Happy Birthday!!

Today is Taryn's birthday & she wanted everyone to know that she turned 6!! Taryn has been one of the best additions to our family!! Our children are of the 4-legged kind & we have 3 wonderful kids!!

LOVE those ears!! We chose to not clip her ears after she was born. Taryn is a red, German Pinscher & at the time we got her back in 2003, German Pinschers had only been AKC recognized for about a year, they were UKC recognized originally. In Europe, it is common to not dock the tails or clip the ears. We had her tail docked (when she was first born), but liked the look of the original ears (besides, we felt clipping the ears to be cruel.)

We often get comments, when we take her on walks or to dog parks, "she looks like a deer." If you ever watch her run through tall grass, she does leap like a deer & she is fast, she LOVES to run with the greyhounds at the dog park.

Every spring/summer, we tend to have problems with moles (oh did I tell you, she's a ratter, since her breed was originally bred with terrier) as for kills, she has 2 moles, 6 rats & an oppossum & she wants you to know that the squirrels keep her busy, running along the back fence in the summer. Anyway, when the mole mounds pop up in the yard, my DH will go out, Taryn following, & we will place mole traps in the yard. To place the trap, we have to dig out the dirt from the yard, so the DH will flip it all over the yard. Taryn LOVES to try to catch the dirt clods & yes, she's fast!

This was her very first day with us, poppa's laying on the floor to play with her. The first few nights were rough since we think she was having separation anxiety from her mom & her siblings, she'd cry through the night, so poppa slept on the kitchen floor with her the first few nights. (I never thought we'd make it through potty training!)

Our little girl is so absolutely fabulous & we love her SO much!! And poppa says that momma spoils her too much, but I don't think poppa is too far behind. He's the one that told her that we'd got to Dairy Queen to get her ice cream for her birthday tonight, vanilla of course!!

This & That........

Sorry, it's been awhile since my last post. Remember the cold I thought I had? It ended up being a sinus infection AND it happened around the same time as the snow storms we keep seeming to have. Eventhough, the snow kept me from getting to work, I really didn't feel well enough to do any creating except for the journal below, that was a custom order for one of my co-workers.

© 2008 Tracy Borders

This journal is made from raw silk, hand dyed brown, Angelina fibers & turquoise eyelash yarn. The turquoise strap is leather & I just love that dragonfly button. I've actually found a bead store that carries these in quite a few different colors.

I was very excited to see that one of my molding paste journal pictures was chosen for the Yahoo Group, Surface Design's home page photo.

I have to say, this might be my most favorite journal yet!!

I mentioned the snow earlier..........first of all, let me say, in Seattle, we might see a total of 2" of snow all winter (if we're lucky) & many winters we don't see any. Over this past week, we have seen up to 18" of snow in some areas. At my house............9". We've had two snow storms, one with wind gusts in the foothills as high as 90 mph. We're to see another snow storm tomorrow night. I'm really tired of shoveling my sidewalks and driveway, which I might add, no one else seems to know to do this. The DH and I grew up in Iowa, so we learned, after a snow, you dig out. You can tell who the transplants are around here by who shovels after a snow. (I bet the neighbors thought that we were nuts shoveling at night and first thing in the mornings.) But I have to tell you, we're the only ones around now with dry sidewalks & the driveway.

Here's just a couple of pics from of our house and all of the snow. How soon 'til summer?

Proximity Award

Sherry has shared the Proximity Award with me. Thank you Sherry!!

This award states that: This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY- nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends, they are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.

I would like to in turn share this award with Michele, Michelle, Lynda, Carole & Cheryl.

Not only did Sherry give me the Proximity Award, but I think she gave me her cold too. :) It has been slowly coming on for about a week now & I woke up on Sunday with NO voice & no energy whatsoever. I stayed home from work on Monday, to save my throat (since the main part of my job is communicating verbally, whether on the phone or in person). Went to work today (will see how long I can last). As for a voice, I now have that deep phone sex voice, so I don't think I'll be answering my phone at work today. :)

A Little Bling...............

Well, the visiting family is gone & now back to work!! Am so excited, a co-worker placed a 4 piece custom order (possibly 5) with me & she needs it by Christmas. Fortunately, the company I had was understanding enough to allow me to do a little each night to work on these four pieces. Should every thing go as planned (which it never seems to do), I should have them finished by Monday & I can start working on another custom order that I just received yesterday from another co-worker. If I don't think about it too much, I won't stress that I have only two more weeks to get all of the pieces that I had planned to get done, done by Christmas.

© 2008 Tracy Borders

Every year, the company that I work for, picks 1 or 2 families that might need a little extra help at Christmas. We all sign up for different items on their wish lists. I saw that the mother wished for bracelets, so I signed up & made these for her. The two outside bracelets are made from Bali silver & fresh water pearls. I scored those brown spiral beads in the center bracelet, while I was shopping for something completely different at a bead store. Don't worry, I picked up extra "just in case" I want to use them for something for me. :)

(I hope the mother likes these.)

I came across this necklace below, this past weekend while out doing the "tourist" shopping thing with my visiting family.

I fell in love with it right away. One of my friends loves Celtic things so I bought it for her for Christmas. I might have to go back & see if they have another one for ME :)

(if you're wondering, because it was my first question too, this is not made from bone, it's actually made from porcelain)

Wonderful weekend!!

I was able to complete over 9 art projects during my 4-day holiday weekend. It was wonderful!! I felt like a machine, but that was ok, it kept me from getting bored & snacking all day. Hmmmm, could creating art possibly become a new diet? :)

I created 3 different journals, 2 for my Etsy store & one was a custom order for a friend. The first journal below, I think might be my absolute favorite!! The photos just don't do it the justice that it deserves. If you can imagine the colors in a peacock feather, this is the colors that you can see in this journal & the light plays with the colors as you change the angle of viewing at this journal.

© 2008 Tracy Borders

For Sale

This entire journal was an experiment. New materials, new clasp, new idea of adding a refillable pocket for a spiral notepad (that I made) instead of sewing in signatures. (Love the new clasp!)

Not to break my arm patting myself on the back, but I figured out how to add the refillable pocket to hold the spiral notepad on my own. I could have checked out Fibre & Stitch's free padfolio pattern, but I wanted to figure it out myself, since everything else was an experiment with this journal.

A little note that might make you giggle about the notepads. I had this brainstorm to make my own notepads.......make some with "art" chipboard fronts & some without to just fit in journals like these. Well I needed the wire binding combs. Do you know how hard it is to find wire binding combs locally? It's impossible. So off to the internet to surf. I searched for over a week to find the smallest quantity I could order for the best price......................yeah, I now am the proud owner of 140 wire bindings combs, but wait................ I can make two spiral notepads from one binding comb, so now I have 280 wire binding combs. Ok, so it is funny, but it ISN'T!! I'm never going to go through THAT many combs & the worst part, finding a place to store that huge box. Don't think the DH has seen it yet since I haven't received a scolding yet :)

The journal below, is made from painted brown paper bags & I decided to create lined pages for the signatures this time.

© 2008 Tracy Borders

For Sale

The closure, seen in the close up below is made from Ebony. I learned a lesson when cutting this wood on my DH compound saw, you know the saw you can use to cut mitered edges? If you seem a little nervous about cutting a small piece of wood, let the DH do it. I tried to cut it, but apparently didn't have a firm grip on the piece of wood. When I brought the saw down to cut it, it ripped it from my hand, the piece of wood, circled around & came back & smacked me VERY hard on the knuckle right above my wedding ring & turned it purple instantly. I found the piece that hit my finger, but have NO idea where the other piece landed. So while I was icing to get the swelling to go down, the husband cut the wood for me. It's now day 5 since the accident & it's just now starting to feel better. I think I can say happily, that it's not broken.

The hurt finger didn't stop me though, I was able to continue creating. I was able to finish some Christmas ornaments for a swap that I'm in. I tried many times to photograph a couple of hand-dyed cotton velveteen ornaments & for some reason, the colors never seemed to turn out well, so am sorry that I'm not able to post those here.

I did manage to get a couple of Rayon/Silk Velvet scarves hand dyed & stamp embossed.

© 2008 Tracy Borders

Not For Sale

The scarf on the left is dyed with Pro Chem's Deep Navy & the beautiful emerald green scarf is dyed with Dharma's Better Blue Green.

I almost forgot......................a post or two ago, I mentioned about making a journal cover using molding paste & how I had such a hard time with it cracking while it dried. Well I was able to make those cracks work for me in this photo below. Am thinking of adding them to a journal cover front. I rubber stamped the molding paste while it was still wet. After it dried, I applied Golden's Iron Oxide & then lightly buffed it with a soft cloth to remove some of the color. Reminds me of old stone tiles.

I probably won't post much the rest of this week since I have family coming in for the first part of next week. I do hope to have another journal cover finished by the end of next week to post that I've been working on. I used molding paste again & squiggle rubber stamps. Intentions were for it to be in my store, but I think that I'm liking it so much, I just might have to keep it :)