Wire wrap beads and paperclay

Must stop playing with wire..... Apparently it borders on addiction now.

I am now officially in love with paperclay. It doesn't deform when I use molds because it dries in them, in sands like wood and takes paint like plaster. In short, the perfect thing for tons of stuff. Ditto for UTEE, now that I have the proper melting pot, none of the wait or smell from resin. Love.

Steampunk necklace and Fairy Wings

Copper wire, natural paper and UTE melted with my new ranger melting pot.

Steam punk necklace

A hole in the head... or two.

The Toad got his ears pierced today. His dad and I have agreed to a tongue ring at christmas if these are taken care of well....

He's such a stud muffin.

Wire earrings and more charms

 Hammered copper wire earrings

And lots of charms....

Our little man is 15

*sigh* it goes by so quickly. :) My handsome minion of evil.

New jewelry charms

Face is resin casted in one of my molds, background is irridecent enamel

Skull picture embedded in resin

Tomatoes and Berries coming in

Finally outsmarted the critters... Not one lost tomato or berry so far. :)

Labyrinth Ball

http://www.labyrinthmasquerade.com/

It is count down to the ball this year. McHottness will be traveling so the Toad and I are going solo. We decided to go for a punk Alice in Wonderland theme with him as the hatter and myself as Alice. I've gotten his jacket and half of my costume picked out already. So excited!!!


The inspiration for my costume this year:

Random stuff

Got my mom moved in today. She loves the new house.

In any case, more soon. There is new legislation for CA, I will post more when it comes up.

Bottle Charms

Decided to use some of the cute little bottles I got at Hob Lob.

 Alice bottle charm

 Mini Terrarium charms

 Note in a bottle charm

 A steam punk necklace for my Toad.

 Haven't finished this one yet

Wire and bead charm.

Almost finished with the circus freak

I've been lagging. Now I need to make him a home. I'm debating a book like I did for the fairy and mermaid or maybe a shrine. We'll see. This little guy got set off to the side for a while and I forgot about him.

We did it!!!!

The loan for the new house funded today. My mom's situation has officially been resolved, we just need to move her to the new house. Not exactly how I wanted, but I'll take this and be good with it.

I want to say thank you to everyone who helped. Thank you doesn't cover it really, I spent the last year or so fighting this, and in the beginning often times I was discouraged, tired, angry, and just feeling like there was never going to be an end that wasn't bad. That all changed about 9 months ago, after months of following up every lead, every shot in the dark, calling, writing and emailing every office of every elected official or government agency I could, I started to see glimmers of light in the form of people who cared enough to step in and help. One person would segue to another lead, who knew someone in a group, who could tell me where to call about something else. This has been a winding and crazy road, and I couldn't have gotten to this point in it without all of the amazing support I received.

This was the combined effort of so many awesome people and I don't want to leave anyone out so I apologize if I do. It isn't intentional, I promise. ACCE, Change.org's economic justice team, Occupy San Diego/Los Angeles/Wall Street, Occupy our homes, The Urban league of San Diego, the OB Rag, American Banker, everyone who wrote a letter or made a call on behalf of my mom, every person who showed up at the protests on her behalf, and of course all of the many  (Over 41 thousand) supporters who came on board to put their name behind helping her. Love to you all.

http://www.change.org/petitions/first-mortgage-corporation-don-t-foreclose-on-a-disabled-schoolteacher

More photos of the event from Johnny at:
http://occupysdphotography.tumblr.com/post/14306323412/occupyourhomes-disabled-teacher-hosts-one-night

I'd also like to make mention that in both instances that we encountered Riverside county police, they were supportive, respectful and extremely polite. You don't see that enough, so I feel like it needs to be said. Every single officer I dealt with at both the occupy movement at my mom's as well as the petition drop off at the lender was a great example of how police should be. So, thank you Riverside County for putting out officers who represent you in the manner that they do. They were situations that could have gone either way, and the behavior of the officers kept them positive and respectful. (Hint hint SD county....)

Also, we dealt with a total of 5 Senators offices over the course of this. Senator Boxer and Senator Anderson's offices were extremely helpful and I want to thank them for that.  Anderson's office was the first glimmer in leading us to help. They directed us to Henry Miles of the Urban League. Whomever is running against Bono-Mack will have my campaign support, I plan to volunteer my time to whomever is opposing her in the next election.

So, to all of you, I say thank you. I made a promise to my mom and I couldn't have kept it without your help.

Tree of life pendants

My first attempts at tree pendants. I was warned that if I started doing wire wrap jewelry I'd get hooked. It was true. I like the look of the aluminum wire, but I think I should use silver wire in the future as the aluminum is fairly soft. The copper is great though. I tried with some seed style beads and some glass rock style. I prefer the glass I think. We'll see, I may try to mis the two a bit.

Berries are already coming in!!!

We were given some great thornless boysenberry plants from a friend, the Toad and I transplanted them 2 weeks ago and they are already flowering!!! The raspberries, blackberries and blueberries we planted last year are thriving and I am looking forward to homemade jam this season. :)

We also got the tomatoes and peppers planted. We are trying to outsmart the deer this year since they ate all our stuff last year. Downside of living in the country, we have critters. In any case, the Toad was a huge help to me and we got several plants done in hanging planters. Take that deer.

All the herbs I planted last year are doing fantastic even though our weather has been wonky. Today it is in the mid 70's, two days ago it was pouring rain and foggy... We have had temps hit the high 80's and we've also had hail in the last month. Mother nature is going through the change. But, our plants have been troopers, so I'm not too upset. We just added spearmint, tarragon and sage to the herb garden. I'm hoping they do as well as the ones we already have.

Altered book (WIP)

Accordian style book, this isn't finished yet, but I hit a creative block and haven't finished it. I used different empherma with it and ranger inks. Not sure how I want to finish it.

Gessica's baby shower

Our friend Gessica is having a baby any day now.

More Altered Matchboxes

I've been playing with punches and old books lately. These two bird punches are quickly becoming favorites.

New butterfly punch as well.

I added a moon to the elf house box, I thought it was missing something. So now it has a moon with a smiling face. Because moons should be happy.

Pesach same'ach

Happy Passover everyone. Went to my mom's for Seder last night, spent the day relaxing.

New projects that I need to take pictures of....

Mixed media collage finished

Flowers and birds are vintage dictionary pages. I used a bit of distressable ink on them to give the edges definition. Sealed with a gel medium.

Mixed Media collage (WIP)

I haven't decided what to do yet with this, but I am liking how it is going so far. This was an aluminum sign from the dollar store. Amazing what some paint, compound and powders can do, huh?

This is about 6X6. I used white caulking as the base on the metal. I added texture to it to give it some depth. Then I did a paint wash of blue green and black, starting from opposite corners. Dried it with the heat gun, then used pigment powders over it and sealed it with gel medium.