here's what i've been making and another Pepper update

Since i hadn't been doing much art since returning from Alaska (the time change plus the 18-hour days of sunlight were brutal on my body clock!) - i've finally gotten back to making somethings. i think i am back on east coast time now! so, i made another altered doll with 2 bed springs, wove in some pearls, made a skirt from sheet music and flowers, added a dragonfly paperclip and then some metal wings in the back.

then i made 2 charms (the twins) for Artnsoul. one for me and one for my friend, Jan. Jan is making us necklaces and that will be the center piece. then the rest of the necklace we will use to add all our charms from the charm swap! it will be so pretty! the face for the "twins" charms, is a picture of Jan's mother. it is such a sweet picture, i couldn't resist using it!

lastly i was goofing around and decided to make something from the wine cork i found. i had fun just using what i had on hand to create her. i just added the wings which i cut out of a metal altoid tin using tin snips. then i soldered the edges so they weren't sharp. you can fold back the edges too, but takes too long in my opinion. was quicker to solder the edges and viola!

and Pepper is having a much better afternoon. she's gone outside twice on her own and then is going over to the water dish. she still can't jump back up into her "chair" ( a nice leather recliner where her blankie lays on top of). she sort of adopted this chair as her own and finds comfort there. anyway, i still have to help her get into her chair. day by day!

I appreciate all your nice thoughts and comments towards Pepper. It is apparent that bloggers are dogs/animal lovers! thanks for all the good wishes and kisses for her. she appreciated them all. she is doing so much better tonight.

New banner and Pepper update

We just got home from the vet - after some blood work, lyme's was the diagnosis. not surprising with the tick population we have here. he suggested in a few weeks, if she is feeling better to have her and our other dogs innoculated for the disease. i didn't even realize there was an innoculation! so she's home and back in her comfy chair on her "blankie".

So here is my new banner by Susan Tuttle (see link on right side). we worked together using my photos, likes and dislikes, a few changes and viola! i love it! she is working on my new Etsy logo as well. tell me what you think!

poor Pepper isn't feeling well

yesterday Pepper, was acting kind of funny. she does this sometimes, so we didn't think too much about it. But this morning when she wouldn't get out of "her" chair, i went and got her and put her on the ground, so that she could go outside and potty - she fell over! i knew that wasn't a good sign. so dillon and i took her to the emergency vet hospital. she had a fever of 105.6 (which dogs run higher than us, but even the vet said that was high). they wanted to do xrays and blood work and keep her overnight for IV fluids, but i was a little concerned about "how much this was going to cost"! i've been to this place before and it isn't cheap! i asked if it was possible to put her on an antibotic and give her a bolus of fluids (injecting water under her skin) and then i could take her to my own vet tomorrow for the tests. she (the vet) said that was fine, since pepper wasn't going to crash any minute or anything. we agreed that if anything went down during the rest of the day, that i would bring her back.

so she's home and resting. her fever seems to go up and down. i carried her out to go pee and have been bringing the water bowl to her chair and helping her drink. she's eating some food - so that is encouraging. her middle to hind region seems very sensitive and she tightens up when you pet her on her hind quarters - so i am sure it is related. i've left word with my vet that she needs to be seen tomorrow, so we will go from there. it is sad though watching her walk around (when she was outside going pee), because she is all wobbly and looks pathetic. very heartbreaking when your pet is sick.

my blog and esty banner are getting a facelift!

So today i was just searching around and ended up a Rella of FaerieLuna's blog (http://faerieluna.blogspot.com/). i contacted her after totally loving her banner (in both her blog and etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=60121 ). She was so sweet and got back to me right away and told me that Susan Tuttle of http://ilkasattic.blogspot.com/ designed it for her.

So i contacted Susan and now we are in the process of designing my banner for my blog and for my etsy shoppe. i wanted to incorporate the images of my art dolls (using the rusty bed springs), add some stitching and some birds, plus the title (um Lemoncholy's!) and pick out my colors, etc... so i am very excited!

by the way..... the other night in the soldered tiara class as i was telling the other girls about my business name, Lemoncholy's, someone asked, where did that name come from? and i said, well, i was watching a lovely english movie (of which the title i never knew). it took place in the twenties (maybe...) and it was about 4 women who rented this place over the summer. during the movie, one of the ladies said, "I am feeling a little lemoncholy". and i just loved it!

so anyway, a couple of the girls at class, said; that sounds like "Enchanted April", which sure enough is the movie! Now, i have to add this though - i've been known to "remember things wrong"..... so now that i've been telling people that the woman said "i'm feeling Lemoncholy", instead of meloncholy - i've often wondered to myself - now did she say that, or is this one of those times where i am remembering it wrong! lol. anyway, my intentions were good regardless of what she ended up saying! and i am sure you all have moments where you remember something wrong? unfortunately it happens to me alot - but i take it in stride and laugh at myself when i do it. my son always laughs at me about the "Jackass" movie, because i always think the title is "dumbass". also, i get things mixed up or backwards - classic example - that game where you say "who won the race?" and then as you punch the person in the arm, you say "Charley horse". well, (and i've never lived it down since) - i tried to do the game with my son and said "who won the charley race?" you can imagine the snickers........ you get the picture.... i should just stick to altering art!

finished designing and taping my charms for tiara

i knew i was going to do this, so i wasn't surprised when i decided to redo almost all my charms. i had originally wanted to use some letters, but didn't have what i wanted last night at class. so tonight, i figured i'd just do them they way i wanted them.

so i finished "redesigning" and taping my charms. i was watching the movie "Blood Diamonds" at the same time, so my work went pretty slow. but it was an enjoyable way to spend my evening.

tomorrow i will start doing some soldering!

Soldered Tiara class at "Absolutely Everything", Topsfield, MA

After attending Artiscape in May, i was really motivated to take more classes, but wanted to find something closer to me in NJ (Artiscape is in Ohio) - so i was searching the web for Tim Holtz classes and found that he was teaching some classes in August in Boston at a store called "Absolutely Everything". So i signed up for all of them (8 classes). I've driven to Boston before, it takes about 5 hours from Jersey. So anyway, i signed up for Kate's store newsletter; so when i got the newsletter about her soldered tiara class, i signed up right away. it is a 2 part class, with tonight being our first class. it was quite fun. there were 5 of us, plus Kate. Her store is ginourmous! (isn't that the new word they just added to the dictionary?) it was 2 rooms chalked full of goodies! it was an altered artists idea of heaven! so many things to look at and so many things i wanted to buy! check out Kate's website for fun (Absolutelyeverything.com) - she isn't doing online ordering yet, but coming in the future. she has so many different vendors that when it is up and running, it will be one stop shopping!

Tonight we worked on making our charms for our tiaras. we made 11 charms plus one diamond charm for a centerpiece. some of the girls got their charms soldered, but i barely got mine taped, as i was meticulously designing my charms! i'll do some work on them this week before the next class next Thursday. Kate had some great tips for soldering, things i didn't know, so it will be cool to try them out. might make soldering a little easier. she learned all she knows by taking 4 classes with Sally Jean Alexander (lucky her). i was able to get one class with her in Oregon in October, so that should be fun. next week i will take more pictures from the class when there is more progress of the tiaras coming together.

p.s. not sure why the photos are blurry - the originals are not blurry. i've noticed this a few times when i posted to blogspot. and then eventually they clear up. who knows?

Beautiful Egret, Belmar, NJ

I was driving my son and his girlfriend to a pool party when we drove by this little beach area and i saw this Egret. I dropped them off and then i returned to try and take his picture. these birds are pretty skittish, so i was trying to approach quietly so as not to startle him. right as i got into position, a car with young guys in it drove by and started honking at me and scared the bird! so i just started snapping away before he flew off. i was pleasantly surprised when i got to work and started looking at the pictures i took. i love this one! i've never been able to get a bird like this with his wings open so wide.

more flea market goodies

I found some cool red scrabble tiles, which i'd never seen before, some regular scrabble tiles, fishing lures (which i love!), (2) mini tins (aspirin and fuses), salt and pepper shakers - glass with cool patina, a sheriff's badge, a dremel file, some small metal files, 2 pretty tin containers (one is black with handles - $2!), keys, some metal thingys and a pink spool of thread that i found on the ground!

Flea Market today (and going back tomorrow too!)

So here 's the goodies i found today.

picture #1 - a beautiful large pink glass button

picture #2 - vintage metal container of baby densitin. love old metal containers.

picture #3 - little toys (cute), cracker jack toy, mini salt and pepper shaker

picture #4 - metal jacks, small fish, dog pin

picture #5- 4 small metal claw feet - what are they? no idea, but they are cool!

picture#6 - vintage microscope slides -one box has numbers etched (by hand) into the glass.

picture #7 - box of buttons (for $2!) and a child's toy hammer.

Skunked & Goosed and a case of hives

So i was only home a few days when i came down with hives. it started on my face, then on my neck and chest. (it's been 4 days and i still have them coming and going). the only thing i can think of is that i had a reaction to a plant that i bought (i've ruled out food, since i hadn't really eaten anything that i would react to). i suspect this plant because its flowers were oily and that is exactly what happened to Dillon one time when i had him smell this rosemary plant that my friend had bought me as a thank you gift. fresh rosemary is very oily and he broke out all over with hives. and it was the same thing, they would come and go and it lasted about 4 days. so after i planted this new plant i noticed ants on the flowers, which i touched and i could feel the oil on the flowers. the oil gets absorbed into your skin and then, if you are allergic - hives. fun fun. they are very itchy and bumpy. my skin on my face looks bad and one day my right eye lid had hives and looked swollen. lovely!

So, last night i picked up dillon from his improv show (his team got 2nd by the way) and then we went and picked up milk and cereal. upon entering the house, we were greeted with this horrific STENCH - skunk! ick, ew, gross and nasty. obviously, one of dogs got skunked (we have 3 dogs). i immediately suspected Kirby, our golden, because she is always getting skunked. but we ruled her out and ended up picking as our contestant, Pepper, one of the Westies. it was already late in the evening (almost midnight) and i didn't have the supplies i needed to bathe her (for the record the receipe for de-skunking is: peroxide, tomato juice and liquid detergent. so we cwardened (sp?) off Pepper in one room and went to bed. (for the record, Pepper is the westie with the blue collar, shorter fur and Gracie is the westie with longer fur and has that look of trouble on her face!)

This morning i ran and got what i needed and dillon and i gave her a bath. then dillon said, we might want to bathe Gracie (the other Westie) because she smelled a little too. i told dillon to pick her up and smell her because Gracie DOES NOT like to get a bath and i DO NOT like to give her a bath. she yelps, she squirms and then starts screaming bloody murder. it is not fun and if i don't need to give her a bath, i'm not going to! So luckily, we decided that she really didn't smell.

when i picked up pepper to go into the house, i decided that she still smelled bad and that we would give her another "special" bath. she was done lickety split and we all went into the house. i called the other dogs and as i stepped inside, Gracie comes running in with this goo all over her. she had just went and rolled in goose crap! unbelievable! i just looked at her as if she could understand me and said "you just set yourself up for failure, what were you thinking?"

So Gracie got her bath.

farewell dinner, table shot - me & dillon

i think this is so cute of us.

port of skagway, posing with mascot

i liked the eagle the best!

Port of Juneau snapshot with mascot

every time you get off the ship, there is a different mascot to pose with. there was a moose and a lumberjack in Ketchikan (which we missed!)

dogsledding

Here 's the picuture of us dog sledding. look for my previous post on helicopter ride to glacier and dogsledding to hear all about this. it was really fun! click on the picture to get a closer view! (since this is a scan)

Me and dillon, formal night on the cruise

Hoonah cementary images