Win either a new Nikon D800 or Canon 5D Mark III

I don't normally do this but generally have three exceptions to blogging about giveaways/contests.

1. It has to be something related to the creative adventure, art products etc
2. It has to benefit animals (especially stray/rescued cats...for obvious reasons-Patches was a rescue)
3. It has to be big.

This one is big.
Your choice of impressive camera's: Either a Nikon D800 or Canon 5D Mark III

I've always dreamed of having a camera like one of these, but due to my lack of employment at the moment I am stuck with my point and shoot from Sony.

I've got my fingers crossed.  ;)
Big thanks to the SnapKnot wedding photography directory for offering this great camera giveaway!

Good Luck All!

Patches had to remind me I had a blog.

I can't believe the cat has a better memory than me but there it is.

I'm still kind of all over the place however the big clean up is back on. I got a whole lot of boxes given to me and another garage sale coming up in the spring/summer so I need to find more to sell.

Right now I'm going through my closet, first getting every article of clothing I own in one place and then realizing I had way, WAY more than I thought, then sorting it all and widdling it down. These of course will not be sold but given to charity, probably where the rest of my garage sale items should of gone last year lol

I've also gotten a hold of a few more storage bins so that I can more easily get my craft items off the desk and sorted properly while making room for the organization items I've picked up over the year.
I'm going to be getting rid of some of my supplies to make room for what's important so mostly the things I don't work with any more, like wooden objects (boxes, key hangers, plates) that I used to paint on will be heading out the door.

The missisquoi community school wrapped up in November and I finished my Toby painting.
I'm not sure it is finished though, there are parts of it that still bug me, but for now it is done.

I also have the Doctor Who T.A.R.D.I.S. painting I mentioned last time. It isn't finished as I ran short on time but all I have left are the details on the TARDIS itself which I could not get right in the hurry I was in by the time I got to it.

As for current projects, I've been making a few charms on my computer desk like this one I made for a friend. She loved it by the way.

And I've gotten my hands on a macro lens from Little BigShot for my point and shoot camera.
Yes, for a compact camera or as I call it, a point and shoot.

For only 25 bucks I'm taking upclose photos I'd only dreamed of before.
Here are a couple I've gotten so far. These are of decaying moss and regular living moss from a nearby tree.

 

 Well I guess I'd better get back to it, before facebook sucks me back in. ;)

It's been quite a while hasn't it?

I'd blame the kindle for my absence but I've just been all over the place lately and haven't really felt like updating this blog despite the fact that I have actually been creative in my time away.

Currently I'm suffering from round 2 of a cold that came, went and came back 5 days later. I've been told that means it's actually a whole other cold but I never get 2 colds back to back like that and the timing is really crazy.

I'm currently taking a class at the yearly Missiquoi Community School. It's great thing really, 10 weeks of classes (1 1/2 hour a week) for 10 bucks (for the whole 10 week season not per class) and the final class is a showing from all the different classes. I actually made them a little youtube commercial of sorts, I've been going every year since I was old enough to go (don't tell anyone but I snuck in a year early lol) except the years I was away at college. The past two years I've been taking scrapbooking but this year I'm back in painting and having a blast!

So far I have 2 paintings, 1 complete, one very near complete (just a couple of minor tweaks left) and 2 projects I want to do but haven't started so I'm gonna try and pull at least one of them off in time for next weeks final show. I have a final class tomorrow (Thursday) to complete tweaks and start a new piece and hopefully finish the rest at home.
The one I've been working on all through classes is a portrait of my cat Toby who went to rainbow bridge 2 years ago.
It's not finished in this photo, I've done more work since (including all the fur details, eyelashes, eye changes and more color) but you can get a gist of what it looks like until I get a newer photo off my camera.




















The second is my take on fate trying to destroy love by taking away the object of that love but love itself being immortal...it involves the greek mythology about the fates, with the threads that are lives, snipping them randomly ending lives but that the gods had golden threads that could not be clipped. The heart will be surrounded by a golden string (not added at the time this photo was taken and the string shown are not the final placement). Basically the heart is torn and damaged by fate, by death but the love lives forever, much like the golden threads. A fate is literally ripping through this heart made of eggshells




















My third project was gonna be another Blu Kat painting, but I did so well painting a space scene (for the first time too!) on Toby's painting that now I wanna try a little Doctor Who fan art, so if I have time that will be my final project for class.

I've also made some Christmas cards for DeviantART's Holiday Card Project. Something I love participating  when they have it, but for the last two years they had stopped doing for unknown reasons. Bacially artists from all over the world make cards and send them to deviantart. On Christmas, volunteers take the cards and hand them out to folks who are spending the holidays in a hospital bed instead of in their homes.

Sad to report my earlier claim to try to write a Novel for NaNoWriMo isn't gonna happen. Maybe I'll pick another month later on, I should of just done it when I announced it, as waiting killed off my motivation and my painting classses ended up conflicting with NaNoWriMo anyway.
Haven't started on the peekaboo box yet nor has there been any progress with the clean up but once classes are done things should be less hectic and once the cold is gone, lifting boxes won't have me gasping like a fish out of water.

Patches is currently sleeping on my computer chair's pillow, again, which means things in this chair sans pillow are getting a bit uncomfortable. Time for some nyqill and a nice stuffed couch to relax on.

I really do need to get to the 'pawsense' part of this blog at some point lol
Cheers!

The kindle is my new computer

...and by 'my new computer' I mean the time sucking device I can't seem to get away from, or in the kindle's case...put down.

I love reading. I'm reading more now than  I have in the last 5 years, if you don't count fanfiction.
I look at books in my room taking up space and wish I could trade them in for kindle versions.
I download 10 free books a day and wish I could read faster to keep up with all my new books before I fill up all the memory on the kindle.

A while back, I saved up (yes this is what the garage sale money went towards) and got myself a kindle.
While it has stood somewhat in the way of some artistic projects, mostly it's been stopping me from finishing up the epic spring/summer/whenever I finish it clean up; like a well paid bodyguard protecting a rich celebrity.

But there is an upside.
Obviously I'm not talking about the fact that I'm doing something that is at least constructive, though lets toss that into the 'pro' side anyways. I'm talking about the self help books about getting rid of clutter and organizing that I've gotten my hands on.

I'll admit it right now on this blog. My name is Tanya, and I'm a Messie.
And after reading part of one of their books 'Winning the Clutter War" I packed up 3 more boxes of stuff that I missed in the first purge.
I had to stop because I ran out of boxes to fill. :D
Strangely enough, even though I'm not done reading, it is helping.

Patches on the other hand only cares about when she will be able to once again explore under the crafting  desk, one of her favorite hiding spots that I've blocked off with stuff. The concept of a mess to her is something I'm supposed to pick up whether she or I made it.

In other news I got hit by another streak of creativity, but seeing as half my supplies are put away in some new bins till organized, I decided to boil some water and rip some pages out of a music book I bought just to deface, and do a little tea staining in anticipation for an art project I am planning right now.

It's called a Peek-A-Boo box (well that's what I'm callling it). It's based on a shoebox sculpture I did in my college sculpture class. We each had to take a shoe box, and make it into a self portrait.

I was the only one in class to not have an open box, mine was closed and had small peeking holes in it so one could see only what I wanted them to see. People aren't open boxes you can just look into.

Many in the class didn't get it, I'd occasionally spot them taking off the closed cover and staring in confusion.
The teacher however did, and loved it.
My final mark for the class was derived entirely from that box.
The original idea was rushed, I had little to no supplies, just lots of paper and cardboard.

I've been thinking of redoing it for years but didn't really want to repeat myself either, but a person changes a lot in ten years, and the things that were found in the old box really don't reflect me anymore, so maybe it is time for a new box.

I already have some basic plans like the tea stained music paper.

Seeing as I don't have any images from this project to share just yet, I'll leave you with a recent photo I took.

It's been a while

Well, it's pretty obvious I have trouble getting to this blog each week. The last two times it was 15 or so days, this time a whole month passed me by.
I think at this point I just have to accept that I'll blog when I can, and not stress when I can't. It's not like anyone is actually reading this except Patches, just kidding!

I've been busier than usual of late, and it is starting to show on my waist line!
Normally I'm a sluggish girl, shuffling zombie when risen, taking half an hour to an hour at times to fully wake up (I'm not a coffee drinker FYI) and I have had the tendency in the past to be, quite frankly down right lazy at times, low energy/motivation at others, kind of tumbling through my day unless on a wicked inspiration streak or cleaning (and I'm not a big cleaner until the massive craft organization project of 2012 came along and dumped me on my butt so to speak, which by the way still isn't finished).
Life just isn't letting me get away with my cat like lifestyle anymore.

I did however manage to make my yearly trip out to Montreal and visit both my favorite bookstore and craft supply store. I managed to get lots of goodies including a book about art journalling I'm excited about, a large container of liquidtex gel medium, a handful of punches and some jewelry fittings I had been looking for, for sometime (ring blanks and bales for using scrabble tiles/any tiles as pendants).

I also got a book called The Nighttime Novelist. It is chock full of exercises to help me flesh out a story instead of having 50 story ideas scribbled down on post it notes. ;)

Hopefully, with the help of this book, I am going to participate in an event I've always wanted to be a part of, but was scared off from.
This November, I'm going to try to write a novel in 30 days with NaNoWriMo.

And because I have been away for so long, I thought, why not bombard you with some of my more recent photos.

 My photography teacher used to say, never shoot a backlit subject.

I'd say, How else do you get a lovely sillouette.

 A self portrait, of sorts.

  

 Angels of stone smile in happiness.

 Welcome to sunset street, connecting with the yellow brick road.

Now this, is cattitude.

More than 10 days later

Last post was 10 days after the one before it and I had hoped it wouldn't be another 10 before I posted again.
And I wasn't. I was 15 days away from the blog this time.
But I do have a good excuse. Back to back weekends selling at a yard sale.
I even got my rear out of bed at 7 am on my own birthday to get out there and sell.

I didn't get rid of as much junk as I'd hoped, but I made a whopping $30 (approx) which doesn't sound like all that much, but I didn't have any big ticket items to sell like my uncle who had a lawn full of furniture he sold so cheap it nearly made me cry. Most of which was bought by a returning shopper who just kept coming back each day of the first weekend (Sat-Mon) and returned again the following weekend on our last day (Sunday) to scoop up the left overs.
Actually I made most of my money from her as well.

I haven't posted because 2 back to back weekends selling in the hot sun made me feel unwell for the bulk of last week. I got sunburned, blisters on my feet and eczema which for some reason really hated the sun and flared up and made my hands look like I had somehow traveled in time to catch smallpox.
I felt overall drained and spent time between the two weekends taking it easy and hanging out with Patches.

But here I am, back to the creative adventure. And I made some progress on a carved Styrofoam project I started during the massive room cleanup a month or so back.

This is how the project started out. I Love working with found objects, and this started out as a piece of protective foam in a box for a breakable lighthouse decoration for the garden.
I drew out the design, one of my Blu Kats (I create all kinds of things with these blu kat designs of mine, from paintings, to jewelry to this!), carved out a layer of the foam to create a raised design. Then I covered the entire surface of the foam first with glue (much of it was loose at this point, I was finding pieces all over the floor just touching the carved parts) then with mod podge (because I ran out of gloss medium and was given a jar of mod podge by my grandmother months back) which hardened the styrofoam and allowed me to stick down extra pieces in the back where the foam was a bit thin and reinforce it all).
Then I coated the carved parts again in mod podge, and sprinkled on some silver gravel (another gift from my grandmother...she was cleaning out her old supplies at the time lol).
I stopped working on it when I went through most of the mod podge and it sat for weeks untouched (and in need of another layer of gravel as well as the sides are still bare) when I found a thick piece of felt, which I split into two thinner pieces and used the loose fibers from that to give my kitty the furry blue texture you see below.

There's still much to do with it (including something I want to try with the eyes) but it is looking much better nowadays.
And it seems blogging time is up for today, seeing as Patches has crawled into my arms as I sit here typing and is preventing me from typing much more.
Until next time...I make no promises as to when as it seems fate has other ideas. ;)

It's been a long 10 days.

It's been ten days since my last post.
My body's gone and done a strange thing, it set me back into a daylight cycle...meaning normally when I'm up nights crafting, cleaning and doing online things like this blog, I've been off to dreamland because Mr Sandman accidentally sprinkled sleep on me early.

I can't spend much time online during days due to having dialup and needing the phone line open, nor have I felt like doing anything creative so I've been spending some time outside during the new warm spring weather before the neighbors start carving their wooden stakes lol.
I've also been helping my grandmother sort and clear out some of her stuff for this coming weekend's garage sale seeing as I no longer had any place to move things after setting a tornado lose on my crafting room closet.

Tomorrow is our regular trip to the weekly rummage sale hunting for buried treasure among masses of junk people gave away.
I know, it's ironic isn't it?

But I'm looking for costume jewelry, crafting supplies if they're any good and storage solutions (or to find more for my not so secret obsession, collecting neopets merchandise lol). Then I come back and can finally start making a dent on cleaning that craft desk off.
Yes, it's true, I now have room to move as everything I got ready to sell/get rid of is now out the door and being stored at the garagesale's location. I'm hoping I can manage a few more boxes before the sale, however we will be at another location the following week for anything that is found after or did not sell the first time. Then we'll be having another in late summer/early fall for that final clean sweep.

I almost forgot. I did do a little something creative in the last 10 days.
I made these.


Excuse the low res/high grain photo...my camera's battery is currently out of juice and is being charged so my old webcam was my only option right now. Photo slightly larger than actual size.

If you're wondering what the blue box is...I'm a big 'Doctor Who' fan. These blue police boxes are what is referred to as the TARDIS (time and relative dimension in space) on the tv show. These will either become magnets, pins, pendants or even scrapbooking embellishments. They are on thin plastic tiles ( I found a bag of them) from at last weeks sale (best find in a long time). I printed out the photos, covered them with the sticky plastic you find on a laminating pouch (the kind where you don't need the machine) to prevent the ink running then I applied my favorite product Mod Podge Dimensional magic which creates a glassy finish.
I have enough of these tiles to make many more, not just of the TARDIS but of anything like Patches the cat or a Pawprint.

Until next time, which hopefully will be a lot sooner than 10 days. ;)  >^._.^<