2010

Happy New Year!

The picture is out of my art journal. While it looks like it is a Zentangle, it is only in a similar style to one. I've been doing these types of drawings for many years, they help me to relax my mind.

About the drawing, I'd done the page with a wash of watercolor awhile back, then I put a coat of white gesso over it and sanded it just a little so I could draw with my black, ultra-fine tip marker. Occasionally, I used a couple of other colored fine-tip markers as well. :)
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So this is the start of a brand new year! I've been working on a totally new idea that I'm Very Excited about and can't wait to unveil it! I'm hoping to unveil it at the end of next week. That's all I will say for now. ;)

One of my resolutions for this year is to blog at least three times a week...daily would be better, but I have a better chance of keeping that promise of three times per week. lol I'm going to give it my best shot.

Must get back in the studio now...Happy New Year!

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He Stole the "Who Pudding"...

but, not our Roast BEAST!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

The beast (24 lbs.) has a couple more hours to go before he is done, then we can eat!

Hope you're having a great Thanksgiving!

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Holidays, Ornaments, and Food, Oh My!

This ornament above is the next in the custom order I mentioned yesterday. Unfortunately, I didn't check the photos before shipping it out and they didn't turn out right. Wish I would have checked them first so I could have retaken them. This one has a paisley design with one heart.

I'll be showing the third one in tomorrow's post.

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Last night for dinner I made a Cranberry Glazed Pork Roast in my slow cooker and it was fabulous! I didn't get a picture of it before it was attacked, but I will share the recipe with you so you can give it a try. :) My daughter, who is not very fond of Cranberries, absolutely LOVED it!

Ingredients:

• 1 (16 oz.) can jellied cranberry sauce
• 1 (16 oz.) can whole cranberry sauce
  
• 1/2 C. white sugar
• 1/4 C. Dark Brown Sugar
  
• 1/2 C. cranberry juice
• 1 t. mustard powder
• 1/2 t. Rosemary
  
• 1/4 t. ground cloves
• 4-5 lb. Boneless Pork Blade Roast (or other cut)
  
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• salt to taste

1. Combine cranberry sauces with a fork, mix well. Stir in sugar, cranberry juice, mustard, Rosemary, and cloves.
   
2. Place pork roast in slow cooker. Pour cranberry sauce mixture over the roast.
3. Cover and cook on high for 6 to 8 hours.
   
4. Using a ladle, scoop out about 2 Cups of the liquid and put into a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Blend cornstarch and cold water and add gradually into boiling liquid stirring constantly. Continue cooking(and stirring constantly), until mixture thickens. Add salt to taste. Serve with the roast.

Enjoy! I'm going to use this same glaze on our Ham for Christmas this year too.

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New things about to come out of my studio! I'm so excited! I've been working on a couple of secret projects lately and can't wait to share them with all of you! I will be announcing their unveiling here in the blog, so be sure to check back here.

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For those of you waiting to see before and after pics of my studio organziation...It is still unorganized, but it is getting there. While I was working on it, the ideas started to flow in my head which has led to the secret projects I mentioned above. You know how it is, you get a great idea and before you know it, you are happily working on it every chance you get. :)

Right now, I must get to the kitchen and start the preparations for tomorrow's feast! My Son and his family will be joining us tomorrow for a day of fun and food!

'Till later...Have a great day!

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Don't You Just Love Circles?

I sure do! This custom ornament I made recently is all about circles. The family circle, our circle of friends, and circle of life--or is it cycle of life(?).
Anyway, this round ornament is made up of many circles, and one of them encompasses a heart.

You can view the rest of the photos (3 more) of this ornament in Flickr.

Starting with this ornament, I'll post one of the ornaments a day, so be sure to check back!
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This is Thanksgiving week and in my house, the holiday baking begins! Tomorrow we'll begin by baking some cookies. MmmMmmm

Have a great day!

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Happy Easter!

Goldie and all of us in the Twisted Thicket


goldie, originally uploaded by TwistedThicket.

wish you and yours a very happy Easter!

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Happy New Year 2009!

Today is the first day of 2009!

Have any of you gone out on the town last night? I haven't been out on New Year's Eve in years! My daughter and I were home watching movies and playing her Gamecube. It was nice and quiet.

I've been giving some thought as to what my new year resolution(s) could be. I've got some down on paper, but more are entering my mind as the day wears on and I will add them to the list as well. Some are way more important than others (of course). What I have been doing is separating all into two lists--one for my art and one for my personal life. Both are equally important and fit together.

Other than that, today I've been doing laundry (fun, eh?), listening to old movies, cleaning house, and the entire time-fighting the most horrible headache I've had in a long time. It feels like a migraine, although I think it has more to do with when I fell in the road yesterday morning. Came so close to hitting my head on the pavement. I was very lucky to not get knocked out and run over. The pavement looked wet, instead it was ice. Anyway, I strained to keep my head from hitting the road and in the process pulled some muscles in my neck. The headache I have right now starts at the muscles in the back of my neck and travels to my temples and forehead. Fun day.

The plaque, entitled "Journey's End", on the left is finally finished and has been listed in my Artfire studio. You can see the plaque better by clicking on the picture and also some closeups.

Have a great day!

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Happy New Year's Eve!

There is only 1 1/2 hours left of 2008! I hope all of you are having a terrific celebration tonight and will have a very happy and prosperous new year 2009!

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Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

Wishing you all a very happy and safe holiday season!

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A Surprise Gift!

Artfire has given all of it's members a surprise gift, they have now enabled Google Analytics for our personal studios!

The best news is, that it is also available for the free accounts as well as the paid accounts! If you have an Artfire studio and haven't seen it yet, go to your artfire page and click on "View My Studio Stats"!

Have a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

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How Sweet it is!!

I've been baking all night now. Well actually, it is 12:35 a.m. on Christmas Eve day. I looked at what remains of my cookie supply and found that there really aren't that many left for Christmas. So, since I am baking breads and dinner rolls tomorrow, I had to do cookies tonight.

The cookies on the left are my Cherry Bon Bons, which I am totally addicted to! The red frosted ones have red maraschino cherries in them and the green frosted ones, are filled with the green cherries. Festive! I also baked some Chocolate-Toffee Cookies, some more Spritz, and made a batch of Marshmallows to give as gifts along with my homemade Hot Cocoa Mix.

Tomorrow morning I will start baking again. Cranberry-Orange Nut Bread (my Grandmother's recipe), pumpkin bread, and Clover Leaf Dinner Rolls. Oh, I nearly forgot! I have one more batch of cookies to do. I promised my Mom I would make them for her--Date Filled Cookies. They look like little turnovers and are so tasty! They too have been in our family for years.

Christmas Day, we are going to my Mom's house, which is in a very rural area and set way back in the woods. We have a lot of snow too this year so far, so maybe, we'll all go sledding down their huge hill and ride the snowmobiles for awhile while we're there. I hope I remember to bring my camera so I can share some pictures when we get back.

I really must get to bed here, or I'll never get moving in the morning!
See you all then! :)

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Just popped in to say Happy Thanksgiving to all! :)

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Last Minute Costume Ideas

While I was in the store this afternoon, I couldn't believe how many people there were rushing around trying to get costumes. They weren't so much for children though, they were for themselves. Maybe there are some Halloween parties to attend this weekend or they just want to dress up for when the little ones go "trick or treating".

If you are one of the people who are scrambling for an idea for Halloween, try this site: http://www.costumeideazone.com/ ! There are hundreds of great ideas listed there and a good majority of them you can probably create with things that you already own.

One idea that I think is pretty funny is dressing up as a "Chick Magnet" bottom of this page . There are many, many more! If you don't dress up and go out on the town, you'll definitely get a few good laughs when you read about the many different costume ideas.

Me? I'll be sitting here at home with my daughter, with a large bag of Lay's Potato Chips and a 2-liter of ice-cold rootbeer, and the TV tuned to the 7 hour Ghost Hunters Special on Sci-Fi! It's going to be a great nite!

Enjoy and Have a Happy Halloween!

Here I am in one of my many handmade Halloween costumes!

A rare shot of me a few years back on Halloween. Hard to see all of the costume's features, including the finishing touch-- my hair was wrapped around a huge, bleached Ham Bone!
I made this costume myself out of many old fur coats from the thrift store (I removed all fur from the coats to create the dress), a pair of blue slippers were the base to create the fur boots that were laced up with leather strips. On my right arm is a fur band with criss-crossed, bleached, chicken wing bones sewn in place. There is a long piece of thin leather that ties around my waist and on that is a small medicine bag that I made out of thin leather also. My necklace and earrings were made of a variety of bleached chicken bones and leather.
Oh, I also won second place that year. :)

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Remember to follow me on Twitter too: Add me-->Airbrshldy

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Gourd Relief

filigree6, originally uploaded by avision4.

This is one of the new pieces I uploaded to my Etsy shop. It is called "Filigree Dreams" and is made up of four distinct panels of intricate carving. Each panel is a relief made up of many different levels.

Two new , small, gourd Jack O'Lanterns were added to the shop for Halloween as well. They turned out quite cute.

And now for a bit of Off-Topic news:

Still working on getting my car running perfect again. Replaced the plugs and wires (platinum plugs) total spent on that: $155.00. Car still runs terrible...or should I say barely runs. It has no spunk, no get up and go at all. While driving and trying to accelerate, the car sputters and chokes like it is going to die... and nearly does. It has a very hard time just trying to get to 55, it is quite scarey trying to drive down the highway like that.

Anyway, my Son is coming up this weekend to see if he can get it running right again. :) When he is not roofing, he builds stock cars and pulling trucks. :)

That's it for now! :)

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It's the Great Pumpkin!

For the past 1.5 hours before writing this post, I was going through my Kodak files on my computer and deleting a bunch of old photos and albums. I wasn't really aware that I had so many! Not only that but, I had albums of photos I took in 2005! The picture above is one that I found tonight while going through all of the folders. Looking at it has brought back many memories of past Halloweens.

The picture above is of two small pumpkins that I airbrushed for halloween awhile ago. I would love to paint some of these again this year, but not sure how I could do it and move at the same time. I've been painting pumpkins since the early 90s with my airbrushes. Painting on pumpkins is a lot of fun. I like watching them come to life. I usually paint a couple pickup truckloads a year and rarely ever have any left over for my own house. lol

I've painted pumpkins with scarey, happy, sad, sleepy, and kissy faces, frankensteins, ghosts, vampires, and have even painted company logos on them. I've also painted some with helmets to represent your favorite football team.

I'll have to give this a bit of thought now, it sure would be fun to be able to paint a few of these before we leave.

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Happy Easter from the Twisted Thicket

White Rabbit, originally uploaded by avision4.

All of us, the fish, the little creatures, and I would like to wish you all a very Happy Easter Sunday!

The thicket is bustling with activity right now getting ready for our Easter dinner and an afternoon of table and video games.

Hope you all have a fun and memorable day with friends and family too.

About the rabbit pictured above; This is my white rabbit. It is a 22 lb rock that I airbrushed. He is now living in another part of town, with a very happy owner!

See you tomorrow!

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Happy Independence Day!

This is a photo I took at last year's fireworks display. :)

It took awhile, but I finally found a new place to host my website!

As you can see from the left sidebar, I now have buttons in place that will take you to the rest of my website. This is a lot of work, as I'm sure many of you already know. There is much more to be transferred but am now making quick headway. :)

Since I have been concentrating my efforts on the website I haven't been able to complete my unfinished project that I mentioned in the first part of June. :( I know, but it sat unfinished for awhile before this, so a little longer wont hurt. lol

Once I get the site finished I will be back on track.

Have a creative day and Happy Fourth!

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Holiday Weekend!

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

My newest art card is nearly completed. I first loosely sketched my idea onto the paper and then burned it. I don't know what drove me to this design, but I like it a lot. I should be able to finish it by the end of today. :)

This weekend will be a nice, relaxing one. There seems to be a lot of good movies on TV so I will probably be creating in my shop with some good old movies on in the background.

Have a creative day!

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