Tag: craft

2025 – New blogging?

I don’t know if I will post more blog entries in 2025, but I know these things:

  1. I am not a fan of this WordPress blog any longer
  2. I am glad I own this domain, and the others, but I’m sure not doing much with ’em.
  3. Do I need new hosting?
  4. Would it matter?

Anyway, I have been doing a lot of creative stuff lately! In 2024 I :

  • Grew some herbs
  • Learned to make ink/pigment/watercolor from natural berries and things
  • Learned to alter the ink/pigment/watercolor by changing the pH
  • Documented all my ink samples in a ring-bound card catalog
  • Learned to make paper
  • Bound a little book filled with homemade paper
  • Learned to carve erasers into rubber stamps.
A porcelain watercolor palette filled with red juice from a red cabbage
The same juice after altering the pH with soap, lemon juice, etc!
Sample cards showing all the inks I made from various plants!

I have been very inspired by a website called Peg & Awl. I wonder what other websites are there to inspire that I haven’t found yet? The internet is a big place, but sometimes it feels like all I do is check social media! And here is this blog post, not on social media, but in my little cul-de-sac of the web. Let’s enjoy the freedom we have to create the internet we want – while we still can.

Such a Deviant

Two reasons why I have not blogged lately, one of which is a decent excuse.
First, I have not blogged lately because when I had that swell idea to write an Artisan story to go along with jewelry, well, writing is HARD WORK.

Second, I had a deviated septum (that’s the bone in your nose) and had surgery for it about a week-and-a-couple-of-days-ago. It was “pretty miserable” (but no one wants to hear how gross nose surgery is so I won’t go into details. Suffice to say I survived it, and if you also need this fairly routine surgery, you also will survive it.) but now I am doing better and should continue to see improvement over the next several weeks. Someone told me she would rather give birth to twins than have that packing in her nose. I don’t think it was THAT bad, but it did make me feel so sure that I was unable to breathe, that I went to the ER – where they explained to me that no, I was breathing fine, and I was in fact hyperventilating.

Thirdly – bonus reason – I have been trying to clean out and “destash” a lot of craft supplies (and even, gasp, books) that I will likely never use (check it out – some are up for grabs at http://glimmerville.etsy.com).

I will post more art/craft/jewelry, but I don’t guarantee a story like I wish I could. It still seems like it would be a good writing exercise for me, but it is kind of onerous to say “post an actual story with each piece of art, or else” – I’ll do what I can.

Mech Dragon goes to War

Mech Dragon No.2
Mech Dragon No.2

I finally finished this guy! (Click for a larger view.) Not only that, but he’s sold! I’m excited about both of those things, but he was more work than I expected. He started with a tinfoil and wire base, then I added Sculpey, and Apoxie Sculpt on certain parts (like the horns and the inner wing core supports).