Saturday, October 16, 2010

sushi love for the hungry and fashionable









Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I got a tattoo!


This is my new tattoo that I got yesterday. It is on my right wrist. I'd been talking about getting this done for awhile but finally my friend and I went and set up the appointment for it. I have a long list of why I love strawberries and could happily carry a picture of one on my arm forever but I won't get into that today. :-P I didn't get a chance to take a picture until last night and it was kind of dark. I'll take a better picture and post it sometime.


Here is the site for the shop I went to. :)
http://www.odcustomtattoo.com/

Thanks for reading. Have a good day!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

pretty princess necklace

I made a necklace this morning! I was babysitting my friend's daughter, Brody the other day and we were playing with beads and making jewelry. She gave me a bunch of the beads I used in this necklace and told me to use those colors and make myself a necklace. So I did! haha


I liked playing with the different shades of blue in the necklace. From royal blue to beads that are shaped and colored just like a robin's egg.

These pics aren't the greatest because the lighting wasn't the greatest. I'm gonna reshoot sometime in proper lighting but wanted to give you at least something to see :)

I'll post some new stuff soon. Hopefully Jess and I will get to some more photoshoots this week. Have a good day and thanks for reading!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Meow!

I haven't posted much of the jewelry I've made in awhile so I wanted to post something from my collection thus far today. I made this cute necklace with an awesome animal print heart pendant. When I finished it though it still seemed like something was missing. Check the first picture...

I'm a fan of asymmetrical designs. Not always of course but many times I think it is actually complimentary and keeps the eye moving and interested in the design. With that in mind I made two small charms in coordinating colors to add to one side of the necklace.

Here is the finished product with the two charms added. Looks better right? All it needed was an extra touch of pizazz! haha.

That's all for now. Have a great day everybody and thanks for reading as always :)

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

CAR GARDEN!!!

So yesterday Matt and I worked on cleaning up our yard and gardening. We went out and bought some annuals and perennials to plant. When we went out we took my Volkswagon Beetle convertible. We put the top down and loaded the back with all our finds. It looked like I had planted a garden in the back of my car! Anyway, I thought it looked really cute all sitting in the backseat of my car so I took some pictures of my faux car garden for you to take a look at :)



I'm really excited for the lilies we bought to come into full bloom. I also love Coleus. They are the little yellow guys at the bottom of the center picture. We also got some in red. We planted some mint in the front of our house as well because we love mojitos! Tis' the season for them after all. While we were out there we found a strawberry patch growing too so we were both pretty pumped about that. Do you think a strawberry mint mojito would be good? I might try it sometime. :}

Thanks for reading and taking a look at my car garden. Check back soon!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Modeling and Photography Day!!!!

So yesterday my friend Jess and I did a couple of fun photoshoots at my place. I've been friends with Jess since the 4th grade and even since we were little we would team up on all kinds of creative projects. They were a lot weirder though back then I promise you. We tried to invent a cleaning solution for my mom among other weird and bizarre things. But anyway, haha, Jess does alt modeling and I love taking fun photography and would love to practice more. The first one we did was a cute white and blue themed shoot in my dining room.....
She is wearing a necklace that I made in this one. Finally have a picture to post of it and it looks awesome on her :)


this is a favorite

The second shoot we did was in my kitchen. The dress Jess is wearing is from when we went thrift store shopping a couple weeks ago. This was kind of a joking play on the whole trashy, desperate housewife image that I think most of us have seen portrayed at some point or another. Her tats make this picture awesome and of course the "Bitch Bubbly" ain't bad either.



we heart tequila

There were a lot more pics to choose from (she photographs so well its easy!) but that is a pretty good sample of what we went for with the shots. I've been real busy with a lot of visitors and just stuff going on and haven't posted in awhile. I wanted to get these up asap and give you all something fun to see. :) Thanks for reading!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

My brother's b-day

I haven't posted in awhile. Sorry bout that! I haven't had any good pics of anything because the weather has been gross. Yesterday was my brother's birthday party. He turned 11. My younger cousins and Drew's friend "chocolate" (uhh, don't ask cuz I don't know, ha) came to the party. Drew is a big pokemon fan so I got him a pokedex guide. I didn't have wrapping paper so I used newpaper and decorated it with some pokemon I drew for him. Much cooler anyway I think. I took a pic of the wrap job I did because I was proud of my pokemon. haha. I also got a pic in right before he blew out the candles. Ya, I don't have the timing to get the actual candle blow out. :P Anyway, that's it for now. Check out the pics and I'll post more soon!
Gotta Draw em all! ummm, just kidding. apparently there is 493 of them now. dang. lol

Saturday, May 8, 2010

my work space and walking through a blogging Wonderland!

I took a snapshot of my jewelry workspace. Kind of a mess but that is because I do a lot of experimenting with each piece I make. I thought some people might be interested to see my workspace. Plus, I'm treating this blog kind of like my big internet scrapbook of life. I record my life, designs, progress, and etc. etc. This is definitely progress because I used to just sit on a mattress on the floor when I made jewelry. Talk about a sore back and neck!
Lately since starting this blog I've been out exploring the world of blogs, blogging, and the entire blogging community in general. Primarily I've been looking at blogs in crafts, fashion and art. I feel like there is this whole corner of the internet I've been missing out on! I never used to read blogs and thought the whole thing was kind of weird. This of course was my own stubbornness to seek out and explore something new. In the past couple days though I have started following probably 20 or so blogs. Reading other artists' successes, failures, ideas, art, and advice is so inspiring and also so helpful in navigating a realm of the internet I am not used to.

So, my piece of advice to you is to go out and explore some blog directories in whatever topics interest you. Sometimes it just takes some inspiration from someone else in your line of work to keep you pushing forward with your own goals and projects too.

That's all for now. I have to get ready because its MOTHER'S DAY TOMORROW! Just a little reminder. haha. Thanks for reading :)

Friday, May 7, 2010

Tuesday's concert and tonite's gallery hop

Been busy the last couple of days so I haven't had time to make a blog post. The Against Me! concert was awesome. Drinking, music and some late night Village Inn makes for a spectacular Tuesday night. Be sure to check out the pics of the band my friend and I took down below this post. It really was a great show.

As for tonite I'm going to downtown Rock Island for their Gallery Hop! It's a really cool free event where downtown galleries, studios, restaurants and other businesses bring in artists of all different mediums to display their work to the public. We have a couple of fantastic galleries in the downtown area already but overall this is a great event to make sure the community stays involved and excited about the locals artists. The last time I was able to make it to one was last May and it was POURING OUTSIDE! It looks gloomy out today but I hope the rain holds off.

My hope is that one day I will be displaying some of my jewelry during a gallery hop and will be in the line up of artists. Until then though I will be going down to show my support and soak in all the inspiration!




Lookin' screamo in this pic but it was so much better than that. swear.


Got this one while walkin' out of the bathroom!

and this one, haha
That's it for now! Thanks for reading and I'll update as soon as I can :) Toodles

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Against Me Thrash Unreal and treasures from a thrift store shopping quest

So, yesterday Jess, Nick and I drove around Davenport checking out thrift stores, antiques and resale shops. It was beautiful outside so we got to ride with the top down in my VW convertible Beetle. *sigh* I love spring :} We all found some good stuff. Jess and I found some pretty dresses while Nick discovered an old Ghostbusters toy at an antique shop for only 1 dollar! Nick is a Ghostbusters fan and has started collecting old toys and merchandise from the movie. Perhaps one day he will let me photograph some of it because when you see some of those items it is complete nostalgia. Some of my finds from yesterday are posted below.

I found this beautiful vintage gown for only 5 bucks! It has a couple of holes here and there but it is definitely still wearable.

Here is a close up of the gown...

I also found an old rosary and a baggie of beads for a buck a piece. You can't see in the picture but the rosary is broken in some spots. I thought the pendant with the church on it was interesting too. I'm going to deconstruct it and give the pieces some new life.

The other highlight of yesterday was I found out Collison isn't working later tonite so we would be able to go to the Against Me! concert down at Rock Island Brewing company. Jess and I were talking about it earlier so I ran out to Coop Records with her last nite to buy 2 more tix for Matt and I. The concert starts tonite at 7. One of their songs is pretty big right now and most of you will probably recognize it if you have not heard the band name before. I posted a video of it below along with the concert poster. Good stuff :)




That's all for now. I'll try to get another entry up with something I made pretty soon here but for now I was more excited about my vintage dress :P Thanks for reading as always :D

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Flower Power


Today I'm posting some pics of a necklace I made with the main pendant being an old flower ring I've been hanging onto since high school. I've always loved the ring but hated wearing it because it felt so big on my hand. The rest of the necklace I built around the ring so everything is meant to accent it. I tried to incorporate each color of the flowers and really make it pop with the two large pearls and the gold chain.

Hope people like it. Thanks for reading :)



Monday, April 26, 2010

puppies and perfume


I finished two more necklaces last night and am going to work out a photography day sometime for this week so I can get all the new stuff documented. In the meantime I wanted to post this photograph I took of one of my perfume bottles. It's a beautiful bottle and I thought all the details looked really sharp in black and white.


The second photo is of my dog, Dinah wearing the souvenir I brought back to her from Mexico. She looks thrilled doesn't she?

Besides the art I've been working on I'm going to my parents for a bbq tonite and hopefully some delicious beer. :D

Anyway, that is all for now. Just wanted to update with some more fun stuff to look at from the life of yours truly. Thanks for reading guys and gals

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum


Sticking with my wonderland theme here are some friendship bracelets I made. These were a quick little project but I love love love them! Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are an awesome duo for any great friends to aspire to. Honestly though, I'd probably have to take Tweedle Dum if I wore one. lol. I wanted to do bracelets because I liked the idea of turning Dee and Dum into dangling charms. :) That's all for now really but to end this one I'm going to list some of my favorite epic duos of all time.

1.Tenacious D (of course!)
2.Lucy and Ethel (Whenever I get myself into trouble or do something stupid with one of my friends I feel like them)
3.Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park creators)
4.Romy and Michelle :)
5. Shaggy and Scooby
6. Dinah and Prudence (my little Japanese Chin Foo Dogs, spiritual protectors of our house. lol.)
7. Tequila and lime (it's true. totally epic. try it.)
8. Ren and Stimpy
9.Laurel and Hardy
10. Sid and Nancy (romantic duo but i don't care!)

Alright, alright. Ten seems good. Thanks for reading and check back again soon! More jewelry drawings and awesome randomness to come :)

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Blue Shrooms



I drew this one a long time ago. I love the colors and figured I'd post. I have an unfinished painting similar to it in acrylic that I want to finish up sometime soon too. I'll try and post some more crazy stuff later :) Thanks for reading.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Back!


Okay, so it has definitely been awhile since my last post. After the painting in the kitchen I got really distracted and am just now getting back on track. Haha. There has been lots of moving furniture around. Collison and I created a new office in our third bedroom because the other room was too small. I needed some more space for art and we needed more space for our computers and stuff in general. Now that we have this room coming together though I feel much more focused on my blog, photography and creating. :) My goal is to be posting pretty consistently. I fell off the horse for awhile but having an organized work space should help a lot now. I worked on the floor before so this is a huge step up for me. Haha.

The picture is another doodle of mine. I drew her because I wish I had hair like that! Could you imagine? lol

I realized that I don't care much for posting without a picture to include. Probably because I have a soft spot in my heart for illustrated books and such. I'm not saying books without pictures are bad. But still, I can always appreciate someone wanting to include a visual

I'll post again soon guys. Promise! Oh, and thanks for reading as always :)

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

color! color! color!






























So I haven't completed any jewelry pieces outside of my Alice in Wonderland collection because I've been painting the kitchen with Collison. We finished the first coat and are waiting for it to dry. It's bright pink! When we are done we are going to put our downstairs area back together again and finally get to do the fun part.
DECORATING!!! :)




Here's a picture of our dining room and a bit of our living room. We picked bright green for our dining room. I love green and wanted it to be bold. This picture shows our house in a hot mess but when I post the after pictures when I'm all finished it will make the transformation that much more dramatic!

I'll post again with some more drawings and jewelry soon too :) The pen drawing I have above was just something I drew cuz I was excited we were going to finally paint our house!