Magazine Beads

I cannot take full credit for these wonderful little beads. I found a how-to on instructables.com and just ran with it. 

There is definitely a learning curve, but once I got the hang of it I couldn't stop. This is one of those projects that I can spend a whole day on and not even realize it. 

It is also great for my love of using even the smallest scraps. I use magazine pages to make coasters, but there are often small scraps of paper left over that would otherwise just be recycled. With these beads however I can now use those scraps to make a few beads from. I know I am crazy, but the variety that I get from using these scraps keeps me interested in the beads even longer.

I just love watching the beads form and the patterns that different pages will make. Color like this is so intriguing to me.

Magazine Coasters

I have been making these coasters for a couple years now. I made a couple for myself. My mom saw these and wanted some for her house. Ryan's mom came to visit and fell in love, I sent her some for mother's day. 

These are really quite easy to make and I love watching the patterns develop. Ryan does not like the abundance of magazines now in our home, but I have them nicely contained in my “studio”. Actually I think the abundance of magazines is why I got my own studio in the first place =)

The earth-friendlyness of these is also a big plus. All the pages I use for these are pages that dont end up in the trash.

Plus they are just fun!

Wedding Totes

I have had the idea for a wedding line of totes in my brain for over a year now. So last summer when my cousin called to tell me she was engaged I was thrilled. For her of course! But also because I finally had someone to make the tote line for. 

Then a few months later Athena called to say she was engaged! Wonderful!! More colors I can work with. 

Two of my favorite people in the world are pledging their love to the most important person in their lives. I am beyond happy and I can't think of any better way to congratulate them, than with something I created specifically for them using the colors they chose for their special day.

I had so much fun making all of these pieces. They turned out remarkably close to the images I had floating around in my head. I was lucky enough to be in Jessalyn's wedding this summer, so I used my bride's maid dress to match the colors (almost perfectly). For Athena's I only had a description to work from, but I think the bride-to-be was pleased with the end result.

So brides-to-be contact me for your own personalized totes! These would also make great gifts for the bridal party!   

Happy Birthday Momma!

One of my favorite parts about being an artist is the random places I draw inspiration from. And the way that inspiration evolves until a final piece is created. 

Around valentine's this year we brought out a Lolita hand-painted wine glass at Hallmark. It was a tree with two love birds sitting in it.  I loved the idea, but wasn't thrilled about the painting as a whole. The image I had in my head started out as a stand alone tree sculpture with some hearts mixed throughout the leaves. After a couple months of trying to figure out the intricacies of creating such a tree (I have never really dabbled in sculpture at all) my idea morphed a bit. 

I knew from the beginning that this would be a gift for my mom, but I was not sure which occasion it would be finished for. My new idea was still a sculpture, but a wall hanging instead of stand alone. Fimo would be the medium of choice. I collected the colors I thought would be best for my liking, but also mom's décor. I sat down one night and just started sculpting. The end product was better than I could have hoped. The wood grain turned out beautifully and the glitter in the leaves was subtle yet eye-catching.

The only bad part...fimo is hard clay, my hands ached for about a week afterwards. It was however, incredibly worth it!

Thai Spice

I am in love with this restaurant!  I have wanted to try Thai food for years, but Ryan just recently decided that he wanted to as well.  So off we went...to Thai Spice.  Everything about this place is just wonderful!

The silverware is gold and looks like bamoo.

The waitress was amazingly nice and the cutest little thing.
The sugar holder looks like a little bike.

The glasses are real glasses and not cheap plastic-y things made to look like glass.  The ones that your mind tells you are glass, so you lift them like glass and then spill water all over because they are *not* glass.  Not like that at all =)

All of these things made me fall in love before we even ordered our food.  But the food...
Why didn't we try Thai food sooner?  It is amazing!!

Fried tofu and steamed dumplings.

Trio Chicken.  Ryan and I were both feeling brave so we ordered our entrees hot.  Turns out we could have been a bit more brave so, next time we will order Thai-hot.  And there was so much chicken!  In both of our dishes.  We did have to laugh at the people around us who ordered their dishes mild.  Really?  Why go to a Thai restaurant if you didn't want spicy food.

And as they say...you save the best for last.  Dessert was exotic and delightful!!

The top one is purple (coconut flavored) ice cream with fried bananas.  This was my choice.  it was simply wonderful!
The second, Ryan's choice, sticky rice with mango and coconut milk.  Ryan described his as the best thing he has ever tasted.  It almost tasted like warm oat meal, but the cool mango and cocnut milk made it delightful!

This was definitely worth the trip, and is possibly my new favorite restaurant!!!

for my momma =)

I have been waiting forever to put this piece up.  I have had it finished since January, but I had to keep it hidden until I could give it to my momma for Mother's Day.  Keeping it physically hidden was easy, but I really had to fight the temptation to post it online somewhere.
So finally...here is what is so far the piece of the year for me.  It turned out better than I had even planned and I am so thrilled with it.  I am thinking about listing it as a custom print in my etsy shop.  You will be able to tell me what name or word you want and pick from a decently long list of color choices.  It is just a thought at the moment.  We will see if it develops any further.

Note Cards

More polka dots! 

I made this little note card with the idea of creating stationary sets. They can be easily personalized with letters and colors. The font can be adjusted to fit individual tastes. The dimensions of the cards can also be changed slightly. These would be great thank-you cards for the newlyweds or just little notes to say hi. I love this little 'k' card. Those of you familiar with my work will recognize the stylized k I use to brand all of my artwork and handbags.

for Debbie

I drew this for Debbie for Mother's Day.  I have been doing a lot of drawings and quasi illuminations of late.  I really like the way the prints come together and the fun things that I can hide in the designs.

and more trees...

So, I like trees!


This is my most recent print.  And as it turns out I also like polka dots.  A lot.  This is what I hope will be the first of many prints with a polka dot theme.  I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head that I will try to get onto paper sometime this summer.  I will try to post them as soon as they are finished.

more trees

I started another set of season prints.  I am not sure that I like these as much as the first set though.  They are not yet finished so I may change my mind as they progress.  We will see.  Here are the preliminary works anyway...

A is for Alicia =)

Here is a print I did for my lovely.  I promised I would draw her something like a year ago and I just got to it.  But, it worked out and she got it for her birthday!

May the road rise to meet you..

may the wind be ever at your back,
may the sun shine warm upon your face,
and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again,
may God hold you in the hollow of his hand.


Happy St. Patrick's day to you all!  One of my favorite holidays, and I can't even describe why.  It has always been associated with a good time and wearing ridiculous amounts of green (my favorite color), but it seems there must be something more than that to make me love it so much.


I think my enjoyment of the holiday increased when I met my loverly Irish (if somewhat diluted) boy.  I think I also fell more deeply in love with the holiday after reading the Mabinogion in undergrad.   This is a wonderful collection of Celtic mythology and folklore.  Which, after reading appears in EVERYTHING!
Having read more about the pagans of that time makes my interest in Ireland even stronger.


Here are some items I love about St. Patrick's day...

 Because it's just not St. Patrick's day without Guinness...  Although Jameson, and Bailey's are also appropriate =)

green bamboo yarn  kittygrrlz

 

green clover necklace ThePeachTree

dew covered shamrock (not four leaf clover!) print ajawin

ok i just really like owls!  But he is green!  buttercupbloom 

For all the information you need about st. patrick's day ...


May those who love us love us;
and those who don't love us,
May God turn their hearts;
And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles so we will know them by their limping


SLAINTE!

Seasons

Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall!  I got the idea for these trees while browsing some etsy shops.  Seasons seem to be a big theme this year so I thought I would add some of my own to the mix.  I will be posting these to my own etsy shop in the near future.  Links to come

Welcome Spring

Spring in Kansas City is one of the most beautiful seasons I have ever experienced!  It comes in a close second after fall in the Adirondacks!   Needless to say such a bounty of rebirth feeds my creativity.  I walk by trees in bloom and I just want to sit underneath them for hours and draw.  I hear birds every morning.  The birds!  Cardinals, Mocking birds, Red Winged blackbirds all fill the tiny patch of trees behind my house.  I just want to listen to them all day long.  I love the rare lazy day in spring when I can just sit on my balcony and read or draw or stare.  The balcony was such an exciting extra in our apartment and I have so little time to enjoy it.

But alas, it is only March and I am still wearing coats and gloves.  But I can feel spring coming and I am excited!

My goal this year is to take pictures of all the wonderful things I see.  I walked around in awe last year of all the beauty and never took a single picture.  Hopefully I will be able to snap a few good shots this time around.

dynamic

always changing in new and interesting ways.  That is how I strive to live my life.  My biggest fear is to be considered boring!  Call me strange, crazy, geeky, but boring is a word I never want to hear.  With this, I have changed my etsy shop from kadidesigns to kunstlichekadi.  It is still in the building process so this isn't super important right now, but I needed a change anyway.  I have been using kadidesigns for several years now and I was never really in love with the name.  Obviously I like the kadi part, but the name as a whole left a little something to be desired.  Thus...kunstlichekadi  it speaks to a different level of me as artistic, as german, as multi-cultural, and unique.  Hopefully this first of changes will bring about many more as I work to build up a shop step by step.  I don't want to rush into this.  2010 will be a year of building, designing, creating, and exploring, but definitely not a year for being boring!!

Welcome

In an effort to exercize my imagination and enhance my verbal expression, I am attempting to maintain a blog.  This blog will probably be all sorts of random and eclectic, but then that describes me as well.  Hopefully it will also allow me to explore my creativity and become a better artist in the process.