine. However, when I start to make bath products for resale, I will certainly have to measure carefully and keep accurate records. Pictured here are an exfoliating facial bar made with an avocado-cucumber base, honey, and black walnut shells; and bath salts that include orange peel and chamomile. We also made a peppermint and honey body bar with an olive oil base, but I haven't brought that home yet because it was still too soft to unmold at the end of class. Next week we will be making a milk bath and a brown sugar scrub.

And tonight I'll be practicing my buttercream roses!

Crackin' Up

I haven't spent much time the past few days doing creative work, because I've been trying to finish some books that were due back at the library today. I am not ashamed to admit that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and I've been re-reading all the books so that everything will be fresh in my mind when The Deathly Hallows (Book 7) is finally out. I just returned Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire, and there were no copies of Order of the Phoenix at the library tonight, so I guess I'll be visiting another branch. Last night I was trying to finish up The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, but --- sometimes I've just gotta bake! So, during all the breaks while baking sugar cookies, I worked on finishing my book.

Now, this baking experience was very satisfying, not because I used a great recipe (it was just a packaged mix), but because I managed to crack an egg one-handed. I've always been a two-handed egg-cracker, probably because I want the yolks to stay perfectly intact, especially when I expect my breakfast eggs to be cooked easy-over (no hard yolks for me!). But a couple of weeks ago, when Erin and Tara baked my cake for my cake decorating class, Erin was cracking eggs, one-handed, like a pro. She told me how to do it with 5 simple words. "You just squeeze it here." Sounded simple enough, and looked pretty simple, and it really is! Yes, I do get excited about the smallest things. I'm not sure where Erin learned how to do it, but since she and Tara watch even more of the Food Network than I do, it was probably from Giada or Rachel, or maybe Bobby.

Tonight I went to a class on how to make natural bath and beauty products. I'll share a photo tomorrow.

Daring Cardmakers - You're Not the (Em)boss of Me

The dare over at Daring Cardmakers this week is You're Not the (Em)boss of Me. The challenge is to use at least one form of embossing. On this card (my first entry!) I used both dry and heat embossing. Stamps and embossing template by Stampin' Up.

Balloons, Bags, and Beaches

On the way to the Balloon Festival today, we stopped at Fabrics by the Pound in Summerdale, where they had boxes of unpackaged long zippers in lots of great colors for $1 each, so I grabbed a few for some upcoming bag projects. They also had some fantastic decorator fabrics at great prices, which really got me thinking about how I've been making fabric choices for my bags, which in turn got me thinking about the whole process, from patterns to fabric selection to construction to finishing. And, I think I finally have a handle on this thing -- being able to make a variety of bags and pouches that aren't too labor-intensive or difficult to complete, while still being fun and stylish. So over the next few weeks I'll be tinkering with my ideas and perhaps offering a few selections for sale.

There were no balloons being launched this afternoon at the Balloon Festival due to the high winds, so we cut that excursion short and went to Gulf Shores. We hadn't planned on going to the beach, so we weren't exactly prepared, but we did stay long enough to get a little sunburned. Some of us just never learn.

Market in the Park

Today we went to Mobile to run some errands, and we stopped by the Mobile Museum of Art for Market in the Park, where we met several artisans, listened to some free music, and admired some of the biggest blackberries I've ever seen. We had a nice chat with Theresa Collins-McPherson, who is a relaxation specialist and also sells handmade natural bath and beauty products, candles, and home fragrances. I'm signed up for one of her classes at the University of South Alabama, where she'll be teaching us how to make organic soap, bath salts, sugar scrubs and more. It was nice to meet the teacher and have an opportunity to ask a few questions before next week's class. We also met Mary Bower, who makes baskets from pine needles. She also weaves with marine rope and does a lot of embellishment with beads and colorful fibers. Beautiful!

I had not seen a gingko tree since I lived near Valley Forge a few years back, so I was pleased to see that some small gingkos had been planted at the museum. I love the way the veins of the gingko leaf radiate out from the stem, and have always seen some design possibilities with the unusual leaf shape. Maybe now I'll act on that inspiration.

We also went to the University of South Alabama library to see an art exhibit, which included some amazing batiks and watercolors by Jean Schulman and photographs by B.J. Ray. Definitely worth the trip!

While in Mobile we also stopped by B&B Pet Stop, which is my favorite pet store ever. They don't sell dogs and cats, but they do host a pet adoption event every Thursday afternoon, so I got to admire all the little kittens and puppies that were looking for new homes. Unfortunately, there's no more room at the inn -- we have all the dogs and cats we can handle now -- so I had to mightily resist temptation and be satisfied with buying 3 harlequin rasboras for my freshwater aquarium.

Case Solved

It's hard to find a case for a slider phone, so I made this little bag today, as a way to protect my phone while it's being tossed around in my handbag. The handle can serve as a wrist strap to carry the phone on its own, or can be easily looped around the strap of a handbag to keep the case from swimming to the bottom of a large bag. I'm still not quite satisfied with the security of the phone -- I think I need to add a closure for the top to prevent escape -- so I'll probably design a new and improved version. Then I'll start thinking about designs to fit other phone sizes.

Icing on the Cake

The cake decorating class is going --- well, let's just say it's going. I find the whole "icing consistency" thing very challenging, but I'm still having fun. I think my frustration stems from the fact that we start class in what seems to be a cool room, but by the end of class it's hot and my "roses" are wilting.

Now that my class is out of the way, other things I have lined up for this week include finishing my cell phone case, starting a small velvet bag, visiting the farmers' market at the Mobile Museum of Art, and attending the Balloon Festival in Foley.

Illustration Friday - Suit

This is my first ever submission for Illustration Friday. Now, by no stretch of the imagination am I an illustrator, but I was playing around with this character for another project, and thought it fit this week's IF prompt, which is "suit". This little guy resembles my cat, Lenny, except that Lenny is a scrawny fellow. The tie hanging out of the frame is in honor of a 2-D design professor who would insist that we complete all our assignments within a box of the specified size, only to praise anyone who broke out of the box.

(Prismacolor pencils, pen and ink on Bristol)

Inspire Me Thursday - World Traveler

The prompt this week for Inspire Me Thursday was "world traveler". As a child, I traveled the world for free. Books took me anywhere I wanted to go. I can recall often trying to hide a book in my lap at the dinner table, because I just couldn't put it down! Even today, I can travel through time and across continents by reading. Since I enjoyed Typography so much in art school, I thought I'd take a typographic approach this week.

Cases and Cakes

After dropping my old flip phone only about 6 inches onto concrete and breaking the speaker, I replaced it with this slider phone, which isn't very well-protected while in my purse. So, what you see here is a padded cell phone case in the making. It will probably have a wrist strap in case I want to take it along on my walks. The fabrics are from my carefully protected stash of Hoffman batiks. No embellishment here - it needs to be easy to wash.

Now, a cake decorating update. On the day of my class I went to Mobile to use Mama's oven, since mine was permanently out of service. My nieces, Erin and Tara, who live next door, kindly baked the cake for me. Erin, almost 13, might be a pastry chef if she doesn't become a big cat trainer or a book reviewer. Tara, 11, had planned on being a teacher, but now she might be a culinary artist. So I left them at my parents, happily baking brownies in muffin tins, and went home to make my icing. About 30 seconds into the buttercream icing, my heavy-duty Kitchenaid mixer stopped working. So I went to plan B - the hand mixer. While reaching into the drawer to get the beaters, I cut my left thumb - yes, I'm lefthanded - on an extremely sharp knife made out of a saw blade. I bought it from a Texas gentleman at the Peter Anderson Festival, and I love it because it's made for lefties and it cuts bread beautifully. Now I've learned my lesson about knife storage.

I made it to class in spite of everything, and will admit that cake decorating can be challenging, but I think that with practice I can master it. I still have 3 more weeks of class to decide. Funny, but my mixer started working again, so maybe I can make my icing without another mishap.

My new range arrived today and I will try out the oven tomorrow.

Fruit of the Earth

We have coneflowers blooming! And we have figs!

This fig tree, which I got from Mama as a tiny 6-inch stick she had rooted in a pot, has moved around the Gulf Coast with me a couple of times. She gave it to me about 3 years ago, shortly before we moved from Mobile to Ocean Springs. Then at the end of 2005, when we relocated back to Alabama, I moved it again, this time in a bigger pot. It's still in the pot, but is very happy here on the patio in my fairly shady backyard. At some point I'll probably need to plant it in the ground, but for now it stays where it is.

I'm excited about the figs because they remind me so much of Granny and Grandpa. They usually had fig trees, and Granny would make jar after jar of preserves. Sometimes she would can whole figs in a very sweet syrup, and other times she would make a more jam-like concoction. But I will probably just eat my figs raw, if the birds don't get to them first!

To Bake or Not to Bake?

It's always something. This time, the oven is dead, so instead of repairing a 25-year-old range that has definitely seen better days, we decided to buy a new one. However, things aren't that easy. The project has turned into a minor kitchen remodel, and we still don't have anything to cook on. The timing is perfect, of course. I need a cake for my first decorating class tomorrow night, and I have no oven in which to bake it. I'll be over at Mama & Daddy's in the morning to use their oven, and if all goes well, I'll have my new stove on Thursday and will be baking cookies by Thursday night. Life is always an adventure!

To keep my mind off the lost baking opportunities, I've been trying the drawing lessons over at Drawspace. So much fun!

Cake Decorator in Training

What on earth was I thinking? Today I signed up for a cake decorating class at Michael's. I've always wanted to take my baking to the next level (in terms of presentation, at least), and since the class was 50% off this month, and I could use my 40% off coupons from Hobby Lobby to get some of my supplies, and I love frosting, I didn't see any reason not to sign up. Even after using coupons at Hobby Lobby to buy the most expensive items, and using my class discount to get the rest at Michael's, the supplies still cost about 5 times as much as the class. And I still have to go to the supermarket to buy ingredients for the frosting and cake I'll need to make before the first class on Tuesday! At least I'll be able to eat my class projects.