raspberry glaze
I am selling my extra skeleton (Day of the Dead) bones as Beads at the swap meet. That’s the Pagan Pride Festival that I have been talking about. I figure I can get a buck each for the long bones, they are pretty cute. I would have made twisted wire charms or necklaces out of them but I ran out of time. Tonight I will paint the signs for all the stuff and tomorrow head off to Phoenix to deliver. Hope I get some money!
My baby chicks are already growing adult feathers on their thighs. They still use the light at night but they won’t need that much longer. Dave is already planning the rest of their run, as they will fast outgrow the box and the coop. They are already grazing on scraps. Soon I will have eggs. Maybe enough to sell, I won’t need barcode scanners quite yet, but I have seen some pretty amazing portable units lately.
baby chicks
everything came out great from the medium kiln, so now I have dolls to put together. I also know the routine for the medium kiln and can use it pretty much any time. Feels like freedom.
I might even get a couple more batches fired before the gallery opening October 3rd.
There is a Pagan Pride celebration and swap meet that a friend of mine has a booth at and she would like to sell some of the dolls, so maybe I can get a few more done by then. I will try to get a bunch of sage smudge sticks and some more tarot card bags done for that, too.
loaded kiln shelf
Next step in making the skeleton feet is to make the ceramic press mold. To that end I have softened up some speckled buff, lined a suitably-sized box with plastic, layered a few inches of clay and left to settle.
After that I will press the sole of the skeleton/shoe model into the clay. I need to make the join right at the widest part of the foot/sole so the top part of the mold won’t get stuck and deform the mold when decanted.
I am gathering costumes and costume ideas, I think I will do a sports theme for some of them, I have been looking at personalized golf gifts online for accessory ideas and making jewelry out of beads and wire.
I’m pretty excited about this project, and we’re headed to Ajo tomorrow, I’ll get to look at my bones. I am very close to having all the parts for a test doll.
I have one set of medium-sized feet out of that bake modeling clay, so now it’s time to make the ceramic mold of them. The skeleton hands, too. The hands I only need one of each size because I can bend the clay to make righties or lefties, it’s just bones. Actually pseudo-bones, they aren’t anywhere near anatomically correct. This is fun, not science.
skeleton feet
These Day-of-the-Dead dolls are getting pretty exciting. I couldn’t come up with a delicate enough structure out of clay, The finger bones are not sturdy enough to do out of speckled buff or dover white, but I figured out a way to mold them and attach to the doll to make it sturdy enough to fire. After it’s fired it is no problem.
I am playing around with jewelry for them, too. To get ideas of classic designs I visit sites like diamonds international reviews and such. Can’t get enough of shopping, even if I’m just looking.
I am now trying out a modeling clay that I just found out about, I guess it’s been around. This stuff you bake, the longer you bake the stiffer it gets, and you can stop the process anywhere from rubbery to melmac.
I will use this skeleton hand to make a mold and then attach the hands to my day-of-the-dead dolls using the s’graffiti method. That means I can make the hands out of the same clay as the bones, I just have to attach the hands to something, lay the three-dimensional molded hands over some flowers, or skirt material, or hat. They will be too delicate to hold up on their own, but it should work fine attached. Next problem, feet.
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I am making bones for the Day of the Dead Ladies. I want to have a bunch of them done for Halloween, actually somewhat before then so I can show them and sell them. Having a hard time with the hands, I haven’t figured out how to make them so they will be sturdy enough to make it through the first firing. Clay is just mud until it fires, and dry mud is pretty fragile.
Look at these beauties.
day of the dead
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Two items are listed so far, well, no, more like I have 2 items to list in my etsy store, one is listed and one is on its way.
berry bowl
for sale
on etsy.com
buy one today
whimsical
set of four
We are getting a new roof. It’s taking a couple of days, but is not costing us a dime, the insurance picked it up because of the hail storm in October that ripped through the Miata roof and smacked me on the jaw. almost Golf Ball Sized.
So there is a lot of banging up there, and I’m surprised that the dogs are being so good.
Good dogs.
new roof
Getting Spooky with the new Flamingo
Monkey hat for Monkey Friday
This is the simple apple tart that my Monkey Friday buddy made out of pizza dough, apples, cheese and a sprinkle of sweetened balsamic vinegar. It has inspired me countless times since to
1. make my own pizza dough (which turned out great)
2. make my own apple tart (which did not turn out as good, and
3. make an apple pie (which did not turn out at all, though everybody ate it politely).
The trouble I had with the apple pie was the filling. It was too chunky of sliced apples. The tart has sliced apples laid in a ring, cheese, and another ring of apples laid the other way with more cheese and the vinegar on top. My pie filling apples were laid out the same way, but it was an open top crust and the apples weren’t mushy enough for my taste.
Gives me a good excuse to keep practicing.
A roast sounds good, there is some organic roast on sale at Sunflower Market. That is the kind of thing that’s easy to make for a party. The vegetables go right in the roast and the gravy is the only last minute cooking there is. Easy peasy! No one had better be using any appetite suppressants, would they even work with all that good food around? Think of the smells! Mmmm!
If it is roast, I could have a nice bread and brown mustard, and a salad, and with the veggies cooked along side of the roast, I think that would be good.
The cookies are a success! They are full of pretty fruit bits and very whole wheaty. You almost feel healthy just eating them. If I didn’t know there was so much butter in them, I’d swear they were good for me.
I baked a loaf of the cookie dough and it looks great, too. I will drizzle frosting on it tomorrow and slice it thin. should be a nice little sweet treat for after dinner. We are having the kids over tomorrow for a meal and a cartoon. I’m looking forward to that.
I really like cooking, so winter is a treat for me in Arizona. One of these days I intend to have an outdoor oven for the summers. I actually like cooking enough to always be on the lookout for the best diet pills on the market.
Tonight, to warm up the house, I am baking brandied fruit drop cookies. They’ll have oatmeal, whole wheat flour, walnuts… the works, and I soaked the dried fruits (dates, apricots, cranberries, apple) in the last little dash of apricot brandy that we had left over from Christmas.
I’ll let you know how it turns out.
My darling’s foundation for the new shop is nice and level.
foundation
I laid the table and can’t hardly wait for tomorrow with the kids.
Festive Table
Pam called me today and raved about the color, fit, and style of her new blouse. Just when I was tired of blouses, I get a rave review!
Sweet!
Blouse sized 3X
I finished with the blouses, it really did not satisfy like the handbags do. So I have two more bags cut out and ready to go. It’s not Samsonite luggage by any means, just soft-side bags.
I will have two out of the grey material. One will be lined with a thin satin-like polyester and the other will be lined with a printed light cotton. Both will have outside pockets, a zippered inside pocket and a top zipper.
I’m pretty excited.
Bright material handbag
Art books refresh my creative juices. I just finished The White Rabbit and Other Delights by Alan Bisbort.
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL988301M/white-rabbit-and-other-delights
Xmas Fun
School work on spring break, no less. Shouldn’t I be drinking my a55 off in Rocky Point? But no, I will need to work a little bit every day to be on top when classes resume. So Paris is coming over today to help me polish up the web sites. He is also going to teach me how to ‘fish’ for myself, you know, ‘give a man a fish and he’ll eat today, but teach him to fish and he’ll eat for life’. Which is kind of what I hope to accomplish in Hondurus. I believe the internet is the biggest thing I can bring to them. I will of course need a laptop computer of my own on site, but I am looking in to the rules and regs for importing computers to them. If nothing else, I can bring chips and boards with me and build what they need.
The ecommerce part of my project is really the whole point, that and the gardens. Whatever trinket or goods the community can produce isn’t as important as the act of connecting to the world at large to market the goods. This, I believe, will set them free. And the gardens.
I don’t believe that a local government can take your freedom if you can communicate with the global population, and you know what they all have been going through down there in Central and South America from governments, theirs and mine. For several generations these people have been constantly uprooted, undermined, threatened and disrespected by the powers-that-be. No wonder family units have disappeared and they have lost the will to take care of themselves.
I would like to see a world with free internet signal in the very air around this whole globe, like Tesla intended.
Take a look at these sultry numbers … farmhouse sinks …
I have a beautiful new lanai and grass in the backyard. The dogs love the grass, I love the lanai. I can see us living outdoors a lot more with this little shady retreat.
bunch of dogs