Apple for Teacher

It's Show and Tell time today. Aren't these beautiful? Melanie Brooks Lukacs of Earthenwood Studio made them for me. I have this concept for a new piece called "Apple for Teacher". Umm, yes, I know there's no apple in this photo - I do have a couple of Melanie's apples. You can see them, along with a bevy of other mouth-watering snack charms here. Yum.

Anyway, these pencils are quite special. Melanie has a red pencil stub charm available through her catalog. However, I wanted a rainbow assortment of them, and she, being the really nice person that she is, said she would do them for me. For anyone not familiar with ceramic glazes, this was not a completely straightforward request on my part, as it can take some tinkering around with glazes to get color shades the way you want them (some of us, read me, never get them the way we want them and have to rely on happy accidents for nice glazes on our piddling ceramic pots). I think these came out brilliantly (you should see them in person). Thank you so much, Melanie. I'll take good care of them. (Not that I'm feeling any pressure about making a fabulous piece out of them or anything, sigh.)

The only projects I had on my to-do list yesterday were re-makes of stuff I've done before. However, I was feeling restless last night and roughed out a couple new charms in my sketchbook, instead. Surprisingly, they're Valentines charms. I thought I was finished with the holiday but apparently not. (Having said that, they are pretty atypical representations of the holiday.) I managed to cut stamps for them this afternoon while the Short One was taking his (all too short) nap, so I'm hoping to be able to make them tonight and fire them tomorrow. If so, I'll be updating pretty late tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

Speaking of stamps, I decided to try a cheaper version of the carving block I'd been using and the darn thing broke on me. Unfortunately, it was the dragon scale block, so I'm going to have to carve all of those little scales again. I guess it just goes to show that you get what you pay for...

Finally, I keep meaning to mention this - while watching "Sesame Street" (what else?) with the SO a while back, I discovered this wonderful jazz singer who sang a duet with Elmo (who else?) during the show. Is anyone familiar with Diane Schuur's work? I've been thinking of picking up a CD of hers and am hoping for a recommendation on which album would be good to buy... Incidentally, the song they sang is "From Your Head". I think you can hear it on various media sites that support RealPlayer, but I have a Mac, so I haven't been able to test it out. (It's definitely worth listening to, if you have time to search for it - hearing Elmo scat with Diane Schuur is not to be missed.)

Thanks for stopping by!