Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Paintings

If there is anything I love, it is painting. Granted, I am no true artist, but I enjoy it and that's all that matters. Here are the paintings I've done thus far this year.

The first two paintings are not "originals." They were done at CorksnCanvas, a place where you do a painting in an evening. There is an instructor who tells you what to do, and everyone in the class does the same painting, but they all come out remarkably different. I went with a couple of people, and we had a blast. We really liked the New Orleans house paintings, so we did two of them (on two separate occasions).


This pink house was my favorite of all the paintings they offer. I just love how mine turned out, but I forgot to add some potted plants, which I still need to do.


We go saltwater fishing, usually once or twice a year. I have taken some great photos on these trips, and I always wanted to do paintings of them. Well, I finally did, at least started my "series" of Louisiana wetlands paintings. I did the red tugboat first, and then the shrimping boat. More will follow.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Jewelry at its worst

Oops! 2008 is almost gone, and I have a few things I've made that I've not posted. Mostly in the form of jewelry, which I am posting now, but I have a couple of paintings as well, which I will post later, when I get around to taking pictures of them.

Honestly, jewelry-making is one of those hobbies I wish I could indulge in more frequently, but just cannot afford to (without giving up pretty much all of my other hobbies). Plus, for those of you who make jewelry on a regular basis, how do you decide to buy your supplies? Namely beads and stuff. Do you just buy stuff you like, or wait until you have an idea? Also, are there any websites you frequent?

Anyway, so the main point of all this being that I do not make elaborate jewelry. I am aware of this, and most of what I have made is nothing special.

First, we have two pairs of earrings I made for my Secret Santa partner. We are doing several small gifts, then a big gift. These were two small gifts. The shells are just beads put on earring hooks, and the leopard print was a set of pendants that I simply put on hooks. So, nothing complex, but I think they are cute.



Next, I made these seahorses from beads that came out of the same pack of beads as the shells. I loved these little seahorses, and really, so much could have been done with this pack of beads (in fact, I have some left over and hopefully later can try something more elborate), but really I didn't think it NEEDED that much as the beads were so cute.


This pendant is a gift. I couldn't resist, as the person who is going to receive it for Christmas has the last name of Lucky.


I made these peacock feather earrings earlier in the year, but they are probably still my favorite pair of earrings right now. I saw the idea for these on some website; they were $99, which I could not afford no matter how well I liked them. But they were so simple, I figured they'd be easy to recreate, and they were. They were hard to photograph; when being worn, they do not look raggedy as they do in the picture. Additionally, I love the closures I used for these - I don't have to worry about losing an earring or an earring back.


I love these little jewelry-sized bottles. I wanted to use the green sand for something, and I thought this was perfect. Then I found the little green shell beads, and voila! I think the necklace turned out really cute.

Monday, November 10, 2008

2 FOs: Serrano and Goddess Halloween Costume M4954

So, I've been a busy little bumblebee, and though most of that has been with school and work, I did manage to finally finish Serrano and make a Halloween costume as well. So, here's that stuff.

M4954:
For Halloween, I was attending a party that was (months ago) originally supposed to be a toga party. The theme changed to just plain ol' costume party, but as I already had the stuff for this, I stuck to it. It's a Roman/Greek/Egyptian "goddess costume," in quotes because I doubt the design could be much less historically accurate. At any rate, it was cuter than a toga because I look awful in a toga. I didn't do white because there wasn't any cheap white satin at Hancock fabrics, and this lavender stuff was cheap. I wore this to two parties and made it the day of the first one. I did all the cutting one day and then all the sewing the day of the party. It took most of the day, but I finished in time and that's that. Excuse these pictures, they were taken after the party when I actually thought to take a picture, so I look like crap. Really like crap. In fact, I can't believe I am posting such bad photos on the internet, and I will probably regret it someday. And I can't even blame it on being drunk.





As always, there is a review for this at PatternReview.

Serrano:
This thing took for-ev-er and two days. Mainly because I quit knitting for almost a year, and only haphazardly picked it back up a couple of months ago. Then, I couldn't find the zipper I wanted (and never did), and I couldn't decide what else to do with it because, as it turns out, a plain black cardigan is just not me. So I crocheted an edging (out of gray I was using for a pair of socks, which will now be finished in leftover black) and made an applique out of interfacing,(note to self: always check the interfacing before buying - make certain it is fusible! This is the second time I have bought the wrong kind of interfacing), scraps from my Leg Lamp costume, and a scrap of quilting cotton. I added a button on the applique, too, from God-knows what project that I probably didn't finish, but hopefully will someday. Then I painstakingly hand-stitched it on there (and let me tell you, my hand-stitching is a fright. Martha Stewart would have a stroke if she saw it. Actually, does she sew? I know she's Martha Stewart and all, but do you think she sews stuff by hand?). I chose a fleur-de-lys because I realized I live in south La and had nothing with fleur-de-lys on it, and I think you get arrested for that here. Or at least mobbed.

So, without further adieu, the pictures! The usual disclaimer of how un-photogenic I am, but my boyfriend took these and he wasn't going to stand there all day taking photos till we got one I liked, since that probably would have taken hours.





And finally, a photo of Dusty's Halloween costume. Can you guess who he is?