WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

I haven't done a Worktable Wednesday post in so long that I thought I would today. On my worktable today are some Halloween miniature scenes featuring dogs. Here are two quick pics I took on my stove top of an Old English Sheepdog and a Schnauzer when they were fresh from the oven. :o) They'll be up on ebay, along with several other breeds later this week. With better pics of course. ;o)

BACK TO MY ROOTS FOR A BIT

Well I've been sidetracked from doggies for a while to participate in a swap with my clay buddies. Our group is made up of some of the best makers of adorable, whimsical polymer clay characters you'll ever find. Some of them, like myself, have published polymer clay how-to books, magazine projects, etc. Most of them have been selling at shows, and via ebay for years. I feel very fortunate to call these talented ladies my clay buds!

For our swaps, we always pick a theme, be it snowmen, gingerbread men, scarecrows, whatever, and then we make one for every member of the group, including ourselves. Then we mail them off to the person who is acting as swapmeister (hostess), who divides them up, and sends a full set back to each of us, so that we have one piece by each of the participants, along with the one we made ourselves. There are usually a dozen of us participating at any given time. Our most recent swap was a bunny swap, and here's my contribution. I actually did 12 though only 11 are pictured below. My new home town just had their 30th annual Old Tyme Apple Festival, so my bunnies are apple-themed in honor of that:

PREMIO MEME AWARD

I want to thank my dear friend, Michele Lynch, for the Premio Meme Award she's bestowed upon me. Michele and I have been supporting each other in our artistic endeavors for many, many years now. We take turns nudging each other back onto the path, during those times one of us veers off into the bushes, or gets lost in the maze of eBay, Etsy, struggling to keep enough product made, struggles with lack of inspiration, or too much of it, and not enough time, and whatever else comes up while we try to balance the artistic life with "regular" life.

So I'm supposed to tell 7 things people might not know about me. Since this is the third time I've been asked to do that by someone, it's getting a bit more challenging. OK, here goes:

1. I'm a pretty big fan of U2, who will play Vegas October 23. :o( Did I plan to see them this year before this job and move came up? YUP Are they touring anywhere in the state of MO? NOPE. Am I bummed? YUP.

2. I've had an airbrush, complete with compressor, for going on two years - and I've never used it! Partly because I had visions of inadvertently spray painting the walls and carpet of the lovely new house I was renting - something I didn't think the owner would appreciate! Though Michele keeps trying to get it through my silly head that this is an airbrush, not a FIRE HOSE, and nothing like that is likely to happen. ;o) I think I'm finally ready to try it!

3. I used to have a horse I called Shane when I was younger.

4. I compulsively collect gorgeous dog figurines.

5. I absolutely LOVE hummingbirds! I've always adored them. But during a time when I was going through a lot of heartbreak in my personal life - my dad was dying, my marriage was falling apart - hummingbirds became a symbol between me and God/the Universe, that I wasn't alone.

6. I like to create with words as well as art materials.

7. I am a hopeless romantic.

Now I'm supposed to give this award to 7 other bloggers and ask them to answer these questions, but I need to give that some thought, so I'll edit this later.

FRUSTRATION FRIDAY - BACK TO BASICS

Well, not like frustration is limited to Fridays for me―wouldn't that be nice―but it fits today. Today I'm feeling the importance of having a designated work space something fierce. I've been feeling it ever since we moved into this house a couple months ago, but I guess it's especially thick today.

I'm just remembering how much having or not having a designated place to work on your art, to keep all―or at least, most―of your art supplies in, a place where your work is not in the way of your family members, and they're not in the way of your work, makes an impact on feeling free to create your art.

Ah in comes frustration, my old nemesis. And frustration always makes it so much harder to want to create at all.

It's a basic need all artists or wannabe artists share. A place set aside for them to create. And I'm currently without one. Which means when I want to create, I have to dig through boxes to find my stuff, which is scattered here, there, and everywhere, pull it all together, then try to find somewhere I can set it all up, at least temporarily, so I can create, at least for a little while, until I have to move it all out of my family's way. UGH. It's all just so draining, and exhausting, I find myself not wanting to bother. Frustration wins again. But only temporarily.

I finally took a small 3-drawer storage cart I have, a ceramic tile, and I started sculpting a Super Sculpey Yorkshire Terrier, right there on the top of that cart. Less than ideal, but better than nothing. The need to create won out over the frustration of trying to do so.

But I see that I'm going to HAVE to set up a work space soon, and the only available space in this house is a finished part of the basement. UGH. Basements have such a dungeon-like feel. It is a walk-out basement, which helps some. But who really wants to be shut away in the bowels of the house? Okay, getting melodramatic there, but I'm sure you can catch my drift when it comes to my feelings about basements. :oP

This isn't the Yorkie I mentioned here, but just thought I'd put it up since I don't have a pic of the new one yet. ;o)

New home, new camera, new loves :o)

Got my new digital camera yesterday and I'm excited to get going finally on the tutorials I've been wanting to do forever! This new camera can also record up to an hour of video in HD, so that will be something fun to play with.

In the meantime, here is the little orphan kitten we've adopted. When we moved into this house, there was a mama cat with four adorable kittens camped out at this old building next door that had been converted into a 5 unit apartment building. They soon came over to charm us. We felt sorry for them and started feeding the 5 of them. After a week, we went outside to give them some food and all of a sudden a new and very vocal little guy came running up the stairs to join them. We had never seen this little one before and it was clear he was not one of mama cat's kittens. He was obviously a few weeks younger, and she despised him on sight! He couldn't have cared less and pushed right up to the dish to eat. Mama cat had no choice, but to tolerate him. LOL

He has a little stump of a tail that clearly wasn't that way at birth. :o( Lord knows what happened to him, but it's healed just fine. For a few weeks we were sure he was a HE, then when we decided he was the one who needed us most, and we would adopt him, we started thinking he must be a she because we couldn't see any little what-nots proving he was a boy. LOL We named "her" Mischa. But once we took "her" to the vet, the vet confirmed our first impressions had been correct and it was a little boy!!! So now Mischa is Mischa Man til we figure out his new name!

The mama cat had been brought here by a woman who lives two doors down, but she'd never done anything to take care of her once she brought her here. :oP We found out from her sister, our neighbor across the street, that this was the 3rd litter she'd allowed mama cat to have. :o( She finally called animal control and they came and caught two of the kittens, mama ran off, and two little guys remain. Animal control never came back for them, so we've been feeding them ever since.

So here are the boys - the grey tabby is our little guy, the grey and white my daughter named Jade, and the black she named Jasper. ;o) Very hard to get clear pics of these guys! They're in perpetual motion! Our little man though the smallest of the three is also the most fearless. He's a real pistol. :o) The vet believes he's 3 1/2 mos., so I'm guessing his adopted bros are 4 mos. or so.



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Time to get back to sculpting! :o)

Edited to add: Mischa Man has become Milo. :o)

Getting Settled At Last

Well it's been so long that I'm sure I've lost everyone who used to come visit my blog. It's taken us so much longer to get settled here in MO than I would have ever expected. We left Vegas May 9, and it took us TWO MONTHS to find a house to rent. We want to rent till we figure out where we want to buy. We're limited because my husband cannot live outside a 15 mile radius from where he works. He will be the troubleshooter for the power/gas company here. He's been a journeyman lineman for nearly 30 years, but is now undergoing training to handle the gas side of the business as well. We thought we would rent for a year while we look for a property to buy. My husband wants lots of acreage. ;o)

Well little did we know when we moved here, how hard it would be to find a nice rental home! We were used to Vegas, where it's incredibly easy to find a brand new house to rent. Here, so many of the houses are older - from 50 to 100+ years old. Many of them don't even have garages, unless they were added on later, or are freestanding buildings. There are new homes too, but the majority are older. Most of the rental homes here are in pretty rough shape, unfortunately. Owners of lovely homes don't want to rent them because so many renters just tear them up, sad to say.

We finally found a good one though. It doesn't have a garage - just a carport. But it does have a partially finished large basement, so lots of storage down there.

Unfortunately, when we unpacked our beloved Mac computer, we found out it didn't handle being in a storage unit that wasn't climate-controlled for two months very well. I'm hoping we can fix whatever's wrong and have it back very soon. In the meantime, we bought a refurbished PC and finally got back on the internet. WHEW!!!

I hope to start posting on a regular basis again and get back to creating with clay and finally getting my dog sculpting tutorials done. Hope to draw my former readers back!

Here's a pic of the beautiful courthouse in the town square of our new home town, Versailles, Missouri. We live just down the street from it. We're in the Lake of the Ozarks area. Lovely rural area. I love that part of it. What's been hard for me is the lack of conveniences. It's a small town, population just above 2500. We have Wal-Mart. That's about it for shopping. Thankfully it's a supercenter so we get our groceries there too. If I want to go to a Barnes and Noble, or a Kohls, or the craft store, or any of the other stores I miss from Vegas, I have to go about an hour away to the state capital, Jefferson City. There are a few nice little gift shops in the town square but we're really lacking for shopping and restaurants.



I'm shopping for a new digital camera. My current one is just outdated. I can't wait to take pics around here. There are so many gorgeous homes here - old Victorians that have been beautifully maintained, etc. Not to mention the abundance of nature. And the little orphan kitten we just adopted!

Looking forward to rebuilding my following!

IN LIMBO LAND

Well, this blog has been totally neglected for the past few months while we've been on pins and needles waiting to see where we're moving to. :oP We thought we would be heading to the Austin, TX area, but now an even better opportunity has presented itself, and it looks like we'll be heading to a small town near Lake of the Ozarks, MO. My husband is a journeyman lineman, who worked as a troubleshooter for the power company here in Vegas for 14 yrs. He's the guy that determines why outages happen, and what is needed to get the power back on. ;o) This job would be a similar one, working for Ameren, the utility company that handles electrical service for MO and IL. This was the opportunity we were hoping for, so we just have to wait now till it all falls in to place!

It may be another few weeks, but then I'll be back to posting on a regular basis, and will try to make this blog worth reading! Hope you'll check back later next month. Take care everybody. :o)

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

Today's Quote:

"All of us can take steps - no matter how small and insignificant at the start -
in the direction we want to go."
~ Marsha Sinetar

Still taking steps myself - to finish the Yorkie tutorial, which is almost done, and to work on the website. I also have some jewelry ideas I'm anxious to get to, once I get a couple more orders finished. There's never a drought of ideas and projects keeping me busy!

One thing that may slow me down a bit on the things I want to do is that it looks like I will be moving in 2-3 months. I am very ready to leave Las Vegas. Seventeen and a half years here is more than enough! I've had lots of fun living here, and gotten to meet some wonderful people. Sooner or later everybody seems to end up coming here to visit, so that's given me an opportunity to meet people in person that I never would have met otherwise. But I am very ready for a change. What I'm not so ready to do is pack! Fortunately, we left a lot of things in boxes in the garage when we moved in. So it definitely won't be as daunting as the last move was, after being in our house for 16 years!

About a year and a half ago, we sold our home. We were lucky to have quite a bit of equity in it, so we walked away with a very nice chunk of money. We fared much better than a lot of people have in Vegas' awful housing market. We chose to rent this house rather than purchase another one. We knew we didn't want to stay here much longer, and also knew we did not want to be buying another house here as bad as the housing market currently is. So we moved into this house brand new. We're the only ones who have ever lived in it, and it's a really lovely house. Unfortunately, the owner has been badly affected by the downturn in the housing market and the house looks like it's probably going to be foreclosed on. It's a case of a young man trying to expand his investments to fast too soon, and buying a house in the wrong city. For a long time, the market was hot here. Not anymore. Everywhere we look there are brand new homes sitting empty. The only good thing is that after our initial lease, we chose to rent month to month. So we can give 30 days notice and leave when we like.

So things will be a bit up in the air for me again for a while. I'm ready for the change though! :o)

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

I'm going to try to get back to my old posting schedule, now that things are simmering down a bit. I've got all my holiday orders completed, and can relax and enjoy the holiday decorating, baking, etc.

I haven't given up on trying to do the tutorial either. I just have decided I want to do a video tutorial on a DVD, so it's taking me a little while to figure it all out - especially since my video camera is just about as old as my daughter! (17) My digital camera will take video, but only for about 5-7 minutes at a time. LOL Would take quite a while to piece together a video tutorial that way!

Here's a bloodhound that I did for a very nice lady recently:

THE MARIE ATOINETTE AWARD

I want to thank Cathy of Cathy's Creations for the Marie Atoinette Award she gave me. She actually gave it to me weeks ago, when I was lost in novel-writing bliss. LOL So I didn't get the chance to post it, or thank her, til now.

According to the rules, I'm supposed to pass this award on to 7 other bloggers I admire. I would be happy to do this, but in my experience, as well as that of many of my blogging friends, very few people seem to even read their comments, let alone respond to them! So they never even see that they've been tagged! So I'm not going to tag anyone this time around, but I do thank Cathy for the lovely award. I'm honored, and she is definitely a lady I admire. :o)

Things are finally slowing down a bit, I'm caught up on orders, etc., so I can finally start decorating and actually ENJOYING the holiday. Every year, Christmas sneaks up on me so fast, because I'm so busy selling on ebay, filling orders, and so on, right up to the last minute, that I almost miss the sheer enjoyment of the season. This year, I intend to relax and enjoy the holiday!

Here's one of the last minute figurines I did for ebay:



Hope everyone else is enjoying the season as well. :o)

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

Last week I showed the beginnings of a Halloween jar I was working on. Well here's the finished jar. It turned out much differently than how I had originally envisioned it but I'm quite pleased with it all the same:


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MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.
-----Napoleon Hill

The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams.
-----Eleanor Roosevelt

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in.
-----Erma Bombeck

I'm proud to be a dreamer. How about you? :o)

And just for fun, here's the cutest video I've seen in a long time. Perhaps these little pups had pleasant dreams after being sung to sleep with this sweet lullaby. My mom and I bred and showed Boxers for over 10 years before she passed away, so this video really brings happy memories to mind for me. Hope you enjoy it! Dream BIG dreams! :o)

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

Sometimes I get these great ideas, and I'm all excited to create them - until I sit down to actually DO it and remember that what I planned to do presents a bunch of challenges! For example, I purchased these really cute and inexpensive pumpkin-shaped treat jars from Wal-Mart with the intention of covering them with clay, and then creating bas relief Halloween scenes around the center of the jar. It's been a while since I took on one of these projects, so of course while all caught up with thinking about the darling designs I wanted to sculpt on these jars, I completely forgot what a royal PAIN it is to cover curved surfaces like this! Especially when the piece is narrower in some places then others. UGH.

I contemplated taking them back, but I really wanted to use them. I just didn't want to spend hours working on them driving myself over the edge into insanity (a short drive I admit) while doing so. So I altered my plans a bit. Instead of covering the entire center of the jar with one continuous piece of clay, or having to seam several pieces together to create the background for the scenes I wanted to create, I decided I would do little vignettes instead. I have a large square cookie cutter with a decorative edge and I decided I would do 4 squares with little scenes in them instead. I did however cover the entire lid of the pumpkin with orange clay. I have to say that after trying a brand of clay that shall remain nameless to cover that lid and having nothing but problems with air bubbles, stickiness, etc. I decided to try Studio by Sculpey clay. I had a bunch of it on hand that Polyform Products had graciously sent me to try. It worked FANTASTICALLY! It was a dream to roll out, no air bubbles, and the seams blended smoothly. I know this stuff is controversial in the clay community for reasons I won't go into here, but I have to say it was wonderful to work with for covering the glass jars. This clay has an interesting feel to it, almost powdery. It's hard to describe. It's soft right out of the package but not overly so. It bakes to what the company calls a suede-like finish. It doesn't really feel like suede but it does feel different from other polymer clays when baked. It was a pleasure to work with. :o)

This shows one of the jars in progress:


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WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

What's on my worktable today? Some custom orders and some adorable glass pumpkin jars I am covering with clay:

But what's on my list of things to do is growing longer by the day. Being a self-employed artist, we do it all - creating the art, photographing it, editing the photos, uploading the photos, writing up the ads, listing items for sale, wrapping, packing, shipping, billing, bookeeping, customer service, creating the website, promoting the art, and on and on it goes. I love what I do but it does get a bit daunting at times when you add on the responsibilities of being a mom, running a household, etc. I get tired just thinking about it all!

I've been enjoying working on the Halloween items. It's one of my favorite holidays to design for. Here's a cute little candy jar project I did for a magazine a couple years ago:

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

The Law of Attraction has gotten much attention in the past couple of years. But the idea behind it is much older than that and wasn't always referred to by that name. Basically it is the power of our thoughts to create our lives, and the underlying principle can be summed up as "What you focus on expands." Another side of that is, "What you resist persists."

What you focus on, you get more of, but also what you resist you get more of as well. The reason is because the focus when you're resisting something is still on that something, so you draw more of it to you. For example, I had an ongoing problem with noisy neighbors. They carried on til all hours of the night outdoors, making it very difficult for anyone in my household to sleep, and repeated attempts at asking them to cease and desist on this behavior got us nowhere. They would apologize and agree to keep things down, but in reality would not change their behavior in any way. It got to the point that the only way we could get the behavior to stop temporarily was to call the police. So of course, all of this was very aggravating, and you can imagine that it was uppermost in my mind day after day. But the more I fussed over it all, the worse the problem became. It did not stop til I could take my focus off the problem, and focus only on what I wanted, which was peace and quiet.

That is the key. Take your mind off what you do not want, and do your best to keep it on what you do want. You will not attract money if you are focused on the lack of it. You will not attract success when you are focused on the lack of it, etc. All things have two sides. If you don't want a particular thing it's because you DO want its opposite. Focus on that.

It's not only a matter of what you think about, however. It really comes down to how you feel. You can think you are focused positively, but inside you are still feeling a great deal of negative emotion. It is the feeling that attracts, more so than the thought. You need to try to focus on the feeling that the desired outcome will bring to you. How will you feel when you have peace and quiet in your home instead of noisy rude neighbors? How will you feel when more money is flowing into your bank account than out? Focus on that feeling, and take your thoughts and feelings off the opposite aspect entirely. That is Law of Attraction in a nutshell and that is what will bring you the desires of your heart.

FRIDAY FIVE

FIVE SITES FOR SCULPTING INFO

1. Figurines-Sculpture
The website of Peter Holland, master sculptor for Royal Doulton, Royal Worcester, Coalport, Wedgewood, etc. Peter Holland is an amazingly gifted sculptor who shares sculpting tips on his website. I was thrilled when Mr. Holland left a lovely comment on my blog recently. Kind as well as incredibly talented!

2. Elvenwork Tips and Techniques
Katherine Dewey is well known in the polymer clay world. She has written a couple of books on sculpting with polymer clay and also provides tips on her website.

3. Polymer Clay Sculpting Tips and Tutorials
This Squidoo lens contains sculpting information along with links to many other sites with sculpting tips as well.

4. Dog Portrait Sculpture
This artist gives tips and techniques for sculpting a bust of a Pit Bull.

5. Learn to Sculpt a Corgi Dog
Artist Aleah Klay shows the steps involved in creating a Corgi dog in polymer clay.

All great sites! Hope you will enjoy them! Have a great weekend!

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

On my worktable today are more miniature dog sculptures in little Halloween scenes. I am having a lot of fun with these. They are only 2" tall and about 3" in length. I just love tiny things and I see a lot of people share that feeling.

I'm still debating on the tutorial I had been working on. I don't really care for the pdf format. Would much rather do a video tutorial but not sure how to go about it just yet, so that project has been on the back burner lately.

In sculpting though it's really just a matter of forming basic shapes and then blending them together. It's the refining, and the details added that make the difference in taking those basic shapes and transforming them into something special. It's adding clay to a piece or taking it away, and refining it til it looks the way you want it to. At least that's what works for me. I have seen in a book where someone tried to say they developed this method of sculpting with clay, to the great amusement of myself and many other clay artists, because it's the method we've all been using since we began sculpting with clay! The refining and the details just become better with experience.

So what begins as a little lump of clay has other bits of molded clay added to it, and those pieces are blended together, and the whole piece is refined and detail is added until we have the finished piece.

Starts out pretty rough, doesn't it? Hard to believe that blob is going to turn into anything recognizable, but it will. :o)






Still a bit more refining and detail needed, and a tail as well, but the little Bichon Frise has come a long way from its humble beginnings no?

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

A couple weeks ago, I told the story of a wish I had had as a teen to hold and play with tiger cubs, and how some years later, through no action on my own part, other than going with the flow of my life, that wish was fulfilled. Today, I want to tell of another similar happening in my life which further illustrates the point that it isn't always about the action taken on our own part, but more about trust and belief.

From age 10 I lived in NJ about 20 min. from the beach. As a teen I dreamed of one day living near the beach. My ideal was to live in one of the apartments in Sea Bright that were across the road from the beach. Now there were large stone walls all along the road in this area to hold back the ocean when the Jersey shore was hit by hurricanes or severe storms, so unless you had an apartment on one of the upper floors, you weren't going to have much of a view of the ocean. Most of the apartments also did not even have beach access. Nonetheless, this is where I desperately wished to live. These apartments were very definitely out of my price range at the time. Again, I didn't let this bother me. Just as with the tiger cubs, I just dreamed and believed that one day I would live near the beach.

A few years later, as a 22 yr. old married woman I found myself living in base housing in Patrick AFB in Cocoa Beach, Florida RIGHT ON THE BEACH! Base housing on the BEACH! I couldn't believe it! All I had to do was go out my back door, a short walk up the dunes and there was the ocean! It was like the beach was my backyard! I could hear the waves in my bed at night. I got to go out my back door and watch the launching of several Space Shuttles from nearby Cape Canaveral. MUCH better than those apartments in Sea Bright, NJ! A funny sidenote on this story, is that as a kid watching "I Dream of Jeanne" I always thought it would be cool to live in Cocoa Beach as Major Nelson did. LOL Who knew that would become a reality for me when I grew up!

Again, what did I do to make this dream come true? Absolutely nothing. Just dreamed, with no resistance to the idea that someday, some way, I would live near the beach. Well I not only lived near it, I lived on it! So again, God/the Creator of the Universe gave me much better than I had even dreamed.

My point in all of this is that yes, we do need to work towards our dreams and goals, but sometimes what we need most is to have faith, trusting belief that anything we want can be our's. Sometimes we fuss and fight and strive so hard - and get absolutely nowhere. When if we would do our best to remove the doubts, and the need to MAKE the things we want happen exactly when we want them to, in precisely the way we want them to, etc. and just go with the flow, they can come to us in ways we would never have imagined, and end up being even better than we could have dreamed. The Creator of the Universe delights in giving us the desires of our hearts. We're very often the only thing that stands in the way.


Cocoa Beach, Florida

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

Today's Quote:

Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon... must inevitably come to pass!
---Paul J. Meyer

I like this quote, and I do believe it to be true. It is the vivid imagining of a goal, dream, wish, combined with ardent desire, and sincere belief, enthusiastically acted upon that does seem to bring success in most cases.

Yet there have been times when something I dearly wished for came to me through no deliberate action on my part. I think sometimes it's easier to have a wish come true when we're just going with the flow, believing, but not trying to MAKE things happen.

When I was a child my mother told me a story about how, as a teen living in Manhattan, NY, she had taken care of a pair of lion cubs. I thought that was the coolest thing ever! But I had more of a thing for tigers, so I wished that some day I could play with tiger cubs. It was just something I thought about from time to time over the years, something I knew I would really enjoy, but it wasn't anything I actively pursued. When the thought would pop into my mind, I would think maybe someday, and then go on about living my life, without giving it any further thought. Whenever I did think about holding and playing with little tiger cubs, I would feel excitement and joy at the idea, but I never once thought about HOW I could MAKE this happen.

Years later, I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico and working as the office manager for a small veterinary clinic. One day I stayed home because I was sick, and when I went to work the next day, my fellow employees very excitedly told me that two tiger cubs had been brought in the day before! I was so upset! Tiger cubs??? At our little clinic? We were just a small low-cost clinic that only treated dogs, cats, and ferrets, and primarily did low cost spays and neuters, shots, etc. We did not handle anything exotic, nor did we treat emergencies. What had happened was that this lady had called asking if we could treat a torn ear on one of the cubs. She had two 3 month old cubs, and one had been mauled by a 6 month old cub she also owned, and it's poor little ear had a gouge that needed stitches. Apparently she was licensed to own these animals and use them in commercials and print ads. We didn't treat tigers but of course my fellow employees weren't going to tell her that! So she had brought them in, the little ear had gotten stitched up and I had missed the whole thing! Well I devastated. But then one of my coworkers told me, don't worry, she's bringing them back Saturday and you can see them then! So my wish to hold and play with tiger cubs came true through absolutely no action on my part! Not only did my son Josh and I get to see them and play with them that Sat., but I got to see them several times over the next month while the lady lived and worked in Albq. Their names were Samson and Goliath and at 3 mos. old they already weighed around 45-50 lbs.! They made the cutest sounds that I can only describe as huffing. They were very strong and very playful! Just the most beautiful, incredible creatures and I will never forget the thrill of getting to hold them and play with them numerous times over that month.


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I apologize for the crummy quality of the pics. All I owned at the time was a little instamatic camera. I'm just glad to have pics at all. How do you like that '80's hair? LOL I was also wearing a sweater that had a tiger and stripes on it. LOL I was really into tigers back then. ;o)

Anyway, my point is that this wish coming true, and another one that I will write about next week, are what led me to believe in the Law of Attraction, or the power of thought, or whatever you want to call it. It also showed me that God/the Universe (they're one and the same for me), always gives us even better than we originally wished for.

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

I just love creating items for the holiday seasons, though for some reason, I never seem to do much in spring for Easter! Don't really know why that is. I guess Halloween and Christmas just bring back such happy memories from my childhood. Easter wasn't as big a deal I guess, just going to church, and having the Easter basket. I have to get myself in bunny mode really quick here though because I have some due for a swap I'm in. I've been fortunate enough to be part of a wonderful swap group for quite a few years now. Some of the best creators of darling whimsical clay critters are in this group - several of whom have authored some of those adorable clay books by Hot off the Press and Design Originals, most of whom are well known on ebay for their wonderful creations. They are an awesomely talented, sweet, fun group of gals and I'm thrilled to be part of such a talented group!

So here's what's on my worktable at the moment. I'm working on an ornament featuring an Irish Setter I sculpted recently. On the tile I'm working on you can see my three absolute favorite tools. These are the tools that I cannot seem to work without. The purple one is a knitting needle that my husband cut in half and then ground the one end into kind of a rounded triangle to help me shape the clay. Then the flat half moon shaped one is a potter's rib. This tool has a myriad of uses such as getting under unbaked pieces and lifting them up without distortion, or popping baked pieces off the tile carefully, or cutting pieces of clay - much safer than a blade! Then the last tool is the needle tool which I use a lot for adding detail. I have a ton of tools but these are the three I usually use. I also like to use small cutters to help measure out pieces so they're uniform, and also use Kemper cutters for detail pieces like hearts or stars. I like to buy ornaments like the one here on the tile on clearance from the craft store. They make wonderful bases for clay ornaments and when they're on sale or clearance you can get them really cheap, like 20 cents each.



I use the little square cutter to make my "sort of" holly leaves. They obviously don't look exactly like holly leaves but they give enough of an impression of holly that it works. I use the little Kemper heart cutters or circle cutters, whatever's handy, to cut out small pieces that I will roll into holly berries. This makes it very easy to keep them all uniform in size. So the idea is to put the "holly leaves" all around the sides of the ornament with the dog in the center. Sort of like the English Springer ornament pictured. Not sure this is how this Irish Setter ornament is going to end up, but that's one of the things I've been playing around with today.


(click to enlarge)