I'm interrupting your regularly scheduled posts with a logo idea.

I'm getting bored of my current header, and am considering making the blog background a little cleaner (but with the same picture).

Here's what I messed around with while teaching myself how to use Adobe Illustrator CS5:

Its obviously not finished. I wanted opinions, though! What do you think? Be as harsh as you want, and as creative with your ideas as you want.

I might try putting some pictures of stuff featured on this blog inside those rectangles, instead of the random-but-fun one I've got in there now.

I wanted a place-- a key-holder of sorts-- to hang things on. Why bother buying something when you can make it?

My room happens to be in the basement, and I have a breaker box above my desk. It would be ugly except for the fact that it is magnetic and I can therefore spruce it up. I made my holder magnetic. I'm sure this idea will also work for non-magnetic surfaces if you use tape.


You will need:
1 earring wire
1 small snippet of wire
1 paper flower or other decoration (I punched my own out of scrapbook paper)
1 little square of a sheet magnet
1 glue dot OR some kind of adhesive



Step One:
Thread the wire through the earring and fold it all over itself as pictured.

Step Two:
Put the folded wire on the magnet square and apply the glue dot.


Step Three:
Put your decoration on and stick the magnet on something magnetic! Here you can see that I hung my Fairy Bracelet on my new magnet holder!

Like I'd mentioned before, I bought a set of sample jump rings from Unkamen Supplies. Well, I had to have a way to sort them...

So I used these memory card cases (I have a nice, padded case for camera memory cards now-- funny story how I got it...)

Oh, dear! Some incredibly mismatched jump rings and a touch of color exploded all over my desk, changing my Firework Orbital design into a bright and cheerful explosion of dangling rainbows.

Art mannequins are no help, whatsoever. They are supposed to help artists understand the proportions, angles, and movements of a human being.

The problem is that mannequins cannot move in the way that people do. My little mannequin cannot sit. It's hands can't touch its face. It can't cross its arms, tuck its ankles primly, or touch its toes. The little wooden joints simply don't do that.

A mannequin can also bend in ways a human cannot. It's head swivels, it does more-than-spilts, it can stick is arms up... backwards.

Overall, a mannequin is no help in art.

Hello, everyone!

Those of you who know me IRL know we are moving. Those of you who don't now know. :P This means that I will be busy packing and moving. I will probably have all of my arts and crafts stuff (minus my life-sustaining sketchbook) packed up for a month or two.

In addition to all that, I've got the gumption to start school this next coming week (I am a proud homeschooler!) My siblings are going to wait until we move, but I don't want to work on school during next summer vacation.

So this might be keeping me from this blog:

Yes, those are the books I am working on this coming year. That does NOT include my Latin and Chemistry texts, mind you. Nor does that stack include any notebooks, binders, lesson plans, etc. I use Kolbe Academy and am pursuing their Summa Diploma. It is a wonderful program, though it takes lots and lots of hard work and must be kept on top of if you want sanity.

I can't believe I'm in the 10th grade now... and getting my driver's license soon... sorry, off topic, that is not art/craft/blog related.

Not to mention that when we move, I will not have access to a internet-enabled computer for awhile... and when I do, I will have lots of I&F work.

Also, I got the student edition of Adobe CS5 as an early birthday present/school/general experience. This is MASSIVELY AWESOME SOFTWARE. I'll be spending lots of time teaching myself how to use it. ^_^

HOWEVER! I am not totally abandoning you, my dear blog readers. This summer I went on a crafting spree!

I have just made over 20 posts, and still have about 10 more crafts to take pictures of (and then I need to scan in some artwork).

I'm not going to post it all at once-- I think that makes it boring. Besides, I just did that a week or two ago!

I am using Blogger's Scheduling feature. (Have you ever noticed that scheduling is such a funny looking word? It looks like a tidal wave. And how strangely people with British accents pronounce it?) What does that mean? Every two days, until the end of August, a new post will magically appear on my blog!

Every now and then I might add a new post in the mix of all those scheduled ones.But you are assured a new post every two days! How great is that?

Don's miss a post! Remember the RSS feed I talked about? You can add this blog through the buttons on the rights sidebar.  Or, you can use the ones I have embeded in this post:

I recently got together with some family friends, who are like little sisters almost. :) They are SO quick to catch on. In the space of an hour, Marlena made the wrapped rock pendants (and developed a cool way of wrapping them) and Christiana made the earrings shown below: The rocks, and some other creations, are for our Church's Oktoberfest.

The top two earrings are based off of my Peacock Garden. I loved how Christiana used Christmas colors in them, and then plain bronze topped with blue!

The bottom left earrings are based off of my Musical Notes, and the right are based off my Fireworks.

These reminded me of the striking tones of peacock feathers... And the chainmaille mobius looks rather like a flower of sorts, doesn't it? The flower beads on the earring wire only add to the garden effect.

This is the sort of creation that occurs when you have a random assortment of jump rings.(Although very nice quality, from UnkamenSupplies) I had a total of four bronze-ish rings and two blue rings. What could I possibly do with such a tiny amount?

Mix and match in the mobius! I wonder why I never thought of that before!