Something New and Sparkly: Canary Queen Corsage Necklace

Canary Queen Corsage Necklace

This canary is a little cuckoo. But then, that's one of the side effects of being born of craft supply detritus. I pieced a stray bird, some silk flowers, some rhinestones, and some beads together in a kind of enchanted forest frenzy. At the tail end (pun intended) I added the blue and green ribbons for contrast. Although not one of my favorite corsages, the result isn't completely unpleasing. I'd rock it with a tank, a crazy peasant skirt, and some bohemian ankle-wrap wedges. I don't own the wedges . . . yet.

I Finally Learned How to Back Up This Blog!

Remember a few posts ago when I was whining about my lack of knowledge concerning blog backup? (To recap, I was planning to save all my content on a CD. Talk about embarrassing.) Well, after a quick Google search I found a fabulous tech blog, The Original Blogger Tips and Tricks, that offered an easy answer. Although I'm sure most of you tech-savvy bloggers already know this, I'll spill the beans for any poor souls out there who share my ignorance. In Blogger, go to your Dashboard. Click the Settings tab. Three options will appear: Import Blog, Export Blog, and Delete Blog. Click on Export Blog. Name the file, and your entire blog will be saved as an XML file to your hard drive! Then, if your blog ever crashes or is compromised by a hacker, you would choose Import Blog and browse for the file. I'm so excited. I've already backed up my blog today and can't wait to keep backing it up after each new post.

I'll be sure to read some more of "The Original Blogger Tips and Tricks" to learn how to correct those pesky HTML errors. I'll let you know what I find!

Treasury Time: Green With Envy Corsage Necklace

Courtney of Inez Gill included my Green Goddess Corsage Necklace in her "I Don't Like Flowers . . . But I Like These . . . And All Tulips" treasury.* (Edgy, huh?) Check out all the nontraditional flowers in her garden at:

*Treasury deactivated.

Museum of Bad Art: Art Too Bad to be Ignored

In the Cat's Mouth, Pangorda

Spewing Rubik's Cubes, K. Koch

Heather Come Hither, Bianka

Lucy in the Sky with Flowers, artist unknown

Think your art isn't good enough to hang in a museum? Think again. The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA for short), which is comprised of three galleries in the Boston area, proudly displays masterpieces gone horribly wrong. Many are by unknown artists and have been rescued from thrift stores and Dumpsters. Exposing the world to "art too bad to be ignored," MOBA's Curator-in-Chief (their word, not mine) delights in writing incisively witty, pseudo-intellectual descriptions to accompany the offbeat, sometimes just plain disturbing pieces that make up the museum's collection. Curious? Here's the description for "In the Cat's Mouth":

"A comment on issues of power as experienced by those who dwell with feline pets. Is the artist consumed with or consumed by his love for this cat? Does he identify with the personality of the startling animal? Does the similarity between these inseparable cohabitants stop short at the nose? Or is he simply trying to observe a tree-lined avenue through a cat's eyes?"

And here's the one for "Heather Come Hither":

"Larger than life, she purrs with her big bedroom eyes open wide in anticipation, "Hello boys". Bianka knew, the more hair the better."

It should be noted that I've included the more PG pieces here, as this blog is a (mostly) family show. To see some darker pieces as well as MOBA's entire range of outrageous art, visit their site. I'm so intrigued that I'm thinking about visiting the real MOBA, and that's saying something as I avoid leaving the state if I can help it. Who knows. Maybe someday in the distant future when I'm long gone and forgotten one of my totes will grace MOBA's walls, marked by a card burbling on about the gluttony of commercialism and/or childhood held in suspension. One can only dream.

Fiction Friday: Part 3

This week's edition of The Bird Lady is super short. Why? Because when I divvied up what I'd already written into weekly posts based on good stopping points, that's how it worked out. As a side note, I'll have to write some new material two weeks from now. Just the thought makes me nervous, but then, that was the point of this experiment . . .

(For those of you who are new and wondering what the heck this is all about, just click on the Fiction Friday tab on the lefthand side of the page :)

* * * *

"Ah-ha," she sang when she found the elusive coupon. She immediately stuffed it into her handbag for safe keeping until her pilgrimage to PetSmart the next afternoon. Then she looked at her watch. It was nearing five o' clock. It was Saturday, so that meant popping in a TV dinner and watching "Masterpiece Theater" and assorted documentaries on PBS. She didn't care for fictional programming. All those sitcoms, dramas, and movies were made up of nothing but lies. The girl always got the guy, a plot line that Lucy found particularly offensive. She moved to the freezer, selected a turkey dinner, and popped it into the microwave. She never cooked now that Morton was gone. She hadn't the energy.

A Blog Award and Some Random Things About Me

Michelle of Michelle's Charm World was kind enough to award me and a whole host of other bloggers the Kreativ Blogger Award (yes, that's the way it's spelled), an honor she herself recently received. Uninitiated in the world of blog awards, I was charmed, especially when I read that those recognized often share ten random facts about themselves. I was game, so here are mine:

1) I've never been stung by a bee.

2) Speaking of bees . . . When I was in the seventh grade, I won my elementary school's geography bee. This was a total fluke, as I was no geography buff. Afterwards I had to take a test to qualify for the state competition. I passed, which was an even bigger fluke (that test was hard!). No one else from my school had ever passed it before, and there was much hoopla, culminating in a surprise party complete with a sheet cake. At home, I plastered the walls with maps donated by my teacher and pestered my parents to quiz me from past geography bee question manuals. I didn't care about geography any more than I had before winning the bee, but people were counting on me, and I didn't want to disappoint. When I arrived at Rutgers New Brunswick on the big day, I was one of a handful of girls. I was wearing pink plastic loafers and a pink satin top. In my nervousness I chattered to the boy sitting next to me. He didn't respond. Then the competition began, and the tension heightened. Early on I missed a question about tea being China's main export (I think I said rice), much to the horror of my teacher, who had come to witness my anticipated triumph. I was toast. And that kid sitting next to me? He ended up winning! Not long after that, he won the national geography bee too, which was televised and hosted by Alex Trebek. I'd been sitting next to a genius, dithering on in my cotton candy getup while he thought the great thoughts of a future champion. I returned to school the next Monday mortified, the memory of the sheet cake haunting me.

To this day, no one else from my elementary school has passed that test, rendering my fluke a reluctant claim to fame.

3) It's been nearly three years since I've had my hair cut professionally. Partly because I hate making chitchat with hairdressers, partly because I'm lazy.

4) I once owned 300 pairs of shoes. Now I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 120.

5) My favorite color is blue (of the sky and electric, not standard crayon box, variety), even though all of my Tote Trove stuff is hot pink.

6) My favorite song is "Two Princes," by the Spin Doctors. Every time I hear it I think something good is going to happen to me. It hasn't yet, but I haven't lost hope.

7) I love books but hate libraries. They smell funny.

8) This week I made my 100th sale on Etsy.

9) I once forced myself to read Moby Dick because I thought it would be a good learning experience. It wasn't.

10) I always wanted to live at the beach, and now I do.

Jack Handey Quote of the Week

"You know something that would really make me applaud? A guy gets stuck in quicksand, then sinks, then suddenly comes shooting out, riding on water skis! How do they do that?!"