A day at Mile High Marketplace

Live painting at the flea market

Eric has his art on display at the new coffee shop at the newly revamped Mile High Marketplace and right next door is the new art gallery where he did a live painting. After 2 years of dating I had never seen him paint so I was glad to be his art wing-woman. Here's his painting coming to life.

Life Plan #149-hiccup

Yesterday at work I was informed that I will be reimbursed for Fall Semester but not to plan on it for Spring. This was a semi-major blow as part of the reason I took this job was due to the tuition reimbursement! They have no official procedure in place as of now and until they get one the whole shebang is on hold. Which, in a big picture way, I get. I really do but in a selfish me way it sucks!! Additionally, I had accepted loans for Fall and Spring but once I found out I would get reimbursed for Fall I unaccepted it...but looks like they took it upon themselves to unaccept my Spring loans too so this could get interesting.
Fundraiser anyone??

Hello blog..it's been a long time....

I haven't posted here since May! That's crazy! Life has been crazy since then though. Started life plan #149-quit cubicle job that made me miserable, started job as dispatcher and started taking classes at Metro. I'm half way through my second semester and am now just starting to think about doing something creative again. I had to quit taking pottery classes now that I work nights. So I'm thinking with the weather changing it's time to start knitting again! Eric's mom gave me this yarn and dye kit for Christmas last year...bout time I give it a try! I just can't decide what shape/size scarf to make. I may go for a cowl...which means I need new circular needles. That's manageable.

large pottery photo dump

vases galore and my new favorite coffee/tea mugs of all time!

army man FAIL

what we have here is a very sad example of army man suicide. he jumped right off of the table. perhaps he was upset that i was trying to glaze him pink? he is accompanied on the right by another army man fail-lost his arm before he even had a chance to be turned pink.


the armless man was a bit more lucky...and useful. turns out his head is helpful to prop up handles while making mugs!

bedroom after!

Ta-da! My bedroom is approximately the size of a shoe box so it is hard to get good photos.

bedroom before pics

this isn't really before - before because this is when i had already started the purple to cover up the blue walls. however this is how it has look for about the last 4 months! the white is primer due to the purple paint running down the walls because of moisture on my walls. awesome.

how to craft the perfect (army) man-part 5-the end??

i am overall pretty happy with how these lil' guys turned out. i think next time they'll get two coats of purple. i may still add a pink tutu onto him in a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" statement...although i may still consider them a test and start over to get the purple more even.

pitchers!

here are both finished pitchers! finally! the first one looks so tiny now compared to the ice tea size one.

progress

today i (i really mean my mom) was able to refinance my car for a $130 a month lower payment, i called comcast and asked them if they could help me lower my internet monthly bill - they took off $18 a month and then i called at&t and got my cell phone bill down a whopping $8 a month.

this helps a lot but i'm still afraid it's just not quite enough!

the good news is that midge has an appointment with the vet on thursday for a psychological analysis! bring on the doggie prozac.

janelle's cups, platter and make do pitcher

my mom requested some iced tea cups and a pitcher for her bff janelle's bday. i threw in a platter just for fun and now they are getting two pitchers because i had to cut the first one in half length-wise due to giant crack(which was my own dumb fault)! this one is definitely not big enough to hold iced tea but will be great for some flowers.

how to craft the perfect (army) man-part 4

i decided to make tiles of the army men or i think someone suggested it to me actually. most likely not my idea because it was a good one! anyway here are the tiles during the glaze process-for some reason this step seemed to be by far the most annoying. tedious painting!
i can't wait to see what they look like when they are done. i hope they are super vibrant and obnoxious.

more tailpipe vases!

eric wanted a tailpipe vase to hold paintbrushes. well, he's getting two. i love the stripes and how the glazes bubbled up!
the bottom one is actually the smaller of the two even though it looks giant in that photo!

pretty picture!

my friend scooter dave had an art show at Plastic Chapel in January and i picked up this gem! he's a forest monster and i love him.

what have i done!

yesterday i did something that i think many people think i'm insane for. i quit my job of 6 years. that's my cubicle-where i have spent 40 hrs a week for nearly 6 years. the last year or so have been really miserable here (besides meeting my sweetie) and this year i finally decided i HAVE to do something about it. the job market is really not so hot these days (no surprise) so i decided i want to go back to school and get a bachelors degree. i only have an associates from the Art Institute of Colorado and it's pretty much worthless. one of my bff's Paula mentioned that her job is always hiring in the customer service department AND they have tuition reimbursement after a certain amount of time. so yesterday i interviewed, was offered the job and accepted.

the scary part of all of this is i'm cutting my income approximately in HALF.

the good parts are: i can walk/bike to work (cutting down on car costs), tuition reimbursement, flexible schedule, referal program, free healthcare!

the bad part is obviously how do i pay my mortgage!

so these next two weeks i'm going to try to refinance my car for lower payment (longer loan), cry to comcast about my internet bill and try to figure out how to reduce my cell phone payment from $70 a month!
i've already got my car insurance down $55 a month and cut my netflix from the $16.99 plan to the $8.99 plan.

so. i guess i'm off to a good start?

head gear

i've been thinking about hats a lot lately.

hats of the vintage variety mostly.

example:

but here's the thing. it is weird to suddenly add hats to your daily wear. people will notice and wonder what's going on with you.

how do you introduce vintage hats to your wardrobe?

how to craft the perfect (army) man-part 3

trial and error:
front

back

half cracked assembly job with likewise half cracked spatula and frying pan

not exactly the smoothest first run at him but we'll give him another go next week and hopefully his frying pan will look like a frying pan and not a tennis racket.

Tail pipe vases

here's my newest complete tail pipe vase:

and my works in progress!

eggs glorious eggs!

three of the women in my pottery class have chickens! i asked one to bring in a dozen for me and she did tonight. they are so pretty! she said that the eggs we buy at the grocery store are typically 10-11 months old. ick!

how to craft the perfect (army) man-part 2