Samantha Gallagher's Art Studio blog

AH'M THE TUHMINAYTAH AHND AH'LL BE BAAHHHCK.

2012-01-16T18:15:00.004-05:00

I did not end my previous blog post with that statement but I should have. I didn't realize I'd take a months-and-months long break from posting.

What the hell has been going on with me these last 10 months!?!?

I toured the world with my husband for 3 months.

The week after we came back from our trip I got royally *#@#^&!ed over by Bank of America. My identity was stolen, someone went into Philly with a fake ID of me, withdrew ALL of my money, bought money orders, and went shopping. It was an inside job. I had detectives helping me out to find the person responsible. Finally Bank of America told me it was an inside job and one of their employees had given up my information. But they couldn't tell me the name of anyone intolved (so I could prosecute the hell out of them) due to respect of privacy. Yet they didn't make my life very easy while all of this was going on. Unbelievable.

They did refund my money after 32879134 pissed-off calls from me cause I gots billz ta pay, and then they complained that they worked on my case alllllllll weekend- boo hoo! What an inconvenience!- and finally came to the conclusion that it was not actually me who withdrew my money.

Obviously I am no longer a customer there.

I painted two 4'x8' graffiti-style murals to install in my family's dance studio.

(As you can see, this is VERY different from my normal style. While being super fun, it was also pretty difficult.
Challenging, but in a good way. Always good to expand your horizons, right?)

My fantastic husband took me to see Weird Al for my birthday in October:

I ran my first marathon:

In November I painted most of my house (I talked about doing so in this post):

I redesigned and added some recipes to my silly Flavor blog:

(and will soon get rid of Colorful Kitchen and put that info over on that blog).

I failed at 2011 in 2011 but have been managing to continue de-cluttering and getting rid of things here and there and will continue to do so in 2012. (I will not be counting though.)

I also failed to obtain enough applications to pass the Pollinator license plates I'm working on, so I've been continuing to find ways to spread the word about them.

I winter-sowed some seeds again.

I just finished a commissioned piece of artwork (which will get its own post after the recipient receives it, since it's a gift).

And... that leads up to now. I hadn't worked on a drawing or painting in at least 6 months and really had no inspiration to work on anything. When I was asked to do a drawing of some bees, I realized I better hurry up and find some inspiration to get the drawing done. Once I was finished with it and happy with the result, I realized how much I've missed drawing. I would love to hammer out a bunch relatively soon, but all that time off must have made my drawing muscles atrophy and thus... my hands are still pretty sore. SAD. Looks like I need to build up those calluses again!

Now that I'm inspired and working on some new stuff, I hope to post more often :)

2011 in 2011 Update

2011-03-22T12:31:00.001-04:00

Whee!
As of today I'm up to 404 items.
Since the last update (358) I've done some trashing/recycling and basic cleaning out of some things. I didn't learn anything new this time around (like I did with the e-cycling), but I'm still a big fan of Craigslist. I have a handful of items that I need to put on there to sell or give away, but I'm just so lazy about taking pictures. I shouldn't be, the pictures most people post on Craigslist aren't exactly what I'd call award-winning, but they get the job done.

The most interesting items from this update are being picked up this evening. It's a cat tower that my cat just never played on- I think it's a little too un-sturdy for her weight- and a handful of her toys, also that she never played with. She has a handful of toys that she likes, and some she just never showed any interest in. I cleaned them off (when we moved, they were thrown into a big box with all of her things and everything in there inadvertently got cat hair on it) and put them into a bag to give away with the kitty tower.

It's funny how I felt bad getting rid of her toys... like she has no say in the matter. I know I shouldn't feel bad, little kids give away their toys all the time when they are too big for them or just no longer have an interest in them. And I know my dear little kitty only needs a few toys, so why not just hang onto her favorites and get rid of the rest? Especially when she's content to play with something as simple as the drawstring on a pair of shorts in the laundry...

My New Favorite Book...

2011-03-17T00:10:00.000-04:00

"The Life Cycles of Butterflies" by Judy Burris & Wayne Richards.
You can buy it from Amazon (at a VERY reasonable price of less than $12!) here:
http://astore.amazon.com/samanthasartstudio-20/detail/1580176178

I learned about this book online a few weeks ago- I wish I could remember where I read about it. I think I was following a butterfly gardening blog and the author posted about it. Anyway I had the book at the forefront of my mind when my husband and I recently passed a Borders with a big "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!" sale sign in the window. We were on our way to dinner with friends, but I begged to stop by if dinner finished early enough.

Dinner finished around 9:45, which I figured was too late, and I had on some ridiculously high-heels and wasn't exactly prepared to be running around all over a bookstore in search of ONE book. I told him we could just go home and I'd stop by the bookstore the next day.

But being the wonderful awesome honeybee husband that he is, he pulled his car in front of the store and dropped me off. The store closed at 10:00, so by then I had about 10 minutes to find the book.

I dashed in and took a glance around the first floor. Humor, no. Young adult, don't think so. Travel, no. Self help... no? I headed for the escalators. And, of course, they weren't working... but for my convenience they had become stairs, which I climbed as quickly as possible in previously mentioned ridiculous heels.

As soon as I got upstairs I saw the SCIENCE section.
Now we're on to something.
I headed that way and saw NATURE
and then ANIMALS.
Perfect!
I found the kitty books.... then the dog books... birds... reptiles...
Bugs!
And there it was. In all its glory. It was the first book I laid my eyes upon. It was the last one.

I did not open it. I did not read the back cover. I did not look at the price. I did not pass go. I did not collect $200.

I did quickly grab another cool looking insect guide book and head toward the way-too-tall-for-ludicrous-heels-escalator-turned-stairs. I made my way down safely, somehow, and got in line to check out, just as the announcement came on that the store was closing.

I guess you're waiting for a review! I can tell you, this book is everything I hoped it would be AND MORE. I wish the online version had a "look through" option, but just believe me when I say it is well worth every penny if you're interested in butterflies and their caterpillars and how to get them into your gardens. I could look at it for hours. Flip through. Re-open. Re-read. Skim through again. Pause. Repeat.

The best part was that as I was looking through the whole thing for the first time, slowly taking everything in, I realized I was getting close to the end of the book. Noooooooooooo!!!!!! I want it to last FOREVER..... But as I turned the pages, I kept finding more and more cool stuff. A whole section on host plants. A section on nectar plants. A section on butterflies that they didn't have quite so much documentation about, but showed them anyway.

I can't get enough of this book! I finally put it on the bookshelf tonight since it's been sitting in various places around my room for the last couple of weeks, but I don't expect it to remain on the bookshelf for very long :)

How-To-Tuesday: How to save your colored inks!

2011-03-15T12:14:00.000-04:00

This is a pretty simple How-To-Tuesday, and I'm a little embarrassed to say I never figured all of this out until very VERY recently since I'm not one to play around much with the various print dialogs my computer offers. I typically look at paper size, paper type, borderless printing, and if I'm making an art print I make sure the quality is set to either "Best" or "Maximum DPI."

Of course when trying to be eco-friendly it's best to print as infrequently as possible, but sometimes there are documents you simply must print. I always use 100% post-consumer recycled paper from Staples.

For years I've been clicking the "Paper Type/Quality" section of the print dialog and selecting Grayscale. The black ink cartridge for my HP printer is HUGE and the colored ones are so little, and they are expensive, so obviously I don't want to waste them when I'm just printing a coupon or typed document.

It would seem obvious to me that if you tell the printer to print in black and white only, it will do just that- only print from the black cartridge.
But NO!

Here's are the other things I recently discovered!

Click "Color Options" then choose "Black Print Cartridge Only." Otherwise you have your colored inks combining with the black ink to print a black and white document. How silly is that!

Next click "ink" and set your slider over to "Light." You won't get a super super dark print this way, but for most things, how dark do you really need it?

Play around with the sliders and see what kind of results you get.

I hope these simple little tips help you save on money and ink! Better for your wallet and the environment.

*Note, this dialog is on a Mac computer, but I think windows computers have a similar print dialog.

New Painting! Operation Fill-A-Frame #7

2011-03-11T12:36:00.002-05:00

My mom gave me two giant silvery frames that my husband and I decided would look good behind our couch in the teal room of our house. The two frames have been sitting in the office forever, and since they're part of Operation Fill-A-Frame (even though I don't plan on selling them), I figured since I had the idea and the intent, might as well get started on them.

We decided that some tropical birds would look cool in that room. The only birds I'd painted were these penguins and the blue heron, and for a few years now I have wanted to paint some more tropical birds... just kept putting it off. I knew right away that one would be a toucan but was unsure of the 2nd bird.
I got out a couple of canvases and began painting blue skies:

The skies were tough because if I made them too dark they would look nasty and stormy, but if I made them too light, they'd clash with the dark teal that's already on the walls. I thought these were going to be too dark for my liking but they ended up being just right.

I started the first one and sketched a bird I found after extensive research online. I ended up changing the bird quite a bit though, and added those fun little plumey things on his head.


First coat of paint, just blocking in color.

You're going to think I'm crazy, but after the first night of painting- sketching out the composition and blocking in the color, I was playing around online and went to GraphJam.com, one of my favorite silly sites. I saw this graph and didn't care so much about what the graph was actually representing- I just couldn't get enough of the color scheme.

I had to have it.
I decided to adapt my black bird to this color scheme. I made him a dark purple instead of just flat black.

I did a little more work on the plants, painted his wings, and gave him a bright orange beak rather than a plain gray one.

Finished up the details on the bird and the plants and framed him up. Done!

I'm not too happy with the composition in the mat the way that it is- even though I measured, I still went too high with his head. I might have to actually use my husband's circular saw and cut off the bottom 2 inches of the painting (I didn't paint anything there anyway) and move it down in the frame to where I want it. It's a canvas panel, so I think sawing off the bottom should be OK.

I also changed up my painting process on this one. Instead of taking a month or more to do a painting, I did this one in about 4 nights- 10 hours. I could have easily spent 40 or more hours on it though. What I'm finding at art shows is that people enjoy my art, but they seem to enjoy the subject matter more than the technique and craftsmanship that goes into it. If I spent 40 hours on a painting, I've got to charge a pretty good price for it to pay myself for my time, right? But if people like a picture but don't care or notice that every leaf has the tiniest amount of detail in it and is blended to perfection, why painstakingly take the time to do all of my paintings that way?

It's tough because you don't want to sell out, but at the same time if you have an idea that you think people might like, you've got to make it marketable- if you're going to try and sell it, that is. I'm experimenting a little with trying to find a balance there, so as I do more paintings, you may notice some of my new stuff being cheaper. I figure if I ever get myself into a prestigious art gallery, that market is going to be a lot different than the outdoor-art-show crowd (at least the ones I've gone to). The art gallery can appreciate the detailed florals, the outdoor crowd will probably enjoy the same subject matter with a fraction of the time it takes to create a more detailed piece.

Have a great weekend everyone!

2011 in 2011 update and more E-cycling.

2011-03-07T13:26:00.003-05:00

Admittedly, I am not doing nearly as well as my friend Jen with 2011 in 2011. But what I've done so far has not been very involved- it's been mainly just tidying up, or listing things on Craigslist that I was being lazy about. So for not having put much work into it, I'm doing okay!

My update includes a bunch of plastic hangers I gave away on Craigslist. Our closets in this house are teeny tiny so in addition to having to get rid of (donate) clothing, I switched to the thin metal hangers since the big plastic ones take up more room. The guy who took the hangers owns a bicycle co-op in Old Town Alexandria and had just gotten a donation of a bunch of bike clothes-- but had no means of hanging them. I had both hangers for shorts and hangers for shirts, so I'm sure I helped him out! :)

The rest of the recent additions to my list were trash or recycled items.

I've got a few boxes of "ready to go stuff" that haven't been added to this list:
One is a box of miscellaneous donation items, 25 to be exact.
Another is a box of 12 empty jewelry boxes from back when I sold jewelry- I'm giving those away via Craigslist.
Another box is a GIANT box of clothes that my husband went through this past weekend and decided to donate- he had a lot of stuff that didn't fit, or he didn't like for whatever reason. I told him I was excited to add the items to our 2011 in 2011 and he said "what!?" I explained it to him, and his response was "no way, I don't wanna be part of some online thing." Well if the caterpillar ticker above is "some online thing"....... too bad! I'm counting them and adding them up.

My last group of items is... these disks.
CDs labeled 2002 and earlier, plus floppy disks and zip disks, which I have no way to even read!
I wasn't sure what to do with these- I thought about scratching the disks to oblivion to protect my files, because who knows what's on there (even though most are labeled) and when I'm famous I wouldn't want someone to go scrounging these up and selling them for a fat profit. But even if I were to try and obliterate the information on the disks, I'm still left with the disks themselves. What do I do with those!?

Answer: GreenDisk.com.
Apparently they take your old media, erase all of the information on it, and either reuse or recycle it in the best way that they can.
Here's the full list of what they take. It includes CD jewel cases and VHS tapes, too!
They charge a fee for their service, but luckily for me I don't have much stuff to send to them. To send them < 25 lbs of items I'll have to pay a $9.95 fee, plus whatever it costs to ship the disks to them.

If you're in a similar situation but ONLY have CDs to recycle, you can try this company and you only pay for the shipping:
http://www.cdrecyclingforfree.com/
CDs are considered a class 7 recyclable plastic.
You can also send this company your hard-drives, if you've got those to recycle.

I hope this post enlightens you once more on some ways to dispose of your electronic waste in an environmentally friendly way :)
If you have other electronics to recycle, you can read my post about that here:
http://samanthasartstudio.blogspot.com/2011/02/e-cycling-electronics-recycling.html

Happy Dr. Seuss Day!

2011-03-02T18:17:00.000-05:00

Let's celebrate with one of my favorites... The Lorax!
In honor of Dr. Seuss and helping the environment, here he is :)

Spring is coming!!

2011-03-01T18:04:00.001-05:00

I am so happy that it's March!
Ever since I moved into our new house in September, I've been dying to do some landscaping and planting and gardening.
I planted just a couple of things last fall, and some bulbs.. which are slowly but surely starting to poke up from out of the cold ground!

One part of spring and summer that I enjoy the most is eating meals outdoors. I can't explain it... but there's just something about it that makes the whole experience more enjoyable to me. With that in mind and in anticipation of warm weather, I painted this little wooden utensil holder- perfect for a picnic, or any meal outdoors!

It has 3 compartments up front for silverware and one long compartment in the back for napkins.

I also realized that if you wanted to use it year-round, it would make a great desk organizer! :)

I found the original item at a thrift store. It was in okay condition, which means luckily it didn't need much work..... but just seemed like it needed a little cheerful pick-me-up. I painted the design in acrylic paints and spray-poly'd a couple light coats over the paint for durability.

If you're interested in a ladybug picnic all your own, the item is in my Etsy shop here:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/67921854/lady-bug-picnic-silverware-and-napkin

Or if you're in the market for any other custom-painted box or item similar to this, please contact me and tell me what you'd like! I love doing commission work :)

Happy March, everyone!

E-cycling (Electronics Recycling)

2011-02-28T12:56:00.001-05:00

Recycled 2 very very old DirecTV receivers today!

Electronics are becoming a HUGE source of waste! Most people have no idea what to do with their non-functioning old electronics. You can read more about "e-cycling" (electronics recycling) on the EPA's website here:
http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/

Did you know it's very easy to find a place to recycle your old electronics? Some stores like Best Buy and Staples (you already KNOW about my Staples love!) take electronics- most of them charge fees. Click the names of the stores to visit their e-cycling sites. At Best Buy they charge $10 to recycle certain things, but you get a $10 gift card in return for some specific electronics... not bad.

You can try these sites to find out more about electronics recycling:
1-800-RECYCLING
My Green Electronics
ECycling Central

Also Google is a wonderful, wonderful thing. To find a place to take my electronics I just Googled "electronics recycling [my city] {state}" and results popped right up! If you don't live in a big city, try searching for your town and state anyway. You might be surprised! If nothing pops up in your immediate area, try searching for the biggest city closest to you. You may find somewhere relatively close where you can drop things off, and most recycling places don't charge a fee (at least that is what I've been told).

More 2011 in 2011

2011-02-25T13:57:00.002-05:00

Adding more items to my 2011 goal for 2011 (read about it here).
Finally ran errands and made some donations today! And threw away one thing that wasn't recyclable (at least not in my area)...

For a total of 42 items today. And these are without even trying- for the most part, things that I set aside as we unpacked in the fall and just kept piling up. Finally got them out of the house today! :)

2011 in 2011

2011-02-23T11:29:00.002-05:00

My friend Jen (over at Jen and Joey Go Green blog) posted recently about a "2011 in 2011" challenge. The idea is to get rid of 2011 things in the year 2011! "Get rid of" meaning: donate, recycle, throw away, sell, give away. Since we just (ok 5 months ago) moved, it's been the perfect time to really unpack and analyze everything we have and why we need it. Of course we don't need it all. The office (in this case 'my' office because it's all my mess) is crowded and cluttered and I can say the same for other rooms in the house. The problem is I don't even know what to do with some of the stuff. Participating in this challenge will force me to FIGURE OUT what to do with the stuff! :)

So here are the rules, from KidStuffWorld:

What Counts

Anything that has taken up residence in your home. Any item using valuable floor/counter/table space you could be using or areas you could be not using in a more calming, soothing way. This could be stacks of papers and magazines, clothing you no longer need or wear, items in your cupboards you haven’t touched in years, toys no one plays with, hair and body products you have never opened … you get the idea.

What Doesn’t Count

The only items not included in our challenge are things you will be replacing with an item of a similar nature (i.e, – food, recycling, beauty supplies you use on a constant basis, laundry detergent) and items you bring in your home after you start the challenge, like mail, new clothing, etc.

The only exceptions to these guidelines are 1) when you leave mail lying on the counter for a week (or more) and it takes control of your kitchen. Go ahead and toss it and count it. Or 2) when you find 5 empty TP rolls in your guest bath or 3) large empty bottles of laundry detergent in your laundry room just junking up the place. Don’t be hard on yourself, just tally them in with your other items and be done with it. Vow to do better the next time around.

While I didn't actually commit to participating until this morning, since the challenge is for 2011 and not just the rest of 2011, I'll count up some things I've gotten rid this year of that were cluttering up the house thus far:

3 picture frames (sold via Operation Fill-A-Frame project)

2 cell phone chargers (mailed out in a Cell Phones For Soldiers envelope)

1 cell phone (mailed out in a Cell Phones For Soldiers envelope)

1 canvas print (had it for 3 years and hadn't sold it yet, so gave it to our new rental tenant as a housewarming gift)

So that's 7 items without yet trying :)

I also have about 10 old towels bagged up downstairs to deliver to an animal shelter (they're bleached and/or stained from cleaning) and a few other items like that, but won't count them yet since they're not actually out of the house.

I'll be sure to post updates on this and try to remember to keep it updated. Let me know if you're doing the challenge, too!

Another great item from BuildASign! :)

2011-02-16T18:46:00.005-05:00

I received the last of my promotional items in the mail from BuildASign.com! It's a fully customized aluminum license plate!

You can go on BuildASign's website and create a fully customized license plate, or personalize one of the many templates they have available. Way cool!

While I can't legally put this on my car and drive around in the state of Virginia (a REAL plate is required on both the front and back of the car here), it's going to be a wonderful item to have with me for people to touch and feel when I'm out promoting the plates. I was squeeing with delight when it arrived in the mail and I pulled it out of the packaging! It's so cool to see it in person, to get a real feel for how it's going to look when I finally get these things passed into legislation, and BuildASign did a great job with the print. The plate is sturdy and feels like if I have to it around to a lot of events, it won't get scratched up in the process; the ink most certainly does not feel like it's going to easily start rubbing off or anything like that.

(Oh, one thing my husband pointed out- he asked why Virginia wasn't centered. That was definitely not Build-A-Sign's fault, that was all me- when I was building the template I just tried to make sure everything that I wanted to fit on the plate was within the bleed area, I didn't even really look at where things were centered. My fault, not theirs!)

I haven't mentioned the plates much since I created their own special website, www.PollinatorPlates.com . Right now the goings-on focus only on the state of Virginia, and I know I have readers from other places :) But if you're in a state that you think would enjoy showing its love of pollinators via fancy-pants vehicular accessory, by all means let me know. We can research how to get one passed in your state and I'd love to work on another new and unique design!

"In The Waiting Line" Operation Fill-A-Frame #6

2011-02-11T01:08:00.003-05:00

http://www.etsy.com/listing/67892531/in-the-waiting-line-2-swallowtail-study

Operation Fill-A-Frame #6 is complete! This one is very similar to #5 and thus has the same title (with a 2 at the end). "In The Waiting Line 2" is another butterfly and caterpillar study, this time featuring the Tiger Swallowtail, also known as the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

Just like the Monarch "In The Waiting Line 1", the mat of this picture is outside of the glass, not under it. (It feels like a hard wood or plastic and is painted.) The two drawings are on a single sheet of Canson Recycled Bristol art paper, and the drawing was created with ink and my Forest Choice colored pencils.

This was another quick one, and thus, is a cheap one! $25 for this framed original drawing in my Etsy shop- you can see the listing here :)
http://www.etsy.com/listing/67892531/in-the-waiting-line-2-swallowtail-study

Man, oh man, did I learn a LOT while researching this piece.

First of all, let's talk about this caterpillar.
Years and years ago I painted a swallowtail caterpillar- does this guy look familiar?

He is, indeed, a swallowtail caterpillar. When I took the original photo of him and looked him up, that's what I learned. It made sense because the year I found him, our yard was covered in yellow tiger swallowtail butterflies.
BUT
It turns out, he's NOT the caterpillar of the tiger swallowtail. Nope. (It's very easy to get confused because if you do a Google image search for Tiger Swallowtail Caterpillar, just "swallowtail caterpillar" is included in the search and pictures of those guys come up!)

He is the caterpillar of the Black Swallowtail butterfly, seen here:

Photo by Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man)

So if those caterpillars weren't from the tiger swallowtail, then where did all those butterflies come from? And why were they staying??

Answer- because their host plant is (....drumroll....) the Tulip Tree! Well, that is one of their host plants (this should look familiar, too!) Our house was surrounded on all sides by Liriodendrons (I also learned the Tulip Tree has a bunch of different names!) :)

http://www.samanthasartstudio.com/tuliptree2.html

And their caterpillars look way, way, way different than the guy above that I painted! What's very interesting is the variation in the caterpillars themselves. I was looking all over the web for clarification of the different caterpillars and didn't understand why so many different looking ones were all tagged as the tiger swallowtail.

Some are bright neon green. Some are brown. Some are multicolored. This is due to the different instars of the caterpillar. Each time the caterpillar sheds its skin, it looks slightly different. This happens to a lot of caterpillars, but this one seems quite dramatic to me.

Imagine my world being turned upside down upon finding out this whole time I've been telling people this caterpillar grows into the wrong butterfly! (Sorry!)

AND
Imagine my confusion when I found out that all male tiger swallowtail butterflies are yellow and black, but only some of the females are yellow and black. The rest are just plain black! (There is also a rare morph of the two.)
See great pictures and the explanation here:
http://www.rlephoto.com/swallowtails/swallowtail_ET01.html
Eventually I'll learn the differences.... but in my confusion and endless searching for which butterfly was which, I found out there are Black Swallowtails, Black Tiger Swallowtails, Spicebush Swallowtails, and Pipevine Swallowtails
and
they
ALL
look
almost
exactly
THE SAME!

...Eeep!

How To Tuesday: Signature after your blog post!

2011-02-08T10:16:00.124-05:00

I'm sure that a lot of you have visited blogs where people post and at the end of each blog post is their signature. Or something that looks like a signature. I know when I first saw it on a blog I thought, "Hey, I want that! That looks cool!" It makes the blog seem more personalized... almost like you're reading a real letter from a person. Which is funny... because adding a signature to your post is a completely automated process :) One which I'm sure Blogger will simplify and have a gadget/option for in no time at all.

But until then, what's a blogger to do?
...Fake it.

1. Before you can add a signature to your blog post, you'll need... a signature! An image (.gif, .jpg, .png, etc.) hosted somewhere online. You may even be able to use the Picasa album that Blogger sets up for you- but I'm not too familiar with how that works. Anyway, create your image, then upload it and save it somewhere online.

2. After you upload your image, right click it and copy down the address (or open it in a new window so the address is visible in the address bar.)

http://sammysam.com/SamanthaSignature.gif

3. Go to your Blogger dashboard page and click on "Design" at the top. Then click "Edit HTML."

4. If you want to be safe, click on the "Download Full Template" link at the top of the page and save it in case you screw up. If you want to live on the edge, skip this step!!

5. Check the box that says "Expand Widget Templates."

6. Click your mouse in the HTML code window.
(Note: Apparently the blog code is done in XML, which kicked my butt a little when I was trying to do this, since I was using HTML....)

6a. At the top of your web browser's main menu, click Edit, then click Find
(in most browsers you can hit CTRL + F or Command + F on a [much cooler] Mac!).

6b. Then enter this in the Find:
<div class='post-footer'>
(you can copy and paste from here to be sure to get it right.)

7. If you found that code in the HTML code window, insert the following code above it, on the line before it:
 <img src='http://www.YourImageAddressOnTheWeb'/>

Be sure to include the file extension of your image at the end of the address!

You're basically going to add <img src=''/> and then insert your complete image address location between those two single quotes :)

* * * * * * GEEKERY ZONE * * * * * * * * * * GEEKERY ZONE * * * * * * *

The and put your signature image under your blog post, on a separate line (instead of next to the text).
The <img src=''/> tells the internets where to find the image you want to display.

* * * * * * * * RESUME NORMAL NON-GEEKY ACTIVITIES * * * * * * * * *

8. Click Save Template. If you don't get any mean bright red error messages, congratulations! You did it right!
Now view your blog.
If you want more space around your image, you can try
  <img src='http://www.YourImageAddressOnTheWeb'/>
instead. The extra at the beginning and at the end will give your image another separate line before it.

That's it!
If it doesn't work, and you keep playing around with it and it still won't work, you can either click "Clear Edits" or upload the file you saved of your original HTML... if you saved it!

*PLEASE* Let me know if this works for you, or if it doesn't, or if you have questions. Different blog templates work slightly differently and I used the coding that worked for my template... but I can't test them all.
If you comment here I'll try to come back and respond! I hope this works for at least someone out there who finds it and is helpful to you! :)

"In The Waiting Line" Operation Fill-A-Frame #5

2011-02-07T18:51:00.000-05:00

http://www.etsy.com/listing/67648352/in-the-waiting-line-monarch-study

Operation Fill-A-Frame #5 is complete! This was one of the frames I was looking forward to filling the most. "In The Waiting Line" features a big (4th instar) Monarch Caterpillar, crawling and munching his way among the Milkweeds, awaiting the time to turn into a chrysalis and become a beautiful Monarch butterfly!

The title seemed appropriate for a caterpillar and was also the name of a song I listened to while creating the art- listen here:

The mat of this picture is outside of the glass, not under it. (It feels like a hard wood or plastic and is painted.) The two drawings are on a single sheet of Canson Recycled Bristol art paper, and the drawing was created with ink and my Forest Choice colored pencils. I hadn't done a colored pencil drawing with ink in a long time- maybe not since my 30 bugs in 30 days project! I yearned to do something a little realistic, a little cartoony, and so this was created.

This was a quick one, and thus, is a cheap one! $25 for this framed original drawing in my Etsy shop- you can see the listing here :)
http://www.etsy.com/listing/67648352/in-the-waiting-line-monarch-study

I have another frame identical to this one and will probably do another caterpillar/butterfly combo drawing. I'm thinking an eastern Yellow Tiger Swallowtail butterflies for the next one!

UPCYCLING on the brain!!

2011-02-04T14:21:00.001-05:00

It must have been giving new life to all these old picture frames* that got me slightly obsessing over upcycling recently.
I've found myself second-guessing almost *anything* I'm throwing out!
(* Technically my Fill-A-Frame project isn't really upcycling, more like "fixing up" since I'm just either filling up existing frames that are already in good condition, or re-painting those that aren't in such good shape.)

First of all, you may ask, what's "upcycling"? Is it different from recycling? If so, how?
Upcycling is to giving new life to something that otherwise would have been thrown out- thrown out into the trash or the recycle bin, whichever. We've all heard reduce, reuse, recycle. Upcycling can be thought of simply as the reuse part of that.

You don't even have to reuse it for what it was originally intended. For example, you don't have to take an old plastic bottle (from soda or water) and fill it back up with something else to drink. You could cut it in half and make two little domes to put on top of seeds you've planted and are awaiting germination!

The difference with recycling is that the bottle would go to a processing plant where it would be melted down with other plastics and eventually formed into something else. (You could still recycle the bottle after using it for your seed-greenhouse, of course.)

Back in December I started learning about Winter Sowing. Have you heard of it? In a nutshell, you fill a container with dirt (make sure it has drainage holes or add your own), plant seeds in it (most times native seeds or plants that reseed themselves in your gardening zone work best), cover it with clear plastic (with holes in it), stick it outside, and at the appropriate time in Spring the seeds will figure out when to germinate and do so!! Then you can plant little clumps of the seedlings right in your garden. There's no worrying about wildlife eating them, there's no hardening off, there's no taking up a ton of room in every warm windowsill of your house.

Here is a whole page about it if you want to learn more!
http://wintersown.org/wseo1/How_to_Winter_Sow.html

Upcycling is HUGE in the winter sowing community! I have occasionally poked drainage holes into the bottom of a yogurt or margarine container to try and grow a plant big enough to be planted outside. I had no idea there was a whole cult of people who do it every year- sometimes with HUNDREDS of containers in every shape and size- to get their seeds started for their gardens. Amazing!

From WinterSown.org

I've always had such terrible luck with seeds, even back when I had a greenhouse. I planted many many seeds and ended up with only a handful of plants to show for them- some lime green zinnias and okra and tomatoes. It was the hardening-off process that did them in, but with winter sowing the seedlings were born outside, so they're completely ready for the outdoors!

My collection of random seeds in my repurposed pottting station

I've started a few flats of seeds myself- so far, just 3.
A plastic tray from some edamame became a greenhouse for some Campion seeds.
A plastic tray from Ortega taco shells became a greenhouse for some Larkspur seeds.
A plastic tub (with holes already in the top and bottom!!) from grape tomatoes became a greenhouse for Black-Eyed-Susan seeds.
I've got 2 empty strawberry tubs to use, also with drainage and ventilation holes already in them. I plan to put Pink Coneflower in one and.... not sure about the other.

I have so many seeds saved up I don't even know what some of them are!

Banner from BuildASign.com is here :)

2011-02-02T01:03:00.002-05:00

I just got my Pollinator Plates custom banner from BuildASign.com!

I am so happy with it!

Here it is!

What's great about this banner:

The banner material itself feels super strong and durable. Honestly, for the prices online (this one is a 24" x 48"- that's 2'x4'- and only $23 and I'm not even kidding), I was expecting something flimsier that might tear easily and probably not last for very many uses. I was very pleasantly surprised!
The colors came out very true-to-life. Colors usually vary from monitor to monitor, and a slight variation wouldn't have disappointed me. Again, another pleasant surprise! It looks exactly the same as the image that I sent to them! The colors are so bright and vivid!
It also came with 4 grommets, one in each corner. Again, for something so inexpensive, I expected maybe one grommet in each top corner for hanging.

I am so pleased with this!

It will be the perfect size for a 6-foot table or a 10-foot booth spot, the sizes I've seen most commonly at various events. My little table is 5-feet long, so it will work with that as well. Once I can start the official process of collecting license plate applications, I plan to go "out in the field" as much as I can, to as many events as I can, to obtain as much interest as possible. I will even dress up in my bee costume if that is what it takes... (But hopefully with an eye-catching banner like THIS, the bee costume won't BEE necessary.)

So if you're in need of a banner, I highly recommend BuildASign.com! You can order from their templates, or use their online design software (VERY easy), or create your own custom design (like I did here with this one).They have lots of other fun stuff besides banners, such as personalized street signs and license plates, stickers, signs, magnetics. Playing around on their website made me miss my days of working back at the sign shop.... Le sigh.....

Operation: Fill-A-Frame #4

2011-01-24T10:21:00.130-05:00

"Love You To Death"

Oh man... what to say about this piece, where do I start?

Chronologically sounds good...
I started with the frame. I bought it at least 2 years ago. I thought the coppery-metallic-orange would look great filled with some orange tropical flower. But after getting the frame home I found myself less than enthusiastic about filling it. A tropical flower didn't seem right for it... but I had no idea what did seem right. So there it sat. I felt a twinge of guilt every time I saw it, thinking I had wasted money on yet another frame I was never going to fill, another project I was never going to complete.

In 2009 my awesome husband took me to Reptiland in Pennsylvania for my birthday. The place was amazing! (I loved it so much we returned in 2010.) There were frogs, snakes, turtles, and a butterfly house! Since it was late in the year when we went, most of the foliage and flowers were gone and only a few lonely surviving butterflies remained. I took tons of pictures of them. It was cold; they weren't moving much; you could get so close to them.

Here are two of the pictures that I took and the two that inspired the piece of art:

Fast forward to now and it's January and I'm working on this Fill-A-Frame project. I decided to take a break from the 8x10's and standard sizes I had around and get this square copper frame back out. I decided instead of a tropical flower, a monarch butterfly would look much better with the orange tones. I went through my Reptiland pictures again and loved the composition with the two butterflies (above) so much that I did a nasty (meaning, executed poorly but good and accurate enough for me to work from) rendition via Photoshop of what two monarchs would look like in the same position and began to work on the drawing.

Nasty Photoshop reference rough-draft

(I originally planned to extend the drawing onto the mat again, but I didn't have any white or light colored matboard around and eventually decided that I wanted only a small mat on this art, so unless I messed up the mat and HAD to color over it, I'd rather just have a plain mat.)

Here's the finished drawing:

I usually have trouble naming a drawing or painting, but most of the Fill-A-Frame project names are coming from songs or albums I'm listening to at the time that I create the art. It seemed quite fitting for this piece that the song I currently can't stop listening to is called "Love You To Death."

Why fitting?
I know, usually my art is super cheerful and happy, right? I definitely stepped out of my comfort zone a little for this one.

Here's why. The pictures that inspired the art were taken in a butterfly house... right before winter. Normally Monarch butterflies would migrate, but when importing live butterflies (chrysalis) from other states into a butterfly house, it's actually illegal to release those butterflies into the wild. When you visit a butterfly house, do you ever notice all of the signs asking you to check for "hitchhikers" before you leave? It's not just because they don't want to lose their butterflies... they don't want to break the law! When non-native species are released into a new environment, they can breed like crazy and mess up entire eco-systems... so there are strict laws against releasing those imported butterflies.

So even though the Monarch species was native to the area of the butterfly house, they still weren't allowed to be released into the wild. They, and the other remaining butterflies, had to just sit in the butterfly house and wait to die in the cold. I found it particularly sad with the Monarchs since they would've normally migrated south. They were imprisoned and just waiting for death.

Since there were a pair of them in this picture (well, in my made-up picture), it seemed at least a little more comforting that the two butterflies had each other and could wait for death together. Hence the "Love You To Death" title. (I know that's not what the actual song is about, but the title fit well.)

Next it was time to mat the drawing. Since I didn't need a huge mat, I went to a local art gallery to see if they had any matboard scraps around that they might otherwise be throwing away. Sometimes galleries will sell them to you cheap or in rare and especially nice cases just give them away! :) I got EXTREMELY lucky because not only did I find one of those NICE galleries, the lady working in the matting section even cut it to size (I did the inside cut) and the mat was this really cool tan color with some grayish-fibery-pieces in it. It was perfect; no way was I going to draw on it.

I put it all together, and there you have it. My first piece of sad artwork.

Operation Fill-A-Frame #2 & #3

2011-01-23T12:27:00.004-05:00

I filled up a couple more frames a while back and completely forgot to post about it!

Valentine's Bugs!

This artwork wasn't created specifically for Operation: Fill-A-Frame, it was actually created last year for an Etsy Team Challenge. However, like the frames, it was something I had laying around that I wanted to finish (i.e. frame it) eventually. So the two projects came together perfectly! I had the art... I had the frames... They just needed mats.

I was really torn between matting it in green or red. The dark green went well with both pieces and seemed practical because dark green is easy color to match to almost any decor in any home. But since the art was created for Valentine's day, it made sense to frame it in the obligatory red. People love buying things in red for Valentine's day... for what other reason does every store currently look like red, pink, and magenta came in and threw up all over their entryway!?

I decided to offer the option of either color mat.

They are both pastels with ink. Both pieces are currently $35 each, but check the listings as they may go on sale. I may offer a bundle discount if someone's interested in buying both!

Original "Bee Mine" framed artwork

If you're interested in buying this piece or seeing more photos, it's here in my Etsy gift shop:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/65547037/bee-mine-original-valentines-honeybee

Original "Love Bug" framed artwork

If you'd like to buy this piece or see more detailed photos, it's here in my Etsy gift shop:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/65546619/love-bug-original-valentines-ladybug

This ladybird beetle one was a tough one- I had an idea for the composition but it took a lot of sketches to get it just right. Ladybugs love climbing around on the grass and the red and green colors look so nice together. The little beetle is pulling down blades of grass into the shape of a heart, and I made his little body slightly heart-shaped too :)

Please Vote :)

2011-01-19T12:35:00.000-05:00

(Or as Puff Daddy (P. Diddy? Diddy?) would say, Vote or Die!)

I'm running a 24 hour poll on the Pollinator Plates blog regarding the design of the plate. Virginia has a lot of plates with a lot of blue in the background, but none (or at least very few) that are pimarily green. I posted two designs and want to choose the final one by tomorrow so I can send my legislator another letter with the new design.

If you have a moment, could you stop by the Pollinator Plates site and vote? The poll is in the upper right corner:
http://pollinatorplates.blogspot.com/

Thanks!! :)

Oh no! I forgot my bread!!

2011-01-13T13:11:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted about Tacos Y Burritos in a while, so like I recently did for my Tosh, here's a post for him since I have a silly story about him to share.

Tacos Y Burritos in Harrisburg!!

Today I was making a PBJ and used up the last 2 slices of bread. When this happens, we give Tacos the end (butt) of the bread as a treat. I'm not sure how "treaty" it is to him but we figure it has to be healthier than most other dogs treats out there (which, yes, he does get-- we are not totally mean!!) :)

I gave one of the ends to him but he wasn't very interested. I finished making my sandwich and thought he might like to go outside for a bit. So I asked him to speak (we're trying to teach him "speak" to be let outside... hoping that one day he'll figure out if he NEEDS to go out, when he speaks, we'll come open the door for him!), he did, I opened the door. He went out, immediately did a 180, and just stood there at the door looking back inside.

That's pretty odd since he's not like a cat who will waffle all day between in or out. He's pretty decisive about it!

I told him to come on back in and he did. I closed the door since it is cold outside today. But he seemed so excited to be outside, so I thought maybe he was just confused.
I asked him to sit, he did, I said "good boy" and patted him on the head.
I asked him to speak and he smacked his lips at me.
I asked him one more time, and this time he spoke- making one of his little whiney howly husky noises.
Once again, I opened the door- this time he whirled around and grabbed that sad looking bread butt and sprinted outside with it!!

Hahaha! So the first time he had forgotten the bread, realized it immediately, and wanted to come back in and get it. Then took it outside WITH A PURPOSE.

Dogs are so weird!

"Who you callin' weird!?!?"

Want! Want! Wednesday...

2011-01-12T11:48:00.001-05:00

Ohhh, Home Decorators catalog. Here you come with what I need, right on your cover this month. Martha Stewart now has a special Craft-Room line of furniture! Too bad I won't be splurging on it, but here it is for those of you who need inspiration to reorganize your craft rooms:

See the collection here:

http://www.homedecorators.com/newThumbPage.php?classification=18&typeDefId=12431

And my favorite piece from the collection:

http://www.homedecorators.com/P/Martha_Stewart_Living_Craft_Space_Eight-Drawer_Flat-File_Cabinet/400/

*Siggghhhh*, a girl can dream, can't she? :)

Operation: Fill-A-Frame #1

2011-01-04T11:36:00.003-05:00

Now available in my Etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/65263488/oleander-moth-charisma-original-artwork

Number one is complete! A couple of nights ago I dreamed about moths- fuzzy, soft, friendly moths flying around and landing on people and instead of going "EW EW EW!" and swatting and flailing at the moths, everyone welcomed them, which made me happy. I always enjoy a friendly moth visit :)
Anyway, the dream was what inspired this piece. I've wanted to draw or paint an Oleander Hawk Moth with Oleander forever, so I finally did it.

I did 3 new and different things with this piece:

#1 I left the background white. I usually can't do that with colored pencils because the little flecks that accumulate as you press down HARD (like I do) stick to the paper and make tiny obnoxious specks. You can blow at them and hope they fly away, or sometimes take a pin or tip of an exacto and try to remove them like a surgical procedure. More often I end trying to so-gently brush them away with my hand... which results in a colored smear, hence why my backgrounds are always filled with color. At least with a painting I could just paint the whole background white when I'm done and cover up the mistakes! ...Now don't get me wrong, I had my share of little flecks that did find their way onto parts of the paper where I didn't want them! When that happened I added a flower bud or a leaf to cover it up :)

#2 I used a new set of eco-friendly colored pencils. I wrote a little about this yesterday in my review of the colored pencils (it was my first time using them and I loved them). I picked out the frame I was going to fill, then grabbed my box of colored pencils and picked out the paper I was going to use- a Strathmore drawing paper made from recycled paper. I realized at that point that if I used my eco-friendly colored pencils instead of my regular ones, this whole finished piece would be made from environmentally friendly materials and I thought that would be really cool. So I put back the box of colored pencils and, instead, took out the little package of 12 eco-friendly pencils.

This presented a challenge as well because I went from having a whole box of many colors from which to choose, to having only these 12. And of those 12, I used only 9:

#3 I let the drawing overflow onto the mat. I've always wanted to do a drawing and mat it and have parts of the drawing spill onto the mat for that sort-of 3D effect. I've seen it done so many times by other artists but never actually completed a drawing where I felt like putting some of it onto the mat would necessarily add anything to it. I decided that it would be fun to do with this piece.

Here are some pictures of the piece as it progressed:

Moth is done, starting on the flowers.

The drawing on paper is done. Time to mat it up!

The drawing extended onto the mat.

Framed & ready for its close-up :)

Forest Choice Colored Pencils... Awesomeness

2011-01-03T19:18:00.004-05:00

Click to visit ForestChoice.com

A while ago a good friend of mine got me a set of Forest Choice colored pencils. Since I resolved (though not technically an official New Years Resolution- I don't believe in those- the timing happened to work out that way, thanks to the holiday and a very productive weekend) to get back to creating art (see yesterday's post about all these frames I have to fill!), I decided to finally put those pencils to use.

They seemed like the perfect choice for Operation: Fill-A-Frame: Eco-Friendly! All my frames were from a thrift store or rescued from being trash-bound, so the project is inherently environmentally friendly. Combine that with the Strathmore Premium Recycled Drawing paper on which I chose to do my first drawing for the project.... It all fit together. (I can't find the actual paper online, I think they changed their line up a bit since I bought mine, but here's one that looks close: http://www.strathmoreartist.com/product-reader/items/400-series-recycled-drawing.html)

I expected the pencils to be.... okay. What I didn't expect was that I would love them so much aside from the fact that they're made from environmentally responsible sources. They are really great pencils!

So what's so great about them?

Artistically I felt that they blended very well and the colors maintained themselves really well- meaning when I pressed hard on the yellow and then later accidentally went over it with a darker color, the yellow maintained its integrity there on the paper. The darker pencil did not trump the lighter color.
There are 12 in the set: Two blues, two greens, a yellow, a pink, red, orange, purple, brown, black, white.
Environmentally the wood in the pencils comes from well managed forests and is certified by the FSC.
The label is printed on recycled paper (not sure the content info) and the wrapper appears to be made from some recycled and unbleached paper but I cannot find that information anywhere on the packaging or online.

I love it when I find an environmentally friendly product that is just as good as its larger-carbon-footprint-bearing counterparts.... or better! I would say I enjoy using these just as much as my Prismacolors (actually more since I like the idea behind them) and am absolutely entertaining the idea of drawing with them exclusively for Operation: FIll-A-Frame. I still have a whole box full of Prismacolors and other assorted pencils and wouldn't just get rid of them or anything. But for this project these pencils seem perfect.

I rate these pencils EXCELLENT!

Operation: Fill-A-Frame

2011-01-02T11:48:00.001-05:00

After we moved and I unpacked all my art stuff, I decided to actually try and organize some things this time around! One of the first things I did was organize ALL of my empty frames, or frames that did have something in them but the frame got scratched or something.

Sooo many frames.

More frames!

Hm. I have a lot of frames.

A bunch of them were given to me by friends or family- one of my best friends goes to Salvation Army once in a while and if she sees a nice frame for a cheap price, she'll pick it up for me. Some of them I picked up if I saw a good sale going on, not realizing how many frames I already had!!

My goal in organizing the frames was, eventually, to fill them/fix them/paint them/all of the above. Whatever they need to get into good shape and be worthwhile. I also decided that while I could easily fill them with various prints, instead I'd fill them with ORIGINAL art. If the piece needs a colorful and unique mat, I'll use of some of the matboard I have sitting around and do a custom job for that piece. As I finish pieces, I plan to put them in my Etsy Shop since that's the easiest way for me to create unique listings for original one-of-a-kind pieces. If I do any art shows this year I'll probably bring the pieces there as well.
(I haven't signed up to do any art shows this year because #1 I was too busy with the move and #2 I'd like to do some of the local shows here but want to see where I'd fit in best before dropping $500 per show and picking shows at random.)

I'm hoping to start filling a frame today. I woke up feeling quite inspired since last night I dreamed about moths. Soft, friendly, fluffy, fluttery moths that were flying around and landing on people. Beautifully colored moths- luna moths, oleander moths, etc.I'm looking forward to finally getting out my colored pencils and using them again!!

Homemade Vietnamese (Kinda Thai) Food!

2010-12-31T00:27:00.009-05:00

Ok... maybe not authentic, but I came up with this because I was desperately craving the Grilled Chicken and Vermicelli from Little Viet Garden in Arlington (can't find their webpage).

This is a simple-simple-simple-super-easy recipe that you can vary based on your taste and nutritional needs. You can even omit the chicken for a vegetarian version. The other ingredients are so simple but still so tasty.

You'll need:

A package of chicken breast tenderloins (about a pound?)
A marinade and/or sauce for the chicken- some combination of soy and/or ginger and/or honey and/or teriyaki works. You can make your own, or buy a bottled mix such as this one from Paul Newman: http://www.newmansown.com/product_detail.aspx?productid=98
Little bit of butter or margarine (if desired)
13.5 oz can of Coconut milk
1 cup Jasmine rice (or brown rice if you'd like it to be more healthful)
Romaine Lettuce (I bought a bag of pre-cut for salads)
Fresh Bean Sprouts- a couple handfuls

1. Cook the rice*:
In a medium saucepan, combine: 1 cup of Jasmine rice, 1 1/2 cup of coconut milk (shake the can well!! Shake 'em up, shake 'em up, shake 'em up, shake 'em), and 1/4 cup of either water, broth, or more coconut milk. (You generally need about a 2:1 ratio of liquid to rice when preparing Jasmine rice. I found 2 full cups of liquid to be too much when I made mine, so I lessened the total liquid to 1 3/4 cups to 1 cup of rice. Use less coconut milk if you don't like your rice very coconutty!)
* If you're making brown rice, prepare the rice according to the directions of your brown rice, adding coconut milk as desired for taste.

Bring the mixture to a simmer and then cover and cook for 15-18 minutes. (When I made my rice, a lot of the coconut milk was on the top at the end and the rice was a little soggy, but I liked the texture when combined with the rest of the dish!) When the rice is done, uncover it and stir it/fluff it up. Then cover it back up until you're ready to eat- unless it's not fluffy, then leave it uncovered.

2. Cook the chicken:
While the rice is quietly simmering, add some of your sauce (about 1/4 cup) of choice into a skillet over medium heat, with a little butter or margarine. Then add the chicken. Let this warm up and sit there for 5-7 minutes. Then turn the chicken tenderloins over and mix them around in the sauce, or add more sauce if you need to. Cook for another few minutes and turn them over again if you wish. It should cook for about the same time as the rice, maybe a little less.

3. Rip up the lettuce
if it's not chopped into bite-sized pieces already.

4. Put it all together! I used a deep soup-dish for mine, you can also do this on a plate but everything together in a nice deep dish kept it warm for a long time.
Add a couple of spoonfuls of rice to a bowl, then 2 of the chicken tenderloins- cut those into bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle a small handful of bean sprouts on top of the chicken and finish it off by piling it up with lettuce.
Don't skimp on the lettuce! It adds soooo much to this dish (typically people don't think of lettuce as being very flavorful but with this dish, you can really appreciate it). In fact I had to keep adding more and more lettuce to my dinner since I ate a few pieces of it with each bite and ran out quickly. You can make this dish into somewhat of a salad- I mean, who isn't trying to add more vegetables to their diet? Romaine lettuce is GOOD for you (http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=61)and won't fill you up too quickly..... so pile it on!

To add more flavor to this dish, you can try adding any of the following:
-More sauce.
-Lime juice (a little goes a long way so add a little and taste as you go)
-Or Lemon (bleh!)
-Low-sodium soy sauce (I'm not trying to overload your sodium here!)
-Cilantro
-Peanuts
-Sesame seeds

Want! Want! Wednesday!

2010-12-29T20:41:00.000-05:00

TROPICAL PLAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNTS!!!!!!!

They are HIGH on the want list! But very few exist on the "have" list because I live in the mid-Atlantic region of the US, where it's not warm enough to have most tropical plants.... unless you have tons of space in your house in which to over-winter them.

...However there are many ways to fake a tropical environment with hardy plants! I got so excited about it a while back that I wrote a whole Squidoo lens on the subject and if you're curious about gardening with tropical-looking hardy plants you can see it here:
http://www.squidoo.com/MidAtlanticTropical

And now here are some of the beauties I would have if I lived in a place where I could plant them all outdoors into a beautiful landscape! :)

BEEHIVE GINGER!:

Photographed in Costa Rica by Lea Maimone

LOBSTER CLAW HELICONIA!

Photo by KENPEI

MORE HELICONIA!

(shameless plug)

Painting by Moi
and is totally framed up and for sale
http://www.samanthasartstudio.com/heliconia.html

And my most favorite tree.....

the TRAVELLER PALM!

Photo by Louise Wolff

I do have other trees that I love... such as lime trees (I have a little baby dwarf key lime tree that spends the winter indoors) and my husband got me a Fig tree for Christmas which will be arriving some time in March! Other than the Traveller Palm, those are probably my two favorite trees because I love to eat what comes off of them... nom nom nom.

BIRD OF PARADISE!! ("Strelitzia reginae")

Photo by Moi
and might be a painting one day
slightly different composition and background of course

ORCHIDS!

(I have a few of these indoors, sure wish they could just grow wild all over my garden!)

Photo also taken by Me in Hawaii somewhere

Hope you enjoyed gazing at some happy colorful tropical plants, some of which maybe you've never heard of... so perhaps you even learned something! :)

We've got 3 months of cold weather ahead of us, so you can expect a lot more posts like this one regarding things of a tropical nature as my mind escapes to warmer and more colorful climates.

Happy Fluffy Friday!!

2010-12-17T12:06:00.002-05:00

Or, Happeh Fluffeh Friday if you speak LOLspeak! :)

Some websites and blogs that feature cute animals (such as my favorite, DAILY SQUEE!) have special weekly posts including "Fluffy Friday."
I don't feel that I've given enough mention to Dear Tosh, Baby Kitty, Pretty Girl, Tosh.0, or her whole other slew of nicknames, in my blog.... so here's a special Fluffy Friday post, just for her! :)

The Holidays Are Upon Us!

2010-12-11T14:42:00.002-05:00

My husband and I haven't sent out Christmas cards in a few years (except to immediate family). I have no clue why we've been slacking on the cards...
Laziness?
Forgetfulness?
Why!?

I used to love creating our Christmas cards via Shutterfly.com. Have you ever used them? They have like a million billion designs from which to choose and in every color scheme imaginable.

Here's a card I designed from the year we got married:

I really wasn't sure which picture(s) to use on our cards this year. We had a busy year but didn't really go on any trips or take pictures of anything exciting.... except at our triathlons and other events. I wondered if putting pictures from those on holiday cards would seem weird, but today I got a card in the mail from a friend and there she and her husband are in race attire! I immediately went upstairs and set out to design this year's card on Shutterfly's website.

I was quite excited to see that holiday cards are currently all 20% off AND they're offering free shipping if you spend $50 or more. I don't plan to spend $50 on cards.... but that DID get my creative wheels turning to try and figure out what other products I could create on Shutterfly for hard-to-shop-for relatives and take advantage of the free shipping offer. Shutterfly has a very extensive gift shop- everything from mugs to luggage tags (which I've created before and I love using!) to jewelry/keepsake boxes... if you have a photo, you can create a gift with it :)

When I started uploading photos to use on our card, I was a bit concerned since Christmas colors are typically red and green and the one good picture that I have of the two of us from this year is mostly black and purple.... Hello clashy.

Never fear! Shutterfly has gone far beyond the limitations of just red and green. They've got designs in every color you can think of to go with any pictures you want to use :)
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

I especially liked this one-
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/merry-merry-greetings-holiday-4x8-photo-card-4x8-photo

And this one is very simple- you can upload a handful of pictures if you can't decide on just one to use-
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/red-glee-christmas-5x7-photo-card-5x7-photo

You can also even choose which fonts you want and they have a wide variety of them- formal, cartoony, fancy, plain, standard, scripty, you name it. You can customize the size and color of the fonts as well.

They're even doing a promotion this year for 50 free holiday cards for bloggers- find out about it here:
http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/

I'll be sure to upload a picture of the card we end up choosing- I went a little overboard with them (I TOLD you it is fun) and designed 6. I'll get my husband's opinion on which he likes and we'll place our order ASAP since it's already the 11th and I can't even BELIEVE THAT.

Oh mah gahhh, Squee-Worthy Bugs!

2010-12-08T23:47:00.001-05:00

I'm a bit addicted to dailysquee.com and, of course, I particularly enjoy the bug submissions. The funny, the cute, the bizarre...

Thought I'd share some of the most squee-worthy cuteness with you!

see more Daily Squee

Here's my all-time favorite snail!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Daily Squee

see more Daily Squee

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

And one that I made from one of my photos:

Reunited!

2010-12-07T13:10:00.002-05:00

When we started packing up and getting ready to move, I de-activated most of the items in my Etsy shop since I wasn't sure when I'd be able to find them again.
Last night I was so excited to FINALLY come across a few items I have been missing (and just in time for Chreeeeeeestmas!).

Butterfly Box- $15 + shipping

One of the items is this upcycled decoupaged Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly Box! It's a slide-top wooden box and I've just re-listed it in my Etsy shop- have a look if you've got someone on your shopping list who loves flowers or bugs... or the state of Maryland! (The Black-Eyed Susan is the Maryland state flower and the Baltimore Checkerspot is the state butterfly.) :)

One room is DONE! (And a head's up on a great online deal)

2010-12-06T14:30:00.007-05:00

First of all, here's the awesome online deal going on right now (not sure for how long)- scroll on down if you just want to see the new bathroom :)

I just ordered new towels (since every. single. one. of my old towels has friggn beach-spots all over them from benzoyl peroxide!) since my friend over at Baby Rabies alerted me to an incredible deal (via http://slickdeals.net/) that I couldn't pass up: I got 10 monogrammed Ralph Lauren towels and 1 hand towel, including the shipping and tax, for about $58. That is about $5 a towel (plus the hand towel and a couple bucks tax).

"Wait?? 50 bucks on towels?" you say.

It's just my husband and me, do we NEED TEN TOWELS? I was going to skip the deal and just go get a couple of new towels from good ol' Marshall's and call it done. But you can't even get a towel from Marshall's for 5 bucks. When I realized this, I caved in and ordered my new monogrammed towels.

Here's how you do it the cheapest way (a face cloth instead of a hand towel makes your total about $55 instead of $58):
Horchow has Ralph Lauren Greenwich Monogrammed 30x56" Bath Towel for $9.99. Place quantity of 10 in your cart and add quantity of 1 Face Cloth) - then use $50 off code HCWINTER = $54.89 for 10 Bath Towels + 1 Face Cloth. Shipping is free with code DECFS.

There are other sizes available as well. Place at least $100 in merchandise in your cart to use the $50 off code.

Since the code takes money off your grand-total, it looks like you could order different sets of these towels if you wanted to order different colors or order them as gifts with different monograms, etc.
Happy shopping!

Now onto bragging rights regarding the new finished bathroom!!
Last night we finished the main bathroom in the house. I even have some pictures!

Here's the before- the walls were a dark pinkish-mauve color and kind of a pain to cover with pale blue-green (but well worth the effort):

(This was the listing picture of the bathroom as the seller had it- Looks like he had the same TP stand that we do!)

Here are the afters:

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

I went out to Marshalls (don't you just love that place?) and got the new bathmats, a little trashcan, and some other odds and ends.

I *also* picked up this adorable artwork (it's a print on a really sturdy piece of wood) by artist Robin Renee Hix- I'm not sure yet which wall to hang it on?

http://www.robinreneehix.com/www.robinreneehix.com/Available_Work/Pages/Beach_walks.html#5

Anyway, I promise to get back to artwork soon! ...As of last night, all of the major indoor-painting of the rooms of our new house is DONE. We just need to paint some trim and our new doors, but that will go quickly I'm sure. And once I finish organizing the office, I'll actually have some room to create some new art! Yay!

Want! Want! Wednesday- the Pollinator Tree!

2010-12-01T07:50:00.090-05:00

It's **DECEMBER** and that means it's almost CHREEEEESTMAS!

And in proper holiday fashion the catalogs have been starting to arrive like crazy, supplying plenty of fodder for upcoming holiday-themed Want! Want! Wednesday posts! Plus they worked perfectly since Want! Want! Wednesday is all about silly things that I don't need and am not going to pay this much for.....
but I like the idea of them.

(Although at the end of the post I will add, there is hope for those of us who love the items I'm featuring this week!!)

This week's Want is a Pollinator-Themed Christmas Tree! It must be the trendy new thing this year because I found decorations in not one, but TWO catalogs! Observe....

The first set of ornaments was in a catalog by a company called Grandin Road.

(click to enlarge)

While not all strictly pollinators, these garden-themed ornaments are simply adorable, no?

(I am not sure where all of the other ornaments on this tree came from; I wish the catalog had them all.)
I do wish there were some bees! That's one thing I haven't been able to find... a bee ornament. I've been thinking about making some.

But in this little collection you get 25 ornaments for $99. Actually not a bad deal! That's about $4 an ornament. So this Want is actually obtainable.

The direct link to these items from their website can be found here:
http://www.grandinroad.com/jump.jsp?item=42281&maincatcode=null&subcatcode=null&itemID=31019&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C474%2C6382%2C7946&iProductID=31019

I got another catalog in the mail yesterday from a company called Gump's which, honestly with the prices of some of the stuff, I have no clue how they got my info or why they sent it to me. Even their website says "Luxury Gifts..." but whatever.

(click to enlarge)

Super cute, right? There is even a grasshopper!
You can see their entire ornament collection here:
http://www.gumps.com/HOLIDAY+SHOP/Christmas+Ornaments/

Now I'll let you in on the best part of this week's Want.
It IS obtainable!

I saw the first set of these ornaments a week ago and didn't buy them but couldn't stop thinking about them. Then I went into an AC Moore with my mom this weekend and.... there they were. Not these, specifically, but *some* bug ornaments! There were butterflies and dragonflies and all were 50% off, so each was $1.99. I picked up 10 of them and figured even if I have to just do a very little tree, I'll be able to have a Pollinator tree this year.
At the Harris Teeter store down the street, they were also doing a sale on ornaments and I scored two glittery hummingbirds! Yay for more pollinators!

So if you love the idea of a pollinator-themed Christmas tree this year but the items here are out of your budget, just keep your eyes open for deals all around you! Looks like bugs and birds are the new thing!

Happy Decorating!! :)

How-To Tuesday: Autoplay Music on your Blog

2010-11-30T17:39:00.004-05:00

HahAhAhaHAhaAhaHAhaahahhaaa!!!

Did you really think I was serious?

If I was going to do a post on "how to make music autoplay when someone opens your blog" I might as well title it, "The most efficient way to get someone to navigate away from your blog as quickly as possible" or "How to instantly exponentially increase your bounce rate"

But seriously, I've been without internet for about a week now, AGAIN, thanks Verizon.
In the meantime I've been coming up with a bunch of fun haikus about Verizon and their internet 'service' (if you can call it that?) but none are appropriate for this blog so I won't publish them here because they'd just look like

Verizon &$#*!! &$(#
*$*#& Verizon (### *$##**@!!!
*$!*#& Verizon.

So while my internet is working for more than three consecutive minutes (probably sporadically because they're fixing an outage somewhere in the area) I'm actually working on tomorrow's blog post, because I came up with it last week but couldn't post it AND. HAD. A. SAD.

But now you don't have to has a sad because I wrote a ridiculous blog post for today AND am writing a super cool Want! Want! Wednesday post with some very exciting goodies in there!

And in the meantime here is a silly Mantis.

No, I haven't been drinking, but am sort of on a burnt (on purpose) cookie and key-lime buzz.

How-To Tuesday: Insert a YouTube video into a blog post

2010-11-23T14:32:00.002-05:00

Blogger has a simple button for adding video into your blog, but (at least on my computer) it's upload only. That's only useful if you currently own a video camera that doesn't involve tapes.

Or maybe you DO own a digital video camera AND you're technologically cool enough to have your own YouTube channel and you'd rather link to (and promote) that rather than upload the video into your blog. (Makes sense, since Blogger does have a limit on how much stuff you can actually upload into your blog.)

Or maybe you found a super cute video, or a really interesting news clip or story, or a great music video that you want to share.

Who wouldn't want "Party All The Time" at least somewhere on their blog??

So here's how to do it.

1. If you're already on YouTube, find the video you want to share.

2. Underneath the video, click "Share" and then click "Blogger."

3. A new window will pop open (if you're not signed into your blog, it'll ask you to) and you can create a post with the video right in there.

That's it!

Note: I actually didn't even know YouTube made it this easy til I went to write this post. I was going to go on about clicking "embed" and then copying the code and then clicking "edit HTML" in your blog post and pasting the code in there. Which you can also do. But this is so much more user friendly!! :)

Want! Want! Wednesday

2010-11-17T10:44:00.024-05:00

MY OWN PRIVATE ISLAND!!!

And you, too, can get one..... for as low as a few hundred thou, right here:
http://www.privateislandsonline.com/

Actually I was wrong!! There are islands right in the US under $100,000:
http://www.privateislandsonline.com/sale-price-under-250K.htm

Here's a rock, literally, you can buy in Honduras for just $1.7 mil:

Here's the cheapest island on the site: Located in Panama, it has nothing but some woods and a toilet on it (I think you can even see the toilet in the photo) for a cool $30k.

Sweet, here is one right in Maryland. So if I wanted to escape to my PRIVATE ISLAND without being visually raped by the new so-called-porno-scanners at the airports, I can just triathlon my way there from my home in VA:

Hm. It looks like it's in a damn marsh.

Anyway....
HAPPY SHOPPING!
What a great gift idea for that really hard-to-shop-for person in your family.

How-To Tuesday #4: Blog Comments

2010-11-16T09:35:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine asked me a while back why you can post comments on some blogs and they show up right away, others say they're waiting for moderation, and still others require you to type in some magic password for your comment to appear.

I had never given much thought to it. I wasn't concerned enough over spam or, worse... haters, that I want to be emailed every time someone leaves a comment so that I can approve it. I like to think my target audience is mature enough not to leave a comment saying simply "Sam sucks!!!" (And if you're going to, at least tell me WHY I suck! Be constructive with your feedback.)

In order to view and change the various options that Blogger offers in regards to comments, head to your dashboard (or posting area) in Blogger and click on Settings, then on your Settings page click Comments in the menu right below that.

Now you'll see a whole page of stuff! Soooo many options! :)

First option is to show or hide comments. Pretty intuitive what that's all about.

Second: Who can comment? Again the options are pretty intuitive.
I am not sure which Blogger defaults to, but I know that I had to go in and change it to allow for anonymous comments. A friend of mine had tried to comment and couldn't- so if you want your blog open to comments from anyone and everyone, click the first option, "Anyone: includes anonymous users."

I'll skip ahead to Comment Form Message. This is just the message that shows up above the box in which readers comment. Most people write a quick sentence saying hello to their readers or encouraging them to leave a comment, etc. This only shows up when the reader clicks "Leave a comment" or clicks to read existing comments.

Below that you see Comment Moderation. Here's the one most bloggers are primarily concerned with. Your options are: Always, Only on posts older than # (the default is 14) days, or Never. I've always left mine on Never, but apparently Blogger will notify you via your dashboard if you've got comments waiting for approval. They also give you the option to be emailed when you receive an anonymous comment.

After some consideration while writing this post, I'm actually going to change my comment moderation to Comments on posts older than 7 days. I always feel bad when I go back to a really old post and see comments on there that were left months ago, and I had no idea. This way hopefully I can respond to everyone if they have questions about something.

The option immediately following this is Show word verification for comments? Simply yes or no. I guess this prevents spam-bots from attacking or leaving upperdeckers on your blog. Mine was defaulted to Yes but I'll change it to No and see how it goes. I hate typing in those words!

Then you can choose whether or not to show profile images next to comments, and lastly you can enter your email address so when you get comments for approval- if you choose that option- you will get an email (and probably a notification on your dashboard too).

Want! Want! Wednesday!

2010-11-10T10:09:00.004-05:00

I see a lot of "Wordless Wednesday" posts on other blogs and thought filling your heads with even more consumerism than you already have by default if you're living in America might be kind of entertaining. So I'm going to do an occasional "Want! Want! Wednesday" post. Just for fun.

Side note!
Ok, but really, YES... I still hate consumerism and everything wasteful. I also hate how even when you try NOT to give in to it, sometimes you still need to. And that's just the way it is. However, Want! Want! Wednesday is just about fun stuff that I (or you) might be dreaming about.... but probably not about to go out and actually buy. Because then it would just be "Have Wednesday" which doesn't have as nice a ring to it, and would end up turning my blog into something like an episode of MTV's Cribs. Is that still on? Or is it now that dumb show about the teenagers and all the stuff they 'have' when really it's just their rich parents who bought them all that useless crap? Well, anyway.

So here it is! Week 1!

http://www.csnlighting.com/Varaluz-901M01-VRZ1273.html

Want Want WANT!!

Seriously, how CUTE is this light fixture for a beautiful tropical-style home!

AND...
They even have a sconce that goes with it!

http://www.csnlighting.com/Varaluz-901K02-VRZ1272.html

We're replacing a few of the lighting fixtures in our house (I've got two black rooster ones if anyone wants 'em?) and while looking around for new ones online I came across these. My husband saw it up on the computer screen and knew right away that I liked it and he asked me about it- I can't believe he didn't talk smack to me about it- anyway, even I know that it would look totally out of place in our home. Plus even if I had insisted on getting it, I can't think of any place we would hang it. They're beautiful and unique, no doubt, but probably don't have a place here... which is why they'll both continue to be Want! Want! and admired from afar.................

What silly things do you continue to admire but would never actually go out and purchase... because the item is just not practical, is too expensive, or ya just don't need it?

How-To Tuesday: Tag Cloud in Blogger

2010-10-26T10:38:00.086-04:00

Heads up! THIS one is going to be a doozy!

First of all, what's a "Tag Cloud"?
Look to the lower right of my blog and you'll see this:

That's a Tag Cloud! Or Label Cloud. It's a snazzy way of displaying all the tags/labels of your blog posts! Labels/Tags are just words you type in to describe your blog post and help keep certain topics organized.

Since I didn't actually make this code up, because I'm not THAT big of a nerd, it doesn't seem right for me to copy and paste it into MY blog....

Soooooo, this is the source of where I learned to do my tag cloud:
http://phydeaux3.blogspot.com/2006/09/code-for-beta-blogger-label-cloud.html

I'll get you started with placing the Labels widget on your blog, then you can follow the tutorial above.

A few prerequisites before you start:
First you need to be on Blogger for this one.
Second, you need to have a couple of blog posts.
And third, those posts need to have labels. You type them in here before publishing your post:

One glitch- make sure that at least one of your labels is used more than once. For example if your blog is an art blog, something simple like the word "art" can easily be used to label multiple posts. Other bloggers I know will actually label each of their posts with the word "blog". It's supposed to help with SEO (search engine optimization for you non-nerds).

So in the words of Montel Jordan, Thiiiiiiis is how we doooo iiiiit. Yes you're going to have to go into the "Edit HTML" tab of the posting page... EEeeeeeeeeewwwwww!!!

If you already have the Labels widget somewhere on your blog, you can go directly to the tutorial in the website above.

1.Go to the "Design" section of your blog, found either in the tabs of the posting area,

or in the upper right of your screen if you're signed in and viewing your actual blog.

2. On the "Add and Arrange Page Elements" page, click Add Gadget.

3. Pick "Labels"

4. Now click Edit HTML... muuuwhahahahha!!!!

5. Blogger will suggest you download and save your template before you start playing around with the code. If you're not that familiar with HTML, that's probably a good idea... click the link to "Download Full Template" and save it somewhere you can find it easily if you need it. Right under there is a link to upload a template, and if you need to, you can upload your saved template right there.

6. Now go to this lovely website and follow along (I promise they make it very easy) :
http://phydeaux3.blogspot.com/2006/09/code-for-beta-blogger-label-cloud.html

I apologize that I'm not actually the one giving the lesson here, but the tutorial they set up is so great that I'm more than happy to drive them some extra traffic over there.
AND
Since I'm sending you over there from my blog, I'll still gladly answer any questions you have about doing this!
You can email me or leave your questions in the comments. If you leave one in the comments and don't hear back from me, I'm not ignoring you, I may have just forgotten to look for new comments- so you can email me, too- you won't be bugging me :)

Happy Tag Clouding!

A Productive Sunday?

2010-10-24T10:39:00.002-04:00

Not sure how productive it will be since I slept in til 9:30; it's already 10:30 and I'm sitting here in pajamas and drinking coffee.

Nevertheless on a day like this I tend to get up and look outside and imagine a whole day of possibilities. That's what weekends are for, right? Pretty soon my weekends will become even more meaningful since I'm going back to work full-time as of November 1st. The longer hours will definitely not be fun, but I can't argue with having twice the paycheck... especially in time for the holidays.

So what's on the agenda for a day like this?

The first thing I'll do this morning while I finish my coffee is work on letters to my two representatives in the Virginia General Assembly. Remember my post about a new project I'm working on? That project is: I'm designing a new license plate for the state of Virginia. It will be a revenue sharing plate and the shared fees ($15 per plate after the first 1,000 are sold) will go to the Pollinator Partnership.

The theme for the plates is "Protect Pollinators" and I think I've got the design just about finished, but I need to get it approved by the Pollinator Partnership and get one of my representatives to agree to sponsor it.

BUT
Even if I have to change some of it, I can't help but want to share a sneak peak:

If either of my representatives approves it, then I can start collecting signatures of people who would be interested in having this plate, or better yet, actually collect the official license plate applications AND fees from folks. I need 350 by January 1st to get it approved. If I don't get enough, I'll probably have to work on it all next year and try again in 2012.

Wish me luck and please comment or contact me if you're a Virginia resident who would like a plate! And of course, I'll be posting more about this on my blog very soon.

Also for today....
I'll definitely be going for a run- I was going to go yesterday but my husband surprised me with a birthday trip to the Smithsonian to see butterflies! We even got to meet up with a couple of friends of ours who were in town for a race today. I'll upload some pictures when I find the cables that connect the camera to the computer.

I'm also hoping to get my desk finished today. I need to go buy some legs for it, and was planning just to use sawed off 2x4's but my husband wants something sturdier. And a sturdy way to attach it to the desk (which is 2 doors in an L shape). Makes sense, but will I be able to get him motivated to go out and look at hardware with me when some football game is on at 1 that he wants to watch? If not, I don't totally suck at building things and don't mind making an attempt at it!

How-To Tuesday: How to link in a blog post

2010-10-19T16:48:00.012-04:00

This How-To Tuesday tip is going to begin with a very basic linking-lesson and then add on to it with a more advanced tip!
(If you already know all about creating links I promise this post won't be completely useless :) Just scroll down past the basic stuff- right under my caterpillar images.)

At some point most bloggers will want to link to another website through their blog- whether it's to an article, an online shop, their other blog, etc.

You can copy and paste the address of the website you wish to point to directly into your blog post but it won't be clickable. The reader will have to copy and paste it up into their address bar to get to the website.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/samanthasartstudio
^
Not clickable :(

To make a link to another website (AKA hyperlink, do they even call it that any more or am I showing my age???), decide whether you want to show the address of the site and have the reader click on it directly OR type in whatever words you want and have the reader click on your specific phrase. Observe:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/samanthasartstudio
OR
My Etsy Shop

First we'll do it by showing and using the actual address as the linky.

1. Copy and paste (or type) the address of the website you want to go to into your blog post.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/samanthasartstudio

2. Next, select all of the text of the internet address.

3. When you have your web address all selected, click Link up in the blog posting toolbar.

4. Sometimes Blogger is cool enough to figure out that you typed in a web address and probably want the link to point to that address, so it will link it automatically. If it doesn't, when the Link dialog pops up, paste or type the address into the space next to "Web Address".

5. Click OK.
You should have something that looks and works like this:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/samanthasartstudio

Now we'll do it by typing whatever YOU want and linking through that. (This is also how you can Rick-Roll someone.
Did you click that?
You totally did, didn't you?) :)

1. Click Link up in the blog posting toolbar.

2. In the dialog that pops up, write what you want to title the link where it says "Text to display" (for example, "My Etsy Shop" or "Article About Honeybees" or "Totally Definitely NOT A Rick Astley Video").

3. Enter the link address in the space next to "Web Address"

4. Click OK.
You should have something that looks like this:
My Etsy Shop

Yay!

You can also make an image a link to somewhere. So if you're selling products online, you can show your reader an image of the product and make the image clickable to take the reader directly to that product!

1. Add your image to your blog (see my How-To Tuesday about inserting images!)

2. Click on the image in your blog post; ignore the little box of options that pops up on the image.

3. Click Link in the blog posting toolbar.

4. In the dialog that pops up, enter the address you wish to go to into the space next to "Web address."

5. Your image should now work as a link! When you click it in your blog, the link should now show up in the image options pop-up.

See my link there?

Now for the SCAARRRRYYYY MOOOORE ADVANCED tip that you are going to LOVE!

If you notice most of the time in my blog, when I insert a link, it opens up in a new window or tab. It's super duper easy to make that happen- that way you don't lose your readers every time you point them in the direction of something else interesting! :)

1. First, add a link into your blog using any of the above methods.

2. In your blog post, click on Edit HTML (in the upper right corner of the blog posting window).

3.You can peek around in the HTML and see basic text of your blog post with a bunch of beautiful, glorious code around it. Look for something that looks like this:

a href="http://www.somewebaddresshere.com"

(Most browsers have a "find" function you can use. On a Mac you hit apple+F, on a Windows computer you hit Ctrl+F. This makes it pretty easy to find any phrase you like. Do a search for "a href")

4. The website your link points to will be in quotes. After the quote at the end of the web address, type a space and then:

target="_blank"

(that's an underscore before the word 'blank'.)

5. So now the code you found earlier should now look like:

a href="http://www.somewebaddresshere.com" target="_blank"

And that should work to open all your links in a new window or tab. Yay! You can go through your whole blog post and do that to all your links- it can be tedious but is well worth it.

Hope some of you got something out of this!
Let me know what Blogger features you'd like to see in a How-To Tuesday post, or any questions you may have!

If I don't get any suggestions, next I'll write about how to make a label (tag) cloud.

New Project Idea!!

2010-10-18T12:37:00.001-04:00

Last night on our way home from PA, I was chatting with my husband and we came up with an idea for an AWESOME PROJECT!

Awesome because it's going to combine me making art with my favorite subject matter- POLLINATORS!- with raising funds for the Pollinator Partnership!

I don't want to give away too much about the project because I'm paranoid of jinxing it or other applications of Murphy's Law ("anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong"). So for now..... I'll just give you some visual hints! :)

In the meantime if you're starting your Christmas shopping a little early, take a look in my CafePress Bees store for great "Bee Kind!" shirts, bags, and more! All profit from these items goes to the Pollinator Partnership! :)

Weekend Inspiration

2010-10-15T12:01:00.005-04:00

I finally decided this week that it's time to tackle..... the office. The art studio. The office/art studio.
Remember this photo? Yeah I know... It's a kitchen, not an office, but still.

Last night I started the painting process. I'm pretty excited!

I spent some time yesterday looking online for inspirational photos of great craft/art rooms and found this site via the Etsy forums:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/CraftRoomInspiration

Be sure to check it out if you've got an art studio or craft room you're in the mood to reorganize! There are so many great ideas here. I've never had a real craft/art room before, so I really didn't know where to begin.

How do I store/display all my paints in a useful and practical way?

How do I keep my paper cutter, mat cutter, and self-healing-cutting-mat out in the open enough to access them easily when I need them, but keep them out of the way so as not to clutter up valuable desk space?

Since I have no right to be completely selfish about this whole thing, how do I integrate my husband's desk and super-awesome awards he's gotten from work into the office/studio without making him feel like he's in 'my' room, but instead in our office?

When we first started the house-hunting process I had visions of a little room off the back of the house with a separate entrance where I could paint, make a big ol' mess, and invite clients to view my work in a private studio setting. That's a pretty specific requirement when you're under a time crunch and looking for houses in the DC area (where they move pretty fast). I decided to drop that from the priority list and focus on other things instead- things more important to family life (the kids being furbabies for now).

We ended up in this perfect not-so-typical split-level with 4 floors. I love it. We've talked about the possibilities of adding on a garage (with a sun-room on top?), and/or small sun-room/art studio in the back. It might happen one day.

For now our office/studio is a room in the back of the house among the other bedrooms. It's got one regular window and then one GIANT window.

As of about 9:00pm last night, the office looked like the mother of all disarray went in there and threw up after eating a hearty meal of boxes, art supplies, and shelves. All the random extra shelves and furniture were put back there with the thought that I'd find something crafty with which to fill them. Then add in all the paintings and computer accessories and the cat's litterbox and this desk I've had since I was 10 years old. Yes, 10. The poor 20-year-old-particle-board desk sags terribly from the weight of my old CRT monitor circa 2000 (which just got replaced this year with a lightweight LCD). Pieces of it are falling off. I knew it was time to replace it.

Well now.... this is embarrassing.

The horrific cell-phone-photo seems appropriate for something that's already such a mess, n'est-ce-pas? So there's the old desk, and yes, the litterbox, and the state of the office as of last night.

Sadly, that's an improvement from what it's looked like for the past 3 weeks.

Before I started the painting process, I begged my husband to take the door off the hinges (he thought I couldn't do it myself?). Why? Because I had plans for it. Ohhhh yes.
The doors in this house are super old and super gross and dingy and have holes in them and we want to replace them with nice 6 panel doors since that's a pretty cheap and very nice way to improve a house. I decided that one of those ugly doors was going to become MY NEW DESK. Economical, eco-friendly, practical, my husband said it looks like crap but it's for arty stuff so crap = ok! Then who cares if you get paint or ink all over it!? Happy Birthday to ME!

The very first class I attended at my college was Drawing 101 and in that studio the teacher's desk was a door with two file cabinets underneath it. I thought that was the greatest idea ever and it stuck with me. The doorknob was still on that desk, but we took the doorknob off last night so I can run wires from various electronics through the premade hole.

I'll eventually add actual legs to it (ok, sawed off 2x4's), but I had some little shelving units that I thought would be perfect to put under the desk to hold it up. Also you can see my old desk under there, since where else was I going to put it? Eventually I dismantled it and piled the pieces up on the other side of the room. I also took the hutch off the top of it- no need for that any more, and it makes the workspace feel so... closed.

I'm so in love with the door-desk that I'm going to add another one on the wall to the left to make a wonderful L shaped desk. That one will run under the GIANT window and provide a great space for drawing or other crafty things :)
There is room for my husband's desk on either two of the other walls, so I don't feel toooooooo guilty for taking up so much space.

Now everything's in a huge state of disarray once more since I had to move EVERYTHING so I could start painting, but I really hope to have it almost done by the end of the weekend or early next week.
I'll be sure to post more pictures of the process!
What a great way to have a fantastic HUGE new desk without having to buy anything!

How to pack a painting for moving

2010-10-14T16:23:00.006-04:00

How to pack up a painting:
Step 1: Lay some bubble wrap or some sheets of white packing paper FLAT on the floor or on a table- a flat surface. (You can also use: Sheets, towels, blankets, fabric... You can do a layer of paper and then the fabric for padding if you wish. The layer of paper will help protect from any fuzz from the fabric sticking to your painting.)
Step 2: Carefully take the painting or artwork off the wall.
Step 3: Lay it down FLAT on top of the bubble wrap or packing paper.

Step 4: Carefully fold the bubble wrap or packing paper around the painting.DO NOT BALL UP THE EXCESS! Keep it all very nice and flat. (Pretend you're wrapping a pretty gift for your mom. "Mom! Aren't you impressed with my wrapping skills? See? I told you I can be good at something!")
Step 5: Tape it together neatly.
Step 6: Place it into a box and tape the box closed.

How not to pack up a painting:
Step 1: Shove a bunch of packing paper down into a box.
Step 2. Take the painting off the wall and shove it in the box. Smush the paper.
Step 3: Fold and cram a bunch more paper around the frame of the painting and along the sides and top.
Step 4: Make sure you have excess paper to ball it up and shove it in front of or behind the canvas.

In the last 2 days I unpacked 3 paintings and two of them are damaged pretty badly. Paper- many, many sheets of folded and balled up white packing paper- was shoved around/behind/in front of the canvas and as a result I've got bubbles in my canvas the size of my fist. I'd like to find the person who packed them and give him a new hole in his head the size of my fist.
I am confident that I would be acquitted by a jury of my arteest peers.

My advice to any artist who is moving is to be sure and pack up all your own paintings. Don't make the mistake that I did and think "The movers are PROFESSIONALS! They know what they're doing! They can probably do a better job than me because THIS IS WHAT THEY GET PAID TO DO!"
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehappythoughts!!!!

I'll be looking around online for some advice on how to fix the canvas- a few products have been recommended to me by artist friends. I might call some local framing/art restoration shops and see if they can do it for me or what they would recommend.

After I get them fixed- if they can be fixed- I'll be sure to post about it so that anyone else who runs into this problem can find a solution and not cry about it like I did.

EDIT: I left the canvases sitting out and after a couple of months they, pretty much, went back to the way they were. If you look very hard you can sort of tell, from some little cracks in the paint, but they are not a total loss.

How-To Tuesday! #1

2010-10-12T12:10:00.004-04:00

Today is the first post in what I hope to be a series, at least for a little while, called "How To Tuesday!" Many of my friends who use Blogger ask me how to do things with it- things like, put a picture in a post, put a link in a post (make that link open in a new tab or window!), put images/info along the sides of the blog, etc. I've been using Blogger for years now, and while I wouldn't call myself an expert by any means, I'm hoping I can at least share some tips- from the very simple to more advanced HTML editing- that might be useful to you :)

Today I'll start with something everyone wants to do: How to add pictures to your posts. Everyone likes to look at a blog with pictures!

First of all, where IS your picture?
Is it on your computer saved somewhere?
Or is your picture online?
If your picture is online, is it your own photo or a photo from another website? If you're using a photo that isn't your own, always be sure to get permission before you post the picture and/or give proper credit to the creator of the photo.

Here's how to upload a picture to your blog from your computer.

(This is on a Mac; I'm sure a Windows PC works in a similar way.)

1. While creating a blog post, place your cursor where you want to insert the image (you can move the image later if you wish). Look at the toolbar above your blog post. (You can hover your mouse over the different items in the toolbar to see what each of them does.)
Click the icon that looks like a Polaroid photo for "insert image."

2. Next you'll see the following dialog:

Make sure "Upload" is highlighted on the left, then click "Choose Files."

3. A navigation window will pop up where you can find and select the picture you want to upload.

4. When you click "Open" you'll see this...

Make sure the picture that you want to add is highlighted (it'll have a thick blue line around it as indicated by the yellow arrow), and then click "Add Selected."

The picture will pop up into your blog post, about this big, and centered. If you like the way the picture looks, leave it alone.

5. If you wish to align it differently, add a caption, make it larger or smaller (depending on the original image size), or remove it, click on the image- it will become highlighted and a dialog will appear:

You can click small, medium, large, or x-large to see how the image looks at various sizes. You can also choose to just leave it the original size.
If you wish to place blog text along the side of the image, click "left" or "right" and the image will move to the left or right of your blog post. Centering the image will place your text above and below it.

You can choose to add a caption to the image too, which is great for adding a photo credit or other information about the image.
Here's what the picture looks like with a caption added:

6. If you decide later that the image isn't where you want it, you can click on it and drag it around into various places in your post. Blogger makes it pretty easy :)

Here's how to place an image into your blog from somewhere else on the internet.

(This is on a Mac; I'm sure a Windows PC works in a similar way.)

1. While creating a blog post, place your cursor where you want to insert the image (you can move the image later if you wish).

2. In another window or tab in your internet browser, find the online image that you want to use. In some browsers you can right-click the image and select "View Image" and copy the address of the image from the address bar in your browser. You can also select "Properties" or "View Image Info" and most times you can find the information about the image there. Select the image address and copy it.

3. Go back to your Blogger window/post.
Look at the toolbar above your blog post. (You can hover your mouse over the different items in the toolbar to see what each of them does.)
Click the icon that looks like a Polaroid photo for "insert image."

4. When the dialog appears, select "From a URL" :

(I don't use Picasa so I'm not sure how to upload from there).

5. Paste (or type) the address of the image you wish to use into the space provided.

6. When the image appears, click "Add Selected."

The image will pop into your blog, centered and medium sized.

7. If you wish to change the size of the image, or align it to the left or right, or add a caption, click on the image. It will become highlighted and a dialog will appear.

You can click small, medium, large, or x-large to see how the image looks at various sizes. You can also choose to just leave it the same as its original size.
If you wish to place blog text along the side of the image, click "left" or "right" and the image will move to the left or right of your blog post. Centering the image will place text above and below it.

You can choose to add a caption to the image too, which is great for adding a photo credit or other information about the image (see above in this post for an example of what a caption looks like).

8. If you decide later that the image isn't where you want it, you can click on it and drag it around into various places in your post. Blogger makes it pretty easy :)

I hope this post explains two of the ways to add an image into your blog and is helpful to you!
Once you've gotten some images into your blog, if you wish to use them again in another blog post, you can select "From This Blog" in the "Add Images" dialog. Then find the image that you want to use and click "Add Selected."

Enjoy the rest of your week! :)

Mural finished!

2010-10-08T10:50:00.000-04:00

It feels so great to have this done!
Right now I've just got this picture from my cell phone, but my friend is taking some pictures with her real camera and will send me some soon. You get the idea though- this was such a fun project! I can't wait to do more :)

Also as you can see if you're reading this, I did a complete re-design of my blog yesterday. I'm still tweaking it a little, but what do you think?

Friday Funneh.

2010-10-01T13:52:00.006-04:00

Over the last couple of weeks I'm remembering what it's like to live in a house in the woods (kind of in the woods at least) versus a highrise in the city (note: 4 stories does not a highrise make; I understand this, but it's the highest dwelling in which I've ever dwelled).

Unlike living in the city, in a house we've got.... BUGS!
Not necessarily cute cuddly fuzzy friends but nothing scary, either. The majority of them are shield bugs. The DC area's been in the news for its 2010 infestation of Stink Bugs.**

With all the recent hubbub surrounding the stink bugs, and after a few recent conversations with my husband (who is sooooooo not used to bugs in the house), I thought I'd draw up a little chart.

http://cheezburger.com/SamanthasArtStudio/lolz/View/4021600768

If you've never visited graphjam.com, NOW is the time!!!! It's Friday afternoon and I KNOW you're slacking off at work anyway.

I realized recently that the only bug I would really react to with an instant stomp is a medium sized spider. The small spiders I usually notice when I'm cleaning and I end up sweeping them up with the rest of the dust/hair/dirt and throw into the garbage.The BIG HUGE spiders (which we haven't seen yet, but I KNOW they're coming...) are just too big to kill. They make a big ol' mess and some of them JUMP. Imagine getting close enough to kill it, then it charges at you like an angry bull. NUH-UUUUUHHHH. Not dealing with that, no way. I take a piece of cardboard and a big jar or something and catch it, then open the front door and send the whole works flying out into the yard. A day or two later when I'm feeling cocky I'll go bring my stuff back in, sans spider.

But a medium sized spider? It's too big (and fast) to just sweep up and throw into the garbage. Yet, is it big enough to scare the hell out of me? Yup! Is it too big to kill? Nope. Hence why my foot, if clad in shoe, goes flying at it before I even have time to think.

** Are all shield bugs are stink bugs? Seems that way, here is an interesting article on them:
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/nature/news-stink-bug-home-field-and-pest-house

From my experience with the ones in my house- the same ones everyone's complaining about- they don't stink. Then again I haven't squished any of them. I grab them and put them outside (they don't sting or bite), or if I can't reach them I just let them go about their business. They just seem to fly around and die after a few days.

The Fish Nursery Mural... Part 1

2010-09-28T14:36:00.008-04:00

A month or two ago a good friend of mine asked if I'd paint a mural in her nursery. She and the father-to-be had picked fishing as the theme for the decor and she just found out she's having a boy.

Paint a room full of fish?! How could I say no??

She had a family member paint one wall of the nursery a rich shade of blue and that was to be the designated mural wall. Made my job pretty easy since all I had to do was fill it with feeesh! :)

When I arrived to start the project, I sketched out a few ideas for different styles of fish to get an idea of what she had in mind. I knew she wanted colorful fish, but was she going for exotic tropical style fish, or less-flamboyant local fish? She chose the latter, so no angel fish or parrotfish for this nursery. (Some of the fish would still be somewhat tropical looking though, due to their bright colors...)

I sketched out the fish on the wall in chalk and the two of us began to fill them in with white paint, to use as a primer. On a dark wall, a bright color like white or yellow or red requires lots of layers of paint, and the white underneath helps keep the color nice and bright looking.

She informed me that Daddy, being an avid fisherman in Southern Maryland, was adamant that there be at least one Rockfish included in the mural!

I drew him chasing after a school of little feeder fish. Poor baby feeder fish!! So cute! So tiny! So tasty!
Here's a close up of the feeder fish after they were filled in :)

These are two of the more tropical-looking fish. Having some colorful fish works well to balance out the more neutral fish like the Rockfish.

This picture shows 2 full days of progress on the mural. Not as far along as I had hoped, but doing many coats of paint over a dark wall takes a lot of time.

I added in another Rockfish (two's better than one, right?) and the great thing about them is that when you enter the nursery, they're totally the focal point of the room.

Daddy is happy :) and I think Mommy is, too!

This weekend I'm heading back down to finish the mural and will post pics once it's complete!

Back Online, for real!

2010-09-22T23:50:00.000-04:00

Got our interwebz hooked up today in VA and let me tell you.... it is slooowwww. Harrisburg had some nice DSL for sure. The one phone outlet in this house that works is in a weird place- some random little cubbie in the wall back in the pantry!? So we're getting a wireless modem and in the meantime I'm using our old one that works, sometimes, sitting by the edge of the pantry.

Heh.

Artsfest was this past weekend, and what a beautiful weekend it was! Such a gorgeous weekend to be outside and I gave my booth a makeover with some tropical looking blinds, but haven't yet found the cable to hook my phone up to the computer to show the pictures I took.

Still working on decorating the house. I'm realizing that in order to feel inspired in the office/studio, I'm going to have to make it aesthetically pleasing. There's just no way around it. I don't want that to mean "I have to go buy all new fancy stuff! PRETTY ROOOOOOOOMMM NOOOOOWWWWW!!!!!", I plan to make use of what I have and buy as little as possible. Partly because I am broke, but of course also to not be wasteful and keep things as eco-friendly as I can!

I have a lot of random furniture in there right now. The giant Epson is on a TV stand and my particle board desk that I've had since I was 11 is sort of falling apart, but maybe some screws or nails will hold it together for a while longer. I've got a lot of other random sized shelves all over the place too, for various printers/paper/art supplies.

So I'm looking for some inspiration. What can you show me? Do you have any favorite blogs where I can see some craft-room inspiration? Or maybe there's a photo-set on Flickr that I have yet to find? Do you have a link to your own craft room you can show me? Leave a comment.... I'd love to see and get some ideas :)

Paint Samples

2010-09-16T14:15:00.002-04:00

Blogging at 1:00am left me too tired to include color samples in the last post... what a cop-out! This is an ART blog, I can't get away with that!!

You want PICTURES and you want to see COLOR!!!
I aim to please :)

I played around online with Behr's painty-tool-thing. On the Behr website, you can enter in a specific color name and then play with pictures of rooms, put it on the walls, etc. Of course computer monitor colors vary, so they may not be 100% accurate, but you get the idea! I couldn't color the furniture in the photos, so you'll have to use your imagination until I can post real pictures of the actual rooms... but at least this is something, right?

Here's the Master Bedroom in Honey Moth: (I love that name, don't you?!)

The color of the nightstand in this photo is the color of our wood floors. Our bedding is the greenish color in the upper left color palette and our furniture is close to the dark brown in the upper left color palette. Our trim is white like in this photo.

This is the guest room in Light Mint:

Yeah, I know, same photo... hehe. Behr's site didn't have a whole lot from which to choose!
We decorated this room with maps, hence the color palette that I chose. The trim is white, and we've got a big framed map with pins in it of the places we've been. Right now it's only North America, but maybe next year that will change and we can get a world map. We've also got a globe and some other fun map-y travelly stuff.

Here is the office in Honeydew: (in person this color is much brighter!)

Pretend it's not a kitchen. I didn't see any office sample photos that would resemble mine, this was the closest I saw! It will have darker green (that color is called CATERPILLAR!) and bright blue accents..... maybe... hopefully.
...Ideally!

Here is (sort of) the dining room in Cheerful Hue: (I think that was my husband's favorite color name!)

In the color palette, the tan is the color of our couches (the dining room is big enough for a table and chairs on one side and then couches/a TV at the other end). In the color palette, the green looks about right for our table and chairs, but in the actual picture it is showing way too bright! It's really a dark-green-stained wood table and chairs. The red is a terra-cotta tiled floor, closest I could do in this photo.

And here's an idea of the dark teal that's in most of the house that we love:

Like the others, the colors in the palette are more accurate than those of the room. The walls are a little darker than this, the wood is a very dark cherry. The furniture will be dark brown, and there will be lots of green plants :)

So there you have it! Some idea of colors. I'll be haunting your home-improvement blogs in the next few weeks to get lots of ideas... I'll be sure to keep things updated.

And now off to get ready for ARTSFEST!!!
http://www.annmariegarden.org/

Hope to see you there :)

Iiiiiii've been PAINTING!!!

2010-09-16T01:00:00.002-04:00

BUT not art. I've been painting our new house! I got to go pick out colors last week and let me tell you... after we closed on the house last Thursday evening, before going to sleep that night, my husband said to me, "Why don't you go to Home Depot tomorrow and pick out some colors of paint that you like?"
Do you really think a girl like me could sleep after a comment like that!? NOOOOOO!!! I felt like a tiny child on Christmas Eve.
Tomorrow I'M GOING TO GO PICK OUT PAAAAAAAAINT!!! OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

And so it began. The busy-ness and sleepless nights.

Of course I didn't sleep. I got up the next morning all giddy and stopped at a Home Goods for the helluvit, found some ridiculously cute and colorful cannisters for our boring white kitchen, then grabbed a coffee and headed to THE DEPOT!

Our main room is a dark teal and so is the hallway, so pretty much every color I picked was going to not have to clash with it since it's everywhere. I ended up picking out all pastels since the rooms are small and I wanted to brighten them up. I picked out 10-15 swatches, hung various ones in different rooms, and when my husband came home we finalized our selections. I picked out a limey-green for the office/art studio. That's the only room I wanted to make nice and bright :) My friends and family were shocked at my color choices... since my art is SO bright, they expected bright colors. The office will be bright, but it's still a very light limey green. My husband found it hard to believe that wouldn't look terrible with the teal, since the office will be at the end of the hall and the first thing you see back there when you look up the stairs. But I assured him that lime and teal totally go together (and almost picked those as our wedding colors since he loves green) and after I held up the swatch next to the white trim and teal wall, he was a believer!

So what did I pick? These are all Behr paints, but it's late and I'm too lazy to go find pictures/swatches online and post them.
Master: Honey Moth
Office/Art Room (what my husband has now deemed "The Bug Room"): Honeydew
Guestroom: Light Mint (it looks more blue than green though)
Dining area: Cheerful Hue (a light yellow).

The guestroom and master bedroom are done (after me, my mom, AND my husband all pulled an all-nighter on Monday night- we were just TOO FULL of paint-induced-energy!!! Maybe Behr adds caffiene into their paint?!), and I took some before pics. Once we get things unpacked and set up, I'll post them along with the after pictures :)

Butterfly Nerds

2010-08-29T09:29:00.014-04:00

I just got a photo/text message from a friend out in CA- it was a picture of a Queen butterfly she saw the other day. Some back-and-forth texting ensued (or if you're REALLY into butterflies you would've considered it sexting?) that made me realize spending a summer at Hershey Gardens' Butterfly House (last year) turned me into kind of a butterfly nerd.

I'll now do my best to start the process of turning you into a butterfly nerd, too.

I bet you know what that is.
It's a Monarch!
If you already knew that you're pretty awesome!
This one is a male. You can tell by the two black spots in the center of the lower wings. The females have thicker black veins in their wings and don't have those two black dots.

Photo by D. Gordon E. Robertson

I bet you know what THIS butterfly is, too- even though you may not know you know! It's the Monarch Impostor: The Viceroy! Almost everyone's heard of "that butterfly that tries to look like a Monarch when it knows it isn't." They are right! That's what it does!

How do you tell the difference? Take a look at this butterfly and the Monarch above. Even though their wings are in slightly different positions, you can see the defining mark. A hint: Look at the lower wings.

If you didn't find it yourself, it's ok, you're still awesome!
The bottom wings of the Viceroy have a black line that goes through the middle of the lower wings across the veins. That black line is how you tell the difference! You can see it on both sides of the wing.

Sometimes a butterfly's wings look completely different on the top side (the side that faces the sky when they fly) versus the bottom! A perfect example is below.

Do you know what this guy is?
It looks quite similar to the Monarch, but this butterfly is actually called a Queen. It has no dark black veins running through the upper wings like the Monarch has. It's also more brownish in color. When a Queen opens its wings, the top sides of the wings are just the rusty color with black along the outer edges- the veins are not prominent at all, as seen in this photo by Korall:

Photo by Korall

For more neat things about Monarchs, have a look at this site:
http://www.livemonarch.com/monarch-facts.htm

This is the Monarch Caterpeeeeeeeeellar! It's yellow and white and black and stripey. Plus you'll know it's a Monarch Baby if you found it on Milkweed! A lot of people confuse it with the Swallowtail Butterfly Caterpeeeellar. I've done paintings of both now, so I consider myself the expert on all things caterpeellar. Ok not really, but doing the paintings in addition to time at the butterfly house was quite informative!

*
I admit... I find it ridiculously fun to say "caterpeeeellar."

*AA

Oh no! Not has a sad....?

2010-08-28T11:54:00.000-04:00

After recently watching a bunch of Aqua Teen Hunger Force episodes (the disc was in the DVD player and it's the only DVD the movers didn't pack!), I noticed that- similarly to a happy face = instant cute, you can also immediately feel sorry for something if you add a sad little pouty face.

Check out poor Meatwad here:

Awwwwwww.... soooooooooo sad!!!! :(

Poor sad worms! I think they are doing it. I wonder why they're sad. Maybe in worm-time, it's like 4am, and they've just gotten back from the worm bar. They went home together, thinking it would be fun, but each of them knows deep down they could do better than this, and just hooked up with the first worm who paid them any attention because they've been pretty lonely lately... And even though that 35 minutes of drunken flirtation was a bit of an ego-boost, in the long run, this will do nothing for their already low self-esteem.
Poor low-self-esteem-having worms!

Awww poor sad swamp! Just because no one wants to play in you because you stink and are probably full of alligators... well... that algae sure seems to be having a good time! Yay! See? You're a nice home for algae, it's living it up! Don't be so hard on yourself!

Ohhh, poor you, sad mold! Why so sad? Because so many people are allergic to you, and you ruin all the food? That when people see you just sitting there, minding your own business on an orange or perhaps a half-eaten loaf of bread, they get pissed and insist the food has now "gone bad" and JUST THROW YOU AWAY?
Think of all the people you're cured, with your penicillin producing self.

Aww, look here at the poor Virginia Disclosure Laws! They are sooo sad that our contract was written with not one mention of them whatsoever.
"FINE, don't think about US! Just pretend we don't even exist! ...No one listens to us anymore. I bet if we made ourselves big hefty heaping line of asbestos fibers RIGHT HERE and snorted it up through a rolled up dollar bill and immediately got cancer and died NO ONE WOULD EVEN NOTICE!! HMPH!"
Little laws.... I promise that if we ever have to make another contract on a house in Virginia, you won't be neglected! We didn't even know about you til 4 days ago!

Is Sad Spaghetti sad because it's going to get eaten? Well, that's what happens to spaghetti.

I can't possibly even imagine why any of these items would be sad! ...They've got front seats to an episode of The Sopranos!

Just Add Cute

2010-08-26T20:51:00.000-04:00

I just realized something. You can make anything- ANYTHING- cute by just adding a face.

Observe:

Art Studio: temporarily closed!

2010-08-24T20:11:00.006-04:00

In case you haven't been following along, I'm moving!... this weekend. Probably. Maybe. Ok, I have no stinkin' idea what's gonna happen at this point. But I do know that the art studio, for the most part, is all packed up. No more paintings. No more prints. (For now.)

(However, if you're just dying for a print from yours truly, they're available here at imagekind AND you can even get them framed for really super reasonable prices!)
http://SamanthasArtStudio.imagekind.com

So... about the move.

A few weeks ago, we found out the house had mold. The seller agreed to have it remediated.... fine. I guess.

Yesterday was the day that the house was scheduled to get its mold inspection. At this point we haven't gotten the results, but during this inspection, the mold inspector found something eeeeeiiiiiiiiinteresting in the basement. Something that had been... overlooked before.

Can you guess? Oh come on, Just guess.

Yummy... delicious... fraying... falling apart... asbestos insulation on the ceiling.

You can imagine my reaction.

See how it says "Party all the time", but Eddie looks waaaay too serious to party? I bet he wrote "Party all the time" when he was caught up in the euphoric excitement of buying his first house, then right before they took this picture, one of 'his people' called up and was like "Uhhhh, Eddie? Just found toxic carcinogens all up in your ceilings man."

So after doing all this fundraising to help cure cancer, I'm about to be the proud owner of a cancer factory!!! That's right, so if you know anyone who could use some extra cancer in their life.... just send 'em on over.

A Kind of Magic :)

2010-08-19T21:24:00.006-04:00

Dog walking isn't my favorite chore. Ok, I generally kind-of hate it. However, last week after catching up on some blogs that I follow, I read an entry about caterpillars (oh help, I can't find the blog now!!) and decided from that moment on, dog walking would be no more.

Instead I would think of it as... Bug Hunting!

Not hunting like killing. Hunting like finding :)

Last night I decided when I took my dog out for his walk, I'd bring my phone with me and call in some Indian take-out and pick it up on our way home. Palak Paneer and Naan here I come! After ordering my food I had about 20 minutes to kill so I started scouring a bunch of the trees for cicadas as per usual.

AND

Finally......

I FOUND THAT FOR WHICH I HAD BEEN SEARCHING!!
Did you really think I was going to end that sentence with a preposition!?!?

I clumsily got out my phone and fumbled around with the buttons to switch to camera mode. I was so excited my hands were shaking!!

This one was just coming out of its skin! It was still resting on the skin when I took this first photo.

Sooooo beautiful!! I've never seen one in this state!

My dad has told me that when they come out their bodies are yellow and their eyes are red. I didn't get to see one in that state, but I had never heard of this cool blue-green state (with a coppery body!)

I've got another week or week and a half left of living here in the Burg so you bet your @ss I'm bringing my camera with me every evening when I take the dog for his walk!

Apparently these are Dog Day cicadas. They come out during the dog-days of summer (go figure) which makes sense since that's the part of summer we seem to be in now, although this week has been a lot cooler than the last few.

This is one of those bug-events that I've always wanted to see but never, ever have! I've been seeing TONS of cicada skins on the trees around here this month (but it's not time for the big big 17 year brood or even the 13 year brood) so I've been keeping my eyes out for them, hoping to see one crawling up a tree and witness the whole transformation!

It's a kind of magic! I had this song in my head all night long after the experience :)

Feeling either envious... or motivated? (Or quite possibly BOTH!)

2010-08-17T19:23:00.004-04:00

Lately more and more, I've been noticing that some of my favorite artists- some I know in person, some I know or follow online through Etsy/Twitter/Blogger/Facebook/etc. are having a lot of great success!

I see Facebook posts showing that a new painting has sold.

I see multiple artists posting that their 2011 calendars have arrived and are ready to be shipped! (And we're not talking they ordered 10 or so calendars 'in case' anyone happens to order one- we're talking boxes and boxes of them, hundreds! Anticipating that many to be sold... Wow!)

I see another friend who is celebrating her 100th Etsy sale.

And yet another who is celebrating her 600th!

I always think it's super cool to see success like this because a lot of these artists I've been a fan of since they were just starting out. Maybe they had a few sales on Etsy, or maybe they've blogged about an art show that they've gotten into. And suddenly they're on their way to doing this full time! Plus it gives hope to the art community as a whole- that the economy isn't dead, that you *can* make a living doing what you love (and not workin' for the man!) :)

And then I find myself going... wait... when did all this happen? What did I miss? How'd they go from the occasional Etsy sale to suddenly being.... not necessarily famous, but definitely sought after?
And
What am I doing wrong that I'm still in about the same place I was two years ago?

It occurs to me that trying to spread myself out over my regular job, dog walking, fixing dinner (yes I used to make a home cooked meal almost every night!), and triathlon training sent art to the back burner quickly. By the time I had time for it at night, I was too exhausted from everything else. It was easy to almost ignore it for a while- I had the mindset of, "Hey, the bills have to get paid.... the dog needs to be walked... I need to stay healthy... Logically it's the easiest thing to give up." But of course I can't turn a hobby into a job if I don't pay any attention to it.

Now throw in packing for a move in HOPEFULLY a week and a half and I've not only got no time to do the art, but not a great space to do it in either. Not that I ever had that here. I'm hoping that in the new house, where I will have a dedicated space just for art related stuff, I'll be able to spend more time on it and get more done and more efficiently since I plan to create a super organized beautimous new studio! :)

Once I get all that going, I just have to figure out how to promote myself. That's where I feel like I missed the boat- all the other artists I've been following took the last couple years to refine their craft AND learn how to run a business.

This year all I've learned is... how to swim! ;)
...Not a bad skill to have nevertheless.

So what do you do to promote yourself? What have you done to learn more about how to promote and run your hobby as a business?

Guess I better get back to ~~stalking~~ research!

Another Edition of: What's That Plant?

2010-08-12T14:27:00.003-04:00

These things are growing wild up here in PA and blooming like crazy. AND they smell amazing, a sweet and almost citrusy smell. Obviously it's some native plant, and thus if they will grow in VA (which I would assume they will), I'd love to have some in my native pollinator garden.

(And of course... I'm thinking about doing a painting from one of these photos I took.)

So..... What is it??

Prickly seed pod :)

Giveaway is closed and we have a WINNER!

2010-08-11T09:30:00.002-04:00

It's Wednesday, so not only is it Business Time, but it also means my CSN Stores giveaway is over and it's time to pick a winner!

I'm going to use a random number draw, courtesy of Random.org, to determine a winner.

Random.org has a super cool List Randomizer tool that I used to come up with a list of everyone who entered including the extra entries :)
List Randomizer was the easiest way to do this since some readers left two separate comments (one for the item they wanted and another to let me know they follow) and some left one comment to tell me both things. (Next time I'll be more specific!)

So here we have our list and they even numbered it for me. Sweet!

Now I'll let Random.org pick a random number between 1 and 26....

(Click to see full size)

Number 22 is MBC!
Congrats to you and enjoy your flask (which I'm sure won't be hard to do!)! I'll notify the winner and CSN to get the gift certificate all worked out.

Thanks for playing :)

Next giveaway will be an 8"x10" print. Stay tuned!

It's business... It's business time.

CSN Stores Giveaway!!

2010-08-03T17:48:00.004-04:00

I know I posted a teaser recently on Facebook about a giveaway on my blog.... So HERE IT IS!

CSN Stores is sponsoring a $60 Gift-Certificate giveaway from their shops and one of you wonderful readers will win!

Obviously with my upcoming move to VA I've been doing a LOT of thinking about how to decorate our new pad. We couldn't do much here in our apartment and since we were only going to be here a year and a half, we didn't want to do much. Needless to say this place hardly feels like home.

I've been haunting and bookmarking countless items to my "House Ideas" bookmarks folder from CSN. They have over 200 specialty online stores and they've got EVERYTHING!

They've got bedroom furniture sets, office furniture, fitness equipment, pet supplies, home improvement items such as lighting and ceiling fans, AND many eco-friendly items, too!

Take a look at their website:
http://www.csnstores.com/
and check out some of their great items! They've got a ginormous selection to fit into any budget!
Some of the items I'm dreaming of....

Bamboo cutting board

Plant stands- I need these to keep the dog out of the plants.

Speaking of the dog, now that he'll have a yard, he'll need a dog house out there! :)

I know, I know, you really want to know- HOW DO I WIIIIIIIN?
It's quite painless and simple.

#1 Leave me a comment *on this post* telling me which wonderful item(s) you want to buy if you win the $60! (one comment entry per person, 50 comments will not get you more chances.. sowwwy!) You don't have to be a follower of my blog to win. But if you ARE a follower of my blog, please tell me so because...

#2 If you're a follower of my blog, you get an automatic additional bonus entry when you comment! (You must leave a comment to be entered though.)
See on the left (scroll up) where it says "people who are awesome"? Do you want to be awesome ? (Yeeeesss.) And do you want an extra chance to win an awesome giveaway for awesome people? Excellent! We are on the same page then. Just click the "Follow" button, even if you're a non-conformist, just this once. Ta-dah! Extra entry for you.

This giveaway will close at 11:59pm EST on Tuesday, August 10. Entries after this time cannot be considered (sorry!).
The winner will be chosen at random and announced on Wednesday, August 11. You have 48 hours to claim your prize.... after that I reserve the right to pick another winner.

Have fun doing your browsing and good luck! :)

A commission that did have a happy ending :)

2010-07-28T18:11:00.009-04:00

And now that I know it arrived safely and has been received by the birthday boy, I can post about it. Yay!

(I added the bolts that hold the sign to the post later, hehe)

The painting was commissioned for me to do by the wife of one of my best friends. Route 30 has special significance to him (or as Ruby would say, it's "sensitive," hehe... I just love her). So his wife's idea was to paint the Rt. 30 sign with some local foliage/wildflowers. It was a lot of fun to do this since normally I just focus on ONE foliage or flower in a painting, not a bunch of different kinds. And I learned something interesting in the little bit of scenery included in this piece. I now know why scenery is SUCH popular subject matter for artists:

IT'S EASY!!!!

Bob Ross? Happy little trees? Just start throwing down shapes and light and shade- it's nearly impossible to mess them up. Rolling hills? Curvy shapes, overlap, light, shade, blend, blend, done. It made me want to do more scenery pictures... which is something I always thought would bore me.

BREAKING NEWS:

2010-07-27T12:33:00.005-04:00

I AM NOT A SUPERHUMAN ARTIST WHO CAN DO EVERYTHING.

Or,
LESSON LEARNED.

Or,
HUGE FAIL.

A while ago (like..... 6 months ago, at least) a friend of mine wanted to commission me to do a some artwork for him. He sent me an email with a picture he had taken that he wanted me to draw or paint. Since he's a friend, I didn't want to charge him too much for it, so I decided a colored pencil drawing would be the way to go. It's faster than painting (I don't have to do zillions of layers and there is no drying time) so I wouldn't have to spend as many hours on it, therefore, could charge less.

I had a few other projects lined up (and always have at least 10 at the forefront of my head that I am itching to do) and he assured me there was no rush on it. I knew the drawing would be difficult as it's quite different from anything I've ever done before... so, yes, part of me was just putting it off because I was scared. It's a photo of some ducks swimming across a little pond with lots of trees and branches in the background. So, yes, it was nature. Yes, there was lots of green in it. Of course I thought I could handle it! If I do indeed have artistic talent, I can draw or paint ANYthing, right?
Nope.

I wanted to succeed. I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and draw something besides a close-up photo of a flower or a bug or Louis Armstrong. Plus, if I want to actually make a career out of being an artist, I'm going to occasionally have to draw or paint things that I wouldn't necessarily choose myself.... Right?
Nope.

I only worked on the drawing for an hour and a half this morning. The time was spent in a vicious cycle of me putting the pencils down, looking forlornly at the drawing, knowing deep down that it was going nowhere. Then picking up the pencils again, not wanting to admit defeat, but to see this drawing finished and force my way through it and learn new things along the way.

In just an hour and a half I did learn things. What I learned was, KNOW YOUR LIMITS. Sure I would love to become a professional and do art full time and make a living from it. But a professional wouldn't take on projects they know they can't handle. They specialize in something and do the damn best they can at it. They don't go guessing their way through to a half-assed pitiful looking end result that just ends up being a waste of time.

Would you ask Paul McCartney to write and perform Gangsta Rap?

So there it sits.
An incomplete drawing with approximately a completed 4-inch-square section of pure mess. I thought for a moment and wondered if I should try painting it instead? I looked around in the art-supply-closet and found an extra 11"x14" canvas. I took it out and set it next to the drawing. Now I'm considering trying to paint it instead. I don't know if that means I'm committed or persistent or just a dumbass.

Here Today, Gone.... Later Today

2010-07-25T16:57:00.002-04:00

A day or two ago I listed this Bees & Cherries (decoupaged with a print of my "Busy, Busy Bees" painting) in my Etsy shop.

I found out this morning that it was featured in this adorable Treasury:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c4ac8dc4a9f8eefe0bf1f0f/cherries-jubilee

And then found out later today I sold it! :)

My Etsy shop is currently still very empty as the things with which I'm filling it take a loooong time to make. Part of that is simply due to drying times combined with my own multi-tasking; Part of that is due to my own inexperience with this type of thing and still learning, and of course only listing an item in my shop when it is absolutely 100% perfect... or as perfect as I'm capable of making an upcycled item. I hope as I learn more and more about working with certain materials, I can get items listed a little faster and complete more of them, because creating these little gifts is a blast!

It's super fun to take trips to thrift shops and find just the right little items that are well crafted, but just need a little makeover. You never find the exact same item twice, so no two will ever be alike. Maybe a defect on the wood somewhere becomes something you have to paint over, which is a new and unique challenge. I could easily go to a craft shop and buy boatloads of wooden or even paper boxes to paint and decoupage, but where's the fun in that? Plus the whole point of finding a used item is not consuming new resources... which adds in another element of challenge and craftiness and uniqueness! :)

NAME THAT PLANT!

2010-07-23T11:55:00.002-04:00

Cause I want one!

I have no clue what it is. It's growing at a local park. Some of the larger leaves are almost as long as my hand, for reference, and it's about 7 feet tall and even wider than that. Anyway I just love this thing! Anyone know what it is??

Maybe I can go make an inquiry over at Plants Are The Strangest People, my favorite plant blog!! :)

Saying good bye.... in a good way :)

2010-07-22T08:54:00.001-04:00

I'm always flattered when someone wants to buy any of my work...

especially an original...

and especially as a gift!

It's one of the greatest feelings...

A couple weeks ago I got up and checked my email to find a request to purchase this painting-- I don't sell the original paintings (unless they're commissioned) through PayPal to avoid fraud issues, etc. Instead anyone can email me if they're interested in purchasing an original. (Hopefully they don't suffer from email-phobia like me!)

I'm so relieved that this particular piece is going to finally find a home because it's one of the few that I spent way too much on the frame (lesson learned), and I've been getting tired of hauling it to art shows and being SOOOO paranoid about the frame getting messed up every time! (Soon I hope to start making my own frames, and thus will be able to easily repair them when needed.) Each and every time I've taken this painting to an art show or gallery event, it's been wrapped up in a giant fluffy cocoon for protection. Now it can finally find a permanent spot on a wall- I'm sure he painting is much happier now :)

I hope the recipient enjoys the gift and it finds (and creates!) a happy place in his or her home :)

To Wide or Not To Wide??

2010-07-21T00:06:00.007-04:00

Format. For this heah blog...
I'm thinking it may be time to go wide.

I got a new computer monitor this year. I have no clue what the resolution is, because honestly I'm too lazy to go check in my settings. It's 16:9 aspect ratio though. So now when I look at my blog on it, I've got alllll this white space on the edges, and it is all just cluttered there somewhere in the middle.

I bet somewhere there's an HTML code where I can set the middle column to scale wider as the viewer's browser windows widens. Easy peasy! No wondering if I change to a wide format for the posting, will it get messed up on monitors with a 4:3 aspect ratio? Because then horizontal scrolling would be involved... and no one wants that.

So what's your monitor's aspect ratio? 4:3 (more square) or 16:9 (more rectangular)?

Soon, little bees.

2010-07-16T01:16:00.001-04:00

Soon I will be back to gardening and planting for you.

For now I will reminisce with old photos.
Come with me and let's enjoy these bees from 2008 :)

"We're in your flowers... Pollinaaaytin' your world!!"

Painting.... on a GREAT BIG scale!

2010-07-12T18:28:00.002-04:00

Not to jinx it... but our offer on a house was accepted today! We're getting the inspection on Friday and if all goes well, we'll be moving at the end of August.

So... the wheels are turning. Here it is in all its glory:

Man.... it's taupe. Eeeeewww. I like the red door but the taupe might have to go. So I played around in Photoshop and created some 'visions' that I worried my husband would find hideous. To my surprise he liked both, especially the yellow because it makes the house "look happier."

Or maybe even a teal would work (ignore the yellow chimney).

The addition of some flowers in those beds will make a big difference too.

It's fun to play around with ideas and who knows what will happen in the next few weeks with the inspection, etc. But hopefully all goes well and I can start envisioning my new workshop/art studio! The basement has a bunch of big work benches already set up that look somewhat built-in, so we are guessing they will be left there. Looks like the perfect place for me to finally start making my own frames! Yaaayyy!

SO.... which colored version of the house do you like best? Please comment! :)

Building Your Website...

2010-07-08T14:23:00.008-04:00

I was just on the Etsy forums a few minutes ago--
wait, WHAT!? Yes! I'm re-opening my Etsy shop!! but more on that on another day.... when the shop actually has stuff in it :) It takes time to create those listings you know!
and came across a post asking which is better? Having your own website (and store) or having an Etsy shop? There were many different viewpoints/pros/cons of each. It seems like most people who prefer *just* having Etsy do so for the simplicity and ease of maintenance.

I, however, am a huge geek and control freak and actually enjoy designing and coding and maintaining my own website. Yeah, HTML for funsies. That is probably the dorkiest thing I've ever written; what's sad is that I had to preface that with 'probably.'

The topic of website hosting also came up and I was surprised at the rates I was seeing. The company I use- MeccaHosting- seems so much cheaper (the service package I am using anyway). Since I'm so extremely happy with my hosting company, I wanted to give a quick shout-out to them and I'd highly HIGHLY recommend them if anyonehas been thinking about starting your own website! Here is their page explaining their services and rates:
http://www.meccahosting.com/us/services/web_hosting/
I currently pay $10 to renew my domain name every year and $30 A YEAR to keep my website up and running. Most rates I've been seeing are $10-$12 a month.

When I set up my website a few years ago, I knew nothing about HTML and was adamant about having my site hosted by a company that could provide me with plenty of ~~cheat sheets~~ templates. After hours of extensive research I signed up with some big name company (probably Yahoo but I really don't remember) to find out... at the time... none of their templates were compatible with Macs :(

So after immediately closing the account and getting my moneys back, I decided to go with the cheapest option I could. Lo and behold I found Mecca! I took it upon myself to find online tutorials to teach me the basics of HTML and it was well worth the whole hour it took to find a few simple things. So even if you think you could never learn HTML and it seems hella scary to you, it may actually be worth looking into. You have so much more control over everything. (any other control freaks out there!!? Really???) There are a zillion tutorials online and at first all you really need to learn is how to align stuff and make tables and links and enjoy playing with numbers a little... and that's sort of it.
Here's one of my favorite sites with lots-o-tutorials :)
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

Then there was this. A blog. I should remember why I picked blogger, but I don't. I thought about doing my own in HTML but seriously why go through all that trouble when this service is free??? There were templates! Templates that I could change and customize if I chose to do so, which of course I did! Because I could. Because I am anal about the tiniest miniscule shit. And because of my controlfreakishness.

So if you've set up a website, and choose to set up a blog, chances are if you're going to sell your art (or bags of hair or contaminated Shrek glasses or whatever it is you sell) online, there's still the question of how. Use your own site? Or go with an online store such as Etsy or Artfire or Ebay or a multitude of others.

I can only compare with Etsy since they are the only one I've ever used...

I moved to selling on my own site for a couple of reasons aside from my pure geekdom.

For one thing you don't need to set up a specific account to shop from my online gallery. I use PayPal buttons and you don't even need a PayPal account, just a credit card like with all other online shopping. With both Etsy and Paypal there are fees (and don't forget to add in the fees of hosting your website, which there are none with Etsy et. al.), and they seem pretty comparable, so I personally would probably not make a decision based on this alone:

QUICK COMPARISON OF FEES:

PayPal buttons: Put as many items on your site as you want. For free. Forever. PayPal charges you 30 cents per transaction plus 2.9% on the amount of the sale. You pay nothing until you make a sale.

Etsy: 20 cents each time you place an item into your store, then if/when you make a sale, Etsy takes 3.5% commission. Item listings expire 4 months after you enter them, and you can re-list them again for 20 cents.

I chose to re-open my Etsy store for a few of my hand-made one-of-a-kind (OOAK you acronym nerds) items. Etsy seems like a more appropriate venue and admittedly, it is a little easier to create a listing on Etsy for these kinds of items rather than a brand-new page from my website for each of them, since they'll all be so different that it would be hard to copy and paste the code from one page to the next.

And, of course, there is a lot of competition on Etsy. This can either work for you or against you. A customer can easily enter your store and begin searching around all over the place and end up just as easily buying an item from someone else. Likewise someone hopping around the site from another Etsy shop can bring customers into your shop.

So if you're thinking about creating a website and/or online shop, hope some of this helps, and feel free to comment here or email me with any questions!

Caterpillars Finally Finished!

2010-07-04T11:38:00.004-04:00

Yay! My little Monarch Caterpillar Triptych is finally finished!! I just have to spray them with sealer, but right now my porch is too sunny to do so.
I must wait.

What's fun about these little guys is that there are a variety of ways to hang them... I originally designed them to be in a vertical configuration, but my husband suggested trying them horizontally and I found they worked that way too.

Or they could be hung separately- the two smaller ones on one wall, the long one on another wall.... however you like!

Horizontal with edges lined up...

Horizontal & centered...

Vertical.

I kept these guys way, way, WAAYY less detailed than my usual work. I was going for something fun and illustrative rather than realistic. I did try to keep the caterpillars themselves pretty realistic looking though, and because of that I didn't want the plant life around them to distract from them. I also found Milkweed is a pretty challenging flower to paint- there are just so many tiny flowers all clustered together. But after I had two layers of paint on these flowers, I decided I was satisfied with them. If I had put too much detail into them, I think the leaves and stems would have looked unfinished.

I'll be bringing them to the Ned Smith Nature & Arts Festival in a couple weeks. Come check em out in person! :)

How to Scan In a Painting

2010-07-02T11:46:00.007-04:00

When I'm at art shows, I have a lot of other artists ask me who makes my prints, how do I make the prints, etc. etc. Answer is that I do about 95% of it myself.
Here's step 1 of the "how do you make prints??" process.

Why scan? Most professionals would mount the painting on a wall or large easel and take a VERY high resolution digital photo. I haven't found much consistency doing that myself, but my scanner seems to always give me results that I can work with and create a great looking finished product.

Ideally, I'd take every painting I've ever done to American Art in Annapolis and have them do the image capture. They're AMAZING at what they do!! But sometimes I just don't have the time or the money for that luxury. Plus... Either I'm cheap or smart, because I generally hate paying someone to do something I can do myself. Thus, unless a painting I've done is over 16" x 20", I'm going to scan it in.

I use a Canon scanner and Photoshop to create my final digital image.

I lay the painting down on the scanner (I keep it about 1/4" away from the edge) and scan in sections. For a 16" x 20", I usually have to do 4 scans because my scanner does a piece about 9"x11". Lay one corner down on the scanner, scan, slide the painting down, do the other corner. Pick it up and rotate it 180 degrees (resulting in these last two scans being upside down) and scan in the last 2 sections.

Now I open Photoshop and create a new document the size of the paintin at 300 dpi (so you can print it perfectly and *maybe* even go a little bigger without losing much detail... printing on canvas seems to be pretty forgiving that way). So for this one it was 16"x20" and 300 dpi, which will create a HUGE file and make your computer really, REALLY SUPER PISSED.

Then I copy and paste the contents of each of my scans (in this case 4) into the new document. Once they're all in there, I save it so I don't lose them. After it's saved, I can close all the individual scan files since I no longer need them (and keeping them open will use more memory and make the computer run slower and be more pissed).

(Note: It's probably best *not* to listen to music on the computer as you work on this project, or have anything else open that will take away from your computer's memory. Then you will get freezing or the program spontaneously quits which makes YOU want to spontaneously combust SO SAVE OFTEN! That is in huge font for a reason :) It might actually take a few minutes to save a file this size. Go grab a snack.)

Once in a while if there's part of the painting that's just not coming together well, I'll do an additional scan of just that part (example: a person's head. You don't want someone's head to have any inconsistencies. When you're putting the scans together it's just easier to have that additional separate scan of the face, too).

So here's the recent scan process of my painting "Sunflowers." Aren't the colors gross?? We'll fix that later. I like to do that part last- it seems the most rewarding :)

This is a Photoshop file size 16"x20" and all 4 scans are just thrown in here (the two upside down ones have been rotated) and stuck in their respective locations.
The black around the edges is from the edge of the canvas not being right up against the edge of the scanner- I want my scan to go alll the way to the edge of the canvas, and include it, rather than chop it off.

The first thing I'll do is start sliding around the 4 chunks of the scan. The arrow keys will be your BFFs (that's "best friends forever", nerds) for this process. Hopefully you've got your scans in relatively straight, because it sucks to have to rotate them and get them JUST right. As you can see, above, the lower right corner isn't quite straight so I had to rotate that one just a leeeeeettle.

Sometimes for this part of the process it's easiest to just pick ONE of the 4 scans and choose that one to line everything else up with. You can move around all 4, but sometimes when you do that, once you move one, another section is all thrown off, and you have to scoot everything around to get it to fit together again. Also sometimes for this part of the process, you can adjust your layer transparency to slightly below 100% opacity and then see exactly what's underneath- this will make lining things up pretty easy, too.

Scoot, scoot, scoot. Nudge, nudge, nudge. Is it lined up yet? As soon as it is, SAVE IT! And then use your crop tool to cut off anything around the edges that you don't like. Your file might end up slightly smaller than exactly 16"x20". That's ok.

I zoom in to the middle of the painting, where all 4 corners line up, to make sure it's as close as I can get it. It sort of doesn't have to be PERFECT, more on that later.

But check out the inconsistencies in lighting. Some parts of the scans come out a little dark if your scanner isn't perfectly flat. Usually this is pretty easy to fix. Here's a good example...

Ewwwww, look at this nasty line. Luckily my scans overlap some, about 2 inches on all sides. This is great because that means I can just erase some of that layer in the front to reveal the still-brightly-colored scan underneath, and the flower petals will look nice.

When erasing on something like this, I prefer to use a relatively large eraser brush (not TOO huge, maybe 1/2"-1" diameter on my screen, depending on what I'm erasing) and really soften up the edges. You won't get a hard line where you've erased that way.
Be careful, if you erase too much, you'll go overboard and erase some of your scan where they don't overlap. Not good!

Ahhhhhh. That's better. It takes some practice, but you want the eraser to just gently blend the layers together. While you're doing this, not only are you fixing the colors, but if there are places where things didn't line up *just right* you'll be fixing that at the same time.

Now here's something I get really, really anal about. I learned this the hard way (and of course went back and fixed it). Zoom WAY in, extremely close up, and check out everything. Chances are you'll see some dust or scratches or flecks of random crap or cat hair. In this case I probably didn't clean off my scanner before I used it.... oops. So when you're zoomed way in, you'll probably see stuff that looks like this (I circled in yellow):

THAT doesn't need to be there!! It might seem silly to go into this much detail- after all, you're not going to be printing your document THIS big. Yeah, you'd think. But that's NOT the way it works, at all. The rule of thumb here is,

IF YOU CAN SEE IT ON YOUR SCREEN, YOU WILL SEE IT ON THE PRINT.

I promise.
So just go fix it. It doesn't hurt, really, and it will be well worth it. It only takes 10-15 minutes at the most depending on how dirty your scanner is- I don't know what you did with that thing.

Just use the rubber stamp tool and set it to pretty small, and maybe a hardness setting somewhere in the middle. You don't want really defined circles where you had to fix things but you don't need to blur the edges a whole lot, either. Sometimes I even 'fix' little tiny inconsistencies in the painting or drawing during this process. Once in a while the scanner will pick up something that is just part of the artwork and doesn't seem to show up in the original piece, but it's there, and certainly doesn't add anything to your prints- example: a thick dab of paint that creates a weird shadow, or a slight inconsistency in the canvas fabric itself that might create a shadow. Get rid of it!

Start zoomed in on one corner and just go horizontally across the whole painting. Then when you get to the edge, scroll up, and go back to the other side. Think search and rescue pattern here.

There. Isn't that better?? :)
NOW SAVE IT!

So now your scans should be all lined up perfectly (double check!!), your colors should be consistent all around (double check!!!), and you shouldn't have specks of stuff showing (not too important to double check, you can fix this any time). If everything is perfectly wonderful, FLATTEN ALL THE LAYERS TOGETHER now so we can do color correction! Yaaayyy!

I have to confess, I don't have any elaborate calibrating software. Hell, I don't have ANY calibrating software at all. I did recently get a new monitor which threw a few things slightly off, but I guess by now I've had a lot of my stuff for so long that I generally know how things tend to scan and print for me. Like I know one of my printers tends to darken the reds a little, I know the other one makes some cyans a tiny bit green. I know my scanner HATES orange and blue-green. Anyway... for color correction, I'm not going to go into calibrating- I can't tell you anything about that.

Luckily this painting has no blue-green, so my greens are pretty decent. The oranges are vomitous, non existent actually, and that makes me sad.

I use the Selective Color tool to adjust most of my colors. You can go in and *just* adjust your greens, your yellows, then your reds, even neutrals, black, blues, white, whatever. My yellows were too dark so I lightened them. My oranges were too red, so I took out a bunch of magenta from the reds (orange isn't in the color menu). After the colors were the hues that I wanted them to be, I used the Brightness/Contrast tool to brighten it up just a little and then upped the contrast- seems like with my scans I always have to do that. Sometimes if necessary, the last thing I do is use the Hue/Saturation tool to increase the saturation a bit- my work tends to be pretty bright, and this helps make the prints as accurate as possible.

Voila, the finished product.

Thank you, Governor Rendell :)

2010-07-01T19:54:00.004-04:00

...for once again declaring National Pollinator Week in Pennsylvania!! :)

PA Pollinator Week

I was a little sad that my timing this year didn't work for me to attend any events, but am still extremely happy that he was so accommodating and recognizes the importance of all pollinators!

(And by the way, check it out- pollinator.org got a makeover!)

Nice Surprise, from a month ago...

2010-06-29T19:07:00.006-04:00

I mentioned that I had a nice surprise at the Patriot News Artsfest show on Saturday morning. Here it is!!

My "Passionflowers" painting made the cover of The Patriot News' Go! section of May 27's paper (before the show).

You can click the image to see it full size.

A lady came up to my booth first thing Saturday morning and congratulated me... I had no clue what she meant. She pointed to the "Passionflowers" painting and said, "Your painting there was in the newspaper last week. On the cover!!" I laughed a little and said, "Oh... uh... no... I don't think that was me. They are using a picture of pottery to promote this year's show."

(Besides, why would they pick my random passionflowers picture to use on anything? Especially after my "Spring Lilies" had just been used in September to promote Kipona!)

No. Of course not!

She shrugged and said "Well....... maybe it was someone's photograph? But I'm pretty sure it was THAT picture. On the cover of Go!." I thanked her because it was still a compliment, and she left.

As the day went on, more and more people kept mentioning it... so of course my curiosity was getting the better of me. I hadn't looked at any papers all week since I was busy getting ready for the show. Finally one of my artist friends, Brownyn, showed up at my booth and confirmed that it was definitely, DEFINITELY my painting on the cover.

However, no one had a copy with them to show me, of course. It was driving me a little crazy that everyone had seen it but ME! Eventually a super, super, super nice friend of mine who I met at a show last year told me that her son would be at Artsfest the following day and she'd send her copy of it with him. And sure enough on Sunday he came in with it... lo and behold, there it was! (The pottery picture they used this year was inside, right on the official Artsfest Guide that people can take out of the Go! section and bring with them.)

I still found it pretty random that this bright colorful picture of a totally non-native plant was used to promote an art show all the way up here in PA... but I can't complain! :) I wonder who saw it and picked it?

I haz the warm fuzzies....

Art in honor of NATIONAL POLLINATOR WEEK! and a story.

2010-06-25T12:04:00.010-04:00

This one is done! Except not signed yet in this photo.

I've been working on my caterpillar triptych a lot the last couple of days and managed to finish this one about an hour ago!

Last night I worked on the little flower buds while watching "The Wedding Singer." I hadn't seen that movie in YEARS and it's such a good one! I was so thrilled to find it on (and they even showed it twice in a row)!

The paintings are also a great distraction from obsessing over house hunting / endless thoughts of decor and my imagination running wild / realizing that packing suuhhh-hucks and I need to just go buy a bunch of packing tape already and stop putting it off (but I hate to leave paintings halfway done for weeks/months on end..........)

Um... I guess from that paragraph you can tell how scatterbrained I am at the moment.

So scatterbrained this whole week, in fact, that I missed an allergy-shot appointment on Wednesday so I had to reschedule. They fit me in this morning at 9, and of course I was running late (I was trying to finish up the black on the caterpillar!). I wasn't speeding or going crazy because of running late, just feeling frazzled.

I accidentally went through a left-turn-yield-on-green light, following the car in front of me, not paying as much attention as I should have been- I totally admit. I guess one plus side is it wasn't like I just ran through it in the middle of the green-light cycle, that would probably have been worse. But then again had no one been in front of me, I would probably have paid a lot more attention to what was going on in the intersection. Since I ran through it when it must have *just*changed, the cars across from me hadn't started moving yet. But wouldn't you know it, right in front was a cop who saw me and honked at me and then pulled me over.

I was so embarrassed.

I never do things like that. I HATE when people run red lights, hell, I am all for red-light photo enforcement. I'm sure since I followed the person in front of me, it looked like I was saying "SCREW YOOOUUU!" to the folks across whose light had just changed to green.

So the cop asks me if I know what I did. I responded with "I thought I still had a green arrow.... but I guess I didn't."

"NOOOOO!... you DIDN'T and you almost took off the front of my car!"

Ok... that was an exaggeration because if I had looked up when he honked and seen his car thisclose to me, I may have literally peed in my pants. Instead I looked up and my first reaction was annoyance... not panic.

I get that what I did looked like a dick move, but both cops were standing there by my car and kind of making wise-cracks the whole time. They were really laying in to me, and I deserved it, I know, but it seemed like it was getting to be a bit much. I was on the verge of tears, and stuff like that doesn't make me cry. Why were they treating me like this??

It dawned on me later that maybe... it was because of.... my car. (Is that like pulling the race card? I don't know.)

They saw the obnoxious fluorescent color, tinted windows, and I'm sure assumed I was just some young punk who habitually drives like an @$$hole. All I needed was a big loud muffler. I am pretty sure that they saw the car and formed an opinion instantly and jumped at the chance to rip apart one of those drivers.

I don't blame them. I would love to do the same.

But I still wasn't a fan of feeling judged. Maybe they would have treated me the same if I had been driving a station wagon or minivan. I have my doubts.

I am falling more and more in love...

2010-06-24T19:49:00.009-04:00

With house hunting.

With the idea that soon my husband and I will have our first home, a place to truly make ours.

The first place we lived in together was a house we rented from my grandparents, so technically we probably could have done whatever we wanted to it (with permission). It needed tons of love and TLC though, and we chose to save our money for our eventual own place... however far off that was... rather than investing in a house we would move out of soon.

Our first (rented) dwelling... flower bed on the right is incomplete.

We did go crazy with the outside and the landscaping though! :)

One of the many flower beds we added!
AND Look at all that bamboo!
I want bamboo in every house in which I live.

So we've seen 6 houses together, he's seen a few on his own, and tomorrow we're seeing 4 more.
I know I've mentioned here and there on this blog that we'll be moving, to the Northern Virginia area, to be exact. I had hopes and dreams of returning to Florida, where a bunch of my best friends live, in Jacksonville. After a recent visit, I think I'm okay with moving to the DC area. I prefer to do my running outside and unless I did it at 5am every day... it's just too damn hot in Florida most of the year.

For buying our first home, everything seems to be in our favor right now. According to this article, mortgage rates just hit an all-time low today:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_mortgage_rates;_ylt=ArF9K76K_bL0dWCKQ0hknpis0N

And properties in NoVA are moving fast. If we miss something, another great house pops up right around the corner!

I'm also having a great time scouring the internet for decor ideas, although that may be a little premature. But I can't help it....

Starting with the outside, some of the houses on our "favorites" list have fantastic interiors but the exteriors are just meh. Looks like all they need is a fresh coat of paint though, so even if I have to be stealthy and super sneaky and do it when my husband is away on travel (heh... I'm kidding... sort of) I am dying- DYING!!!- to paint our house yellow. Not bright fluorescent yellow like my car or anything. But a pretty pale yellow with nice white trim... (if I can't live at the beach, I can pretend, right? A cute little beachy looking cottage. In the DC metro area. It's cool.)

One of the contenders.... Imagine this house painted YELLOW!!

with a total makeover of the yard.
Hardy banana tree, yuccas, ferns, hostas, daylilies, pachysandra, rhododendrons, bee balm, coneflower, sweet bay magnolia tree, bamboo, milkweed ....

And then some pretty potted plants by the front door. Maybe in terra cotta pots- that never goes out of style. I'm thinking red geraniums, too, since that's what my grandmother always had by her door.

What's funny is while I was bouncing around amongst decorating blogs, I happened to find this one a few minutes ago. Gorgeous. And look.... a beautiful yellow house. Imagine that!
http://deardaisycottage.typepad.com

The last few times I've taken my dog for a walk, we've gone all through one of my favorite little local neighborhoods so I can gawk and gaze and drool over the little tiny gardens and many flower pots that adorn the doorways of the cute rowhouses in Shipoke and I take many mental notes.

Of course I already have about a billion ideas for the landscaping. Last year I missed my gardens so much I wrote a Squidoo lens all about Tropical-Style Gardening in the Mid-Atlantic so I didn't forget all my ideas when I moved!!
http://www.squidoo.com/MidAtlanticTropical

I AM OBSESSED WITH PLANTS.... STOP ME.... OR HOLD ME.... I have over 70 house plants. Help!

The other night I dreamed about a magnolia tree, so I'd like to add one of those. One of those things I always wanted since I was a kid, but never allowed to have? And when my family moved into a house with a HUGE one they immediately knocked it down? :( (in preparation to add on to the house BUT STILL, I was devastated.) Not sure if I'll do a regular one or settle for the Sweet Bay Magnolia that I posted about recently... but I would love to have one.

Ok, I am done rambling for now. Because I could write a whole other post JUST on my ideas for the office/art studio! You bet your ass I already have a folder full of inspirational photos for it!

3rd Down & Forever

2010-06-23T12:09:00.015-04:00

How often do you get a chance to see one of your best friends on the news (not for committing a crime) and on the big screen? This weekend I got to do BOTH in the same day!

An artist friend of mine from college premiered his documentary film "3rd Down & Forever" in Jacksonville and I was lucky enough that I could make the trip to Florida to see it! Even though I'm not a football fan by any means, I'm obviously a fan of my friends (and their projects), so after hearing about this film for the last couple of years, I was really excited to see the results of his training and hard work come together.

It's the story of an average guy (an elementary school art teacher) who is determined to become an NFL prospect. Everyone's watched a football game and heard those guys who exclaim, "EVEN I COULD HAVE CAUGHT THAT!!!" and my friend Jason decided to find out, Could an average guy have made that catch?

If the trailer above doesn't work, you can watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jglkYl2tp-Y

What he found out is that the NFL players are immensely talented athletes. You have to run at full speed, while being able to look behind you and still go in a relatively straight line, and catch a ball, and anticipate possibly being tackled by some HUGE dudes throughout the entire process. I never really thought about that. Sure if you're just standing with someone in a field throwing a ball around, it's easy to make that catch. Throw in all those other factors and it becomes something else entirely.

The film runs about 30 minutes long and DVDs are only $5 plus shipping. I picked up a few to give to family members who are football fans and remember Jason from when we were in school together.

It would make a great gift for any fan of football, whether they've played before or not. One viewer even commented that she thought it was a highly motivational film to show to high school or college kids. A lot of kids play football thinking they're going to make the NFL and Jason goes into some of the stats in his movie about just how hard it is. (In other words... it's probably good to have a back up plan!)

You can go here for more information or to order one (I highly recommend it!)

http://www.tetlak.com/

Since I am usually painting or something when football is on the TV, I don't pay much attention to it. But after seeing this film, I will look at football players in a whole new way and maybe even pay attention once in a while.

Poop On Taxes

2010-06-15T22:48:00.006-04:00

(Poop on the figuring out part. Not the paying. I'm totally cool with paying them.)

I was filling out my expense spreadsheets tonight and as I do so, I always update my annual tax spreadsheet. Then next February or March, everything is right there and organized and ready to be categorized and added up! ...Except that never happens. I sit there in mid-March, staring blankly at the 1040 Schedule-C, probably drooling a little, clicking back and forth between the form and the instructions, trying to translate IRS-speak into non-business-person-dummy-speak, and figure out how the hell I categorized my expenses. My accountant said *generally* as long as you include eeeevvvvvvverrryyyything, the categories themselves aren't that big of a deal.

Still, it seems silly to go through all the trouble and not do it right.

So I zone out looking at the numbers and the various colors (because I color-code all the categories to make them easier to visualize and then add, since I have absolutely no clue how to tell Appleworks, "total this shit up" and I still do it by hand; no not with an abacus but one step up from that). And then it gets to be 2 in the morning and my husband has told me he wants to send the taxes in THE NEXT DAY so I just start plugging in numbers and adding them up so I can get to bed.

And every time I say, Next year will be different. When I have time, I will research exactly what all these categories mean so I can file properly and know exactly where the numbers came from when I look at them the following year.

But do I? Noooooo!!

Tonight became that day! Yay! I decided as I updated my taxes spreadsheet that it would probably be a good idea to go over all the categories NOW, when I have time and when I'm not in a sleep-deprived-stupor.

I think I've got them all straight. I'm not sure if this helps anyone else, but since there are like 4 categories for "supplies" I thought I'd summarize what I found tonight.

On Form 1040 Schedule C (Profit & Loss From Bidness):
Part 2 Expenses
Line 18: Office Expense. So like, office supplies and crap. Tape, staples, pens, whatever. This also includes Postage! Did you know that? Cause it doesn't say on the form. You have to look in the instructions to find it!
Line 22: Supplies (not included in Part 3): Well WTF other kind of supplies are there? Now I have to jump ahead all the way to section 3 and figure out what doesn't fit in there (or in Line 18 as office supplies)? What IS this? According to the instructions, it's "supplies" that you would consume in a year. "Books, professional instruments, equipment" are examples given. But that's confusing because most books or equipment last longer than a year, so you go into depreciation?? I have no idea. Maybe that's why they include the text "not included in part 3" because they don't even know. And they couldn't come out and say, "Uhhh... whatever.. doesn't fit... anywhere else. Put it here. Yeah that sounds good."

Part 3 Cost Of Goods Sold
Line 36: Purchases less cost of items withdrawn for personal use. Geez. So obviously items for personal use don't belong on your taxes, duh, so if you leave out the part of this category written by Captain Obvious, you have... Purchases. Ok, still, what? Through a bunch of internets-super-sleuthing, I found out that this means: Things you buy to sell. I *believe* this refers to something such as a print bag. You aren't doing anything special to it, just slipping your print into it to sell. Same with a frame, or a mat. You're buying the item to technically resell it. If I'm wrong on this please let me know- I'll correct this post so no one makes the same mistake as I'm going to be making ;)
Line 38: Materials and Supplies. Hello, could you be any more vague? Through even more exhaustive research than line 36 I found out this is stuff like materials you use to make a finished product. So if you make your own frames then the wood and stain and whatever hardware you use would be included here. And I suppose the ink and paper you use to produce prints that you're selling would be included here, too. And paint. And canvas. Orrrrr maybe canvas fits into the above category!?

Whatever. As long as you're consistent I guess.

Native Sweetbay Magnolia

2010-06-14T22:43:00.004-04:00

I am SO excited! I just accidentally stumbled upon a blog that told me exactly what the tree is that I've been admiring at the park where I've been doing my open-water-swim training:

http://plainfieldtrees.blogspot.com/2008/08/from-tree-hugger-to-bug-hugger.html

The tree is a Sweetbay Magnolia!
(and the blog post above is REALLY interesting and informative and you should totally go read it. It's about native plants and... my favorite... BUGS!!)

There are two of these trees planted near the Pinchot park facilities and they always smell so, sooo good. (Except when the entire park smells like dead decaying flesh.) But the flowers are magnificent and relatively small, compared to the magnolias with which most people are familiar; however, you can absolutely tell it's a member of the magnolia family.

The other really cool thing about this tree is it's a native species of the southeast! That means if I get a yard when we move and get to plant one, which I totally plan to now that I know what it is, I'll be supplying the native insects with food that they can actually use! YAY!

According to the map on Wikipedia, DC seems to be right on the line of where these babies can survive. But I figure if they can survive up here in PA, they can survive down there, too.

I am so excited to start planning a garden again....

Picture from WIkiCommons:
Photo by and (c)2008 Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man) and the Chanticleer Garden.

Ned Smith Center Nature and Arts Festival!

2010-06-13T17:04:00.004-04:00

I am very excited that I've been invited to exhibit (and sell, of course, hehe) my art at the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art 17th Annual Nature and Arts Festival in Millersburg, PA! (Only about 40 minutes from Harrisburg!)

None other than the Mothman himself wandered into my booth at the Patriot News Artsfest a couple of weekends ago and overheard me talking to a friend about the caterpillar painting I'm currently working on. Naturally hearing "caterpillars" his ears perked up, and when he introduced himself as someone whose life has been amongst moths MY ears perked up.

I was so excited to ask him all about moths, and he was so excited to tell me all about the Nature and Arts festival. It's just a one day show on July 31st, but it sounded like a lot of fun and is very close to where I live.

Since we've started the house-hunting process, there is a chance that that weekend could be pretty busy or hectic, depending on when we find a house and when our move will take place. Since it's just one day, and hopefully my husband and I do a better job than last time of getting all our sh#t packed up on time, I could probably free myself up that day regardless.

I'm pretty excited about the show and have a swarm of ideas buzzing around in my head of some drawings (and paintings) I might like to try and get done in time for this show specifically... we'll see. I've spent a couple hours today on the caterpillar paintings and hope I'll be able to get the leaves all finished, and then I can start the milkweed flowers and finally finish up with the stars of the painting.... the caterpillars themselves!!

Am I Sabotaging Myself?

2010-06-10T14:56:00.001-04:00

You are always hearing, "Follow your dreams and they will come true" and "hard work pays off." Seems simple enough. If I want to make a living as an artist- the kind that paints and draws, not the kind I currently am that sits behind a computer and does boring stuff (but at least doesn't totally suck at it and once in a while does get an opportunity to inject a teeny, tiny bit of creative flair), all I have to do is keep my dreams at the forefront (dream = make enough selling art to pay the bills and I'm not talking platinum diamond encrusted toilet seats here) and then work hard to achieve said dreams.

Seems like a realistic formula for success, no?

Yet I think I might be sabotaging it. I do.

I'm not sure why. Maybe because if I keep the job I have now, and continue to work for the man rather than myself, there's sooooo much less pressure. I know what's expected of me. I get up and do my work for X amount of hours and then I go on a website and log my hours and I get a paycheck every 2 weeks.

If I go into business for myself, it's alllllllll up to me. I will have to constantly actively look for opportunities and take the ones that let me have a chance. And maybe even out of those, only a couple will be successful. Art shows for example. I may apply to many. I may get into a few. I may make a profit at ONE.

Not such good odds when going into business.

Right now I'm Eric Cartman. Someone wants a picture done in light, mellow colors and I scream, "Wha-Evah! Wha-EVAH!! ...I do what I WANT!" I paint what I want when I want how I want. I will keep painting in bright, obnoxious colors because that's what I do. Once in a while if there is an ungodly demand for a certain subject matter (like poppies or sunflowers), I will paint it, even if it doesn't particularly interest me.

If I want to be successful, I'll probably at least have to start out doing paintings of things other people like. Like lighthouses and boats and barns. I have been avoiding that for as long as possible and will continue to do so until I am about to go bankrupt. I am not THAT much of a whore.

I am scared to death of the phone and email. I'm not one of those people that (in business matters) composes a simple email, quickly checks for spelling/grammar errors and sends it away. No, I sit there and analyze each and every sentence. Do I sound mean? Do I sound demanding? I am neither of those things, and have had some pretty bad experiences through letters and art associations in the past (I was on the receiving end) and the last thing I want is any sort of miscommunication. So I put off emailing people (art-related) almost indefinitely.
I am scared.

At art shows I have this terrible habit of "how bout you call me." It's awful, I know. If someone is interested in a certain size print that I don't have available, instead of taking an order and giving them a price and taking a deposit and then fulfilling said order (which is the easiest part), I give them a business card and sometimes write on the card what it was they wanted, to remind them, and then ask them to email me and we can work out the details of the order. UGH, DUMBASS!!! That is NOT the way it's done! Why have I not learned by now!
(Answer: Because I'm so unsure of myself that I'm absolutely positive that if I take the order and deposit, by the time I get home, I'll have received a phone call or email saying the customer changed his or her mind and wishes to cancel the order and get their deposit back because my art isn't worth it. OR even worse I'll forget to do it and then the person is pissed and thinking I ripped them off, which technically I would have not totally not on purpose, I am human. I am SO scared of that happening! But of course I'd go out of my way to rush the stuff to them as soon as possible...)

So I'm putting it all out there.... some of you who read this are artists. Do you find yourself sabotaging your efforts, too?

I am scared of failure.
I'm scared of trying really hard to do something I love and then finding out... it won't work.
I'm scared of investing more money into this business since it takes money to make money, and coming up short, and not carrying my fair share of the load since my dear husband already makes way more than I do, and no matter what job I'm doing I won't ever even come close. But I would like to contribute a significant amount of money to the household rather than just wasting time and money on a hobby.
I'm scared of someone buying an expensive piece of my art and getting it home and changing their mind and having to face rejection.... because that would be way worse than someone just not wanting it in the first place.
I am scared if I DO become successful, my art might actually be in demand (a little) and I won't be able to fulfill someone's order quickly enough, leaving them disappointed in me.
Or that I'll get an order for a few prints and that day my printer will decide to blow its load on my last few remaining sheets of sugar cane paper and I will have to order more paper and then when the paper comes the print heads have dried out and now I have to do 45 head cleanings and go through a bunch of ink that I don't have so then I have to order that too and wait for it to come and 2 weeks later I finally might get to make one print.

Samantha Gallagher's Art Studio blog

AH'M THE TUHMINAYTAH AHND AH'LL BE BAAHHHCK.

2011 in 2011 Update

My New Favorite Book...

How-To-Tuesday: How to save your colored inks!

New Painting! Operation Fill-A-Frame #7

2011 in 2011 update and more E-cycling.

Happy Dr. Seuss Day!

Spring is coming!!

E-cycling (Electronics Recycling)

More 2011 in 2011

2011 in 2011

Another great item from BuildASign! :)

"In The Waiting Line" Operation Fill-A-Frame #6

How To Tuesday: Signature after your blog post!

"In The Waiting Line" Operation Fill-A-Frame #5

UPCYCLING on the brain!!

Banner from BuildASign.com is here :)

Operation: Fill-A-Frame #4

Operation Fill-A-Frame #2 & #3

Please Vote :)

Oh no! I forgot my bread!!

Want! Want! Wednesday...

Operation: Fill-A-Frame #1

Forest Choice Colored Pencils... Awesomeness

Operation: Fill-A-Frame

Homemade Vietnamese (Kinda Thai) Food!

Want! Want! Wednesday!

Happy Fluffy Friday!!

The Holidays Are Upon Us!

Oh mah gahhh, Squee-Worthy Bugs!

Reunited!

One room is DONE! (And a head's up on a great online deal)

Want! Want! Wednesday- the Pollinator Tree!

How-To Tuesday: Autoplay Music on your Blog

How-To Tuesday: Insert a YouTube video into a blog post

Want! Want! Wednesday

How-To Tuesday #4: Blog Comments

Want! Want! Wednesday!

How-To Tuesday: Tag Cloud in Blogger

A Productive Sunday?

How-To Tuesday: How to link in a blog post

New Project Idea!!

Weekend Inspiration

How to pack a painting for moving

How-To Tuesday! #1

Mural finished!

Friday Funneh.

The Fish Nursery Mural... Part 1

Back Online, for real!

Paint Samples

Iiiiiii've been PAINTING!!!

Butterfly Nerds

Oh no! Not has a sad....?

Just Add Cute

Art Studio: temporarily closed!

A Kind of Magic :)

Feeling either envious... or motivated? (Or quite possibly BOTH!)

Another Edition of: What's That Plant?

Giveaway is closed and we have a WINNER!

CSN Stores Giveaway!!

A commission that *did* have a happy ending :)

BREAKING NEWS:

Here Today, Gone.... Later Today

NAME THAT PLANT!

Saying good bye.... in a good way :)

To Wide or Not To Wide??

Soon, little bees.

Painting.... on a GREAT BIG scale!

Building Your Website...

Caterpillars Finally Finished!

How to Scan In a Painting

Thank you, Governor Rendell :)

Nice Surprise, from a month ago...

Art in honor of NATIONAL POLLINATOR WEEK! and a story.

I am falling more and more in love...

3rd Down & Forever

Poop On Taxes

Native Sweetbay Magnolia

Ned Smith Center Nature and Arts Festival!

A commission that did have a happy ending :)