onesky

07:15 pm - This is so inspiring!

12:49 am - Still trying to get my blog fixed

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

I am still working with the tech support guys to get my blog back to its original location and condition.  I am still hopeful, but don’t want to post too much here because I may lose all these new ones when we get the original site fixed.

So, in the meantime, I thought I’d give you something free just for fun.  The image here is copyright free and you can save it by putting your mouse over the image and right clicking.  Then just choose save or save target.

Hopefully all will be back to normal soon.

10:05 am - I’ve been tagged

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

Heather at A Creative Journal has tagged me with the Seven Oddball Things meme. So  I’m supposed to write seven weird things about myself.

1.  On right/left brain tests I always come out balanced 50/50

2.   I can wiggle my ears

3.   I eat the whole peeling of oranges

4.    I don’t really like poetry

5.     My son is a professional bullrider (that’s not really about me, but hey, I’m digging here!)

6.    I used to assist Drs in open heart surgery

7.     I once owned a pet sheep in my backyard in a city

Now, I tag:

Laurie at Laurie’s Thoughts
Eveline at Ebenezer Scribe
Deb at Cowboy’s Sweetheart
Nici at Art Shaped World 
Lani at Lani Puppet Maker
Debra at Reach Dabble Shine
Karen at Square Peg People

09:39 pm - New e-Book on finding the child-like joy in creating

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

I have just uploaded a new e-book to the Creative Clown Shop.  You can see it here. It is a 28 page workbook designed to help you find the joy in the process of creating, without thinking about the outcome, or comparing your work to others’.

The book is a printable workbook and costs $10.00.  If you are ready to just have fun, and let go of the seriousness of art, check it out.

07:26 pm - Do you teach live classes?

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

Do any of you teach live classes?  Apparently here in Tulsa, some of the parks have community centers where they offer inexpensive classes of all sorts.   I have a phone interview with a man from one of the centers to talk about teaching some classes.  They offer art classes for adults as well as arts and crafts for kids and seniors.

I’ve written e-courses, and taught teleclasses but haven’t done it in person.  Unless you count my years as an occupational therapist where I used all sorts of art and crafts with my patients. I worked for the school district for many years so actually did work in a classroom setting there, so I guess that counts.

Anyway, I’d love some input from any of you who have experience and can give me any tips, advice or encouragement.

12:20 am - How do keep learning?

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

It’s a trick question. The answer is “keep living”.

I lost my whole blog. I’ve tried for days to recover it, to no avail. So, I started from scratch. I’m still holding out hope to recover my old posts. I am waiting on Dreamhost’s wonderful tech support people to see if it can be done.

I’ve learned a great deal about mySQL in the past few days, but probably just enough to be dangerous. No, that’s not true. Actually, I learned enough to get serious about backing up and organizing things so that this never happens again!

But, I did take time for some really fun art! My friend, Kristina, sent me this great wooden box. It had a place on the lid where you could insert a photo. I decided to make it into a jewelry box. I painted it and then inserted copper in the photo place.

This is the top. It was hard to get a picture because the copper reflects the light so much.

I used a stylus to make the outline of the star shape and the spiral. Then I painted it with alcohol inks. In person, the copper almost looks pink against the red ink. It’s really much prettier than this photo.

I painted a verse around the sides that says, “Jewelry take my mind off my wrinkles.”

I used gesso and acrylics to paint the wood. After the paint dried, I mixed a little brown paint in some water and just painted that wash all over it.

I’m letting the paint dry overnight and then I’ll give it a coat of polyurethane.

This is the first thing I’ve made in a long time that I just really love.

Now I’m wishing I had taken a picture of a view of the whole thing, better, instead of just the sides all separately. Oh well, I know you all have great imaginations !

12:48 pm - Great Copyright Reference

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

I just signed up at Docstoc.  It’s a site where you can upload any documents you’d like to share with others.    You can set the copyright terms of your document.  You can download, email or get the code to embed other people’s documents, too.  I found some great articles and e-books there.

This one is great. It’s a visual table of the basics of copyright law.

Copyright, Trademark & Patent Survey

If you would like todownload the entire document, you can here.

04:54 pm - Live Class - Do Art Like A Kid

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

Remember when you just drew, cut and painted for the fun of it, without worrying what anyone else thought about your finished work? If you’d like to spend an hour recapturing that feeling, please join me for a live class on January 23rd at 9 PM Eastern Time. Using a cheap journal, crayons and pencils we will explore the path to reliving the days when having fun was all that mattered.

The class will be on the internet so you will not need your to make a phone call. It will last approximately one hour. The cost is $10.00.

To sign up for the class go to this link. Class will be limited to 20 participants so don’t miss out!

06:30 pm - Childlike Fun While Cleaning

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

You know how we often talk about getting back to the childlike state of mind while creating? Well, how great would it be to try to get that state of mind at more times than just when we’re doing art?

Like, when you’re cleaning house!! I found the products here and I think they are just wonderful. I want these!! And I want to give them as gifts to all the women I know.

This first one is just too much fun! How would like to go get out your Barbie and do the dusting?

And this one. Oh my gosh! I hate washing dishes and this would make it so much more pleasant. Wash a few and then blow some bubbles to cascade down upon you while you wash a few more. Awesome!!

Tags: fun, creativity, class, Barbie, bubbles

Speaking of childlike fun, I’ve got a live class coming up that is about this very topic. Not cleaning house!!! No WAY! But about finding the joy of the creative process. So stay tuned for more info on that!

01:18 pm - Got Shtuff?

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

This post was written by Jazzy Mouse, who brings you the Cool Tip of the Week. I think this is a really fun idea!!!

-Zura

Greetings All!

Ok, so you’ve done the turkey and ham and presents and lights and some of you have even packed all that stuff up already (the rest of us hate you ever so slightly for that yanno LOL), so it’s time to move into a new year with a new fun thing!

This is called a BOSS! which stands for Bag of Shtuff Swap

Here’s the setup…

Get a nice gallon sized ziploc bag…as many as 5 if you wanna play that much, or just one.Now then, look around your creative area for cool stuff you’ve had for just about forever that you KNOW could become cool art but just haven’t gotten to, dont want to anymore, whatever the reason. Stuff that ziploc bag with stuff….dont get too crazy and feel like you have to send antique lace and $40 tubes of oil paints, this is just a fun swap of supplies you aren’t going to use.

Put your zippy bags in a manila envelope, padded if need be, and whatever the postage is to send it out, stuff enough postage in for your return package. The return postage can be stamps or money if you hide it well. this is a central location swap, so you send all your goodies here and i switch the baggies out and remail them to your swapping buds. How cool is that? Well i can’t even begin to tell you how cool it is The first BOSS we’re running will be for Valentine’s Day…so look around for love themed goodies to put in your baggies….paper, cards, beadies, photos, you get the idea. I knew you would

To sign up for this swap, send an email here to let me know you are going to play, and you’ll get all the deadline dates and addy to mail your goodies to! Be sure you write me no later than Jan 19th, to be sure we all get our shtuff by Valentine’s Day.

You are not gonna believe how this will jump start your creativity, promise.

Then, if you want you can send pictures of things you make with the goodies and we’ll post them here on Creative Clown.

So start hunting up your love themed stuffs, and let me hear from you soon!

the BOSS lady,

~O8:>

09:42 pm - Intentions for a better year

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

Although it might be cliche,  it’s hard to resist some reflection as the year ends.   I’ve never been one to make new year’s resolutions and have rarely thought much about the moment that the  year slips into a new era.  However, this year I am cutely aware of this year coming to an end.   I hope that this line of demarcation signifies more than hanging up a new calendar.

There have been many challenges in my life in 2007.  I feel good that I’ve been able to maintain my gratitude and my ability to look for the lessons.  But I wouldn’t choose to relive this year.

I’m determined to make 2008 a much more pleasant year.  While I don’t consider these resolutions, I do have some intentions that I plan to focus on, and I’d like to share them with you.

Pay more attention to my muse -  I am going to let my paintbrush, glue or pencil go where they want to go. I’m going to create from my soul instead of my head.

Go where my heart leads me - Looking back over ‘07 I can see that the times I didn’t listen to my heart brought heartache.  I’m going to allow my heart to have a voice this year and try to never silence it.

Ignore the border bullies - When I step outside of society’s norms, to follow my dreams, I refuse to listen to the voices of those who fear that I’m making a mistake.

Take love with me wherever I go  - In all situations I will try to make decisions and act based on what love determines I should do.

Teach love -  When interacting with anyone, I will remember that I’m not in a vacuum. When I act in love, I spread love.

Be determined to enjoy everything I do - No matter what I’m doing, I can choose to enjoy it.  Even if it’s not a pleasant situation, I can find something fun, humorous or  thankful about it.

I wish you all the best year of your life!

03:17 am - Interview with Machinarex

Hi - I just wanted to drop by and let Cynjon's (machinarex) friends know that he graciously allowed me to interview him for Creative Clown and I think it's a terrific interview. If you'd like to read it, go to http://creativeclown.com  And be sure and tell Cyn how awesome he is!!

03:51 pm - Typolution

05:45 am - Free fonts every day

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

I just discovered Font Garden. They have a lot of great fonts. And they have two or three that they feature each day. I love fonts and have 100’s of them installed. The problem I have, though, is finding just the one I want right when I want it. I have a program that lets you view and categorize all your fonts. That is a nice program, but when I’m in the middle of creating something, I don’t want to go open that program and search. So, I just keep trying different ones til I find the perfect one for the project.

Do you have any tricks or tips for organizing or finding fonts?

03:03 pm - Do you remember Jill dolls?

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

I am always surprised when I hear someone my age talking about having Barbie dolls.  Maybe it was because we were poor when I was growing up, but I never had a Barbie.  I thought they came out later.

I had a Jill doll.  Just like the one on the right.  Only I didn’t have that killer skirt. She was bigger than a Barbie but not a lot bigger.  I loved my Jill doll but I didn’t make it to adulthood with her.  I wonder where she is?

I also had a 3 foot tall bride doll.  I did keep her.  She was very special to me.  She was the only toy I managed to keep.  Then I married “him”.  He broke her and sent her to his sister-in-law who owned For the Love of Dolls in Dallas. (I don’t know if she still owns it.)  She was going to repair my doll and return it to me.  She didn’t.  We got divorced and now I’ve lost my precious childhood treasure.

01:37 am - I’m not giving up!

Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

Well, I don’t think anyone is reading my blog. At least they aren’t commenting if they are. But I guess I like to find out what I’m going to say, because I look forward to posting my entries. So, I’m going to continue and hope that people will flock here eventually.

I am not sure exactly what it is that makes me/us want to blog. Many do it as a money making venture. While that would certainly be nice, that’s not my motivation. I just always have something to say, and this gives me the illusion that people are listening to me. Or that they are looking at and enjoying my art.

Since I started my blog, I”ve been more aware of leaving comments on and submitting other people’s blog posts. I am learning the feeling of writing and feeling like no one is listening.

So, if you do stop by, leave a comment will ya?

04:21 am - Crosspostng

I have found a wordpress plugin that will let me crosspost my blog posts to live journal.  At least this will keep me active here.  I do come read my friends posts, but never feel like I have time to enter anything.  Hopefully the technology will work, and i'll sort of be back here.

I really miss you all!

02:36 pm - Strange Weekend

I've worked at my job for 3 1/2 year and have never had weekends off. That's my own doing.  I didn't used to have a life at all so I just worked.  Now that I'm back in Midland, I dont' want to work 80 hours a week like I have been doing, so I arranged to have every weekend off.  This was my first weekend off and it has been so strange.  It's like I dont' know what to do if I'm not working!!

I went to lunch with some friends and then we went Christmas shopping.  I had a wonderful time, but the entire time I felt like I needed to get home.  I felt like I was being irresponsible to be away from work. 

The rest of the time I have slept a LOT!!  I thought I'd get a lot of laundry done and get the house cleaned up and do all these art projects and I've gotten zilch done.  So, I'm guessing that after all these years of solid work, my body decided that it would take a rest. lol

I'm really looking forward to having every weekend off.  I just hope that I adjust soon so I can enjoy it and not feel bad and wonder what's going on at work.

07:35 pm - the moon

01:52 am - whoa! life needs to slow down

Life has been just too crazy!  I haven't had time to do anything artistic in such a while!  A couple of weeks ago I got some tin sheets and started making ornaments with alcohol inks.  I love painting on tin.  I'm not very good at cutting it, though.  I think there must be some special shears I should be using.

Work, work, work that's all I do.  But this weekend I actually have three days off.  I spent all day today feeling like I should be at work.   I did get some Christmas shopping done, and had lunch with an old friend.  That was very nice.
Tonight I wrapped gifts and put them under the tree.  It looks just beautiful.  This is the first time I've been in my own home and able to use my own decorations in six years.  It feels really good.  There is something about being in the space you create for yourself, along with the objects you choose to have around you that is nurturing to your spirit.

Tonight I had dinner with Laddan at his house.  It was nice to spend time with him.  He has been very social and has been so busy that I don't see him often any more.