Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

So there are recalls on eggs, recalls on Deli meat from Walmart. Recalls for toys, cars, childrens medicines, pet food… Recalls on the recalls.

I have mentioned before that I would like to have a gated community for Artists, Haunters and Halloween enthusiasts. So now I’m thinking maybe we should all pitch in and buy 400+ acres of farm land somewhere. We can raise our own food, have our funky studios decorated the way we want without the neighbors freaking out about property values. We could have beef cows for all you meat eaters and lots of veggies and fruits for the Vegtabletarians.

Heck I’m looking on Land and Farm right now and there are wonderful deals to be had!!!!

Lets go make some Koolaid!!!

It’s an actual question to myself…where have I been? Why have I not gotten in the swing of things and blogged more? Why don’t I surf for Halloween and Spooky goodness online instead of wasting my time on Facebook, playing Farmville? Why don’t I spend more time in the Skullery?

I honestly can’t answer any of those questions.  I have been lurking online, besides playing Farmville, which I actually only play once/twice a day and for a short time. I lurk on all of the other blogger’s sites trying to find some flame to stick under my butt to get me going. So many are creating wonderful things that instead of feeling inspired I started to feel over whelmed.
I push myself way to hard and expect the moon of myself. Instead of that being a good thing it makes me shut down instead. I start new projects, leaving others to collect dust, which then makes me feel like I’m not succeeding at anything.

I know that part of my problem is seeing so many artists that do art full time, it is their life, and then I try to make self be able to create as much as they do. Ummm… self, your forgetting one key thing here. You work for a living being a Computer tech, 8 hours of your day is spent away at work, then there is roughly 8 hours of sleep,  another 2 of that is prep time for either work or driving to it. That leaves roughly 6 hours which we can take about 2 for eating dinner and dinner prep, now I’m down to 4. Four hours left in the day to do something all on my own…the dogs get some of that, and I get the rest. What do I do? I relax and typically do nothing, why? I feel tired from work and then feel like I let myself down because I didn’t use up 2 hours in the Skullery.

I have got to reconfigure how I think of things. Obviously work is not something I can change…actually, there is something I can do but it would take them finally hiring a third person in our department. Once I’m able I’m going to work four 10 hour days, that will give me three days off to do what I wish with. But…until that happens, and it is out of my control, I need to rethink/reconfigure how I do things.
I have to start with forgiving myself for those days I do nothing. If they happen often enough then I can start kicking myself in the self to get me motivated. Down time is always much needed but too much of it is just laziness, which I have had an over abundance of in my life.

I have got to ease up on the self. This isn’t a competition… and if it is, who exactly am I competing with?

*This post was brought to you by Brain. Brain, although good natured, can be a bit over stimulated at times. Self just tries to keep up and roll with the coaster.

Here we are on Friday the 13th, the only one we will have this year so enjoy every minute of it folks! Did you know that the fear of Friday the 13th is called Friggatriskaidekaphobia? There is a bunch of info over on Wiki concerning Friday the 13th, you can find it here.
Mostly the Friday the 13th became to be known as an unlucky day because of the belief that Friday was an unlucky day and that the number 13 was an unlucky number, combine the two and you have super unlucky.

Google has a really cool time-line for Friday the 13th.

Hope you guys have a wonderfully spooky day!!

It’s 90 days until Halloween and I’m starting to feel the season wrap its lovingly spooky arms around me. Looking around on Facebook I see lots and lots of Halloween updates from the Home Haunters creating props, the Pro Haunts building theirs and the artists creating tons of new spooky art.
I do love Halloween year round but there is no other feeling than the months right before Halloween. I tend to walk around with a stoopid grin on my face with it only getting worse if I happen across something Halloween related.

I have a bit of predicament though. I do love Halloween and I love building full size Halloween props…but, yes there is a but, I have no where to store them! Cucur and Mauly have spent this whole time in my living room, which I don’t mind, but… I’m going to run out of room for my furniture if I keep at it.
I had decided months ago to attempt to switch over to smaller Spooky art that I could sell. That is going very slowly but I am moving forward…now another predicament. My brother wants me to haunt his yard this year and I want to build a few ghosts for the yard.  UGH!!! I need a dammed garage!! Heck, I need a whole nother house!

Even though I have those little predicaments… I’m still geeking all over the place over Halloween season creeping into the air!!

Kimily’s missing mind has been found! In fact it wasn’t actually lost, the mind had wandered so far into the Imagination that it only appeared to be lost.

The mind reports finding some fun, yet disturbing, things within the Imagination. The mind can’t seem to keep itself away from this fun disturbing place and Kimily’s brain keeps complaining that she needs to do other mundane thinking type tasks.

The mind has also contemplated mutiny against the brain. Upon hearing of this the brain caused a reflex reaction in the leg, which caused the leg to kick out, striking the toes against a hard surface. Needless to say, the pain response gave the brain the upper hand…for now.

Kimily can’t come to the Blog right now, she has currently lost her mind and is off in search of it. If you have seen said mind please leave a comment below with a time, date and location of the sighting. We miss the psychic apparatus terribly and want for its immediate return.

Thank you,

Brain

I’ve had a very relaxing yet productive weekend. Although the production part hasn’t seen anything finished, I still have gotten a really good start on things that have been tickling my brain.

We have had a weekend of 70+ degree weather, which for Alaska is 10+ degrees above normal for this time of year. I still watch the weather in Bend, Oregon and we have been warmer than them for over a month now. Crazyness!

So I’ve had this master plan of making art to sell. The plan, although going very slowly, is moving along. The plan has always been to have a separate blog to show the wares, the main reason is that not all the wares will be ‘spooky’ inspired so I wanted a less spooky blog theme for them. Plus, my mom may want to sell birdhouses and her more girly stuff so that was also a determining factor.
The plan is to have the blog to show off the wares and then sell through Etsy. Now I’m thinking to maybe sell through both. The idea of having a shopping cart on my website makes me cringe…only because I’m unfamiliar with how to go about doing it and the research involved in it. So I figured I could just show off the stuff on the blog and have users that are interested email me for payment through Paypal, which will be my only form of payment for now.

I need some input from those of you that have done any of the above or have any brilliant ideas. I take criticism very well, so please tell me if I’m off my rocker. If you would rather email me feel free: boospooky (dot) com AT gmail (dot) com

So far I have:

- Purchased the Domain name for the blog – The Whimsy Attic
- Grabbed the Etsy account for The Whimsy Attic
- Grabbed the Twitter account for The Whimsy Attic
- Setup the Facebook Page – only grabbed the name for a Page associated with my own.
- Getting ready to build the actual website presense
- Paypal is setup for Business

Want to give a BIG Thank You to all of our military, both passed and living. You guys ROCK for what you do for us everyday or have done to serve our Country. Rock on and stay safe!!!

As for my three day weekend… I plan on getting creations started and may get a few things re-painted that I’ve been setting aside. Can’t tackle the big stuff due to my shoulder still causing me problems, so re-painting the barrister is out for this weekend…dang it!

Off to the Skullery with my bad self…

I have been neglectful of this here blog again. Sorry to everyone that may have or tries to follow along.

I have been trying to pull myself away from the TV and the computer to instead stuff my butt in the chair in the Skullery. That goes something like this… walk in, sit down, play with a few things, start painting on canvas, get idea and take it to the living room to work on it, realize what time it is and put it away to go to bed. Hope for weekend to come sooner so I can play more, weekend comes, yard needs to be tended to, laundry, dishes, do something with parents, weekend is gone. Go to work…

I have decided that having to work is just plain evil and getting in my way of fun/play time. Yes it pays the bills and feeds me and the dogs, but dangit ::: stomps foot :::

Back to reality… Since I have to work to get the money I need for daily life, I have since decided that instead I will just find me a man. One that either has money or has the ability to make it. Sounding a bit Gold Digger’ish, yes, but not intended to. This man must also adore me, run at my beckon call, buy me flowers for no reason; other than he adores me, adore my dogs and buy them toys; just because he adores them…and most importantly… he must love Halloween!! Not loving Halloween is a total deal breaker people. Him having the ability to build stuff; because he likes to and welding are a huge plus. There is one more thing… no kids. I do not and will never want children. Ahem… not to mention you must be single ::: rolls eyes ::: .

You can send any applications to boospooky.com@gmail.com. I will look them over and may or may not get back with you.

Now that that’s out of the way… and my pretend A.D.D is put away, I will get on topic. What was that again… Oh look shiney!! ::: rolls eyes :::

Have you ever typed out whatever popped in your head? It can be freaky and make you want stay away from Asylums, for fear they would find out. Yes I am rambling it seems but I’m going to make a point here…I think.
The point is, my head lately will not stop with ideas. Once I finished the Reapling, which gave me something to focus on, my head is running in circles, chasing its own tail, trying to figure out what is next.

• I want to paint a cabinet for my jewelry to go in the bathroom.
• I want to paint the barrister cabinet that I keep all of my curios in.
• I want to start making fridge magnets and little pins to sell.
• I have two canvas’s started that quickly halted once I got the backgrounds painted.
• I have 8 very large canvas I want to do something with but need to get the airbrush setup…still.
• I look outside and think I need to make spooky garden art.
• I have witches I want to make.
• What about Halloween props…!!

So as you can see… I have artist A.D.D. If you can picture the scene from Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is in her bedroom looking out the window watching the witch ride by on her bike and Toto, etc., that is about what it feels like. Then suddenly by brain will go… Oooohhhh shiney!! and off I go onto something else.

So the blog has suffered due to all of this head clutter. I would do spring cleaning but all these ideas actually keep me entertained, especially when sitting in the lobby of the doctors office. You just have to be careful when you giggle out loud, always keep a magazine in your hands just in case. :: wink ::

So I’m sitting here watching the television show House while I’m waiting for the Reapling to bake in the oven…funny thought is that it’s his own version of hell :::giggles:::.

Anyway, I’m half watching the show and the actress catches my eye finally, thought process goes something like ::: Oh, she looks familiar. Oh yeah, it’s whats her face from That 70′s Show :::, then I start paying attention to what she is saying. Her and her boyfriend are at the hospital, her being the patient, and they are discussing the fact that she has a Blog and blogs about everything…yada yada. One statement catches me, he says to her something about the internet has made people feel less alone and like they belong with others of like minds.

Now for the ‘bink’ moment… I was/am a late bloomer when it comes to creating art. I didn’t truly start my addiction until I was in my late 30′s. The thoughts on creating things and loving certain types of art were always in my mind but behind a very think fog of daily life, taboo’s and other life teachings/social acceptances. Yes, I took drawing, leather, pottery and other assorted crafty type classes in high school but it really ended there. I tried my hand at odd and end craft things, hook rugs, needlepoint (bleh to both) and other ‘kit’ style types of crafts that non-crafty’ness people tend to lean on. I hated them all and never completed any of them.

The internet happened… I didn’t get my first computer until I was 28′ish and the first several years were filled with chatting online and PC Games. I did searches here and there for whatever peaked my interest at the time but since I was married and in a horrible place emotionally my brain wasn’t… on, and neither were my emotions. I literally walked around just doing things in routine, never exploring.
So we jump forward several years to the divorce and awakening. Having been the one doing the divorcing it turned my confidence and emotions back on. My world literally opened up, having fought my first fight on my own and won, my brain did an amazing thing, it turned on my creativeness. It didn’t only turn it on, it friggin flooded me. I was utterly drowning with ideas and things I needed to make. But how? and not only how… once I do create, what do I do with the creepy spooky things I’m coming up with. Ok wait… I like creepy and spooky things, what are people going to think? Who’s going to enjoy this stuff besides me? People aren’t suppose to like creepy and spooky things, at least per society and comparatively to my family and friends…they don’t like creepy things.

The thought process went on…I settled on Halloween. Halloween is safe for people that like the spookiness in art right? So I will focus on that, we will keep it to Halloween. I went with that for a few years… I just love Halloween so much that I like it all year long, that is what I told people that would be closed minded to imagination and art and I still find myself settling for that explanation at times.

Now back to the statement originally made about the internet. I hit the internet like flies to a bug zapper. I found my family of creepy art loving friends!!! Woooo Hoooo… I’m not insane or alone anymore. ::: dances a jig ::: OH WAIT!! Not only is there like minds, there are How To’s and Tutorials!!! OMG! ::: brain explodes :::

The first couple of years I hit digital art and I hit it like a rabid dog. I showed myself that I could do it, created a few things and wasn’t satisfied. Yeah, I was proud of what I did and other people loved it, but I wasn’t really happy. My hands weren’t really happy. So discouragement set in again.

Couple of years go by…

Then one day I hear that voice in my head say: “Wait…creepy art = Halloween right?” Lets start there… I had made a couple of Halloween props in the past, simple things really, a cloths stuffed body with a store bought mask. That evolved into a duct tape body double and so on.

Finally one thing led to another and I was making actual paper mache props. Wow!!! I can do this and surprisingly it came naturally AND my hands were happy!

Now I’m going for smaller versions so I can ‘maybe’ make some extra money off of what I love. Learning all of the little techniques of Poly Clay, etc.

::: phew ::: Life story here… you still with me? I’m loosing momentum so the end is near…heh.

Besides the divorce making me find myself and showing me that I actually enjoy who I am and the things I’m interested in… The Internet Rules!!!!

So to all of you beginners out there… don’t fill overwhelmed and remember that even the professionals are constantly learning. Life sometimes happens.
If it isn’t fun and satisfying…don’t do it!! Find a different technique that is yours. Paper mache is NOT just for kids. PVC is NOT just for plumbers.

Play you silly adults, PLAY!!!