SuzeBlogz

I'm holdin' up !

A few of you asked....whatz gonna happen to the Glitzy bra?

Well fer sure I'm not showing up in it anywhere anytime soon!
It wouldn't even fit on my left kneecap. After all...I don't want to look like a boob ! (ha ha)


Seriously folks...it's going to the ARTFUL BRA PROJECT in Hawaii to support a new arm for breast cancer research. Pray...pray...pray it doesn't melt  before (or worse, after ) it gets there !


Speaking of waxing......You might recall a bird I waxed back in July

Well...I gave him a home...a cage I found at Home Goods


I'm beginning to question my sanity! Next thing you know I'll be trying to teach it to talk.


Honestly folks.......I'm just on a rooooooollllllll with this waxing stuff.
Maybe you even remember the torso I did back in July when I was at Zanas house.
Tonight I decided that needed to be waxed too.



So, I got busy....


and after a few coats......and a few hours
I had one big giant waxed torso



Then it was back to what seems to be a total favorite look for me...the Pan Pastels



and the addition of a sparkling mica powder



and there she is



She's is hanging in my upstairs bathroom. I don't waste any time !
now I'm in the process of creating something unusual for her head.

Okay...moving on....

Have you checked out Ranger's homepage recently....I AM THERE  !
Got a cool project for you that uses the new UTEE Red Poppy Brightz
We have them in stock now.



BUT WAIT....THAT'S NOT ALL !
There's a new Video on making AMAZING AGATES with UTEE.
It's all of 3 minutes....go get some coffee and come back. It's also on  YOU TUBE


if you enjoy video tutorials I found one I think you'll love from SPLIT COAST STAMPERS

MOST IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Yesterday I did my volunteer work at the spay and neuter clinic near where I live. Nothing is more worthwhile than working with animals. After surgery they come out looking 'dead'...and we rub them and dropper feed them water and cajole them until they return to normal. It can take hours.
I invite you all to help out my friend Bernie Berlin's " A PLACE TO BARK"  because she dedicates her life to rescuing animals. She's a gem.
VOTE to nominate her as your favorite charity. She'll be eligible for a $10,000 donation.

It's all about "support"

Well....the bra made some progress last night.

For one thing its as hard as a rock.

Next time I think I'll skip the 9 bazillion steps and simply melt the wax in something bigger, like a wok or such, and just dip the damn bra into it.
Then it's just one step......all done.
Well.....that's why we experiment....to learn.



I made the straps from ribbon...waxed them too.
Glittered one side (c'mon now..it's ME boys & girls...glitter, my middle name.......the more the merrier).
I know my purist wax friends are now dying out there.

I added a memory frame with a piece of UTEE in it that I used a dremel tool on. I wanted to see if I could carve into the UTEE and make textures. Successful to a point....the UTEE and the hot tool digging in did cause some not so lovely friction !

Added a piece of the French ribbon from my friend Sally Cendral



Added trim from the craft store....but just on one side...I mean there's overkill and then there's overkill !
You know..."OONGAPAHTCH" ! The Yiddish word I teach all my students....meaning tacky,  overdone, one extra thing too any.
God forbid I should be accused of being "OONGAPAHTCH" !



But now I have another another idea for you. We showed this at the CHA class and it involves those cute little Memory Capsules from Ranger.

I'll bet you didn't know that you could pour UTEE into that plastic.
Melt Clear in your pot



Sprinkle some glitter, or beads, charms or colored UTEE into the capsule



 
Pour the UTEE in to fill the capsule





Once it solidifies place it over an image, cut the image out and put it into a memory frame




Or....just glue the capsule down over another piece of art.
I waxed this collage and placed the capsule with UTEE over her face



If the UTEE pops out of the capsule (after it cools it does contract), just glue it into the capsule with some glossy accents or super glue.

and now...the BIG FINISH>>>>Ta Dah

My friend Patti Behan is at it again....she's posted another great technique video on her blog. This time it involves a distress look tag and she's totally nailed it. You'll really love this one.

Geet ? (as in did ya eat?)

Well..that was certainly the question on everyones' mind this weekend...

The Lenster and I had an entire weekend full of Bar-B-Q's and pool partying.
and, I've come to the conclusion that hot dogs and hamburgers must be the obligatory food at these events....and oh yeah...baked beans and corn.

Saturday was a get together with one of The Lensters motorcycle groups...the Jersey Shore Riders annual picnic



and today we went up to our son Marc's new house which has a huge pool and all the kids and their friends went swimming the entire day



Other exciting things that happened were
The arrival of my POGO, Instant Mobile printer. Holy Smokes !!!!



It will instantly print out these adorable little 2X3 inch pictures straight from your camera.
Take a pix at a party, give everyone a gift to go home with.
Do I love this.....well..let's just say it's going EVERYWHERE with me from now on.



remember the hearts made from screens that I showed you the other day. Well I also spotted this screen fish in a Home Goods on the sale rack. I didn't buy it but I was fascinated by the fact that after seeing one screen art thing I'm now probably gonna find a bazillion of them.



the bra is still coming along....again..one of those works in progress....
I have now waxed it with one coat so far



and brushed on a combination of Pan Pastels and Perfect Pearls



don't have a single clue what will happen next....that's half the battle !

Happy Bday

It's both Napoleans' and Woodstocks' birthday....so....somewhere in this world someone is celebrating.

I'm off to a picnic for one of The Lensters motorcycle groups but I don't think we'll much be having a hot dog in honor of either of these occasions.

 I did however see a cool Woodstock T Shirt with a bird.......I might need that !


and, speaking of birds......yesterday my friend Mark Jetton from Texas sent a comment to my blog that had me rolling on the floor......Mark and I go back years and years and yeeeeeaaars.....big southern wahoo....
He was commenting on my obsession with the bird things....

Marc's Comment:
"norman bates had a lot of birds around as well. i'm not saying you're psycho, but..... "

I haven't stopped laughing.......Mark is a riot...so, be sure to check out his blog which is packed full of great stamping ideas for all sorts of surfaces.....and....this months issue of RubberStampMadness magazine because he also has a card in it...not to mention his winning ideas for Ten Seconds Studio Metal.

I've had this book of wallpaper patterns lying around forever. Today I cut out a piece of it

 

I used Ranger's Black Adirondack Pigment ink and stamped some words over the paper, then I waxed the whole thing. Heated the waxed surface to fuse it, repeated 2 times. Then I cut a small section that I wanted to use. I'll save the other sections for another time.

I pressed a small rubber stamp into the wax


Added some Perfect Pearls and some Pan Pastels to the surface.



Used a "digger" type of tool to go into the wax and reveal some of the stamped words. It comes up super easy.


a few finishing touches , like a bit of rub n buff on the hearts and some more Pan Pastels  and I made a card from it. This is a very easy project.

the BRA project, on the other hand, is becoming a dilemma. It stiffened from the Powertex but not as I wanted it to. This was not becasue of the Powertex but because the bra is made of so many layers of fabric and other padding.
So..I decided to go over the surface with ENCAUSTIC GESSO.



I decided I'm going to wax the surface so regular gesso is not a good choice This gesso is formulated for wax application. Don't worry...I'm gonna keep you posted on how things progress OR NOT !

And...even more importantly...no birds were harmed in the making of this bra !

still on the journey

This morning I had a happy, upbeat, warm conversation with my California buddy Wendy Aikin from WaxWorksWest.
Wendy is a yum-yum friend...I love the feeling I get when we're together. She said..." come back and visit.....hurry......stay a week, two......bring the Lenster.....move in"..... I would never pass up a Wendy invite in a million years.


I did these pieces in a WaxWorks Class last year run by Wendy, her sister Judy and encaustic artist Daniella Woolf.



....so then I had this briiiant thought..........what if I did a Melt Art UTEE class at their studio for one day while I was there.
So...here's my question......I will only take 10-12 students so we can all fit comfortably in their fabulous northern CA studio in Corralitos. ...would ya come? No date set yet...but we can pick one !



On the New Jersey end of things.....I'm still trying this and that...nothing specific....you get those days too right?
the bra needed another coating of Powertex. This time I added some fibers. It will dry tonight. Then what will I do......ya got me! No idea---yet. Totally a work in progress....or not !

Please dont think I create masterpieces all day long...that's a joke ! I get stuck in those ruts just like the rest of the world.
and...more importantly..i don't want to just keep trying the same old...same old...

BUT..I am still in my bird fetish mode
I decided to use a feather to make the beak....

So here's what i did.

• dusted the inside of my mold with perfect pearls
• Placed the cut feather stem into the beak of the mold and a feather in the rear
  
• placed twigs into the feet area
• sprinkled some glass glitter into the head and rear parts of the mold
• poured UTEE to fill mold...it's a very deep mold.
  
• when everything was solidified I used my heat gun to gently go over the surface to encapsulate the perfect pearls, the glitter and to brighten everything.
• Used a glue gun to make it stand up in a piece of UTEE.

I am really liking it. But now comes the dilemma...what the hell do I do with all the freakin' birds I have in the house.

•  

Here's what I finally decided to do with the bird collage from yesterday...added some stamping right over the wax background, added another UTEE wing and glued everything down.


Now..I do not speak French, but a lovely blog was passed on to me in an email. Pascales work shows the molds she has made using wax and Pan Pastels. If you want to translate her words just copy them into Babelfish

I feel positively thrilled to have inspired someone who doesn't even speak English. She watches me on YouTube...who knew !

34 C

I wish......
that would be a nice size....so...that's the size I bought at Kohls for my next project.
I am going to do something, I as yet know not what,  with the bra for the Artful Bra Project that I was invited to participate in by my good friend Deb of Rubber Stamp Plantation.
. It will help to support (pun) the new arm of the American Cancer Society in Hawaii. My clay artist friend Marie Segal has written about it on her blog as I'm sure others have.


Firstly I had to get the bra to stay put (another pun) so I hooked it from behind over a trash bin. All my trash bins are a perfect 34C, aren't yours?

Then, brilliant that he is, The Lenster suggested stuffing it to be sure it didn't "give" any.
(who knew that bras could have so many puns)

OKay..okay..maybe he was trying to cop a feel.....altho he's got more to work with in "real life" !!! Ha ha.

But, my idea is to try to make the bra very stiff and inflexible by painting on some Powertex

Will this work...?? I have no clue...I've never used Powertex before......I bought it on one of those artistic whims you get at shows......but I'll wait till it dries tomorrow morning and proceed from there....if it's a flop I'll start over..it if it stiffens I'll scan my brain for what's next.

In the meantime I must share THIS great concept....painting screens.
I was in my local all purpose home and garden boutique scanning their sale racks when I spotted this heart

OMG....I loved it. I didn't buy it but asked if I could take pictures

It's 2 household screens put together...perhaps spray painted....a stencil maybe....some wire here & there. BRILLIANT.


and lastly....I'm gathering some of the stuff I've done the last few days and just laying them out.....with each other...nothing's permanently down...just experimenting again. Beeswax reigns. The tag came off an article of clothing.

whatz up ? Not much

Yes..there are some days when there just isn't a lot to tell....

A few penis enlargement or hair removal emails,  Do I want to rid my home of pests, how E-Harmony can find other 'singles' like me and of course, Do I want flatter abs and how can I live without the Flirty Girl Fitness Dance video as seen on TV.
I mean, really....if I had a pesty penis I'm sure Id be spending my days thinking about the hair removal thing!

but, instead,  I thought I'd try my hand at pretzel making. Bearing in mind that I do NOT cook or bake...these would have to be UTEE pretzels.

Lets start by filling the melting pot with a few different UTEE Brightz. and, after they melt pouring them out on the non stick craft sheet

Now the other day, while casually wandering around the local mall (& this is a surprise to whom ?)  I found myself in the Sur LaTable cooking store. I saw this pretzel making cookie cutter thing and figured it might work like regular cookie cutters.....

of course, that was NOT the case...despite greasing it with Clear Embossing ink. I only had one successful try...my first...but it IS very cute and I just might have to add a jewelry bale to it and wear it.

Now Id like to pass along some other good stuff....how about a contest from my friend Kimberly Moore thats on her blog. She's designed this creative image and wants some suggestions on how to finish it ATC size.

Then I found this project on the JUNKMARKET site which I loved and wished I had a room I could do this in (I have all recessed lighting)

and, here is a terrific hand clapping, foot stomping rendition of a favorite Jewish Folksong of mine..Hava Negila (which translated means, Let Us Rejoice).  Everyone should enjoy this.

and now..I will proceed to my craft room and attempt to try something new.

A note from TUT

I'm cuing up the weird music...na na na na....na na na na

I subscribe to TUT - a note from the universe that comes in my email every day...todays note was as follows:
It's true, Suze, the early bird gets the worm.

So does the late bird and the bird in-between. Because by design, there are always more than enough worms.

In fact, the only bird that doesn't get a worm, is the bird that doesn't go out to get one.

Oh, to be alive.... The Universe

Now, just yesterday I was making bird things so this seemed a little Twilight Zoney to me. How did the all seeing, all knowing TUT know about me and the bird things. I need to ponder this one for at least 10 minutes before I change the channel in my brain !

I must give props to my darling friend Debbie Tlach from Ranger who is published in this months Paper Crafts magazine.

 

Meow at the Moon card

Tonight I attended a spectacular event at the clubhouse in my development.

 

I belong to the Brandeis University National Women's Committee and have done some workshops for them. They were honoring those facilitators tonight

 

A group of these terrific women did a musical skit (that they wrote) that lasted about 30 minutes and was hilarious...especially in their custom made shirts that said "Jersey Girls do Jersey Boys"

 

and I, (quite by some unforeseeable universe thing again !), discovered that one of the ladies graduated Midwood High School, Brooklyn, with me in '61. Pat Levine (formerly Firestone) ...what a hoot. I immediately came home and looked her up in my yearbok.

 

Well....eat...eat more...and be merry...that's my theory ! Not me of course..I'm still on the no sugar thing.....but you can have one for me..that's allowed !

Killing two birds.....etc, etc..

I have become obsessed with birds.
I have no idea what prompted this. I sit outside and watch them, I feed them, I tweet at them and now I'm busy waxing them.

No...No..I'm not waxing any real ones, altho I have bought a few of those relatively real looking fuzzy ones at the craft store that I've waxed. Looks real (pre-waxing) , right?


Once...years ago...one of my cats killed a bird in the yard and I was so upset that I took the poor dead thing and stuck it back on the tree branch and taped its feet to stay upright.  That lasted about 2 hours till The Lenster came home, thought I'd cracked up and removed it.
I really just wanted to see the cats reaction.

Today I waxed a bird that I found in a Pier 1 last month on the sale table.

I was very anxious to play with the new set of Pan Pastels Dark Colors that just came out.

Waxed it...pasteled it.

I made the decision to sponge the color on instead of just dropping little specks of pastels into the wax. I really wanted to see the colors. NOTE: Already wearing my new American Idol T Shirt !


So....the process is to wax, fuse the wax, add the pastels, fuse, wax again and so on.
I don't thnk you'll die if you forget to fuse (heat) once in a while.

I thought I'd try adding some torn napkin pieces to it. This is when I should have laid off the heavy application of pastels but an experiment is an experiment.

More wax...more fusing, you get it. the Hot Wax Stylus tool helped me smooth things a lot.

Added some feathers

The Lenster drilled some wood for me...I waxed that too...

This makes the 4th bird I've waxed.

Laying in wait is bird #5.  A cute small one that Wendy Vecchi gave me to 'do something with"....uh oh ! The flying creatures are taking over the house.

I decided to mold it using Mold n Pour



Then, I poured the beeswax into the mold and set the feather and the wire into the wax to harden inside




When it completey cooled I used the pastels & then went over the surface lightly with a heat gun to fuse the wax and move the color around a bit. What a great effect. The poor little beak fell off a few times but I finally got the wax to stay put.


It absolutely looks like stone.


My mold will be good forever - for any product - so I melted some UTEE Violet Brightz and some Blue Iris Brightz (on sale..on sale !) and poured......OH WOW ! They just flowed together and formed this faaaahbulous pattern.



and...on that note I'll just say...May the bluebird of happiness fly up your nose !

Don't Stop Believin'

OMG....OMG and another OMG....
My reaction to this, my 8th, and most fabulous American Idol concert to date.

My reaction to Adam Lambert gives me flutters. He is the most mega talent ever. So unconcerned about his sexuality. So charismatic. So brilliant in his choice of songs and his delivery. OMG...did I say that already ? I was speechless just as soon as he walked out.

But first...as we pulled into the parking lot the young kids were already there with signs for their favorites.



I didn't have a sign, but I did have my very own, one of a kind, Adam Lambert bottlecap necklace that I whipped up about an hour before we left.
I found an interesting pix of him online, printed it, stuck it in the bottlecap, poured Clear UTEE over it, added two jewelry bales (top & bottom which I glued on with super glue), added a bauble and some Tiara Stickles around the cap edges and it was good to go.

Then, the program book photo that I do every year


and then we took our FABULOUS 1st level, row 9 center seats and took it all in.


at intermission I perused the T shirts because I am, after all, a total groupie


and the finale was Dont Stop Believin' which was completely amazing !


and oh yes,  I wore my special Inspired socks from Donna Downey..


next up for us...the So You Think You Can Dance live tour concert in September. This will be our 3rd time for that one.

STAY YOUNG FOLKS.....THINK YOUNG....YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE !!!