This girl can ...

Margarita Cupcakes and Margarita Icing

lkng — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:47:27 +0000

Trying out this format for a recipe post. Let me know if it’s too hard to read or something like that. I’m not happy that linked images appear in red boxes, but I cannot figure out where to turn that off .

Filed under: Recipe Tagged: cupcakes, doodle, honey, mango, margarita, recipe, sketch, tequila

Smile

lkng — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:22:38 +0000

I’m still not over this flu, but this definitely made me smile today.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Style School, fear, and a little more color…

lkng — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:28:28 +0000

I really wanted to take a metal clay class at a local arts center here, but it filled up before I could register. Instead, I signed up for Style School. I’ve really enjoyed the projects so far. (I have pictures of some of them, but I only seem to take them in poor lighting conditions so I’ll have to remedy that soon!) I really enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) building my notebook (Style File) for the class. The most recent projects have been a huge challenge when it comes to making them my own and working my own style into them. The questions raised by those projects and the Style File have made me recognize how often I let my fears control what I show and explore. In literature and art, I often appreciate vulnerability and openness, which makes it a tad odd (IMHO) that I find it very difficult to be open and honest about what I enjoy or want to try. For example, I’ve noticed that I avoided color schemes or motifs that I thought would make me seem childish or young despite enjoying them. (I’ll spare you my analysis on why, in the past, I’ve tried to avoid those particular adjectives because it’s long-winded.) Noticing that pattern though, has given me a little push to try a little less judgement and a little more variety and I am pleased with the results.
Any Style School readers?

Filed under: Etsy, style? Tagged: blogging, projects, Style School

Aww, Snap: Food Photos 2009

lkng — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:38:30 +0000

If you have trouble identifying any foods, have questions, or want recipes let me know!

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: baking, black and white, food, fruit, kitchen, new year, photos, pictures

New Year 2010

lkng — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:08:01 +0000

I have a house full of people and instead I’m here at work with a desk full of jobs and tasks. It’s okay though, because I get to spend tonight with wonderful people.
Happy New Year to you all!

What are you resolving to do in the coming year and/or decade?
I’m definitely resolving to post more often.
Stay safe tonight.

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: apologies, blogging, blue, new year, regrets, white, whoops, yellow

AEDM Catch Up List

lkng — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:23:08 +0000

My camera has decided that it’s not going to work anymore. It decided this about a month after my nicer digital camera bit the dust. It’s very frustrating. Work has pretty much taken all of my time lately and any energy has been zapped by the dog’s allergy issues and personal things. I’ve made time for art, but it’s been uninspired and pretty boring. I’m sorry this list won’t include photos. I’m going to see how scanning works for some of the paper crafts.
5th Drawing, pens and inks
6th Painting
7th Knitting
8th Embroidery
9th Knitting
10th Embroidery
11th Collage
12th Movement Sketches
13th Photo work with pens and brushes
14th Knitting
15th Design sketches for clothing, guitar
16th Drawing, doodles, sketches, photos
17th Photos/illustrations
18th Digital collage
19th Typography collage

Posted in AEDM, Problems

AEDM photo

lkng — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:29:35 +0000

Here’s a quick photo of my knitting. You can kind of see my fingerless glove and my knitted garland/scarf.
Still need to photograph my drawings and the crap-tastic painting.

Yesterday, I didn’t do much. I tried to draw some more and got a couple sketches started but didn’t make much progress on them. Tonight, i’m working on prototypes of creatures for some stuffed animals and some multi-layered stencils for fabric.

Posted in AEDM Tagged: AEDM, crafting, haircut, knitting

AEDM: November 4th

lkng — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:06:04 +0000

This can be read several different ways, depending on how much/little you read into gendered nouns and titles and whole slew of other factors. Which word carries the emphasis for you? This is part of a series that I hope to continue across media and across a theme or two.
If you want more information on Art Every Day Month, check out Leah at Creative Every Day.
In case you’re curious, here’s what I have done so far for AEDM:
11/1 – Knitting (photos tomorrow or tonight)
11/2 – Knitting, Painting on canvass (photos coming soon)
11/3 – More Painting (photos soon)
11/4 – Digital art (see above), more knitting (in progress, no photos yet), and a bad painting (probably won’t photograph)

If you want to follow other participants in AEDM check out Creative Every Day, search for the #aedm hashtag on twitter, or check out the AEDM twitter list. Welcome to anyone who found their way here through twitter or CED! I plan to illustrate by hand tonight. If I have the energy I want to add colors and use lots of photographs to document it. I’m slacking on photos lately, but I am definitely enjoying AEDM and plan to try more extensive projects this weekend.

Posted in Uncategorized

November is the month of Art Every Day for a Month

lkng — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:12:14 +0000

This year I’m participating rather than just observing everyone’s creativity like I did last year. You can find more information about Art Every Day for a Month here: http://creativeeveryday.com/art-every-day-month and it’s not too late to join! I’m hoping that this provides a boost intelectually and creatively because I’ve been feeling a tad unchallenged and uninspired. I started yesterday and as soon as I find the one camera that works, I’ll start posting about my daily work for this. I started yesterday with some fiber arts that I am SOOO excited about. I’ll have to take a picture before I get much further and you can really tell what it is since I’m hoping that a version of the project will make a great xmas gift. If I don’t work on that again tonight, my plan is to try painting. I’ve been playing with a couple ideas in my head and sketching for awhile. It’s a medium that I’m not very comfortable in, but part of what I hope to do with taking ont his challenge/project is to push myself a little bit creatively.

It’s super grey today and it’s really zapping my energy and creativity, but writing about this here has helped a bit.

Is anyone else participating? Let me know in the comments!

Posted in Uncategorized

Necklace and Bracelet Tutorial with Vintageday’s Bull Heads

lkng — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:18:38 +0000

I received some great bull head charms from Vintageday‘s Etsy shop as part of the Totally Tutorials Program! As part of the deal, I created a tutorial to show everyone how to make the jewelry that I made with them! For more information, tutorials, and chances to participate, please visit the Totally Tutorials blog!
The Necklace:
This necklace is fairly simple to make, but it adds great impact and the technique can work with a variety of materials.
To create the necklace, I added two types of turquoise colored beads, silver bell-shaped bead caps, silver round beads, and a lobster clasp to some black beading thread.
I measured the length of the necklace by draping a string on my own neck to see where I wanted the charm to fall. I staggered the rest of the lengths around this because I decided that the charm would hang from the highest and fall across the other strands.
I used a very tiny beading needle to thread each strand up, through the cap, silver beads, and around the jump ring that the clasp will connect to, and then back through the silver beads and bead cap.

I knotted the strands just beneath the caps and secured the knots with a dot of glue to reinforce them. Then, I started threading the strands with the beads.

Two strands were dyed, wooden beads and the rest were seed beads. All of the strands are just straight stringing. I repeated the knotting and gluing in reverse order to seal the other end.

Then I added the clasp on each side, knotted and glued it. As the final touch, I used a jump ring to attach the charm to the shortest strand of the necklace.

If you can use both hands and have two sets of pliers, this is a pretty good tutorial on how to do this. In one of the photos below, you can see an assortment of jump rings with the bull head. I chose the jump ring based on where I wanted the charm to lay across the other strands. I tried a couple different options and even used the largest jump ring to group all of the strands together and let the bull fall beneath them, but I ended I liked it hanging from the shortest strand the best.

I apologize for the quality of the pictures in this post, I took these all inside with artificial light and I think I got a bit impatient.
Bracelet:

The bracelet that matches this necklace uses a similar strategy for stringing, but I wanted something a little more ornate so I used the bull head charm in the middle of two groups of beads since it has loops on both horns. I also added a flat spacer that has some detailing on it and I used a clasp with a similar detail.
To make this bracelet, I measured out the final length that I wanted the bracelet to be and then added some extra thread for knotting because it’s always easier to trim extra threads.
I strung the strands separately and then tied a tiny knot in each strand to keep the beads from slipping before knotting them together and then through one end of the flat metal spacer.

I decided, after a little trial and error, to cut the string and use separate sets of strands to go from the flat spacer to the bulls head and then from both of those to the clasp. Essentially, you create short sections of beads to tie the metal pieces together.

To keep the strands separate, I made sure to knot each individual strand on each end before tying them to each other and the metal pieces. This is one of the first tutorials that I’ve staggered my way through, so please be sure to let me know if this is confusing! I prefer to tie overhand knots and then a double knot but there are lots of knotting tutorials on sites such as Youtube and even from manufacturers like Beadalon. I also use a small dot of glue to secure the knots because I learned the hard way that there’s nothing more frustrating then picking up a zillion little beads off of the floor. In a pinch, clear nail polish can work in place of glue.

Posted in Etsy, Tutorial Tagged: jewelry, simple, turquoise