Before and After

If you've followed my blog for a while you know that every year we try to do some sort of major maintenance to our house. This year was no different.

Last year our HOA decided to wait until the middle of July to do their quarterly inspections of the properties and by then our yard was in sad shape.

We had a spot on the left hand portion of our yard that decided to quit growing. We don't know if it was getting too much sun, got a fungus or what. We just knew we had a huge bald spot.

Well, that bald spot is now history. This year for our house we decided to get our entire front yard leveled and resodded.


We also ripped up part of the flower bed that went across the walkway. It opened up the yard big time!

It's so nice to drive up to your house and be proud rather than feeling like the white trash neighbors on your street.

We still have more work to do, I want to rip up those three bushes and replace them with something less structured and to get some natural stone edging for the beds.

Happy Father's Day

I always feel a little weird on Father's Day. I haven't had any contact with my biological Dad since I was 13? 14? It's hard to remember now.

My stepfather was a damn junkie and when he wasn't on drugs, crazy as a loon.

I see everyone posting online this weekend about their dads and going places for Father's Day and to me it seems so foreign.

Then again, any family gatherings seem foreign to me as I don't have a close family. My closest family member is my younger brother and I only talk to him once every three or four months.

This normally doesn't create much of a problem for me. I accepted that I don't have a close family a long time ago. I do wish on occasion I had more contact with my brother and that I was a little closer to my mom but things are the way they are.

This year though is a little harder for me. I didn't really think about my biological dad at all before my brother found our half sister. When he found her I saw family pictures online felt like a lost teenager all over again.

Now that the initial shock is over he once again rarely crosses my mind but this past week I've been having dreams about him. I can only assume it's because Father's Day is here.

Anyway, it got me to thinking - What the hell was going through his mind? How can you desert your own child? Did I mean that little to him? Did/does he regret it? Have guilt? Is he ashamed or completely happy with his decision?

If it's the latter what kind of person does that make him? I mean, you DO NOT abandon your responsibilities and now that I think about it my older brother was about the same age (maybe a year or so younger) when my dad and stepmom decided to tell him my dad wasn't his real father and he didn't get to come with us (me and my little brother) on weekend visitations anymore.

He had raised my older brother since he was a toddler and then to just drop something like that? What kind of person does that?

*Sigh* Maybe in the end I have him and my stepfather to thank. I mean, I'm sure both of them played a big role in the person I came to be.

I'm incredibly blunt to a fault and I am VERY black and white. Is that because of all the lies?

I have a strong work ethic and feel I don't have a choice but to do my best to follow through with my responsibilities. Is that because the rug has been pulled out from under so many times?

I also have horrible insecurities about people leaving me, I can be crushed if find out I've disappointed someone, and I have a very, very hard time trusting people.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they are to blame for everything wrong in life, nothing is my fault, I can't change it blah, blah, blah. I'm just curious in how big a role they both played in shaping my personality.

Hmmmmm....Well, this post kind of went in a completely different direction than I had originally planned but I'm glad I got it out.

Now that I've been a total "Debbie Downer" I'm going to enjoy my Sunday. Hopefully I can get some painting in.

I hope you have a Happy Father's Day if you celebrate it or if not, you enjoy your regular ol' Sunday too.

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY Etsy!

It’s the birthday of indie craft website Etsy.com and to celebrate, artists and crafters all over the world are getting together. There are more than 450 parties scheduled!

Etsy Fort Worth never misses a chance to have a fabulous handmade party. So join us JUNE 18th, 2010 as we celebrate Texas Style!

FIRST: Head over to the meet-up site and click
"I'm interested"

SECOND: Show up on Friday, June 18th, 2010 @ 8 p.m.

Craft Supply Swap
Bring your unused supplies to swap for things you will use

Munchies
Enter The CUPCAKE CONTEST and get entered to win a PRIZE!
Bring 1 Dozen of your Best CUPCAKES
Judging on will be based on Most Creative Display, Best Tasting, Cutest and Prettiest

Mingling
Make some new friends

Music
Acoustic guitar by Brandon Cole

Plus
DOOR PRIZES - DOOR PRIZES - DOOR PRIZES!

Feel free to bring your own blankets, picnic baskets and drinks. Etsy Fort Worth will be providing ice cold Italian lemonade. Yum!

It doesn’t get any better than this.

WIP Wednesday - The Lonely Pear

So once again it's time to show you one of my works in progress and the sad state it's currently in.

Last month I signed up for Loteria: The Art of Chance and chose one of my cards to be La Pera (the pear). I that idea in my head and have yet to start the painting but since then I've had a strange fascination with pears.

Sadly though, this little fella is going to take some work. Other than the fact it's not formed properly (which I'm not particularly concerned with) it has no depth or character to it at all!

It's just kind of laying there sad and lonely and flat. Hopefully I will be able to remedy that.

ALL glass pendants are now available!

How cool is this?!?! It's my first time to sell anything other than prints or original paintings of my artwork.

I know I am going to come off sounding like a total dork but they look so pretty up there on the screen all together!

This is just part of them too. I made a total of 40 and have 36 available for sale in my Etsy shop.

Can you tell I'm proud of my work? lol

Panther City Bar Bazaar

Looking for something to do this weekend? Head on over to Lola's Saloon and help support local independent artists by buying handmade!

In addition to Blueskyunburn Creations selling mixed media artwork, meet other vendors like Handmade Hooligans (handmade jewelry), House of Smash (upcycled bracelets and cuffs), James Hinkle (paper mache and leatherwork), Jeff Loy (photography), Nectar Candles (candles), Neke Designs (artisan jewelry), Robotpop (jewelry and accessories), Sincerely Serenity (glass & metal jewelry), Sketch Customs (clothing), Soap Addict (handmade soap), Tattooed Glass (mosaic stained glass), Vera Harris (acrylic paintings, jewelry), and Vicky Christopherson (raunchy embroidery).

I recently found out the Fort Worth Burrito Project is going to be there too! If you aren't familiar with Fort Worth Burrito Project it's a really fantastic charity!


It consists of a group of local individuals who voluntarily meet up around 2pm every Sunday at Montgomery Plaza in Fort Worth. From there, they disperse on bikes and in trucks to distribute home-cooked burritos, bananas (especially popular), bottled water, new socks to homeless people around the downtown area.

A LOT of their funding comes from cash donations from caring individuals. With this, all food sales will go to support their cause! So grab a burrito and and help feed the hungry!

While you're there shopping and chowing down, step out back and listen to bands like Scott Vernon, Taylor Craig Mills, John Stevens, Scott Copeland and Carey Wolf, James Hinkle, Chatterton and Sally Majestic. You can hear clips for most of the bands via their links.

It's going to be an epic event! Hope to see you there!

New in the Studio

Can you believe I got five paintings completed this weekend?!?! I have seven more to finish up but I don't think that will be happening before the show on Sunday.

Well, maybe one set but we'll have to see. I've been having to go back to icing my arm/hand at night again and it's seriously cutting into my painting time.

I started three sets of smaller paintings in sets of three. I really like doing that! The other paintings, well, a lot of times I just paint on a whim.

This one you have already seen if you are a fan of my Facebook page. I entitled Green with Envy. I'm not quite sure as to why but I thought the title fit the piece.

I sat down and painted it in one day. A rare occurrence for me!

I am really pleased with how it came out, too. I went back and forth a little bit on if I wanted to sell it. It seems like the ones I complete really fast are the ones I always have a hard time parting with.



These next three are one of the sets I was mentioning at the beginning on the post. I had so much fun making these guys.

It's just layers and layers of paper and glue and paint. I really like how you can see just a little bit of each layer through the paint.

I'm stumped on what they should be titled. Do you have any ideas?



This last piece was sort of a happy surprise. I was playing with the new Tulip Paint Cannon and had no clue it was loaded wrong. I assumed it was just operator error.

OMG - It sprayed and splattered everywhere! In the end I was able to play with it enough to be able to manipulate it to work with this stencil.

I'm digging the contrast between the bright translucent colors and the splotchy black paint! I'm calling it City Lights.

All of these paintings and more will be available this weekend at the Bar Bazaar. After that if they are still available they will go up for sale on my website.

WIP - What a mess!

You know how you always hear about how when you're stuck or you can't make a painting work to just start slapping paint on the canvas and it will eventually start coming together?

Yeah well, what they don't tell you is that a lot of times when you do that it turns out looking like crap!

Behold this week's work in progress. Sad, isn't it?

This mess was a paint over too if you can believe it.

It use to look very similar to the piece piece below (sans pencil sketch and Eiffel tower stamp). My brilliant self decided to try to do an image transfer on this piece before the paper underneath had fully adhered to the canvas.



The result? I ripped off half the paper and thus ruined the set I was trying to create.

Never fear, I had some paint to slap on there and it would look ever so much better!

I'm thinking this piece will see a pretty bright white in the future in the name of gesso. At least all the layers will make for some good texture down the line.

Glass Tile Pendants

I am super excited about my glass tile pendants! I even swiped one from this first batch to keep for myself.

Each pendant contains an original hand painted piece of artwork and is topped off with a hand-smoothed and polished hand-cut kiln-fired glass square.

The pendant is then mounted on a Sterling Silver Plated Aanraku Jewelry Bail and attached to an 18" ball chain necklace.




These pendants along with my new magnets will be debuted at the Panther City Bar Bazaar this Sunday! I will have more info on the Bar Bazaar later this week so stay tuned...

Whirlwish - Video

Charla Pavlik posted this on Facebook the other day. I enjoyed watching it and thought I would pass it onto you.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did!

Also, I am beginning to separate my personal and business Facebook accounts so if you want to stay updated on current artwork (not all of it gets posted on here) and upcoming shows be sure to click "Like" on my fan page: Blueskysunburn Creations.

Goodbye Instructing. Hello Learning.

I had someone that attended my April Art Journal Workshop make a comment on my blog asking about upcoming classes. Unfortunately for those hoping I would announce them, it's not going to happen.

I have decided to instead focus on educating myself and enroll in online classes to get my paralegal certificate and test to become a certified paralegal.

Originally, I wasn't going to tell people what I was doing because I didn't want to listen to those that were waiting for me to fail. It finally dawned on me the other day the real reason I didn't want people to know is because I was scared I would fail.

Am I still scared? You bet! All I hear about the program is how hard it is and as I open each file and see the amount of stuff I have to read through and learn I find myself asking what I've gotten myself into.

Thankfully though I'm about as stubborn as they come once I set my mind to something. So, scared or no, I will follow through.

I will eventually start teaching workshops again but that has been put on hold for a couple of years. I'm sure you can understand why I made my decision. Thank you for everyone who has shown interest! I really appreciate it!

WIP Wednesday - El Negrito

I signed up are the last minute to participate in Loteria: The Art of Chance put on by Pearl at Commerce. It's an evening based upon the Mexican Bingo game, Loteria and each artist is to paint their interpretation of their selected cards.

I passed this up thinking one I wouldn't have time to do the paintings and two I wouldn't be able to think up an idea for them. Then - BAM! Just like many of my ideas I had two hit me right square in the jaw while I was taking a shower one morning.

I'm much farther along on this than in the picture. I sort of got caught in the moment and forgot to take pictures. Oops!

I also got a kick out of the fact that I decided to use chopstick wrappers in one of the layers without thinking about Loteria being a Mexican game. Guess I subconsciously wanted to be multicultural!



I'll post more picks as I get further along.

If you are interested in finding out more about the show you can check it out here! I will list more details on my blog about the actual show when it gets closer.

Crafty Superstar

I had bought Grace Dobush's book Crafty Superstar: Make Crafts on the Side, Earn Extra Cash, and Basically Have It All when it first came out.

I didn't know it was coming out when I headed to the bookstore and to be honest, I hadn't heard of it before that day. I just remember flipping through the book and I noticing it was set up a little different than most other how-to books.

The majority of the how-to books out there tend to focus more on quiting your day job to craft full time. This book, on the other hand, focuses on how to balance your day job while still making the most of your side crafting business.

It touches base on setting up your business, where to sell online and how to decide on pricing. My favorite section of the book deals with craft shows. It talks about presentation of your products, table displays, preparing, even selling.

"Assuming you're working with the common 8-foot folding table, the cornerstone of your display is the table covering. (Nobody wanted to the all that scratched up Masonite.) It should match your biz's look. Is your style Utilitarian? Try plain kraft paper or corrugated card board. Is your style retro and hip? Go with a patterned bedsheet or curtains. Do you want to surprise visitors with something unusual? Get some Astroturf or bubble wrap!"

Since I am currently trying to step up my craft show booths and attend shows on a more frequent basis, I really related to this section.

The back of the book contains templates of forms and spread sheets for running your business as well as lists of larger indie craft fairs, small business resources, various craft communities and online consignment shops.

I liked how the author seems to be talking to you and not at you. Reading through the book is more like having a conversation with a person rather than your standard "do this and this" bullet pointed sections.

You can get an autographed copy of the book by purchasing directly from the author here for the same price (even with shipping) that I paid to buy my copy at Barnes and Noble.