Gearing up for Halloween - The Halloweening of My "Studio" Part 1

After scouring bookstores for the Fall 2010 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Studios magazine, I managed to get my little hands on one. This issue was of particular interest to me because it featured some well-known Halloween artists. I got to peek into their workspaces!

I was so inspired and full of ideas after very nearly memorizing all of the great pictures, I decided that my own work area needed some sprucing. I am a visual person, and for inspiration (and to keep my ideas in order!) I need pictures and things within view when I am working.

And since my main loves are Dia de los Muertos and Halloween, I figured I needed some eye candy!

Time to liberate my poor Halloween decorations (or at least SOME of them - I have three HUGE boxes of them!).

I am really BAD at taking "before" pictures, but these corner shelves were white components from Michaels:

My hand-painted pedestal on the very top shelf:

A closeup of the first shelf, with my prized Johanna Parker JoL smack in the center:

The fourth shelf, with my skully bouquet I made originally for work:

And finally, the bottom shelf, with my first painted pedestal:

I was so struck by painting fever that I attacked these poor mini canvases and easels:

Stay tuned! The white shelves and cupboard will be next!

Gearing up for Halloween - Trick or Treat Street

Three of my favorite Halloween artists are celebrating Halloween early by combining their superpowers to bring Trick or Treat Street to Halloween fanatics everywhere!

Retro Rudolphs really nails the vintage Halloween vibe, with vintage reproduction pieces. Her candy containers are awesome! The devil one is my favorite. I could look at this site for days!

Happy Holidays has really unusual candy containers; the carrot containers are super sweet! Check out the pie zombie (already taken - drat!)

And last but certainly not least, one of my favorite anthropomorphic artists, Sweet B Folk Art! This artist never fails to make me gasp or clap my hands with delight every time I visit her site. Absolutely to die for. Check it out!

I hope you love these artists just as much as I do!

Party Heart-y

One of my coworkers loves hearts, so for her birthday, I decided to challenge myself. I don't make hearts very often, unless by request. Here's what I came up with:

Big, colorful, chunky beads! I really wanted to do mismatched beads.



And made this bracelet:

It was flippin' HUGE!



I've seen resin pendants with candy sprinkles in them, and I've always been fascinated by resin with things embedded in them since I was a kid; I always thought it looked so magical. It was time to make my own magic:

Not bad for a first try!

My coworker really liked her stuff! The bracelet may have been a bit chunky for her, though.

I loved working with the resin, and look forward to doing more with it! I found out that it can be baked at polymer clay temps (once cured!), so I can make polymer clay bezels and bake the whole piece! Yay!

Painting Fool

Painting has been wonderfully theraputic for me lately. It's immediate: I can pick it up whenever I want to and get a few minutes of painting in; and unlike working with clay, I don't have to wash my hands a million times and hermetically seal my work area against dust. :)


Besides, paint has been on sale at my favorite craft stores!


Here is a wooden rocket birdhouse I found and fell in love with. I mean, a rocket! I just had to paint it in girly colors:


It resides happily in my office now.




This is a statue I found in Target's dollar section (even though it was $2.50). It was a brownish-black color, so I brightened him up a bit:

I made his belly shiny so I can rub it for luck!


I am an absolute sucker for good perfume, especially well-made perfume oils (see here and here and here). I am so addicted to these perfumes that I decided I needed to store them in something pretty. I had to make a little treasure box to store my perfumes in.


I took a bottle of perfume with me to the craft store to see if it would fit in the boxes. The one below was a winner, and at the time, I liked the handle. Not so sure now, but I'm working with it. I wanted to do some kind of theme at first, like painting it sky blue and doing grass, flowers, and a picket fence around the sides. I wanted to paint it all white, with pink flowers all over, and do either green felt or polymer clay grass on the lid, and place tiny flowers on it. Then I wanted to do glitter "grass" on the lid.

I knew I wanted some kind of plushy interior, but my usual felt box lining just wouldn't do in this case. When I was a kid, I liked to take things apart, and one of the things I took apart once was a jewelry box. I observed that the cushy lining was actually a piece of cardboard with some kind of spongy filler, and covered in satin and slapped on the insides of the box. Perfect! I had some fiberfill languishing in my work area, and I had some cardboard.

Now for the fabric. One place I go to has all kinds of great fat quarters; awesome patterns. It's hard not to just keep your mind on a specific project when looking at these: I can never come out of there with just one! There are always "future projects" to think about!

As I was looking through the fat quarters, I happened upon a small glimpse of yellow buried in a row of purple. I took a look at the fabric, and was immediately transported to my childhood. It reminded me of something I'd seen as a kid, and I fell in love with it. Right then I decided I had to have it and imagined a "shabby chic" kind of box to go with it. I like SOME shabby chic, and I don't think I've ever made anything shabby, but I was willing to try. The shabby theme was the only thing to go with this fabric!

Now I'm almost done with the box; trying to figure out if I should antique it or not. Pics soon!

First Post!

Hi! My name is Sharon, and I'm a middle child from Southern California, currently living in Austin, TX. I love to paint, work with various clays, and play with beads. I am addicted to glitter.

This blog will be used for posting pictures of my work, as well as various musings.

The pictures below are things that I have made for my mom and little sister, so far my biggest customers!

Sugar skulls: I made these a few years ago from polymer clay. the "icing" is hand-rolled. Note the penny in the foreground. Soo fun to make!

The pins below were made for my little sister and brother-in-law's 10th wedding anniversary. They collect historical costumes, and are currently pirating around Southern California. The bracelet features individually hand-sculpted, hand-painted skulls made with glow-in-the-dark clay.

This is a clock I painted for a silent auction at work. I wish I had a picture of the clock before it got painted!

I know the holly on the sides is crooked! The platform that the clock hangs above is coated in glitter.

The mirror is something I painted for my little sister for her birthday. The skulls are hand-sculpted from polymer clay. I am really hooked on these mirrors! Keep your eyes peeled for more of these!

This is a wooden pedestal that I painted for my mom's birthday. I especially had fun with all of the different pumpkin faces. I spent a lot of time drawing different jack-o-lantern faces, and this is the result. I'd like to do more stuff with these faces on them!