You can make ANYTHING

Once my aunt told me, "If you can make a chinese dragon, you can make anything." Well, I have made a chinese dragon (Halloween 2007). And I pretty much try to make all kinds of things. When I'm out and about and see something I usually say to myself, and sometimes out loud,  "I can make that." The problem is usually materials. But when I can find what I want to use to create whatever vision I have in my head, the results are something like this.

I saw a necklace like this some time ago. I knew I could make one myself. I just kept forgetting to get the beads. I sat down one afternoon last week and figured it out. After only a couple of beads I had the hang of it, and the necklace came together quite easily. If I can generate enough interest I may add it to my Sylvia-Louise shop. But even if I don't sell them, I will enjoy wearing it and probably making more.

SPRING SALE

Sylvia-Louise Handbags Spring Sale!

04/06/10-04/20/10

Hop on over to

www.sylvialouise.etsy.com

and check out all the recently reduced items in our "SALE" section!

Handbags are 25-30% off!

(Some actually have a deeper discount because I rounded down to the nearest 0 or 5)

Take advantage of these lower prices before they are gone. 

A Childhood Dream Come True

Music was a huge part of our growing up. We were VERY creative as children. One of our favorite shows was Kids Incorporated. It was a show about kids who form their own band and perform on stage at The Place. We had our own place---anywhere we could set up the vacuum as a microphone and strap on racquetball racquets as guitars. We even called it "playing kids incorporated."

Our first performances were set to old Beach Boys records. Our first CD player opened up a whole new world to us. The Beatles quickly became a favorite, but we could sing to almost any song on any oldies CD. We each took turns singing lead vocals.

These performances evolved into a series of Family Favorites videos of us lip syncing in costume in front of sometimes elaborate backdrops or out on location.

As children, we were all required to take piano lessons. DD and Steele both taught themselves how to play guitar. And Steele can play electrical guitar too. I could never quite master the coordination it takes to play the right chords and strum---let alone picking.

Here's where the "dream come true" part comes in. Aside from ACTUALLY being a band we have formed our virtual band Kicking Piguens thanks to Rock Band. Disclaimer: I am NO good at video games. We never had them growing up. But Rock Band is sooooo much more than a video game. I'm still not very coordinated when it comes to playing pretend guitar or bass, but I'm not too shabby on the drums (on easy) or vocals. Steele is AMAZING at everything. DD is the queen of bass and more aggressive on the drums than me. And we have even persuaded mom and dad that it's fun! I guess we're all a little bit of a rock star at heart.

Our world of pretend has just gotten a little more real. And we can wail away to some of our favorite tunes. We've been known to play for hours at a time---switching instruments and positions for lead and back up vocals. It's a good thing DD and I live up north or we might never stop playing! ROCK ON!

Next time we're in San Diego, I'll take some new photos of the band to post later.

2 Greetings For 1

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope you're all wearing green!

(but if you aren't, don't worry, I'm not a pincher)

But more importantly---

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 

Grandma Wilde!

Etsy.com Treasury Obsession

It's official. I am obsessed with the Treasury feature on Etsy.com. Now that I know how do do one I can't stop thinking about what my newest treasury will be. What to title it? Which items to include? Is it worth staying up until 2 am creating and then emailing the featured sellers? I was just going to check my email quick and then go to bed, but when I saw that the main Treasury was about to open I figured staying up a little later wouldn't hurt me. It did. It was Saturday night---daylight savings. This photo was my inspiration. DD has been shopping around for London decor for her new office if she ever transfers over to financial aid, and this is something I stumbled across last week. I loved it! Hence the new Treasury.

Bear Lake House

My Grandma Wilde grew up in Garden City, Utah. Her childhood home is right on the main drag at Bear Lake, right next door to The Pickleville Playhouse. Almost everyone who has visited Bear Lake has seen this house. It is quite a house. Originally it was a grain silo. It has had many additions over the years and the staircase has a lot of character. No step has the same width. The third step from the bottom is extremely slim. The carpet can be a little slippery and many a visitor has slipped down the stairs, crashing and causing the entire house to shake. I could tell so many stories---perhaps another time.

I took a photo from this angle a few years ago. It's different from every other photo taken of this house from straight on. I've talked about doing a project with this house forever. First I thought I would do a colored pencil rendering on mat board. It was one of my favorite mediums way back when. My first excuse being that I needed new colored pencils. My set mysteriously got depleted when DD used them for projects at MUD a few years ago. I got new colored pencils. My second excuse was I had no mat board to work on. So, since I've been trying to paint more (I still have unfinished paintings I'm getting up the motivation to  complete) I decided to try a watercolor.

The artist is always the severest critic of their own work. I'm not too happy with the results. I know better than to use white paint. It is too opaque and changes the properties of the paper. The house is very white in real life and leaving the paper to be the color of the house wasn't an option since the paper is very ivory. I thought at one point I had ruined the whole thing, but was able to sort of salvage it. The painting might get matted and framed. I'll have to see what the family consensus is this weekend.

As is pretty typical with me---if there is anything I really like about a painting I do it is usually some small part. And oddly enough it is almost always a tree. I love trees. So here is the part I like best.

Grandma Wilde's birthday is next week. I'm not sure if she'll get this as a present or not yet. She's my grandma, so of course she will love it. I just don't know if I want her hanging it in her house for everyone to see. It will still be a surprise if no one tells her about it. And since she doesn't blog I'm pretty sure my secret is safe until the big day. Shhh!

The Saga of an Etsy Treasury

I love the Treasury feature on Etsy.com. I've been featured in Treasuries for both of my shops, but never tried to create one myself. Some of the ladies on Twitter were counting down until new Treasury listings opened up, so I hopped on over to Etsy to try my luck. Now, I could have done something wrong, but after I created my Treasury the whole system froze and it wouldn't load my page. When I checked back later only my title existed, but the wonderfully yellow collection of things I had gathered was no longer there. Grr!

Instead of trying to recreate my original Treasury I created a Treasury more appropriate to my title, "Yellow Submarine." Check it out for all things Beatles, submarines, octopus, and underwater fantasy.


I LOVE The Beatles. Was raised on The Beatles. Am listening to The Beatles right now.