TiLT Bags: Fear The Pretty!

'Scuse me folks, pardon our dust; I know things haven't been as busy here as they might be. I've been working on my OWOH winner prizes (so fun! But time consuming...) and my Etsy shop, and plenty of other stuff that I'm afraid isn't too relevant here (at least yet..) and the blog is falling down a bit, I know.

Also there was SNOW, the Apocalypse I Am Not Prepared For. So that slowed me down, what with Ragnarok and the killing of Fenrir and the ship of dead men's nails riding across the sky and all.

But I am digging myself out of the Pit of Productivity to help the Etsybloggers team share news of a great threat, Tilt Creations.

Now it might seem, on first examination, that Tilt is just a sweet, very slightly geekish blogger that happens to make gorgeous handbags. That's the impression given by her shop....



Aw, it's pretty.

Or go read her very sincere and chatty blog. Aw, she's sweet!

But look closer. There are dark secrets hidden in that innocent patter. And if you examine the dark corners of the TiLT shop, you find....



ZOMBIES!

Yes, it is my grim but real duty to inform you that TiLT is, in fact, not a sweet crafty woman with a flair for accessories, but a dark corporate concern building a Zombie Army of denim and gabardine! The store, the blog, these are distractions, made to lead the eye away from the nefarious master scheme of TiLT (and look at that capitalization! Clearly an acronym! Total Industrial Life Takeover, perhaps?)!

But we can turn these cover schemes back against the would-be overlords, if we work quickly!Buy every handbag; comment on every blog post! Keep TiLT so busy preserving their facade they don't have time to work on their zombie army! It's our only hope!

No, Seriously. SNOW.

I was going to share a post about TiLT, one of my Etsyblog buddies, today. But instead I opened the door and saw THIS:







And everything was canceled.

Seriously. There is snow on the ground, it's STICKING, and it's already thick enough to cover cat feet. I don't know if I'm excited or terrified, because this is deeply unnatural, but either way: this is what has my full attention, now.

So enjoy your day, and may your weather patterns be less alarming! I will be making emergency cocoa.

The Problem With Painting

The problem with painting- and, I suspect, with any craft- is that it takes so darn long. So for instance, I spent alllll day Friday plotting out pictures, and allll day Saturday painting, and I have...this:

...which is to say, a scannerbed full of embryonic paintings. Two, actually; I ain't even showing half the work I cranked out. I know some people out there are saying "Well, why not focus on one painting until it's done, instead of making a whole bunch that aren't", and the answer, dear darling readers, is that paint needs time to dry. Especially for the stuff I'm doing, here, which is a lot of playing with textures and overlays. So the best use of my paint-time is to do a bunch of work in a setting, rotating pieces as they hit the dry-and-wait stage.

The deeper problem, with me, is that I have a brainspan of maybe a day. I can always come back to a project, yes, but my working time before a migraine/seizure knocks me flat is 8-16 hours. And if I can't get a project to a pretty good level of completion before then, I'm liable to forget what the heck I was trying to do, and unlikely to remember in the next couple weeks. I have projects it took siz months to finish, just because I totally forgot about their existence or purpose.

This is why I don't drive, by the way. "Huh, that light's red now! Pretty! Wonder why it changed..."

Anyway, I'm staring at these now, and I think I know where to go with them. But only because I made some detailed careful sketches and notes along the way. So today's question for you, gentle readers (and violent readers too, of all people I want the violent ones on my side) is: How does your internal art department function? Can you work on a thing daily for weeks? Do you need a deadline? Can you crank out whatever you need whenever it's asked for?

One World, One Heart, Six Winners!

Wow, what a wild crazy blogtastic carnival it's been on the OWOH Magic Carpet Ride! Thanks to everyone who came by and said Howdy, especially those of you who had to cross oceans and mountains and vast linguistic barriers to do it, and especially especially all those from everywhere who decided to follow me afterwards and see what kind of mess I stumble into. I suppose now I'll have to actually be interesting! Scary!

But this post is sure to be interesting to at least six people, because it's time to reveal my One World, One Heart WINNERS! And since you amazing people left almost 600 comments, that's six names drawn! Six fascinating people to get Mystery Prizes! Drumroll please:

JULIE SMITH, who likes ballet, longswords,and foreign films!

BIRGIT, who favors the Old West, Mystery books, and the color Teal!

ANGIE HALL HAVILAND, who like purple, nifty fibers and paper, and cows!

JENNIFER HALL, who likes fabricky craft supplies, Retro Kitsch, and Montsers!

And finally, two people with something in common,

CONNIE! From Chicago! Who likes pale pink roses, postcards, and anything Japanese,

and

MISS KOOL AID, aka Sophie, who likes cats, tea, and vampires!

What do those last two have in common? They also apparently like living the whirlwind life of super spies, who are very hard to get hold of through blatant cover investigations like "email". I hope they appear soon, because those are awesome art prompts! Connie! Sophie! Let me know you're out there! And, well, where. I need a place to send the prizes, you know! If I don't hear back from you by Thursday, I'll have to draw other winners! And that would be sad.

Everyone else-- thank you, very sincerely, for playing along. I loved the answers to my question, and am deeply touched at the faith some of you have in my craftsmanship (I can't create children, folks, no matter how much you love them! Well, I mean, I can. But it would take nine months, and be rather more involved than a simple blog prize can reasonably justify.) In those 500 + comments I've got enough art inspiration to keep any artist hopping for years! And writing, too, since I am absolutely writing to everyone who took the time to leave a personal message. Ya'll are fascinating!

And for everyone who joined in OWOH, whether you left a comment here or not, another thank you. Lisa, the brave founder of the event, calls this a simple blog giveaway, and says it won't change the world, and she's probably right. I visited every blog on the list, which meant about a thousand people- a thousand people who opened their doors to strangers from all over the world, people I would never have encountered or read otherwise. All of us are carrying different labels, different political views; we're all busy with our own lives, and maybe most of us wouldn't talk if we met in person. But for a few weeks, with the room for just one blog post, everyone on the OWOH list was able to tell the world one thing, and everyone shared their passion, their craft, the things they love, for no other reason except to let other people enjoy it too. That's not exactly World Peace, but it is pretty darn awesome.

Thank you, Lisa, and thank you, fellow bloggers!

Seeking Discontent

It's raining, a slow determined rain that clearly means to stay a while. Our tin roof is singing a low constant rumble counterpoint to the folk rock on the CD player.
I am curled up, with two cats vying for lapspace, strong coffee, and absolutely no motivation whatsoever. Rainy days like this always leave me feeling wiped out, slightly sore, and dangerously content, as though I've achieved some mighty goal. I know it's pure primal animal content, a basic sense of wellbeing in contrast with the weather; and the only thing I did to earn it was to be born into a wealthy nation in the late 20th century*, which was admittedly very clever of me, but not a trick I can well repeat in this lifetime.

Nonetheless, I am just way too happy to Do Anything. I have many blogs due, and I will be busy as a one-toothed threshing machine in harvest next week, when the drawings for my OWOH prizes happen (are you all excited? I am VERY excited! Eeee, maybe I'll even get up to 600 posts and get to pick SIX winners! Come on come on come on, people!), but until I can find enough dissatisfaction with current affairs to lift a colloidal cat, I am afraid this is all the blog you're getting.

Let me make it up to you, and leave you with Something You Can Do At Home:

Cara's Super Fast Home Face Scrub!
Two tablespoons plain yogurt
1 tsp baking soda
(all measurements approximate-- feel free to upsize your amounts, mess around with ratios, whatever! Do try this at home!)

Mix baking soda and yogurt. Look at it fizz! It's like a baking soda volcano, only not, you know, so destructive. No little sugar island people watching their homes buried under vinegar lava, or anything. And now you're going to put it on your face! Rub in with a face cloth; wipe off with hot water. This works like a milk bath, with the lactic acid, and the teeny tiny soda crystals give just enough scrubbiness for a quick face exfoliation. It's also really really nice on the scalp, but you'll want to rinse out super well if you go that route.

Edible, non-toxic, and horribly mind-burningly non-tasty. Do Not Eat This Anywhere.

*Yes, it's the 21st now, but I was born in the 20th.