Target Practice

Okay, call me a redneck dorkfish, but I love my guns.  I shoot a Rossi .38 Special, a Taurus 709 "Slim" .9mm, a Taurus PT92 .9mm, a teeny little Taurus .22, and a Browning marksman .22 for really accurate long range fun.  The hubs has a couple of Glock .9mms, a Ruger .45, and a really cool old Taurus .357 magnum revolver that we shoot .38's out of.  Accurate as hell.

We had a short series of private lessons last year.  At the end of the lesson, our show-boat instructor (a bear of a guy) put a bowling pin up and challenged us to his traditional "end of the lesson" shoot. We went back 65 yards, and he said to me, "Don't expect to be real accurate with that little gun.  Just ain't got what it takes."  He then used Phil's glock, and shot the bowling pin off the piling on the second try.  I got my little Taurus Slim, got into a firing position that he criticized, and then shot the pin off on the FIRST try.  At 65 yards.  Priceless.

Taurus 709 "Slim"

The concentration required for target practice is as consuming as finding a creative "zone" and we come home worn out and mellow.  And poorer by several boxes of ammunition!  Then we spend an hour cleaning everything.  Good times.  Not for everybody, maybe, but that's part of what makes he and I such good friends, despite the fact that we're so different from one another in so many other way.  So...target practice today with my husband.  Followed by a lazy afternoon of reading in a quiet house.

Hope your New Year is full things you love to do.

Lessons from a busy year...

Today's "work" involves waiting.  For
contractor bids
insurance quotes,
an appraisal report,
title search,
a survey.

I do all the realty since the Hubs holds down the W-2 job.  Six months ago I didn't even know what was in our joint bank accounts! Learning is what this year has been about for me.  I have learned...

about doll making,
art fairs,
taking care of my health,
real estate and finance,
vegetable gardening (or growing lush weed crops).

Seems like I spent the year trying to drink water from a fire hose. My dreams for the coming year are about learning to

a.  put my Virgo nature to work & handle paperwork on time.
b.  make time to move--aerobically or anaerobically--daily.
c.  announce my job: homemaker, investor, and artist.  No more, "Aw, no.  I don't work."
d. count my blessings every day.

One lovely French Lady I know from ADO commented yesterday that when she sees 2011, she keeps reading it as dO11.  How cool is that?  Maybe this is the year I find my voice with doll making.  If we're going to dream, let's dream big.

What are your dreams for this year?

Painting boxes.

I have several papermache boxes, collected over the last year, and lately I've had this urge to turn them into something.  Two so far are destined to be sewing notion boxes, w/ little pin keeps on top and a tiny doll.  The other two I've worked up in coordinating colors--aqua, dark tan, and cream...thinking of some kind of "doll" by stacking them.

My house is not geared toward the "shabby chic" decorating style--the hubs doesn't put his foot down on anything house-wise, but he nurtures the quiet hope that I will continue to keep it mostly gender-neutral.  ;~)  Nevertheless, I absolutely melt in the presence of old cabbage roses, pink ribbon, and rustic white paint.  So I think I'll make the notion-boxes doll to fill that particular craving.  Maybe someone else will be able to enjoy the results.

Hope your Wodin's Day is creative, interesting and full of love given and received.

Hold Me Closer Tiny Dancer...

I keep hearing that Elton John song, for some reason.  :~)

This Leah.  She came about because a friend of mine from Florida saw the last doll and challenged me to make a "ragged heart girl".  I told her I just might make several, but here is the first one.  I spent the weekend making her, and finished this morning.  Not all of my job is fun...some of the housework and administrivia is tedious.  But THIS part of my job?  Wouldn't trade it for all the 401Ks on Wall Street.

(Click = zoom.)

Coming up for Spring...

Dreaming Bunny Pin Keep

I've got to take some new photos before I list this one...the background should be a rich olive green, and the trim around the top of the box is peach...colors in these photos are weird, and I don't know enough to fix them!  As bad as the colors are, you can still zoom in by clicking the picture.

 

The watering can/pin-cushion is so strongly attached to the lid that the handle works as...well, a handle.  :~)  The doll head & body is about the size of my thumb, maybe smaller.  Nothing says Spring like a pregnant bunny, right? 

I'd love some feedback: is this too flowery/feminine/old fashioned/etc?  I have a thing about containers...and figured it'd be fun to combine a doll w/ a sewing box but not in the way I've seen it done.

Still waiting...

I realize that this is the week when lots of people forget where they work, and to expect administrivia to be accomplished is...silly.  But when They say the deal must close on a certain date, and then THEY drag their feet with the return of signed contracts so WE can't attend to our end of things, it's hard to take.  New Year's Resolution: never buy another property from Wells Fargo again.  It's not worth the insult and frustration.

And now we return you to your regularly scheduled program.

One World One Heart 2011

Okay, I FINALLY understand what this thing is about, and have signed up to participate.  (Not so difficult, I'm just new to the give-away thing.)  A little blog-surfing on each of seventeen days, a lot of new friends, and some fascinating arts and artists to explore.

The gist of it is that we bloggers sign up for OWOH, visit each others blogs, and--by leaving comments after we've "looked around a bit"--become eligible for each others' giveaway.  I like that she's made it simple and tried to cut out the push-your-own-agenda conditions that so many people apply to their giveaways--none of the "follow me" or "tweet my blog" stuff.  You leave a comment/blog/contact info, I add you to the drawing.  Simple as that.

I've never done a giveaway, and it seems I'm about to start with a whopper!  Also it seems I'm going to be in on the last year of this one...and that's both sad and auspicious as a beginning/ending.  Nevertheless, I'm working on the piece I want to have as my Door Prize...and since who knows who might end up with it, the only thing I know to do is make something I'd enjoy winning.  Yeah, I know...like Dennis the Menace giving Mom a toy firetruck for her birthday, but what else do I give an unknown recipient?

I'm stoked about meeting all those new friends and artists.  And, yes, I'm stoked about my own door prize surprise.   

If you blog (actively and regularly) and want to join in the fun, click on the picture in the sidebar--The Whimsical Bohemian will explain all the whys & wherefores to it. It's not all that hard to understand, but I let the husband have the brain cell for the entire month of December. 

One World, One Heart.  What could be better than that?

I finished Jack!

The most recent ADO challenge was Jack Frost.  Of course, I take things very literally, so I had to see just how Jack Frost I could make him.  He ended up being more of a Jack Sparrow meets Mad Hatter version, but I like him.  I had never done a batting-wrapped wire frame for a doll, so the learning curve was steeper than with the gourd dolls, but every little bit of learning counts, right?  I also learned that if you're making clothes for a static-frame doll, you better leave some seams open so you can sew them once they're ON the doll.  Let's hear it for the ol' learning curve.  :~)  He's listed on Etsy now...and will be on Artfire soon.

Anyway, here he his.  I hope you like him.

 

Your Suggestions are WELCOME!

I post every Friday on the Art Dolls Only Blog, a feature called Tips and Tricks Friday.  Today's tip seemed to apply not just to art doll makers, but to anyone--writers, artists, performers, anyone who depends on creativity to make their work...well, work.  Today's tip is about getting "unstuck" when you suffer a block in your creativity.  So I decided to re-post it here, and see what all my creative friends have to suggest...

Do you ever find yourself spending your creative time--your precious, jealously guarded, hard-earned studio hours--polishing the underside of the coffee table or re-alphabetizing your appliance warranty booklets?  I do, once in a while.

Paralyzed creativity.  What do you do to relieve this?  

When the problem is in my head--rather than my day-planner--my answer is to move.  Not like with a U-Haul to another zip code...I mean I have to get off my uncreative (and usually self-pitying) tookus and move.  It has to be the kind of movement that requires no concentration.  Just one foot in front of another.  Repeat.  Could be an exercise machine at the gym, but it's best to get outdoors, even if it's cold and windy.  My inner child whines a little if this is the case, but after a block or two I warm up.

The ideas don't come flooding in right away.  I don't stop and yell "EUREKA!" at the neighbor's dog, but somehow, in the course of a nice long walk, whatever's been clogging up the works gets unclogged.  I get home, and may go straight to the studio, or may plop down on the couch with a sketch book.  Either way, the blood's going in my brain, I don't feel guilty about a creativity-enhancing snack, and I've shifted my perspective without really knowing how.  I just know it works for me.

What do you do to get un-stuck?

Bent Whims Studio: Reflections from the Seat of an Old Tractor

I found this while I was adding blogs to our reading list.  It reads like the sum total of all the things my ancestors would tell me if they could.  And we are all the poor hound dog puppy at the end...

Bent Whims Studio: Reflections from the Seat of an Old Tractor

Good memories

This pic doesn't have anything to do with dolls, unless one counts my son and his wife as living dolls, and I do.  :~)  It was taken in 2003 (I think) and my son had just graduated Basic Training.  We were on a San Antonio  Riverwalk boat, and Josh and Montana were at the bow.  He proposed to her, and she said yes.  They are very sweet and still very much in love, and they are waaaaay too far away from me now, stationed in England.

I love you kids!

Spinning in Circles...

All those trendy signs that say

Um, yeah.  I am trying hard to remember this today because the real estate adventure we've been on has taken a sharp left turn.  Comps?  What comps?  We don' need no stinking comps!  Well, yeah we do, and if we don't find a way to get the appraisal we need, (in a world where Appraisers are underpaid and therefore refuse to be overworked) we'll lose out on the house we've invested so much time and money in already.

So, this is me, Keeping Calm and Carrying On.  More phone calls today, more paperwork, more research.  I'm not seeing much in the way of art dolls this week, but...it's all good.  Eventually, right?

Zodiac Notebooks on Artfire

He made these this summer and I'm just NOW listing them.  We took them to the Kerrville show and have sold the one for Capricorn, but the other eleven are still around.  I use mine (a custom jobbie with my Virgo symbol on it) whenever I go to a meeting, and on our trips to look at real estate...fits in a tote easily and the notebook is one of those "Fat Lil' Notebook" spirals you can get just about anywhere.

They make a great gift, especially for your favorite office-supply junkie...

I got my doll!

This is the first time I've participated in Zan Asha's Doll Swap... and it was fun.

I've posted pictures of Sonny the Studio Elf, the doll I made for my swap-partner, Kim.  Making him was mostly why this was so fun.  Making a doll specifically for someone is a blast, because the energy is directed and channeled somehow.

 

So Sonny went off to his new home with Kim, and this is the doll she made for me:

Hasn't he got great colors?  I named him Jim-Bob, because he looks like the sleepy-faced brother on the Waltons.  He now has a home on the Elf Shelf, and will remind me every year of this Doll Swap adventure.

A Reindeer for your favorite Science Weenie.

I had so much fun making this guy.  Bought the papermache deer at a thrift shop, did his eyes and nose with paperclay, and then covered him in a vintage--at least 1950's, maybe earlier--physics text.  As I went through the pieces of torn page, I kept running across little phrases that made me wonder...maybe physics and the mysterious flight of reindeer are not mutually exclusive?  Nice to think so, anyway.

Whadda ya think?

Got Birds?

I made these birds allllll summer.  Sitting on the couch with the hubs in the evening, I was either snipping and turning, stuffing, or sewing closed w/ a ribbon.  Now they're listed on Etsy in sets of three.  (Don't forget--a 10% discount with the coupon code 2010Yuletide.)

Calico Bird Ornaments

Two sales, one coupon code...

Has to do with a leaky memory, maybe.  Dunno.  But on our two stores, the Hermits' Garden on Artfire, and the JDConwell Etsy store, I put up a coupon for discounts until December 18.  The Hermits are offering free shipping on every item, and JDConwell (love the third person much?) is offering 10% on any item.  Mostly I was just playing around with coupon codes, having decided I should at least see what they're about.

Pretty fun, really...and easy.  Almost too easy.  Yeah, so why use the same code?  I just liked the code, actually, and it seemed to work.  SOooooo, to that end, if you use coupon code 2010Yuletide in either store, you'll save a little do-re-mi.  And that's always a good thing.

This little guy found a new home for the holidays, he and his birdy buddy.

The Spam Monster...

Every morning I have a routine...check the emails, check the store sites, check blogs, ADO, facebook, twitter, and then re-check emails.  We have several email accounts, each with a different purpose.  One thing I always have to check is the Spam Filter.  You know, to make sure I don't dump something that got snagged there by mistake.  In my head, it's like checking a sort of cyber-sewer filter, slimy and gross, with the stink of bottom-feeders.

The funny (no, not funny really) thing is, I always feel that simply OPENING the spam folder is enough to let some of them through.  Like they see me reading the subject lines of the emails...like I've made eye contact with the monster and it sees me looking.  Ick.

Now, I realize this is not the case.  Even I'm not technologically ignorant enough to think the emails can see me touching the filter to empty it.  But it still creeps me out.  Just sayin'.

Tomorrow's ADO blog...

I'm working up tomorrow's blog post for the new ADO blog feature, Tips and Tricks Friday.

Tomorrow's topic: glue.

It's hard to stay calm with the promise of that much glamor and excitement, I know, but please try. 

 

 (Edited to note: it turned out to be quite a lesson! Twenty doll artists weighed in on their favorites, how they use them.)