Gadabout Artist: Playing in the Sunshine...

Well, we are firmly ensconced in sunny Yuma, AZ, and enjoying days of 70+ degree weather. I have no real complaints, we are hooked up to power and water, so no more batteries or sponge baths, very nice after dry camping in the desert for so long. There are many wonderful snow-birds to meet and I spent a lovely evening playing bingo with 253 of them! No beginners luck for me, though...too bad, it would have helped pay for all the extra beads and art supplies I bought in Quartzsite!

There are not a lot of art supplies available there, but a store appropriately named,  "Addicted To Deals" seems to be a clearing house for just about anything under the sun, and they had a wonderful assortment of scrapbooking supplies. The large rubber stamps were only 3 for $5 and the sets were under $2. I think they will be great for my ATCs and the art I am working on for Art-o-mat. Speaking of which, one of our new neighbors here is a wood worker, I am going to ask him later today if he might be willing to cut out the little blocks of MDF that I need for my first shipment to Art-o-mat. I have been working on the art, and had planned to affix them to the blocks once we returned home, but this would allow me to ship much earlier. There is a lot of trading of skills back and forth down here, and I thought I might join in...

Here are just a few of the beads I bought, there are hundreds of tents and stores selling them in Quartzsite, and you can find everything imaginable for jewelry making. I haven't been in the jewelry business for a very long time, but I just could not resist, old habits die hard. So when I finally get around to opening that Etsy shop, you will likely find a collection of jewelry as well as art. My sweet daughter has recently started making jewelry, so she will receive some as well. She likes the more ethnic/hippy style, so these pendants and wood and coral beads were purchased for her. Until next time, enjoy...

Dirt, dirt, dirt...

Today I moved dirt, nothing else really. Nothing creative, artsy or even fun...

You see, we have this very under utilized storage shed, complete with power and water. But it has never had a floor in it, just dirt. It started out as a goat shed, so I guess you could say I spent the day shoveling poo. Ancient poo. So old that it doesn't smell bad, just smells like dirt.

 So I came up with the idea to put a floor in it. The shed I mean. So I could use it as a wood shop, for building frames, benches, birdhouses, what ever...

  Little did I know, to build a floor, you need floor joists, actually, I did know this, but I didn't know we would have to dig down 12" in order to install them...

  Because the building has four walls, all we could do was bring in a wheelbarrow, and fill it up shovel by shovel and haul it away to the garden. (I wonder if the dirt would grow veggies well next year, it is certainly composted after all this time!) So we dug out all this dirt, and drilled into the concrete perimeter to attach ledger boards. One of the walls was calcified and porous, it wouldn't hold the anchor bolts. We will have the pour footers underneath. We now have half the joists installed, and plan to get the others in tomorrow. Sometime in and around cleaning out one of our rentals that was left a complete mess...

  In the mean time, I am sore, stiff and sore and hoping someone will come along and help me out of my chair so I can hobble off to bed and sleep a very long time...Night night, all...