luxe

i had a few bad days, needless to say. you know, the days when you don’t sleep all night and then wake up at 12:30 p.m. and literally don’t have the energy to get up and get coffee or a shower, check email, do anything. and i dozed on and off, and then headaches at night. woot! i feel better now. in honesty, i didn’t feel sick, just exhausted. for anyone who wonders what chronic fatigue syndrome and lupus (et al) mostly do to me is that. you know how you would feel the day after you ran a marathon after partying all night? i think, that is what it would feel like. so. i did do a bit of knitting for gifts, and i have been sketching and working on some mixed media things…here is the proof…the house one needs to be mounted still, i think in a shadow box. i need to figure that out. i have another version in mind that will have the shingles and roof tiles from individual wee pieces of paper. i will go a bit bigger, i think even though i tend to have issues with big projects that take too long. i lose interest, usually after i have spent a ton of time on it. i need to get better at that. and also at pacing myself. i tend to dive into whatever it is i am super obsessed with at the moment and get sick of it before i actually perfect it. so. i really need to pace myself.

one of my only high school friends sent me the link for the yappy yinzers talking dolls. they are actually rather hilarious. make sure that you clicky on the dolls to hear what they say. if you haven’t ever heard a pittsburgh accent before, these dolls are right on. i don’t sound like that. i didn’t grow up here. so. i hope i don’t, anyway.

i applied for two plush shows, one i got the bulk email for, and i know tons of people applied, but still. sniff. the other, for plush you, i haven’t heard anything, which i assume is also a no. i did get a reqeust for some of my mixed media collages to be in a new online and maybe print magazine

jake just rolled over and told me that he just had a dream that he had enormous hair. i attempted to ask him what it looked like, was it an afro? he said it was styled but enormous. hm. he has curly hair, so if he grew it out, it would grow…well, out. up. it would be funny. he did have a bit of a tom waits tousled look for a little while, which i thought was super cute, but as a boy that has spent his life fighting his hair, he has a hard time just letting it be its curly self. wanna see what pavel has been doing to cuddle up with jakie lately? okay….it is dark, but can you see? hogging the pillow?

here is an awesome site i have never heard of before. have you heard of circus hour.com? it is funny. this artist…artist isn’t even a strong enough word…allison sommers work is tiny and otherwordly and so so amazing. it literally takes my breath away. it is so sublime (yeah, i just said that.) i can’t even relate to it. so. look at the detail in the work and then look at the size that they are. insane. there are not many artists who have this effect on me. not just wow…but wooooaaaah.

i have a beast of a headache pumping and i need to finish checking emails and try to go to sleep so i can be productive to-morrow, i mean, today. and it is friday already. woah. i am craving soup and salad from the olive garden where we never ever go because the food is faux italian and is mega salty, but i crave their minestrone and breadsticks for some reason. hm.

mwah. wish me luck that my migraine is not just starting, my ears are aching, my neck is hurting, i feel all funky. off i go. le sigh.

xoxo
n.

let me kick off this post by saying that jake and i had a wedding anniversary on thursday. as much as i feel like a bad partner due to my constant lameness/exhaustion/etc/etc i am amazed that jake doesn’t tire of me and is so sweet and kind to me and never gets mad at me. we were at his parents house for supper and i was talking to his mum about jealousy and she said to me in the most honest way “you are so lucky that you never have to worry about jake looking at anyone else. you can just tell how much he loves you.” and she is not a smoke up the bum sort of person. when someone’s mom wishes they had a husband like them…that is pretty impressive. not that his dad is not a great fella.

i never would have imagined that i would be married at all. i was always a no marriage sort of person. remember that episode of the facts of life when jo ran away and got married to that guy in the army? well, i felt like marriage was like that. young people living in a pop-up vw van or something. i am not sure why, either, because my parents are very happily married and have always gotten along really well. when i was with jake, it was like he just took me for what i was, lumps and all, and somehow didn’t seem to see those lumps as bad things. he makes me feel like my maladies made me more special. he looked at me like no one has ever looked at me. he wouldn’t let me push him away. he didn’t push me. he was just there when i was ready. he is the kind of man that just seems like he has a plan and kn
ows what is going on. he makes me feel safe. i had never felt safe before. that is probably my own issue, but we moved around all the time as a kid. we had no family around, no long time friends. i felt like it was just me.

he has given me the strength to really do what i want to do. my only limitation is myself. i can go as far as i can go. i love him so much. i admire him so much. he is the most kind and beautiful person, inside and out, that i have ever known. i love you jake. you rock.

and on to kitteh stuff. guess who is teething? (hint…it isn’t me) so she is really fussy and wants to chew and suck on my fingers which makes me skin crawl. dunno why. she really works up a suction, tell ya what! my sleep schedule is super jacked up, i get up about every two and a half hours to feed her, and she is fussy so it normally takes at least an hour to get her fed pooped and back to sleep. and she starting to climb out of her bag, now, so that is kind of an issue if she wakes up and tries to take off. aye aye aye! she is beyond adorable, though. she will do the attack thing with me, and it is so cute to see her trying to be a little badass. so, you want some photos, i reckon? i must say, she has been creating such a stir! peeps is surprisingly good with her. the other cats stay away from her and us, which bums me out. it got better briefly, but now it is back to no other cats around.

this is where she usually is…

there are tons more on my flickr if you want to die from the sickening sweetness. like eating marshmallow fluff, but with no calories! to help to detach you, she farts a lot. bad bad kitten farts. she tries to pass them off on her woobie, but blankets don’t fart. they just don’t. do they? okay, one more…

i have gotten NO work done. yesterday, rather than doing internet stuff that i needed to do, i made the buttons i wanted to make because i haven’t gotten to do goddamn anything. they came out well, i think i have some things figured out much better now to do them faster. wanna see? i may do a tutorial, although they are super easy, so i dunno if it is needed. what do you think? i am also thinking off adding some paper and things like the beads i did…

i will be selling them in my store soon. they are nice and big, over and inch. i have made some neckywarmers that will either have some big vintage button closures or some of the fancy buttons i made. i did some toggle buttons the same way, too. i saw a couple of things about making polymer clay buttons that suggested embedding a small button inside of it for added strength and to use the shank, although i personally hate using shank buttons. i may try it just to make sure that the don’t split where the holes are. they were really fun to make and i only burned myself once with the heat gun. they look like raku, no?

and now for some fantastic links! ibenhoej.com and
kirsty hall who has a project where she will post an envelope filled with something secret to herself everyday and not open them until the exhibit. i love that idea. i have the worst memory of anyone who isn’t senile (seriously) to the degree that i can look through my sketchbooks and ooh and ah. i ran into this GORGEOUS french site coleur clementine which i had somehow never even heard of before. fabu!

okay, it is about 2:30 am, so i should probably try to sleep a bit before izzy wakes up to eat. i actually fell asleep around 8, i think and woke up around midnight. crazy. forgot to eat. oops. and yet, a fat bum.

i am really really trying to get an update out this weekend. i feel like i have been a horrible business owner. i also have a couple of wholesale orders that i need to get finished soon. i haven’t touched my wheel since i made those cotton yarns (which will be in the update)

i am really trying to be better about blogging. i want to, i just get so exhausted, ya know? i am ever behind on emails. really behind. my mum and dad sent me an amazon gift certificate for our anniversary days ago and i didn’t even know. i still haven’t checked it. i get so overwhelmed tht i just don’t want to look, ya know. bad. i know that i have to try harder. i just have to. once izzy is weened (which should be soon, i imagine in a month or so, she should be independent) i will be a person again. for those of you with children who actually do ANYTHING else at all…wow. you blow me away. it is more than a full time job and unlike a kitten, they aren’t okay on their own in a couple of months. sheesh. also, cat mamas are something else. can you imagine taking care of 6 newborns at the same time and only using your mouth! sheesh.

okay. mwah. mwah. mwah.
n.

okay….fantastische arty links that i found mostly through the rag and bone blog that is really wonderful itself. so good. sooooo…bert simons oh sooo goood. this artist raquel aparicio whose work is magnificent, and she is gorgeous, to boot. like amelie. so not fair. one of the most incredible and haunting installations…nay, underwater sculpture gallery by artist jason taylor…woah. i have no words. my focus in school was in sculpture and i especially love big things. or small things. life sized figures, especially. you aren’t really the viewer anymore…you are almost a part of the group, you know? lisa kokin does these amazing sculptures made from buttons. she was on the cover of fiber arts ages ago, which was where i had first seen her work and was amazed. 3-d just really speaks to me. i try to fight it, because i love drawings and paintings, but i think because of my bit of dyslexia or something, i understand 3-d better. as you can see, i am starting to let myself go back to it. the eerie, but feminine work of caz love reminds me of some of kiki smith’s work. she makes dresses out of vintage papers. just lovely. again, all of this is from rag and bone (yeah, yeah, i was um…a bit behind on reading their blog. and all 190 something other blogs, too. sigh.)

today, for a mixed media painting i am working on, i cut out a ladder from a ups flat rate cardboard envelope (btw, i found out that they are mostly recycled and are biodegradable with all non-toxic and earthfriendly inks, etc. how cool is that? go usps!) anyway, let’s just say that i realize how hard it is to cut anything precisely with a blade, let alone the remarkable work of mr.kakoueda and some of the pieces are more than 2 feet…biiiig. craziness. and for those of you that adore paper and anything that is made out of it, on it, etc, etc, paperforest.blogspot.com. a really lovely bloggy.

i have developed a rocking migraine from looking at the computer too long. gah! let me just say that i went out to look for berries and found another sister to missa and amelia, she won’t speak to me, but she has one pink lock of hair in a ponytail and has arms that bend! no legs, though. i will take photos of her to-morrow if she hasn’t either run away or something worse. i am hoping she doesn’t pick a fight with the cats. so out of one skein of handspun mohair, i got 3 of em! and i don’t think the skein could have been more than 50 yards. maybe 60, but it was so bulky, it seems unlikely. dunno why i didn’t measure it. gah! i am working with giving some of these things some form of armature because i am a glutton for punishment, but also because if i am not going to give them display boxes (i want to, but at this point, it will make them really expensive, so i will do it by commission, i think, if someone wants a display case, and takes me a long time to make those)i want them to at least sort of support themselves and not need to be leaned up against stuff. you know? i just used some copper wire i had around and put it into her arms after i crocheted em, and it is just a continuous bent and doubled piece that goes through her body and into each arm and then i sewed it all together and attached the crocheted arm through the wire to make sure it doesn’t pop off, not that these are meant to be roughly played with, anyway. the mouth i did this time was even better than the last two. i am catching the hang. okay. tired. so i need to go relax. wish me luck with the noggin. i feel so poo that there are no photos!

xo
n.

i have never even heard of cre.ations.net before but there is some amazing stuff on there! think makezine on mescaline. wooooah!

gah. the word that defines me these days. i had nightmares about the beach (again) where i was staying with a group of people, all of them people i didn’t like and/or loathed. that part, confusing, although i didn’t have any clothes that fit me or were suitable for whatever we were doing. the clothes were all big baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts. the rest of the dream dealt with a sick little girl that everyone was trying to kill and i was running and hiding while i was holding her. i was glad to wake up. anyway, i woke up really tired and i took a pill to have a bit more energy. i never think it has worked until the end of the day when i realize that i:plied 2 biiiig bobbins of yarn, cut up all the novelty yarns for that and then some more yarns, skeined several bobbins of yarn, worked on a painting (to no avail. sigh.) for quite a while, shipped some orders, went to the post office and farmer’s market, took photos of the stuff i needed to update (LOTS) and uploaded them and tagged em. i think that is all. it doesn’t sound like much now that i say it outloud. wanna see?
who was that? well! my newest crocheted softie. she came from the handspun mohair. she isn’t finished. i am not sure exactly what i want to do to her, she is so cute as is. hm.

and some of my vintage plates that i hang up…

some really good links for you…here
and here and here

prepare to pee your pants! the coolest crafty and design and art blog evah!

off i go.
n.