Penultimate Pea

Last night it snowed a little bit and this morning all the tree branches were encased in a layer of ice. Now it's forty degrees and sunny and all of the trees are raining. It's beautiful.

New sculpture up later today or tomorrow, I promise. I'm still recovering from the holidays, trying to catch up on everything.

I feel like I simultaneously have a ton to post about (visit from my aunt Maureen and the awesome Christmas present she gave me! Ryan's birthday and the delicious meal I made for him! new camera lens! thoughts on art!) and also nothing to say. Still trying to figure out this blogging business and what I want to say or do with it. Sometimes reading all the blogs I do (I have over 200 subscriptions in my reader. yes, I know it's ridiculous) makes things difficult; there are so many amazing writers, wonderful photographers, inspiring artists…it's easy to get a little overwhelmed and intimidated. But I'll just keep on keepin' on…

The big project for the past day has been reorganizing all my files. I'm a bit of a nerd for organization, so I've actually been enjoying it…clearing out the old stuff, making new labels, color coding and alphabetizing. A big file overhaul has been a long time coming, so it'll be nice to be done with it. Then, maybe, I can focus on dreaming up a new set-up for my "studio". I just don't have enough room to spread out right now, but it'll take some creative rearranging to try to get more space.

Well, the holidays have kind of kicked my ass, but I'm hoping to be better about blogging (and making art, and exercising, blah blah blah) in the new year. I'm usually really into gift planning, trying to pick out the perfect presents for everyone, shopping, wrapping, the whole bit. This year I really only planned one gift though. Ryan's been saying for years that he wants more art for our walls, so I've been shopping for prints on etsy for the past few months and sneaking them into the house. Here's what I got:

Naturals postcards from photobird

Morgan by ashleyg

August 2007 postcard by yespress

yellow owl by sugarloop

fox in the woods by eekdesign

little papercuts by myfolklover

Up in the Trees by myfolklover

Waxy drawings by charmfoundry

Also, I love Jen Corace (oops! can you tell this present was also maybe a little bit for me?!), and was excited to get this print of hers from Tiny Showcase:

I ordered a bunch of frames online and am kind of kicking myself for not getting less art and spending more on nicer frames, but we'll at least get some stuff on the walls, and maybe at some point down the line I'll replace some of the frames.

Of course, I waited too long to order mats and I couldn't get them made in time for Christmas. Gah. But Ryan seemed to like all of it and it'll be nice to finally have art on the walls. I'll put up pics when I get around to getting the mats, putting hanging hardware on and figuring out where it's all going to go!

What did you get or give for Christmas?

Well, I stayed up waaay too late last night, and Emmett took a long nap today (which I should've used to take a nap myself), so I managed to finish this self portrait of sorts:

I was trying to mess around with the features and make them a little differently than I usually do, and I only had large-ish eyeballs left, so she looks a little weird. Apparently I envision myself as the love child of Ricky Gervais and Allison Janney.

It doesn't really look much like me, but I wasn't really going for accuracy as much as a kind of symbolic me. It works, I think.

We got our wood today, a mere two hours after we ordered it (now that's what I call customer service), so though I was looking forward to getting some sculpture work done this weekend while Ryan can watch Emmett, it looks like I'll be working on this instead:

Have a great weekend!

So, I've completely neglected my sculpture for the past few days (yeesh, has it really been almost a WEEK since I last posted??). But, I did manage to finish a different project — new pillows! I've been so inspired by some of the patchwork projects I've seen around other craft blogs/etsy, so I decided to make some of my own with the remainder of the Amy Butler fabric from the failed curtains, combined with a few fabric store finds. I've been really loving linen lately, and think it kinda tempers the bright red and pattern, which might otherwise be a bit too much for me. They were pretty quick to make in the end, other than the inevitable interruptions from the babe, and the fiddly-ness of the invisible zippers (which were so worth it). Now I just need a new couch and rug to go with them. Hmm…