I have a blog

No, really, I do! It's just that, well, life sort of got in the way. Again. So I apologize for being lame all month.

And I sort of dropped the ball on the contest I was having, so we'll go there first.
I got some great ideas from the suggestions that were given me (Otin, your poem rocks! I may have to re-visit that later on...)
The ones I decided to go with are Bella Sinclair's "Little did they know...", Rebecca S's "Once upon a time they lived happily ever after...and this is how it all began," (which I think I'm going to end the book with) and Dala Horse's "I put it under a magnifying glass and..."

Congrats! Once I get the artworks done I will get in touch and get addresses where to send the prints!

***************************************************************************

In other news - I am thinking of offering my Keep Calm and Carrion design as a t-shirt.

 I have had a great response with those posters, and the shirts that came from the Wildlife Conservation Society's Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project have been pretty popular with the few friends and family that have received one. So I think I'm going to do some, without all the Conservation Project stuff  on it , of course. Once I get those printed out and in my hands, maybe I'll have a little giveaway with those, too (no, really!)

And...I'm trying some new ideas out in my Alice's Secrets Etsy shop. I have always been interested in typograpy, and I love the graphic look of typography posters. Here's some of my new designs, they are being uploaded to my shop today.

No One Likes a Perky Goth pt 2

So I have decided to re-do some of my old artwork in my new style... some of the ones I was not particularly happy with the first time around.

This is from a couple years ago:



...which is okay...but not quite what I pictured.

This one I finished today. I think I like it better.



...but then, I'm kinda partial to my new girls.
Whadda you think?

(update: I've had a couple people say they missed the flowers, so I added some in.)

You're no bunny til...

...some bunny loves you!

All the Little Girls in a Row...

Ho-kay...
I had told a couple of you fabulous readers that I was going to have a giveaway this week. It's Monday, so I guess that's as good a time as any!

So - here's how it works: If you are interested in winning one of my new cutie pies, leave a comment to this post.

That's it!

At the end of the week - let's make it Saturday, the 30th, I will randomly pick not one but TWO, yes 2! winners of an 8x10 print of their choice of my new girls!



See ya Saturday!

New Direction

Well, actually a re-visit of an old direction...

Years ago when I had nothing better to do with my downtime (read "no laptop") I was knitting a lot, but it wasn't really fulfilling the more creative desires I had. I was painting not much some, but wanted to do something else.
I have always loved jewelry. All kinds. I get the Sundance catalog, which I adore, and regularly drool over the jewelry, especially hers. I am really drawn to that gypsy-looking stuff. The one I fell in love with she no longer sells, but it had rough rubies and pearls and was layered with all kinds of trader beads and stuff, kinda like this one. I wanted it so bad, but it was really freakin' expensive a bit beyond my price range.
Then one day Secret Agent Man and I went to a local little shopping center to have lunch and walked past Wonders of the World. The sell beads, lot and lots and lots (you get the idea) of beads. (Anyone know the HTML to use to cue up an angel choir here? Anyone?)
Changed my life.
Sort of.
Anyhow, it did become my new obsession of the week. I bought beads. Silver beads, glass beads, pearls, semi-precious gemstones, crystal, all kinds of stuff. I made myself a version of that necklace. (Which I would show you a picture of but it broke and I still haven't fixed it yet...I know, I know!)Then I made little lanyards for all my friends at work. I started bringing stuff to work and making jewelry in my down time there.
Then my work decided that we could not craft or knit or anything because it causes carpel tunnel. (Whatever. I type for 10 hours a day, wouldn't you think that doing something different would be good for me?) So that left little time for jewelry.

Then I got the laptop and was able to really spend time drawing, even at work. Yea!
But, I still have all those beads! And every time we get anywhere near a bead shop S.A.M. drags my ass in there to buy more stuff. Seriously. I have tons and tons of stuff.

So I have decided to get back into jewelry. I opened up a new Etsy store, olive hue 2, but I don't have anything listed yet, as I am still waiting to get pictures taken of stuff to do listings. But seeing as I'm an artist kind of person, I drew some pictures. Really! Some of the earrings I have so far look like this:


I'm kind of excited and hoping to get lots done in the next couple of days. My artwork is not selling exactly like I'd hoped, and apparently I still need to find my niche. I have started another shop at ArtFire to see if maybe I can reach a different base of people. We'll see.

In the meantime I'm going to try something different for a while. When I get actual photographs of some of the jewelry I will post it here and you all can let me know what you think.