When you live in the woods....

...you get all the lovely things to see and be inspired by.  You also get the scary things like large carnivores and fires.  The past few days have been a bit nerve wracking and I'm glad that we don't live close to the 36 Pit fire.  We are about three or four ravines away, as the crow flies.  However, as the wind has changed direction in the last hour we are now in the smoke zone.  Here are a couple of pictures I just took.  That small red object in the sky is the sun.  It looks about the size of the moon in real life.

It's these kinds of disasters that keep us all aware that every household should be prepared.  I finally got my old tool box cleaned, painted and filled so we now have a better first aid kit.  I gathered together all the different first aid stuff from around the house and put it all in one specialized kit for us.  I keep this in the basement, as it is cooler the sprays, pills and ointments will last longer. 

 

The toolbox affords more room to add more items for a better first aid kit than you can find at stores.  I even have the American Red Cross First Aid book in the bottom of the box.  It's rugged, it's portable and if we have to evacuate I can grab it quickly.

 

September is National Preparedness month....are you prepared for a disaster?  Don't wait until something happens, start today!

 

On a brighter note....to keep my mind and hands busy yesterday, I played around with some acrylic ink and paints and came up with this lovely Nebula.

 

I had so much fun pouring and dripping the paints and inks and watching how they ran together.  This is a little 5"x 5" canvas board, so I didn't feel pressured if I messed up because there wasn't a great amount of material I would have wasted.  As in all things...it looks much better in person.  I'm off to create another one! If it turns out well, I'll post it here later in the week.

 

 

Beading Again

It's been a long, quiet summer this year.  I haven't done a whole lot of beading, buying beads, yes...but not doing a whole lot with them.  To get back to it, I decided to play with some wire, wood and my bead soup.  I started out with painted dowel rod, making sure to cut two long pieces and two short.  Wrapped the wire around the cross pieces, to create a frame, then made wire wrapped bead balls.  I used 20 ga galvanized wire throughout.  Measuring by eye, I took separate pieces of wire and wrapped each of them around one end of the frame, added beads and finished wrapping the wire at the opposite end.  Created a hanger with another piece of wire and Bob's Your Uncle, a nice little piece of bead art.

 

It's so nice to be able to use up all those bits and bobs of loose beads that have been hanging around on my bead desk to create something fun to hang on the wall.

 

Last week, I was cleaning up the mess I call my bead desk and uncovered a bag of sea urchin spines.  These are really cool with all the different colorations and patterns they have.  So, out came the crystals, the chain and more wire to make a fun necklace.

 

Sea Urchin Spine Necklace

Even tho' it's still summer and the heat will be returning next week, I can feel and smell fall coming, especially up here in the woods. With the change of season, I will be at my bead desk more often and will be sharing more beady goodness soon.

 

Winter Comes To The Mountains

With the warmer than usual weather this Autumn, I had thought that we were going to be in a warm winter kind of flow.  Well....as always, I was proven WRONG, again.  We have about 3" of snow today, so far.

Here is your Winter Wonderland for the week of Solstice.

The Woodshed and surrounding trees.

The Vine Maples and Mountain Ash tree

The little Glass Mushrooms standing guard

over the Mondo Grass

 

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happiest of New Year.

Cleaning and Playing

I'm in the middle of a very big clean up job in my studio. Well....more like clean a little and play a little. I keep finding things I knew I had but could not locate. Case in point, my crayons. I found them buried under a pile of papers on my low work bench. Happiness! I was looking for them so I could make some melted crayon art, now I don't have to go out and buy a new box. So...I got some cleaning done, now to reward myself.

I wrapped a small piece of canvas board with book pages, went through the crayons and selected my color palette and went to work. I used a Clover mini-iron to melt and drip the wax on the board. I had also found some paper flowers in my cleaning and waxed them up and attached them to the board with melted white crayon, then added dots of the white crayon to brighten it up.

Now I've got more cleaning to do. I wonder what I will be finding next?

Free Online Class

Three weeks ago I started a free online class sponsored by Strathmore Artist Papers. They have three classes available, visual journaling, watercolor sketching and FORCE drawing technique. Now, I'm not so good at the sketching and drawing, but I wanted to start off my year in a creative way and decided to take Traci Bautista's visual journaling class.

These classes have been very fun and each comes with a video and PDF of the techniques and media that Traci uses for her "Doodles Unleashed." Monday will be Lesson 3 for those of us who have started from the beginning. But....you can still register for the classes and start at the beginning and work through the last lesson. That's the great part about online classes, you can start at any time and work as fast or as slow as you feel comfortable working. There is a lot of help from Traci and the other students if you have any problems, so ask. We also have a Flickr group if you would like to take a look at what people have been doing.

Here are my attempts at the "doodles" that Traci is trying to teach us. Lesson One: Playful Printmaking

These are the steps it took to get to the final picture.

This is the final picture.

I didn't have the correct size paper, but had smaller sheets that I taped together to use as one sheet. I then took them apart when I completed the piece and now have journal covers. They look so different than the whole.

Now...start your year off with a free creative jump and try one of these classes that interest you. I don't paint, but I'm having fun playing with all the media that Traci has suggested for her classes. If you don't have everything, use what you have. That's what creativity is all about. Have Fun!

Seller of the Month

I am pleased to announce that I have been chosen as Seller of the Month for OnlineAuction.com!! AND...I will be on OLA Radio tonight at 5 p.m. I will be interviewed starting at 5 and then there will be discussions on the following topics about selling at an auction site online.

1. When is it too soon? How many choices are too many?

2. Policies for our stores and listings... Educate your customer.

3. Non-paying bidders and buyers.

4. HTML for Dummies.

5. Contest Winners and Awards!!!

I hope some of you will be able to drop by and listen. I've never done this before and I love a new adventure! This is so exciting for me! Yes, I do have a silly smile on my face. :)

Earrings 365 Challenge Is Finished!!!!!

Yippee!!! Over 365 pair of earrings are completed for my yearly challenge. At the beginning I wasn't sure I would finish this project, but I did!!!! Here is the last pair of earrings I made. To learn more about them click on over to my blog and while you're there, check out the rest of the earrings on the Earrings 365 Page.



The next challenge for me is to do one blog post a day for a year. As I did with my beading, which got me to my beading desk at least once a day, this will get me to my blog at least once a day. And...that cannot be a bad thing, unless I have nothing to say. LOL

Happy Easter to All My Friends!

A little Zentangle bunny for you! Enjoy your day!

Help the Cats and Dogs - Buy Earrings

That's right! When you bid and win in my earring auctions, the proceeds will be split between A Place To Bark and Cat Adoption Team.

I am 30 weeks into a yearly challenge of making a pair of earrings a day for a year. That's a LOT of earrings and I only have one pair of ear lobes! I am slowly
getting the auctions up and will complete them this week. To make life easier for me, I am not auctioning separate pairs of earrings, that would drive me crazy. Each week will be sold, that's seven pair of earrings per auction.

To see all the earring craziness go to Z'annes Bazaar OR www.ola.com and type in zannesbazaar in the search box.

To see ALL 30 weeks worth, check out my blog at: Z'annes Bazaar and click on the Earrings 365 page.

To help save our furry friends, please pass this along to everyone you know. These are very worthwhile charities. Thank you!!!

It's All About the Beads

Peridot and Copper

Labradorite and Crystals
I created these two necklaces for a themed show about Urban Landscapes. What to do with jewelry and urban landscapes? So, I did a little research and found that the Portland area sits on a variety of cinder cones, lava fields and extinct volcanoes called the Boring Lava Field. Then I discovered, there are certain semi-precious stones that were formed when those lava fields and volcanoes were active. Labraborite has been found in Rocky Butte and olivine, also known as peridot in its semi-precious state, is found throughout the area.

To see more that will be available at the show this weekend, please visit my blog Z'annes Bazaar. Scroll down the page to see more goodies.

September Giveaway by Z'anne Bakke

The Archeologist's FindTurquoise Nuggets, Copper and Coral Beads

For my birthday this month, I decided that I would give the presents. This necklace was created from my stash of turquoise nuggets. In the same drawer was a small package of coral beads. They looked so good together, but needed something else to highlight each piece. I tried pearls, I tried gold, I tried silver, none would work that day. I put everything down, walked away and came back about an hour later to see a small copper bead resting under the package of coral. Well, of course! Out came the copper beads and this necklace fell into place. Isn't it great when that happens?

To enter to win this serendipitous necklace, just post a comment here and at the end of the month we will draw a name from all those commenting. Good Luck to all of you!

To read a little more about this necklace, visit my blog at Z'annes Bazaar

Earrings 365

Happy Day to you all!

I've started a new project that gets me at my bead desk and on my blog every day.

After reading the recent issue of Somerset Studio, July/August 2010, Erin Kenepp's article on her art journal, "365 Days of Being 30", and "A Collage A Day" on Randel Plowman's art. I decided to make a pair of earrings a day. I started on July 1st, a date that has great meaning for me, and so far have three pair up on my blog, Z'annes Bazaar, check out them out on the Earrings 365 page.

A Little Silver....

...a little glass, put together and POOF! you get a lovely pendant. I've been having fun lately with the new beads I've found.
To see what I've been busy doing, check out my blog at Z'annes Bazaar

Triad of Heartz

An Early Valentine
I've been having fun filling in these heart templates with the Zentangles. I like to start out my day with one or two, just to get my brain in the mood. Enjoy!

Zentangling My Time Away

Almost two years ago I discovered Zentangles. They are extremely addicting and a great way to stimulate that "holidazed" creative side of the brain. For someone who can't draw (me) this is a way I can put pen to paper and actually have something come out cool. Enjoy!