From Me to You

New Year's Eve 2008 ...a time to reflect on the past year,

and celebrate the birth of a brand new year. 2008 has

been a mixed bag of happenings for a lot of us. The good

and the bad, with unfortunately a lot of the bad happening

towards the end of 2008.

My wish for everyone is that 2009 will bring peace, understanding, love and stability to a world that is feeling rather battered. May all of us be able to enjoy the small moments of magic that life offers us.

Peace and Love,

sue

Gifts From the Heart

Every year, our eldest daughter Nicole (an artist in her own

right), creates a wonderful seasonal themed gift for me. This year's special gift is "Christmas Dreams" shadowbox. Last year she painted and costumed a blank nutcracker in an opulent olde world style and the year before was a fabulous old parlour Christmas setting in a shadow box. These (shown

above) are just from the last three years and I wanted to share them. The rest of Nicole's gifts, from gorgeous hand crafted

jewelry to knit scarves and paintings are eagerly looked forward

to each year.

Our other daughter, Keara, is not as artistically creative, however

she is thoughtfully inventive when it comes to the gifts she gives

her Dad and I. We always look so forward to what quirky, wonderful thing she has thought up too.

These are truly gifts from the heart and we are so blessed to

have such fantastic daughters.

500 Pieces of Inspiration

I have wanted this ever since it came out and this year, hubby
gave it to me for Christmas. I've already studied every piece
twice, so much inspiration and talent!

Joyeous Holiday

My sincere wish that everyone has a wonderful, joyeous - and

safe Holiday! Relax, enjoy family and friends and rejoice in

all the wonders that life offers us.

Now, THIS Is A Tree!

From my favorite vintage photo site, Shorpy.com comes this

fabulous image of an incredibly large Christmas tree, circa 1920. Please click to view it in larger size, as the ornaments are a delight to behold!

If you go here on the Shorpy site, you can see an even larger version of this

tree and closeup detail of the wonderful toys and ornaments.

Enjoy!

Snow-Mag-gedon

That is what one of the weathermen were calling this

first snow storm of three that we are going to get

in the next few days. This is the same system that

is hitting the north east US

This pic was taken around 3:30pm. It started snowing

here around 9:00am and it is still snowing. The next

storm is due Sunday, and then after that another

one on Christmas Eve day.

Pretty, no? At least if you aren't out on the roads!

Bones

I'm planning on making another ghost child. The armatures for these sculpts are quite simple as there is not a lot of 'flesh' on them.

I'm trying to decide with this one if I will do a full body
sculpt or just sculpt the lower body, hands, arms and
have the body and upper arms soft. Being able to
bend the arms can be an advantage, especially if the
piece will be holding something.

I see in looking at this pic that the hands are too big (this is a prob I have - hands usually go through several reductions before they are the correct size. As this piece is now, only the head has been cured.

Want A Little Head?

I love sculpting heads (hands not so much), and I usually

start off by sculpting one or more. Here are some

small noggins that are awaiting bodies. I sometimes

think I should just stick with heads and make

little head charm bracelets LOL.

For these heads I used Prosculpt Light, Prosculpt

Natural, and Prosculpt Baby.

Step Back in Time - In Black and White

One of my most favorite blogs is Shorpy .

This blog is several years old and has literally hundreds of antique and vintage photos. The best part
is clicking to get the full view and reading the comments of other
bloggers. It is interesting and entertaining.

Ohhhh LA LA!!! Marie Antoinette Award!

I am so honoured and surprised to have had the

coveted Marie Antoinette award bestowed on me

by Angela Michelle Dolls.

What a thrill, especially considering my blog is so very, very
new! Thank you so much Angela!

In keeping with the spirit of this great game, I would like to
also nominate the award on the following blogs:

Walldancers

artdollsbynat

Lady Artisan Studios

The Studio at Crow Haven Farm

The Senorita Pil

Black Eyed Suzie

Knot By Granma

The rules of this delightful game are:

1 Please ad the logo on your blog
2 Place a link to the person from whom you received the award.
3 nominate at least 7 or more blogs
4 put the links to those blogs on your blog
5 leave a message on their blogs to tell them they are the chosen ones

8' x 10' ~ Clockwise From The Door

My studio, my room, my place to create. Yes, it is small, it is in the basement, it is cluttered and a slight mess at the moment and has no windows, but it is all mine. My sanctuary where I can close the door, put on music and play with clay, my antique laces, trims

and all my wonderful found objects.

Winter Berries

It is rainy and 48F today and most of our snow has disappeared (more in the forecast though ...yaaaay!! White Christmas!).

I took this pic a couple of weeks ago when we had our first snow

fall and love the way the berries are so vibrantly red still and

the snow is like sugar frosting. Magical

Goodbye Ceci!

Ceci, Ghost Child of the Attic is on her way tomorrow to a new home.

She finally is escaping the bonds of the attic of Castle Keep and setting off on a new haunt! I will miss her (she is my first Ghost Child, and I LOVED creating her), but I'm thrilled that she has found such a wonderful new home.

Arrrggghhh

So, I'm zipping along, figuring out this blog thing and adding
links to my favorite sites/blogs when I went to one artists'
site (no, she is not linked or listed here at the moment) and as soon
as I clicked on her site, my virus program picked up a trojan. I've emailed her to let her know that her site seems to have a problem.

Hubby has spent several hours making sure my machine is
fine and also backing up my hard drive (which hadn't been done
in a while). Everything seems okay now, but gosh it is annoying
that people with the smarts, waste their time (and ours) by
developing these bugs.

One good thing, I did manage to get four armatures done, and also
all my presents to send to my family out west are now packed and
ready to go. See, there is a bright side to everything!

I Need My Head Read!

Two weeks before Christmas and I decide to start a blog. Something I've been planning on doing for awhile now as I think it will help to keep me motivated and inspired....but, but...

I have gifts and orders to finish and on my way to my little
studio room was sucked in to the computer room. Yes, I do
prograstinate. I have to make some armatures, my least
fav part of creating.

But, this wasn't quite as scarey starting this as I thought it
would be and it should be fun!

til later.........