Take a look at these spectacular sculptures!

I am a fan of creative and crafty shows and magazines. The other week I caught a show on PBS called "Make" and the episode that I watched featured an amazing kinetic sculpture artist. Take a peek at this video of his awesome sculptures in action and to see how he makes his sculptures. Very interesting!

Giving my niece Kristin some "blog-time"

The other week after some "badgering," I posted a blog entry about my nephew, Jordan. Well, I decided that I will dedicate a blog post to each of my nieces and nephews. Today it's Kristin's turn. The photo above is Kristin at Lakeside Park, it's one of my favorite pics. I like the reflection of the water in the background.

About two weeks ago when the kids were here for a visit, Kristin and I went for a bike ride on the nature trail. During our trek we discovered tons of chipmunks, "Chipmunk City" as Kristin called it. I counted 12 chipmunk sightings and Kristin counted 11 chipmunks. And no, they were not the same chipmunks. We only counted them on the first half of our ride, we didn't count them on the way back. Those chipmunks are so cute, but they can give you a scare when they dart out directly in front of your bike. Yikes! We also saw some gold finches flying around. It was a nice day for a ride.

There are a handful of bridges throughout the trail and here Kristin is standing at the first bridge.

On our ride back we stopped by a bench to take this photo of us together. Thank goodness for self-timers and benches.

Kristin playing on the playground at Lakeside Park ~ June 2009

While Kristin was here, she was interested in helping me make my Petite Purses. I asked her if she'd like to decorate her own purse and take one home with her. I think she ended up making three purses and she's going to use one of them for her American Girl doll.

Kristin with one of her Petite Purses with her American Girl doll wearing the pretty dress that she bought at the American Girl sale that same week. I think the dress outfit was only $7.00 or $8.00.

Here's Andrew holding one of Kristin's Petite Purses.

A close-up of her purse she decorated. Didn't she do a great job?

My First Craft Show pics!!!

This last April was my very first craft show that I participated in. At the show, my friend Deanna took some pics with her camera for me. Yes, it's been awhile since April, but it's better late than never. So here are the photos. The pic above is me with my creations.

The white case in the photo above displayed my Artful Pen collection. I recently purchased an acrylic displayer for my pens. I bought it for $10, at a Hallmark store going out of business. What a bargain! I don't have a pic of it yet.

When I look at these pics, I think of all of the ways I want to improve the "merchandising" of my work. Since my first show I found some new display fixtures from a couple of local gift shops going out of business. I'm so glad that I was able to find a tabletop spinner to hang my hand-made pins on. It will look so much better than having them just laying flat on the table. I also found a nice floor spinner to hang my Petite Purses on. Yay! Click here to see the pics of my Petite Purse display spinner.

Up near the top center of the photo stands my Bride and Groom Recyc-a-lite penguins, that I customize. Below the Bride and Groom are my Recyc-a-lite bunny and chick sculptures.

The framed print is a giclee print of one of my watercolors. I had a raffle prize basket with some Easter treats and a Recyc-a-lite chick sculpture.

I was fortunate to have three helpers for my craft show booth. Unfortnately, it was not too busy, so we didn't have too many customers to wait on. In the photo above are Pat, Renee and myself. Renee was looking at my necklace that I was wearing that my sister, Sue, made for me. And my third helper, Deanna, is taking the photo of us.

Here's one of my Recyc-a-lite Chick sculptures!!!

And here's one of my favorite pics of my Recyc-a-lite bunnies.

A couple of my Recyc-a-lite penguin sculptures.

And last but not least, my ladybug sculptures.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my first craft show pics. My second craft show will be at the end of November and I'm hoping that my "merchandising" skills will be more effective then. I'm busy getting more pieces done for the November show. Talk to you later! :-)

Turtles & Pizza!!!

Yesterday, a good friend of mine, Hannah, and I went on a bike ride on the nature trail and we spotted some adorable turtles during our visit. I thought I would write a turtle themed post today. The pic above shows one of my watercolors for my storybook idea. It's Toby the Turtle and his friends around his shell.

And here is Toby in 3-D form, made with Apoxie Sculpt & acrylics. This sculpture is the largest one I've made, it measures approximately 20 inches long.

And lookee here, this was the second turtle that I ever saw on the trail. I saw this one last summer and my first one the summer before. I get so excited when I see turtles on the trail and turtle sightings are rare.

This is my favorite turtle pic from all of my turtle sightings.

This turtle was one of the turtles that we saw yesterday. We think she was trying to lay eggs in what looked like a chipmunk hole. She was about 5" long. I thought my friend Hannah was teasing me when she said, "There's a turtle laying eggs." When we first started our bike ride I said, "I want to see a turtle on this ride," thinking it probably would not happen. Then we see a turtle. I asked Hannah what else we should say we wanted to see while on the trail and see if we would see it. She said she wanted to see a fawn. And awhile later we saw a deer jump a few yards ahead of us on the trail. We thought it was so strange. I said I'd like to see a crane, but no luck. However, we did see a cat and it starts with a "C" like crane. Lol! I also mentioned that maybe we should say we wanted to see money fall from the sky, but that didn't happen either. Bummer!

On our way back on the trail we saw the same turtle and then just a short way from there we saw this little fella, maybe they are a turtle couple. Awwwww!

And ta-da, here's our yumm-a-licious pizza we made before our bike ride. I found the recipe here. It's a Red Pepper and Eggplant pizza and it's scrumptous. And really there's so many good veggies on it that you really don't need to put cheese on it. Can you imagine, that me a cheese-lover would say that? Take a look at the pic at the recipe site and then compare with ours photographed above, pretty close to the recipe's pic, wouldn't ya say? We didn't have the fresh basil for ours so there isn't the lovely green basil in our photo.

Talk to you later. :-)

My Shampoo Bottle is Morphing into a Cat!

I have a habit of collecting things that are unwanted in hopes of making them into something wanted. Some people may call these "unwanted items" trash, junk, or garbage; but I call them objects of potential and possiblities. Empty shampoo bottles and other misc plastic bottles have been one of my current "possibility" projects. And yes, you can see even my cat Tiggy opened one eye to catch the exciting transformation of a shampoo bottle turning into a cat. :-)

When I come to the point of throwing away an empty container or some type of object destined to be tossed away; I think, "What can I make this into? How can I use this item for any of my projects?" Sometimes a "garbage" item makes a useful aid/tool for working on my projects and others play a vital role in the object itself. This is an important role for my cat sculpture. Without the empty bottle, where would my cat sculpture be? It wouldn't be, is the point.

The first photo shows the back of my cat sculpture where you can see the "uncovered" part of the sculpture. The next photo shows a cat trio made with bottles of various sizes. Currently, I'm working on five different cat bottle sculptures and I'm trying to vary the "styles" of my kitty cats.

This photo shows one of the styles, where I used polymer clay for the eyes and I will use some PaperClay to sculpt a nose for the sculpture. This kitty cat is the largest of the five and the first one that I started working on. I used some aluminum foil and a styrofoam ball to sculpt the legs and the head. And then I used some Paper Mache medium to cover the entire body.

And look at this my kitty cat, Tigger, was so exhausted after all the Shampoo Kitty sculpting that he needed to take yet another "cat nap." Ahhhh...the life of a cat. I hope you enjoyed finding out about my cat shampoo bottle project. One thing I need to think of, is a good and unique name for my bottle creations. Any suggestions? Nonetheless, I hope you go and see what items may look unwanted but hold a world of potential within. Talk to you later. :-)

Yay, displays, yay, yay!!!

Take a look at this great display fixture that I bought last week. It's perfect for displaying my Petite Purses on. And if I had a second one, it would be perfect to display my hand-made pins on. I found this "find" at a local Hallmark store that will be closing at the end of June. I hate to see businesses close, especially Hallmark stores. I used to work at a Hallmark store and have a special place in my heart for Hallmark. Unfortunatley, the store where I worked for seven years closed a few years ago. I miss being able to stop in to say "hi" to my former co-workers and to shop at one of my favorite stores. When the Hallmark store closed I had been working somewhere else for a few years. I made it into the Hallmark store a day or two before the official "closing" and it was sad to see an empty store where I had so many good memories. Since I lost my job this year, I've had two different dreams about going back to work at the Hallmark store where I worked. Each time I've had the dream, I wake up in the morning thinking, "oh, I can go back to Hallmark" and then I realize I can't go back since the store isn't there anymore. Bummer! I miss Hallmark.

And now on a happier note. When I had the display rack home, I was excited to see how all of my Petite Purses looked on it. I was so happy to see how well the displayer worked out. Now if I could find one more for my pins it would be fantastic.

Petite Purses as far as the eye can see!

I have two different sizes of purses. The smaller size purse is the perfect size to tuck in a small trinket, such as one of my hand-made pins or magnets. The larger size is a perfect size to use to present a store gift card. Who wouldn't love to get a gift card held within a cute little package like a Petite Purse?

And one more terrific display fixture I found is shown in the photo below. This I found at yet another business that was closing and yes, it was another gift shop, though not a Hallmark store. I was hoping to find something to display my magnets on and I recall when I worked at Hallmark that we often had similar magnet displayers there. I was delighted to find this displayer and the owner of the store was only asking $3.00 for it. Display fixtures are not cheap, so if a store is going out of business, it is a prime time to stop in and look. I have a craft show coming up in November. It will be my second craft show that I'll have this year. It's nice having some time to get things together. Well, I guess I better be going! I have some crafting projects to get back to before the day is over. Have a nice weekend! :-)

Meet my nephew, Jordan, a young Dr. Spock & Puff Daddy

Okay after "someone" (ahem!) giving me a hard time about not giving my nephew, Jordan, much "blog time", here is an entire post devoted to Jordan. The photo above shows Kristin and Jordan, who have been known to act a bit goofy when they spend time with each other. Here's a pic from Jordan last week. I call this photo, "Young Dr. Spock with Chocolate in His Mouth." Last week while we were at the park, he requested that I take a photo of him with his candy bar popping out of his mouth.

Now if we go back to June of 2006, you can see Jordan posing as a "Puff Daddy" with a hot dog in his mouth. His choco mouth pose reminded me of his hot dog mouth pose. My nephew has been a ham for my camera numerous times. It was difficult choosing what pictures to post because he has hammed it up so many times. Most of us say that Jordy takes afer his daddy who's also been known to be silly.

It looks like I have a food theme for these pics of Jordan. He's stylin' a nice ice cream gotee along with his sis Katrina stylin' an ice cream tipped nose.

And here's a pic of Jordan & myself taken one year at Thanksgiving.

And last but not least, here's one of my all time favorite pics of Jordan. Isn't he adorable?

So now Jordan has a blog post that focuses on him. There is more than one line of text devoted to him and each pic has him in the shot. Are you "anonymous" person and "Badger Fan" now satisfied? :-) Lol! (-:

My Bee Pen buzzed into a Treasury!

Sue, a seller from Etsy sent me a "convo" to let me know that she included my Bee Artful Pen in her adorable Ladybug and Bee themed treasury. Hurray! Sue's store is called, "Growing Like a Weed." Stop by her store to see all of the cute hand-painted children's items she creates. One of her items is shown in her treasury. It's the sweet, hand-painted ladybug step stool. The bug step stool shown below, is one of my favorites from Sue's shop.

Interested to see how I make my pens? I have a three part tutorial here at my blog that shows the step-by-step process, including how I make my own silicone molds. Stop by and leave a comment. Click here to see Part One of "The Life of an Artful Pen from Beginning to End."

See the feedback from my Etsy customers, here.

A trip to the park, enjoying the summer weather!

I dug into some of my photo archives to find this great photo (above) of my nieces and nephew in an "impromptu" pose. Last week my nieces and nephews came for a visit for a few days with their mom. We had a good time.

Here are the four Chung kids, the newest addition being Andrew, who is now a year old. Katrina and Kristin are holding their American Girl dolls. We went to the annual American Girl warehouse sale in Oshkosh last week on Thursday. We got to the location of the sale just before noon and after waiting in line, we entered the store around 3pm. Yes, a three hour wait, which both of my nieces said was worth it. They saved up some allowance money to go shopping at the sale. They found some very cute things for their dolls.

And here is a little cutie, Andrew, on the swing at the county park in Waupun.

Here's Katrina on the tire swing. She's getting a bunny this week.

Andrew, Grandma and Jordan. Did you notice the expression on Jordan's face? He can really ham it up for the camera. I'm going to do a blog post about Jordan soon.

Look at lil' Andrew trying to climb up the slide. Did you see that he is wearing some adorable little blue croc shoes?

Awwwww...Andrew! :-)

And here are the "two peas in a pod", Kristin & Jordan!

We had a very nice day at the park in Waupun. The weather was gorgeous! Ahhh....summer!