Three Months In

It's hard to believe Funny Paws is a quarter-year old already! Thanks to those who have been supporting me along the way - especially my husband. :)
With this anniversary mark comes another opportunity for learning and growth. I am considering adding photography to the mix, as something that allows me to work short, flexible hours, for my back. I was given the last push I needed from a new friend and professional photographer, Michelle, when she overheard my other new, but dear friend, Barb, compliment me on my photos of nature before we began our Bible study. After finding this Groupon for Flying School Photography that I had seen before on the site, I signed up for 3 of their online photography courses, to better my skills with a camera, before I pursue working with it professionally. I am currently taking "Creative Composition" and learning so much, even just in the second week. Last week, I posted this picture:

Using simplicity and rule of thirds and almost leading lines.

 This week, I need to post a picture on the assignment board that includes either or all blurred, framed, silhouette, and horizon views. I'm considering this one:

framed and blurred (also his head is at the "crash point", using rule of thirds)

I wish I had Photoshop to get rid of the car in the background, haha. I love that it was completely candid and relaxed, because he had been posing very awkwardly before this. :P
I'm having a lot of fun with the class and can't wait to take "Portrait Photography" and finally, "Starting A Photography Business". I think the last one will be the most challenging, as it will probably be less creative and more, well, business. I decided, with the approval of my husband, to invest in a more professional camera, too. In his words, "Even if you don't make any money with it, at least we'll have a nice camera.
Along the same line, I decided to make blank greeting cards with the photos I've taken in the past year or so, with my almost-as-good Canon Powershot, and put them up on Etsy in themed packs of 10!

"No Need For Flowery Words"

"For The Birds"

"Six-Legged Beauties"

"Back To Nature"

I need to get back to working on my Sea Life Alphabet, too. I have 22 letters to go! :)
Thanks for reading!
P.S. Here's the final result of the 2 paintings I showed you in the last post that weren't quite finished!

Walrus

Super Moon

I'm In Business!

As most of the summer has been, it's been a busy couple of weeks! This week doesn't look too busy, but neither did last week and that flew by, haha. Last Tuesday, I had my first 2 Etsy sales! Both wanted one of my personalized satin hangers. Hopefully, they enjoy them - I certainly enjoyed making them! :)
I also started two more oil paintings last Thursday and two more yesterday. So far, I have 3 1/2 paintings for my sealife alphabet collection! Here's the final result of my first oil painting:

A birthday present for my sister-in-law :)

And here's the collection so far:

Jellyfish

Pufferfish

Orca

The walrus is getting there, but I need to wait until the paint dries to add the tusks and whiskers. The one downside to oil paints, I've found, is the time they take to dry! They require much more patience to work with.

I thought this step looked funny :P

all wrinkled up

The other two paintings, I'm not as proud of, only because they revealed that I'm not good at painting EVERYTHING. I've never been great at drawing reptiles, amphibians, or fish, even though they are some of my favorite animals and I observe them every chance I get!

Froggy Friend By The Pond

I can get the shape and the heads, usually. I'm just not great at the legs and fins. I'll have to work on that, especially since my sealife alphabet involves fish, reptiles, and amphibians, haha.
I'm pretty good at landscape design, it seems, if it is from a distance - the close-up of the rocks, moss, and water did not turn out how I wanted them to, either. I may add some details later to see if I can make the moss more moss-y. I should've added a tiny bit of black to the blue, too, to make it darker - that blue makes the pond look fake, like the streams at mini-golf courses. The other painting is of the supermoon. It's not done yet, because I need to wait till it dries to add some details, but it came out very artsy-fartsy looking, when I didn't mean for that to happen, haha.

Supermoon, not quite done yet

I went by the picture I took of the moon, back when it was supposedly larger, in June, and noticed there were rings of orange and yellow, and then a very clear outline of the moon, itself. Then, on the moon, itself, were darker gray patches. Perhaps the yellow and orange are just too dark and not fuzzy-looking enough. I might be able to fix it with the next coat...

Picture of the Supermoon June 2013

Speaking of photography, I got an excellent idea that I had considered in the past, from a lovely woman in my Bible study, who has been a professional photographer on the side. There are a limited amount of jobs that wouldn't cause eventual intense pain that is only helped by laying down for at least 20-30 minutes. There are even fewer jobs that allow for laying down when one's back needs a break. It was suggested to me to take a couple courses in photography, just to go beyond the basics I already know and refine my skills.
I've thought of a photography business as needing to be on my feet for whole days or having to crouch down in awkward positions to get the best shot. However, if I just do portraits of posed people scheduled at definite times, that could most likely work. Just a matter of finding clients that don't need me to drive 2 hours to get there (driving is probably one of the worst positions for my back). So, I found this Groupon (I love Groupon for stuff like this!) for photography courses online at a website that had good reviews. I am signed up to begin "Creative Composition" in September and can't wait to start. At the same time, I have not taken an educational course since training for my last job, which was intense, mind you, but a lot different, since having the closest thing I could get to my dream job relied on passing it. I suppose I could trick my brain into believing the same for this course, plus I think it should be fun!
Meanwhile, I will keep creating things and see what kind of market there is for it. I have some cute pirate mouse cloth laying around - I don't remember when, why, or where I purchased it. It was probably in a craft store in the bargain bin and I couldn't pass it up. (I find it hard to pass up most things nautical or pirate-y, unless they are really tacky - even then, I have to stop and look!) So, I bought some satin ribbon for edging and I am going to create a baby blanket - I just hope I can sell it for a profit, since the ribbon alone was $13! I also have nautical/lobster cloth that I do remember buying at the same time, but also no idea why. I'm not sure what I will make with that...maybe bibs, but the cloth is too absorbent to be useful for that, so I would need to buy some sort of clear vinyl to protect it. We'll see! I do foresee a trip to Jo-Ann's sometime soon, haha.
I will leave you with my favorite picture of the week, an Indigo Bunting that was at our feeder one day and I have yet to see it since. So pretty!

An Artist's Exploration

So, as in my last post, I've been doing a lot more drawing, lately. I went a little crazy at Michael's, too, when I got a 25% coupon, and bought a whole bunch of different project materials! Everything I saw, I wanted to try. Good for the creative mind, bad for the wallet, haha. I got some more pearl beads and jewelry-making equipment, some clay for making beads and pendants, and some more canvas. These are all fairly new projects to me - things I never thought of doing before!
I haven't ventured to do the clay yet, since it's been so hot, and I hate running the oven for it. I have made some more pearl necklaces and put them up for sale, though!

white pearl

twist clasp

gray

 

 

pink

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, I continued to sketch, making excuses not to start my painting project, like, "I can't possibly paint without an easel" and, "If only I had some mineral spirits, because the tutorial I watched on oil painting said they are essential to good oil painting." Well, turns out my husband wanted to build me an easel and he found mineral spirits in our house somewhere, left from the previous owners! Okay, God, I get it - no more excuses.
 I searched through my photographs, trying to find a picture I could attempt copying and landed on this one:

As I began painting, I found creating the colors, picking the right brushes, feeling the brushstrokes and developing the right textures to be more fun than I anticipated! When I worked on the trees, I even heard Bob Ross's voice in my head saying "happy little trees," haha.

1/3 finished

2/3 finished!

 Now to wait for the paint to dry, so I can add the boats...its been 2 days so far, but can be 4 days or more, apparently, for oil paints. That's one thing the oil paint tutorial did not teach me! Stay tuned for the final product, which I've decided is going to be a gift, so long as it turns out nicely.
I urge you artists/crafters out there to explore your creativity, too! Don't just stick to one medium or style - maybe you'll discover a talent you never knew you had. :)

Crazy Busy Month Of June

I can't believe I haven't posted since the end of May! I will say June got pretty out of hand, somehow. I thought buying a house and planning a wedding consumed a lot of time. Apparently, the aftermath of both these events, combined with having an event every weekend, makes time go by even more quickly! On top of this, I have decided to go official with trying a craft business. This back pain isn't going anywhere anytime soon and having my own business, whether it is crafting or pet-sitting, will allow for me to break when my back needs me to lay down. Plus, I really enjoy crafting of all types, so it will give me a chance to explore things I haven't attempted before.
One thing I've been working on, especially, is sketching. I used to draw quite a bit in high school and was pretty good at it. Though, like any talent, it gets rusty if you don't use it for a while! After some fails (in my eyes, anyway), I came up with the start of my sealife alphabet.

My first letter: A for Anglerfish

My second letter: C for Cuttlefish

My third letter: O for Orca

Fourth letter: T for Turtle

Latest letter: W for Walrus

 

So, thinking about what I would do with these sketches to make them into something marketable, I considered doing greeting cards. Not really much market for alphabet greeting cards with sealife on it. Not that I've completely discounted it - it would be easy to re-sketch on nicer paper, add some color, and scan the image to use on greeting cards. Then, Michael's had a sale on canvas and paint...I've never painted on canvas before, so of course, I bought a few small canvases and some paint and brushes! I hope I can do with paint and canvas what I can do with a pencil or crayon, but I have been watching tutorials like this one to figure out the long and short of painting. I used to watch Bob Ross, painting his happy little trees, when I was younger and thought how I could never make such realistic-looking paintings. Now that I've done a lot in life that I thought I could and would never do, much less be decently good at it, I have a lot more confidence that I can create some happy little seaweed. Stay tuned for those adventures! In the meantime, you can check out my Etsy shop here and my Facebook page here! Thanks for reading!

 

Getting Settled And Making Keepsakes

Things are finally starting to wind down a little around here, as I got out of vacation mode around the end of last week and started doing more everyday things and wrapping up wedding stuff, like thank you cards and starting on wedding announcements to those who we could not invite and have no facebook to see the plethora of pictures that exploded on it from the minute the ceremony began!

I neglected, last post, to display another gift we gave out on our wedding day. Around the beginning of our wedding week, our DJ talked to us about doing an "anniversary dance," where all the married couples would get out on the floor, dance, and leave it as their anniversary year was called. The tradition for this was the newly-married couple would give the "winners" a gift. He suggested a bottle of champagne or sparkling cider, but noooo, I couldn't just do that. "Congrats on being married for longer than most marriages in the world. Here's a fizzy beverage." It just seemed too minimal. Not that I'm against minimalism - I'm usually all about simple, but when it comes to gifting, I generally like to put a lot of thought and soul into it, even if I have only a little idea of who is getting the gift.
So, I thought about who might get it. I had family coming out from the midwest, but only 2 were couples and one was younger. I had family coming from NJ, but I wasn't sure how long they had been married. Finally, I decided after wandering The Christmas Tree Shop for a bit, to create a New England-themed gift basket. Even if a couple from closer to home got it, I was sure it would be appreciated.
As soon as I walked into Christmas Tree Shop, I spent what seemed like 30-40 minutes in their small nautical/beach section. I snagged a medium-sized "lobster trap" for the basket and drooled over some home decor I decided against, until we put the stuff up we already have! I had already gotten a bottle of sparkling cider, so I grabbed a couple $1 flutes, deciding I would maybe put a design on them later. This is what I came up with:

I looked up nautical love quotes to write on them and found this one and this one to be the best and the cutest. Topped them off with the wedding date on the back and, making them more like trophies, wrote "Most Experienced" on the bottoms.
When I got to the food section, I really went all out with anything "New England-y." Saltwater taffy, cranberry preserves, and lobster bisque. I almost got canned clams, but the can said they were shipped from southeast Asia...at least the lobster bisque was American, but you can't expect to get the best of the best at Christmas Tree Shop, haha. I added some of these fun woven balls from Kohl's, to make sure the glass objects didn't move around too much, and a book I also found at Kohl's called "Old Age Ain't No Place For Sissies," and found that the lobster trap had to be wired shut, even though it had a magnetic clasp, just in case.

While not all married couples got on the floor, we had a good number of participants and the longest married were my husband's aunt and uncle, at 38 years!

When we got home the next day after the wedding, I decided to act on this pinspiration and take some of the petals from my bouquet and put them in glass ornament globes. The pin says to dry them first, but I was afraid they would crack and break trying to get them in the hole at the top. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that not drying them first is worse.

The night before we left on our honeymoon

 

The day we returned from our honeymoon, 5 days later

I am glad we had flowers from our head table still fresh-looking, because I was not impressed with the results. Lots of fun molds and ugly colors.

before drying

after drying

before drying

after drying

before drying

this one is still drying...

On the other hand, the dried petals from the head table flowers turned out nicely!

close-up of a portion of the head table flowers

  

So, I got some decent ornaments from the wedding day flowers - not from my bouquet, but that's okay. I also stripped up a program from the day and put that in a globe!

Then, I put sand we collected from the beaches during our honeymoon (after drying it) into 3 more globes.

Summerside PEI

Tignish PEI

Cavendish PEI

So, we should be all set for ornaments for a while, with the anchors from our wedding, too, haha.

Hopefully, by my next post, I will have experimented with more crafty things to show off. :)

Thanks for reading!