I'm back!

Well, after an 8 month hiatus, I'm back online with every intention of having regular blogging up within the next two weeks! These past few months have been very rough on my family- in August all my cousins were here for a month- which was absolutely wonderful (but very time consuming!) and after that it was kits if work and helping out with my grandmother. I moved to South Carolina in February and just this past week my grandmother passed away after a 10 year battle with cancer. I can't even begin to describe what a truly amazing and determined woman she was. It may be strange, especially for a first post about being back again, but I wanted to share with you what the Buffalo News wrote about her in her obituary.


Aug. 23, 1923 – March 23, 2013

Jannetje “Janny” Hammer, who overcame crippling arthritis to become a master gardener and advocate for the handicapped, died Saturday in her Clarence Center home after a lengthy illness. She was 89.

Born Jannetje Kop in Dreibergen, the Netherlands, near Utrecht, she was one of 10 children. She worked as a medical analyst in the Netherlands for eight years after World War II.

Mrs. Hammer had her first attack of rheumatoid arthritis at age 23 after she was hit by shrapnel during the war. By age 35, she was in a wheelchair. In constant pain, her hands deformed by arthritis, she never walked again.

After living in Clarence from 1961 to 1974, she and her family returned to the Netherlands. A resident of Wassenaar, a suburb of The Hague, she lobbied tirelessly to make her community handicapped-accessible, doing sit-ins outside the inaccessible town hall during public meetings. For her efforts, she was awarded a medal of honor by the mayor.

In the Netherlands, she founded a toy library, organized transportation for people needing accessible vehicles, was a consultant with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in making airplane bathrooms accessible and was instrumental in making Dutch trains accessible to wheelchairs.

Retiring with her husband to Ithaca in 1992, she became a master gardener, master composter and master landscape designer. She gave classes in verniculture and took part in many Cornell Cooperative Extension activities.

Mrs. Hammer returned to Clarence in 1998 and became a member of several garden clubs and two book clubs. She was a volunteer at the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens and won prizes for her plants at the Erie County Fair. Planting and working with tools adapted for her by her husband, she developed a garden that was part of the annual Clarence Center garden walks.

She was a member of the Garden Friends of Clarence, Amherst Garden Club, the Clarence Senior Center and Niagara County Cooperative Extension.

I promise less somber posts soon enough, but until then a Happy (belated) Spring!

xo

Sunday in the Studio: Tattoo Nonsense!

For some reason I woke up at 5:30 this morning. Since I hadn't really been getting much of anything done due to over sleeping (we're talking 12 hours minimum a day for the past few weeks) I decided to take it as a sign to get my sorry patoot outta bed and get to work! So I finished cranking these bad boys out instead of needlessly dreaming more weird dreams.

I abuse my cups and fill them with water to clean my brushes in.

Heck Yeah Hand Lettering!

This crow almost destroyed me. I can't paint with black to save my life to begin with, and I just kept pulling up every layer that I put down until I just set it aside and wept on the inside. I finished working on my other paintings before going back to it. And instead of painting, I went back in with my Microns and redid all those lines which made EVERYTHING better! They got so washed out and it made me so sad, but when they were once again highly visible I was able to get a hold of myself and continue on with everything!

Alas, I probably won't have any dress updates for a little bit, our home is full of guests at the moment (not that I'm complaining, I'm beyond stoked they're finally here!!) and the sewing room has been converted into a guest room. So unless I can convince my mother to let me haul her sewing machine into my room, I'll just impatiently wait and come up with mew patterns itching to test them out!

xoxo

Na Na Na Na Batman (dress)!!

Batman, is quite perhaps one of my all time favorite comic book heroes. In fact, my one and only favorite. Well, Hell boy draws a close second but I have yet to find a widely distributed hellboy fabric. Anyways, I was out shopping for a patch for my Kaylee outfit (more on that one later!) and I stumbled upon some wonderful and delightful batman fabric! I was so exited I did a little dance right there in that fabric isle. I scooped up some fabric and quickly returned home to start sewing immediately. Well, after the fabric was washed and dried and I had waited very impatiently for these things to occur. It was a bit more than a challenge, BUT LOOK. 

Isn't it so pretty?

And yes, those are batman stockings I'm wearing.

Everything was lined with more batman fabric!

And the sleeves are adorable puffed sleeves, I couldn't get a decent photo of them at all, alas!

That peter pan collar gave me oodles of trouble, but I was so determined that I just powered through it! 

On the subject of me being nerdy, can you see my new tattoo peaking through from under my sleeve? It's a (super) sexy Orion slave girl, from the original Star Trek. That upper half of my arm is probably going to be turned into a Star Trek half sleeve. Spock is next!

xoxo

One finished painting, and so many for sale on etsy!

I'll be scanning it in tonight at some point as well, but for now, this picture will do! I'm not sure how I finished this one before the other, but I suppose I'll get back to finishing it. But you guys and gals should check out my etsy please! I have seven new paintings up and posted, along with two drawings, plus some other goodies! 

xoxo

I'm back!

After a far too short visit to all the cool cats I know down south, I've returned to a surprisingly warm and wet  New York! I neglected to really take any pictures whatso ever whilst I was adventuring (shame on me, I know!) But I did manage to get some serious sketches done! I did leave them behind, but not before I took some photos of them! So as my first return post, I give you the results of my labor filled vacation! 

But seriously, I was sleeping like 15 hours a day and hanging out with the best cat ever. There was so much of her to loooove!

Anyways! Art!

Too much fun with flowers.

All inked and pretty!

I can't really recall the last thing I sat down and painted. So it's so wonderful to finally do so! I even bought myself some shiny new brushes to celebrate!

She's all nice and inked and waitin' on to be painted.

In other news, I decided to have at a tattoo apprenticeship again! Which took hardly any coaxing, but that's not the point. So I'm re-building my portfolio, and gosh darn it, I will do it right this time! And not find a terrible shop. Most importantly!

And this is finally finished! And so pretty in it's frame. She'll be up for sale on etsy in the next few days!

Well, that's all for today! I hope your past week (and a half!) was just as awesome as mine!

xoxo

Workin' Wednesday: Roundup!

I have no idea where today went, or yesterday. But I'm not packed yet! I leave at two! Eep! But I wanted to get this post up to you guys before I vanish beyond the Mason Dixon line! So here's a quick round up of some of the projects I've got going on here.

That's a necklace hanger I made for my little sister!

Some plants and bugs in vials

And some drawings that I've been working on!

And I'm off! Adventure Time!

xo

How Tuesday: Bee Boots!

I really wanted to make little bee designs for the back of my boots! Because they were just so fancy and all that nonsense.

To start, you'll need some sticker paper (aka: White Full Sheet Labels) scissors, a pencil, pen and an idea! Also, an exacto knife! And some modge-podge glitter glue (just like from this post!)

You're going to want to sketch out your idea so it fits nicely to where you want it to be(e)!

I outlined where I wanted to cut out 

I did not get as fancy as I had originally intended.

Really stick that sucker on where you want it to go.

 You're not going to want anything to leak- so press down really hard!

Apply your coats of glitterglue- it took me about 4 layers.

And then I added some details with black acrylic paint! 

And there you have it folks! It's really pretty darn easy, and adds so much! Now it's back off to packing and cleaning, 'cause I'm leaving in less than a day!!

xo