A Grand Piano in wire ... it's a musical week!

It's been really crazy this past while! We had a blizzard last night, another five inches of snow at least! My kids looked outside and groaned, all except for my nine yo daughter, who promptly went out and built a snowman! She's crazy about winter, never wants it to end! Hubby left for work this morning, got about five miles from our house and got stuck! Took two hours to dig himself out and limp home. The snow plows came by at about 11:00 so he left for work them. I'm just grateful I don't have to drive anywhere today! I intend to hole up with some homemade hot chocolate and bend wire to my heart's content!




I've done a couple of custom orders this week. This is a wire piano I did for a personal art piece for a customer. I think it turned out quite well. I'm also working on a set of 80 music ornaments in black for a wedding. The wedding theme is "Sing a new song unto the Lord", and the intention is to tie them with ribbon as napkin holders -- which sounds like a very pretty idea to me!

We've been sick!!!

Oh my goodness, we've had the mother of all head colds around here! Seems like not much, just a head cold, but the blinding headache, total congestion that morphs into sinus infection, fever ... this has been no fun at all! All of us had it, hubby and I worst of all, and I actually had to break down and get some antibiotics for my sinus infection. Yuck! I hate having to do that. All life outside of my little world has ceased to exist, but I'm finally starting to see daylight!

Happy Easter everyone! We had family over on Good Friday to color eggs and had a very nice time ... well, the kids and I did, but hubby was pretty out of it. He tried to be present, but he just sat there shivering and staring and finally just went back to bed. Then my baby had a very high fever and spent pretty much all of Saturday and Easter Sunday sleeping on me. Seems like the worst is over for him, tho', thankfully. He's still a little crabby but the fever has broken.

So there's my big excuse for checking out of life for the last few weeks. Let's hope it gets better this week!

Happy Birthday, 5 year old!

It's my small girl's birthday today! She's turning 5, and is very excited! My big girl is taking a cake decorating course right now, and has designed a very beautiful cake for her -- perfect for our little princess! Today is band day, so we're spending the day in town, but hopefully we can do some fun things with small girl to make her day feel special. Cousins are coming over tonight for cake and birthday supper. That's always good! This shot is of a very sleepy 4 1/2 year old -- gosh, I need to take some more pictures of my kids! She looks so much bigger now!

Happy Birthday Honey!

Yippee, sold a custom order yesterday morning! She convo'd me around 10:00 pm, I sat up until the wee hours making them so they could be in the mail the next day -- she wants them by the 12th! Yikes! My fingers are sore and I'm tired, but very thrilled to have made a nice sale!

(At least bending wire is keeping my fingers in shape for playing guitar! I'm definitely keeping my "guitar calluses" this way! It would be better if I was actually practicing, but ...)

Today is ballet. Gotta drive yet again, after spending the day in town yesterday doing band and running errands. And for some reason my pics won't load on my blog today, so I have nothing exciting to show you! I'm going to try to get a walk in this morning before all hell breaks loose around here -- which means hustling my butt right about now! Get me away from this computer!

BeaDoop, BeaDoop -- I just opened a new Etsy store!

So many art forms, so little time! I love to do so many things -- make jewelry, quilt, bake, cook Asian food (well, I'm learning!) etc etc etc ... how does one do it all, anyway??? In an attempt to keep my life in order, I'm diversifying ... well, sort of. I've opened another Etsy store for my Gemstone pendants and beads. I will be moving my current listings there over the next while. My new shop is BeaDoop, and you can find it here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/beaDoop

New EtsyScrap Challenge today! Cupcakes!!!

Got the post this morning on the EtsyScrap blog, our new challenge is anything to do with cupcakes! So, here's my offering:

(I like the idea of a challenge -- I was stagnating a wee bit here! It was good to get the "creative juices" flowing, start bending the wire again -- I haven't made anything new in awhile :)


Each Cupcake Embellishment measures nearly 3" tall X 2" wide. The "MMM!" piece is about 5 3/4" long and 7'8" tall, with the exclamation point piece standing about 1 1/2" high.

Cupcake #1* is a clip, hence the swirl. The other two should be stitched onto your page using a needle and invisible thread. I always tell people "It's painstaking and finicky, but the end product is worth it!"







The second Cupcake is simple, perfect to be dressed up with your choice of yummy paper and fiddly-bits.








This "I Heart You" Cupcake Embellishment is a little wider, about 2 3/8" X 3" high.


Oh, and I am very excited to note!!!: I have a follower! My very first one! Thank you autless!


*Time to play "What's the reference?" Remember this one?: "Buck buck number one, come in!"

Heart-Leaf Ornament for a customer's rear-view mirror

Today I sold one of my Heart-Leaf ornaments, revised to hang from the rear-view mirror of a customer's car. She requested I make it smaller, about 2" across, with blue and pink beads. I think it turned out well! I included some blue ribbon the same color as the darker blue beads, for hanging. I'm thinking mirror ornaments are something I should make more of!

Sold a Custom Order

Yay! Sold a Custom Order on Friday -- a wire art piece I've been working on for awhile. Very excited about that! The customer requested a piece for her son, who is a drummer, and I think it turned out pretty cool! His name is Mason and I was able to incorporate that into the design, too.

Our Homeschool Mom's Retreat was this past weekend -- a good time as always. Something always seems to come up that needs to be dealt with in my heart! My facilitator spoke on "What's in your cupboard". How we can only serve our family what's in our cupboard, literally as well as figuratively. We can't serve them spaghetti when there's no spaghetti in the cupboard, and we can't be someone we aren't as homeschooling moms. We need to be who we are, give out of what is already in our hearts, using our own gifts. It's something I know I struggle with constantly, comparing myself to other moms. The funny thing was that as my friend and I sat there, she said to me "I'm always worried about how I'm doing as a homeschooler because I'm NOT crafty and artistic, I'm NOT wired that way, so I feel like I'm failing!" And I looked at her and said "Oh yeah, well, I'm NOT organized, I'm NOT good at getting the kids to write essays and do book reports, and all my kids DO is arts & crafts, music, and puppet shows! I feel like I'm a failure because I have no bookwork done ... ever!" Funny how we both felt the same way about ourselves, but from totally different angles!

New Project - Hanging Votive Holders for a Wedding

Started working on a new project tonight -- hanging votive holders for a wedding. It's a potential Alchemy bid, but I'm still brainstorming with her on what exactly she wants. I'm good with the wire part of the holders, but I think supplying the glasses would be cost prohibitive. I suggested baby food/sm condiment jars to her, and she said that might be a solution ... I'm pleased with what I came up with, using small juice glasses from my own cupboard. Batteries were dead in my camera, tho', so I'll have to take the pictures tomorrow -- oops! Will post those later ...

Homeschool Mom's Retreat this weekend -- I can hardly wait! It's always just a refreshing time, a great reminder and encouragement that this homeschooling thing I do is really the right thing, that I'm doing ok. Helps me get "over the hump" of mid-winter post-Christmas school blues! Also helps me to realize that all the things I mull over in my head aren't unique to me, that every other homeschooler (if they're really being honest, anyway!) has the same worries, stresses, fears and so on ... Guess what?! I'm not special!

Monday ... again

Ahhh, the first Monday in a month I don't have to hustle the kids out the door by 10:00 am -- honestly, I don't know how you moms who have your kids in school do it! I can't imagine the work involved in getting them out the door on time, with everything they need ... yada yada yada ... every day! Totally stresses me out to think about it. That would have to be my first and foremost reason for homeschooling (shallow, I know) -- being able to sleep in!!!

Wire we here ... wire we here ... hmmm. I have this idea for an art piece -- but I'm struggling a bit with the concept. I want to make a frame of sorts, fill it with wire circles, and then wrap the circles with embroidery floss (such bright colors). It would be a weird mixed-media sort of contemporary artwork (hopefully) -- I'm just not completely sure how to do the frame. Should I use a steel bar frame and wrap wire around it??? Pondering ...

On the road again ... and again ... and again!

I am so tired of driving!!! I feel like I have done nothing but drive all week! All month, actually! I thought homeschooling happened AT HOME -- apparently, I was wrong! I also thought January was supposed to be a slow month, you know, to wind down after Christmas, get one's house in order, yada yada yada ... but no, it's the month to drive to one activity after another! Argh!

This blog is supposed to be about Blackscrapcat Designs -- but I have had NO time at all to do anything remotely wire-related! Argh again! I need some time to breathe!

I have all sorts of ideas, designs spinning around in my head that I want to put into wire ... deep sigh ... so many ideas, so little time!!!

Monday, Monday

The Mommas and the Papas -- great band! Having grown up in this media-manic world, my Sweet Darling and I realized once upon a time that most of our conversation comes from movie, music, or tv shows. So, we play "What's the reference?" I'm hoping it'll keep my memory sharp as I get older ... well, I can always hope :)

Living in an old church has its disadvantages: there are no closets in churches, ever noticed that? Not really any rooms to speak of, especially not for as many bedrooms as we need, and how exactly am I supposed to make use of the foyer? It's this big room that just fills up with stuff because I haven't found a purpose for it yet. Until now! Had a bright idea yesterday to build a big workspace table -- kind of a glorified kitchen island, minus sink or stove. Lots of seating for the kids and their projects, lots of storage too ... you know. It'll take up a lot of space in the middle of the floor, but it will also replace a lot of the miscellaneous pieces of furniture around the outside walls too -- I like it!

Swimming lessons today, thankfully this is the last week! But at least I get to chat with all the other moms as we sit by the pool :)

Just starting up!

I feel like my diesel truck trying to start on a cold winters morning ... ro, ro, ro, rarara Varrooom diga diga diga diga ... except I'm still waiting for the Varoom. Even the rice milk cappuccino my sweet darling left on my night table this morning hasn't quite worked yet. Swimming lessons this morning, gotta leave by 10:00. That is, if the truck starts (the ol girl wasn't plugged in last night, which could complicate ...)

Anyhoo, I'm taking the plunge into the world of blogging -- how am I doing so far??? Not sure how this all works, but here goes nothing :-)