So Disappointed in Somerset Gallery Summer 2010

I am so disappointed in Somerset Gallery 's Summer 2010 issue. I submitted a piece of artwork 19 months ago. After receiving the runaround for over a year and a half, my work was finally published. With an incorrect title and attributed to the wrong person!! It is absolutely sickening that such a high-profile publication and company has something like this happen. Especially since they have held onto my work for so long! And, what is even worse is the fact that they haven't returned the piece yet! I contacted them several times by email and finally, by telephone, because I thought they had lost the piece. They assured me it was safe in their offices, but now I am having serious doubts. If they can't attribute it correctly and even get the title of the piece wrong - which incidentally was ON THE COVER! how on earth are they going to be able to manage such a complicated thing as to get it in the USPS and delivered to the right person? I am sick, just SICK. Kudos, Stampington, for such a dismal effort.

New Fun

Okay, I've posted on here before about my Swap-bot group and some of the things I've done, but I just tried something new this past Friday and had the most fun with it! I'd been wanting to try making a pincushion out of an old piece of china for years. In fact, I used to sorta kinda collect old creamers and sugar bowls. But I don't really collect anything anymore (except dust and craft supplies . . . and junk, and well, you know, stuff) and I didn't have any of the odd sugar bowls or creamers at this house (as opposed to our other house, the old house where a lot of my stuff is still stored). So when I saw a swap for a pincushion made out of a teacup or creamer or sugar bowl, I knew it was a match made in heaven. Hadda do it! The one pictured here is on its way to a special friend in Florida.

First step was to go to a flea market to find a piece of old, chippy china. Did I content myself with just one piece? Wellll, I think we all know the answer to that one - I came home with about six different pieces - and other assorted odds and ends, of course. Most notably a bag of nine assorted old millinery birds. Very cool, too, I might add! Next was a visit to JoAnn Fabrics to buy some velveteen to use for the pincushion part. Nothing else would do except the velveteen as far as I was concerned! I was a wee bit embarrassed to make the lady cut only a quarter yard each from the four rolls I chose, but she was really very nice about it. And of course I had to tell her what I was doing with it because I was so excited about my project! After that, I had only one more excursion to complete my list of supplies necessary for this fabulous undertaking; a trip to the dollar store to buy turkey skewers to use to create faux hatpins. Unfortunately, the Dollar Store skewers were junk and so that necessitated a trip to Hobby Lobby to look for the "real" stickpin blanks to make your own, but they did not have any of those. I ended up using "good" skewers Deb and Jack already had at the Shack.

This one was sent to my swap partner.

ANYWAY! By this time it was around seven P.M., but who's counting? When we got back to the Shack, it was time to have a little nosh . . . Okay, Okay already! I worked the rest of the evening and ended up with these three fabulous (IMO) creations. The birds on the last one is a new bird purchased at JoAnn's for an altered bird swap I was in a few weeks ago and which did not get used for that swap. So it's not one of the vintage ones like the one pictured decorating its nest above. My friend in FL will be mad she didn't get a bird on hers, but I will deliver her a bird in person in a few weeks, hehehehehe! The bottom one is mine! All mine!!! And on it I used some reallllllly nice old antique buttons and some antique jet trim (because it's mine - all mine!). I really like the old cup and saucer because it's so chippy and especially because of the sentiment, "Remember Me" on it. I can see that being passed on to my granddaughter and her saying, "This belonged to my grandma and she used it every day." Or something to that effect! More likely, "Can you believe the shit my grandma used to have setting around?" Whatever!!! I like it and that's what counts!

So this is what NEW FUN I've been having. What have YOU been doing?

What's New With You?

Hmmmn - many things are new around here. New plants growing, new babies, too. Birds laying, hatching, fledging - birds humming at the feeders! Squash growing, weeds growing, grass growing - hope to get my 'maters in soon!

Whew!

What else? Not much! Getting ready for the school year to wind down - doing ordering for supplies and new manipulatives.

Having some fun with my students reading Frog and Toad Together (first grade) and memorizing poetry with my second graders. Now that's fun! And they are so good at it that I am amazed! Without me having ever alluded to any of the higher level poetic devices like personification, metaphor, etc. one of my second graders recognized a comparison between human jaws and pencil sharpener jaws in a poem. That was very cool, but immediately we talked about it for a hot second, and another student piped up and said hey, the poem right under this one is doing it too! So that was a perfect segue into a discussion of personification and one that I think they all "got." I love it when that good ol' light bulb goes off without a lot of blood, sweat, and tears!

So, what is new with you?