BioShield

Ok, so in my last post I ment to talk about the kind of pigments I was using to make my paint. I got distracted in the middle of posting last night and totally forgot, darn it. All our pigments are BioShield pigments, this is a great company to know about.
In the beginning of our eternal quest to find responsible companies, we were searching for a way to make paints that did the least harm to the planet. We learned about making our own linseed oil by buying organic flax oil and oxidzing it , it a very time consumming ordeal and quite expensive. But it makes beautiful paint and worth it, especially good for the conscious. We also learned that you don't need turp to clean your brushes, just some clean oil and time. This is also better for your bushes, they last longer because the oil act as conditioner, good bushes are actually made of hair, ya know. So than we needed pigments. Anyone knows that good pigments are toxic and many of them as horrible to the Earth because of mining and processing. Well, we did our homework and found BioShield. They sell pigments, paints, stains and cleaners primarily from naturally-derived raw materials. We took it a step farther and only bought the pigments that were kiln fired and all made from magensium and alluminum. This means that they are essentially neutral, unlike the usual mineral used to make these colors like cobalt and cadmium that are very toxic to breathe and toxic to the planet. Please, check it out, this is a grat company.

Studio

A bird close up

Here I am in my wee studio. I'm about to mix up some paints, my least favorite job, I wouldn't make a good chemist. See those birds there, that's what I'm mixing the paint for. These fancy birds will eventually become a mobile, a birthday gift for my Mother-in-law. It's a belated gift of course, always belated. I have to keep my reputation, ya know. The studio is going on a field trip tomorrow - my work. I always have some project there, sewing or graphic but I've never taken it as far as being paints and paraphernalia. You see, currently I have no online access at work... Can I say AAAHHHHHHAAAHHHHAAAHHH!!!!!? And I'm sure it will probably take them years to figure out how to fix the problem. So I must spend my evenings blogging, emailing and catching up, I rather do all this work when I've got time to kill. So instead I'm crafting anything I can at work, that is, whatever I can manage to schlep with me. Filling my time, because I cannot just sit there a stair at the wall, right?

Self Portrait Challenge - Imperfections

I'm so bummed I miss last weeks SPC. The weather was icky all week so I kept putting it off waiting for better light. And than it was too late. So I'm doing it early this week. The sun finally broke through so I took these in the last rays of light this evening hense the washed out look, which I kind a like.
So anyway this one all about my hair. Anyone knows me would say "WHAT!! Your hair is beautiful, how could say it's an imperfection". This is because everyone loves my hair and I'm being narcissistic here. My Grandmom would always say "people would pay good money to have your hair." I swear it's the only thing people rememeber me by, my only redeemable quality.
I was born with the usual baby curls that eventually turned straight. I had straight hair until I was about 11 when I hit puberty. I had very short hair and was trying to grow it out. I remember telling my Mom when I hair grows out I want a perm. Well... We went to salon asking for a perm and once my hair was washed and waiting to be done the hair dresser looked at me like I was crazy and I remember her saying' Oh honey you don't need a perm, you do need to stop brushing your hair and look you have perfectly curly hair."
That was it, the next 10 years of my life and my Mom's was hell. I hated my hair I mean really hated it. I tried every product, tried straighting perms. Anything to control my hair, it was (still is) thick and frizzy and curly and all I wanted is what everyone else had - easy straight hair. I drove my poor Mother insane. When we first did the straighting perm she would spend hours blow drying my hair straight, she was good to me....
Well, I've learned to handle this rats nest, as my Mom loves to call it. No more products anymore, no more straightening perms. Just natural oils, a mix very lusious oils acutally, that I call Greek hair oil. I originally got the mix in Greece on Santorini from this amazing man who owns a pharmacy there and distills his own essential oils and he made this mixture especially for my hair, he went to him home and made it himself. It was very special I'll never forget it. Anyway it's still not easy though, every other night I apply jojba oil to my scalp so when I wash my hair the next morning it will run through my hair and protect it from the soap. I can only use the super fatty soap that we make to wash it, no conditioner, apple cider vinegar treatment once and week. You see, it still rules my world. When it's a bad mood, so am I. It is very finicky.

But it is me, without it would be a much different person, when my hairs up and put away I feel different, not quite all the way me. It's kind of like what they say about a mans beard and how it's like a mask, well that's my hair, it's so much a part of my character.

I have been making stuff

I swear, I have..... For some reason I'm just not taking pictures of all the things I've working on over the last like months. Three quilts and I think three skirts and a bunch of other things later here I am. Anyway here is one of the shirts.. It's made from two pairs of the Bee's old corduroys. I had a whole stack of them waiting to be made into another corduroy quilt but one day I got an idea into my head and than procceeded to turn all those old corduroys into skirts , yes new skirts for me!! You know, how you turn an old pair of jeans into a skirt, the patterns are everywhere, well that all I did. One pair is different, I'll have to show it off 'cause it's my favorite. But this one is my least fav. out of them all, just because being that it is old corduroy, you can really tell with this skirt. But hey people would probably pay for such a thing in a store, so what am I complaining out... I do love the little applique owls though, I think they're just darling. I decided too that if the skirt does fall apart I can always remove the owls and use on something else, just incase, right?

Also I have finally joined a swap, yea!! The hostess with the mostess is Miss Hoping for Happy Accidents..... This is a new blog that been checking into, another creative kindred spirit. It is a beautiful useful object swap. Perfect for me since I love useful things. So much so that ,back when I was still in LA, I spent almost every evening in a ceramic studio and I was always struggling with making just art there was a huge part of me that needed to make eveything useful. I'm just too darn practical for my own use.

Adventures in a Pumpkin Patch!

I haven't done this in so long.... And I have no idea why, 'cause I love it... What is it about a pumpkin?? I love Pumpkins!!!!! They're so orange and cheery and smooth and round and each one has it's own character, it's own personality. So on the way home from work on Friday I saw sign that said pumpkin patch this way -->. So I said to the boy well if the weathers nice we're rifing our bikes to the pumpkin patch and getting ourselves a pumpkin or two... Well I was figuring the weather would be it's usual self and be gloomy, cold and windy especially it the farms where it's extra blustery... You see, if you say out loud I want to do this today if it's sunny or I'm going to do laundry today - meaning hang it on the line... Than sun goes away, it's a very spiteful sun around here, or am I just a superstitious Sqrl? Anyway, we had a delightful time in our pumpkin patch as you can see. We will be sacrificing one of them, for a feast on Samhain (Halloween).
Happy Autumn!

SPC - Imperfections

My tummy..... All my life I have struggled with this part of my body. It is one of the few things I hide. I've been hinding it so long that it's natural. My Mom used to always say, as I was crying over it, that one day I'd grow taller and lose my stomach... Well I believe I haven't grown an inch since 6th grade so there went that theory. It's only lately that I'm starting to except my body for what it is. I'm actually starting the love my self a lot more and I blame most of that on the Bee, by showing me that beauty is not just in super skinny. There was time when voluptuous women were considered beautiful. They were the subject of art. They were the ones being painted.

I wish that voluptuous could be beautiful again.

SPC

photo enhancing

Before

After - I really like this one, I was really able to punch up the color.

Before

After - way too painted
This is a new thing that I'm learning. I'm really going for the luminous landscape look. But I need the right picture to start. So as I was looking for the right picture in our photo library of something like 8,000 pictures I found Brooke's wedding pictures. They good but lacking... They were taking with our old camera so much room for adjusting. And it was so crazy and busy you gotta get the picutres when ya can, specially since both of us were in the party.

Contests

Design contests are a new thing for me... I discovered this concept when I stumbled across Design 21 They were doing a logo competition at the time and I had found it early enough to come up with something and enter. I did enter, but stupidly (long story, I was very mad at myself, I'm over it now) entered late, so I know I won't win. Still though, can't wait to see what they pick as the winner - winner gets $5,000 and they use their logo for the company. I have to say honestly I was more excited about them using my logo than the money, that was just and added bonus. So now I'm on to a new one for Fossil - you know the watch company, it seems they make clothing now too. They go for a vintage look, I had SO many ideas. That was probably the hardest part, picking which idea to go with. So I went for the dirty white t-shrits, rolled up blue jeans, greasy hand, tools and engines and of course a vintage tattoo. Here's a taste of what I'm entering. Oh it's for a tin design and deadlines in two days.

SPC - goods friends

kind of a silly picture of Brooke and I...


I have unusal friends.... Not unusal like they're wierd but like non two are similar. It's good... I wonder though what it would be like to have them all in the same room.. Humm.... It would certainly be interesting.... Brooke is one of those friends. We met because we suddenly became sister-in-laws, at the time she wasn't offically married to Andrew's brother but it was pretty obviously it was going to happen. Brooke and I have almost absolutely nothing in common. We don't agree on anything political, and have the same religious veiws, live completely different lifestyles. But you put us in the same room with eachother and we gravite to eachother like two magnets. And sort of forget everyone else in the room, although we're getting better at not doing that. It's a 2 hour minimum for a our phone conversations. It's a strange thing that such different people can get along so well... Well suppose that's the moral of that story - give everyone a chance regardless of your differences you never know what you'll find in between those differences...

Sqrl's List

I've been finding some really great stuff lately.
NOTCOT.ORG - I love this site there's always new stuff... A really great resource for random websites.
Inside A Black Apple - I love this girls style, love her dolls, love her paintings, it's all good!
Bird in Hand - Another lady whos got style.

this is good

Andrew sent this to me. It's from NPR
We Never Go Away: by Dennis Downey

I believe in genes and a forward flow of time and in all things visible and invisible.


Smaller than a light microscope sees,
a gene is a genie (is a ghost)
is one-half of each of us given by one-half of each parent.

Each of us comes from two parents
each of whom came from two parents
each of whom came from two parents
in an endless criss-cross of streams of time and persons going backwards

And each of us is as in our own incarnation
a soul inside a body
for some reason

a fire
a flame
a soul

what we desire
(that we desire)

Lighter than flesh, the soul is the glow of us.
The soul is the particular glow that the genes make when they make.
It's the soul that stands the body up and gets it moving forward.
Every body's soul is on a journey.

I believe we live in a solar system
that we go around a sun, the Sun
and that the Sun is a giant ball of flame.

I believe that most of the energy for everything on Earth
comes from the Sun except
for the energies of the Earth itself
because the Earth itself is also on fire.

Inside.
In the center.
At its core.
We know this from volcanoes.
That there is fire going on inside of the Earth.

We stand on an earth that is
a boiling ball of iron
on fire in space
spinning at its core as it circles a source of sunshine.

And each generation is short. A mutation.

first we're a child
then an adult
then a parent in turn to a child
then an old person
(hopefully)

with change, constant change all around us all ways through out
who wears what who's in charge what music sounds good

I believe that a book is a box.
Because a book carries something from some one person to another
And because it is used (and can be used) to carry ideas across time.
Which is how ideas build up.

And each of us is not only our own lives unwinding forward
but also a part of (and in service to)
the larger life of the tribe
which in turn is in service to the larger life of the species
which in turn is in service to a larger life source
lost in a bath of stars that is a galaxy
scattered in the hugeness of the universe.

We are not lost when we die.
We never go away.
Why would we go away?
When we're gone, we come back.

too much time in between

Two SPC's in a row with nothing in between, not good.. I guess I've been busy... Bad excuse.. I have been busy and with no pictures to show for it. What have been doing this whole time?? Well besides last weekend when I felt drugged, it was so wierd I had absolutely no motivation to do anything, very unlike me. At first I was starting to freak out a little - gotta get stuff done repeating over and over in my head - a wee bit of a workaholic, are we?? But than decided it was cool and went with it... Did manage to some really good progress done with a paper mache' project I've been working on. Promis to show that off soon. Also been turning Andrew's old corduroy's into skirts and lovin' it and appliquing them, ooo and their turning out really good. Other than that lots of thinking and figuring about packing and moving and that goes with it (sigh). Oh and above is a pot holder one for me and one my Dad - Why did God make little green apples?? Why did she anyway??

SPC - My Big Brother

This pictures a little fuzzy, but the one one really want to use is not on this computer so this will have to do.
This is my BIG brother. The gentle gaint. He is a man of few words but he sees everything. Very protective, very sensitive and very smart. Growing up we were like Tom and Jerry. Some episodes we were the best of friends and having a grand time but most we enemies at war, we weren't even permitted to sit next to eachother in a resturant. He was a mean old bully and I was the most annoying creature on Earth. Than we grew up and grew out of that stage much the delight of my parents. And here we are all grown up and married and living 3,000 miles away from eachother and missing eachother - if you would have told us that when we were younger, we would have never believed you. My brother is one of the few people who have a similar imagination as me, I guess because we both grew up in the same strange little world. I love him and wouldn't trade him for nothing....

SPC - Sqrl and Bee

This is pretty much the gist of it..... He attackes, bites and I of course win in the end...

These were all taken with different ISOs but of course we took way too many pictures and I lost track of what was what.. Oh well next time. I make a bad scientist...

good lighting

What good lighting and do for ya! There's no touch up on this photo just really good light and it helps to take like 1,000 pictures in one run that way you get a couple a really good ones... The wonders of digital photography. All you ever "waste" is time delating. I'm in love (gush, gush) with my new camera (she sings).. I wish I looked like this all the time.

A listy list

I like reading other people's list so why not do my own I got this list here.

Favorite Season: Autumn
Favorite Color: all colors really but especially orange and blue
Favorite Time: dusk and just before - the light is beautiful and shadows are long
Favorite Food: potatoes!!!
Favorite Drink: I hardly ever drink anything but water and tea but I do love really pure juice like nectur juices
Favorite Ice Cream: don't eat much ice cream either but I still love mint chocolate
Favorite Place: New England in the fall or France
Favorite Sport: Hockey is fun to watch??
Favorite Actor: this is a hard one (thinking) I do like Johnny Depp and have probably seen all his movies, yeah I'd say he's my fav.
Favorite Actress: ooo nother hard one.. I like Audrey Tautou a lot

9 Currents
Current Feeling: a little bored, wasting time at work, having a creative itch
Current Drink: water
Current Time: 10:21am
Current Show on TV: nothing
Current Mobile used: don't have one
Current Windows Open: firefox, sqrl blog, and notepad
Current Underwear: don't wear it unless I have to.
Current Clothes: black chucks, orange socks, tanish/brownish fitted corduroy button up top with little flowers and a white tank top under it and jeans
Current Thought: I really need to stop wasting time and get working of course not on work work but on some digital stuff, who works at work? Not I.

8 Firsts
First Nickname: Sqrl, Nifi, Melly, and Lissy
First Kiss: 7th grade first "boyfiend" Adraine, he was sooo cool
First Crush: May be it was Adriane??
First Best Friend: Sophia
First Vehicle I Drove: 87 grey toyota carola
First Job: a waitress for a couple of weeks, not fully trained and my Dad had to pull all mafia style on the guy to get my last paycheck..
First Pet: Misty my brothers cat I used to dress her up.
7 Lasts
Last Drink: alcohol you mean, hummm last weekend Dories a beer and a bad beer.
Last Kiss: at about 7:15am at my door step
Last Meal: oatmeal breakfast
Last Web Site Visited: kellyraeroberts.blogspot.com - where I got this list idea
Last Film Watched: we've been renting tv series - so I'll say the last season of Arrested Development
Last Phone Call: Megan
Last TV show Watched: Arrested Development

6 Have You Evers
Have You Ever Broken the Law: of course
Have You Ever Been Drunk: yes
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: yes, I'm sure in Mexico long ago.
Have You Ever Been in the Middle/Close to Gunfire: I lived in L.A. so I'm sure
Have You Ever Broken Anyone's Heart: May be unknowingly

5 Things
Things You Can Hear Right Now: traffic and mind static
Things On Your Bed: pillows, lots.
Things You Ate Today: apple and oatmeal
Things You Can't Live Without: oh my.. let's see.. my husband.. I love my stuff and especially my craftin tools but if I had to I could certainly live without them, for I can create with anything..
Things You Do When You Are Bored: Am I ever really bored??? I find something to do.

4 Places You Have Been Today
home
work
car
bathroom

3 Things On Your Desk Right Now
pagers, yes lots and lots of pagers
computer
scetchbook

2 Choices
Black or White: I think black only because white and I don't get along well
Hot or Cold: I don't like Hot, cold is good because you can always add another blanket or sweater but I have say living in Humboldt you can certainly get tired of cold and damp all the time so I say.. Variation, a little of both.


1 Place You Want To Visit
Paris again

Farmers Market

With our new camera.. Oh how I love this thing! These pictures came out so beautiful, I just love how rich and clear they are. With our old camera we could never get this close the subject, we now have a whole new world of freedom to discover and this is just with the stock lense imagine when we get a telephoto or a macro.. Oooo (rubbing hand together with sneery look) I can't wait..

SPC - Girlfriends

Heather, Me, Megan and Courtney

Now, this picture has already been posted here months back but SPC is asking for a self portrait with someone, someone of some meaning..... Well..... There is a whole lot of something between all the girls here in this picture. Some weird connection made many lifetimes ago. These are my sisters, girlfriends, kindred spirits, the little sisters. Soon I will be living near two of them and absolutely can't wait! I love these girls, don't know how I found them, I guess I'm just lucky.. Sounds cheesey but it's true.

Swappin'

Hey, I'd always wanted to do a little swappin - that is, the exchange of items in the mail preferably from far, far away. Well I've just found the perfect way - Gimmie Your Stuff - A Cultural Exchange Blog... Sounds fun, huh??? I think so.
So I'm suppose to talk about who and what I'd like to swap... Well I don't really care about with whom specifically, anyone other than the US would be interesting. I would like to swap crafty things though. As fun as it would be to get local foods, I am a stritch vegetarian, this usually scares people off... So unless you are a veggie looking to swap yummy healthy local foods then I'm your gal.
So crafty it is.... Anything really - paper, fabric, its and bits. In exchange for the same... How's that sound??

Hey I just realized after commenting other people's blog that may be I should list what I can give..

I have lots of yarn to give
fabric
books - like used (in good shape, of course) novels
veggie foods - like wierd grains (quinoa, couscous), TVP or other healthy things you can only find in the granola crunching northern California
US magazines
Anything I've made - softies, recycled clothing etc.
and let me know what you are looking for, I may just not be thinking in that direction..

oh just thought of two more things, big duh!!
I make handmade soaps - completely natural, unscented and very rich made from coconut oil, palm oil and olive oil... This soap has some very loyal users.
Also I make skin creams made from organic oils like jojoba oil, wheat germ oil, avocado, grapeseed. It just depends on which combination I'm using at the time.. I don't sell these creams and soaps currently and I usually use clean recycled glass containers for them. I'm a recycling freak... Since I'm going to be moving soon across the counrty I should use up these oils for they could go bad along the way. So... I am certainly willing to exchange these yummy rich skin creams with some one.

Edited 5.24.07 :: If you want to contact me to swap please go to the newest post (by clicking on the main banner above) and leave a comment or email me at sqrljunk(at)sqrlbee(dot)com

Sqrl's List

A couple of things I've come across lately....
Look at Me - This is very neat thing, definitely check it out..
Wol & Zo - a very talented lady.
Yarnstorm - Another very talented lady.