I'm so proud of how it turned out.  You'll notice that I changed a few things from the first few teasers images.  The backgrounds are different and I changed the font to white.  These will be listed on Etsy around 8pm EST tonight as a limited edition of only 25 prints of each design.  And for those who are curious, yes I do plan to self-published a little book with these but it's still in the planning stages with a few decisions yet to be made so it will probably be a couple of months down the road before these will be in existence, if at all. 

Now onto the new giveaway for this week!  Up for grabs this week is a mini-print of one of the animal alphabet critters.  Your mini print will measure 3 x 3 inches on the same lovely paper I use for all of my prints.  Just leave a comment here telling me which of my animal alphabet illustrations is your favorite.  Comments will be open until Saturday around 8am EST so all my international peeps will also get a fair chance to enter.  Then I will randomly select a winner sometime Saturday afternoon. 

Enjoy!

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Although it's a slow time of the year for selling real estate, we've had enough interest in the house to keep us paranoid about leaving daily messes. We thought we had a young family showing interest in the house toward evening yesterday when we spied a couple and three children examining our creek. They left and then returned with others collecting under the trees on our creek-front property for thirty minutes or more. Over the years, we've had several mistake it for public property and we eventually concluded that it was probably a church group. We made our presence known by taking the dog out and getting the mail, but they still seemed clueless that they were trespassing. We saw no harm in what they were doing so we didn't tell them or ask them to leave.

My typical summer morning routine takes about an hour with pets, tidying, and some yard work -- and then there's too little to do the rest of the day. Earlier this week I got another glance at one of our creek owls gliding over my head as I was watering. I awoke this morning and immediately took Phoebe outside, as I normally do. We've had some rain lately so instead of grabbing the hose to start watering potted plants, I sat in a lawn chair to enjoy the cooler morning for a few minutes. I looked across the pool and spotted a familiar face cautiously peering back at me. Butterball? What was he doing outside? Happy to see me, he came running as soon as I called and I put him inside, but I soon realized that Sox was also missing. I dressed and began looking for him, first in the house, and then outside. Finally, Steve awoke and began looking too. He'd gone to bed late and they must have escaped when he let Phoebe out one last time before he went to bed. They're inside cats and don't usually even try to go outdoors. We had just about given up finding him when suddenly I saw Sox timidly sitting in just about the same place that I'd seen Butterball earlier. I sat on the diving board, wiggled my fingers and coaxed him to me. About that time, I spied a probable victim floating lifelessly in the pool -- a good sized rodent the cats had probably chased to its demise. They may have had an adventure, but both were glad to be back inside.

With all that done, this is the time of morning I usually start hearing footsteps bounding down the stairs -- but strangely, it's very, very quiet.

Submitted by double-D

Yesterday, I attended the Pasadena Bead & Design Show for two workshops on polymer clay with Christi Friesen. The photo above is of my owl (yay!) baking in our counter-top convection oven. I've only used this thing twice to bake pizza. On a pizza stone. (Yes, that's right, the oven came with its own stone.)

We didn't have time to finish our owls in the workshop, so I brought him home to complete his talons, and popped him in the oven for over an hour. At this point, he's chillin' on the kitchen counter, awaiting a name. Any suggestions?

The first workshop with Christi was making floral focal beads, but I imagine they can be whatever you want, depending on your mood. My design was entirely haphazard and each element was placed on because of one accident after another.

That's how I roll.

All in all, it came out alright for my first encounter with polymer clay. Technique-wise, I would prefer to be more detailed and careful, but time was of the essence and everyone kept saying that if you didn't mean for it to turn out that way, just say you did.

Frankly, I'd rather not. I want to be really good at something, thank you. Plus, I compete with the likes of this guy, who happens to be the man I sleep with.

I didn't have time to see everything at the show in one day, but I found some owls, including an inro boxwood that I will use to stash my weed.

Just kidding. I don't inhale. I've never even tried a cigarette. And now, you don't want to party with me.

These little guys below were too adorable to pass up and will be made into earrings.

Besides polymer clay and owls, I attended a free workshop, where we made little pendants for ourselves using Art Clay. Once the clay is fired or placed into a kiln, it becomes 99.99% fine silver. It's expensive material so I don't think I'll be using any just yet. You can see the Fleur de Lis (of course) that I stamped into the clay, burnished, and then polished using an agate brush. We weren't allowed to fire our own pieces because the fire department thought we may set everyone aflame, so the instructors showed us their techniques.

Technically, I could melt this down and sell it to silver people that want silver for their silver things.

PS.
I traded the aggressive sailfin molly for a female and two guppies. Now we have eight fishies.

Eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture. I'm sure you already realized that was the reason for the Beijing Olympics starting on 08-08-08 at 08:08. No? Well, I'm glad to have brought an irreverent fact into your life. Use it at the next party you didn't invite me to.

And speaking of the Olympics, holy Phelps!
Did you see his .01 win?

 NIGHT'S BLESSING

At the end of the day

            When the sun's last ray

                        Is just a sliver of light

Darkness starts to descend

            To signal day's end

                        And the earth nods into night

Day's fragrance is rent

            By night's earthly scent

                        Daylight beds down with a yawn

As dusk takes away

            The heat of the day

                        The curtain of night is drawn

Heaven's jewels wink down

            From their heavenly crown

                        The landscape's kissed by the moon

While the frogs and bugs

            On their lily pad rugs

                        Compose a melodious tune

Fireflies wing by

            As the breeze gives a sigh

                        Birds settle down for the night

While an owl in a tree

            Winks flirtatiously

                        Then spreads his wings in flight

A cloud in the sky

            Drifts lazily by

                        And then it shadows the moon

That strange mournful plea

            Near a lakeside tree

                        Is just the call of a loon

Like strings of wee beads

            On webs in the weeds

                        Dew jewels silken threads

Flowers here and there

            Bow crowns as in prayer

                        Nodding their beautiful heads

As night settles down

            She puts on her gown

                        To cloak earth's sleepy breast

For it's part of God's plan

            And a blessing to man

                        That we're given this time of rest

6/23/72        Phyllis DeWitt VanVleck

When this tiny African owl sees a small predator, she puffs her feathers to look bigger and scarier. When she sees a predator 3 times her size, she gets 2 times thinner and pretends to be a twig. The twig is charming. (turn off the sound when watching this video. It's annoying, and it's in Japanese)