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.


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MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

Today's quote:

"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”
-----Langston Hughes

Sometimes it's really hard to hold onto our dreams. Particularly those that seem the most impossible to achieve, or when we have no idea what steps to take to even begin to achieve them.

Were you one of those kids who was reprimanded for being a "dreamer" or told to "get your head out of the clouds and come back to earth"? I was. Obviously, I didn't listen! I can't imagine life without having dreams and goals and yet, there are times I find it very difficult to hold onto them. There are so many things that seem determined to rip them from our hands. The mundane everyday chores that have to be done, the bills that have to be paid, the family's needs that must be met. It is so easy to get so bogged down in "what is" that we lose sight of our dreams. Sometimes they seem so very out of reach.

But life is empty without them. I know people who are content to just go through life with their only focus on getting through the work week and getting that paycheck, whose only goals in life seem to be in buying the latest toys and keeping up with the Joneses, or sitting in the lazy boy in front of the TV once the work week is through. They have no ambition beyond that. Maybe they're happy that way, and that's enough for them. But I'm glad I'm not, no matter how frustrating holding on to my dreams sometimes is.

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

As I mentioned last week, I've been doing some refurbishing of some pieces lately. So that's what I'm still doing today, but I thought it might be fun to actually show you in a short video. My friend Michele and I have been talking lately about how great it would be to be able to offer tutorials in video format, rather than in pdf or something like that. How much better if we could actually show, step by step, how we create a piece? So knowing my digital camera also has video capabilities I decided to play around a bit today and I came up with this dorky little video showing how I go about refurbishing a pin.



I attach all the elements of my pieces very well, so they're not going to break during normal wear and tear, but as I say in the video, I have just learned over time how to carefully and gently pry pieces off and I can usually do so without damaging the original piece. I then use a little bit of liquid clay to attach the new elements I want to add and I have a new, and very sturdy piece.

Hope you enjoy the little video. I'm hoping to be able to do more in the future. Unfortunately my digital camera does not have a ton of space on the memory card so I can only do short little videos using it. My camcorder is as old as my youngest child which is now 16 1/2 yrs. old. So I'm not too sure about using it either. But doing videos is something I definitely want to play around with some more. :o)

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

Today's quote:

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.

---William Arthur Ward

I know this to be true. I had a desire to learn to sculpt. I had no idea where to even begin. I was definitely no prodigy, LOL. I remember when I was a kid and my mom would take my brothers and me to the local mall, they always wanted to check out the toy store. I wanted to spend hours in the collectibles shop. I was fascinated by the variety of figurines there. I knew, somehow, that was what I wanted to do. In a way I felt it was what I was meant to do.

It wasn't until some years later I actually began to try, and though I met with some early success, I can't say it came all that naturally. I took one very basic clay class, and the teacher did say I had natural talent, but I sure couldn't see it then! I went through tons of frustration, put the clay down and walked away many, many times, but I always had to go back. The desire to create, to sculpt, was much stronger than the frustration at not being able to do so the way I wanted to yet.

But all along I imagined myself to be an artist. I dreamt of being an artist. I held a vision of myself being an artist who sculpts with clay. In time, my reality matched my dreams.

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

One of the things I love so much about polymer clay is it's adaptability. Even after a piece has been cured in the oven, you can make some changes to it. You can add more clay to a piece and bake it again, or put the piece on a background, etc.

So one thing I have learned to do over the years is to reconstruct pieces that either did not sell or did not turn out the way I had originally intended. This quality really endears this material to artists who are not independently wealthy! All is not lost if a piece was not successful in its first form! I have taken pins and turned them into pendants, ornaments, placques, etc. that have then sold successfully. Or taken a pin and added a little something to it, and then it sold, etc.

For example, I did some pins like this Westie, just sweet and simple with a little ladybug on their noses in a variety of breeds:



But I guess they were a bit too simple and plain because only a few of them sold. So I decided to take the ones that didn't and refurbish them a bit. And this is what I came up with:



These sold very well. Some things of course you can't change once they've been cured, but as long as you are happy with the overall piece you can learn to make simple changes and renovate a piece into something that will sell better, or that you're happier with. On this Westie it was just little changes in detail because I was very happy with how the Westie itself had turned out.

So that's what I'm working on this week. Taking some simple pins I did and turning them into pendants and ornaments. I'll have pics of those next week. :o)

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

--------William Hutchinson Murray

This quote means a great deal to me because I've experienced what it speaks of, more than once. Years ago, when I decided I would like to do a clay project book I had absolutely no idea how to go about it. All I had was the desire and a fairly good belief in my ability to do it. When I made up my mind to pursue the possibility of doing a project book, I am still amazed at the series of events that occurred to make it happen.

I just "happened" to notice another clay artist in my area on a clay-related forum, then met her in person, then she just "happened" to be going to a big crafts industry trade show that was just weeks away, and invited me to go with her. While there I met Suzanne McNeill of Design Originals, showed her photos of my work, and she offered me a book contract. I know it sounds all too easy, but really, everything just fell in line like dominoes, one after the other, once I made the commitment inside myself to do a book. Next thing I knew, I had done a clay project book for Design Originals.

It is true that once we begin, once we take those first steps, Providence/God/the Universe, whatever you choose to call it, steps in and paves the way for us, opening doors we didn't even know were there, forging paths where we couldn't see a path before, etc.

So whatever you think you can do, or dream of doing, take those first steps today and watch how, if you trust and believe, the path will be made clear for you, one step at a time.

Belief is the key though. Trusting faith. I noticed that in this case, for me at least, ignorance really was bliss. When I started out, I didn't know what was possible or what wasn't, so I just had blind faith that I could SOMEHOW do what I wanted to do. Sometimes the case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing is proven true as well, because the more we know or think we know about HOW to do something, sometimes the less possible it seems. So just begin and trust that the rest of the steps will be made clear to you as you go along.