Penguin print from Raw Art Letterpress

Sometimes I take my sister's prints and make jewelry, other times she takes the art work from my jewelry and makes prints. Here's a penguin she did using my penguin. You can see here at her Etsy shop, rawartletterpress. I think it turned out pretty cute!

Free Worldwide Shipping 11/27 - 11/30

I'm participating in Etsy's Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotion so I'm offering free worldwide shipping through the 30th. All shipping has been set to zero, so there's no codes to enter. Ho Ho Ho.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're thankful for our sweet old Shar Pei Lily Belle (photographed here with the new camera) amongst many other things. Hope you enjoy your holiday!

Super macro!

I've got about a million other things I should be doing, but my new camera was just delivered so I had to run outside and try it out in the last few rays of sun for the day. It's a Fuji finepix S1500, which is one of the point and shoots that is trying very hard to be like an SLR (but at a fraction of the cost - $160 on Amazon). I got this one because it's super macro mode got excellent reviews. All I did was put the batteries and card in and figured out how to set it to super macro. Very easy to use so far, and I'm quite happy with the results! These images were just cropped and had a few levels adjustments in Photoshop. Too bad the sun is down now, or I'd be outside taking pictures.

The perfect dog sweater!

I ordered this custom made fleece sweater for Lulu Bug from Etsy seller Hoverfly. We took her measurements and ordered it on Wednesday, and it arrived today - Saturday! Sweet Lulu is a horsecoat Shar Pei so her hair is very short and she doesn't have an undercoat so she gets cold. This fits her perfectly (Shar Peis don't fit off the rack dog clothing), and it's one piece and stretchy, so it's comfortable to lie around in. I'm going to order one for Lily too, she's a brush coat Shar Pei and doesn't get cold like Lulu, but she loves wearing clothes so she has to have one too. Check out her shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/hoverfly and don't hesitate to get one for all your canine friends!

My latest "professional" tool

I can't believe that I just spent $100 for a clothes iron! Before you start wondering what sort of glamorous wardrobe I have that requires such a fancy wrinkle remover, it's not for my clothes (which mainly consist of jeans, t-shirts and Keen sneakers) but for transferring images to brass plates for etching. The iron needs to be at 275-300 degrees for a good transfer. The auto shut-off feature was causing me much grief as I couldn't maintain the correct temperature for more than one transfer without the iron turning itself off. Here in the US, we are apparently incapable of turning our irons off ourselves, and the only one I could find that didn't have auto shut-off is this ridiculously expensive Rowenta professional model. The good news is that it does make my etching process much less exasperating.

Hot stuff

Summer is finally over here in northern California. The pilot light for the heater has been lit, Kelly is wearing his long pants to work and there's been frost on the ground the last few mornings. Day time temps are still quite nice however, and anyone living in a place with real winter would laugh at what passes for cold here. Instead of rolling the kiln outside or firing late at night I'm quite happy to have it on in the morning now. Nothing quite like a little box heated to 1650 degrees for two hours to take the chill off!

Tis the season.......

to make lots of stuff!

Pumpkin mania

It was pumpkin mania around here, courtesy of Laura. She saves her creative energy all year and uses it in a fit of pumpkin and zucchini carving.

Giant Zucchini

Karen and Richard Carpenter (aka The Carpenters)

70's icons immortalized in carved squash