Ride it like you stole it!

Finished a new piece yesterday. A co-worker has a paralyzed dog named Megan. Megan's back legs do not work. Her momma does everything she can for this little girl! She has a wheelchair and is clinical trials too. (If you'd like to learn more about their story, here's the link to a lovely article on them!)
Megan is a little speed demon in her chair!

Bookmarks

A somewhat recent project of mine....These were my place cards for my wedding in August. I made bookmarks using some pink textured paper. I stamped them in acrylic paint with stamps that I have made. I love the way they turned out!

Currently, I'm working on a pet portrait of a Westie named Elvis! Should be done soon!

Success!

The house looks awesome! I wanted to do more but I ran out of time!

The bats turned out great. If I started sooner, it would have been easier. But even with rushing they still turned out awesome. I will definitely be using them again next year.

Super easy and relatively cheap, depending on how many/how big of a space you're working with. I went to Hobby Lobby and got a package of big sheets of black construction paper, which was around $4 for 50 sheets. It was around $2 for the tacky stuff, which worked pretty well for the most part.

We (Joe & I) made these awesome looking vines! We picked up 2 packages of long natural looking rope. We got 5 cans of spray paint (well, 2 we had leftover from last year). We used 3 browns and a dark green. Then we just sprayed the crap out of the rope! The easiest was to spray the dark green and dark brown first, since the colors are overpowering to the lighter ones, and leaving some bare spots. We went back over the rope with the lighter browns. One of the browns was a textured paint that looked great on it. Obviously there is a lot of flipping the rope around and quite a bit of drying time. Looks fantastic! We also grabbed thinner dark brown rope it intertwine  with the one we spray painted. The whole look of it was so cool.

I found an awesome glow ball idea on Pinterest that we tried. We improvised with what was easiest for us to find. We got a package of regular green balloons which we put a green glow stick in, then filled with water. We then got some white stockings (I just picked up girl sized ones), which I cut the legs off of to use, and put the water balloon in that. They weren't huge, maybe softball sized. We hung them from the trees in the backyard. They looked awesome!! I unfortunately did not get pictures of them glowing. :( Everyone said they looked alien like.

I made a super cute witches table as well. I set a skull, a crystal ball, a broom and a bunch of bottles. Some I had and the rest I picked up for really cheap at this science store. I filled a few with water and food coloring. I also set out some witch related books that I had. I loved it.

It was an awesomely fun, crafty Halloween! :)

Even at work we got in the spirit. I decorated the lobby & few of us decorated pumpkins to look like some of our doggy clients! :)

Halloween love!!

The Yorkie Rescue Yard Sale

So, the yard sale went alright. It was a weird venue for my stuff, considering it was a yard sale...but I did hand out a few cards and got a bit of interest from people there. That was all I was really expecting, so yay me! :P

I've got about 4 portraits to do right now and hopefully they will be done soon!

I'm getting my Etsy shop ready for me to start adding my pet portraits up there for sale. And now I've got a bunch of cards and framed work; maybe I'll start getting into some craft shows or something!

Pictures of my new stuff!

Here are some new pictures!

Colored pencil drawing of Nelli.

Beginning sketch of JD!

This is the piece I'm still working on in art class. Still have a long way to go...I'm kind of getting unmotivated with it, but I have to keep going because I know it'll look awesome once it's done!!

There are other pictures of my work on my art facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Art-by-Samantha-Slenk/187497147959807

Check it out and like my page! Thanks for the support!

Being Productive!

I am happy to say, I am actually getting some work done! I've gotten a few pieces prepped for starting, I've started sketching out my next piece, I'm finishing the background and finishing touches to my Nelli drawing...I'm so excited!
I've been taking a colored pencil class with my sister and mom for a few months now. Recently I just started a drawing of a dog at my work named Nelli. I'm just about done with it! Once I get a few or the dogs done, the owners o the company I work for are going to let me display them in the lobby for sale! I'm excited about this. Beside loving these dogs and loving doing the drawings of them, hopefully I'll get to make some extra money...which I desperately need to do!
Alright, update complete! Back to work!

Main Line Animal Rescue donating for tackling Vick

Ok, I just had to write about this...
There is an article about how Main Line Animal Rescue is going to donate 5 bags of dog food to local animal shelters every time Michael Vick gets tackled during this game.
I, personally, don't think it's a bad idea at all! I mean, it's football...so if he's playing, chances are he's going to be getting tackled anyway. And sure, use his mistakes against him to help those in need.
Now, the comments people are leaving on this article are ridiculous!!! I am a huge animal lover, and when I heard about the Vick thing in the first place I thought it was absolutely sick. There are many people saying.."Oh, he did his time, blah blah blah, get over it already." Ok, the bastard did his time, that's fine and dandy for him. But he still has to live with his actions. I'm not trying to compare these horrible things in any way but say a man kills someone, he goes to jail, gets out and everyone is just supposed to totally forget about it? No, he's gonna have to live with that decision he made for the rest of his life...just like anyone else would. Like a child molester, goes to jail, gets out...but hey, he doesn't forget about it either, the guys got to register as a sex offender. Good, he's got to live with it too. I think the same applies to Vick. Yes, he did his time, but it's not going to just disappear from every one's mind just because he's some hot shot football player.
Some are saying.."Oh, you value an animals life over a humans?" Um, no. It's football. He's going to get tackled anyway. Who cares if people are rooting more for that now. It's not like he's going to die from it. Really people??
"Oh, that's really mean-spirited" And Vick wasn't completely malicious and mean-spirited to those poor dogs he forced to fight???
These people just don't understand how hurt animal lovers are by these kinds of things. Every time I hear or see anything about animal fighting, animal abuse, I sincerely get upset. I get pissed and sad, I cry. I feel for animals. They can't speak out for themselves. They do not deserve to be treated as sick entertainment, they don't deserve to be beaten and abused. What kind of person does those kinds of things? Really. I mean, what does that say about your character, about who you are? I'd say if you're doing things like that, you deserve to be beaten down a little yourself, if not physically..then karma is going to be a real bitch for you. You're just kind of asking for it.


http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Homeless-dogs-will-benefit-every-time-Michael-Vi?urn=nfl,188591&cp=26#comments

Nothing like seeing good friends :)

Yesterday I hosted a Lia Sophia jewelry party for my mom, she sells it. There was some awesome jewelry. I got a bunch of stuff :)

I got to see [almost] everyone I used to work with at Petit Bateau: Katie, Hillary, Beth, Ameelia, Natalya. It was great. I miss them all so much! It was so much fun too, I haven't laughed that much in a long time. :) And I don't think I've enjoyed a night so much in a long time. And the time just flew by. We started at 7pm and before you knew it, it was already 10pm! At least I have a reason to see all of them again, to give them their jewelry!

Dinah didn't show, she said she would. I don't know why. I'm going to give her a call a little later to see if everything is ok. Everyone was disappointed.

Mom was telling me I should try selling Lia Sophia jewelry. I am considering it. I planned on getting a second job anyway and it would be a hell of a lot more awesome to do jewelry parties than work retail again! The only thing I'm worried about is actually getting parties. I don't know a ton of people or anything. I work with a woman who can't even pay me, so obviously there's no chance of getting a party there. [sorry, there's a little anger lingering in that.. :/] The other co-workers wouldn't be interested. That just leaves my friends. I invited them all to two parties for my mom so far...I wonder if they'd get sick of it or something...I don't know. I'm going to an opportunity meeting with her next month to learn more. We'll see how it goes.

Today has been an ok day I guess. Did some dishes, walked the dogs - Heidi would not stop barking after getting spooked by a much bigger dog, it was kind of funny. She's such a cutie. I'll have to put a picture up of them. They're both amazingly cute :)