Sorry for my absence....

Sun setting at Amelia Island, Florida

I am sorry for not being on here for a while. Things got really busy before our family vacation then we left for 2 weeks. We traveled Florida and the coast of Mississippi to visit family then headed back home. We just arrived the other day early in the morning and fell right into a busy schedule. I will make sure to update as soon as I can.

We had a great time traveling and aquired new inspiration for artwork and jewelry when we were by the ocean. Beaches are always so beautiful to me and just being by the water is such a therapeutic feeling.

Hope your month of July has been great. Have to go for now but wanted to let you all know I am okay was just gone for vacation. :)

Working on new things....

I know it has been quite a while since I have actually shared jewelry pictures on here. A lot of the times I just get so busy that I thought I put it up by I didn't. LOL! If that makes any sense at all.

Despite the being busy(which this household always is) there are days when one thing can just bring your whole outlook and your motivation down. I should learn by now that I shouldn't expect from certain people but then again there are times when you do want to be recognized for the hard work you have done. I just learned that when there are days that my emotions are hay wire to skip onto a different facet of art. I am also a mixed media artist and I create for me, not for anyone else, so it is very rewarding to be able to go off and just be creative without the worries of what others think. Those little breaks bring inspiration to my jewelry making and as I continue on making my pieces I am finally finding my own style and how I like things to be simple but functional.

So hear are some pictures of my new pieces...

Copper squares textured with fused glass cabachons. (Yes my fused glass work)


Sterling silver discs textured with Carnelian cabachons.


Sterling silver textured discs.


Pendants featuring Bo's glass beads.

2nd view





2nd view


Necklace I was working on:


Finished piece.





Other news:
My work has been in Woodland Gallery here in Elizabethtown, KY. It was so nice to see the picture show up on their fan page on Facebook and also to see my display during a First Friday event there.
Picture from gallery.


Pictures I took.




Pictures during a First Friday event for Dick McLaughlin
Bo and I by our jewelry display.






Bo and I with Lynn the gallery owner.


I also have some great news. Earlier this spring I was invited to send in an application and pictures to a juried art show in Louisville. Well I got a letter not too long ago(In May) saying Bo and my jewelry was accepted as one of only 100 artists that were picked! I kept it quiet first because I wanted to send in my booth fee first. I guess I felt like it wasn't real until I actually sent it in. So none the less I am very excited but scared at the same time. This show will be held at the grounds of the Louisville Collegiate school in September. I guess I am scared because even if we have done the bazaar in Alaska for 3 years this art show is big compared to the bazaar and we will be in Louisville! I will share more about this art show soon. But for now I just wanted to share the great news. :)

I hope you enjoyed my new work. I ordered more glass and dichroic from a new company today and hope to be receiving new colors of glass and new patterns of dichroic for my fused work. Here are a couple of those dichroic patterns I will be working with.




The garage has also cooled down and Bo has been back on the torch. :) So I will be sharing his new works soon.

I hope you have a great Wednesday!

Works in progress and celebrations...

Summer has hit Kentucky! I am not used to the heat and humidity and so I find myself walking or running with Kaiah at night as the sun is going down around 8pm to 9pm. I am constantly watering my yard and garden because we have barely had any rain.

Bo and I realized that it has been hotter in the garage than outside and decided if we are to work in there with his torch and my kiln which puts out heat. We will have to to put a window unit in. Which thankfully we do have a window on the side of the garage. So in the heat the other day before heading to work his mid-shift he installed one in there. It has cooled it down enough for him to get back on the torch and play around a little to get used to working again. Tomorrow I plan to move my work into the garage, right now I have been soldering on the counter of my laundry room. Yeah not too good with the whole smell aspect but my laundry room is long and big with cabinets and a kitchen counter so I figured I could cut glass in there.

So besides all the rest of the things we stay busy with we have been little by little getting new things made. And I know I promise you those pictures. :)

Here are a couple art projects and jewelry that I have been working on. They are not finished yet in these pictures.

Working on a necklace:


Another mixed media piece-will be the second of three pieces.


Two of the three pieces:


Start of my table leg doll:

Hopefully I will have finished pictures up soon. :)

More celebrations has gone under way again. Jared's 15th birthday and Father's Day.

Jared asked to go paintballing and so the plan for his birthday was for the kids to meet at Conders Paintball fields, the boys play then they all go home with Jared and have pizza at the house, chill out and play games then have cake and open presents. It was a hit although they all came home so sweaty from the heat since it was in the 90's! I washed their clothes as the boys lent them shorts and shirts. That is when I realized all the welts they all had on their bodies due to the game. And yet they all loved it even Bo! Not me. I think I would take it personally if I got hit in the face. Jared had a big bruise on his jaw and that is through his protective gear and Nick and Bo had black and blue bruises and welts all over them. Hmmm...must be a guy thing.

I just can't believe this little baby is now 15 years old!


The guys before and after playing paint ball.




Happy Birthday Jared!







On the day of his actual birthday we took him out to Red Lobster for dinner. :)




Then this weekend was Father's Day.

We celebrated by taking Bo to the Old Talbott Tavern Inn in Bardstown, Kentucky. The building has been around since 1779 and is considered to be haunted. :) Mostly the Dainiel Boone room. We ate at the restaurant and was seated in the Adubon room where some of his paintings in there were the originals. We had a nice dinner and I tasted a new bourbon for me called Elmer T. Lee. I usually like Maker's Mark which the distillery is not that far from there. :) Besides the dinner I handed Bo a present. A fellow blogger and jewelry artist Metallo Bianco made a sterling silver cuff and a ring that I purchased for Bo. He totally loved it and I am very impressed with the quality of the work. I do not have the capability to make rings or cuffs yet and I knew he would really want one so it was nice to have pieces from a fellow artist. The wedding ring of Mokume that I made Bo was done in my class where I had the tools to work with. I am little by little acquiring those tools but it takes time and money to get all that you need.

Getting ready to head out to dinner and yes it was hot out. Our heat index here has been in the 100's.







Opening his presents





Here are the actual pictures of his presents. His silver ring and the sterling silver cuff with brown suede.





Thank you Cassie! He loves his gifts. :)

Then of course you know I cannot end without any pictures of my baby girl right? :) It has been so hot here that when she plays outside she looks for the nearest shade and just plops down. So we bought her a kiddy pool. We figured she would like to play in the water when its is scorching out, plus it would keep her away from my already double reinforced fence of my garden. (She has been wanting to dig my plants up. :( In fact she has already eaten a bell pepper plant of mine:O )

Here is Kaiah playing in her pool. We had to coax her with her kibbles in the pool to get in it. Tonight she jumped in and out of it like no big deal. :)





Blowing bubbles in the water LOL!


Bo is back on night shifts. His expectations of his job here has not been what we thought when we chose to move here. He was suppose to be in charge not on the floor again. But that is the military for you. You have to adapt to whatever changes get thrown on you and have the patience and the flexibility to deal with it. I have to keep my calm and be there as a support despite the frustrations that arise. But I have to just sigh. I just want my husband happy. I know he loves what he does its all the other "stuff" that brings up stress and frustrations. :( Sigh...counting down...although we have 6 more years left despite the fact that he will be in 19 years this coming October.

Well I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. Happy Monday!

I know it has been a while again! Since the boys ended school I seriously thought I would have some time off but nope..I don't think I have slowed down! LOL! There is so much I want to share and such little time to be sitting on the computer to do so but I will try to update on some of the things happening. :)

Kids..
They are off school but Nick is now running for cross country but its off season so they do what they call the 400 mile club and have to run a certain amount of miles a day. Some of those days we bring him to Freeman Lake where he runs with the other members of the team. They average 5-6 miles a day.
Jared is constantly working out-that boy has so much dedication and commitment, I wish I had his self motivation. He also is still wrestling at tournaments that we can make it to.

Bo..
Work,work work is pretty much all my husband does. LOL! Then when he comes home its work again because of the yard or things to get done around the house. One part of our basement is not finished yet. It has walls but we need to prime it, paint it and lay flooring down. That is the room that houses all their workout equipment right now.

When we do have some time to spend together we try to family outings. So we did a hike out at Bernheim Forest one day, went to a lake to fish and also fished at a nearby pond. Nothing like Alaska fishing but hey its peaceful. So I will be sharing some of those photos soon.

One Sunday though we went out to run errands and ran across a fruit and vegetable stand off our highway and had to stop in to grab fresh tomatoes and potatoes and other stuff. I happen to have my camera with me and asked if I could take pictures which the owner said go ahead. I love the pop of color and fresh fruits and vegetables are such summer images. :)

Here are a few...












Talking about fresh vegetables, I am trying out my own little garden. We were going to till up the land outside what land we fenced off for Kaiah but with how busy we have been we just decided to do a small boxed garden off the side of our backyard. I have corn, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, bell peppers,tomatoes,green beans, watermelons and some herbs and sweet potatoes growing in it. I think I was over zealous and totally filled up my garden, so it will be interesting to see how it will be once everything starts growing.

Here is the start of my little garden and its progression:







My corn sprouting


Other seeds sprouting:


I will take more recent pictures soon and hopefully I can harvest all that I have planted. :)

Besides my garden growing my flowers are blooming!

This was one of the first pictures I took when we first put in our perennial garden.


We also put more flowers on the front of our porch:


Now they are all blooming! I can't wait for it to grow more full every year. :)














As you can tell I love flowers and cannot wait to have our forever home where I can uproot all the land and just have a wildflower garden out back.

Even my baby girl Kaiah loves flowers. :)


Kaiah is getting big fast and the last Vet visit she was healthy on her second round of puppy shots and weighed 18 pounds. And to think she looks bigger now than in this picture! They grow up way too fast!
Vet Visit June 2, sitting with Daddy.


Everyone and everything is growing! And I am not sure if I can keep up anymore! LOL!
I hope you enjoyed the pictures.
We will be celebrating my youngest son's 15th birthday tomorrow but his real day is on Monday! I can't believe Jared will be 15!Have a great weekend!