SURPRISE!!! I'm Back! Mixed Media Hearts.

Let me tell you, moving is hard work and not for the faint of heart..... or old folks.  We decided to move ourselves along with help from our kids, mostly daughter Heather who made 7 trips in her truck and rode in the UHaul with Roger when we moved the furniture. Heather and I did all the packing and unpacking...... again mostly Heather. Once we got everything down here I was having a jolly old time unpacking and putting thing away.... it was fun.... until I injured my back lifting a heavy box of glassware... resulting in a compression fracture in my lower back that I am still recovering from.... so of course Heather did almost all the unpacking too.  There is still  unpacking to do, I have many, many boxes stashed in every nook and cranny that will take me months, maybe years, to unpack.  The cottage is about half the size of our house in Highland, plus no basement or attic.  I may have to open an antique shop one of these days..... to many treasures and no place to put them.

We do love Eureka Springs. The cottage is built on the side of a hill overlooking the downtown historic district.  However now that the trees have leafed out you can't see much of downtown, it's like living in a tree house.

Here is the view from the corner of the wrap around porch on the main floor.

Click on the photos for a closer look.

This is our gorgeous big old tree in the side yard between our cottage and the historic  Jacob's Ladder staircase that leads to downtown.  The tree is home to an active squirrel family and a multitude of singing birds.  We have deer and other critters that wander through our yard and a ground hog that lives under our back porch that I have named Phil. I had planned to plant an array of gorgeous flowers by now but again can't do much with my injured back.... next year, I guess.

This is my partially set up studio. As you can see I still have work to do but a least all the "studio" boxes are unpacked (again thanks to Heather).  I need more storage, which I have ordered, and will reorganize once I decided where I want to put things but this will work for now.

Last week I dug out the wire and tools and made a few hearts. It's been a while since I made anything so I thought I better start with something easy...hearts are easy and everyone likes hearts.... right?

Here are the "before" and "after" photos of  the wire hearts.... before and after I added polymer clay.

I used silver colored wire for the base and wrapped with amber, brown and lime green wire. I embellished with faceted glass beads and rings of tinted shell that match the green wire.

I mixed green and gold Kato clay for the polymer clay background and textured with a variety of tools. I used PearlEx metallic powder for the highlights.

I used 18 gauge gold color wire for the background of this heart. Wrapped with Seafoam Green 28 gauge wire and Yellow 28 gauge wire, accented the edges with matching seed beads.  The drop is a shimming faceted glass bead with iridescent carnival glass center.

I mixed Kato Pearl and Kato Green and with a touch of Kato Turquoise to match the Seafoam Green wire. I then stamped the clay with one of my favorite rubber stamps and highlighted the raised branches with Gold PearlEx.

I have the wire part of the next heart finished ......

hope to make the clay backing tomorrow..... maybe Pardo translucent tinted with alcohol ink, which I have to find, I know its here somewhere!  Locating my supplies is like an Easter egg hunt, just not as much fun, although  I do feel pretty darn pleased with myself when I find what I'm looking for.

I have a Doctor's appointment in the morning. Plan to clay again in the afternoon. Still walking around with a cane, can't go down Jacob's Ladder just yet.  Once I am more mobile I plan to take lots of photos of the shops and neat places around town so I can share this marvelous place with you.

That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by.