It was a Merry Christmas!
It was a great Christmas...but I didn't get enough pictures. The day after Christmas when Jim's family were visiting, we tried to line up our one year old niece, Abby, with our three and get a good shot of them all! Ha! No way could we get them all still enough at once.
Here the girls look good, but Danny looks like a little terror! He's actually NOT a little terror, by the way.

Here Cassie looks over at me...Ellie looks surprised, and Danny is a blur! (as usual!)

This is a much better shot of him, he's a little monkey!
Bad shot of Ellie and the baby missed her nap and by this time is not tolerant either...


Sit still my little monkeys!!!
(They can't do it!!)
My Dad always wraps his present so beautifully...he uses wrinkled up old horse feed bags wrapped with a leaf or a feather and tied together with haystring...his gifts are wrapped so beautifully I almost hate to open them...except there is usually something even more beautiful inside! And this time, there was! A painting of barns in a wide silver plein air frame. I'll have to take photos of it and other beautiful art I received on my next post. My good friend Laura sent the best large goodness filled package of the holiday to us in the mail. ALL the presents were wrapped in cool retro aqua and pink ornament and Christmas motif wrapping. The absolute best presents in the loot filled box were a hand made scarf out of pieces of velevet..like an old patch work quilt, kind of. I am NO kind of seamstress myself and so don't even know how to describe items that have been made by sewing. She also sent Danny a hand made sculpture of a faun, (horned man with furry goat legs...) picture Tumnus in Narnia, playing the pan pipes! I will HAVE to get pics of all the art gifts I received for my next post!


I just didn't get many pictures! Too much boisterous activity was going on the whole time! Below is our tree the day after....
or maybe it was this morning...it's all a blur to me now! So much fun was had by all and so many people were in and out! It was a fantastic Christmas but I am still glad to slow down some now and take it all in. I'm also already planning for the new year...thinking about how I want it to go and what I want to accomplish. Already getting excited for the return of warmth and longer days...I know its still a few months away but I love shorts and barefeet. I love spring almost as much as fall, and can't wait for it to be here. Yet there are still a couple of months of cold and long dark nights.

On Christmas day father, aka "DoDa" to the kids, is watching Danny open a gift! My family came Christmas day....Jim's family came the day after...and truly wonderful time was had by us all. We had such a fun day today playing with all the toys.


Today I also finished a couple of fun little ornaments..this time for Halloween!
These two are on eBay this week.


I am going to enjoy a fun -filled week at home with the kids! More art to come soon!

Tuesday Twosomes!
I keep making things in twos! Here are some snowflake little wizened old men in progress...

Two recently finished moon crescents...




Below are individuals...not two's... one is an angry cup. "Cup of what?" You might query. You will have to wait. The little ice blue moon with jester collar and hat...his painting and accoutrementing process has barely begun.
I love him already.


I just love this chipped old santa.... I am going to sculpt some santa faces as a tribute to him! I also want to make a skull over an 8 ball! See, my mind always drifts back to the dark side.



I'm off to get some more done!!

New Star and Moon Christmas Ornaments...

Here is my latest pair up for grabs on eBay, they end late Wednesday night around 11pm EST!
I love the lemony yellow with hints of prussian blue, very celsestial! They just look like long time friends! I have a couple of other things in the works for eBay this week, so please come back by!








Christmas is almost here!

Gotta get out of this House! And some new listings...

This is it! I am officially stir crazy! I have been cooped up working most of the week, home with kids, one a sick child (who is now running wild again!) and other than venturing out to ship I have done nothing FUN! Well, lots of fun with the KIDS, picture if you will an eleven, four and seven year old dipping pretzels in melted chocolate. You can't imagine. Also ...about five dozen cookies were also baked in the last two days. Peanut butter candy was mixed and stirred. Floors were hand scrubbed. Also scrubbed were hands and faces over and over again! Various ornaments were hand crafted. Paint was splattered. Christmas music blaring! Two big dogs to let in and out of the icy slush....AaaaHHH!!! This woman's taking off the apron tonight.
Tonight we are taking the kids to my mother's, God bless her, and going out on the town! Bar hoppin' and late night Christmas Shoppin' is a little tradition of ours. Who knows where we will end up in the Queen City tonight. Also have a party to swing by. We are always last minute shoppers. Before I go wash off the paint and head out the door, I finished some things...this metallic moon..


And this little woman in the moon ornie....

And here was a commissioned piece, one of many small ones I managed to finish this week but this guy was one of my favorites. A little Jinglin' Moon with a Top Hat!


I am even almost caught up with my shipping.
Here's to a night on the town!!!
Merry Merry everyone!

Metallic Christmas Star Tree Topper on a Candlestick Stand!
Here is what I ended up actually finishing today...the cresecnt moon I finished last night got me in the mood. I have vastly improved my metallic patina painting skills with the addition of some "FANCY" professional metallic powders my sister Dusti used in the faux finishing business. She gave thm to me years ago and I used them in my days of Santos Repair (Religous statues) and in Dustis and I's other joint ventures in the decorative arts. I am doing all these small moons and stars in preparation for a HUGE double sided moon that is waiting for me. He will be so awesome I might have to keep him. I know all this metallic ancient stuff may not appeal to you primitive folk art fans. I hope it appeals to someone, though, because I LOVE it and am going to keep doing it for a while! The older and more ancient and crusty and oxidized I can make it look, the better, too.






I will have to get better photos of the crescent to show quickly, as you can see here...they would look fantastic together on the same tree.



Star is
Going on eBay tonight for 5 days!!

NEW! Crescent Moon Ornie and some WIPs!

I finished this crescent moon last night and put him on eBay! He ends Saturday night rather late, 11:00 pm EST or so. He has all these beautiful silver fluffy strands with silver bells and a big bronze bell dangling down. He is so silvery and gold and antique looking....I had so much fun making him. I actually sculpted him months ago and he was just laying around the studio. He was really un-impressive untill I began to paint him using special metallic powdered pigments I added to the paint! Then his expression just came to life! He looks old and magical. There is a large star tree topper I have made that will receive the same treatment, and I hope to finish it today!






Along with lots of other things...including a snowman commission. The snowman is holding a tiny glass lantern I made with a flame inside, the tiny flame is a flame man and has a face too.

Here are some more moons...and some of my new tiny ones, and a star all awaiting my attention.

I love how they used to take photographs using paper moons. Below are some old-timey moon images, just really cool stuff.



My upstairs work space....smaller and not my "official" studio but I do so much work here..

And last but not least the fabulous snowman Cassie made. Cassie is seven and she dremmeled this corn cob pipe all by herself, and made the entire piece very quickly just by watching me. I gave her a few instructions, when she asked, but really not much was required! She is fast and confident when manifesting her artistic visions! She nade hers a broom out of wire and twigs, will have to post a better picture!

Back to work for me!
Thanks for stopping by!

STJ December Offerings!
Head on over to www.spookytimejingles right now to see ALL the fab art!

SpookyTimeJingles December Update is HERE!
Here are my two little ornies for the 12 Days of Christmas!



And below is my first ever SnowMan Sculpture...
"Mr. Snowstorm" is a bit peeved..he just came out of another snowstorm and his Tree and lights are all messed up! The little star is happy to be on the tree...he is the TINIEST thing I have ever sculpted! I just love using dental tools to sculpt super tiny now! As if I needed one more thing to work on obsessively...but teeny tiny is so cute and I have some teeny tiny moons I made today, too! (No photos yet!) Speaking of photos, the light was horrible and I promise to get more professional photos in the morning to put on this blog.
Oh! I hand carved the little corn cob pipe out of wooden dowels with a dremmel tool! It even has the little bowl in the pipe...a perfect minature pipe. You should se the snowman my seven year old made today alongside me while I was working on mine. It's un-real what she can do and how fast she picks up on things and can whip something out. She even dremmeled her own corn cob pipe for hers and made a twig broom, sculpted coal eyes and buttons and hat. She used the same kind of wooden base as I did. I will take pics of her with hers tomorrow to post! (The other two made snowmen also but did not finish theirs yet.)
On mine,
Everything else but the tree and lights is paper mache and paperclay. Oh, the base is wooden too.


I made a few more things for the December update.
Here we have a Moon Tree Topper! The one on the right, that is. That moon is painted silver, very metallic! It looks like an art deco object d' art in person! Very strange, maybe would make a good hood ornament too on some huge old car if it was actually metal. The bigger one on the left is a 9 inch Moon lantern in a matte finish in a wintry palette and comes with a big and unusal sleigh shaped candelabra!

The worse pictures I have evr taken in my life and soon to be rectified...my carved black cat is finaly finished and I paired him with a mini moon lantern. No, not one I was working on today, the ones I made today are half this size. I love how the cat flies with the wire hadle in his paws!

Everything on STJ by me this month is a FREE SHIP!!!


Ok This art girl is DONE!! Back to life as normal tomorrow, but with better pictures!
Don't forget to Swing on over to STJ to see all the amazing art for DECEMBER!!!