2010

How blessed I was this year. Although my school and work schedules prohibited me from posting much, I did snap some photos throughout the year in an effort to capture happy moments....

Teaching from coast to coast: New Jersey, Los Angeles, and Mesa..... (Art Opera, Artistic Bliss Les Sirenes and Mystic Paper)

Traveling in New Mexico, Colorado and New York

(the photos above are of me and my family enjoying stops on our summer road trip at the Red Rock Amphitheater outside of Denver and at the the International Museum of Folk Art in Santa Fe; Below is a collage of my one day solo sojourn into New York City.. Central Park, Times Square, Broadway, Harlem and the John Lennon Imagine Memorial were just a few of the sites that I explored that day in April)

Vending at beautiful shows like Glitterfest in Tustin, California, and at the NAU Holiday Art and Craft extravaganza........

And taking a little time out to enjoy some Flea and Farmers Markets!

I hope you had a wonderful year . And thank you so much for coming by, for your emails and comments over the past 12 months. Here's a toast and a wish for an even better 2011!

A gift for you...

If you are like me, you may just be putting the final touches on your Christmas gift wrapping and lo and behold, you forgot to buy tags! Because it's a snowy cozy day here in Flagstaff, Arizona and I don't want to make a run to Target, I created these happy little gift tags from some of my finished Christmas creations. If you like them feel free to click on this link to download the PDF. Then you can print, cut and tag away :-) (Please note that these are for personal use only)

Available on Spooky-Time Jingles at midnight Tonight....

I saved one of my favorite Santas for the Spooky Time Jingles update :-) Blog friends get 15% off (just let me know you are a blog reader). Here's the link....

Guest curating at Crescendo....

If you haven't heard of this awesome project created by Jenny Doh, I encourage you to head on over and check it out! Give yourself some time to explore the site! There is a ton a great information over there! I was given the opportunity to do some guest curating this week where I get to share some blog links that have inspired me recently. Here's a bit of my own story.... (that's a picture of me and my goofy hair working on a little pixie doll below :-) )

Thankful Sale :-)

Just a quick post today to let you know that you can use the coupon code THANKFUL to purchase anything and everything in my Etsy shop at 25% off until 6pm PST tonight! The way the discount code works is to put the item in your cart and during checkout you enter the code and it will reduce the original price by 25%).

I'll be posting this publicly in the store itself in an hour but I wanted to give blog readers a little heads up just in case, like me, you were doing a little handmade happiness shopping today :-)

Hope everyone had a joyous Thanksgiving!

Quick Hello :-)

Hi everyone! I hope you have been enjoying your fall. We have had an unusually mild one here in the Northern AZ mountains and after last year's record breaking blizzards, I have to say I am sooo glad!

In between work, classes and jogging I have manged to get a bit of sculpting squeezed in here and there and tomorrow is the huge NAU Holiday art craft fair which I show at every year. I snapped some pics of my favorites before packing them up. Let me know what you think :-)

And a quick announcement.... I will be having my annual Etsy sale on Friday Nov. 26. Everything I list will be priced at 25% below retail for one day only, so be sure to check it out.

I am a horrible blogger

warning.... long, kind of personal post ahead (mostly rant free)

I am really bad at this juggling everything bit. I don't know how so many women do it. One of my favorite food bloggers posts daily and she is a physician. Too which I say WOW! I, on the other hand, can't seem to post monthly lately. I am in my second semester of graduate school now and since I got my bachelors in '98, I had since forgotten how much work school is. And work is work too.. since getting laid off in 2008, I have had a few job transitions, and at the moment I have two part time jobs and one consulting position that takes up well over 40 hours a week. My family seems to think I should be making dinners, doing laundry and grocery shopping too..... Hope this post doesn't sound whiny, because I really like my work, I really like school and I really really love my family. I even like doing laundry! Deep inside of me lives a domestic sort of person that has always romanticized homemaking and housekeeping. I have the cookbook collection to prove it! I like blogging too, I like doing lots of stuff...I am just not so good at making time for it.

Do you ever go through those periods where you question your priorities? With a newfound jogging habit dangerously close to being back-burnered and a stack of overdue library books on "time management" that I haven't found time to read, I have had a few thoughts lately of putting away the clay and taking a sort of hiatus from doll-making. I think I am probably clay addicted so that's not likely to really happen. So I hope it's okay with those still reading if I pop in and post when I can. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed lately.

I have managed to squeeze in a tiny bit of pixie making though. In fact lots of Pixie making for Glitterfest this weekend in Santa Ana, California.

I really fell in love with these guys while I was making them. I was going to make the pumpkin man a pumpkin girlfriend, but for some reason, only a pickle shaped girl was able fit just right next to him. I imagine that they both like each other very much, he's got the arm around her so it must be the 3rd or fourth date. And she's taller, that's why he wore the top hat.

This is what too many late nights of studying does to your brain. Thanks for hanging in here with me. Come see me on Saturday here if you're nearby :-).

Some new studio pics

Hi everyone! I am back from the beautiful Les Sirenes event in Manhattan Beach. I must say, if you ever have the opportunity to attend one of Kim's events, do go! No detail is overlooked and it's both a pampering retreat and opportunity to create and learn new techniques. I am still in the process of editing my photos from the event, and I will be sure to post some along with a recap later this week. In meanwhile, I wanted to share a couple of photos of my new studio space (while I have it a bit cleaned up). If I could paint the walls in this rental, I think I'd go with a jadeite green or robin's egg blue, but since I cant I have done my best to infuse some color where I can.

The desk where I create, and a view of shelves overflowing with books, art supplies and flea market/thrift shop bounty...

A small nook with bins full of supplies and lots of vintage inspiration:

Here's the wide angle shot from the entry way. I am on the top floor and the light is very bright on sunny days.... The dollhouse in the corner is going to get rehabbed one of these days..

There's me, happy as a clam, pixie making :-)

Thanks for taking the tour! Let me know what you think :-)!

Busy summer....

Finishing up some new work to sell at the Artistic Affair Vendor Soirée... I had these guys drying on a rack outside after applying sealant (and before the" antiquing" stage) and I thought they looked sort of happy hanging out together so I snapped a quick pic...

Okay so the little green witch doesn't look so happy, but then again she never is!!!

And here's one all finished, a bit of Christmas in July :-)

This one makes me crave sweets... hmmmmmm.....

Tomorrow is Spookytime Jingles 2 year annivesary! Head over to say hello!

I hope you all have the chance to relax and breathe a bit during this beautiful summer season!

Updates and and interview

I have been blessed with some wonderful mailbox goodness lately thanks to the amazingly talented Magpie Ethel. She does awesome thing with vintage finds including these sweet spun head creations that look happy to live amongst my vintage books...

Life remains busy up here. Less than two weeks away until Artistic Bliss in Los Angeles and I am buried in paper clay trying to get 50 mermaid kits together. I love to teach, but I am always fueled by nervousness about it and it my hope that every student walks away happy and satisfied with the class. I am still in the process of getting an online sculpting class organized for those of you that have expressed interest. I'd like it to be an interactive class with video and chat and not just a series of PDF's. Still working out the technology on my end. In the meanwhile, I do a few a couple of pixie kits left. I will likely make a few more in August. (see kit samples below).

In other news, I was recently interviewed by the Glitterfest Gazette. If you want to check it out, please do so here.

Hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend so far!

Smoke gets in my eyes....

Lots about these fires in the news lately. :-(

We had been enjoying out new digs and the local area immensely. A couple of weeks ago my husband I went hiking in an area known as the "inner basin" (the fires are burning not too far from this area.) It was a hot, beautiful day and we packed a picnic and hiked the two miles through this

and this

To see this....

and this

Please send prayers and wishes for rain.

On the front page of our local newspaper today was a beautiful story that brought tears to my eyes. I encourage you to pop on over and read it. (I have been weepy a lot lately... Not sure why... lots of changes going on around here. A Billie Holiday song is making me tear up even as I write this).

Speaking of being weepy, have you seen Toy Story 3 yet? Wow. I never cried so much at the end of a movie. Describing the plot of the movie alone brought tears to my eyes when I was explaining it to a coworker. The first Toy story was the first movie that I took my sweet son to see and now, much like Andy, he is growing up, becoming a handsome young man before my very eyes. Wish I could slow time down a bit.

Long Overdue!

Hi everyone! So my first grad school semester is finally over and we are getting close to being settled in the new place (photos coming soon). Thanks for being so patient with me and for continuing to read and comment here. Reciprocation on my part is long overdue. I took the summer off from school so that I could focus more on getting The Polka Dot Pixie restocked and ready for the upcoming seasons and so that I could refocus my blogging. and have the chance to read my favorite blogs (I have over 1000 unread posts in my Google Reader).

One thing I never had the opportunity to share was my fabulous trip to the East Coast where I participated in the lovely Lisa Kettell’s Art Opera. It was a blast and I have to say, I found the people of New York and New Jersey to be some of the warmest, kindest and funniest I have ever met. I hope to head back there in the fall. Here’s some photos from the Art Opera Vendor fair….

(My Alice collection kept the moo card swap spot company)

(Lisa’s beautiful display)

(Everyday is a Holiday- Jenny and Aaron’s work is even sweeter in person)

(Just gorgeous work by Vintage by Crystal!)

I found some awesome vintage goodies at the fair which i will be sharing in a future post.

I taught two classes at Art Opera and my students were amazingly talented and sweet. I really love being able to share the joy that sculpting brings me.

(Above is the mega-talented Ann Denise Anderson, proudly displaying her almost finished bluebird couple from my Bluebird Wedding Cake Topper class)

(There is the amazing Miss Lisa herself, putting her own spin on her fairy in my Sculpting Your Inner Pixie class! Check out her work in progress Pixie )

Speaking of inner pixies, I will be making the kit available soon for purchase for $30 (includes pre- sculpted pixie, wand, armature, choice of fairy wings, crepe, ribbon, glitter and instructions). Please email me if you are interested in reserving a kit. (update, June 23... they are ready! )

I have so much more to share with everyone . It’s been too long! But in effort to kept this post relatively and readably short, I will postpone a few more pics for my next post (which I promise, will not take 2 months to write). I have missed everyone and look forward to catching up with you all.

Farewell Fern Cottage

(Above is our home back in 1916. I nicknamed it Fern Cottage, after the little girl standing on the front porch with her mom.)

So much as happened since my last post it's hard to know where to begin...

Last fall, Mr. Polka Dot Pixie was assigned to a new duty station over 35 miles away. Because he has a crazy police schedule, he was no longer able to come home for a meal with us regularly (an important ritual in our family). Also, with the insane winter storms, there were times that he wasn't able to make the commute home at night at all. Adding to that, our kids have become teenagers, and the opportunities for safe and supervised activities for youth in our current community are becoming even more scarce thanks to cutbacks to local recreation programs and the like. Our local schools are also taking a hit and programs for my artistically gifted daughter and musically gifted son (no drama club, no band at the local high school) are almost non existent. We made a pro and con list, and decided that, despite how much we love our house, the best decision for our family was to make a move, closer to DH's work and to a community that provides more opportunities for our kids. And so, with mixed emotions, we are saying goodbye to our sweet Victorian cottage....

A lovely couple has agreed to lease our home and hopes to purchase it by summer's end. In the meanwhile, we will be renting a cozy modern condo in our new town, Flagstaff! For those of you not familiar with Flagstaff, it is an active college town, surrounded by forest and mountains. Our townhouse is right in the heart, and we look forward to being able to walk (or use public transportation! something our former community didn't have!) to get just about anywhere! I am excited about being able to attend First Friday ArtWalks, watch Movies on the Square, and enjoy a play at the university every once in awhile. Adding to our "pro" list, our daughter was accepted into a performing and visual arts high school in our new community, and I know it will be the beginning of exciting opportunities for her!

It'll take some adapting (we haven't rented since we were first married... can you paint your walls in a rental?) and I can't help feeling some sadness as I sweep out dusty corners of our sweet old place for the last time. Also, moving stinks :-P

Busy busy....All of this happens during another job change for myself and in between the fabulous Art Opera (pics coming soon!) that I was blessed to teach at a couple of weeks back, and the upcoming Mystic Paper class I am teaching in a few weeks and Glitterfest that I will be vending at in less than a month!

So lots and lots of changes! Thanks again for bearing with me and my infrequent posts as I adapt. I do have some exciting news coming up regarding new products, icluding much asked for kits and online sculpting classes. Look for an announcement in about a month (once the moving dust has settled). In the meanwhile, please enjoy these photos of a few corners of my (now former) home sweet home.... I'll post some shots of the new place once it feels more like home... And if you are in the Southern California area, please come see me at Glitterfest! I could use a hug!

Goodbye cute kitchen!

So long blue bathroom....

Farewell movie theater room, music room and dining room :-(

I'll check back in a few weeks everyone.... ((((hugs)))))

And the winner is...............

The 20th comment was made by Nan McNeal! Thanks everyone for all the great tips and comments and well wishes.

Nan, please contact me via email with your Polka Dot Pixie wish!

If you didn't win this time, don't despair,

I promise to host another giveaway soon :-)

Happy Healthy ((((((hugs))))))))))

Giveaway Winner to be Announced Tonight!

Hi everybody! Thanks so much for all of your thoughtful comments and emails. I have been busy getting ready for the Art Opera in New Jersey (Only two weeks away)! Giveaway winner will be announced tonight :-)

Whew! and a giveaway

I am just back from the doctor's office with my pathology results. I got the all clear! Thanks so much for your prayers and good wishes.

The other good news I received at the doctor's is that thanks to a successful exercise and healthier eating regime I have dropped my blood pressure significantly and lost 15 pounds since January!

To celebrate, I think it's time for a giveaway! Simply post a comment sharing your favorite health tip, be it a snack, exercise, or mental health activity like journal writing. I will randomly select a winner next week. The winner will receive one custom made polka dot pixie creation of their choice!

Thanks again everyone and many (((((hugs))))))