Opinions and feelings......

A lot of art marketing workshops and books I have read; stressed the importance of not mixing business with personal life on your blog.  But my life and art are so tightly entwined I can't help it.  It's just the way it is.  I don't know why I wanted to make a note of that here.  Maybe it's because my balance has been off lately.  Where there is no time for business and no time for family.  There seems to be a missing part of the equation and I think procrastination and defeat have to do with it.  There are so many things on my to do list I get inundated just looking at it.  I have been getting some things done, but they are just menial little things.  Not the big life dreams I have been carrying around for so long.  Scheduling has always been difficult for me.  I feel so defeated when things get in the way of it.  So now I have a why bother mentality.

How do you balance your personal life with business to make it all happen?  Any secrets you would be willing to share?  How do you feel about having a blog for business and family?  Should people keep separate blogs?

Hope you all have a magnificent weekend!!!

I am sorry.......

It has been very hard for me to get back in the swing of back to school things.  Kiah has been having trouble staying focused.  This caused a lot of problems last year.  I thought we had it pretty much controlled by the end of the school year.  The doctor said if he did have ADD it was a slight case and he didn't need medication.  The school said he didn't qualify for any support because his IQ was too high.  Well here we are this year and the teacher is already hinting at putting him on medication.  Not those exact words but I am not dumb.  He is always trying to get me to let him stay home, saying he hates school.  He has a lot of friends and does well on his work.  We just got some of the standardized testing scores home and he is basically in-between basic and advanced.   In math he is so close to being advanced; so what the heck!  We have started him on a vitamin regime and I am in close contact with his teacher.

Besides that things are picking up at work.  Which is good I was really starting to worry.

Here are a couple of crafting things I have done to stay sane along the way. 

A soldering class with my friend Raquel.  It was a fun technique to learn but will take a little more practice and a new higher powered soldering gun.  Oh my God when I typed that I heard the Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunting sound.   Yeah baby more power.

My Orange mixed media canvas

And some cards I made for a challenge at Stampington & Co.

I wasn't sure about the top picture at first but now I really like it.  She is the Goddess of Our Burning Desires.  The butterfly and image of the woman came from The Graphics Fairy.

These photos are from my camera phone that's why they look so washed out.

Hope all is well in your land

There goes the 3 day weekend.

I love those long weekends. On Friday Chris and I went to visit some friends at the last minute in Santa Cruz.  We walked down to the boardwalk and made it in time to hear The Tubes playing the second to the last song.  We missed most of the show but it was still cool to do grown-up stuff for a couple hours.  Saturday I had my garage sale and actually did better here than at the Rummage/Boutique sale.  I made $60.00 that's enough to re-comp one of my son's X-Box games and got rid of a little chunk of junk.  The rest of the weekend I did pretty much nothing ~ just the way I like it.

Long time, no post.......

Hope this post finds everyone happy and well.  It's still been busy over here.  On Saturday I tried to sell some of my misc. craft goods and vintage items.  That was a bust.  In the beginning I was really excited because we made $40 in the first two hours.  But only made $5 more throughout the rest of the day.  When you calculate it out I paid $20 for the table, bought my mom and Kiah lunch (which ended up being $10 for 2 hot dogs and two bags of chips) ~ I only made $15.  Absolutely no one bought my boutique items and I was so excited because my prints came in the day before I had specially printed on Kodak Endura Metallic paper.  One lady came up and picked up one of the photos and said, "What do you do with this?"    So, I think next time a more fitting venue would be better.  This was a Rummage/Boutique Sale at the local American Legion.  The $30 I did spend there went to the local veterans so I feel good about that.  I also got an order for some of my soaps from someone who picked up my business card, that is a total bonus.

I finished another mixed media collage last week.  I like how this one turned out even though I hated it in the middle of the process and was going to just throw it out.

It is supposed to be my version of a nature study.  This particular plant the Life Root is good for soothing pain, everybody needs a plant like that in their life.  The bronze fern is made out of the new Viva Embossing Creme and is the reason why I wasn't sure if I liked it in my previous post.  It didn't seem to work right.  The only instructions they have are in Swedish.  I watched the video and got the point but it may have not been the exact point.  I had high hopes for it since they were $8.59 each.  I wish I wasn't such a sucker for new products.

A couple days ago our little chihuahua  Baby was almost eaten whole by a german shepherd who was let off the leash by it's owner.  Thank God Chris was right there and Baby only got a few nicks from it.  The owner was so far away it didn't even know it happened.  Kiah was so shook up by it because he was holding the leash.  Our dog is already pitiful enough as it is.  He was a rescue dog and is really old, has only one eye, and can't control where his tongue goes.  He doesn't need anymore drama.

I am going to try this weekend to peddle more of my wares and have a garage sale.  Wish me luck I need the room and the money.  Have a good rest of the week!

Ha! Who was I kidding......

when I thought I was going to have extra time because school was starting.  Time has been moving at warp speed it seems.  Even with me not really working, time has been evading me. 

Still, my hope always springs eternal around this time of year.  Fall is like a New Year's second coming for me.  I get so inspired when I see all the new organizers secretly promising a more scheduled and balanced life; making me believe I have a second chance at my resolutions that went out the window three weeks into January.  Even the Wii Fit Mi's are telling Kiah they haven't seen me in a while.  And that's putting it nicely.

Thankfully though, I have been able to do something creative everyday. Which has helped me keep my mojo going.  I got a chance to use some the new Embossing Creme by Viva, and I don't know if I like that product.  I bought two different colors and the bronze color was so dry I couldn't even get it to smear properly.  I exchanged it for one that seemed better, but when I was smearing it on the stencil it dried up too quick and ended up getting clumpy.  After you smooth it over the stencil and have removed your stencil, heat it with your heat gun.  It will raise to a bubbled surface, which is neat but not really practical for scrapbooks or cards that will be mailed.  On the other hand, their Pearl Pen is the neatest.  The bronze color makes dots that look like raised studs.  I still have a lot of playing around to do.  The new Radiant Rain is very pretty but my bottle leaks and leaked all over one of my favorite skirts.  Glitter Glam is glamorous and now I need it in every color.  The only con that I had with the Glimmer Glam is it is hard to get the glitter evenly dispersed.. 

Besides all that, my son has now grown up and on the first day of schooled exclaimed I couldn't kiss him, call him Baby, or pretty much acknowledge he was mine.  Talk about heart breaking.  And to top it off I forgot my camera.  He tried to make it better by exclaiming, "I wouldn't have let you take my picture anyways." 

Raspberry Red Color challenge~

This one didn't end up how I thought I wanted it, but hey.  This is for Louise Gale's Creative Color Challenge she is hosting on her blog.  You can also check out the flickr group here.  I have been extremely busy this past week, with school starting on Monday, there is a bunch of last minute things that need to be done.  I can't wait to breathe a sigh of relief next week.  I survived another summer.  I almost ran for the hills crying a couple of times, but for the most part it went by smoothly.

My mojo is still on a pretty good run, hence me not really posting last week.  On Thursday I meet up with some friends Jen and Sylvia from Kelly Rae Robert's workshop at A Work of Heart.  We took Andrea's Juicy Houses class. 

These are the little houses we made.  We had the option of these 4x4 or a 12x48 canvas.  It was was fun and very inspiring to work along side these crafty ladies.  Thanks Jen and Sylvia for inviting me.  If you are in the area and want to check out any of Andrea's classes you can see them here.  Next time I want to take one of her soldering classes.

On Friday we went to a friend's birthday party and went hiking -well walking at the Alviso Slough.  Where I got the hawk picture in the previous post.  While I was there taking pictures of the hawk a man walked up to me  looked at my camera, smiled, then looked down at his much better camera and started taking pics.  He sealed the deal for me.  I am saving up for a DSLR.  I know it's not the camera but photographer but it's time to take my pics to the next level.

We went to an Oakland A's game and my son got an autograph and picture with Jerry Blevins.   My aunt took the pic so I haven't seen it yet.  Kiah was so happy but a little bummed he couldn't get Coco Crisp's autograph.  They won and my uncle and Chris were on the jumbotron.  So it made for an exciting day.

I have been readily working on my magazine submission and I think I might have it this time.  So wish me luck!

Beside that I haven't gotten to much else on my to do list and I still feel exhausted.  The kids start back to school on Monday so I am banking on that time.  Hope you all have a good rest of the week.

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