Puzzles

Having a little bit of free time lately has given me the chance to relax at home, reading books, cooking a lot, watching movies, getting crafty and playing with puzzles. Yep, I love puzzles. So I looked around online to find out about printing my own images into a puzzle... this is what I ended up getting.

Its from a picture I took of Tim at the driving range. The man likes to golf. I enjoy going to the driving range with him. What a great bonding experience this was to sit down with him and put together this puzzle. Quality time for sure.

I used the site Discount Photogifts to get this made up. It was $25 +s/h and it came with the neat cookie tin that contains all the pieces. The tin itself is a treasure. The puzzle was only 551 pieces, so it was not to hard and not too big, perfect for putting on the kitchen table and finishing quickly so it doesn't take up the table all week.

Honestly it was hard to pick an image to use (although I love what I chose in the end) and I had trouble finding anything customizable that was more than 1000pieces. That would be sweet... if anyone else finds something, let me know :)

Fusible Decal Paper on Glass

My friend Laura made these little glass pendants using images that were printed onto photo fusing paper. She pointed out that if you use French Vanilla Bullseye glass (the reactive glass 0137) instead of White (0113 or 0013) the decal looks almost black (note: its not really black, but the dark brown reaction with the vanilla looks black!)

The image above shows one decal fired on White Glass under clear (the pumpkin) and another fired on French Vanilla under clear (the witch). I'd bet the new Reactive White (0009 Reactive Cloud) would also make the decal look sorta black.

At the Aquila Glass School you can get Don to print out your images onto "Photo Fusing Paper" (he has the paper and a laser printer) and many people use this product to put images into their fused glass projects. They bring in their image saved onto a memory stick and he prints it out onto the decal paper. You wet the printed paper and slide the decal onto your glass. The results can vary, but its a simple and effective process.

The iron oxides in the laser toner make the image withstand high temperatures of firing the glass, afterwards it leaves a sepia-tone type image (sort of a burnt rusty color).

Here is a link for more information and prices for having Don print your decals:

http://www.thestoreataquila.com/photo_fusing_paper.htm

to check out Laura work:

http://appleglassoriginals.etsy.com

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Printing My Yoga Illustrations

New Printing in Glass

"Downward Facing Dog"

I've been printing my yoga ladies into glass... there is more to show... but I thought I'd throw up a taste test

"Forward Bend" Oh and Jan and I have listed more plates in our Etsy store... check it out - there are so many designs to choose from! Check out these wonderful robots (I LOVE!) - the boy robot has tulips and the girl robot is holding books :)

"Robots in Love"

image by Jan Christine

Yoga Ladies Hot Off the Press

Before my friend Jan left to go out of town I visited her studio and printed a few more yoga ladies... I sorta tweaked the first set just a bit (trimmed up odd ankles and wrists and whatnot) and also I had carved a Warrior Pose... all these test prints turned out great! Now I need to start printing these ladies into some glass :)

I Took My First Prints...

My yoga block carvings got their first print pulled today - big Thanks to Jan for allowing me to use her press and helping me out! What fun! Now I know what needs what on these blocks... I think I may work on them later tonight. They look great and they are already good enough that I could print into glass mobiles with them... but I'd like to fine them for printing cards and whatnot...

I've Been Carving

I've been working on new images to print into my glass mobiles. A sun salutation in kinetic glass mobile... that is what I'd like to make... so I've been drawing out some yoga poses and in the end I think I'd like to print paper cards and individual glass discs with these poses as well.

So the first thing I did was sketch... then last night I started carving. Below you can see my sketch book, above you can see the first blocks that I carved.

Blue and Green Glass Mobile

One of my favorite color combinations - blue and green.

It came to my attention I did not have this mobile listed in my online catalog... surprising to me because I have been making it for years and I absolutely love this display of blue and green circles. In fact, I was shocked to find out that I had never done a photo-shoot with this color combo - no pictures at all?! None, the only documentation I have of this blue and green yumminess is from customers of mine. This is one of my most popular mobiles that I sell at the Portland Saturday Market, many happy customers have taken them home for colorful kitchens, beautiful gardens, a happy office, a baby nursery, etc... the colors are bright and calm at the same time.

So yesturday I got some pictures (the sun even came out for a few quick moments to help add light) and put this mobile up online.

Now you can purchase this glass mobile in blue and green directly from my Etsy store - its ready and available for you. Click any of the pictures to check it out. The mobile is about 2ft in diameter for $120 (shipping costs $15) - it comes fully assembled and wrapped up in a foam lined box.

I want to make your studio a mobile!

A few weeks ago I was reading an article on the Etsy blog about photography - it was called "Seller Tip: Present Yourself to the Press" Great article - to sum it up: all artists and small business people should be prepared with a good head shot and/or a good shot of their studio. These pictures should be quality, ready on demand and high resolution. This way when a magazine or blog contacts you for an interview you are ready! I couldn't agree more.
So here's the story I am trying to share: while reading this article I noticed this picture (the one above) and I fixated on this beautiful little Italian studio space, something about it made me swoon and I instantly wanted to make a mobile for this space (maybe I just want to sit in that hammock and gaze at a mobile - wouldn't that be a nice way to take a nap?!) I'm not sure if its the fact that the studio is in Italy, or the bright colors and maps and embroidery hoops on the wall... something about it caught my attention.

So I emailed the artist and told her so! This is very unlike me - I have never done anything like this... and when she got back to me enthusiastically I realized that I had to follow thru with the offer!
This is the mobile I made... after digging around in my drawer of random circles (I always seem to have some extra laying around, so I try and herd them into a particular drawer and occasionally they come in very handy - like now!) I made this beautiful mobile for that wonderful little Italian studio.

Then I imposed the picture of the mobile into the picture of the studio - I wanted to see what it may look like!
And now I am thinking that this was really fun! I figure its my good karma for the year... and now I am thinking that it'd be fun to do a contest called "I want to make a mobile for your studio" and take submissions of studio shots and the one that most inspires me to make a mobile for their space would win one! What fun. I wonder how I could effectively advertise this... more thoughts to come. For now I just wanted to share the story

New Printed Glass in the LeJa Shop

The LeJa shop finally has more printed glass available online! Slowly but surely I am trying to get a wide selection of Jan's hand-carved images represented online... there are so many more its exciting! Here are 5 I listed today:

"Water Faucet" available in 4 different colors $14ea

"Ducks in a Row" $14ea. available in 4 colors

"Rubber Duck" available in 2 colors $9ea

"Salt and Pepper Shakers" $9ea

"Oak Leaf" $19

Falling Ginkgo Leaves

Ginko mobiles have been wisking through my life. Jan and I are working on some more ginko printing later today.

Why does my spell check want to spell ginko ginkgo - is that right?! Seems odd to me, but I have always been a terrible speller. This latest batch of ginkgo mobiles that Jan and I printed and I put together for this last weekend have birds perching among the leaves. The imagery of the ginkgo leaves, which evokes symbolism of memory as the leaves are used by some herbal practitioners to increase blood flow to the brain, improve attention in patients and possibly slow the onslaught of Alzheimers (although this was proven to be ineffective by multiple studies - I was just checkin this out in Wiki). Anyhow, the little birds in the mobiles are funny - as Jan says "its the auxillary memory for their tiny pidgeon bird brains!"

Click here to see more pictures of this particular mobile

Birds sitting on lines and falling ginkgo leaves, in greens and neutral tones. Its just lovely, and popular. So we are making up more creations this evening.

Its always wonderful to find good homes for fun creations like these. I am so thankful to meet great people down on the waterfront at the Portland Saturday Market on the weekends. Its quite satisfying when my work finds good homes, I think its one of my favorite parts of what I do. So let me take this opportunity to say Thank You!

Sauvie Island Strawberry Picking

I went to Sauvie Island today to pick strawberries.

warm from the sun, delicious sweet strawberries... yummmmmm.most of them were green still, seems this year everything is 2 weeks late
but there were plenty to nibble and praiseKruger's Farm now has animals :)
there was a fat pregnant pig sleeping in a barnand chickens running aroundwhat a cute funny looking chick eh?!There were peonies blooming in a fieldI took lots of pictures of the round buds just ready to burstI find the round shape of the peony bud to be so amazingly gorgeous. I love the way it unfurls to become this sweet sultry perfumed huge flower. They are amazing. The bugs seemed to agree, in many of my pictures there were flies or ants or bees hanging out on the buds.

Images on Glass

I've set up an Etsy shop for the glass pieces that Jan and I have been creating, we call our collaboration "LeJa".

http://LeJa.etsy.com

More plates and mobiles will be listed constantly... I've barely begun to sift thru all the pictures I've taken.

We are working on a small booklet that can be purchased as a .pdf from this Etsy shop that will be a great little how-to on our simple traditional block printing methods transfered to glass. It will be a great resource for what materials work in different ways (ink options and powder options/cautions for colors) and where to purchase many of these materials. We will be sharing the results of our experimentation and collaboration... the booklet will be available for sale soon.

Enjoy!!

Mystery Egg

Found this little egg pierced by a stick in my backyard as I was hanging my hammock this weekend.

This little egg is so beautiful, and so sad, and so interesting all at the same time... the mystery remains: how do you think this happened? Your guess is as good as mine

so far here are the going theories:
1. the egg was pierced by a crow (they use things as tools)
2. the egg shell was soft and it must have fallen and bisected on a small branch and the baby bird inside stopped the fall and thus the shell now remains half cut in half on the stick

Personally I just don't know. Theory #1 seems odd to me, interesting though, but why wouldn't the crow just use his beak. Theory #2 is also interesting, but improbable as the egg would have had to hit the stick in a very particular way to bisect so perfectly. Personally I think I must have mini monkeys in my trees outside. Or the loud blue jays that mock me in the early morning with their songs, they must be getting crafty and breaking the other birds eggs.

I think Myth Busters might have to perform some experiments to see if a soft robbin's egg falling could actually bisect on a branch :)

Birthday Sunshine

Okay, so it was my birthday yesterday. I didn't turn on the computer all day!!!
Some friends came by and Tim and Tony helped me throw a little BBQ bash for the holiday. I put out some wire and glass beads so everyone could create birthday tiaras (Alexander Calder made some tiaras back in the day and this cracks me up - I thought it would be fun to see what everyone made!) Aren't they great!!!

And I set up the frisbee bowling - oh yes - you read correctly, Frisbee Bowling. :) Its sorta like frisbee golf but with bowling pins. Yup. And its pretty difficult, no matter how close you get! I couldn't get a single pin down. In fact, I even tried hitting some golf balls at the pins and launched one ball into the neighbors yard two doors down where they were having a party as well. Oh my goodness! I had to holler "sorry!" over the fences!!! No one was hurt. But the frisbee bowling was not entirely a flop - Byron and Judi both rocked out and got 4 of the 6 pins down. A tie for gold. To see action shots of their games click on their names :)

Tim helped me set up the hammock earlier in the day. It was such a sunny gorgeous day. I took the entire weekend off and relaxed casual style. Today I lounged in the hammock all afternoon reading a little Bill Bryson. Okay, so I fell asleep, and it was a glorious nap. I love my hammock.
Oh and of course I must add the gratuitous cat picture from this weekend - look at my cute cats sunning themselves in front of the beautiful flowers:
I've had a good weekend, ups and downs including. Good news: I'm one year older and had a fun birthday. Bad news: some drunk *&%#$@ drag racing in the middle of the day nearly killed Tim when he was out at the grocery store getting supplies for the BBQ. F*ckers raced right thru a red light and bashed right into Tim who was crossing the street. The new Hyundai took the impact amazingly well, the bumper is a mess but Tim is fine and I got to spend a few quality hours on the phone with police and insurance. Gotta love drunk f*ckers who drive on holidays. It was a hit and run, so we will have to pay our insurance deductible to fix the car and I doubt the f*ckers in question will ever get caught... at least their car got smashed in all along the side. But I found that stressful, I cannot lose Mr Tim, and I cannot handle any more people running into me or my cars! I swear its a life-long struggle. I wish this hadn't happened. The car is so new!! And the thought of Tim having gotten hurt is just too much to consider.

I dunno why I couldn't just have a happy-go-lucky easy birthday. I tried my best to make a stress-free birthday for myself, but some things are not control-able. There is always the up with the down. I do believe in balance, and life certainly seems to agree, but I find it sad and painful most of the time. Luckily seeing all my smiling friends (and cute baby Orson in his golden track suit outfit!!) makes me happy, and honestly Tim is fine and cars can be fixed.