More for your viewing pleasure!!! Art is a wonderful gift!!!

 Abstract Frida Khalo painting

 All the sides and insides of a portable Buddhist shrine box.

 Buddhist portable shrine box.

Front, back and inside of another portable Buddhist shrine box available on ETSY at my shop.

Below are collaged trays, very sturdy, 10 plus layers of beautiful satin varnish as a covering over a wonderful collaged tray. Back of tray has solid type color over paper collage, with artists' signature.

A few more goodies for fodder!!! Come see me on ETSY!!!!!  All of these can be found there!!!

CHRISTMAS TIME SALE!!!!!

 Fun Christmas and Fairy Princess Hats!!!

The next three below are available in prints!!!



The next two below, Tara, and Fashionista are originals for sale.

Check out these and other great Christmas art and jewelry at my etsy site!!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/originalcyn01

Downloading more and more as we speak!!!

Thanks for visiting!! Cyn

More NY...Firefighters anyone???

Yeah, this guy in front was a real cutie in particular.  I thought my photo would be blurred as we were riding by on bike carts...but guess I got lucky:)

 Street flowers...I just love flowers sold on street corners...you should see it in Thailand.  They have tons of flowers for cheap!!!

Fur Protest!!!

Love it.  We just happened upon it...they were in front of some store that sells furs...I can't remember the name though, and don't want to site it wrong.  Good for you guys, stop the senseless killing of animals, and animal cruelty.  I'm all for that.

So.  Working more on projects.  It's never as easy as you'd wish it.  I've had more sewing machine problems and the like, but am learing a lot.  And I love sewing the little girl figures.  It's also provoked some sketching, which is always a good thing!!!

I'll add some photos of new stuff to the next post!  Take care!  Cyn



New York in Fall!

We took a little trip to New York this past weekend for four days. It seems we picked the perfect time too.

 The drive up from Virginia Beach was lovely. Trees changing colors everywhere, just what I've been waiting for. And the colors are terrific this year. Some years the leaves fall off too soon, and well, I feel a bit robbed when that happens! Here's some fun photos form our little jaunt :)

Central Park fountain (above), with people rowing little boats in the water!  This was such a beautiful park, and this area in particular was quite something gorgeous!  There have been sooooo many movie scenes filmed in this park...ones we all know and love...and when my husband, myself, and my step kids took a tour of the park on these little bike carts driven by our guides, they told us about many of the movie scenes that had taken place here and there throughout the park.  Very neat!

This is yet more of Central Park, and the awesome penthouse views from which stars such as Seinfeld, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Steven Spielberg, and the like, can view Central Park. 

Our "Friends Photo."  From left to right, Robbie (my husband), Me, Jackie, and David (my steps).  This is my wonderful family of which I am very proud, and love very much.  Jackie and David are such great people, and I'm lucky to have them in my life!  This is the 'Friends' show fountain where the intro to their show was filmed!  Look at how goofy we are!  We all had such a laugh at this photo!!!

This is a little tribute to John Lennon, who I love and admire very much.  It's in Central Park, very close to the building in which he lived, and where he was assassinated.  I bought a photo of him in his 'New York City' tee shirt...which he made famous.

New York Skyline

Photo from the ferry we took over from our Jersey Sheraton Hotel to NY City!  What an amazing city.  It was my first time there...hard to believe with all the travelling I have done! Very exciting to be there and see it, with all the history that has been and has yet to be created.

Famous artwork form the front of the GE Building in New York.  While I was in graphic design school for a few minutes, this was in our text book...I remember.  Also, this is located at Rockefeller Center.

A few photos from Times Square...the first night we got there we went to see this. I loved it. Amazing...all the billboards and the lights. Just AMAZING!!!

In Greenwich Village, Washington Park...the performers...this guy with his crazy piano and he's looking back at the drummer.  Then some other guys came up and did some dancing.  This cute kid in the hat was sooooooo interested in everything going on...had to get a photo of this little cutie and maybe it's fodder for a painting in the future.

Hope you enjoyed the photos, we had a great time.  If you have great NY stories, please share them with us, we'd love to hear!!!

Later, Cyn



My Boys!

These are my little babies:  Bodhi (L) and Tico (R).  I know I've been promising new work...looks like it's still going to be a little longer too, as we are leaving for New York!!! on Thursday.  Will be back Sunday, and am just going to wait til Monday to post again.  It'll be my very first time in the big city, so I'm sure I'll have lots to post when I return. 

Hope life is treating you well.  Take care, C

CUTIE PIE!

For right now, she's my little 'Cutie Pie.'  Created with complete inspiration from Danita's online class, "Free Motion Personas," on Crescendoh.  http://creativelab.crescendoh.com/  Look them up for a wonderful source of online courses!  I've taken two already, and they are so much fun, and so insightful.  The major difference in my doll here, is that I painted it after stitching it.  She just screamed out, 'paint me!' and I said, "ok!"  (Later after posting this, I have seen Danita paint on her quilts.)

I am totally ready to sew a bunch of these, however, am having technical problems!  My sewing equipment is having problems.  So, trying to work that out, and get back on track.  Otherwise, still working like crazy making this art gig go!!!  I'll keep you posted.

Til tomorrow!  Cynthia

"Katy-Did"

"Katy-Did"

Well, she finally got her finishing touches and she's ready to go.  I'll be posting prints of her for sale on ETSY soon.  It's literally killing me, I've got several other pieces that are nearly finished, they just lack that finishing touch of a word, some kind of message emblazoned upon them.  I think.  Sort of like the one above, where it just didn't seem finished until the last words were added.  Hopefully I'll come up with something for them soon.  They are all dying to get posted and be seen!  They say they want their day in the sun!  Yes, I'm talking to my paintings now.  (Twilight Zone music here).  Kookadoodledoo!!!

All my funny love, C

"Folk Art Angel Alice"

Here's my sweet Angel Alice...folk art doll.  I love her like crazy...but she won't stand up for me.  I'm still finding my 'voice', and here is a brilliant example of that voice.  Folk Art Alice, I love her mucho grande!!!!

Her body is made from painted canvas, sewed together, filled with marbles for weight and stuffing.  The doll head was bought as a hack n sac ball, and painted into the creation you see here.  Wool was then felted and crafted onto the head form for hair.

"Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star"

Here's the latest!  I've been working on this for a while...a couple of weeks I believe.  I'm in the learning process...learning how to make art quilts...all kinds of different techniques to use on this wonderful new medium.  Just what I needed;  another obsession! 

So, I have several of these in the works...it's not easy to do the compositions yet...but I'll get there.  It takes me a while of setting things on top....moving them around, painting fabric faces, and much, much more.  It's also a costly little hobby!  I went out for some beautiful metallic thread today, and spent a quick $80.00.  Ok, here's my groovy new gal!

"...Little Star"

I liked this name cause I was trying to think of something for her, and I read this quote, "I am the star of my own movie," (I'm sure a lot of people have said it, I got it from Louise L. Hay.)  I think we all need to be reminded to be the star of our own show!  I only wanted to put a few words though, so this worked out nicely.  This is the first one I've ever made, and I'm quite smitten with her.  I'm infatuated too with this entire process!  It is truly exciting! 

There is a ton of work in this particular piece. I started off making fabric paper out of muslin, scrapbook papers, and the like.  I did all kinds of treatments to these fabric papers, and then used them to make the quilts.  I have yet to cut and sew these papers together for effect...in fact, I've yet to do a whole lot of stuff with these quilts and probably will remain that way for some time as there is so very much one can do to them.

I'm having an incredible time adding this medium to my own personal bag of tricks.  Keep tuned.  I'm going to be posting a lot of stuff now...new things everyday, and adding them to my ETSY shop.  Please come and check it out, and send your friends for fun Christmas shopping!!!

Ok. That's all for now, Cyn.

How to start a blog, Part Two!

Hi there!  Welcome to Part Two of tips and tricks for blogging, with blogger.


Now that you have your account, and have decided on a blog name, you are ready to continue to part two.  Also, if you have been looking around at other blogs, you are getting a better idea of what you might like for your blog.  Knowledge is power!!!

If you find blogs that you like now, I'd recommend you favorite them.  This will make it easier later on when you want to add them to your "blogs I follow."
If you're anything like me, you desire some semblance of a setup on your main page.  So, here's how to begin.

3. Get your template.

Click on Design.  Directly underneath the Design tab, click Template Designer.  Choose a template, whatever you like for now.  I had a photo of mine I wanted to use in the header/banner area, so I color co-ordinated my template with that.  If you'd like to start off with the sides and banner like mine, then just pick the 'watermark' template for now and choose the tan background on the row below that, then I'll show you how to fix it up later.

Click Apply to Blog in the upper right hand corner, and then click on View Blog.  You should see the watermark page setup with the tan color behind it, and there are some birds flying on the top right of the page, or if you chose a different page, you'll see that.  Don't worry too much about this, if it's not just right, go ahead with whatever setup you've got.

Now.

4. Download a header photo, type in your blog name.

Click on the Design tab again.  Click edit on the Header box.  In here you can either download a photo, type the name of your blog for the header, or both.  Just follow the prompts.  I use photoshop 7 to tweak my photos, and when I save them for the web I do it this way:  Click file, save for web, click the arrow to the right of the GIF or whatever type photo it is.  Next, hit JPEG, then maximum below that.  Click OK.  Then name the photo.  Now it's saved for the web.  You can go and get this photo through the blog design template and add it to your site.

To download the photo, click browse, find the photo and add.

5. Adding Pages

Underneath the header, you can create other pages for your blog with a variety of other information on them.  When you need to edit these pages, go to where you would write a new post, and click edit pages in the tabs up top.

Look at my pages for an example.  I wanted to show my artwork, categorizing jewelry from artwork, supplies, and a separate page about a certain doll I offer in supplies.    Ok.  Let's move on to bigger and better.

You've got your HEADER, your PAGES, and you've seen the obvious New Post button, where you can write, save/ publish new posts. 

6. A Photo of You, and then 'About You'

Click on Dashboard, then click Design.  Now click Edit on the 1st box on the right under the pages.  Now click the option in the box to add a picture.  Add a photo of you here.

Now, click Edit in the next box under your new photo.  Inside the selection box, choose the option to add text.  Now add your info, or whatever you want.  Continue on down the page in this same way.  You can see the things that I added to my blog;  'Blogs I Follow,' 'Followers,' etc.  You don't have to add blogs now, you can just make the box, and then go back and do it later.

You've probably pretty much gotten the hang of it by now.  So, if you'd like to get fancy and add a beautiful header and borders, then look for the link at the top right of my blog page that says "Backgroundfairy."  Click that link, and here you will be able to pick something nice from a variety of fun stuff for your blog.  I call it redecorating the front porch.  I think it can be a big attraction...a nice front porch.  You can add the top header and then add your blog name through blogger, or you can take the header into photoshop (as I did) and tweak it real nice like for optimal results. 

That's it for now.  I hope this helped, and now that you guys are all caught up with me, go find some fun blogs to follow.  Oh...you can check to see who's posted something new in the blogs you follow by clicking on 'Sign In' on the homepage. Scroll down a bit to 'reading list' tab.  Click 'blogs I'm followin' if it's not already showing.  You can see the title of what someone has posted...and that will help decide your interest or lask thereof in reading the entire post.  It's a quick way to keep up with those you follow, vs. going to each and every blog to see who has posted something new.

I will be continuing on the blogging journey and am checking out a Flicker addition, among other things.  I'll keep you posted in the future with more installments of "Tips and Tricks for Blogging with Blogger."  Like I've said before, if you have questions, never hesitate to post and ask.  Thanks for checking us out here!!!

Cynthia