Orange, how about you?

Lately (within the past few years) I've been drawn more and more to the color orange. It's not a color that somebody would say was their "favorite" but as an accent color I think it adds a certain zing! Inspired by the orange (by the way, no other word in the English language rhymes with "orange"), I created these poker chip pendants. I put copper wire bales on a few of them.

The Magician

Benevolent maker of magic with china blue eyes, his showmanship will amaze you!

Lucky Numbers?
There are times when I'm compelled to place numbers here and there in a collage I'm creating. I don't know why I have to do it but the number pops into my head and I HAVE to then put it in the artwork! Strange because I'm a word person rather than a number person.

The Seeker
Sometimes I make up little stories about my artwork, for example, this one: She's the funky Queen Librarian who is always "seeking" the answer from a dusty tome plucked from a shelf as she flies from ladder to ladder in the stacks! Her name is Hildergarten Flugerburger.

Thanks friends for all of the wonderful comments about the blue and chocolate brown altered coasters in the last post! They were fun to make! Your comments are always appreciated and mean a lot to me.

Orange you glad you stopped by? I sure am glad you did!

Happy Saturday!

Ahhh Saturday, don't you just love it! It's pretty windy and cold here but the sun came out and the sky is clearing so all is right with the world! I spent a good portion of the day at the Time and Again Shop Spring Open House and it was a smashing success! My friend Tracey came over from Akron and we had a great time. She's a very talented altered art artist and you can see Tracey's works on Flickr. I got to meet a super fiber artist at the open house whose works you can view in a few posts before this one and her name is Chris. I'm fascinated by the detail and devotion she has to her craft.

Below you'll find a few new works (poker chip pendants, bird pendants and beeswax collages) just completed this week in the studio but rather than just show you the pictures I've decided to turn them into illustrations for a little story about life.........

Life is not always a day at the beach.......

or a bowl full of cherries...........

and somedays if seems like everybody wants you to fetch something for them......

And I know there are days when you feel like you don't want to leave your warm, safe nest.....



However, life is a long race and in the end, it's only you that you are racing against, so be original and........

Shoot for the moon because you just might land on it or at least fall among the stars!

That being said, continue to do these things for a happy life........... LOVE......

Be FREE.........

And sock away a NEST EGG for the future!

THE END

A Unique Jewelry Display & A Funny Story.....

Greetings from the Honey Girl Studio! I have been very busy lately getting ready for a spring open house this weekend at the Time and Again Shop (see previous post for directions).

This is me circa 1973...... second grade!

The weather is getting warmer and every morning I wake up to birds singing. I love to hear them, it makes me smile! I have an artist friend in England named Hope (see pixieponderings1966 on my blog roll) and she made these wonderful bird nest pendants. I was so taken with them that I had to try some for myself! I think they are darling!

I added different bird quotes on each card.......

I found these little feather charms to add to them.....just like you'd find in a real bird's nest.

So I needed a jewelry display for the poker chip pendants and bird nest pendants. Hmmmm....what to use? Well I got this idea that I'd collage a picture and put it in a big frame so that I could change it seasonally. My husband came up with the idea of placing Velcro on the glass then put the other piece on the back of each pendant card. Ta-da! It works! He's a genius!

This is a picture of the collage without the Velcro dots stuck on it..........

This is the frame with all of the pendants hung on it..........

Pretty cool, eh?

Now for a little story......as with some artwork there is an interesting story that goes with it. Here is my funny little tale......
A few weekends ago I was at my moms and I was doing decorative painting on a black desk to take to the Time and Again Shop, well my mom and my brother's girlfriend were there talking to me while I was painting and it was about 500 degrees in my mom's house (they have their own gas well, so they keep it hot!), my dad and brother were in and out of the kitchen where I was painting so there was a lot of talking and hub-bub going on. Then my mom's dog Buddy came in was acting all funning wanting to jam himself right up against me (getting his hair in my paint). As it turns out he was chasing a car and it bumped him so he was a little upset(maybe that will teach him not to chase cars).....by the way, he's ok, but I digress.........
I get the desk all painted with numbers and letters all around the edge of the top of desk with hydrangea sprigs in each corner....it looked great and I took it outside and sprayed it with clearcoat then loaded it in the car and took it to Hazel. The next day I get a message on my cell....."the desk looks great but, I've been taking a lot of ribbing about the number 11, namely, what happened it it?" Appearantly, in the commotion I painted "8,9,10, 12, 13, 14, 15"!

I knew I had the chair to paint yet so I called Hazel back and said, "I know what happened to the number 11........it fell off and landed on THE CHAIR!" And here it is........right where it landed, on the chair!

I hope you all have a wonder Wednesday out there in blogland! Remember "today is a gift, that's why the call it the present"!
Smiles-
Melissa

My New Obsession.....

My friend Tracey sent me 6 clay filled regulation size poker chips in the mail last week. I stacked them up on the end table and played with them, clicking them together for about a week before inspiration hit me...... now I can't stop making these poker chip pendants! It's a challenge to try to get a mini collage crammed into a 1.5 inch round disk.

Here is finished one with the metal bale glued on it.........

Here is the back of the pendant. You could always wear this side too!

More French inspired pendants..........Ooo-la-la!


Artsy-fartsy pendants.......

Easter pendants.........

These pendants are going to a spring open house at the Time and Again Shop! It's about 1 hour north of Pittsburgh and about 1 hour east of Youngstown. Time and Again is wonderful shop jammed with quality vintage items as well as one of kind handmade decorative items from local artists. The open house is April 4,5,6th. The Honey Girls Studio is featured at this open house and I'll be there on Saturday from 10:00 to 2:00 to personalize the bunny pots I painted.
Here is the address: 2213 Perry Highway
Greenville 16125 Phone: (724) 253-4901

Don't forget to check out the previous post to enter to win the Easter collage! Just become a follower of this blog and you are automatically entered.