Art Fartz

Today is going to ROCK!

2011-06-05T12:56:00.001-07:00

Just finished this. It will go in my new office at work. :)

The Island of Misfit Toys

2010-11-28T15:51:00.000-08:00

I always loved that Rudolph Christmas special that had the island of misfit toys. Was that the New Year's one? I can never remember.

They always seemed so loney and sad and I wanted to take them all home to love and play with. So to fulfil that childhood wish, I've started to make my own version. They aren't exactly toys, but they are in the spirit of those who are "just not quite right."

These are all up on the Etsy shop if you feel like taking one home to love and play with too. :)

Wow, I suck at blogging...

2010-10-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

No excuses- just lazy. But to make up for it, here's what I've been up to over the summer.

Paperclay Easter Bunny

2010-04-03T12:39:00.001-07:00

My first foray into paperclay. This guy was so much fun to make. I'm totally thrilled with the way he turned out. The only problem is now I need to get my hands on some more clay and there's no local supplier that I'm aware of. Hrrm, a

trip to Berkeley may be in order... Happy Easter!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Butterfly by

2010-03-26T10:17:00.001-07:00

Just another square to share. I tried to do my own varigated floss by combining the yellow & green on the body. Didn't really work out...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Another embroidery inchie

2010-03-23T12:33:00.001-07:00

Here's another stiching along square. I should mention that my piece is only 16 squares, not the 39 that Amy is doing. I just don't have that kind of an attention span! Also, my squares aren't really inchies either. They're more like 2 inchies. I know, I know I'm such a rebel! :). My dream is to be able to take a picture of one of these squares that's not totally blurry by the time we're done.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Flower cuff

2010-03-22T20:58:00.001-07:00

So ignore my fat arm, but man
I love this cuff. Took one of those flowers from the previous post and attched it to a lace cuff. Just wish I had something appropriate to wear it with!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Spring fever

2010-03-21T19:14:00.001-07:00

Finally felt a tiny bit better today. I've been fighting what I thought were allergies for the better part of a week. I suppose I should just give in and call it a cold. Anyhoo, I made it out to the craft room and whipped up some of these flowers. Love 'em! Seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate the first day of spring.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Stitching along

2010-03-20T09:06:00.001-07:00

As promised
before, here's what I've been up to lately. I've started a spring embroidery sampler and am stitching along with other bloggers as well. You can see the list at http://39squares.blogspot.com

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Blog press testing

2010-03-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

I figured it would be easier to update and keep the blog current if I posted from the Iphone. And wouldn't you know it, there's an app for that. Also, I started stitching along. More on that later though in the meantime, let's see if I can upload a picture on this thing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Robot Invasion!

2010-01-24T23:33:00.001-08:00

So after getting some positive response to my first robot painting, I decided to paint him some friends. Playing with the angle made a huge difference I think. And if I don't say so myself, they've got quite a bit of personality.

Playing with Modeling Paste

2010-01-10T21:27:00.000-08:00

This stuff is FUN.

Use it with a stencil, or in this case a doily, and smear it on with a piece of cardboard. Lift off the stencil and VIOLA- a raised surface that hardens up quite nicely.

I tried it out on a tag I recently did and am looking forward to using it on some other valentine projects. It adds such a neat texture. You could use it to make your own faux raised wallpaper remnants that seem to be so popular these days.

Another little tip: the seam binding on this tag is originally off white. I watered down the acrylic I used to paint the tag and sponged it on the binding to make a custom colored ribbon.

Furlough-palooza

2010-01-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

My day job as a government employee afforded me some extended time off over the holidays which I've affectionately dubbed furlough-palooza. In between day trips to local fun spots I did get in a little studio time. I thought I'd share a bit of both.

Nevada City-

Had a great time visiting with my dad and doing some shopping downtown. They have an awesome fairy shop but I was disappointed that the one store I really wanted to see was closed. I should really check these things out first... Oh well, good excuse to go back right? In the meantime, drool over the goodies at My Favorite Things web site with me.

Snow day! On another day we headed up the hill to play in the snow. This resulted in a somewhat depressed looking snowman and a very goofy little boy.

It really was a beautiful day.

Finally, a few stray ornaments I whipped up

and our family gingerbread house for good measure!

Bleep bloop bong bing...

2010-01-01T22:34:00.001-08:00

Decided to go in a different direction today and make something for my youngest son's room. I was inspired by some kids art I saw in downtown Walnut Creek (great shopping!) and thought, hey I can do that! It's not exactly how I'd wanted it to turn out but hey, Jake loved it so that's all that matters. It's fun to get out of my comfort zone now and then and it seems like a good way to start off a new decade, don't cha think?

Christmas in the Park, San Jose

2009-12-19T21:12:00.000-08:00

Going to Christmas in the Park in downtown San Jose is always a holiday high point for me.

This year Jake was certainly more into it and especially loved it when one of the police officers let him sit in the patrol car and test out the lights and sirens. Scared the bejeezus out of some poor guy trying to cross the street!

I'm not sure about that elf though. He's creepin' me out! One of the neat things they do is a tree decorating contest between community groups. This UP! tree was pretty spectacular, although I'm not quite sure where the tree went...

Oh jeez, this guy again mom?

2009-12-13T21:31:00.000-08:00

Pictures with Santa are always an adventure. He did eventually give up a Christmas card worthy grin but secretly, this one is my favorite. :)

2009-11-22T22:22:00.000-08:00

Working on a piece to use for my Christmas cards. This may be the winner.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week. Suddenly I feel the crush of the Holidays is upon us. It gets so overwhelming from here on out until the end of the year. I'm vowing not to get too caught up in the whirlwind and try to live a little more in the moment with the kids. But we'll see, you know?

My Very Hungry Caterpillar

2009-11-02T22:12:00.000-08:00

Loves his lolipops! Halloween was so much fun this year. My littlest was SOOO excited about trick or treating. He woke up yelling HALLOWEEN! TRICK OR TREAT! CANDY!!! and that was *before* any sugar intake... Now I can't wait to see him at Christmas. Little kids really make the holidays special, don't they?

Crowning glory

2009-10-11T20:35:00.002-07:00

I'm on a crown kick lately. I blame the lack of Disney Princess merchandise during my formative years. Nowadays these kids can get pink and glitter everywhere.

I grew up in the '70's. A dark time indeed. Macrame, orange ponchos and clogs.
Oh the horror!

So now I have to live out my princess fantasy via my craft room. This is my latest crown for a lady at work. She's leaving our division for another spot in the organization via a reorganization. Luckily she didn't get laid off. We are all going to miss her so we're having a little luncheon for her tomorrow and I wanted to make a special crown for her to wear to the party. Hopefully it will lift her spirits a bit.

Just to prove I'm not dead :)

2009-09-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

Been on a summer hiatus it seems. My lovely craft room is in the garage and with no a/c it's miserable during the 90+ degree summers here in the Valley. The good news is I've convinced hubby to install the duct work to connect my room to the a/c. Bad news is that he won't climb up into the attic to do it until it's not 90+ degrees. *sigh* Oh well, it'll be awesome next summer!

Looking forward to getting back in the swing of arty things this fall and am trying to think of something to submit for Somerset Studios Alice in Wonderland issue. Need to get it together to send off by the beginning of October though so not much time! I'm late! I'm late!

And we have a WINNER!

2009-05-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Nancy of http://nan-livelovelaugh.blogspot.com/ She is the lucky winner of the birdhouse and a little something extra. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and participated. I hope you all had as much fun as I did making the rounds to all the great blogs out there!

Learn how to make a paper flower wreath

2009-05-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

I just wrote up the instructions on how to make the wreath picutred here on ehow. Check it out and make one of your own! These are so much fun, easy and a great way to use up those scraps of patterned paper. Enjoy :)

http://www.ehow.com/how_5045053_make-paper-flower-garland.html

Put a little birdhouse in your soul.

2009-05-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

I figured it's time to get down to a give away, and might as well do it with some company! I've decided to join the rest of the amazing bloggers participating in the 3rd (third! How did I miss the other two?) annual Cottage Charm giveaway. On May 30th a zillion different bloggers will be giving away goodies on their sites. Ok maybe not a zillion, but you can forgive me for being over excited because there are a LOT. Check out the other folks here and who knows, maybe you'll stumble across a new favorite web site and even better, win something!

So my giveaway is this sweet little birdhouse I painted and collaged. It's made of wood and includes a tiny pink birdie who likes to call it home. Leave me a comment and on May 30th I'll randomly pick a name and send it off to the winner.

Thanks for stopping by and good luck!

P.S. I've decided to also add one of the little vintage stuffed girls pictured in the "My Posse" post as well. Let me know if there's one that particularly tickles your fancy!

Who are you callin' an adult?

2009-05-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

Beeswax encased collage is FUN. This collage was an experiment in encaustic work and I really like the way it turned out. I found the process of working with wax enjoyable. There's something incredibly satisfying about melting and painting with wax. Really looking forward to playing with it some more. This one is now on the Etsy store.

My Posse

2009-04-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

Well that was fun. I just spent half an hour trying to figure out why my post was converting to Hindu. One little checked box can really throw you off your game!

So I've been trying out some new mediums these last few weeks. I picked up the book Doodle Stitch and have been trying my hand at embroidery. Nothing too difficult, but I'm really liking the freedom of doing a little freehand stitching. And this really is something I can do in front of the TV with the family around so it's kind of nice in that regard as well. Here's a group of little dolls I'm working on currently.

Crafty round up

2009-04-05T11:07:00.000-07:00

I was going through some older pictures and ran across some earlier projects. These were crowns I did for a few family members. Nothing like a party to get people to wear goofy stuff on thier heads :)

In an entirely different direction, here's one of my wire/goth tiara's. I like the rough yet feminine twist these have.

This is a perpetual calendar I did for my mom. Maybe someday I'll actually finish the one I'm making for me...

A couple of altered clip boards for good measure-

A bit of spring

2009-03-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a garland I just finished. I love the way it turned out! This is going to go in my new craft room which should be ready to move into this weekend. The carpet is in and all that really has to be done is clean it up and move stuff in. Once I get in there I'll figure out how many drawers etc, need to go in the cabinets. So Excited!

Saturday night's alright

2009-03-07T23:33:00.001-08:00

For makin' some stuff...

Here's what I accomplished this evening.

Saturday mornng

2009-03-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

I'm sneaking some time on the computer before the kids wake up. Shhhh! I thought I'd share some pictures of the little and not so little rascals. And here are the pics of the project I've been working on inspired by Teresa McFayden's great ezines.

Uh oh, I hear the MAMAMAMAMA down the hall. Time's up already!

Because one rainbow just isn't enough

2009-03-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

This was the view from my office window this afternoon. I must say the Iphone did a presentable job of capturing the rainbow-tastic-ness. Yeah, I made that up.

New Year, New Look

2009-03-02T22:39:00.000-08:00

So wow, it's been a year and I've done nothing. Well, let's just fix that shall we? Just a quick update to say YAY! I love the new look of the blog thanks to the gals at House of Three. Also I've finally succumbed to Twitter. Follow me here.

Here's a peek at a little project I finished this weekend. I really need to work on taking some better photos. At least I found the macro focus button on the camera so I think I'm making dom progress. Anyhoo, this will hang in my new craft room which is almost finished! Just need carpet and a door and my own little corner of the garage will be complete. A better pic will follow, I promise...

Post the first

2008-02-16T00:34:00.001-08:00

See what happens when I have insomnia? I surf my way on to blogger and bingo! A blog is born.

I have no idea why it's taken me so long to get on the blog bandwagon other than I'm just a naturally lazy person. So I'm hoping this will help jumpstart my creative juices so I will actually write and create instead of reading and shopping for supplies instead. Only time will tell.