Do You Keep A Sketchbook?

I started keeping a sketchbook/idea notebook at the beginning of last month, and I don't know why the heck I didn't do it sooner. It's a huge 5-subject notebook with dividers and pockets and it's great for those ideas that swim around in my head and then disappear! You know the ones...they usually invade your brain right before you fall asleep?

I don't draw very well unless it's a design element or something abstract (maybe that's why I never kept one?), but I quickly realized that it doesn't matter.
It's proven to be a nice resource and as long as I can decipher what I've written and drawn, I'm good. =) I use it for sketching any ideas I have for new nature scenes to create, general doodling, photo set-up ideas...I almost can't live without it now, and recently got another smaller one to keep with me all the time. Pardon the yucky photo quality ...still getting used to the new camera!

 Do you keep a book like this? Why or why not? If you do, what kinds of things do you put in it?

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Customer photos - LOVE!!

I was thrilled to get a message today from the lovely customer who ordered the tree stump with mushrooms to display in a library. She included photos! It's the first time that I've seen one of my creations in its new environment...so neat! This is the tree stump that was created in this post.
She put it under a glass dome and attached it to a vintage book (she said the glue was still wet here, but will dry clear)...so creative and I think it looks wonderful.

Simply awesome.

I am currently waiting for some little clay mushrooms to cool off so I can paint them, and of course I took pics of the process :)

Have a wonderful weekend and a Happy Easter to those who celebrate :)
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Sneak Peek - new clay goodies

Hi there!

I've got some new goodies planned for next month's shop update, and I thought I'd share a couple sneaky-peeky photos :)

Stay tuned :)

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Finished! Tree Stump WIP photos part 2

Yay! The tree stump and mushrooms display is all done and it shipped out today to go to its new home :) If you missed part 1 of this, you can see it here.

I took a few more photos this time than I did for part 1, you can click on them to make them larger. Here goes!

Here I'm starting to shape the base with core wool (this is where the tree stump will sit). I pretty much just make a coil and keep felting it together with the needle as I go, adding more wool until I think it's large enough.

Tree Stump WIP photos

Hello there! I'm up at 1:30 a.m. working on a custom order (I seem to work so much better at this time of night, I don't know why!). I'm making a needle felted tree stump with mushrooms growing from the side, and it's going to be displayed as part of an exhibit in a mushroom library. I've never heard of a mushroom library before...what a neat place it must be! Anyway, I thought I would take some photos of my progress; the photo quality isn't too hot since it was at my work table instead of in my fancy-schmancy (read: cheapie) light box, so please overlook that! :)

This is the tree stump I made from core (un-dyed) wool in all its nakedness. I start out by making a basic cylinder shape and then add bits of wool for the roots, and deeply needled lines to represent the texture of bark.

Here I'm putting the first layer of brown wool over the core wool stump.

Studio photo dump - and BACK UP your stuff!

Hello! So I had a computer malfunction this evening and didn't get everything done that I wanted to. Those lovely Windows updates can really wreak havoc sometimes...I spent about two hours trying to get it past the restarting point, shutting it down again and rebooting in different safe modes only to have it get stuck again. On the last reboot it finally gave me a "repair disk" option...yes! That's what I want, repair whatever's broken! It seemed to work *crosses fingers*. Royal pain, but it was a good reminder to back up all my stuff.

One of the things I wanted to accomplish this evening was listing the new mushroom cap sewing pins in my shop...unfortunately, to put it bluntly, I'm pooped! Writing the descriptions and taking the photos will have to wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime, I thought I'd show you what I've done in the studio recently...major re-organization. Things have grown since the days when I could store all my wool in an over-the-door shoe organizer! I put up this shelf and added some canning jars that someone from my old job was nice enough to give me. I really like being able to see all my colors at once, and they show me what is stored in the bags and drawers beneath.

I also got my photo table set up...it was becoming too time-consuming to set everything up and then take it down again whenever I wanted to take new product photos, so I cleared a spot in the studio and dedicated this area to photo taking only...something I have been wanting to do for months. In case you're wondering, the light tent is a cheapie that I bought on Ebay. It folds up into itself and becomes its own carrying case with pockets (the pockets and the handle are in the back when it's set up), which is pretty neat! It came with the two small photo lights you see on the left, but they aren't very bright so I have to use them both on one side. I use G.E. 'Reveal' bulbs in the other lamps; they come closest to daylight without being ridiculously expensive.

This tired pup is off to bed now so I can get a fresh start tomorrow on finishing what was supposed to be done today! Let's just hope Windows doesn't have any more 'helpful' updates for me.. ;)