Saturday, July 17, 2010

Vacation!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

So after three weeks of physical therapy, my sprained wrist/hand is sort of usable again. Needless to say, I can't wait until I can get back to work. I have a bunch of projects piling up on me, not to mention all the things I need to get done for my wedding. Only 108 days to go!

This is Kaylee! I believe I have shown you this design before, but this particular pair turned out so charming that I just had to share them. (Yes, they are named after the character from Firefly.) They are made with steely blue organza and are detailed with black and super sparkly silver paint. The antennae are covered with black ribbon and tipped with crystals and the back is decorated with a matching blue flower and black goose feathers. The whole effect is elegantly gothic!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Baby Blue Jays





These darling feather wings were a custom order for a photographer in Canada. I had an absolute blast painting all the feathers to look like a real blue jay. You'd never guess it, but all of the feathers started out powder blue.
These are my first baby angels, scaled down in size for infants.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Soooooo.........

Yeeeeaaaaahhhh.
Well, obviously, my plan of trying to get three blog posts in a week in April didn't happen. Or in May...or in June!
So I've been busy!
First came the Maryland Faerie Festival, which was a blast. Then came an interesting stack of custom orders that I am still weeding through. Then there was the wedding planning, which is still trucking along. Now I am laid up with a sprained wrist (right, which is my current dominant hand) so just about nothing is happening, even though it should be!

I have a ton of new pictures to post in my flickr gallery, and some really fun new custom orders to share with you. This is a custom pair of cellophane fairy wings that I created to specification for a lovely May bride. Theses strapless wings are a little under 5' in height and are around 2.5" wide.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Holy Crow, Where Did March Go?

Seriously, I am getting tired of writing these pathetic, oh, my goodness, I lost track of time and now days/weeks/months have slipped away without any news on my sad, neglected blog. All that says to me is that I am not managing my time properly. Last month I decided that if I ever want to be a full-time artist, I would need to learn to think and work like someone who already IS a full-time artist. This means that I need to be beyond organized, step up my customer response time and schedule the hell out of every waking moment, not to mention my sleeping ones. To that effect I started setting some personal goals to strive for and at the end of every 30 days I create a report based on how I was able to do. Last month (March) my goals were to list an item on Etsy or Ebay every day, write in my journal everyday and implement a new time management technique called "time blocking".

Of course, I am 0 and three at the end of 30 days, but I did learn some interesting things:
First of all, the only reason I didn't make my "list every day" goal was because I went away for a week for training and did not want to list anything that I could not ship. I actually did pretty good, going all the way from the 6th to the 26th, and ended up selling more than I usually do this time of year. In fact, it had an interesting effect on my customer response time: when I was listing daily, I felt compelled to respond right away and was much more focused on actually getting some work done versus the apathy that has been eating away at me for the past few months. And as a result of that, I have some really fun custom orders to make in April. So I have decided to continue this goal for April and have hopes of actually meeting it, if at all possible.
Second, I wrote in my journal maybe four times all month. Really. That is pretty pathetic, but I either didn't have anything to say or was so grumpy I could not make myself write (and pain-induced grumpiness just makes me want to curl in a ball and do nothing). I decided to revise this goal for April and change it to writing in my sad, pathetic, lonely blog a minimum of 3 times a week. So y'all have permission to poke me if you don't see at least three posts here per week!
Third was time blocking, which is a method of time management where you dedicate a particular block of time to focus on a particular task before stopping and moving on, regardless of whether or not you actually completed the task. Yeah, that so didn't happen. As usual, I spent most of my time scrambling to catch up on orders, correspondence, and work on my stock for my rapidly approaching fairy festival. So I am renewing this goal for April, and I want to use it in particular for my standard production methods: my theory is that if I know I only have an hour to work on a step, I will work harder to get as much as possible done in that time.

So what was I doing in March, you ask? Well, I was planning my wedding! I had help, in the form of my charming fiance (man it still feels weird to call J that!), and we actually were able to pull everything together in record time. Our save-the-dates will be mailed out this week to inform our family and friends who do not already know that we are getting hitched on October 30th!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Celebrate Odd Etsy and a treasury!

Check it out! Some of my fantasy fairy wings were featured on Celebrate Odd Etsy!

AND

My Christina wings were featured in this gorgeous Haunted treasury by ImpandPetal

Thursday, February 18, 2010

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!

I'm getting married!!

My guy of 6.5 years proposed last Saturday and we are now planning what we hope will be a stupendous wedding!

We have set the date for October 30th of this year, giving us about six months to plan this shindig (eep!). We are going with a Halloween theme (like you didn't see that coming), and are going to invite our guests to come in costume.

More to follow!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Etsy Finds Feature!!

OMG! My mauve and black Christina Wings were featured on Etsy Finds this week under the "knot a typical affair" and the fairy tale wedding!

Cello Wings!!!

So here they are as promised, my first two cello wings:As you can see, these graceful wings catch light with iridescent flashes of pink, green and blue.
I will be making some changes to future versions based on what I learned making these two, but in all I think they turned out pretty darn well.

In other news, we seem to be stuck in a blizzard! It started snowing late Tuesday night and continued all day Wednesday. Fortunately for me, my work shut down on Wednesday and Thursday: our very kind landlord plowed our driveway, but missed a large patch of snow in front of my car and with the build up, there was no way my little car could have made it out the drive. In fact, it is still buried, but I suppose that is okay since J and I are going away for a few days. We are going to Virgina Beach for the weekend, and yes, I know it is freezing. We sometimes like to go to the beach during the winter because it is deserted.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Blizzard!!!

I had a feeling this would be the year: after so many mild winters, we in the northeast are getting slammed with multiple snowstorms. Last weekend we had around 2 feet and tomorrow we are going to probably get at least one more. Where in the world will we put it all??

I have to say I do love snow days when I don't have to be anywhere. My favorite thing to do would be to cuddle up on the couch with a good book or movie and a nice big cup of chai but what I actually do is lock myself in my work room and have at it. I try to spend the time finishing up old projects, organizing, and custom orders if I have any. Last weekend I spent some time playing around with new materials to use in my giant feather wings: just wait till you see what I have come up with! I am working on better ways to make the long fabric faux feathers and I think I have finally found the perfect medium. In addition to that, I am working on making feathery fabrics that actually move. I know, I know, I have been pondering that question for ages, and I am sure I have mentioned it before, but now I am actually at the hands on stage, having already worked on a frame that shows a whole lot of promise.

AND last weekend I finally (FINALLY!!!!!) finished making my first two pairs of cello wings. Yes, that would be the two pairs that I started oh, maybe nearly three years ago and never got around to finishing. Yes, that would be the frames I spent tons of time making, then managed to mangle when I got to the adding of the cello stage. I ended up getting so frustrated that I balled them up, dropped them into the bag and tried to forget about how much time I had wasted on that epic failure. But since I can't throw anything away, I ended up carting them along when I moved to my new apartment, where they continued to languish ignored. But since my unspoken goal for this year is to complete my old abandond projects, I dug them out last weekend and reapplied myself to the task. They turned out fantabulous, but now I need to find some time to take the darn pictures! *sigh* Ooooo, if we have a snow day tomorrow, that will be at the top of my ungodly long to-do list!

:) I have my music on random and Breakin Benjamin's "Forget it" just came up - love that song, no idea why, but it might be pretty darn near the top of my all time favorites list.

To Melt Winter's Heart FAEteam Exhibition!

The February Fantasy Artists of Etsy Team exhibition is going on right now! Be sure to stop by and take a look at some of the beautiful items on display!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

WOOT! Treasury Feature!!

Muchas Gracias to Studio Seventy Five for including my Morgan wings in her fantabulous pixie dust treasury!!!!

Um, What do you mean it is February already???

And where the heck did January go?????

Seriously. I don't even remember most of it.
Okay, so I remember that there was that whole Christmas thing, and the New year's thing (crappy weather+homebody boyfriend=did nothing again). I remember spending a bunch of time reorganizing my work room (starting to finally shape up!). I remember working on designs for a bunch of new products but having NO energy to make anything. I remember it was bloody cold, so I did not want to work on any of the wings I have started because it would involve spending time out on the front porch in my spray booth and there is no insulation to speak of out there, so I reeeeeally didn't want to attempt to airbrush when I couldn't feel my fingers.

Oh yeah, now I remember: I got some not so good news from my doctor about a lovely medical condition that I have been dealing with for the past oh, four, working on five years. I really don't want to go into it other than to say it is not life-threatening but it does cause times of Extreme Pain. Basically, we have gone through every treatment available, and nothing has worked. My final option is major surgery, which I am not prepared to do quite yet. So I spent maybe a week or so moping about that and then decided to suck it up, get back to work and spend the next year gritting my teeth (there is a timing issue on the surgery).

So I made some upgrades to my website (check out the Bejeweled section in particular since I added customizable tiaras and crowns!), applied to some shows for this year, and worked on a few custom orders. And I am toying with the idea of getting back in to pure fine art again, such as paintings and sculptures...

I have to admit I am not back up to full speed yet and I am fighting hard not to be bummed out about this medical crap. But at least I am working on it!