Hi everyone. Here it is-- the flaming heart I promised to give away to one lucky commenter.

Look-- it can even hold all your valentines, or just, receipts or whatever...

And the winner is---

Here are some process pics from the heron project.

I start with the feet/legs and work up.

I begin with a framework and then start covering it.

Frequent balance checks tell me how I'm doing.

This is a shot of my last commission-- a large grouping of 3 sets of trees.
Hard to tell but these are one scale size larger than the ones I had last fall.
This is slightly more than 3 feet across.

Here are some deer I'm making for the next client on my list.
Next step-- antlers.

Since my last post I've gotten a few emails saying, "Boy, I sure hope my ___ isn't one of those things you didn't like making." I really need to explain that better. First of all, I don't make anything I don't like. Everything I've made has started out as an idea I was into, and if something comes out "ugly", you never see it. It gets scrapped, or cut apart and made into something else.

What I was specifically thinking of when I wrote that, were the stick-in-the-ground flowers I made last spring. If you got one-- thank you-- and no I didn't think they were bad. It's just that they got really really boring to make, and didn't advance my work in any way, didn't really represent the typical "look" of my work, and when I figured out the best case scenario would be that people went nuts over them and I'd have to make thousands of them, I thought-- "What was I thinking?!"

The only reason I made them was to have a really inexpensive item to sell at shows. I try to always have one item almost anyone could afford. I'll still do that, but will be less worried about that and more just be led by what I feel like making this year.

I hope that clarifies things. I didn't mean to sound negative, and I really do appreciate every single purchase, large or small. :)

Congrats Julie-- be sure to email me your address for the heart-o-fire.