A little bronze over the weekend

I did a little bronze work Friday and Saturday. I had a bit left from a 200g pack and wanted to use it up so I made some pendants and a few tidbits. I took the tray out of the kiln when it was 200 degrees. As I uncovered the pieces they had bright pinks in them. As they cooled to air temp they lost that pink color. Although they looked pretty pink in the pic below. Funny...the pendant in front still had the pencils lines on it that I drew when the clay was leather. It didn't burn off...but they did go away when I polished them up.


I polished this one up and put some leather cord in the holes. This one is my "Alien" pendant. Just above the first "x" of leather...it looks like the Alien mask with tendrils coming off the head. Isn't that cool!!!

Benny likes it...it made him laugh...and then he chewed on the leather cord.

Summer Fun and a Flying Pig

Lou and I went to the Avon Summer Market. It was held in a park on Lake Erie with a mix of artists and antiques. It was fun. The weather was a little iffy. It stormed earlier in the day. You can see the clouds building up over the lake.

We stopped in to see Lori in her booth. She has some great jewelry. Check out her website. There was an artist from Cincinnati....Greg's Antiques and Garden... that had garden sculptures and trellis' made from iron. We picked up three sections of decorative fence for the back yard and a garden ornament. I also brought home Sebastian the Flying Pig. I couldn't resist. Right now he is sitting on my dining room table. Proud as can be.

Next we stopped at Las Cazuelas in Avon Lake for tamales. Then to Borders. I picked up David Lebovitz's new book....The Sweet Life in Paris. It's a cook book of sorts which is funny because I don't really cook. He is a pastry chef. It has stories of his life in Paris and recipies. He has a great blog if you like to cook....lots of recipies.

I'm doing a little bit of bronze this afternoon. It was so hot upstairs I had to take a break while the clay dries....which should be quick. Now I'm back to it.

Kaleidoscope....

Check this out.......kaleidoscope app for Photoshop...

We were playing with a similar app on Cathy's i-phone in Sunday. Pat said there was a download for Photoshop so I went out and found it. I have a project I'm working on I thought it might be good for....not so good for the project but it's fun to play with. I took one of my pictures and saved it as the first kaleidoscope. Then I took that picture and made a second kaleidoscope. This is another app that you can spend hours...days....playing with. While you're at it check out Cathy's new blog.

As long as I'm listing sites for you to go to....try Paris Daily Porn....not what you think. Nice pictures of Paris. Actually Paris Daily Photo is also a nice site. Apparently there are a number of cities that have a "daily photo" web site.

You better watch out...

You better not cry ...Better not pout... I'm telling you why....

Obama is coming to town. He will be in Cleveland on Thursday and will be at my hospital, Cleveland Clinic, before he goes to Shaker Heights High School for a town hall meeting. Unfortunatley when he is at the Clinic...it is closed to the media and to the employees. I didn't find out about the town hall until it was too late. If I had seen the notice before 3PM I could have put my name in a lottery to get tickets. Oh well.

One of the docs at work lives on the street to the school. Obama has to drive by her house to get to the school. She and her husband are going home early to see if they can catch a glimpse of him.

He is here to talk about healthcare reform. He has mentioned Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic as models for the efficient delivery of healthcare. Reform is a difficult subject. People expect the best healthcare possible with the most innovative techniques and the smartest people...but that all comes at a price. I have worked in healthcare for the past 30 years and I can tell you that there are no corporate big wigs taking home multi-million dollar salaries and stock options. If there is money at the end of the year it goes back into the hospital to recruit the best people, buy better equipment, train employees on new techniques. It goes to make things better for the patients. Can you say the same thing about most multi-billion dollar corporations?

On another topic....I thought I poisoned Sophie tonight. The kids have fleas so I got Frontline to treat them. You have to place the solution in the vial on the skin between their shoulder blades. Well Sophie can reach that spot. A bit after the application she decide to lick that area. She instantly started acting weird...like she was going to barf...and started drooling. All this is happening while my mom was on the phone. So I threw the phone over to Lou and ran after the cat. I got a towel soaked in water and put it all around her mouth so she would lick her mouth and get some water. And my mom was still talking on the phone. Sophie is OK. I did a search on the Internet. I figured she wasn't the first cat to lick this stuff so it probably wasn't poisonous. Other people reported this happening and suggested the next application be higher up on the neck. But it scared me. I thought I killed my cat. And my mom....she's still talking on the phone :)....not really.

Needless to say I didn't get anything done tonight.

I'm having trouble blogging....

I haven't been making anything new...catching up on household chores. I feel out of sync and unbalanced.....it's been like that since June. I could use a week off to recharge. As fast as our lives move these days I guess we have to find moments during each day to center ourselves. I'm already looking forward to the weekend. Nothing much planned which is exactly how I like it. I want to stop by the Avon Lake Summer Market to see Lori.

Here something to make everyone smile. Lou was telling me that while he was watching golf on TV....Sophie was trying to catch the golf ball rolling across the putting green. This reminded me of that....the cat even looks like Sophie.



see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Quiet Weekend

So nice not to have a show....and not to have a show until the Fall. But I have a lot of work here in the house. Lou was in Wisconsin this weekend so I spent all yesterday cleaning the downstairs. Moving all my tools and supplies back up to my workroom, dusting, sweeping and generally getting my living/dining room back to normal. I managed to do that but now the mess is all upstairs in piles waiting to be put back into place. That's the work of another weekend.

I'm off to the PMC guild meeting today. We are having a play day rather than a demo or workshop. Quite frankly I am all played out. I think I am just going to bring all Robert Dancik's new book to peruse and enjoy the company of the girls. Back later

So much to catch up on...

so much went undone while I did the shows. Now I have to catch up. My living room is still a disaster area my boxes all over the place. I don't have a show until November so I want to straighten things up before I put them away. My dining room table is covered with all the makings for necklaces and earrings. Hopefully I'll get to these things tomorrow.

Tuesday Lou and I went out to dinner for the first time in months. We went to the Moosehead in Westlake and ate outside. It's a nice little place close to home. Tonight I had to pay semi-annual sales tax for the business. Actually, that was easy. I have a QuickBooks program and it runs a sales tax report for a specified date range. As long as you enter all your sales you can have a report in seconds. Ohio has electronic reporting so I hopped on and punched in my numbers. Viola!! All done. I also managed to clean the kitchen and mop the floor.

I do feel a bit in limbo. I work best under pressure and now that there is no goal and no pressure I sit looking around the room wondering what I should do next. I guess I'll think about that over the weekend.

I'll leave you with a fuzzy picture of Ben. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Super Ben.... actually it's Lazy Ben laying all over my mess. He's so cute with his one little black toe. Don't you just want to pick him up and squeeze him?!!

Exhausted..... beyond belief....

but it was a good show. Here's my new tent. I stayed cozy and dry during the storms on Saturday. This was the first show I've done where I was allowed to park right on the grounds...behind the tent. That was such a great convenience. It made things so much easier.

Close-up of my display

And my crazy neighbor Mike.....who looks like Kenny Rogers. He was trying to drive me crazy by hanging his pictures all askew.

It stormed Saturday morning and part of the show was located in a valley....which is where my tent was located. The storm drain was next to my tent. After two hours of rain....it started to build up. So the art show staff and some of the male artists got out shovels and dug a drainage ditch so we didn't get flooded out. I call this picture...."How many artists does it take to dig a ditch?". By my count that would be 5. But I heard that this was nothing...two years ago they had 2-3" of water in all the booths.

I am relieved to have the summer shows over. I get a chance to relax, do some gardening, read a few books, and come up with some new designs for the shows in November.

But right now I'm going to get some sleep.

What's wrong with this picture.....

When you surgeon botches your boob job......you might want to rethink wearing clothing that shows every little goose bump.

My old tent is on the tree lawn for garbage day. I would never recommend buying an EZup. It lasted for a total of 4 shows. I would have been further ahead buying a Trimline from the start. I kept the sidewalls and canopy....plus I have an extra canopy still in the bag. When I first bought it last year they sent the tent without the canopy. I called to let them know and they shipped me a new one. That one arrived and the original arrived. I just never got around to sending it back. Maybe I'll sell it on eBay and recoup some of my loses.

I love three-day weekends

This one was busy. I'm still getting ready for next weekend's show at Cain Park so Friday I worked on jewelry almost all day. Good think Lou like to golf...otherwise he would be complaining that I don't spend enough time with him.

Yesterday I worked in the morning and then went to my brother's house in the evening for a cookout and fireworks. Good food, fireworks and a cool summer night....doesn't get much better than that.

Today we put the new tent through a trial run. Good thing. It took us about an hour to set it up. The first time is always the worst. But we have the hang of it. This week I have to get everything packed up and ready. We set up at 7AM on Friday. The show runs Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Then I am free for the rest of the summer. I want to get outside and work the flower beds, do some painting inside the house. We still need to get all the damage done by the tree repaired. And I can play around with some new design ideas.

Pizza is here...have to go eat. Later.

I'm feeling restless...

Call the pilot...tell him to fuel up the jet. We can celebrate Bastille Day in Paris.

Call the concierge to open up the apartment.

Tell the cook to have lunch ready for us when we get there.

It's good to have an active imagination. Makes the restless days go by quicker.