May You Live in Interesting Times

I know that's supposed to be a Chinese curse, but really, my life could use a LITTLE excitement (of the GOOD kind) lately.

Instead, what do I get?

A giant, hairy spider in my shower this morning.

UGH.

Now, I do appreciate what spiders do for us in the whole "bug patrol" department, and I am more than happy to support their right to be creepy-looking and have way too many legs and stuff as long as they do it OUTSIDE. In fact, if you've been reading the blog since last year, you know I've even given some major spiders a lot of free publicity...because they followed that whole "outside" rule thing.

You wanna come creepin' up my drain pipe and ambush me in the shower at 5:30 on a Tuesday morning...you're gonna get a whole different side of me. As far as I'm concerned, you came up the drain? You can go right back down it and here's about 30 gallons of water that I will happily waste to send you on your creepy-crawly way.

Buh-BYE!

Besides the breaking spider fatality news, there's an important update from the crabitat. Rocky and Summers have both suddenly reappeared - neither with any sign of molting having occurred. I guess Rocky just decided it would be fun to be buried in the tank for 3 weeks and Summers always follows Rocky around and does whatever he does so that must be why he partially buried himself under the water dish for a few days.

After emerging, the two of them must have had quite the party because the crabitat was totally rearranged - big holes in the sand, shells moved all around and food and water dishes moved or partially tipped over. Then the two of them took shelter inside the little cave area together and haven't come out since.

I have no idea what's going on, but I'm beginning to suspect the two of them are hatching a plot for world domination.

Oh, and here's the latest resin (you're SHOCKED to seen YET ANOTHER resin post, I know):

This is made from some of that beautiful Japanese washi paper that I have in my old rubber stamping stash. I used antiqued copper Patera bezels to bring out the pretty colors in the paper.

Here's a closeup of the focal - you can see the tiny pink crystal I added for some sparkle.

Some more of the retro 70's surfer artwork - these are really fun and so bring back memories of my childhood here in So Cal. Fuzziness is courtesy of my crappy photog skills - piece is perfectly clear in real life.

Vintage style flower seed packet labels - this one for pansies. Of course.

This is some new artwork I found - I'm loving the sort of alien feel of the flowers and the intense, bright colors. I can totally see this with some of the bright dyed stones that are available now.

I know, totally drool-worthy, right?

And the designs look just as good on the tiger ebony wood as they do in the brass bezels.

More of the raw brass bezels from Rings 'N Things - they work so well with the kaleidascope designs.

This came out really well with the tiny pearl as the center instead of a crystal.

Did I mention the bezels come in a silver color, too? For part of my most recent Rings 'N Things blog partner package, I got some of the silver to try and I really love it with the cooler-colored artwork. I ordered other stuff, too, but haven't had a chance to play with it yet so I'll save that for a future blog entry.

Really, the silver finish is awesome.

Okay, as promised last week, here are some more of my fantasy-inspired pieces:

Mermaids! Well, okay, mermaid-related!

This artwork is from a vintage poster for the Long Beach Festival of the Sea. I love that it celebrates a local city here in So Cal.

NOW a real mermaid!

And more mermaids. And yeah, I had to add some glitter - light bouncing off fish scales, ya know.

Last, but definitely not least - unicorns!

Great colors and snowy background in this one. I added a slight scattering of glitter to get that ice crystal/magic effect.

This one is probably my favorite - I really like the idea that you could just be out walking the woods on a misty morning and suddenly, this magical beast would appear out of the fog.

If you're interested in any of these, I'll be starting to list them on Be Resinable tonight. I'll probably do a few pieces each night for the rest of the week so keep checking back.

KJ