Simchat Purim!!! YAY!!!! Purim is Coming!!!

Just completed the finishing touches on my latest Purim canvas - "Simchat Purim". Purim has always been my absolute favorite holiday - how can you go wrong?? candy, parties...FUN!!!! For years I had a gift basket business and spent the time before creating hundreds of incredible themed gifts - on Purim day I just collapsed with sheer exhaustion! Today...not so much  - but Hubby and I are planning to do our own "themed" mishloach manot  - MOVIES and POPCORN!!! We procured these jumbo sized popcorn containers and plan on filling them with movie sized candy - and a DVD of course! Hubby has a collection of movies in the thousands - so this theme will not be a stretch for us in any way!
Living in NY I kinda miss the annual Purim Parade in Atlanta with all the kids - little and big dressing up and getting into the mood of the holiday. The trade off is being close to family and seeing my own nieces and nephews dress up on the actual day of Purim - I figure it sorta balances itself out. CHAG SAMEACH!!!!!

Toy Fair

Just got home from accompanying hubby to the International Toy Fair at the Javits Center in NY. Was amazing..and exhausting! So many wonderful thing to see and touch - snow makers out of edible polymers ( as if we need more snow!), games and toys - sure but I found these great kits to make all sorts of things.OK - we placed order for the usual cast of characters...but then we found it...headphones that you can decorate yourself with stickers and lettering, flowers and jewels - I am totally psyched. I can't wait to start decorating these and putting them on etsy - one of a kind beauties!!!!  Check out link below to find out more about the toy fair!
http://www.toyassociation.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Toy_Fair&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=193&ContentID=3538

The other great thing about the show was that I had a chance to meetup with a group of artists from etsy that were there talking up etsy handmade. I don't know about you  - it's always nice to have a chance to shmooze with like minded artists and get their take on things. One talked to me about business and how she relists during the day with her blackberry at lunchtime - she is an engineer in her day job and makes wonderful felt characters in her "spare" time into the wee hours of the night. Another was an amazing photographer who showed us her tricks with a digital camera and a piece of white paper to take incredible shots. Being part of etsy is great because you are part of a larger community of artist who are excited and happy to share with you.

ok...another "playing around" back to work!

SPRING IS HERE?!?!?!?.....or not?!?!

ok ok - I admit...I am not good at this whole blogging thing - I get distracted and forget that this supposed to be a daily thing - and really...currently only 3 people know that I exist anyways!!!!

But I will continue to plug away at it....hoping that I will ge the hang of it!

When I was little I loved to gather my materials and come up with something wonderful from the items. I still love doing that today.I posted new items on my etsy site...have been playing around with some new methods - got bored and tried something new - SO I looked out my window and saw the mountains of snow and said to myself - what I really need is SPRING!!! The above 2 pics are a result of my musing.

I used hebrew language workbook pages to create the tree, metal findings in the shape of leaves that I bought in Israel that have brachot ( blessings) on them, cut and punched out shapes, added stamps, and played with acrylics and viola....spring in a can - or canvas as this case may be.