Wow!  I am blown away by the responses I received yesterday! already have 14 new likes to my artist page on Facebook and I     had almost 250 visitors to my website yesterday!  That is               fantastic! Thank you very much!

A little update on the Giveaway just so there is no confusion. I do want to make sure if you are interested in the Giveaway you get your name in the drawing. Just a like to the page/picture or status does not qualify (it's too hard to keep up with).

So three easy ways to put your name in the drawing
1. Like my artist page on Facebook and then leave a comment
2. Share the page and leave a comment that you shared!
3. Answer the daily question I put on my artist page
Bonus: Any new likes that comment and put your name down as a referral and you both get an entry!

Plus if you read my blog I will put additional ways to receive an entry!
Weekend bonus for blog readers: Pin any of the blog articles about the Giveaway on Pinterest and leave me a comment here on my website or the artist page on Facebook :)

You can receive up to 5 entries a day! Best of Luck! Let's hit that 250 page likes!

Well once again I have neglected my blog and website, but today I have done a complete overhaul of it and I must say I am liking the new look! Since my last encounter with the blog-o-sphere (is that a real word?... probably not), I have once again had some big changes in my life.  I have moved again and have a larger garage studio! Yay!  I have a new romantic love interest in my life and we just celebrated our year anniversary!  Also yay! Plus I got a full time art teacher job last year teaching students kinder through 6th grade!  Bonus round:  I have also been very involved with the local art scene showing/selling my work and just got into my first national juried show!  Whoo... that makes me a bit tired looking at the list of what I have been up to! My life has been just completely full of blessings and staying very busy!  With that said, I am going to try my best to actually keep up with my blog/website.  I think it is an important aspect of my art business and I know personally I enjoy seeing the behind scenes look of other artists.  

So to kick off all the wonderful things that have happened in the last year and the new look of my website and blog I decided I would do my first GIVEAWAY!! (And the crowd goes wild! Ok, maybe not, but I like to think my life is a musical sometimes.) 

What am I giving away you might ask?

I am giving away one of those little cuties aka sake/mini dessert cups featured at the top of this article and on the front of my webpage!  Yep, at the end of July you could be enjoying a mini strawberry cheesecake out of one of my hand carved porcelain cups (cheesecake not included).

How to Enter:
1. Go to my artist page on Facebook

This is how it is going to work. For one entry, leave a comment on my artist page about art (it can be about anything art related, for example your favorite artist you studied in school). Pretty easy so far :)  For an additional entry, share my page with someone else and let me know with another comment that you shared! Bonus entry!! To get additional bonus entries, any new likes that comment with your name as a referral you both get an entry! 

When I reach 250 likes (goal by the end of July) I will hold a drawing! Best of luck and thanks for your support!

Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust,
Kendra

So once again it has been awhile since I have posted.  I am going to tell a little story, the best way I can think to share what I have gone through and am still dealing with.  It's a bit long, but I didn't want to break it into two parts.



Once upon a time...
there was a small town girl who dreamed BIG dreams and couldn't wait to strike out into the world to make her mark in it.  She dreamed of love, travel, and adventures and everything seemed possible.  Some would say she saw the world through rose colored glasses and who's to say that isn't true.  During the transformation of girl to woman, she did travel.  Maybe not to some of the faraway places she dreamed of but that just means she has more places left to go.  As far as love goes, she fell in and out of love and left a trail of broken hearts in her wake.  Through it all she was becoming who she wanted to be, learning her passions, and still dreaming big dreams of where she would go and wondering what her great love story would read like.  

Let's call this girl Rapunzel (mostly because Tangled is my new favorite Disney movie right now).  Rapunzel was a social butterfly.  She knew lots of people and had lots of friends at the University of Mystical as well as her close friends from back home.  One such friend, Lancelot was a great knight and was always fighting faraway in great and terrible battles.  Even though he was usually off defending his country, he would always send letters and come see Rapunzel wherever she was when he was back home.  They had a sweet and innocent type of love and friendship that grew over the years.  But, because of her studies and him being a knight, they rarely spoke the words of love they locked in their hearts.  One spring, Lancelot returned from battle and was living in a beautiful paradise, but the distance across the lands and ocean were still too far for Rapunzel and now she was being courted by another man.  A decision had to be made, was Rapunzel to stay with her family, continue this courtship and her studies or would she travel to the unknown to be with Lancelot.  It was a hard decision, but in the end she decided to stay.  She was afraid... afraid of the travel across the ocean by herself, of upsetting her family, of breaking off the courtship, and of letting herself after all these years fall in love with Lancelot and risk ruining their beautiful friendship. 

Rapunzel and Robin Hood, the man she was being courted by, both got accepted to the  University of Dragons (that at times has been known to play a mean game of Quidditch, although most of the times that is not the case).  Rapunzel and Robin Hood had barely moved and adjusted to their new kingdom, university and studies when the first tragedy hit Rapunzel's world.  One of her friend's little sisters was killed in a car accident.  Two weeks later, she received news that turned her world upside down.  Lancelot had taken his own life.  Rapunzel felt numb, shocked, and heartbroken.  She almost didn't take the long journey to see and mourn with his family and friends.  When she returned home, she was like a ghost everywhere she went.  She was running completely on auto pilot during the day to get through her studies and work and when she returned home she would collapse on the floor sobbing, sometimes for hours until her throat and nose were raw.

Rapunzel turned to Robin for a little while, but could see her pain and anguish over Lancelot death was hurting him.  After awhile, she would only cry and let her emotions come out when she was alone.  She also started drinking with Robin while they played video games (there isn't a good fairy tale equivalent to video games).  And the drinking and crying continued almost everyday for a year.

After a year of such emotional and substance abuse to her body, Rapunzel relapsed with mono.  For the next two and half years, Rapunzel would deal with multiple blood works being done, an EKG, an upper GI, rounds of antibiotics, a weak immune system and low energy levels.  Thankfully nothing serious would be detected, but the trips to the doctors, hospital for test and the unknown took a toll.  And through all this she shoved the emotional grief of her friend's suicide under the surface so she could just survive through her day to day life.  After awhile she cut loose the courtship that Robin Hood had hoped would continue in marriage.  For that heartache she caused him and his family as well as the last harsh words expressed, Rapunzel was and still is extremely sorry.  But in heart she knows it was the right thing to do and hopes the best for him and his family and for the right love to come into his life.

It's now been over four years since Lancelot took his own life and the grief Rapunzel still feels is raw and fresh like she got the news just yesterday.  It's always there, lingering under the surface, waiting to spill over and out.  She puts on a good face, but she is still dealing with all of it; health  and anxiety issues, the grief and emotions and just trying her best to get healthy as naturally as possible.  The anxiety came as almost a side of effect of all of the life changing events.  Rapunzel did find love again, but only time will tell if this love story will be just another chapter in her life or if it will be the great love story of the rest of her life.  She was also blessed to find a great fairy godmother to talk to and begin the healing journey.  It's one step at a time, one day at a time.

And while the story is not over... here ends our tale.


So this is my jumbled up fairy tale to express my story.  It's sometimes such a hard one to tell and I think it's a hard one for those around me to understand.  But I do want to express my gratitude to my family and friends that have supported me through all of this.  And for anyone that has ever dealt with depression, suicidal thoughts, or lost someone from suicide, I encourage you to seek out counseling and to not wait.  I waited almost four years and I will confess that it is not an easy thing to do, but it is a good place to put my thoughts, emotions and to not always burden myself or family with it.  I also suggest checking out and supporting TWLOHA (To Write Love on Her Arms).  They are a wonderful organization "dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.  TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery."

Thank you for reading and checking out my blog. I hopefully won't be as long until my next post.
P.S.  The drawing at the top is a sneak peek from one of my new pieces!



  




  
             





     

Day 2: March 24th 2012
We started our morning in the cool brisk air of the Arizona desert.  I cooked us some bagged omelettes and hot tea over our tiny camp stove while Jon tore down our campsite.  Unfortunately, it was going to be a long day for us and we didn't get to check out the Homolivi Ruins near where we were camping.  As soon as everything was packed up we hit the road again.  

Now remember that rattling noise I mentioned?  It was getting worse while I was driving.  Somewhere near Flagstaff, Arizona I pulled off the road at a tiny Shell gas station.  Jon started checking all the lug nuts and sure enough the front tire had two loose ones.  We asked a guy next to us if he had a tire wrench that might work so we wouldn't have to completely unload the car to get to ours.  He did but of course it didn't fit, but he offered us to follow him to his junk yard that he owned down the road.  So we did and to all of our surprise, the rattling noise we had been hearing was not a loose lug nut, but one that had completely broken off and was still riding in it's place!  Jon and the AZ man went around and checked all of the tires and helped us get back on the road.  

The rest of the drive was pretty smooth for the day.  We saw snow on the ground in Flagstaff, AZ and by the time we got gas and stopped in Needles CA we were back in summer clothes.  We drove through the desert and mountains, paid $4.79 a gallon for gas in Needles, CA and had to stop at the border of CA to have our ice chest checked for fruits and vegetables.  We saw the Google car somewhere in the middle of nowhere California and by that night, it was trying to rain and we were having to figure out a new campsite to go to.  The first one we tried was closed and thankfully we found a second one fairly close to the HWY and open.  We set up camp again in the dark and had dinner before it decided to rain.  Once my head hit the pillow I was out and slept soundly to the gentle sound of rain.  We survived day two but we still had two more days on the road before we would arrive in Seattle.  

Thrifty Sunday and a bonus blog for the week...  So this morning I realized that yesterday was the first day of fall and as I began to look around my house I noticed I didn't have many fall touches.  My first thought was I need a new throw pillow that is cozy and will go into the winter months.  

I had this great fuzzy sweater that shrunk up some time ago and has just been sitting and waiting in my fabric pile to be turned into something new.  So in the time it took me to watch Tangled, I made this cute new pillow for my couch!  It was so easy and I only have basic sewing skills and no machine so I am very happy with the results.  Bonus!! I can take the cover off and wash it or use the pillow form again to change out the look on my couch without having to store a bunch of seasonal pillows!  

What I love about today's thrifty projects was there was no cost.  I had everything at my house and I completed both items in under 2 hours!  Now if the weather would just feel like fall I would be one happy girl.  Hope you enjoyed today's bonus blog and thrifty projects!

Have a great day and Happy Fall!
~Kendra

It's Friday!  For whatever reason, this week has been both fast and slow and I am glad the weekend is here!  Earlier this week I introduced a few changes for the blog.  I have decided that I will post a new article on my blog once a week on Fridays (not sure of a time or if I will even have an exact time).  I figured it would better to start off small and just post once a week so I wouldn't burn myself out, get overwhelmed and my readers will know when to come and see what's new!  

So for this week and my first official Friday post, I'm keeping it simple.  You will find photographs of the pottery I did this past spring at Texas Tech University.  I am still working in this style with the carving, although my glazes will need to change now that I no longer have access to a soda kiln.  That will be an adventure (possible headache) for another day.  Of course I am refining and developing my pottery every time I work.    

Day 1: March 23rd 2012 
On a warm and windy Friday afternoon, after weeks of planning, looking over google maps, campsites in four states, grocery list, and packing check list, we were finally ready to load the car and hit the road.  I was a bundle of excited and nervous energy as Jon and I got into the car to leave Lubbock for our grand adventure out to the west coast.  Of course the first part of the drive from Lubbock to Clovis, NM and on to Albuquerque, NM was been there, seen that.  321 miles down, quite a few more to go!  We hit Albuquerque right around the 5 o'clock rush hour, but traffic on I-40 was flowing good so we blazed on through to make our way to Winslow, Arizona.  

We started hearing a bit of a rattling noise, but the roads were rough and didn't think to much about it.  Being on 1-40 really was like the scenes from Pixar's Cars of all the country side and made me think of that song, Get your kicks on Route 66.  We stopped at a Shell station in Gallup, NM (I do believe) and for the first time all day, we had trouble with the gas card.  Of course their customer service was already closed and the automated system was of no use to get the card validated for the night.  Hiccup #1 of the trip...

So recently I saw this t-shirt that said, "Feed a starving artist, Buy Art" and it got me thinking about how broke I was and how much I love food.  I felt it was a bit ironic since most people think of artist as well a "starving artist" and here I am broke.  Don't worry though, I eat lot's of...(pause for dramatic effect) fresh fruit, vegetables, and lots of other healthy food!  So here's the deal... I am an artist and I love food and I refuse to fall into the "starving artist" category.  

So I renamed the blog page the not so starving artist and that is what I intend to be.  It also means a few changes for my blog. Yay! I love new stuff!  I am going to start adding articles about food, pottery and it's function/relation with food, and maybe some recipes I have tried out from Pinterest, my cookbooks or things I have made up.  Of course I will still be doing sneak peaks and other normal articles that I write here on my blog as well as working on being more consistent with posting.  So that is some of the new stuff coming up and I am super excited!   

Of course that t-shirt does speak the truth! 

Happy Monday and have a great week!

~Kendra 

Well somehow, the summer has come and gone and I have neglected my website and blog.  So what's been new with me you might ask?  I finished up in May my last semester at Tech for a while.  (Basically, since I graduated in December 2011, I am out of money to keep taking ceramic and art classes as a "secondary degree".)  I taught quite a bit of art classes at Hodges this summer, did very little traveling and the traveling I did was for weddings, and adopted a new kitten.  

Sometime in May, my sister came to me saying one of her professor's had some kittens they were giving away and asked if I was interested.  At first, I didn't think I was ready. It hadn't been quite a year since Ziggy ran away and while I missed having a pet, I wasn't sure having to train and deal with a kitten was on the agenda yet.  But I contacted the family and once I saw Amelia, I knew I had to have her.  This was the first pet I had ever had the chance to name and it came down between Amelia (from Doctor Who) and Luna (from Harry Potter).  Yes, yes, yes... I know I am a nerd, but it is really fun to say "Come along Pond" to Amelia and watch her chase after you!  So that was BIG change #1!

What has been BIG change #2?  I bought a pottery wheel and set up my first studio!!  Now I have a fairly large walk in closet for a rented townhouse.  The top two pictures are before shots of my extremely messy closet (just half of it, the other half is behind the wall and curtain.)  Saying something is behind the curtain makes me think of Wizard of OZ.  Anywho... 

Now my studio is not very large, it measures a whooping four feet three inches by nine feet with a set of built in shelves.  I have managed to put in a wheel, books, tools, another set of shelves and create a small but working studio!  Of course Amelia loves being in my studio when I'm working, but she has been really good and nothing has been broken or messed with!  Bad news about my studio being so small is I have to store my clay buckets in my living room, well at least until I figure a better place for them.  I'm already thinking of how I can move some of my clothes and expand my studio haha! Who needs a closet for clothes?  I would rather more studio space! 

BIG change #3... My sister and I found a new roommate!  I felt a bit like Chandler on that episode of Friends when he was interviewing strangers to move in after putting an ad in the paper.  Well maybe not quite like Chandler since he was really wanting the roommate that was a photographer and hung out with models or the time he ended up with crazy Edie... but the interviewing part and some of the crazy part.  I put an ad on craigslist and interviewed several girls until we found a great roommate!  Although at one point I wasn't sure I was going to find anyone that was going to mesh well with us.

And I guess the final change was little and BIG... After going to school from 1990-2012 (22 years... yikes!) I wasn't returning to school this fall.  I have spent almost my entire life in school and I had really come to love it.  I know nothing else and I had lots of emotions about not going back.  The week leading up to the first week of school and the first week my sister and new roommate went back to class were pretty blue for me.  But now we are a few weeks into the semester and I can see how stressed out they are and how much homework and projects they have going on and I feel better!  That sounds terrible, but now I have time to read a book, enjoy my tea on the porch, and I get to work in my studio when I am not teaching or designing fruit arrangements!  It's great!  Now I will probably be bummed when I see that first student loan payment, but that is a worry for another day. 

So those are my changes and the highlights from this summer.  I am still working on pictures from mine and Jon's trip to NCECA.  I am now way behind on that, but I will still post about the trip.  I also promise I will be writing and updating more.  I don't know if anyone really reads this or not, but I know no one will want to read it if I don't keep it updated!  I also have some ideas and plans in store for my blog/website and Etsy.  

That's all for today!  Have a great weekend!

~Kendra