oh! you should do this tacky souvenir swap too!

I forgot to mention this! a few of the blogs i follow have linked to this. it's a Tacky Souvenir Swap!! i signed up right away... who doesn't love getting mail, plus it's awesome because you'll be getting something ridiculous from somewhere you probably haven't been. and you get to go to a stupid little dinky souvenir shop in your own town/city to get something tacky for someone else (who you don't even know!). how often do you take the time to look at your own cities tackiness? i'm sure i'll have lots of lobster or fishman magnets to pick from. or maybe one of those hats with the fake seagull poop! yesssss!

good things come in three's...

so this is more like it halifax! this is normally our winter weather here... not that -18 i showed you in the last post. this was my walk to work yesterday morning. frozen slushy snow/rain and big ol' puddles. all my shoes/boots suck, so the only waterproof things for my feet are my rubber boots, but it was also cold so i had to put on like 3 pairs of socks. way to go maritimes! (notice the coat hanger in the giant slush puddle blocking my way onto the sidewalk) alright!



so anyway, i've had a lucky past couple of weeks. i won the Tattooed People and Their Pets contest on tattooroadtrip, and am anxiously awaiting my 3 volume Black & Grey Tattoo books. and i also won a blog giveaway on pamplemousse1983! the giveaway included two things, and i got the first in the mail today! (i love getting stuff in the mail:) it's this necklace


from this girl. sorry, her blog and etsy shop used to be named moon asking to stay, but i guess she just had to change everything. either way, i love my new necklace!
i'm also anxiously awaiting a little something for my new iphone! i will post about it when it comes in the mail!

so needless to say i went out and bought a couple of lottery tickets :) i already lost on one, but the other one is tonight. so i'll probably be a millionaire tomorrow. nice!

oh for breakfast today i made myself some peanut butter pancakes, with chocolate chips and little bits of granola in them mmmm. then i cut up some banana to go on top. they were delicious and the softest pancakes i've had in a long time. i think it's been all this man vs. food we've been watching lately!! it's getting to me

cold enough for ya?

do you want to see what -18 C looks like? (that's like 0, or -1 F for all you Americans) ... these pictures look so cold you can almost feel it










thankfully i didn't have to work yesterday... it was freezing out there!! although i still worked... i just did it from the comfort of my own home :) and since my bf got home early we went for a long drive. there was blowing snow and a weird foggy haze that made everything look kind of ghostly. the days started off at -18, then the car told us it was -14 while we were out and i checked the weather and it said it was about -24 with the windchill! yuck! we're not really used to getting that here in halifax. it's usually just kinda cold and damp. living on the ocean will do that. i walked to the tattoo shop this morning and my 15 min walk felt like it took forever as the condensation building on the scarf wrapped around my mouth/nose froze. *shutter*. i don't have any appts booked for the day, and i doubt in weather like this i'll have any walk-ins.

see this self-employed stuff has it's ups and downs. like i mentioned i worked from home yesterday. finished a commissioned painting for someone! i do have full days off, but even on those days i'm still thinking about work or upcoming appts, or drawing for them, or painting, or editing photos on my computer, etc. and it's nice to almost feel like i can come and go as i need to, like when the tattoo shop is slow (like right before and after christmas ie, now.) but the bottom line is if i'm not 'working', i don't get paid! i've never had the luxury of a paid vacation. a vacation is something i really have to work hard for leading up to, and afterward to make up for my time off. so right now it's freezing, i'm at the shop working on a couple things, but the truth is i could be doing these things at home (in my warm pjs!), and working on other art stuff. but i need to be here in case some appointments walk in or call. sometimes i bring my embroidering stuff here with me, or i'll get work done on my website. but i think i just don't want to be doing anything in this kind of weather! tea and blankets and netflix would be alright with me!

bloglovin'

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i'll be back with a quick update later... just trying out this bloglovin' stuff!

a rainbow of organization

i read back on feeling stitchy a couple of days ago about their flickr group showcasing pictures of embroidery thread. i don't feel like joining another site to put my pictures up there, but it got me thinking about taking a couple photos of my newly organized floss anyway!


my boyfriends mother gave me lots of crafty embroidery stuff for christmas, and his grandmother gave me some of her old floss that she just had kickin around. some of their little paper things say .33 cents at Woolworths (which hasn't been around here for a looongg time), and a better buy from somewhere else at only .29 cents. such nice colors too! i was inspired by the ease of using all my stuff that i even stitched up a little present for my friends very newborn baby! like as in born 3 days ago. (i'll post a pic after i give it to her)


this is looking inside my bottom drawer which is just for embroidery. you can see some stuff/pencil crayons one drawer up, and above that one is some paint. maybe i'll take some pictures of the rest of my art room/studio space and share em. i just re-arranged it because i finally bought a bookshelf to squeeze into the room. now i want more books!

and now just for fun (because i haven't been doing a whole lot at work lately, or anything done in one sitting, or worth posting) is a rose i did yesterday. it's simple but it covered up an old tattoo this client had that she hated. (old bf tattoo!)

i am having a weird time sleeping lately. let's see what tonight will bring. g'nite!

TCB

it's hard starting a new blog.. especially considering my old one goes back to who knows when. i started my original one on some site i can't even remember but when they shut it down (or started asking for money to blog there) i got myself a blogger blog (you're still cute when you scream, which i started back in March of '07 when I first got to California, that blog was a sequel to 'you are cute when you scream'). even that second one was hard to start and it was hard to accept my old one was gone. now i have this crafty one and i find it hard to want to work on it. but i'm sure i'll be glad that i did. i have a bad memory and love knowing that my travels and crazy randomness and artsy jobs have been logged in my other blog, it is almost a relief. so i will try to be better at this one!

i mailed off my sketchbook for the Art Co-Ops Sketchbook Project... and now we wait. (well, we wait... they sort throught 28,000 sketchbooks then drag them across the country for numerous art shows!) it wasn't quite finished.. ok, not at all.. but i blame making a bunch of stuff for the holidays. busy time to try to work on a sketchbook.

I've also started following a lot of other crafty blogs (i even just won a blog give-away!)and am getting lots of inspiration so i figured i'd like to join in and (hopefully) try to offer up some inspiration of my own. i have plans to start an etsy store (it's on my resolutions list!) and would like to start becoming more 'social' in the crafty interwebs. I have a lot of idea's for myself as far as tattooing goes, and painting, and all my little craft projects and it's great to see what lots of other people are out there doing!

here are two commissioned doggie paintings i had done before christmas that the buyers used as christmas gifts. i'm working on another one right now actually, and if you want to see more, you can try my website

Vote!!

VOTE for me in the Tattooed People And Their Pets contest HERE!! It's over on the tattooroadtrip site. I could win some awesome B&G tattoo books. It'll only take a second and I'll appreciate it oh so much! It's me and my budgie barley, and Puss the cat :) Thank you Thank you!!


"(c'mon, there's a budgie on my head!)

also take some time to check out the rest of tattooroadtrip... lots of cool tattoo stuff :)

mounted moosehead

here's the moosehead! he seemed to be a big hit.... for as much trouble as he was to make, it was all worth it in the end. (needlefelted moosehead, paper mache antlers, mounted on actual taxidermy plaque) ..and the look on my boyfriends face when he saw it above the mantel on christmas eve was priceless. I added a 'how to' on cut out & keep if you want to check out the progress from this 1-month sometimes-fun, sometimes-frustrating project: here

we like weird cheesy (/tacky?) things. if you couldn't tell! (if you're really interested, some of the following can be seen on the mantle: martian manhunter, an old creepy doll given to me on halloween when i was probably 7 years old, ba-bomb, Yukon Cornelius, a cool old beer bottle, some anchor candle holders, etc, etc..)

hope everyone's having a good start to their new year