Creating like Crazy for my New Online Shop, the "Artful Crab"

I love a good challenge. My goal: 2 Valentine's Day themed paintings, 3 heart-beaded necklaces and 15 fused glass pendants and earrings by February 2nd. I'm hoping to debut them in my new online store, the "Artful Crab" late next week!  In the meantime, I've been cutting glass like crazy, hoping to get some beautiful pieces from the firing. 


The store idea has been churning in my head for quite some time now.  At first, I was thinking Etsy would be a good place to start putting my things, but then I began to dream what it would be like to be in total control of my artwork and the way it was presented.  My husband is helping me put together a website, and we've chosen the webhost and the template, and now we just have to get our content in it!  I suspect this weekend will include taking a lot of photos of my artwork for the site.

This is the fused glass fresh out of the kiln, after slowing cooking for 9 hours.

I'm also craving to do a little beading lately, so we'll see what I can fit into the time I have.  I've got some great heart-shaped pendants just screaming to come alive with some cute beads framing it.  


It's exciting and scary, starting my own shop, but I've got to dive in sometime!  Stay tuned for our debut day!

Wine Bottle Flattens for Second Life With Cheese

My husband and I woke up this morning REALLY excited, and no, not just the sexy kind of excited....

The day before, we put 2 empty wine bottles in the kiln to fuse flat.  It took the WHOLE day to heat these to get the results we were looking for.  Several different ramps of heating went from 10 am to 8pm, and finally we turned off the kiln to cool off before we slept.  This morning we hurried to the kiln to see the results and were thrilled to see it worked!  We have the power to flatten a wine bottle!  Of the two we put in, the clear bottle (a fine cabernet) had a bit of opaque texture going on, but the green bottle of "Two Buck Chuck" worked perfectly.  Here are the before and after results of the two.

I've given the green bottle a little beautifying with some chain and glass beads.

Here's the clear bottle.  Not quite good enough to use.

Here's the green bottle, fresh from the kiln.

Happy New Year! Reflecting on a Year of Blogging

Happy New Year!  Looking back, 2011 was an interesting year for me creatively.  I rung in the year on a low note, believing that despite teaching art, I seldom allowed myself time to create art for pleasure.  That is how this blog came about.  At the beginning of the year, I decided to challenge myself to see if I could create more, take more art courses,  paint more, bead more and generally make art a greater part of my life.  The blogging itself was another way to challenge myself creatively.

After 48 posts in 2011, it looks like I succeeded!  I've painted, zentangled, beaded, fused, manipulated glass with fire, created sculpture, stamped, hot glued, monoprinted and crafted my way through the year.  I think that having the blog was a definite impetus to get off my butt and do something; to reach out and stretch my imagination a little more.

Many thanks to the 1780+ readers who read my posts this year, from 9 different countries: Canada, Alaska, across Europe, Malaysia and Japan.  Whether you've "facebooked" me, got me on an RSS feed or found the blog on a search engine, you've really spurred me on!

The scariest thing I did in 2011: Made a glass paper weight by manipulating a flaming, red ball of hot glass on a stick!
The biggest surprise in 2011: Realizing I had the patience to sit long enough to do detail-oriented zentangling.
My favorite art of 2011: My little 4X4 paintings for the holiday boutique; I did one a day for two weeks.
Wierdest thing I tried in 2011: It's a tie between nailing chicken wire on one of my paintings and making earrings from cut-up plastic gift and credit cards.
Most visited post: doodling of rocks with Sharpey markers!

Please join me in making 2012 a wonderful year artistically, hoping all of us will stretch our creative horizons more than ever before.  Happy New Year, and much love to you all.

Kath.

Checking out my first works in my new Christmas present -- a ceramics/glass kiln.